Koch Brothers Come to Jersey, Love Christie

by: KendalJames

Tue Jun 07, 2011 at 09:15:00 AM EDT

It describes a new report which states that New Jersey is one of the "least free" states in the country. That's right, New Jersey - you are prisoners of government, with your licensed contractors, helmet laws, smoking bans and lack of marriage equality. (Sarcasm does not apply to the last item in that list.)  Not to mention:

New Jersey should also roll back spending on low-income school districts and use the savings to roll back income, property and cigarette taxes...

Woah! And who would issue such a "report"? Well this one comes from the Mercatus Center - a non-profit organization whose board includes Tea Party maestro Charles Koch, as well as Richard Fink, executive vice-president of Koch Industries.

You're thinking "Eww! Gross! Keep them, their report, and their creepy ideas out of New Jersey!" But it's too late, because Koch emissaries have already been here, no less in recent days and right under our noses. Of course, everyone was so focused on Coptergate that little has been said about the wealthy Iowa donors who waited patiently at Drunthwacket for the governor to land in his sky chariot. Yet you'd think New Jerseyans would be interested to know that one of them was Koch Brothers business partner Bruce Rastetter.

Rastetter is a major GOP contributor who, for example, wants to eliminate preschool, and youth tobacco prevention programs. He also provided seed money for a secretive organization called the American Future Fund. While shielding its donors' identities, AFF spends millions of dollars working to defeat Democrat candidates. And their leadership has plenty of experience in that field - counted among their accomplishments are the Swift Boat Veterans and Willie Horton television ads. As you'd expect, such a shadowy group has been the subject of various complaints, and has been accused multiple times of violating Federal election law.  In short, AFF is widely acknowledged as representing wealthy Republicans, who want to get other wealthy Republicans into elected office.

And Rastetter was only one of the guys on that plane from Iowa.