Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Kochs back pro-slavery lawmakers in Arkansas

Americans for Prosperity is blanketing Arkansas with mailers that praise two lawmakers who support slavery.

Americans for Prosperity pretends to be a grass-roots branch of the Tea Party. It is really a super PAC funded by predatory billionaires David and Charles Koch.

The Huffington Post has the story:
The mailings ... were distributed as part of an AFP plan to blanket Arkansas on behalf of Republican state legislative candidates as the GOP battles to retake the state legislature for the first time since the Civil War. The two legislators -- state Reps. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro and Loy Mauch of Bismarck -- have a history of pro-slavery positions, according to recent reporting by the Arkansas Times. 
Hubbard was revealed to have written that slavery may "have been a blessing" in a 2010 book, while Mauch authored a series of letters to the editor in the last decadethat espoused pro-slavery views, writing that former President Abraham Lincoln was a "neurotic Northern war criminal" and comparing Lincoln and Civil War generals to Nazis. 
The AFP ads sent on behalf of Hubbard and Mauch praise the pair for voting against implementing the Affordable Care Act, along with votes that AFP says are against higher taxes. In one piece sent on behalf of both candidates regarding the ACA, the ad features pictures of a smiling white family and a black doctor, and thanks them for voting against health care exchanges in Arkansas, saying they will cost states between $10 million and $100 million a year. The mailers also feature pictures of Hubbard or Mauch and ask readers to call them to "thank them for protecting our health care freedom."

And yet people have been harshly criticized for comparing the Koch brothers to plantation owners...