My google-fu is so weak I can’t even find the post from a few months ago when the Koch brothers were looking to hire “motivated young people” for a “temporary acting gig”. So I’m not sure whether that ad was related to Dave Weigel’s tale of “A Confusing Attempt to Denounce Obamacare”:
The young couple holding hands outside the entrance to “Creepy Carenival” held on the National Mall July 23rd were rather baffled by it. “I think it’s something about Obamacare?” the woman said. “I think they’re going to talk about it?” They had happened upon it on a walk; they weren’t sure if the message would be for or against.
The event had been put on by Generation Opportunity, a lobby group of free-market minded youngsters who mostly advocate on millennial issues like youth unemployment and student debt. Obamacare, their spokesman informed me, was their first foray into healthcare. In case there’s any confusion, they’re against it: they say that it increases health premiums for those 27 and under who wish to buy healthcare through the federally mandated program….
I chatted with a few performers and blue-shirted young men from Talk of the Town, the entertainment whose games were hired out for the festivities. Their employers, it appears, did not provide health insurance: The young acrobat was still on her parents’— she says will think about what to do once she turns 26 (but “her views are her own and do not represent those of Generation Opportunity”). Another, older carnival worker said he bought his direct through the insurance company. A third young man, running the high striker, had been instructed to give a flimsy hammer to anyone under 27, and an actual sledgehammer to anyone older. I read aloud a placard at his station, which said that women under 27 would on average see their premiums rise by 44 percent, and men by 91 percent. “You’re the first person all day to read that,” he informed me. When I asked him about the meaning of the trick versus real hammers, he shrugged. Some staffers quickly swooped in to explain—something about the game being rigged against you—but the exact gist remained a bit opaque…
Here’s SourceWatch’s description of “Generation Opportunity”:
Generation Opportunity (GenOp) is a non-profit 501(c)(4) organization based in Arlington, Virginia funded by Freedom Partners, a multimillion dollar Koch-tied funding vehicle. On the group’s website, its describes itself as “a free-thinking, liberty-loving, national organization of young people promoting the best of Being American: opportunity, creativity and freedom.”[1] According to OpenSecrets, “[i]n the three years for which tax information is available, Generation Opportunity has raised almost 86 percent of its funds from just two Koch-linked nonprofits…
So, just another Kochsucker scam — but at least this one entertained a few Mall walkers during the Silly Season. If only all the money the Kochs lavished on politics were wasted so harmlessly.
Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: Not A Carnival, Just A SideshowPost + Comments (34)