As If We Didn’t Know….

Yes, we knew the Tea Party and its hostile agenda are an astro-turfed political masquerade propped up solely by the Libertarian Aristocracy with the mercenary aid of its corporate powerhouse. What we didn’t know is exactly how that political phalanx is shaped. Now we have a better idea. After the discovery of the Koch’s secret bank, this is the 2nd biggest secrecy scoop of the year – the one that reveals who has asphyxiated our republican democracy with toxic conservatism and how – who has delivered we the people into corporate servitude and how. Its’s the Libertarian Aristocracy that’s who. And here’s the beginnings of how:

Koch’s relationship with the group [Americans for Prosperity] is no secret—he’s the chairman of the board of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation—but he downplays his involvement in a way that critics charge is disingenuous. An official Koch website states that AFP is merely “among the hundreds of organizations that have received monetary support” from David Koch, his brother Charles, or the company they own, Koch Industries. “AFP and AFP Foundation operate independently of Koch Industries. We are not involved in their day-to-day operations and we do not direct the activities of either organization,” the company’s website continues.

But a donor list filed with the IRS labeled “not open for public inspection” from 2003, the year of AFP’s first filing, lists David Koch as by far the single largest contributor to its foundation, donating $850,000. And an earlier document also obtained exclusively by National Journal lists millions more in financial contributions from the conservative industrialist to AFP’s predecessor.

Following Koch on the AFP Foundation donor list are a number of corporations, including State Farm, which gave $275,000, 1-800-Contacts, which donated $80,000, and Johnson & Johnson and Shaw Industries, which each gave $50,000. Shaw, a carpet and flooring manufacturer, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, the company controlled (ironically) by pro-Obama billionaire Warren Buffett. Also listed are a number of well-known and deep-pocketed conservative foundations, including the Pennsylvania-based Sarah Scaife Foundation and the North Carolina-based John William Pope Foundation.

The document, a Form 990 Schedule B, is essentially list of the largest contributors to a nonprofit organization, filed annually with the IRS. It’s meant to be kept private, with only redacted versions released to the public, but a source retrieved the AFP Foundation Schedule B from a publicly accessible state attorney general’s website, where it had been apparently uploaded in error, as has been known to occur on occasion. AFP, a 501(c)(4) group, and its foundation, a 501(c)(3), are legally separate, but they operate functionally as two parts of the same organization, in an arrangement common among political nonprofit organizations.

Perhaps if the National Journal’s scoop gets the traction it deserves, We the People will wax wise and recognize whose interests are whose in public policy. The latest Gallup poll seems to suggest that Tea Party popularity is on the wane. I am unconvinced that the Gallup numbers actually do point to that trend and I’m equally skeptical of Gallup’s reliability, yet their recently released poll is deserving of scrutiny: