Who's Behind Americans for Prosperity?

Josh Marshall does his usual excellent job in getting to the facts, here taking on the group, Americans for Prosperity (undoubtedly more gibberish for "give us what we want and screw everyone else), a group apparently designed to go after any and all who oppose the killing of Social Security.

First, Josh offers this:

Who or what is Americans for Prosperity?

According to this page at the Center for Media and Democracy's Source Watch website, it was essentially set up as a pet 501c3 of Koch Industries and then 'colocated' with the Independent Women's Forum, with which it also seems to share a rather substantial number of staffers. (They share a president and a COO, for starters.)

In any case, this is the long march phase of the battle to end Social Security. They'll dig in and tear away at the defenders of the program, figuring they can outlast them.

Now, politics is a contact sport, as they say. So I don't think anyone's complaining. But, to my eyes, this group has all the earmarks of a classic 'astroturf' outfit. And I suspect we'd find all the usual suspects involved -- of course, along with a gaggle of twenty-something ne'er-do-wells ready to make a couple bucks in rent-a-crowds and probably more than a few operatives looking to get their ticket stamped in the DC machine so they can move up a couple rungs on the ladder.

Then Josh follows up with this:

For now, they also seem to be the ones who were behind this apparently-now-abandoned anti-AARP site from earlier this year.

And just how does former House Majority Leader and arch-phase-out man Dick Armey fit in to the picture?

In 2003, the last year for which records are available, AfP paid Armey $429,583 for 'consulting' services.

Some consulting ...