Paul Broun Takes Part In Astroturf Rally
Should we judge Congressman Paul Broun by the company he keeps? If so, Broun doesn’t come out looking so good after his participation in an anti-reform rally in Augusta, Georgia last week.
That rally appears to have been supported by an organization that specializes in creating fake grassroots campaigns that are in fact the orchestrations of corporate donors. The organization, Americans for Prosperity, was founded by oil company executive David Koch, whose company had to pay a 30 million dollar fine for systematic violations of the Oil Pollution Act, and was accused of cheating his own brothers out of over 300 million dollars.
Americans for Prosperity now operates under President Tim Phillips whose previous line of work was at Century Strategies, one of the companies that helped Jack Abramoff launder money to be used in bribing legislators. Previous projects of Americans for Prosperity have included astroturf campaigns on behalf of tobacco companies in order to promote smoking in public places. Americans for Prosperity refuses to tell which corporations are providing the funding for its work against health care reform.
It was at the rally supported by Americans for Prosperity that Representative Paul Broun stood up, and gave a prepared speech against health care reform that would harm the profits of big insurance companies. Do you think that Broun’s word on health care reform can be accepted at face value, given this context?
