Obama Campaign Slams Lie Filled Koch Funded Ad

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 05:54 pm

President Obama’s campaign hits back hard at a Koch funded attack ad chock full of pants on fire lies aimed at his green energy push.

The Koch brothers and big oil are at it again. This time they’re funding egregious attack ads full of lies against the President’s (excuse the redundancy of Koch, big oil and lies) energy record through Americans for Prosperity. You remember Americans for Prosperity from their funding of Tea Party insanity across the country. AFP is a front for special interests started by oil billionaire David Koch and a board member of Koch Industries.

Source Watch points out that AFP “opposes labor unions, health care reform, stimulus spending, and cap-and-trade legislation, which is aimed at making industries pay for the air pollution that they create. AFP was also involved in the attacks on Obama’s “green jobs” czar, Van Jones, and has crusaded against international climate talks. According to an article in the August 30, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, the Kochs are known for “creating slippery organizations with generic-sounding names,” that “make it difficult to ascertain the extent of their influence in Washington.”

Both PolitiFact and the Washington Post gave the ad their worst rating for falsehood. The ad is so full of distortions and lies that the Washington Post wrote, “The erroneous assertions emerge yet again, without any shame.”

The Koch brothers are backing Mitt Romney because Obama wants to take away billions in tax breaks (subsidies) for the oil companies. The President’s been fighting to do this for a while now, to no avail because of the Party of No and the oil Dems. The Koch brothers spent 6 million dollars on the attack ads against Obama.

Six million dollars on an ad full of lies. Why do they need to lie so much to get people to vote for Mitt Romney (or rather, voting against Barack Obama since no one but the Kochs seems to care for Mitt Romney)?

Stephanie Cutter, the Deputy Campaign manager for Obama for America sets the record straight. Watch here:

Ms. Cutter explains that President Obama has helped create hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs in all fifty states:

The Koch brothers claim that the President gave money to build cars in Finland. No. The Department of Energy’s funding was specifically for US jobs in US facilities, like Fisker Automotive in Anaheim, California where they hired 700 workers and they’re planning to build a plant in Delaware.

The Koch brothers said Obama sent money to China to build traffic lights. Wrong again. Traffic lights were assembled here, in this country and help expand our light manufacturing here in this country. They said we gave money to a solar company in Mexico, but nope. That money went to a solar company here in America.

The Pants on Fire AFP ad states that it is a “FACT that taxpayer money is going overseas to fund green energy” (facts are apparently different things over in conservative fairy land where wishes are facts and oil trickles down):

PolitiFact ruled it Pants on Fire, concluding, “The ad strings together alarming-sounding tidbits about actual stimulus projects to create the impression of something else entirely — in a way that’s ultimately ridiculous. And that earns our lowest rating, Pants on Fire.”

Ironically, the Koch ad ends with “tell Washington American tax dollars should go to help American tax payers.” I couldn’t agree more on that one. But of course, that isn’t what the Koch Brothers want to do with your money.

It’s fascinating that the Kochs are going with jobs as their issue, since Mitt Romney thinks a job paying $19,000/year is a great middle class job, and he has no plan for creating jobs here. He has no experience creating jobs; in fact, he’s rather infamous for killing jobs.

Mitt Romney wants to continue paying welfare (your tax dollars) to the oil companies, since they are making record profits. This is his idea of a “free market”. Try not to laugh; a lot of people buy the Right wing framing on this. Our money should go to big oil, not to education, roads, high-speed rail, or to stop hunger in America or provide healthcare for children or veterans.

The Koch Brothers know that their ad is full of lies; it was fact-checked two years ago when they started this particular Green Death Panel fable. But they don’t care. They also know that corporations are global these days, since they have their own sordid history with illegal sales in Iran. Some people call what the Kochs did treason.

Bloomberg revealed the deaths, bribes, felony charges, envelopes stuffed with cash, criminal violations, deliberate poisoning of the air with cancerous smoke, and hundreds of millions of fines behind the Koch Brothers. They revealed that employees are taught to cheat and steal under “The Koch Method.” Oh, and the Kochs sold millions of dollars in petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country recognized for sponsoring terrorism but also one of three countries in the George W Bush identified “Axis of Evil.”

But they want you to take their word now.

Mexico, Finland and China, Oh My! The Koch Brothers are working hard for your money this election season, but if they think Obama is going to just let them Swiftboat him, they’ve got another thing coming.

A list of Koch products can be found here.
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