Americans for Prosperity now sees children flying kites as a major threat to society.

Earlier today, I opened my email box to find an uproarious AFP promotion for a protest in Asbury Park and Ocean City, New Jersey this Friday.

What are they so upset about?

An event so dastardly and maniacal, it has the potential to tear down everything we love about our freedoms as Americans. I almost couldn’t stomach it when I found out more.

Yes, it’s “extremist” kids from the Boys and Girls Club and local schools flying kites in support of offshore wind energy.

Don’t worry, AFP is on the case (as explained on their website, accompanied by the smoking wind turbine):

You heard that right! Friday is “Global Wind Day” and environmental extremists throughout New Jersey will be celebrating by flying kites at beaches along the Jersey Shore and calling for more and more of our tax dollars to be used to subsidize their crazy offshore wind pipe dreams!

AFP will be going toe to toe with the environmental extremists to combat their radical agenda and tell the truth about the costs of offshore wind.

Yes, that’s right. With monetary assistance from the Koch Brothers, AFP will be going toe to toe with these kite-flying kids who represent such a threat to the free market.

Here’s how the Sierra Club describes the event in support of Global Wind Day: “We’ll be gathering at a beach near you for a kite-flying rally and celebration of NJ’s offshore wind potential. Bring your family, friends and kites.”

The horror!

In order to combat these “extremist” families and their kite-flying antics, AFP is throwing in all the resources it can — chartering six buses (yes, six) to bring people in from around the state.

How will this battle unfold? Will the crusading free-marketeers be able to withstand this beach full of radical children? Tune in Friday on Global Wind Day…..

The latest ad is based on a set of mistruths about green jobs that have been widely debunked.

In the ad, AFP explains that “billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries,” and uses four examples that supposedly prove that Obama’s clean energy stimulus created foreign jobs instead of domestic ones.

All four examples are either mostly or completely false.

1. The ad claims that $1.2 billion is being used to create solar jobs in Mexico. This point was completely made up by a random conservative blogger and has been repeatedly called out as a lie. This $1.2 billion loan guarantee was issued for a large, first-of-its-kind solar plant in California being developed by NRG. However, the blogger falsely wrote that the money was being used to create manufacturing jobs in Mexico.

In reality, the jobs created in Mexico had absolutely nothing to do with the loan guarantee. The only connection to Mexico was that some of the solar panels would be coming from a manufacturing plant located there. And even though the source of the panels had nothing to do with the decision to issue the loan guarantee, the company providing the panels, SunPower, explained that most of the panels were coming from America anyway.

2. The ad claims that a loan guarantee for an electric vehicle manufacturer went to jobs in Finland. This is also a made up story pushed by Fox News and conservative bloggers. In fact, all of the money used through the loan guarantee went toward building a U.S. manufacturing facility.

There were some jobs created in Finland during final assembly of the vehicles, but that was announced up front in 2009 when the loan guarantee was issued. According to the Department of Energy, all of the money set aside for Fisker’s next-generation vehicle manufacturing was issued for American operations.

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A handful of outside groups, fueled by oil and coal dollars, are committing tens of millions to propel Big Oil to the forefront of the 2012 elections — outspending the Obama campaign on political energy ads by an overwhelming amount.

In the first three-and-a-half months of 2012, groups including Americans for Prosperity, American Petroleum Institute, Crossroads GPS, and American Energy Alliance have spent $16,750,000 on energy attack ads. The total amounts to more than $56 million, including the American Clean Coal Coalition’s pledge of $40 million on ads promoting coal.

According to a Think Progress analysis, there have been at least $16,750,000 worth in dirty energy ad buys since January:

American Petroleum Institute spent $4.3 million since January, reported by the Washington Post.

Crossroads GPS has spent a total $2.85 million since January, with three major ad buys. Crossroads spent $500,000 distorting the administration’s Solyndra record, $650,000 on gas prices, and $1.7 million promoting “drill, baby drill.”

American Energy Alliance bought $3.6 million of gas price ads for the “largest effort of its kind in AEA’s history.” The group is partially funded by Charles and David Koch.

Americans For Prosperity: $6 million on an ad distorting Obama’s Solyndra record, which ran in at least six states. This followed an earlier $2.4 million Solyndra ad in November, which was not included in the total count.

By comparison, the Obama campaign and his super PAC have spent at least $1.67 million defending the president’s energy record.

Other groups have pledged to spend millions more this election cycle, and will include ads focusing on promoting pro-oil and coal interests:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce has committed to spend more than $50 million this year on a range of issues. So far it has targeted several lawmakers, including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who faced $2.5 million of ads against him for wanting to end oil subsidies. In February, it spent $200,000 ads promoting Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) for his pro-oil stance.

American Coalition For Clean Coal Electricity: $40 million overall campaign to push coal interests to the forefront of the presidential campaign.

American Crossroads, whose donors include oil and gas executives, has a bankroll of more than $200 milllion for 2012.

Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch “plan to pump at least $100 million through their network of independent groups” which include Americans for Prosperity and the American Energy Alliance.

Ad spending this cycle has skyrocketed 1600 percent compared to the 2008 race, partly due to oil and gas’s serious money to elect a candidate committed to putting oil’s profits first.

2010 outside spending from non-disclosing groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics

The American Petroleum Institute, which advocates for the oil and gas industry, gave $25,500 to Americans for Prosperity, IRS disclosures show. Americans for Prosperity, based in Arlington, Virginia, spent more than $1.2 million in 2010 to help elect Republicans to Congress, according to FEC records.

The petroleum institute also gave $25,000 to the Alexandria, Virginia-based 60 Plus Association, which favors privatizing Social Security and spent more than $7 million in 2010 in support of Republicans, IRS and FEC records show.

Of course, Republicans picked up seats in both the House and Senate in 2010, when spending from these groups favored Republicans 10-to-1.

Groups like Chevron have seen billions in returns for their 2010 contributions. Chevron’s profits jumped 23.3 percent since 2010, and the company earned $3 million every hour last year. However, the company only paid an effective 19 percent income tax in 2011. Exxon, the most profitable oil company, paid a lowly 13 percent.

In 2012, undisclosed donations will play an even larger role, since interest group spending is up 1600 percent from the 2008 cycle.

In its cover story this week, the National Journal explores a curious phenomenon: while the science supporting climate change has only gotten stronger, the onetime Republican consensus on the issue has fallen apart. The reason, quite simply, is the right-wing polluter Koch Industries and its political front group Americans for Prosperity.

As Political Correction notes, just three years ago, Republicans including Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) all expressed a belief in human-caused climate change. Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) even supported legislation to reduce carbon pollution. But all of these prominent leaders have since joined the rest of the Republican party “in a sudden and near-unified retreat to silence or denial.”

What’s changed for Republican politicians is “the influx into electoral politics of vast sums of money from energy companies and sympathetic interest groups”:

Republicans have long had close financial ties to the fossil-fuel industry, of course. Between 1998 and 2010, the oil-and-gas industry gave 75 percent of its $284 million in political contributions to Republicans. [...]

Among the most influential of the new breed of so-called super PACs is the tea party group Americans for Prosperity, founded by David and Charles Koch, the principal owners of Koch Industries, a major U.S. oil conglomerate. As Koch Industries has lobbied aggressively against climate-change policy, Americans for Prosperity has spearheaded an all-fronts campaign using advertising, social media, and cross-country events aimed at electing lawmakers who will ensure that the oil industry won’t have to worry about any new regulations.

AFP President Tim Phillips proudly takes credit for the GOP’s turnaround and readily admits that his group threatened politicians with “political peril” if they “played footsie” with green solutions:

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, says there’s no question that the influence of his group and others like it has been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science…“We’ve made great headway. What it means for candidates on the Republican side is, if you…buy into green energy or you play footsie on this issue, you do so at your political peril. The vast majority of people who are involved in the [Republican] nominating process—the conventions and the primaries—are suspect of the science. And that’s our influence. Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it.”

Thanks to AFP “science has become political,” Phillips says, and “most of these candidates have figured” that out. AFP used to claim, “We’re not arguing the science of climate change,” but got bolder as it gained more influence, boasting, “if we win the science argument it’s game, set, and match.” With AFP menacing lawmakers in the background, threatening to choke off campaign money and dangling their political careers in front of them, it’s no wonder so many Republicans have willfully ignored the indisputable truth of climate change.

As ThinkProgress has reported, AFP is notorious for its astroturfing, or fake grassroots efforts, that include tactics like planting carbon-copy opinion pieces in local newspapers. They’ve become the unparalleled enforcer of far right-wing ideology, funneling millions of oil and coal industry dollars cash across the nation to spread their message of global warming denial.

(HT: Political Correction)