The Americans for Prosperity bus stopped in Overland Park on Wednesday to educate citizens about  the cost to taxpayers for stimulus spending, health care reform, and potential “Cap & Trade” energy taxes, and how these “big government” policies are affecting our country.  The bus tour is part of the AFP “November is Coming” project.

Dr. Milton Wolf, cousin of President Obama, was the main speaker. He identified himself jokingly as “the leader of the conservative wing of the First Family.”

Wolf explained  how the medical profession and patients will be affected by the health care bill signed into law in March (see video below).  Wolf said the  health care reform law was more about government than health care.

Wolf said “freedom needs to survive, but it doesn’t do so on it’s own.” Wolf challenged the 125 in attendance “to step outside their comfort zone” to be involved with politics.

AFP-Kansas director Derrick Sontag explained much of their focus was on congressional candidate Stephene Moore (D, Lenexa) because of her likely votes on several fiscal issues.

AFP was promoting a citizen education effort.  AFP encouraged those in attendance to contact Moore by phone to sway her position on these fiscal issues. Sontag said “quite honestly if she were to publicly reverse her position on some of these policies, we would publicly praise her.”

Election Issues.  Two in the audience gave their views on what they considered important issues for the November elections.

Wayne Flaherty from Overland Park focused on three national issues:  the failure of the stimulus to help the economy and provide jobs, “Cap and Trade”, and immigration.

Charlotte O’Hara from Overland Park focused on two Kansas issues: repeal of one cent sales tax, school finance reform.

See Flaherty and O’Hara in the video below:

Theatrical Protesters.  AFP’s support for fiscal policies has been consistent with fiscal policies  of congressional candidate Kevin Yoder (R, Overland Park), and mostly inconsistent with policies of Stephene Moore.

Two of Moore’s supporters dressed in sorcerer costumes to confront those attending the AFP event.  One identified herself as Liz Craig of Johnson County, and served as the primary spokesperson in the video below.

Craig said “I’m a Republican but can’t stand by and see people going to Americans for Prosperity meetings and not knowing what Americans for Prosperity is really about.”  Craig was a “Republican for [Dennis] Moore” in 2004 and 2006 and 2008, and served on the board of Mainstream Coalition in 2004 and 2005.

The “Out Sourcerers” complained about the connections between the Koch brothers (David and Charles Koch) in Wichita, Koch Industries and their funding of Americans for Prosperity.

Koch Industries recently released this statement and created a web site www.kochfacts.com to provide transparency about their civic involvement.  See this section on that page:  History of involvement with Americans for Prosperity/Citizens for a Sound Economy.

Daniel Fisher from Forbes Magazine wrote how the recent New Yorker‘s profile on the Kochs misses the point.

The “Out Sourcerers” also complained about the out sourcing of jobs by Koch Industries in their handout:

One of Koch Industries’ key subsidiaries actually won an award for “Outsourcing Excellence” after they shipped American jobs to China.  [Freeborders Press Release, 6/1/06; http://www.invista.com/page_whois_shareholder_en.shtml]

Google cache shows this online article from June 2006 about this “Outsourcing Excellence Award.”  The description of the project for this award was “an interactive online sales platform for textile mills to market fabrics directly to garment vendors, brands and retailers anywhere in the world”:

Freeborders used its strategy of onshore project management in both Europe and the US, coupled with offshore development at its Shenzhen, China facilities to complete the project three weeks ahead of schedule. The new platform was launched in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific and over 700 brand and retail companies, registered in the first five weeks. The platform ultimately connected 600 textile manufacturers in 40 countries to over 1,000 brands and retailers worldwide.

An online article Lessons Learned From This Year’s Awards from Aug. 2006 describes the “outsourcing” that was used to “meet impossible deadlines” over an 8 week period to win the award:

INVISTA then hired Freeborders, a supplier that agreed to meet the demanding deadline by putting together teams in the US, Europe, and China who literally worked around the clock. With eight weeks left, the buyer asked Freeborders if it could deliver the library three weeks early so it could demonstrate the program at a trade show in Miami. And Freeborders did.

How many permanent jobs could have been involved in meeting “impossible deadlines” over an 8 week period?

But that’s not the whole story either:

• In 2001, three years before INVISTA was acquired by Koch Industries, INVISTA’s former owner outsourced an IT project to a global consulting firm. Fewer than 20 of the consulting firm’s employees worked on the project. It was completed in 2001.
• Five years later, that 2001 IT project was given an “outsourcing award” (in an award category titled “Best European collaboration” given that the project was initiated out of a European office of INVISTA’s former owner).

A  DuPont press release from Nov. 2003 explained the sale of INVISTA by DuPont to subsidiaries of Koch.  At that time INVISTA had 18,000 employees at 50 global manufacturing sites.  The press release does not mention if any of the DuPont resources were in Wichita or Kansas.

The Out Sourcerers’ claims about Koch Industries outsourcing  jobs from Wichita or Kansas  is about politics, not  jobs in Wichita or Kansas.

Koch Industries has 70,000 employees in 60 countries.  The majority of the employees — more than 50,000 — are employed in North America with about 2,200 employees in Wichita.

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Related:

• Wiki Page:  David H. Koch
• Wiki Page:  David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
• Wiki Page:  Charles G. Koch
• ‘Tea Party Billionaire’ Fires Back, The Daily Beast, Sept. 10, 2010.
• Americans for Prosperity (November is Coming), nicholbi’s YouTube Channel, Sept. 1, 2010.

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Contact: Earl F Glynn, earl@kansaswatchdog.org, KansasWatchdog.org