Important Updates below
I’ve really been disgusted by the failure of NJ media to write about what amounts to a huge example of corruption of democracy, a story on the national stage that is playing out right in their own backyards.
I mean, take a look at what the Koch Brothers’ billions recently have bought in NJ:
1) A faux “grassroots” group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the shock troops for a political right wing and corporate agenda;
2) Out of virtually nowhere, the unknown and extremist AFP has become the third largest political contributors in Trenton, behind the NJEA and AFL-CIO;
3) virtually singlehandedly, the AFP worked to provide political cover to support Gov. Christie’s kill of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the northeastern state’s market based emissions cap and trade program;
4) AFP manufactured the Republican US Senate candidacy of Steve Lonegan, a marginal and extreme political figure in NJ;
5) AFP activists met personally with Gov. Christie in the State House;
6) Gov. Christie bragged that the Koch’s and other billionaire’s begged him to run for President in 2012.
7) AFP’s paranoid delusions of a UN plot to seize US sovereignty intimidated and forced several local governments to rescind prior support for local popular environmental “sustainability” initiatives;
8. AFP’s paranoid delusions of government conspiracy played a significant role in shelving Gov. Christie’s own State Economic Development Plan, a business community supported replacement for the land use oriented State Development and Redevelopment Plan.
9) I suspect AFP, Tea Party and/or Koch money or support was behind the “Stop FEMA Now!” “movement”, but I can’t prove it. That group provided political support and cover for politicians to attack FEMA, ultimately forcing FEMA to back off significantly from their originally proposed flood risk maps. AFP also opposed the bailout.
10) A few years back, there were press reports of rumors that Christie had met with the Koch’s before he killed RGGI (a “smoking gun” on RGGI) and diverted over $800 million of RGGI and Clean Energy Fund money, but I don’t recall if those meetings are confirmed. (also recall that Christie killed the ARC tunnel to Manhattan a year BEFORE Wisconsin, Ohio, and other Republican Governor’s began to do similar things and reject federal transportation funds.)
There are also likely links between AFP and ALEC – the American legislative Exchange Council. ALEC is active in NJ.
That is one hell of a lot of political influence, on high profile issues, in a very short period of time, from a completely opaque, unknown, and extreme political action group (and the issues and actors have a high profile national context).
I’ve worked on public policy issues in NJ for almost 30 years, and I can assure you that such a profile and such a lack of accountability is unprecedented.
Who the hell is AFP? Where do they get their money?
The lack of NJ media coverage is even stranger, given the facts that: 1)AFP has won battles on nationally prominent global warming issue, 2) AFP is backing a nationally prominent political figure rumored to be a leading 2016 Republican Presidential candidate, 3) this is all happening at a time when the national think tank reports and national media are reporting investigative exposes of the dirty deeds of the Koch Brothers, who founded AFP (see this and this and this).
I find impossible to chalk up the lack of coverage of Koch and AFP to the fact that every editor and reporter is just missing the story – and just can’t connect these dots.
There must be other forces and factors influencing NJ media decision not to cover the Koch manipulation story and the AFP’s sudden and shocking rise to influence.
I can think of at least 2 explanations:
1) they are on the Christie bandwagon, and they know that this story would hurt Christie; or
2) they are trolling for a Koch Sugar Daddy buyout.
But why are Democrats not all over this politically?
Could they be corporate whores too?
Perhaps Booker’s funders and the Democratic party power brokers would know.
Update #1: 7/8/13 – Herb Jackson at the Record swings and misses, with a puff piece on Lonegan. Koch money and AFP are buried, and briefly mentioned in passing. Other than a similarly brief mention of the UN plot and a desire to shut government down, it mainstreams Lonegan. Unforgivable, given all the stuff out there on the Koch’s, AFP, & Tea Party astroturfing corporate front group BS. This was the Record’s political profile story on the Republican primary candidates for US Senate, written by the Record’s DC correspondent, so this was not a set up for a real investigative story on Koch, AFP, Lonegan and Christie that we need. – end update 1
[Update #2: 7/8/13 – Holy shit, Herb Jackson was all IF Stone compared to the Star Ledger story just published “Lonegan calls out Pallone, denounces Obamacare“. They used 3 reporters and a photographer to cover a Lonegan stunt – look at the picture, he’s all alone – and then they write a Lonegan press release. Shameful. Maybe they rally are looking for a Koch Sugar Daddy bailout. What else could explain this despicable “journalism”? No way this could be handing Lonegan rope to hang himself. end update 2 ]