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As Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder was about to sign their union-busting right-to-work-for-less bills into law, Chris Matthews spoke to UAW President Bob King and the State Director of the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity's Scott Hagerstrom. Matthews attempted to get Hagerstrom to come clean about who "signs his paycheck" and despite repeated badgering from Matthews, refused to acknowledge that AFP is just a front group for the Koch brothers.

He just works for a grass roots organization, like the Red Cross don't you know! And they have lots of donors. He didn't want to talk about their one big one though. Here's more on Hagerstrom and his remarks back in February of 2011 from Think Progress: Koch Front Group Americans For Prosperity: ‘Take The Unions Out At The Knees’:

In a speech earlier this month at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual conference, Americans For Prosperity-Michigan Executive Director Scott Hagerstrom revealed the true goal of his group and its allies like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) efforts. Speaking at CPAC’s “Panel for Labor Policy,” Hagerstrom said that AFP really wants to do is to “take the unions out at the knees”:

HAGERSTROM: It’s easy to go out there and fight taxes and increased regulation, you know we send out an action alert on taxes to AFP and we get thousands of people to respond. You send out one on a more complicated issue and it just doesn’t quite resonate…We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.

Taking “the unions out at the knees” has long been a goal of the Koch brothers and their many front groups. In the run-up to the 2010 elections, the Kochs worked with other anti-labor billionaires, corporations and activists to fund conservative candidates and groups across the country. Now after viciously opposing pro-middle class policies for years, Koch Industries is trying to eliminate the only organizations which serve as a counterweight to the well-oiled corporate machine.

Sadly they managed to succeed in that goal today in Michigan. Sourcewatch has more on Americans for Prosperity here and the fact that they are indeed just a front group for the Koch brothers here.

This interview has a bunch of right wing blogs worked up of course, the usual suspects that I'm not going to link to, calling Matthews "unhinged" and claiming he "berated" Hagerstrom because he asked him time and again who funds AFP. If they think this is Matthews coming "unhinged" they must not watch the show much, because this is pretty mild by his standards. There are times that stuff can be annoying out of him. This wasn't one of them.

The AFP chair was on there pretending he's got the interest of those workers in Michigan at heart and that they're just some grass roots organization instead of an AstroTurf front group who only care about a race to the bottom on wages so their rich donors can squeeze some more blood out of the working class.

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Every time you think these guys can't possibly stoop just a little bit lower with the tactics they're willing to resort to, they manage to sink to a new low. From the Detroit Free Press -- Conservative group: Fake eviction notices were 'meant to startle people':

The state director of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity offered no apologies today for papering homes in Detroit’s Delray district Monday with fake eviction notices.

Bearing the words “Eviction Notice” in large type, the bogus notices told homeowners their properties could be taken by the Michigan Department of Transportation to make way for the New International Trade Crossing bridge project. The NITC is the subject of debate in Lansing, and Americans for Prosperity is lobbying heavily against it.

“It was meant to startle people,” Scott Hagerstrom, the group’s state director, said today. “We really wanted people to take notice. This is the time that their opinions need to be heard. We wanted people to read it.” Read on...

And from Think Progress -- Americans For Prosperity Places Fake Eviction Notices On Detroit Homeowners’ Doors To Scare Up Support:

The Michigan chapter of the Koch-backed conservative activist group Americans For Prosperity (AFP) has been campaigning against a new bridge project called the New International Trade Crossing (NITC) that the state is considering. While there may be some merit to some of the arguments against the NITC project, the tactics AFP has just been found to be using in campaigning against it are revolting.

Yesterday, numerous residents in the Delray area of Detroit came back to their homes to find eviction notices. The problem was that these notices were not authorized by any sort of local government authorities. Rather, they were mocked up by AFP to look like actual eviction notices. The “notices” sensationally claimed to homeowners that their property may be seized if the NITC is constructed. Some residents, particularly elderly ones, were physically shaken by the tactic [...]

AFP’s tactics are bad enough by themselves, but they are even worse when you consider where the fake eviction notices were delivered. Michigan has the country’s highest foreclosure rate, and Detroit in particular is perhaps the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis.