Fake 'movement'. It's as 'grass roots' as the 'Tea Party' hobby funded by billionaires and the 'Libertarians' bought out by the same billionaires and far right money bags. Most media is corrupt in this country, whether right or left wing, and the 'Academic Community' is a much sadder joke as well. The 'Think tank's will write up any slant you pay them to; some will tell you who funded a particular 'study', but most won't any more.
/—-/ The Tea Party is 100% organic. OWS was a 100% funded Commie prank.
The 'Tea Party' came out of 'Citizens For A Sound Economy', Freedomworks and 'American For Prosperity', and Ron Paul's failed Presidential run. It's another astro-turfing gimmick. Not that I disagree with everything they opposed, they were one of the few right wing PR groups that opposed TARP for instance, but they weren't 'organic' to anything but Koch affiliates opening up a subsidiary to keep those voters disenchanted with the GOP establishment on the reservation.
Tea Party movement - Wikipedia
The Kochs assigned AFP to develop them and make them 'viable' for The Team.
Americans for Prosperity - Wikipedia
Funding
While AFP does not disclose its funding sources, some supporters have acknowledged their contributions and
investigative journalism has documented others. AFP has been funded by the Kochs and others.
[9][14][21][48][77]
At AFP's 2009 Defending the Dream summit, David Koch said he and his brother Charles provided the initial funding for AFP.
[78][79][80] In initial funding, David Koch was the top contributor to the founding of the AFP Foundation at $850,000.
[81][82] Several American companies also provided initial funding of the AFP Foundation, including $275,000 from
State Farm Insurance and lesser amounts from
1-800 Contacts, medical products firm
Johnson & Johnson, and carpet and flooring manufacturer
Shaw Industries.
[81][82]
Later grants from the
Koch family foundations include $1 million in 2008 to AFP from the
David H. Koch Charitable Foundation[14] and $3 million between 2005 and 2007 to the AFP Foundation from the
Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation,
[83] controlled by Charles Koch.
[14] Other grants from Koch-related funding sources include $32.3 million in 2012 and $1.5 million in 2013 from
Freedom Partners[84][85][86] and $4.2 million through 2011 to the AFP Foundation from the
Center to Protect Patient Rights.
[87]
Between 2003 and 2012, the AFP Foundation received $4.17 million from the
John William Pope Foundation, chaired by AFP director Pope, the largest identifiable donor to the AFP Foundation.
[45][88][89] In 2011, the AFP Foundation received $3 million from the foundation of the family of billionaire
Richard DeVos, the founder of
Amway, making the DeVos family the second largest identifiable donor to the AFP Foundation.
[45][90] In 2010, AFP received half a million dollars from the
Bradley Foundation.
[88][91] AFP received smaller grants in 2012 from tobacco company
Reynolds American and in 2010 and 2012 from the
American Petroleum Institute.
[92][93][94][95][96] The
donor-advised fund Donors Trust granted $11 million to AFP between 2002 and 2010 and $7 million to the AFP Foundation in 2010.
[97][98]
Tea Party and 2010 midterm election
Sarah Palin at the Americans for Prosperity-run Wisconsin 2011 Tax Day
Tea Party Rally on April 16, 2011.
AFP helped transform the nascent
Tea Party movement into a political force.
[81][82]
AFP supported the Tea Party movement by obtaining permits and supplying speakers for rallies.
[99] AFP helped organize and publicize a "Porkulus"-themed protest on the state capitol steps in Denver, Colorado on February 17, 2009, in conjunction with Obama signing the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
[100]:31
[101] Within hours of
CNBC on-air editor
Rick Santelli's
remarks on February 19, 2009, that criticized the Act and called for a "Chicago tea party," AFP registered and launched the website "TaxDayTeaParty.com," calling for protests against Obama.
[100]:32 AFP had a lead role in organizing Taxpayer Tea Party rallies in
Sacramento,
Austin, and
Madison in April 2009.
[16][102] AFP was one of the leading organizers of the September 2009
Taxpayer March on Washington, also known as the "9/12 Tea Party," according to
The Guardian.
[7] On April 16, 2011, former Republican vice presidential candidate
Sarah Palin was the keynote speaker at an AFP annual tax day tea party rally at the state capitol in
Madison, Wisconsin.
[80][103]
In the
2010 midterm elections, AFP played a major role in achieving a
Republican majority in the
U.S. House of Representatives. AFP supported tea party groups, purchased political advertisements,
[59] and sponsored a nationwide bus tour themed "November is Coming" to recruit organizers and
canvassers.
[104] AFP helped Tea Party groups organize voter registration drives.
[12] An AFP website offered "Tea party
Talking Points." The organization provided Tea Party activists with education on policy, training in methods, and lists of politicians to target.
[10] In October 2010, AFP sponsored a workshop on the political use of the internet at a Tea Party convention in Virginia.
[77] AFP said it spent $40 million on rallies, phone banks, and canvassing during the 2010 election cycle. Of the six freshman Republican members of the
House Committee on Energy and Commerce in 2010, five benefited from AFP advertisements and grassroots activity.
[13]
David Weigel wrote in
Slate that AFP "in the Tea Party era evolved into one of the most powerful conservative organizations in electoral politics."
[105] AFP and the Tea Party share many of the same principles.
[106] In 2010, AFP was one of the most influential organizations in the Tea Party movement, and the largest in terms of membership and spending.
[107][108] According to
Bloomberg News, with AFP the Koch brothers "harnessed the Tea Party's energy in service of their own policy goals, including deregulation and lower taxes....As the Tea Party movement grew in the aftermath of Obama's election, the Kochs positioned Americans for Prosperity as the Tea Party's staunchest ally".
[109]
