Americans For Despair

Last year on 13 May 2008, Erik Telford of Americans for (oil company) Prosperity registered the noclimatetax.com domain.

Telford is the one who knows how to use the video camera and film his mates dressed as Fidel Castro at their pathetic crashing of the Michael Moore film in 2007 about the death dealing (but extremely profitable) US health care system.

Yesterday they achieved a coup (with regards to the Myron Ebell Climate) by obtaining a quote from Myron Ebell himself in their noclimatetax pledge:

Through the NoClimateTax.com Web site, thousands of activists from across America have asked members of Congress and state legislators to sign a written pledge committing them to oppose any efforts to use anti-global warming legislation as a vehicle to raise taxes.

"We're excited to have CEI, NTU, and IFL on board this important effort," said AFP Policy Director Phil Kerpen. "With these key allies helping promote the pledge to their members and directly with elected officials, we hope that a majority in Congress will commit in writing to take tax hikes off the table during discussion of what is supposed to be an environmental bill."

"The Competitive Enterprise Institute joins Americans for Prosperity in urging Members of Congress to sign the NoClimateTax.com pledge," said Myron Ebell, CEI's director of energy and global warming policy. "Cap and trade would be a huge indirect tax on the American people and probably the biggest tax increase in history. As President Obama rightly said, ‘electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.'"

Nothing new here. But we can see the devil spawn of FredC and MaryR Koch and other Koch Family Foundations whose revenue-making industries are Transforming Daily Life^TM funding the wide spread of astroturfing loons, having to converge into the so-called coalitions to make themselves appear formidable.

The No Climate Tax Pledge seems to work by mailing off a letter to every elected office holder with a fill-in-the-blanks bit, which says:

I, ______________________, pledge to the taxpayers of the state of _______________ and to the American people that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue no matter what the consequences for the nation's long-term survival will be for taking this kind of blind rejectionist stance.

There's a fascinating database of Pledge Takers where you can see various signatories like this one which is a plain form with a witness signature, or this one which is a crappy card, or this one which is a big Tim Phillips fax. Each one is followed by a crappy press release with all the same words in the name of their fake local chapter.

That press release is from last year, but others are from more recent times. They don't have the web capabilities to give us, for example, a sign up graph. But I imagine they're steadily (on the Koch payroll) bringing in names with consistent work and possibly tactical campaign donations to get Republican morons to spare the few seconds to take this pledge.

Now with Myron Ebell on board, it should really take off.