Kochs Close Alaskan Plant; Still Try to Buy Senate Seat
Well, it looks like the billionaire Koch brothers are at it again, this time in Alaska, and they've really got some nerve this time. Hiding behind their front organization, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the Kochs reportedly have spent over a million dollars trying to buy the US Senate seat up there for Republican Dan Sullivan. This after the Kochs closed their Flint Hills Alaskan oil refinery and laid off 81 workers.
The target of the AFP ads is a good pro-gun Democrat, incumbent Senator Mark Begich, a lifelong Alaskan and former mayor of Anchorage. As usual, AFP is running misleading ads that distort the record of Senator Begich. Not to mention hiring a Maryland actress to claim she was an Alaskan resident who didn't like the Senator.
Taking comments out of context is a favorite trick of AFP and they even tried to spin Begich as being unconcerned about the Flint Hills closing. Of course, if you read or listen to the Senator's entire commentary on the closing, you'll see it's just the opposite.
The Sullivan campaign has followed suit with their own misleading charges against Senator Begich, including one claiming that Begich, and not Sullivan, is the candidate who has taken Koch money. Sullivan must be feeling the heat of having to explain why the Kochs are tapping him to do their bidding in Alaska.
On this one too, as is often the case with charges from right-wing politicians, the facts tell a different story: as they have done with many politicians they hope to curry favor with, the Kochs gave $5,000 to a Begich political action committee in 2010. Compare that one-time $5,000 contribution with the million dollars of anti-Begich ads they've funded in 2014 and anyone can make the call on who the Koch candidate is in this race.
With respect to GOP candidate Sullivan's political history, here's a good one from after he was appointed Alaska's Attorney General. He was one of the far right state Attorneys General from across the country who tried to make a name for themselves by wasting taxpayer dollars and suing the federal government over the Affordable Care Act. Guess Sullivan doesn't like the fact that the insurance companies no longer can cancel our health insurance when we get sick or deny us health coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
Wouldn't it be a lot more productive if right wingers like Sullivan had saved all those tax dollars and worked with the Democrats to make improvements to the Affordable Care Act, instead of trying to throw the baby out with the bath water?
Bottom line is that Alaskans have a pretty clear choice when it comes to this year's Senate race: a pro-gun Democrat in Mark Begich who puts the interests of the average Alaskan first, as opposed to a Republican candidate who puts the interests of the well-off first.
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