AFPMT pulls hashtag boner

A Koch-funded astroturf group is mucking up in Montana talking about the things #MillionsOfMontanans did.

The state chapter of Americans for Prosperity quickly issued a statement Thursday opposing the decision, saying it contradicted the wishes of “millions of Montanans” who “do not want more Obamacare.” Montana users of the online social media site were eager to pile on. The hashtag had been tweeted or retweeted 2,000 times by Monday evening, according to the tracking service Keyhole. Around 1.6 million Twitter users saw the tweets — 600,000 more than state’s population. Its Montana state director, Zach Lahn, served previously as the state director for then-Rep. Steve Daines and managed his 2012 congressional campaign. [Billings Gazette]

AFPMT has been targeting the Republican lawmakers who have not pledged to resist helping Democratic Governor Steve Bullock expand Medicaid in the state.

Earlier this year in Kalispell the Koch-backed tool held a "Healthcare Town Hall" taking aim at House District 7 Rep. Frank Garner.

Garner, who made the eight-hour round trip from Helena to attend the meeting, took umbrage with the postcards and said the group never told him about the meeting, which he learned about from a reporter on the House floor at the Capitol. Following a hasty exchange with AFP State Director Zach Lahn minutes before Thursday’s meeting commenced, Garner took the podium to defend his record before the crowd of mostly supporters, who cheered the lawmaker on. “You have pissed me off,” one man told Lahn. Referencing a quote by Henry David Thoreau on the sanctity of town hall meetings, Nathan Kosted told Lahn the gathering smacked of exclusivity. “Why did you call this a town hall meeting? I didn’t get an invite. I wish I’d been invited, because I want to know how we get the Koch Brothers out of politics. I want to know how we get you out of politics,” Kosted said. [Tristan Scott, Flathead Beacon]

Montana and the legislature is being flooded with cash from Koch-backed 'Americans For Prosperity' in a state where the far right-wing is pushing the legislature to seize federal lands to mine, log, graze, whatever to pay back their benefactors.

AFP performed a similar stunt in Dillon.

Libertarians are doing my job for me: necropsying the GOP pathology into its constituent turds. Of course the Democratic base wants ObamaCare amended to include the single-payer public option.

Donors Trust is not the source of the money it hands out. Some 200 right-of-center funders who've given at least $10,000 fill the group's coffers. Charities bankrolled by Charles and David Koch, the DeVoses, and the Bradleys, among other conservative benefactors, have given to Donors Trust. And other recipients of Donors Trust money include the Heritage Foundation, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, the NRA's Freedom Action Foundation, the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Federalist Society, and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, chaired (PDF) by none other than David Koch.--Andy Kroll at MoJo.

Don't let 'em shit'cha: Libertarians are the Kochs hedging their bets.

The South Dakota Republican Party's nominee for US Senate received an endorsement and a wad of cash from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a Koch/ALEC cabal. Now, that junior senator is paying back his benefactors by seeking the elimination of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education: two more Koch/ALEC bullet points.

South Dakota's branch of AFP is lobbying the state's GOP delegation to support lifting the estate tax for about twenty SDGOP donors.

Reps. passed Medicaid expansion Sat. that will change, improve, & save the lives of the 70,000 Montanans http://t.co/rptKhbQQ9L #mtleg
— MT House Democrats (@MThousedems) April 13, 2015