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fishing buddy of clarence, hired ginni<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en">=</h1><div>[[ who broke am?</div><div>
<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/how-radicals-and-extremists-are-poisoning-the-republican-brand-columnists/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/how-radicals-and-extremists-are-poisoning-the-republican-brand-columnists/</a>Back in the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon famously complained that Republican candidates felt pressured to go arch-conservative in GOP primaries only to turn around and run as fast as they could to the center during the general election. Nixon was considered arch-conservative in his day, yet he hated conservative purity tests.Looking back on Nixon’s comments in 2022, the ironic part is that Nixon and so many of the fellow conservatives he debated in GOP primaries during the 1960s and 1970s would be slammed as RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) by the MAGA Republicans of today.Back in 1970 or 1975, Republicans didn’t fear they would be run out of the party if they criticized the far-right <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/15/john-birch-society-qanon-reagan-republicans-goldwater/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">John Birch Society</a>; William F. Buckley, in fact, was adamant about keeping the Bircher conspiracy theorists out of the pages of his National Review. But the Republican primaries of 2022 are full of MAGA candidates who insist that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming aren't aligned with the Republican party.[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/meghan-mccain/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Meghan McCain melts down after Kari Lake and other GOP extremists win in Arizona elections</a>Extremism within the GOP is the focus of two opinion columns published by the Washington Post in early August: one by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/04/dana-milbank-republican-destructionists-book-excerpt/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Dana Milbank</a> and the other by <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/03/gop-is-blowing-its-chance-make-midterms-referendum-democrats/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">conservative Henry Olsen</a>. Milbank’s column is actually an excerpt from his new book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Destructionists-Twenty-Five-Crack-Up-Republican-Party-ebook/dp/B09LH2W6ZP?crid=A1LPW21HVZI4&keywords=The+Destructionists:+The+Twenty-Five+Year+Crack-Up+of+the+Republican+Party&qid=1659617075&sprefix=the+destructionists+the+twenty-five+year+crack-up+of+the+republican+party,aps,173&sr=8-4&linkCode=sl1&tag=thewaspos09-20&linkId=6b4a389dea118bdf3b02bc2c44d789d5&language=en_US&ref=as_li_ss_tl" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">“The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party,”</a> which has an August 9 release date on Amazon. Many Never Trump conservatives and Blue Dog Democrats believe that the GOP took a very dark turn when Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, but as Milbank sees it, the GOP was overrun with extremists long before that.Milbank argues that the GOP took a much nastier turn in 1994, when the combative Newt Gingrich replaced Bob Michel as GOP leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.“Bob Michel, the unfailingly genial leader of the House Republican minority for the previous 14 years, had ushered Ronald Reagan’s agenda through the House,” Milbank recalls. “But he was being forced into retirement by a rising bomb thrower who threatened to oust Michel as GOP leader if he didn’t quit…. Newt Gingrich had almost nothing in common with the man he shoved aside. Michel was a portrait of civility and decency, a World War II combat veteran who knew that his political opponents were not his enemies and that politics was the art of compromise. Gingrich, by contrast, rose to prominence by forcing the resignation of a Democratic speaker of the House on what began as mostly false allegations, by smearing another Democratic speaker with personal innuendo, and by routinely thwarting Michel’s attempts to negotiate with Democrats…. The rise of Gingrich and his shock troops set the nation on a course toward the ruinous politics of today.”Milbank continues, “Much has been made of the ensuing polarization in our politics, and it’s true that moderates are a vanishing breed. But the problem isn’t primarily polarization. The problem is that one of our two major political parties has ceased good-faith participation in the democratic process. Of course, there are instances of violence, disinformation, racism and corruption among Democrats and the political left, but the scale isn’t at all comparable. Only one party fomented a bloody insurrection and even after that voted in large numbers — 139 House Republicans, a two-thirds majority — to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 election.”[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/how-trump-has-made-arizonas-gubernatorial-race-a-vendetta-against-doug-ducey/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">How Trump made Arizona’s gubernatorial race a vendetta against Doug Ducey</a>According to Milbank, other factors that “sped” the GOP’s “turn toward nihilism” included “the ascent of conservative talk radio, followed by the triumph of Fox News, followed by the advent of social media.”“Combined, they created a media environment that allows Republican politicians and their voters to seal themselves in an echo chamber of ‘alternative facts,’” Milbank explains. “Globally, south-to-north migration has ignited nationalist movements around the world and created a new era of autocrats. The disappearance of the Greatest Generation, tempered by war, brought to power a new generation of culture warriors…. It is crucial to understand that Donald Trump didn’t create this noxious environment. He isn’t some hideous, orange Venus emerging from the half-shell. Rather, he is a brilliant opportunist; he saw the direction the Republican Party was taking and the appetites it was stoking.”Meanwhile, Olsen, in his August 3 column, makes it clear that he would much rather see conservatives running the federal government than liberals. But he fears that the GOP’s “radicals” are undermining the party’s chances of enjoying a “potentially momentous midterm win” in 2022.....</div><div>=</div><div>an 8 22</div><div>...Cruz’s anti-tax rhetoric should be familiar. The Republicans (as well as some Democrats) have stood against every proposed tax hike for over 20 years. The last Republican president to sign a tax increase into law was George HW Bush. Since 1994, the GOP has treated the federal government’s constitutional authority to tax as if it were theft – as if taxes were morally wrong as well as politically illegitimate.</div>READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/preventing-theft-whack-a-mole/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="self" title="view post: Preventing election theft is 'like playing whack-a-mole': journalist" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Preventing election theft is 'like playing whack-a-mole': journalist</a>]Anti-tax rhetoric used to cover up for racist white people, especially in the south, refusing to pay for programs benefitting Black people. But over time, it evolved to become something more sinister.The GOP’s rhetoric became pro-sedition.Mainstream seditionThat comes naturally to Cruz.Like many others, Cruz was in contact with Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, before the former president’s bid to take over the US government. Trump pressured Republican senators to vote against accepting Joe Biden’s victory. Cruz readily complied. He voted that night to overturn the election. He later voted to acquit Trump.The present is a product of the past, though.And Ted Cruz is a product of Newt Gingrich.In a review of The Destructionists, a new book about the history of the Republicans, by Post columnist Dana Milbank, Christopher Buckley summed up the record of the former House speaker:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; width: 602.542px; line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px;">It was Newt who pushed the Ur-rightwing nutjob conspiracy that Clinton aide Vince Foster was murdered. That big little lie metastasized a quarter-century later into 'Stop the Steal.'

It was Newt who defended right-wing militias after Timothy McVeigh murdered 168 people in Oklahoma City.

And it was Newt who, while leading a hot steaming mess of a personal life, fiercely agitated to oust Bill Clinton for playing hide-the-cigar with a 20-something intern.
</blockquote>Gingrich brought sedition into the Republican Party.From that point until today, taxes from the Republican point of view were no longer constructive investments in nation-building. They were wrong. They were robbery. They were politically illegitimate.They were the basis for a revolt.Mainstreaming militiasNot a democratic revolt.Gingrich escalated the Republicans’ militant rhetoric by including “the new, decidedly insurrectionist interpretation of the Second Amendment,” wrote James R. Skillen last year, “namely that the founders had written the amendment precisely so that individual citizens would have guns to use against government tyrants.”With that, Gingrich established the party’s paramilitary wing.It was paranoid. It was armed. It was violent.It was perfect. Skillen wrote:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; width: 602.542px; line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px;">While Gingrich, [Texas Congressman] Dick Armey, and other leaders did claim that the time for insurrection had come, they expanded the GOP coalition to include militias, whose members were literally preparing for war with the federal government.

The militias remained at the party’s margins only because mainstream Republicans did not yet share their dark conspiracy theories, including the belief that communists had taken control of the federal government or that the military was preparing internment camps for American citizens.
</blockquote>Burning a countryDonald Trump was elected in a backlash against the country’s first Black president. That backlash didn’t come from nowhere. Its funding, its organization and its rhetoric were all firmly planted.Gingrich had brought sedition into the Republican Party. He had wrapped insurrection in the flag and the US Constitution. He had made respectable the starving of the government of revenue, as if it were just another valid point of view. He had demanded freedom!He had made it possible for Ted Cruz to look us in the face and say 87,000 IRS agents are going to descend “like a swarm of locusts.”By 2010, the GOP was ready to foment, as Buckley said, “a racial backlash against Barack Obama, turning ‘itself into the party of white grievance. All that was left for Trump to do was to light a match.’”But it didn’t just burn a Black president.It burned a country.[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/gop-extremism-democrats-midterm-prospects/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="self" title="view post: How GOP extremism may boost Democrats' midterms prospects" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; outline: 0px;">How GOP extremism may boost Democrats' midterms prospects</a><div>=]]</div><div>
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</div><div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2010/10/ginni_thomas_think_tank_allied_with_group_that_celebrates_spanish_inquisition/">https://www.alternet.org/2010/10/ginni_thomas_think_tank_allied_with_group_that_celebrates_spanish_inquisitio</a>n/</div><div>
</div><div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2647218553"><div class="body-description">In recent days, the media has turned its attention to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- not for her troubling ties to right-wing extremist groups, but for her bizarre demand for an apology from the woman who accused her husband of sexual harassment more than a decade ago. Yet Mrs. Thomas' Tea Party think tank, Liberty Central, promotes the causes of groups that take pride in intolerance, including one right-wing Catholic group, Tradition, Family and Property, whose founder declared the Spanish Inquisition "the most beautiful page in the history of the Church."Earlier this year, <a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/reproductivejustice/147464/tea_party_think_tank_headed_by_clarence_thomas%27_wife_makes_common_cause_with_militia_guru_larry_pratt/?page=entire" class="rm-stats-tracked">AlterNet reported</a> on Liberty Central's embrace of Gun Owners of America, whose president, Larry Pratt -- guru to the militia movement -- unapologetically addressed a rally of white supremacists in 1992, and more recently told attendees of a gun owners' rally in Washington, D.C., that they are "at war" with the federal government. We also looked at Liberty Central's relationship with the <a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/group-allied-with-ginni-thomas-think-tank-threatens-armed-insurrection/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Missouri Sovereignty Project</a>, which threatens armed insurrection against the government. Since then, Thomas has added to the "<a href="http://www.libertycentral.org/friends-of-liberty-central" class="rm-stats-tracked">Friends of Liberty Central</a>" page on her think tank's Web site a plug for Tradition, Family and Property, a virulently anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-democratic Catholic group founded in 1960 in opposition to Brazilian land reform.TFP has long enjoyed ties to the far right in American politics, including the <a href="http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/some-notes-on-tradition-family-and-property-in-south-africa/" class="rm-stats-tracked">International Freedom Foundation</a>, which existed primarily as an American front group for the apartheid regime in South Africa during the Reagan years, according to researcher Richard Bartholomew, and was once led by convicted felon and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But TFP is better known for its role in promoting and supporting authoritarian regimes in South America. <a href="http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/some-notes-on-tradition-family-and-property-in-south-africa/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Here's Bartholomew</a>:<blockquote>TFP played a role in the 1964 coup in Brazil, and in Uruguay it allegedly received explosives from the Brazilian military attaché that were used to attack communist installations. The editor of TFP's Chilean magazine, Jaime Guzmán, became chief ideologist for General Pinochet's regime.</blockquote>If TFP's activities on behalf of torturers and anti-democratic forces weren't enough to give one pause, there's its status as a cult. TFP is an all-male organization that finds its recruits among adolescent boys, whom it trains in the use of the combat regalia of the Middle Ages -- maces, crossbows, and the like -- according to the late Penny Lernoux's 1989 book, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism. The medieval games in which the boys partake are so brutal, Lernoux reported, that one recruit told her his arm had been broken three times in the exercises.The medieval games continue today. Last July, TFP sponsored a 10-day "Call to Chivalry" camp in rural Louisiana, where, <a href="http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/what-we-do/call-to-chivalry-camps/chivalry-inspires-a-new-generation-at-tfp-camp.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">according to the group's Web site</a>, boys and young men took part:<blockquote>Some new skills were learned such as medieval spear throwing and archery. Mock sword battles with padded weapons were a great success as were paintball wars in the thick tropical-looking forest surrounding the property. An exhausting hike in the Tunica Hills Park taught a poignant lesson of endurance.</blockquote>At the time Lernoux was reporting, recruits were taught to worship not only the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holiest woman in Catholicism, but also the flesh-and-blood mother of TFP founder Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, whom he referred to as Santa Monica. Oliveira, who died in 1995,  loved the Spanish Inquisition, he wrote, "because, while it went on, the Catholic Church managed to cleanse itself of heretics." (Never mind that many of those so-called heretics were Jews who wanted nothing more than to practice their own faith, or people whose politics were inconvenient to the Spanish throne.)I first learned of the American branch of TFP by stumbling upon one of their demonstrations in midtown Manhattan in the late 1980s, when the group was coddled by the late Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor. They often assembled on the sidewalk near St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, decked out in red polyester sashes emblazoned with a yellow lion. Their big issue at that moment was the criminalization of flag desecration, which was a lure for collecting names and addresses on petition forms. I remember feeling disconcerted by their need to videotape each interaction they had with those they were trying to attract.The group remains active in New York, though its red-sashed members are as likely to be seen in lower Manhattan than around the cathedral.The Catholic crusades against the Muslim world are viewed as a time of glory by the devotees of TFP. Roberto de Mattei, who wrote a friendly biography of Oliveira and is said to be close to TFP, presented his revisionist history of the crusades at a <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/european_football/article743063.ece" class="rm-stats-tracked">2006 conference</a> at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome. TFP is expressing its embrace of the medieval crusades in the <a href="http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/fighting-for-our-culture/the-ground-zero-mosque-and-the-clash-of-symbols.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">chorus of intolerance</a> raised against the Parc51 Islamic cultural center planned for lower Manhattan, dispatching student volunteers to a September protest at the site where the World Trade Center once stood. (TFP video <a href="http://www.tfp.org/current-campaigns/2010/america-says-no-to-mega-mosque.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">here</a>.)TFP maintains a presence on the campuses of U.S. Catholic colleges, and currently sponsors a petition drive to <a href="http://www.tfpstudentaction.net/campaigns/chronocontact/protest_1001.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">purge them</a> of LGBT rights groups. It describes a Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the suit that struck down anti-sodomy laws, as America's "Moral 9/11." Clarence Thomas, incidentally, joined Antonin Scalia's dissent in that case, which accused the court's majority of having "largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."Related stories:<a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/reproductivejustice/147464/tea_party_think_tank_headed_by_clarence_thomas%27_wife_makes_common_cause_with_militia_guru_larry_pratt/?page=entire" class="rm-stats-tracked">Tea Party Think Tank Headed By Clarence Thomas' Wife Makes Common Cause With Militia Guru Larry Pratt</a><a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/group-allied-with-ginni-thomas-think-tank-threatens-armed-insurrection/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Group Allied With Ginni Thomas' Think Tank Threatens Armed Insurrection</a><a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/10/22/will-clarence-thomas-wife-demand-apology-from-latest-accuser-its-his-ex-girlfriend/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Will Clarence Thomas' Wife Demand Apology From Latest Accuser? (It's His Ex-Girlfriend)</a></div></div></div><div>
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<div class="primary-cli cli cli-text ">Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has a new job, running a think-tank she founded to appeal to Tea Party supporters. Liberty Central, according to Kenneth P. Vogel, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html#ixzz0t2kdhGzl" class="rm-stats-tracked">writing in Politico</a>, "appears to be positioning itself as a hybrid think tank/advocacy group/campaign arm for the tea party movement."Thomas herself explained it this way to Human Events magazine, Vogel reports:<blockquote>“I’m getting to know the Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” Thomas <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37683" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">told Human Events</a> late last month. “What I think I can bring to the table is a connective (t)issue between the new people and the old people.”</blockquote>On the Liberty Central Web site, visitors are urged to sign a "<a href="http://www.libertycentral.org/pledge-to-activism" class="rm-stats-tracked">pledge to activism</a>" that states the organization's commitment to small government, saying, in part:<blockquote>In an effort to hold their government accountable to its constitutional limitations, many Americans have voiced their opposition to a “Big Government” agenda through protests and election upsets only to be blatantly ignored by many elected representatives,Therefore, I pledge to be more informed and more active, and encourage others to do likewise, in order to maximize my impact and influence in preserving, protecting and promoting liberty, freedom, and limited Constitutional government in America.</blockquote>Call it the Great Convergence, this coming together of old-guard groups and extremists under the Tea Party brand -- something perhaps that only someone close to a major power center in the U.S. government could pull off. Unlike grassroots Tea Party organizations that struggle for donations, Thomas got off to a quick start last year with two large donations, according to Politico -- one for $50,000 and another for $500,000 -- whose sources the group declines to disclose. (One imagines that for certain players on the legislative field -- especially those signing on to cases that might come before the high court -- saying "I gave at the office" to the spouse of a sitting justice might not come so easily.)AlterNet took a spin through Thomas' Web site, to see if we could get a sense of who might be showing her some love. What we found was a cadre of groups listed as "friends" -- ranging from the typical Tea Party Inc. types, such as FreedomWorks, to the downright radical, like Gun Owners of America, led by executive director Larry Pratt.In our ongoing chronicle of right-wing events, we last left <a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/news/146544/low_turnout_at_gun_march_the_nra%27s_fault,organizer_says?page=1" class="rm-stats-tracked">Larry Pratt at the 2nd Amendment March on Washington</a>, where he appeared to be calling for war against the U.S. government. The 2nd Amendment March wasn't really a march at all, but a rally on the grounds of the Washington monument of some 2,000 gun owners that took place April 19 -- the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing by self-styled militiaman Timothy McVeigh. (The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building took the lives of 168 innocents, including 19 children under the age of six.)When Pratt took the stage on the grounds of the Washington monument about 15 years later, he could barely contain his ire for former President Bill Clinton, who was in office at the time of McVeigh's act of mass murder. On the day of the rally, Clinton published an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19clinton.html?r=1&ref=opinion" class="rm-stats-tracked">op-ed</a> that seemed to be aimed at the gun owners convening on the Mall in which he urged readers not to forget that McVeigh's act was born of the belief that government is the enemy. "[W]e must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged," <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19clinton.html?_r=1&ref=opinion" class="rm-stats-tracked">he wrote</a>.At the gun rally, Pratt expressed his displeasure at Clinton's admonition, and at the attendance of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at an Oklahoma City ceremony commemorating the lives lost in the bombing. "I look around: it's so good to see all these terrorists out here," Pratt said to the gun activists. "Janet Napolitano, she figured, as governor of Arizona, that we didn't have a border problem, but she knows who the real enemy is. Ha, ha, ha, ha.[HIM/THEM? WHY?] And Bill Clinton's been runnin' cover for her, too. Watch out how you guys speak out there, you know, words can have consequences."Remember Oklahoma City?" Pratt continued. "Yeah, I do. And I also remember the Waco barbecue that your attorney general gave us. Thanks a lot...We're in a war. The other side knows they're at war, because they started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because they're a bunch of socialists."Is Larry Pratt's anti-government "war" the sort of activism that Ginni Thomas, CEO of Liberty Central and wife of a member of the high court, would condone? [YOU BETCHA]
It is highly unlikely that Pratt's bitter rhetoric is a secret to Ginni Thomas. Pratt is no stranger to controversy. He's an unabashed supporter of the militia movement; his 1990 book, Armed People Victorious, is viewed by many in the movement as an inspirational text.
In 1996, Pratt was forced to resign his role as an adviser to Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign when it was revealed that, in 1992, he addressed a gathering of white supremacists in Estes, Colorado. Included on the roster of speakers that day were neo-Nazis and militia advocates, including Louis Beam, a former Texas Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who had taken his cause over to the Aryan Nation organization. The meeting had been called by Pete Peters, then leader of the Christian Identity movement, whose theology states that black people are subhuman and Jews are the spawn of Satan.Pratt came to make clear his advocacy for unfettered gun rights. "The Second Amendment ain't about duck hunting," he told the crowd, according reporter Leonard Zeskind, <a href="http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia7.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">reporting in Rolling Stone</a>. Pratt explained that he bought his first gun during the 1968 riots that engulfed Washington, D.C., in the wake of the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "If they'd had that assault rifle, so-called, for sale, and I'd seen that big old magazine there at the time, that's exactly what I would have bought," Pratt said, according to Rolling Stone.Pratt represents a kind of pivot point between the right-wing extreme and the right-wing establishment. While Pratt is cozy with Howard Phillips, the Christian Reconstructionist founder of the Constitution Party, he's also friendly with former House Majority Leader Richard Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, the kingpin of Tea Party Inc. astroturf groups. Armey once served on the advisory board of the now-defunct Family Foundation, an organization founded by Pratt, that housed an anti-immigrant group, English First (which still exists). Ginni Thomas worked as an aide to Armey when he served in Congress in the GOP leadership, according to Politico. Today, Armey chairs FreedomWorks, the powerful Washington, D.C., organization that helped organize last summer's disruptions of town-hall meetings conducted by members of Congress about health care reform legislation. FreedomWorks also sponsored the stage program at the conclusion of last fall's 912 march on Washington, and an anti-health care rally on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol last spring. Ginni Thomas also worked with FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe when both were on staff at the anti-regulatory lobbying group, the Chamber of Commerce. Like FreedomWorks, in last month's GOP primary runoff for Utah's U.S. Senate seat, Thomas' Liberty Central endorsed Tea Party candidate Mike Lee (the only candidate Liberty Central has endorsed so far).Gun Owners of America is hardly the only eyebrow-raising friend listed on Liberty Central's Web site -- just the most extreme. Also nestled amid the group of 32 largely establishment outfits such as the Hudson Institute and the National Taxpayers Union, is Concerned Women for America, which has been on an <a href="http://www.cwfa.org/articles/18936/CFI/nation/index.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">anti-gay tear</a> for the last two decades, and ParcBench.com, which currently features a <a href="http://www.parcbench.com/2010/07/03/obama-commits-high-treason-if-you-say-nothing-youre-an-accomplice/" class="rm-stats-tracked">post alleging</a> that President Barack Obama committed treason when he presided over a session of the U.N. Security Council last fall -- and that his administration <a href="http://www.parcbench.com/2010/07/07/o-ministration-dont-prosecute-vote-crimes-where-whites-are-the-victims/" class="rm-stats-tracked">won't prosecute violations of voting laws</a> committed when white people are the victims.Gun Owners of America frequently participates in lawsuits headed for the high court, and its attorney, <a href="http://gunowners.org/a070210.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">William J. Olson, testified</a> against the nomination of Elena Kagan to the bench of the high court at last week's Senate hearings. Likewise, Concerned Women for America also features an <a href="http://www.cwfa.org/articles/19135/LEGAL/scourt/index.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">anti-Kagan post</a> on the front page of its Web site. Not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, but it seems a bit untoward that the spouse of a sitting justice is running an organization that forges alliances with groups arrayed against her husband's next new colleague.But more disturbing than that is the fact that Ginni Thomas, who shares her life with one of the most powerful men in the United States government, should use her social standing to recruit people to rage against the government in the company of the likes of Larry Pratt.</div></div></div><div>}}</div><div>=<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB861917340688900500" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB861917340688900500</a>
clinton jihad:
<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">no lnx<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">By Edward Felsenthal and David Rogers Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">April 25, 1997 <p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">WASHINGTON -- Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had to force herself to be pleasant when she met Hillary Clinton for the first time four years ago.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Mrs. Clinton had been an outspoken supporter of Anita Hill, the woman who had famously accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearings. Ms. Thomas couldn't get the association out of her mind.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">"For me, it was, 'Wow, now I have to, in my role, be respectful and cordial and courteous,' " Ms. Thomas recalls thinking as she moved through a receiving line toward the new first lady. Although the brief encounter was awkward for her, Ms. Thomas says she was proud of how she handled it. She gave Mrs. Clinton some verses from the Bible, along with a warning about how tough this city can be.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Today Ms. Thomas feels a kinship with Mrs. Clinton. Like the first lady, she is best known as the spouse of a prominent man. But also like Mrs. Clinton, she has become a controversial political player and has been the subject of vigorous public criticism for her partisan activities.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Although she takes pains to carve out her own identity, Ms. Thomas, 40 years old, is inevitably linked with her husband in much of what she does. "A lot of people treat her a certain way ... because of who she is married to," says radio-host Armstrong Williams, a former close aide and a friend to Justice Thomas.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Awkward Predicament<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Ms. Thomas says there are challenges that come with "being a Supreme Court spouse, as opposed to just a lawyer working in Washington." Her dual role highlights an increasingly common political phenomenon: Now that many political partners are professionals themselves, they face an awkward predicament. Many find they have to struggle to avoid being used as political tools or being perceived as benefiting from their spouse's position.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Barbara Olson, an aide to the Senate leadership who has worked in congressional investigations of the Clinton administration, has been a target of Democratic sniping that she is a proxy for her husband, Theodore Olson, a prominent lawyer who has represented one of the president's accusers in the Whitewater affair. Republicans in the last Congress delighted in cutting money for a small anticrime program that paid consulting fees to Sylvia Panetta, wife of then-White House Chief-of-Staff Leon Panetta. That put Mr. Panetta in the uncomfortable position of having to fight to get the money back.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-image="background-image" initial="initial" background-position="background-position" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Ms. Thomas had already made a name for herself as an activist in conservative circles before Republicans took over Congress in 1994. But her influence grew after that election when her boss, Rep. Dick Armey of Texas, became House majority leader.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Ms. Thomas operates much as an eager young administrative officer back at the base camp for the Republican infantry. She works behind the scenes, serving as part strategist and part cheerleader for the leadership's effort to beef-up the GOP's ability to investigate and oversee the White House and executive agencies.[benghazi much later?] <p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Partisan Battles<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">It is a role that takes her from dry, detailed General Accounting Office reports to the higher-profile and more partisan-edged investigations of administration scandals. She has assisted with the investigations of White House ethics, Whitewater, the firing of the White House travel staff, and the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's financial dealings. When Republicans approved an expanded budget for House committee investigations last month, the move partly reflected Ms. Thomas's influence.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">She has figured in several high-profile fights involving the House Appropriations Committee. Over the objections of some Republicans on the committee, she pressed hard for deep cuts in funding to Legal Services Corp., a provider of legal aid to the poor that she viewed as using federal money to advance liberal causes.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">And in a stormy panel meeting in 1995, she stood watch on behalf of Mr. Armey as Republicans reluctantly lined up behind a leadership attempt to bar funding for nonprofit organizations that engage in advocacy, in many cases for poor constituencies. The measure ultimately failed because of opposition in the Senate.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">During this Congress, Ms. Thomas has stepped back, as the leadership has relaxed its efforts to control committee chairmen. But she is still a force behind continuing investigations, and before last year's election she helped gather information on White House scandals for Republicans to use on the campaign trail. (That project was abandoned after word of its existence leaked, prompting concern that it would make Republicans look like scandalmongers.)<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">A memo this past January titled "Foreign Money Contributions Scandal" illustrates Ms. Thomas's style. Throwing as wide a net as possible, she addressed it to Republican staff on 19 committees, including the sensitive Intelligence panel. In it, she cited statutes or regulations that might have been violated by overseas contributions to Democrats. She urged staff directors to be "watchful" for administration efforts to dismiss problems as just "campaign finance." Ms. Thomas wrote, "what we don't know is how much was for sale in the Clinton presidency."<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Though Ms. Thomas is good-humored and engaging, her writing sometimes gets her into trouble. Much of her job is simply informational: She helps produce a biweekly "Oversight Bulletin" publicizing current investigations. But when she pens strategy, she betrays a partisan edge that makes experienced staff directors blanch.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">A case in point is an April 1996 memo she wrote for Republican congressmen Bob Walker and Jim Nussle and sent to House committees, asking for "examples of dishonesty or ethical lapses in the Clinton administration" and "anecdotes that amplify these areas." The memo requested that all such materials be sent to her as quickly as possible and reminded committee chairs that "you are a tremendous resource for this project."<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Democratic Backlash<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Democrats quickly turned Ms. Thomas's memo on the Republicans, claiming it proved that the investigations were partisan. During one hearing, Democrats blew up the memo and posted it on an easel to suggest that the proceeding was part of a GOP plot to denigrate the administration.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Even some Republican staff members complained that it went too far. "It didn't dawn on her that in Congress, things aren't supposed to appear politically driven," even if they are, says a senior GOP aide who has worked with her.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">In May, two weeks after the memo was distributed, Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia spotted Ms. Thomas in the audience at a hearing on the White House travel-office firings. In a rare public attack on a congressional staffer, he demanded to know why "Mrs. Clarence Thomas in that bright blue dress" was present. "I really smell a political witch hunt," he said.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Ms. Thomas didn't endure the attack silently. Later that day, she confronted Mr. Moran on a House elevator and showed him a copy of a book, "Everything Men Know About Women," in which all the pages are blank. "This book is about you," she said. Justice Thomas later left his wife a voice-mail message in which he teasingly sang verses of the song, "Devil With a Blue Dress On."<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Spousal Conflict?<p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" padding="padding" px="px" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" line-height="line-height" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, who also questioned Ms. Thomas's role at the travel-office hearing, believes it is a conflict of interest for her to be involved in disputes between Congress and the White House that the Supreme Court might be called on to settle. "We may have a problem here where the marital relationship confuses the constitutional intent" of the separation of powers, Mr. Kanjorski says. Ms. Thomas laughs when told of Mr. Kanjorski's statement, but declines to comment....</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div>context, see below
<div>
</div><div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2010/10/ginni_thomas_think_tank_allied_with_group_that_celebrates_spanish_inquisition/">https://www.alternet.org/2010/10/ginni_thomas_think_tank_allied_with_group_that_celebrates_spanish_inquisitio</a>n/</div><div>
</div><div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2647218553"><div class="body-description">In

recent days, the media has turned its attention to Ginni Thomas, wife

of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- not for her troubling ties

to right-wing extremist groups, but for her bizarre demand for an

apology from the woman who accused her husband of sexual harassment more

than a decade ago. Yet Mrs. Thomas' Tea Party think tank, Liberty

Central, promotes the causes of groups that take pride in intolerance,

including one right-wing Catholic group, Tradition, Family and Property,

whose founder declared the Spanish Inquisition "the most beautiful page

in the history of the Church."Earlier this year, <a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/reproductivejustice/147464/tea_party_think_tank_headed_by_clarence_thomas%27_wife_makes_common_cause_with_militia_guru_larry_pratt/?page=entire" class="rm-stats-tracked">AlterNet reported</a>

on Liberty Central's embrace of Gun Owners of America, whose president,

Larry Pratt -- guru to the militia movement -- unapologetically

addressed a rally of white supremacists in 1992, and more recently told

attendees of a gun owners' rally in Washington, D.C., that they are "at

war" with the federal government. We also looked at Liberty Central's

relationship with the <a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/group-allied-with-ginni-thomas-think-tank-threatens-armed-insurrection/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Missouri Sovereignty Project</a>, which threatens armed insurrection against the government. Since then, Thomas has added to the "<a href="http://www.libertycentral.org/friends-of-liberty-central" class="rm-stats-tracked">Friends of Liberty Central</a>"

page on her think tank's Web site a plug for Tradition, Family and

Property, a virulently anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-democratic Catholic

group founded in 1960 in opposition to Brazilian land reform.TFP has long enjoyed ties to the far right in American politics, including the <a href="http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/some-notes-on-tradition-family-and-property-in-south-africa/" class="rm-stats-tracked">International Freedom Foundation</a>,

which existed primarily as an American front group for the apartheid

regime in South Africa during the Reagan years, according to researcher

Richard Bartholomew, and was once led by convicted felon and former

lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But TFP is better known for its role in

promoting and supporting authoritarian regimes in South America. <a href="http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/some-notes-on-tradition-family-and-property-in-south-africa/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Here's Bartholomew</a>:<blockquote>TFP

played a role in the 1964 coup in Brazil, and in Uruguay it allegedly

received explosives from the Brazilian military attaché that were used

to attack communist installations. The editor of TFP's Chilean magazine,

Jaime Guzmán, became chief ideologist for General Pinochet's regime.</blockquote>If

TFP's activities on behalf of torturers and anti-democratic forces

weren't enough to give one pause, there's its status as a cult. TFP is

an all-male organization that finds its recruits among adolescent boys,

whom it trains in the use of the combat regalia of the Middle Ages --

maces, crossbows, and the like -- according to the late Penny Lernoux's

1989 book, People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism.

The medieval games in which the boys partake are so brutal, Lernoux

reported, that one recruit told her his arm had been broken three times

in the exercises.The medieval games continue today. Last July, TFP sponsored a 10-day "Call to Chivalry" camp in rural Louisiana, where, <a href="http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/what-we-do/call-to-chivalry-camps/chivalry-inspires-a-new-generation-at-tfp-camp.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">according to the group's Web site</a>, boys and young men took part:<blockquote>Some

new skills were learned such as medieval spear throwing and archery.

Mock sword battles with padded weapons were a great success as were

paintball wars in the thick tropical-looking forest surrounding the

property. An exhausting hike in the Tunica Hills Park taught a poignant

lesson of endurance.</blockquote>At the time Lernoux was

reporting, recruits were taught to worship not only the Blessed Virgin

Mary, the holiest woman in Catholicism, but also the flesh-and-blood

mother of TFP founder Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, whom he referred to as

Santa Monica. Oliveira, who died in 1995,  loved the Spanish

Inquisition, he wrote, "because, while it went on, the Catholic Church

managed to cleanse itself of heretics." (Never mind that many of those

so-called heretics were Jews who wanted nothing more than to practice

their own faith, or people whose politics were inconvenient to the

Spanish throne.)I first learned of the American branch of TFP by

stumbling upon one of their demonstrations in midtown Manhattan in the

late 1980s, when the group was coddled by the late Archbishop John

Cardinal O'Connor. They often assembled on the sidewalk near St.

Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, decked out in red polyester sashes

emblazoned with a yellow lion. Their big issue at that moment was the

criminalization of flag desecration, which was a lure for collecting

names and addresses on petition forms. I remember feeling disconcerted

by their need to videotape each interaction they had with those they

were trying to attract.The group remains active in New York,

though its red-sashed members are as likely to be seen in lower

Manhattan than around the cathedral.The Catholic crusades against

the Muslim world are viewed as a time of glory by the devotees of TFP.

Roberto de Mattei, who wrote a friendly biography of Oliveira and is

said to be close to TFP, presented his revisionist history of the

crusades at a <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/european_football/article743063.ece" class="rm-stats-tracked">2006 conference</a> at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome. TFP is expressing its embrace of the medieval crusades in the <a href="http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/fighting-for-our-culture/the-ground-zero-mosque-and-the-clash-of-symbols.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">chorus of intolerance</a>

raised against the Parc51 Islamic cultural center planned for lower

Manhattan, dispatching student volunteers to a September protest at the

site where the World Trade Center once stood. (TFP video <a href="http://www.tfp.org/current-campaigns/2010/america-says-no-to-mega-mosque.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">here</a>.)TFP maintains a presence on the campuses of U.S. Catholic colleges, and currently sponsors a petition drive to <a href="http://www.tfpstudentaction.net/campaigns/chronocontact/protest_1001.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">purge them</a> of LGBT rights groups. It describes a Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas,

the suit that struck down anti-sodomy laws, as America's "Moral 9/11."

Clarence Thomas, incidentally, joined Antonin Scalia's dissent in that

case, which accused the court's majority of having "largely signed on to

the so-called homosexual agenda."Related stories:<a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/reproductivejustice/147464/tea_party_think_tank_headed_by_clarence_thomas%27_wife_makes_common_cause_with_militia_guru_larry_pratt/?page=entire" class="rm-stats-tracked">Tea Party Think Tank Headed By Clarence Thomas' Wife Makes Common Cause With Militia Guru Larry Pratt</a><a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/group-allied-with-ginni-thomas-think-tank-threatens-armed-insurrection/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Group Allied With Ginni Thomas' Think Tank Threatens Armed Insurrection</a><a href="http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/10/22/will-clarence-thomas-wife-demand-apology-from-latest-accuser-its-his-ex-girlfriend/" class="rm-stats-tracked">Will Clarence Thomas' Wife Demand Apology From Latest Accuser? (It's His Ex-Girlfriend)</a></div>

    </div></div><div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div><div><br /><div class="primary-cli cli cli-text "><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence

Thomas, has a new job, running a think-tank she founded to appeal to Tea

Party supporters. Liberty Central, according to Kenneth P. Vogel, <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39426.html#ixzz0t2kdhGzl" class="rm-stats-tracked">writing in Politico</a>, "appears to be positioning itself as a hybrid think tank/advocacy group/campaign arm for the tea party movement."Thomas herself explained it this way to Human Events magazine, Vogel reports:<blockquote>“I’m getting to know the Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” Thomas <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37683" target="_blank" class="rm-stats-tracked">told Human Events</a> late last month. “What I think I can bring to the table is a connective (t)issue between the new people and the old people.”</blockquote>On the Liberty Central Web site, visitors are urged to sign a "<a href="http://www.libertycentral.org/pledge-to-activism" class="rm-stats-tracked">pledge to activism</a>" that states the organization's commitment to small government, saying, in part:<blockquote>In

an effort to hold their government accountable to its constitutional

limitations, many Americans have voiced their opposition to a “Big

Government” agenda through protests and election upsets only to be

blatantly ignored by many elected representatives,Therefore, I

pledge to be more informed and more active, and encourage others to do

likewise, in order to maximize my impact and influence in preserving,

protecting and promoting liberty, freedom, and limited Constitutional

government in America.</blockquote>Call it the Great Convergence,

this coming together of old-guard groups and extremists under the Tea

Party brand -- something perhaps that only someone close to a major

power center in the U.S. government could pull off. Unlike grassroots

Tea Party organizations that struggle for donations, Thomas got off to a

quick start last year with two large donations, according to Politico

-- one for $50,000 and another for $500,000 -- whose sources the group

declines to disclose. (One imagines that for certain players on the

legislative field -- especially those signing on to cases that might

come before the high court -- saying "I gave at the office" to the

spouse of a sitting justice might not come so easily.)AlterNet

took a spin through Thomas' Web site, to see if we could get a sense of

who might be showing her some love. What we found was a cadre of groups

listed as "friends" -- ranging from the typical Tea Party Inc. types,

such as FreedomWorks, to the downright radical, like Gun Owners of

America, led by executive director Larry Pratt.In our ongoing chronicle of right-wing events, we last left <a href="http://alternettest.wpengine.com/news/146544/low_turnout_at_gun_march_the_nra%27s_fault,_organizer_says?page=1" class="rm-stats-tracked">Larry Pratt at the 2nd Amendment March on Washington</a>,

where he appeared to be calling for war against the U.S. government.

The 2nd Amendment March wasn't really a march at all, but a rally on the

grounds of the Washington monument of some 2,000 gun owners that took

place April 19 -- the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing by

self-styled militiaman Timothy McVeigh. (The bombing of the Alfred P.

Murrah federal office building took the lives of 168 innocents,

including 19 children under the age of six.)When Pratt took the

stage on the grounds of the Washington monument about 15 years later, he

could barely contain his ire for former President Bill Clinton, who was

in office at the time of McVeigh's act of mass murder. On the day of

the rally, Clinton published an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19clinton.html?_r=1&ref=opinion" class="rm-stats-tracked">op-ed</a>

that seemed to be aimed at the gun owners convening on the Mall in

which he urged readers not to forget that McVeigh's act was born of the

belief that government is the enemy. "[W]e must all assume

responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged," <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19clinton.html?_r=1&ref=opinion" class="rm-stats-tracked">he wrote</a>.At

the gun rally, Pratt expressed his displeasure at Clinton's admonition,

and at the attendance of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

at an Oklahoma City ceremony commemorating the lives lost in the

bombing. "I look around: it's so good to see all these terrorists out

here," Pratt said to the gun activists. "Janet Napolitano, she

figured, as governor of Arizona, that we didn't have a border problem,

but she knows who the real enemy is. Ha, ha, ha, ha. And Bill

Clinton's been runnin' cover for her, too. Watch out how you guys

speak out there, you know, words can have consequences."Remember

Oklahoma City?" Pratt continued. "Yeah, I do. And I also remember the

Waco barbecue that your attorney general gave us. Thanks a

lot...We're in a war. The other side knows they're at war, because they

started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for our

kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because they're a

bunch of socialists."Is Larry Pratt's anti-government "war" the

sort of activism that Ginni Thomas, CEO of Liberty Central and wife of a

member of the high court, would condone? [YOU BETCHA]
It is highly unlikely

that Pratt's bitter rhetoric is a secret to Ginni Thomas. Pratt is no

stranger to controversy. He's an unabashed supporter of the militia

movement; his 1990 book, Armed People Victorious, is viewed by many in the movement as an inspirational text.
In

1996, Pratt was forced to resign his role as an adviser to Pat

Buchanan's presidential campaign when it was revealed that, in 1992, he

addressed a gathering of white supremacists in Estes, Colorado. Included

on the roster of speakers that day were neo-Nazis and militia

advocates, including Louis Beam, a former Texas Grand Dragon of the Ku

Klux Klan who had taken his cause over to the Aryan Nation organization.

The meeting had been called by Pete Peters, then leader of the

Christian Identity movement, whose theology states that black people are

subhuman and Jews are the spawn of Satan.Pratt came to make

clear his advocacy for unfettered gun rights. "The Second Amendment

ain't about duck hunting," he told the crowd, according reporter Leonard

Zeskind, <a href="http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia7.html" class="rm-stats-tracked">reporting in Rolling Stone</a>.

Pratt explained that he bought his first gun during the 1968 riots that

engulfed Washington, D.C., in the wake of the killing of Dr. Martin

Luther King, Jr. "If they'd had that assault rifle, so-called, for sale,

and I'd seen that big old magazine there at the time, that's exactly

what I would have bought," Pratt said, according to Rolling Stone.Pratt

represents a kind of pivot point between the right-wing extreme and the

right-wing establishment. While Pratt is cozy with Howard Phillips, the

Christian Reconstructionist founder of the Constitution Party, he's

also friendly with former House Majority Leader Richard Armey, the

chairman of FreedomWorks, the kingpin of Tea Party Inc. astroturf

groups. Armey once served on the advisory board of the now-defunct

Family Foundation, an organization founded by Pratt, that housed an

anti-immigrant group, English First (which still exists). Ginni

Thomas worked as an aide to Armey when he served in Congress in the GOP

leadership, according to Politico. Today, Armey chairs FreedomWorks, the

powerful Washington, D.C., organization that helped organize last

summer's disruptions of town-hall meetings conducted by members of

Congress about health care reform legislation. FreedomWorks also

sponsored the stage program at the conclusion of last fall's 912 march [TRUMP? BECK]

on Washington, and an anti-health care rally on the grounds of the U.S.

Capitol last spring. Ginni Thomas also worked with FreedomWorks

President Matt Kibbe when both were on staff at the anti-regulatory

lobbying group, the Chamber of Commerce. Like FreedomWorks, in last

month's GOP primary runoff for Utah's U.S. Senate seat, Thomas' Liberty

Central endorsed Tea Party candidate Mike Lee (the only candidate

Liberty Central has endorsed so far).Gun Owners of America is

hardly the only eyebrow-raising friend listed on Liberty Central's Web

site -- just the most extreme. Also nestled amid the group of 32 largely

establishment outfits such as the Hudson Institute and the National

Taxpayers Union, is Concerned Women for America, which has been on an <a href="http://www.cwfa.org/articles/18936/CFI/nation/index.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">anti-gay tear</a> for the last two decades, and ParcBench.com, which currently features a <a href="http://www.parcbench.com/2010/07/03/obama-commits-high-treason-if-you-say-nothing-youre-an-accomplice/" class="rm-stats-tracked">post alleging</a>

that President Barack Obama committed treason when he presided over a

session of the U.N. Security Council last fall -- and that his

administration <a href="http://www.parcbench.com/2010/07/07/o-ministration-dont-prosecute-vote-crimes-where-whites-are-the-victims/" class="rm-stats-tracked">won't prosecute violations of voting laws</a> committed when white people are the victims.Gun Owners of America frequently participates in lawsuits headed for the high court, and its attorney, <a href="http://gunowners.org/a070210.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">William J. Olson, testified</a>

against the nomination of Elena Kagan to the bench of the high court at

last week's Senate hearings. Likewise, Concerned Women for America also

features an <a href="http://www.cwfa.org/articles/19135/LEGAL/scourt/index.htm" class="rm-stats-tracked">anti-Kagan post</a>

on the front page of its Web site. Not that people aren't entitled to

their opinions, but it seems a bit untoward that the spouse of a sitting

justice is running an organization that forges alliances with groups

arrayed against her husband's next new colleague.But more

disturbing than that is the fact that Ginni Thomas, who shares her life

with one of the most powerful men in the United States government,

should use her social standing to recruit people to rage against the

government in the company of the likes of Larry Pratt.</div></div></div><div>==

religious right’s professed insistence upon “family values” might

appear at first blush to be at odds with the anything but saintly

personal behavior of many of its leading proponents. Some of this may be

due to the general inability of human beings to reflect on conflicting

information: I have never ceased to be amazed at how facts manage to

bounce off people’s consciousness like pebbles off armor plate. But

there is another, uniquely religious aspect that also comes into play:

the predilection of fundamentalist denominations to believe in practice,

even if not entirely in theory, in the doctrine of “cheap grace,” a

derisive term coined by the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. By that he

meant the inclination of some religious adherents to believe that once

they had been “saved,” not only would all past sins be wiped away, but

future ones, too—so one could pretty much behave as before. Cheap grace

is a divine get- out-of-jail-free card. Hence the tendency of the

religious base of the Republican Party to cut some slack for the

peccadilloes of candidates who claim to have been washed in the blood of

the Lamb and reborn to a new and more Christian life. The religious

right is willing to overlook a politician’s individual foibles, no

matter how poor an example he or she may make, if they publicly identify

with fundamentalist values. In 2011 the Family Research Council, the

fundamentalist lobbying organization, gave Representative Joe Walsh of

Illinois an award for “unwavering support of the family.” Representative

Walsh’s ex-wife might beg to differ, as she claims he owes her over one

hundred thousand dollars in unpaid child support, a charge he denies.Of

course, the proper rituals must be observed before an erring politician

can obtain absolution. In November 2011, at a forum sponsored by

religious conservatives in Iowa, all of the GOP presidential candidates

struck the expected notes of contrition and humility as they laid bare

their souls before the assembled congregation (the event was held in a

church). Most of them, including Cain, who was then still riding high,

choked up when discussing some bleak midnight of their lives (he chose

not to address the fresh sexual harassment charges against him, which

surely would have qualified as a trying personal experience preying on

his mind). Even the old reprobate Gingrich misted up over some contrived

misdeed intended to distract attention from his well-known adventures

in serial matrimony.All

of these gloomy obsequies of repentance having been observed, Gingrich

gave a stirring example of why he is hands-down the best extemporaneous

demagogue in contemporary America. Having purged his soul of all guilty

transgressions, he turned his attention to the far graver sins

bedeviling the American nation.<blockquote>If we look at history

from the mid-1960s, we’ve gone from a request for toleration to an

imposition of intolerance. We’ve gone from a request to understand

others to a determination to close down those who hold traditional

values. I think that we need to be very aggressive and very direct. The

degree to which the left is prepared to impose intolerance and to drive

out of existence traditional religion is a mortal threat to our

civilization and deserves to be taken head-on and described as what it

is, which is the use of government to repress the American people

against their own values.</blockquote>That is as good an example

as any of cheap grace as practiced by seasoned statesmen like Gingrich—a

bid for redemption turned on its head to provide a forum for one of the

Republican Party’s favorite pastimes: taking opportunistic swipes at

the dreaded liberal bogeyman. How quickly one forgets one’s own moral

lapses when one can consider the manifold harms inflicted on our nation

by godless leftists!- – - – - – - – - -Some liberal

writers have opined that the socioeconomic gulf separating the business

wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition

that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no basic disagreement on

which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how

far it should go. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age;

the theocrats to the Salem witch trials. If anything, the two groups are

increasingly beginning to resemble each other. Many televangelists have

espoused what has come to be known as the prosperity gospel—the

health-and- wealth/name-it-and-claim-it gospel of economic entitlement.

If you are wealthy, it is a sign of God’s favor. If not, too bad! This

rationale may explain why some poor voters will defend the prerogatives

of billionaires. In any case, at the beginning of the 2012 presidential

cycle, those consummate plutocrats the Koch brothers pumped money into

Bachmann’s campaign, so one should probably not make too much of a

potential plutocrat-theocrat split.Most

of the religious enthusiasts I observed during my tenure on the Hill

seemed to have little reluctance to mix God and Mammon. Rick Santorum

did not blink at legislative schemes to pay off his campaign

contributors: In 2005 he introduced a bill to forbid the National

Weather Service from providing weather forecasts for free that

commercial forecasters—like AccuWeather, a Pennsylvania- based company

which had contributed to his campaign—wanted to charge for. Tom DeLay’s

purported concern about the dignity and sanctity of human life,

touchingly on display during the controversy over whether Terri

Schiavo’s husband had the right to tell doctors to remove her feeding

tube after seeing her comatose for fifteen years, could always be

qualified by strategic infusions of campaign cash. DeLay’s quashing of

bills to prohibit serious labor abuses demonstrates that even religious

virtue can be flexible when there are campaign donations involved.One

might imagine that the religious right’s agenda would be incompatible

with the concerns for privacy and individual autonomy by those who

consider themselves to belong to the libertarian wing of the Republican

Party—the “don’t tread on me,” “live free or die” crowd that Grover

Norquist once called the “leave me alone” conservatives. Given their

profound distaste for an oppressive and intrusive federal government,

one would think they might have trepidations about a religious movement

determined to impose statutory controls on private behavior that

libertarians nominally hold to be nobody’s business, and particularly

not the government’s business.Some more libertarian-leaning

Republicans have in fact pushed back against the religious right. Former

House majority leader Dick Armey expressed his profound distaste for

the tactics of the religious right in 2006—from the safety of the

sidelines—by blasting its leadership in unequivocal terms:<blockquote>[James]

Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly

every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There’s a

high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools.

Demagoguery doesn’t work unless it’s dumb, shallow as water on a plate.

These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a

large demographic. These issues become bigger than life, largely because

they’re easy. There ain’t no thinking.</blockquote>Armey had

previously been an economics professor at several cow colleges in Texas,

and when he came to Congress in 1985, libertarian economics was his

forte. I do not recall religious issues motivating his political

ideology; instead, economics was what gripped him, particularly the flat

tax, which he tirelessly promoted. I believe his departure from

Congress was impelled not only by the fact that he was not on the inside

track to become Speaker, but also because of his disillusionment with

the culture wars, as his passionate denunciation of Dobson suggests. But

later, Barack Obama’s election and the rise of the Tea Party induced a

miraculous change of heart in Armey, as no doubt did the need to raise

money for his lobbying organization, known as FreedomWorks. By 2009,

Armey had become a significant voice of the Tea Party. As such, he

attempted to declare a truce between fiscal and social conservatives,

who would thenceforth bury their squabbles and concentrate on dethroning

the Kenyan usurper in the Oval Office. That meant soft-pedaling social

issues that might alarm fiscally conservative but socially moderate

voters, particularly women, who lived in the wealthier suburbs.In

September 2010 Armey took one step further in his reconciliation with

the people he had called thugs and bullies when he announced that a GOP

majority in Congress would again take up the abortion fight, which was

only right and proper for those who held such a sincere moral

conviction. When the Republicans duly won the House two months later,

they did precisely that. State legislatures across the country followed

suit: Ohio, Texas, and Virginia enacted the most severe abortion

restrictions in any legislative session in memory. Suddenly Armey didn’t

seem to have any problem with social issues preempting his economic

agenda.The Tea Party, which initially described itself as wholly

concerned with debt, deficit, and federal overreach, gradually unmasked

itself as being almost as theocratic as the activists from the religious

right that Armey had denounced only a few years before. If anything,

they were even slightly more disposed than the rest of the Republican

Party to inject religious issues into the political realm. According to

an academic study of the Tea Party, “[T]hey seek ‘deeply religious’

elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics

and want religion brought into political debates.” The Tea Party

faithful are not so much libertarian as authoritarian, the furthest

thing from a “live free or die” constitutionalist.Within the GOP

libertarianism is a throwaway doctrine that is rhetorically useful in

certain situations but often interferes with their core, more

authoritarian, beliefs. When the two precepts collide, the authoritarian

reflex prevails. In 2009 it was politically useful for the GOP to

present the Tea Party as independent-leaning libertarians, when in

reality the group was overwhelmingly Republican, with a high quotient of

GOP activists and adherents of views common among the religious right.

According to a 2010 Gallup poll, eight in ten Tea Party members identify

themselves as Republicans. Another study found that over half

identified as members of the religious right and 55 percent of Tea

Partiers agree that “America has always been and is currently a

Christian nation”—6 points more than even the percentage of

self-described Christian conservatives who would agree to that. This

religious orientation should have been evident from the brouhaha that

erupted in mid- 2009 over the charge that the Obama administration’s new

healthcare reform plan would set up “death panels.” While there was

plenty to criticize about the health-care bill, the completely bogus

charge garnered disproportionate attention. Republican political

consultants immediately recognized that they had found a classic

emotional issue that would resonate with the same people on the

religious right who had been stirred up over the Terri Schiavo case. The

Tea Party, a supposedly independent group of fiscal conservatives

outraged by Obama’s profligate spending plans, fell prey to the hysteria

Republican Party operatives whipped up over end-of- life counseling.

This self-unmasking of the Tea Party may help explain why, after three

years in existence, public support for the organization has been

dropping precipitously.Ayn Rand, an occasional darling of the Tea

Party, has become a cult figure within the GOP in recent years. It is

easy enough to see how her tough-guy, every-man-for-himself posturing

would be a natural fit with the Wall Street bankers and the right-wing

politicians they fund—notwithstanding the bankers’ fondness for

government bailouts. But Rand’s philosophy found most of its adherents

in the libertarian wing of the party, a group that overlaps with, but is

certainly not identical to, the “business conservatives” who fund the

bulk of the GOP’s activities. There has always been a strong strain of

rugged individualism in America, and the GOP has cleverly managed to

co-opt that spirit to its advantage. The problem is that Rand proclaimed

at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing

but contempt for Christianity as a religion of weaklings possessing a

slave mentality. So how do Republican candidates manage to bamboozle

what is perhaps the largest single bloc in their voting base, the

religious fundamentalists, about this? Certainly the ignorance of many

fundamentalist values voters about the wider world and the life of the

mind goes some distance toward explaining the paradox: GOP candidates

who enthuse over Rand at the same time as they thump their Bibles never

have to explain this stark contradiction because most of their audience

is blissfully unaware of who Ayn Rand was and what she advocated. But

voters can to some extent be forgiven their ignorance, because

politicians have grown so skillful at misdirecting them about their

intentions.This camouflaging of intentions is as much a strategy

of the religious right and its leaders—James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat

Robertson, and the rest—as it is of the GOP’s more secular political

leaders in Washington. After the debacle of the Schiavo case and the

electoral loss in 2008, the religious right pulled back and regrouped.

They knew that the full-bore, “theoconservative” agenda would not sell

with a majority of voters. This strategy accounts for Robertson, founder

of the Christian Coalition (who famously said that God sent a hurricane

to New Orleans to punish the sodomites), stating the following in

October 2011: “Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay

off of this stuff. They’re forcing their leaders, the front-runners,

into positions that will mean they lose the general election.” I doubt

he thought the candidates held positions that were too extreme, merely

that they should keep quiet about those positions until they had won the

election. Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, argues that

this is a “lying for Jesus” strategy that fundamentalists often adopt

when dealing with the snares of a wicked and Godless world. Since Satan

is the father of lies, one can be forgiven for fighting lies with lies.Hence

the policies pursued for at least two decades by the religious right on

the federal, state, and local levels. It usually starts at the school

board, after some contrived uproar over sex education or liberal

indoctrination. The stealthily fundamentalist school board candidates

pledge to clean up the mess and “get back to basics.” After a few years

they capture a majority on the board, and suddenly “Catcher in the Rye”

is heaved out of the curriculum and science teachers are under pressure

to teach the (imaginary) controversy about evolutionary biology. This

was the path to greater glory of Michele Bachmann: Her first run for

public office, barely a dozen years ago, was for a seat on the school

board in Stillwater, Minnesota. Up until then she had drawn a

taxpayer-funded salary for five years working as an attorney for the

Internal Revenue Service, not, of course, because she was one of those

lazy, good-for-nothing government bureaucrats that Republican candidates

routinely denounce. She was secretly studying the ways of the

government beast so as to defeat it later on.Bachmann, Rick

Perry, and numerous other serving representatives and senators have all

had ties to Christian Dominionism, a doctrine proclaiming that

Christians are destined to dominate American politics and establish a

new imperium resembling theocratic government. According to one profile

of Perry, adherents of Dominionism “believe Christians—certain

Christians—are destined to not just take ‘dominion’ over government, but

stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the ‘Seven

Mountains’ of society, including the media and the arts and

entertainment world.” Note the qualifier: “stealthily.”At the

same religious forum where the GOP candidates confessed their sins,

Bachmann went so far as to suggest that organized religion should keep

its traditional legal privilege of tax exemption while being permitted

to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. The fact that

government prohibits express political advocacy is in her imagination

muzzling preachers rather than just being a quid pro quo for tax-exempt

status equivalent to that imposed on any 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 nonprofit

organization. But for Bachmann and others of like mind, this is

persecution of a kind that fuels their sense of victimhood and righteous

indignation.Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/The-Party-Over-Republicans-Democrats/dp/0670026263/saloncom08-20">“The Party is Over”</a> by Mike Lofgren


</div>
<div>dem in chains</div><div>
</div><div>contract w. Am bal budget. mostly by Dick Armey, who staffed from Cato; gop sweep house and senate; armey studies house rules to manipulate; 2 shutdowns on debt limits fail; BC triangulates, takes on gop stated goals but avoid extreme measures works; 193
libtard

had to present their bills as opposite of what actually were; so reform

will kill; manne retires; 2/5 of all fed judge summer inst; greens

biggest threat to corps, "quest for control over industry" 195
gov't

health and welfare rules hobble labor mkt; flat rate tax more fair to

rich; feminism "heavily socialistic for no apparent reason" 196

socialism is gov't $ for anything other than mil or police.<div>
</div></div><div>=</div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CNP GINNI
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">let's go brandon!</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;"></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium;">
</div><div>=
</div><div>DAVID CORN</div><h1 class="print-title" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;">FreedomWorks Made Video of Fake Giant Panda Having Sex With Fake Hillary Clinton</h1><div class="dek" style="font-family: ">The investigation at the influential tea party group could get weird.</div>By <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/david-corn" rel="author">David Corn</a> | Thu Feb. 14, 2013 
<hr class="print-hr" style="border-style: solid; border-color: gray;" /><div class="print-content" style="line-height: 1.8em;"><div id="node-215971" class="node node-type-html node-type-article-full"><div class="node-inner clear-block"><div class="content clear-block"><div class="field field-type-text field-field-short-body"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item odd">An<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/dick-armey-freedomworks-hostile-takeover-memo" target="blank"> internal investigation</a> [1] of FreedomWorks—the prominent conservative advocacy group and super-PAC—has focused on president <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/matt-kibbe" target="blank">Matt Kibbe's </a>[2]management of the organization, his use of its resources, and a controversial book deal he <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/dick-armey-freedomworks-kibbe-book-contract-smoking-gun" target="_blank">signed</a> [3],

according to former FreedomWorks officials who have met with the

private lawyers conducting the probe. One potential topic for the

inquiry is a promotional video produced last year under the supervision

of <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/adam-brandon" target="_blank">Adam Brandon</a> [4],

executive vice president of the group and a Kibbe loyalist. The video

included a scene in which a female intern wearing a panda suit simulates

performing oral sex on Hillary Clinton. [Author's note: The previous

sentence contains no typos.] In

December, after months of bitter in-fighting, two members of

FreedomWorks' board of trustees—C. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel

for President George H.W. Bush, and James Burnley IV, a secretary of

transportation during the Reagan years—<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/dick-armey-freedomworks-hostile-takeover-memo" target="_blank">notified</a> [1] Kibbe that

they had received "allegations of wrongdoing by the organization or its

employees" and had hired two lawyers, Alfred Regnery and David Martin,

to investigate. Soon after, Regnery and Martin began interviewing past

and present FreedomWorks employees and officials. This list included

Dick Armey, the former House majority leader who in November <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/dick-armey-resigns-freedomworks-tea-party" target="blank">resigned</a> [5] as chairman of the group (and pocketed an <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/tea-party-group-chief-quits-cites-internal-split" target="blank">$8 million payout</a> [6]),

citing concerns about the management of the organization. The

investigating lawyers, Armey says, "picked my brain. I told them a

forensic audit would be imperative because so much is hidden there." ...
</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>===

lots of mojo in fw split:

the former House majority leader who helped develop and promote the

GOP's Contract with America in the 1990s, tendered his resignation in a

memo sent to Matt Kibbe, president and CEO of FreedomWorks, on November

30. Mother Jones obtained

the email on Monday, and Armey has confirmed he sent it. The tone of

the memo suggests that this was not an amicable separation. (See Armey's

email below.) Armey demanded that he be paid until his contract ended

on December 31; that FreedomWorks remove his name, image, or signature

"from all its letters, print media, postings, web sites, videos,

testimonials, endorsements, fund raising materials, and social media,

including but not limited to Facebook and Twitter"; and that

FreedomWorks deliver the copy of his official congressional portrait to

his home in Texas.

top management team of FreedomWorks was taking a direction I thought

was unproductive, and I thought it was time to move on with my life,"

Armey tellsMother Jones. "At this point, I don't want to get into the details. I just want to go on with my life."

the email, Armey indicated that he wants nothing to do with

FreedomWorks anymore. He asked that all user names, passwords, and

security-related data created in his name be emailed to him by the close

of business on December 4. He

even insisted that FreedomWorks—"effective immediately"—was

"prohibited" from using a booklet he authored. Was Armey's resignation a

reaction to the recent election results? "Obviously I was not happy

with the election results," he says. "We might've gotten better results

if we had gone in a different direction. But it isn't that I got my nose

out of line because we should've done better."

declined to specify his disagreements with FreedomWorks. Asked if they

were ideological or tactical, he replies, "They were matters of

principle. It's how you do business as opposed to what you do. But I

don't want to be the guy to create problems."

leaving Congress in 2003, Armey joined the conservative advocacy group

Citizens for a Sound Economy as co-chairman. The following year, the

organization, which had been cofounded by Charles and David Koch, split

off to become FreedomWorks. Its sister outfit, Americans for Prosperity,

has been a prominent grassroots conservative group.

2010. The organization helped elect tea party favorites, including Sen.

Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Reps. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) and Tim Scott

(R-S.C.). Armey led the fight to eliminate Obamacare, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/us/politics/15armey.html" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">emailing every Republican member of Congress</a>after

the 2010 elections with a strategy for gutting President Obama's

signature health care law. FreedomWorks has acted an connector between

tea party groups around the country, organizing protests against

Obamacare and expanding the ranks of the conservative movement. In 2010,

Armey and Kibbe together published <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Give-Us-Liberty-Party-Manifesto/dp/B004TE8FXW" target="_blank" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto</a>.

===

Former FreedomWorks chairman Dick

Armey says the conservative outlet that helped launch the Tea Party

paid Glenn Beck at least $1 million last year to fundraise for the

organization, an arrangement he said provided "too little value" for the

money.

"The

arrangement was simply FreedomWorks paid Glenn Beck money and Glenn

Beck said nice things about FreedomWorks on the air," Armey, the former

House majority leader, told Media Matters Friday. "I saw that a million dollars went to Beck this past year, that was the annual expenditure."

Armey,

who left the organization this past fall after a dispute over its

internal operations, said a similar arrangement was also in place with

Rush Limbaugh, but did not know the exact financial details.

"I put it down now as basically as paid advertising for FreedomWorks by Beck," Armey said, calling it a mistake.

Media Matters contacted Armey after Mother Jones magazine <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/freedomworks-rich-donors-armey-kibbe-super-pac" style=" outline: none; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">published</a> a

leaked copy of the document FreedomWorks prepared for its Winter 2012

board of directors meeting. That document alluded to "embedded media

programs" for fundraising that featured the two conservative radio hosts

and claimed that fundraising efforts featuring them raised nearly $1.3

million in 2012, not including event ticket sales from third-party

vendors.

From the leaked FreedomWorks document:

Mother Jones further

reported that the organization "plans to continue its financial support

for Glenn Beck's media enterprise, including sharing a TV studio with

and leasing office space to the Washington bureau of <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/" style=" outline: none; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">TheBlaze</a>, Beck's website and TV network."

Armey

said he was told of the Beck arrangement when it first began, but that

it would only cost the organization about $250,000 a year. "Once that

was approved by the trustees, it then took on a life of its own, it got

bigger than we understood it to be. All of a sudden it was we are paying Limbaugh as well as Beck." FreedomWorks did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Beck has been reading <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/06/14/becks-mutually-beneficial-partnership-with-free/166159" style=" outline: none; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">on-air appeals</a> for FreedomWorks since at least April 2010. In June of that year, Media Matters reported that the organization was using Beck's endorsement to raise money. Politico <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/06/15/politico-conservative-groups-pay-for-talk-radio/180592" style=" outline: none; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">highlighted</a> the

relationship as an example of a conservative group "paying hefty

sponsorship fees to the popular talk show hosts" in exchange for

"regular on-air plugs." The FreedomWorks document leaked to Mother Jones states that their fundraising relationship with Limbaugh began in 2012.

According to Armey, such programs are ineffective.

"If

Limbaugh and Beck, if we were using those resources to recruit

activists and inform activists and to encourage and enthuse activists,

that's one thing," Armey explained. "If we are using these things to

raise money; one, it's a damned expensive way to raise money; and two,

it makes raising money an end on to itself not an instrumental activity

to support the foundation work that our organization does."

Armey

also said the relationship with Beck expanded to include rallies that

were co-sponsored by Beck and FreedomWorks, and included appearances by

FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe.

Armey said he objected to these events, dubbed FreePACs, because they often charged admission to FreedomWorks activists.

A review of promotional information for the events found $20 was a standard <a href="http://freepac.com/" style=" outline: none; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">donation</a> requested at some of the locations, while a Dallas, TX., FreePAC last summer<a href="http://www.americanairlinescenter.com/events-and-tickets/event_details.php?eid=2100" style=" outline: none; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">charged</a> prices as high as $971.

"You

don't charge activists to attend rallies. I would consider that wholly

inappropriate behavior," Armey said. "There was a lot of resentment on

the part of the activists. They would naturally expect that they are

providing the activist power and think that they have a right to

attend."

"The

principal value to anyone from the relationship with Beck was Matt

Kibbe, who got to share Beck's stage with him," Armey said, adding that

he found out about the July 2012 Dallas rally after his name was already

being used to promote it.

"They

put out an email under my name that had more information than I had,"

he recalled. "That is why when I resigned I had them cease and desist

using my name."

Armey

said he began looking into the specifics of the Beck and Limbaugh

arrangements last year after hearing from others in the organization

that such activities were being done without his knowledge.

"I

had come to the point where I don't know how much we are spending on

Beck and Limbaugh, but we are spending too damn much and we are getting

too little value out of it," Armey said. "It was something I only found

out about after inquiring into the affairs in September or October.

"Starting

in January of last year, in that general neighborhood, what we had was a

pattern that Kibbe got into a pattern of consistently working out

arrangements with people without telling me what he was doing," Armey

added. "They had people issue directives, 'don't tell Armey about this.'

I had people close to me saying there is something fishy here, you

better look into it."

Armey

pointed out that any reports of revenue raised through the Beck and

Limbaugh arrangements does not take into account the money paid to them

in the deal.

"It

is like federal budgeting," he said. "We count the receipts we get from

people who have sent in money, and we, meaning they, I am not a part of

it anymore, do not count what the funds that are laying out are. They

don't say, we paid Beck a million dollars and we had this program where

we raised $300,000, you had a net cost of $600,000, or whatever the

numbers are."

But don't expect those payments to end: FreedomWorks' leaked 2013 <a href="http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/550014-freedomworks-board-book-winter-2012.html#document/p14" style=" outline: none; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204);">budget plan</a> includes "Glenn Beck Radio Ads," "Blenn Beck TV," "TheBlaze Action Center," and the "Rush Limbaugh Contract."

==

this town: bailed FW, paid 8m$ to go? 340

--

angler: dc  rolled Armey on gulf war (thinks now he cd have stopped war and wish he had)

==

Just a few years ago, however, those meetings were infamous for having served as showcases for Mr. Abramoff's clients.

And then there is Dick Armey, the

former House majority leader who has returned in triumph to the public

stage in recent years as the chairman of the FreedomWorks pressure group

and the de facto leader of the tea-party movement. Last month Mr. Armey

even attended the annual meeting of the Republican National Committee

to speak on the tea partiers' behalf.

As

you may recall, Mr. Armey was once one of Congress's staunchest

defenders of the Marianas way. Several of his aides traveled to the

free-market paradise, and in 1997 Mr. Armey even wrote a letter jointly

with former Rep. Tom DeLay in which he praised the islands' dedication

to "the principles of free markets, enterprise, education choice, tax

reform and other innovative approaches to governance."

Behold

your Third Great Awakening, America. Lobbyists, sweatshops, and the

junkets designed by lobbyists to make sweatshops seem like liberty are,

presumably, the sort of things tea partiers should have trouble with.

Will the grass-roots nation call these gentlemen to account for their

freedom flimflamming of the past?

I wouldn't count on it. It is no secret, for example, that Mr. Armey was until recently something of a superlobbyist

himself, ritually denouncing Washington's ways as he worked behind the

scenes on behalf of multinational liquor conglomerates and international

commercial real-estate concerns. His lobbying has been well-publicized

since before the tea-party movement began. And yet criticism of Mr.

Armey from the grass-roots right for that particular transgression

remains difficult to find.

The

reason we haven't heard more in this respect, I suspect, is because

deep down it doesn't offend. The history of conservative idealism is, in

some ways, a history of lobbying, of ever-more inventive schemes to

make politics answer to money. Each of the movement's succeeding bursts

of idealism have led, ineluctably, to the doors of K Street.

This one, I suspect, will be no different.

<a id="U10514154116LEC" name="U10514154116LEC" style=" line-height: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </a><a id="U10514154116LEC" name="U10514154116LEC" style=" line-height: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Write to </a><a class="" href="mailto:thomas@wsj.com" data-ls-seen="1" style=" color: rgb(9, 61, 114); outline: none;">thomas@wsj.com</a>

==

politico

E<a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0809/ExArmey_aide_indicted_in_Abramoff_probe.html#" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 20px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: none;">x-Armey aide indicted in Abramoff probe</a>

Cooper, 44, a former aide to Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas), was indicted

Friday on five felony counts in the investigation stemming from D.C.

lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

<p style=" margin: 0px 0px 1.2857em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.2857em; color: rgb(23, 23, 23); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/pr/press_releases/2009/08/08-21-09cooperindictment.pdf" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The indictment</a> alleges

that Cooper took from Abramoff and his associates more than $5,000 in

tickets to sporting events and concerts between 1998 and 2001 while

working for Armey. Between 2001 and 2005, while working as chief of

staff at the Voice of America and in a later job at the Labor

Department, Cooper took another $9,000 in tickets from Abramoff's team,

the indictment claims.

was also regularly "comped" at Abramoff's restaurant, Signatures, the

Justice Department claims. When getting a free meal, sometimes

Cooper would pay for a soft drink on a credit card making "it appear

that he had paid for his Signatures meals and drinks when actually he

did not," the indictment says.

contend that in exchange for the largesse, Cooper used his influence to

help Abramoff get federal funds from the Department of State and to

help an Abramoff colleague trying to resolve a wage-and-hour

investigation at Labor. In one e-mail, Cooper allegedly offered to "fix"

problems related to the inquiry. Cooper "concealed" the gifts from

Abramoff on personal financial disclosures filed with the government,

the indictment says.

very disappointed the Department of Justice decided to go forward with

these charges," Cooper's attorney Sol Wisenberg told POLITICO. "Horace

Cooper is innocent, and we look forward to our day in court. We intend

to vigorously try this case."

The indictment also says that in his dealings with Abramoff in 2002

Cooper used a personal e-mail account that invoked his tie to Armey: <a href="mailto:armeyman@netscape.net" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">armeyman@netscape.net</a>. The former House majority leader is not charged or named in the indictment, besides the mention in the e-mail address.

2003, Cooper allegedly invited about 50 friends to an

Abramoff-hosted Super Bowl party at Stacks, another D.C. eatery

controlled by the lobbyist.

and his associates allegedly gave Cooper tickets — often in skyboxes —

for the Redskins, the Capitals, the Orioles, the Wizards, the Harlem

Globetrotters, the U.S. Open tennis championships and the NBA draft.

Cooper also received tickets to concerts by N'Sync, Destiny's Child, and

the not-very-GOP-friendly Dixie Chicks, the indictment asserts.

has been summoned to appear in federal court in D.C. on Sept. 9. If

convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum possible sentence of 40

years, though his actual sentence would likely be lower in accordance

with federal guidelines.

who was a press secretary, director of coalitions and legislative

counsel for Armey, has worked more recently as a legal commentator and a

law professor at George Mason University, where he earned his law

degree.

==

from CRC

In April 1995, House Majority Leader Richard Armey

wrote on official letterhead to 82 companies warning them that their

contributions to non-profit groups helped "support expansion of the

welfare state." The companies were selected on the basis of a

classification by CRC which ranked Greenpeace as "radical left" and

groups such as the American Cancer Society, the American Heart

Association and the American Lung Association as "liberal", the St.

Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Spokesman for CRC Robert

Berkebile explained that the American Cancer Society was classed as

'liberal' because it supported taxes on cigarettes. (It is now known

that Philip Morris was funding CRC at the time). The American Lung

Association got the same rating because it supported regulations on

burning hazardous waste in cement kilns. Monsanto, not known for its

support for radical causes, got a "centre-left" tag because it

contributed to the Nature Conservancy, amongst others.

Equally interesting is

CRC's assessment of who it viewed as the real conservatives. The RAND

Corporation was tagged as "center left" while the American Enterprise

Institute was designated as in the "center". The true believers, gaining

the "conservative" badge of honour were CRC itself, the Center for the

Study of American Business, the Chamber Foundation, the Heritage

Foundation, the Hoover Institution and the Hudson Institute.

The director of the Congressional Accountability Project, Gary Ruskin, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the analysis was more than 'defunding the left' "it's defunding the center, too".

In mid-February 2001,

CRC President Terrence Scanlon addressed the 28th annual Conservative

Political Action Conference (CPAC) stating "for the first time we have

an opportunity to go after these [liberal nonprofit] groups and take

away their federal money."

===

<h1 class="txttitle">Dick Armey's Attempted Armed Coup of the Tea Party</h1>

By Amy Gardner, The Washington Post

26 December 12

The

day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final

frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went

into free fall.

Richard

K. Armey, the group's chairman and a former House majority leader,

walked into the group's Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and

an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control

of the group and expel Armey's enemies: The gun-wielding assistant

escorted FreedomWorks' top two employees off the premises, while Armey

suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was gone - with <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/armeys-exit-from-freedomworks-highlights-tea-partys-post-election-turmoil/2012/12/04/b9103b0a-3e29-11e2-bca3-aadc9b7e29c5_story.html" target="_blank">a promise of $8 million</a>

- and the five ousted employees were back. The force behind their

return was Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who

has exerted increasing control over one of Washington's most influential

conservative grass-roots organizations.

Stephenson,

the founder of the for-profit Cancer Treatment Centers of America and a

director on the FreedomWorks board, agreed to commit $400,000 per year

over 20 years in exchange for Armey's agreement to leave the group.

The

episode illustrates the growing role of wealthy donors in swaying the

direction of FreedomWorks and other political groups, which increasingly

rely on unlimited contributions from corporations and financiers for

their financial livelihood. Such gifts are often sent through corporate

shells or nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose their donors,

making it impossible for the public to know who is funding them.

In the

weeks before the election, more than $12 million in donations was

funneled through two Tennessee corporations to the FreedomWorks super

PAC after negotiations with Stephenson over a preelection gift of the

same size, according to three current and former employees with

knowledge of the arrangement. The origin of the money has not previously

been reported.

These and other new details about the <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-04/politics/35625085_1_grass-roots-conservative-movement-freedomworks-jamie-radtke" target="_blank">near-meltdown at FreedomWorks</a>

were gleaned from interviews with two dozen current and past

associates, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to

talk freely.

The disarray comes as the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-republicans-ponder-2012-defeat-partys-philosophy-hangs-in-the-balance/2012/12/15/ca030ab4-449b-11e2-8e70-e1993528222d_story.html?hpid=z4" target="_blank">conservative movement is struggling to find its way</a>

after the November elections, which brought a second term for President

Obama and Democratic gains in the House and Senate. Armey said in an

interview that the near-meltdown at his former group has damaged the

conservative cause.

"FreedomWorks

was the spark plug, the energy source, the catalyst for the movement

through the 2010 elections," Armey said, referring to the GOP midterm

sweep. "Harm was done to the movement."

Stephenson,

73, declined a request for an interview. Matt Kibbe, the group's

president, and Adam Brandon, its senior vice president, declined to

discuss the issue.

"I don't

comment on donors," Brandon said. "He's on our board, he's a board

member like anyone else. That's it. I see him at board meetings."

Stephenson,

a longtime but little-known player in conservative causes, is a

resident of Barrington, Ill., a northwest suburb of Chicago known for

its affluence and sprawling horse estates such as his <a href="http://www.tudoroaksfarm.com/home.html" target="_blank">Tudor Oaks Farm</a>.

He founded the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in 1988 following

his mother's death from bladder cancer, according to the for-profit

company's Web site and his public <a href="http://www.cancercenter.com/video/about-ctca/ctca-leadership/richard-j-stephenson" target="_blank">remarks</a>. Stephenson also holds investments in a broad portfolio of other businesses, including finance and real estate companies.

Stephenson

has a passion for libertarian politics stretching back to the 1960s,

when he attended seminars featuring "Atlas Shrugged" author Ayn Rand and

economist Murray Rothbard, according to those who know him at

FreedomWorks. Like Armey, Stephenson was an early supporter of Citizens

for a Sound Economy, the conservative lobbying group founded by oil

billionaires Charles and David Koch in 1984 that split into FreedomWorks

and Americans for Prosperity 20 years later. The Kochs, known for

bankrolling a variety of conservative causes, kept control of AFP, while

Stephenson and Armey stayed with FreedomWorks.

FreedomWorks

has been on a remarkable run in recent election cycles, growing its

annual budget from $7 million to $40 million in just a few years and

helping lead the tea party movement against Obama's agenda. The group

was among several that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2012/12/20/freedomworks-changes-its-mind-hates-plan-b/" target="_blank">rose up last week</a> in opposition to a failed proposal from House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to raise federal taxes on millionaires.

The group

played a crucial role in ushering a wave of tea party candidates into

office in recent years, staging rallies, hawking books and videos, and

organizing media appearances with conservative personalities such as

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

"I've

enjoyed my association with FreedomWorks," said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah),

who defeated incumbent Bob Bennett with help from the group. "Matt Kibbe and Dick Armey endorsed me early in my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, and they were a big help to me."

Despite

such testimonials, FreedomWorks has struggled with accusations that it

is an "astroturfer" - a national organization of big-money donors that

swept in to lay claim to an independent movement.

According to public records, FreedomWorks received <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/contrib_all.php?cmte=C00499020&type=A&cycle=2012" target="_blank"> more than $12 million</a> before

the election from two corporations based in Knoxville, Tenn.: Specialty

Investments Group and Kingston Pike Development. The firms were

established within a day of each other by William S. Rose III, a local

bankruptcy lawyer.

Rose, who

could not be reached for comment, has said publicly he would not answer

questions about the donations. But according to three current and

former FreedomWorks employees with knowledge of the donations, the money

originated with Stephenson and his family, who arranged for the

contributions from the Tennessee firms to the super PAC.

Brandon,

FreedomWorks' executive vice president, told colleagues starting in

August that Stephenson would be giving between $10 million and $12

million, these sources said. Brandon also met repeatedly with members of

Stephenson's family who were involved in arranging the donations, the

sources said.

Stephenson

attended a FreedomWorks retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August at

which a budget was being prepared in anticipation of a large influx of

money, according to several employees who attended the retreat. At the

retreat, Stephenson dictated some of the terms of how the money would be

spent, the employees said.

"There is

no doubt that Dick Stephenson arranged for that money to come to the

super PAC," said one person who attended the retreat. "I can assure you

that everyone around the office knew about it."

Among

other things, Stephenson wanted a substantial sum spent in support of

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), a tea party favorite and Stephenson's local

congressman, several who attended the retreat recalled. Walsh garnered

national headlines during the campaign when he questioned whether his

opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot who lost

both legs in Iraq, was a "true hero." Despite internal misgivings about

the value of the investment, FreedomWorks spent $1.7 million on ads

supporting Walsh; he lost the race.

Two

watchdog groups last week asked the Federal Election Commission and the

Justice Department to investigate the donations from the two Tennessee

companies. The groups, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, say

the arrangement could violate federal laws that prohibit attempting to

hide the true source of a political contribution by giving it under

another name. (Brandon declined to comment on the complaints, but he

said the group's books were in order.)

Partnership Unravels

For

years, FreedomWorks was headed by an unlikely duo: Armey, 72, the

old-guard pol who wears a black cowboy hat even when he's not on his

Texas ranch, and Kibbe, 49, who sports mutton-chop sideburns and has a

passion for the Grateful Dead.

But the

most important relationship appears to be the bond between Kibbe and

Stephenson, who bridged their age gap through shared libertarian views

and Kibbe's battle with testicular cancer a decade ago, Armey and others

said. They said Kibbe, after being given a terminal diagnosis, was

encouraged by Stephenson to get treatment at his cancer clinics; more

than a decade later, they said, he is cancer-free.

Until

this year, the partnership between Kibbe and Armey worked well. Armey's

renown as a former House member drew media attention and crowds of

conservative activists - most of them old enough to remember Armey's role in the Republican revolution in Congress in 1994.

And Kibbe's youthful intellectualism drew a new generation of

libertarian soldiers into the FreedomWorks fold. In 2010, the two

co-wrote a book, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005SN0JZA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=washingtonpost-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B005SN0JZA" target="_blank">Give Us Liberty</a>:

A Tea Party Manifesto," that became a New York Times bestseller and a

successful marketing tool for FreedomWorks, which collected the book's

proceeds and used it to attract donations.

The

partnership came to a crashing end when Armey marched into

FreedomWorks's office Sept. 4 with his wife, Susan, executive assistant

Jean Campbell and the unidentified man with the gun at his waist - who

promptly escorted Kibbe and Brandon out of the building.

"This was two weeks after there had been a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/suspect-in-shooting-at-family-research-council-indicted-on-terrorism-charge/2012/10/24/ab195792-1e09-11e2-b647-bb1668e64058_blog.html" target="_blank">shooting at the Family Research Council</a>,"

said one junior staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity

because he was not authorized to talk to the media. "So when a man with a

gun who didn't identify himself to me or other people on staff, and a

woman I'd never seen before said there was an announcement, my first gut

was, 'Is FreedomWorks in danger?' It was bizarre.'?"

By nearly

all accounts, including from those loyal to him, Armey handled his

attempted coup badly. Armey says he was stepping in because of ethical

breaches by Kibbe and Brandon, accusing them of improperly using

FreedomWorks staff resources to produce a book - ironically, named

"Hostile Takeover" - for which Kibbe claimed sole credit and was

collecting royalties. The use of internal resources for Kibbe's

benefit could jeopardize the group's nonprofit tax status; the group

denies any impropriety.

"This is not only about this one incident," Armey said. "But that one incident was a matter of grievous concern."

Armey

also accused Brandon, Kibbe and other staff members loyal to them of

squeezing him out of media appearances and management decisions while

using his name to market the group.

Armey

appeared out of touch and unsure of how FreedomWorks operated when he

took over that Tuesday morning, according to interviews with more than a

dozen employees on both sides who witnessed the takeover. Sitting in a

glass-walled conference room visible to much of the staff, he placed

three young female employees on administrative leave, then reversed

himself when they burst into tears; his wife lamented aloud that maybe

they had "jumped the gun."

In

subsequent meetings, Susan Armey passed her husband notes that several

employees assumed contained suggestions on what to say. According to a

recording of a staff conference call provided to The Washington Post,

Armey bewildered his audience by demanding more FreedomWorks support

for Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican whose Senate campaign had already

cratered after his comments about "legitimate rape."

"It was

clear that under Armey's leadership, the organization as we knew it was

going to be driven into the ground," said one junior employee.

Enter

Stephenson, who agreed to the multimillion-dollar financial incentive to

push Armey out and install Kibbe back at the helm.

The payments were necessary, several FreedomWorks leaders said, because Armey was threatening to sue over Kibbe's book deal.

"It was

very clear to him that I would not work with Matt," Armey said,

referring to Stephenson. "He felt that Matt knew the levers and

understood it better than I did and was very urgent to reinstate that."

Brandon,

back in the No. 2 spot as executive vice president, scoffed at the

notion that the group is in trouble or that the dispute with Armey was

indicative of a larger problem for the tea party. He said FreedomWorks

has 2.1 million members, nearly 4 million fans on Facebook and a budget

that has grown sixfold in five years. He also pointed to the elections

of Senate conservatives Ted Cruz in Texas and Jeff Flake in Arizona as

evidence of the group's electoral success.

"We

doubled our budget, and we doubled our membership," Brandon said,

referring to the group's growth since 2011. "That's how we ended up the

year."

===

TP gop platorm:

6. Dick Armey. Former Republican insider Dick Armey now runs FreedomWorks, the <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">Koch</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">-</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">backed</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">, </a>[20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">corporate</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">-</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">funded</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">, </a>[20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">Murdoch</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">-</a> [20]<a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/148598/tea_party_inc.%3A_the_big_money_and_powerful_elites_behind_the_right_wing%27s_latest_uprising">promoted</a> [20] Tea Party astroturfing group – or, in its words, a “grassroots service center.”

Armey has been a major force behind this year’s victories of Tea Party

Senate challengers like Ted Cruz in Texas and Richard Mourdock in

Indiana, both of whom knocked off “establishment” candidates.

FreedomWorks also backed Rand Paul in Kentucky and Mike Lee in Utah in

2010. As Adele Stan has <a href="http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/tea-partys-cruz-vanquishes-gop-pick-us-senate-texas-run">reported</a> [21],

FreedomWorks’ goal is to build a cadre of far-right senators to create a

“power center around Jim DeMint,” the Senate’s reigning Tea

Party-Religious Right hero.

To put Armey’s stamp on

the platform, FreedomWorks created a “Freedom Platform” project, which

enlisted Tea Party leaders to come up with proposed platform planks and

encouraged activists to vote for them online. Then FreedomWorks pushed

the party to include these planks in the official platform:

Repeal Obamacare; pursue patient-centered care

</li><li>

Stop the tax hikes

</li><li>

Reverse Obama’s spending increases

</li><li>

Scrap the tax code; replace with a flat tax

</li><li>

Pass a balanced budget amendment

</li><li>

Reject cap and trade

</li><li>

Rein in EPA

</li><li>

Unleash America’s vast energy potential

</li><li>

Eliminate the Department of Education

</li><li>

Reduce the bloated federal workforce

</li><li>

Curtail excessive federal regulation

</li><li>

Audit the fed

</li></ul>

An Ohio Tea Party Group, Ohio Liberty Coalition, <a href="http://www.ohiolibertycoalition.org/republican-platform-committee-accepts-10-of-12-tea-party-platform-issues/">celebrated</a> [22]

that 10 of 12 made it to the draft – everything but the flat tax and

eliminating the Department of Defense. But FreedomWorks gave itself a

more generous score, <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/republican-party-adopts-majority-of-tea-party%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cf">arguing</a> [23]

for an 11.5 out of 12. FreedomWorks vice president Dean Clancy said the

platform’s call for a “flatter” tax “opens the door to a flat tax” and

said they considered the education section of the platform a “partial

victory” because it includes “a very strong endorsement of school

choice, including vouchers.”

===

lee fang:

For instance, former Republican

Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), another self-proclaimed tea party

leader, rails against the Wall Street bailout and efforts to rebuild the

foundations of the economy, even though his own <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Armey-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print">lobbying firm</a>

represented AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch during the

bailouts. Armey, who is still paid a lobbyist salary of at least $550,00

a year, told the New York Times that although he does not believe in

“death panels” or other “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08Armey-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print">exaggerations</a>,”

he encourages others to spread falsehoods to advance his agenda.

Armey’s willful lying is instructive for understanding the profiteers:

in the most condescending way, they are exploiting the tea party

movement to line their own pockets.

<ul><li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/dick-armey/">Dick Armey</a></li><li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/radical-right/">Radical Right</a></li><li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/tag/tea-party/">Tea Party</a></li></ul>

</div>

</div>

----

– Dick Armey: As ThinkProgress has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/09/lobbyists-planning-teaparties/">documented</a>, Armey has a <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/05/15/40588/armey-soda/">long history</a>

of organizing conservative grassroots causes in support of his

corporate clients. Armey presents himself as a ideologue, who helms his

nonprofit FreedomWorks as a mere exercise in his free market beliefs.

But while Armey rails against the Wall Street bailout and efforts to

rebuild the foundations of the economy, his <a href="http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/04/15/armey-financial-giants/">own lobbying firm</a>

represented AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch during the

bailouts. Indeed, even his nonprofit still pays him a lobbyist salary of

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks">$550,000</a> per year.

===

spoke at ALEC sponsored by visa?

<a href="http://www.alternet.org/news/151930/journalists_kicked_out_of_alec_conference,threatened_with_arrest/%3C/small/%3C/%3C/%3C/%3C/small/%3C/small/comments/%3C/small?page=1">http://www.alternet.org/news/151930/journalists_kicked_out_of_alec_conference,threatened_with_arrest/%3C/small/%3C/%3C/%3C/%3C/small/%3C/small/comments/%3C/small?page=1</a>

Dick Armey is the Chairman of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks" title="FreedomWorks">FreedomWorks</a> (previously <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy" title="Citizens for a Sound Economy">Citizens for a Sound Economy</a> (CSE), and co-chairman of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alliance_for_Retirement_Prosperity" title="Alliance for Retirement Prosperity">Alliance for Retirement Prosperity</a>. A lifelong <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Republican_Party" title="Republican Party" class="mw-redirect">Republican</a>, Armey served as <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=House_Majority_Leader" title="House Majority Leader" class="mw-redirect">Majority Leader</a> of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._House_of_Representatives" title="U.S. House of Representatives" class="mw-redirect">U.S. House of Representatives</a> from 1995 to 2002.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-compassion-0" title="">[1]</a>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Ties_to_the_American_Legislative_Exchange_Council">1 Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Biography">2 Biography</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Records_and_Controversies">3 Records and Controversies</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Astroturfing_activities">3.1 Astroturfing activities</a></li><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Tobacco">3.2 Tobacco</a></li><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Iraq_War">3.3 Iraq War</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Former_staffers">4 Former staffers</a></li><li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Articles_and_resources">5 Articles and resources</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Related_SourceWatch_articles">5.1 Related SourceWatch articles</a></li><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#References">5.2 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#External_resources">5.3 External resources</a></li><li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#External_articles">5.4 External articles</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#Articles_by_Armey">5.4.1 Articles by Armey</a></li><li class="toclevel-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#General_Articles">5.4.2 General Articles</a></li></ul>

</li></ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council</h2>

On August 5th, 2011, Armey spoke at a plenary session of the 38th Annual Meeting of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council" title="American Legislative Exchange Council">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC) in New Orleans, Louisiana.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-ALEC_Agenda-1" title="">[2]</a> The <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Policy_Innovation" title="Institute for Policy Innovation">Institute for Policy Innovation</a>, which Armey founded in 1987, is also an <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ALEC_Corporations" title="ALEC Corporations">ALEC member</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-2" title="">[3]</a> Bartlett Cleland, Director of the Center for Technology Freedom at the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Policy_Innovation" title="Institute for Policy Innovation">Institute for Policy Innovation</a>, represents IPI as a co-chair of the ALEC <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Telecommunications_and_Information_Technology_Task_Force" title="Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force">Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-3" title="">[4]</a>

is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than

that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state

legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit

their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership

in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with

legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate

governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.)

They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators,

overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home

and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own

brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without

disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts

that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members

every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC

describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched”

organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had

been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door.

Learn more at <a href="http://alecexposed.org/" class="external text" title="http://alecexposed.org/" rel="nofollow">ALECexposed.org</a>.

<h2>Biography</h2>

Armey graduated in 1963

from the University of North Dakota with a Masters in economics and a

Ph. D from the University of Oklahoma. He then held a number of teaching

positions culminating in a 13-year stint at the University of North

Texas.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-bio-4" title="">[5]</a> From there he entered <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congress" title="Congress" class="mw-redirect">Congress</a> as part of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reagan_revolution&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Reagan revolution (page does not exist)">Reagan revolution</a>.

In 1984 Armey was elected as a Republican member of U.S. House of Representatives from Texas.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-bio-4" title="">[5]</a>

In 1987 he founded the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Policy_Innovation" title="Institute for Policy Innovation">Institute for Policy Innovation</a> (IPI), a non-profit, non-partisan public policy "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Think_tank" title="Think tank" class="mw-redirect">think tank</a>" based in Lewisville, Texas.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-5" title="">[6]</a>

During his political

career Armey worked his way up through the Republican ranks serving as

the senior Republican on the Joint Economic Committee and as Chairman of

the Republican Conference.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-bio-4" title="">[5]</a>

He is described as the main author of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Contract_with_America" title="Contract with America">Contract with America</a>, which was promoted by then <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=House_Majority_Leader" title="House Majority Leader" class="mw-redirect">House Majority Leader</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Newt_Gingrich" title="Newt Gingrich">Newt Gingrich</a>.

In 1995, after Gingrich's demise, Armey became House Majority Leader, a

position he held until his retirement from Congress at the end of 2002.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-compassion-0" title="">[1]</a>

During the 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign to ridicule <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Al_Gore" title="Al Gore" class="mw-redirect">Al Gore</a>

was organized through Armey's congressional office. "We would just kind

of compile stuff and send it out to talk radio and to members," said

Armey spokeswoman Michele A. Davis.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-6" title="">[7]</a>

The Republican PR

machine spun Gore's statement about his role in policy development to

imply a claim that he technically developed the Internet. A news release

by Armey was one of the notable barbs in this campaign. "If the Vice

President created the Internet then I created the Interstate highway

system," Armey stated.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-7" title="">[8]</a>

During 2002 he was

Chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security. In August 2002 he

said that an "unprovoked attack" on Iraq would be illegal. "If we

try to act against Saddam Hussein, as obnoxious as he is, without proper

provocation, we will not have the support of other nation states who

might do so," Armey said. "I don't believe that America will justifiably

make an unprovoked attack on another nation. It would not be consistent

with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a

nation."unjustifiable.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-8" title="">[9]</a>

In January 2003 he was appointed Co-chairman of CSE, later becoming Chairman.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-9" title="">[10]</a>

Armey is also listed

with the Premiere Speakers Bureau as being available for conference

programs with an indicative speaking fee of $25,000 for a keynote speech

and $20,000 for non-profits. According to the Premier profile Armey

prefers to speak on "Negotiation, Peak Performance, Politics &

Current Events, Society And Culture, Strategy" and that he requires

first class tickets for two from Dallas.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-Premiere-10" title="">[11]</a>

"Now retired from

Congress, Armey continues to speak with warmth and wit on crucial issues

such as the Electronic Revolution and the Economy, How Homeland Defense

Affects the Lives of All Americans, The Imperative for Tax

Simplification [and] Why We Must Support Israel", the bureau bio note

states.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-Premiere-10" title="">[11]</a>

With his <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alliance_for_Retirement_Prosperity" title="Alliance for Retirement Prosperity">Alliance for Retirement Prosperity</a>

hat on, Armey advocates a radical overhaul of social security and

personal responsibility for retirement incomes. "We must transform Social Security completely.

We must change it from an unfunded tax-and-transfer government program

into a fully-funded personal retirement accounts plan where every worker

can save, invest and build a nest egg," he wrote in a June 2004 opinion

column.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-SS-11" title="">[12]</a>

"The good news is there

is already a way to do this. The Alliance for Retirement Prosperity has

developed just such a solution. I co-chair this organization along with

former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and former Commissioner of

Social Security Dorcas Hardy. We support an economically optimal

solution that leaves everyone better off," he wrote.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-SS-11" title="">[12]</a>

<h2>Records and Controversies</h2>

<h3>Astroturfing activities</h3>

Dick Armey's organization, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks" title="FreedomWorks">FreedomWorks</a> was behind the creation of a fake <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Grassroots" title="Grassroots">grassroots</a> web site called Angryrenter.com which rallies opposition to "the Obama Housing Bailout." The

site urges people to oppose bailing out mortgage companies. The site

claims to represent "Renters and responsible homeowners against a

government mortgage bailout."

Michael M. Phillips, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal wrote about AngryRenter.com:

AngryRenter.com looks a bit

like a digital ransom note, with irregular fonts, exclamation points and

big red arrows -- all emphasizing prudent renters' outrage over a

proposed government bailout for irresponsible homeowners. "It seems like

America's renters may NEVER be able to afford a home," AngryRenter.com

laments. The Web site urges like-minded tenants to let Congress feel

their fury by signing an online petition. "We are millions of renters

standing up for our rights!" Angry they may be, but the people behind

AngryRenter.com are certainly not renters. Though it purports to be a

spontaneous uprising, AngryRenter.com is actually a product of an

inside-the-Beltway conservative advocacy organization led by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, and publishing magnate Steve Forbes,

a fellow Republican. It's a fake grass-roots effort -- what politicos

call an AstroTurf campaign -- that provides a window into the

sleight-of-hand ways of Washington.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-12" title="">[13]</a>

</blockquote>

<h3>Tobacco</h3>

As a Representative, Dick Armey was described in the Washington Times

as "a chain smoking Texas Democrat" who "says antismoking and other

wellness programs should not be promoted as part of health care reform.

"If there are no smokers," he reportedly said, "how are we going to pay

for health reform? But then again, if we can pay farmers for not growing

tobacco, perhaps we can tax nonsmokers for however much they're not

smoking."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-13" title="">[14]</a>

<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lorillard" title="Lorillard" class="mw-redirect">Lorillard</a> Tobacco supported Dick Armey's re-election in 1998.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-14" title="">[15]</a>

Armey voted for the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Iraq_Resolution_of_2002" title="Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002">Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002</a> that started the Iraq War.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-15" title="">[16]</a>

<h2>Former staffers</h2>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michele_A._Davis" title="Michele A. Davis">Michele A. Davis</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Susan_Sheybani" title="Susan Sheybani">Susan Sheybani</a> in 2001 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-16" title="">[17]</a>. Sheybani subsequently worked as a staffer for the 2004 Bush campaign.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_note-17" title="">[18]</a></li></ul>

<h2>Articles and resources</h2>

<h3>Related SourceWatch articles</h3>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Gillespie" title="Ed Gillespie">Ed Gillespie</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks" title="FreedomWorks">FreedomWorks</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation" title="Heritage Foundation">Heritage Foundation</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_for_Policy_Innovation" title="Institute for Policy Innovation">Institute for Policy Innovation</a></li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Operation_Iraqi_Freedom:_Military_and_Political_Dissent" title="Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military and Political Dissent" class="mw-redirect">Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military and Political Dissent</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Preemptive_war" title="Preemptive war">preemptive war</a>.</li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Progressive_Donor_Network" title="Progressive Donor Network">Progressive Donor Network</a></li></ul>

<h3>References</h3>

<ol class="references"><li id="cite_note-compassion-0">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-compassion_0-0" title="">1.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-compassion_0-1" title="">1.1</a> Dick Armey, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602742263407769.html" class="external text" title="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602742263407769.html" rel="nofollow">'Compassionate' Conservatism Was a Mistake</a>, Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2008.</li><li id="cite_note-ALEC_Agenda-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-ALEC_Agenda_1-0" title="">↑</a>

American Legislative Exchange Council, "Solutions for the States," 38th

Annual Meeting agenda, on file with CMD, August 3-6, 2011</li><li id="cite_note-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-2" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Telecommunications_and_Information_Technology1" class="external text" title="http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Telecommunications_and_Information_Technology1" rel="nofollow">Telecommunications and Information Technology</a>, ALEC website, Accessed May, 2011</li><li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-3" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Telecommunications_and_Information_Technology1" class="external text" title="http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Telecommunications_and_Information_Technology1" rel="nofollow">Telecommunications and Information Technology</a>, ALEC website, Accessed May, 2011</li><li id="cite_note-bio-4">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-bio_4-0" title="">5.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-bio_4-1" title="">5.1</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-bio_4-2" title="">5.2</a> <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/about/chairman-dick-armey" class="external text" title="http://www.freedomworks.org/about/chairman-dick-armey" rel="nofollow">"FreedomWorks Chairman and Former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey"</a>, FreedomWorks website, accessed October 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-5" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.ipi.org/ipi/IPIAbout.nsf/0/f085ee37720007f0862567e800696003" class="external text" title="http://www.ipi.org/ipi/IPIAbout.nsf/0/f085ee37720007f0862567e800696003" rel="nofollow">"About the Institute for Policy Innovation"</a>, Institute for Policy Innovation website, accessed October 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-6" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/15/politics/15REPU.html" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/15/politics/15REPU.html" rel="nofollow">"A Sustained G.O.P. Push to Mock Gore´s Image"</a>, New York Times, October 14, 2000.</li><li id="cite_note-7"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-7" title="">↑</a> Dick Armey, <a href="http://www.politechbot.com/p-00285.html" class="external text" title="http://www.politechbot.com/p-00285.html" rel="nofollow">"Armey Applauds Vice President Gore for Ingenuity, Creativity and Imagination"</a>, Media Release, March 11, 1999.</li><li id="cite_note-8"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-8" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0809-08.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0809-08.htm" rel="nofollow">"Armey: 'Unprovoked' Iraq War Would Be Illegal"</a>, Chicago Tribune, August 9, 2002.</li><li id="cite_note-9"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-9" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/dick-armey-to-lead-citizens-for-a-sound-economy" class="external text" title="http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/dick-armey-to-lead-citizens-for-a-sound-economy" rel="nofollow">"Dick Armey to Lead Citizens for a Sound Economy"</a>, Media release, January 08, 2003.</li><li id="cite_note-Premiere-10">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-Premiere_10-0" title="">11.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-Premiere_10-1" title="">11.1</a> <a href="http://premierespeakers.com/2708/index.cfm#programs" class="external text" title="http://premierespeakers.com/2708/index.cfm#programs" rel="nofollow">"Dick Armey"</a>, Premiere Speakers Bureau, accessed October 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-SS-11">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-SS_11-0" title="">12.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-SS_11-1" title="">12.1</a> <a href="http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2004/Jun/25/ndn_guest_commentarytime_for_political_courage_o/" class="external text" title="http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2004/Jun/25/ndn_guest_commentarytime_for_political_courage_o/" rel="nofollow">"Time for political courage on Social Security"</a>, Naplesnews.com, June 25, 2004.</li><li id="cite_note-12"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-12" title="">↑</a> Michael M. Phillips <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121090164137297527.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone" class="external text" title="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121090164137297527.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone" rel="nofollow">"Mortgage Bailout Infuriates Tenants (And Steve Forbes):</a> 'Angry Renter' Web Site Has Grass-Roots Look, But This Turf Is Fake", Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2008.</li><li id="cite_note-13"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-13" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bqh26e00" class="external text" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bqh26e00" rel="nofollow">"Inside Politics: Smoking Policy?"</a>, Washington Times, May 31, 1994. page 5. Bates No. 2050161682B</li><li id="cite_note-14"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-14" title="">↑</a> Lorillard <a href="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qks91b00" class="external text" title="http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qks91b00" rel="nofollow">Political Contribution Master List</a> July 15, 1998. Bates No. 83585613/5645 at page --5631.</li><li id="cite_note-15"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-15" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml" class="external text" title="http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml" rel="nofollow">Roll call vote</a>, Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.</li><li id="cite_note-16"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-16" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080129200418/http://www.raybowersphotography.com/cherry/princesses.html" class="external text" title="http://web.archive.org/web/20080129200418/http://www.raybowersphotography.com/cherry/princesses.html" rel="nofollow">"Cherry Blossom Festival - Queens and Princesses"</a>, Ray Bowers Photography, archived from January 2008.</li><li id="cite_note-17"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Armey#cite_ref-17" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/fashion/weddings/31sheybani.html" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/fashion/weddings/31sheybani.html" rel="nofollow">"Susan Sheybani and Nelson Peacock"</a>, New York Times, August 29, 2008.</li></ol>

</div>

<h3>External resources</h3>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.asp?cycle=2002&cid=N00005638" class="external text" title="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.asp?cycle=2002&cid=N00005638" rel="nofollow">Armey's Financial and Contributions Profile</a>.</li><li>An extensive listing of publications about Armey is available at Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "<a href="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/bibdisplay.pl?index=A000217" class="external text" title="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/bibdisplay.pl?index=A000217" rel="nofollow">ARMEY, Richard Keith, 1940</a>", undated, accessed July 13, 2004.</li><li>Economic Externalities and the Theories of Balanced and Unbalanced Growth. N.p., 1969.</li><li>Price Theory: A Policy-Welfare Approach. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977.</li><li>It's Long Enough: The Decline

of Popular Government Under Forty Years of Single-Party Control of the

U.S. House of Representatives. N.p., 1994.</li><li>The Freedom Revolution: The New Republican House Majority Leader Tells Why Big Government Failed. Washington: N.p., 1995.</li><li>The Flat Tax: A Citizen's

Guide to the Facts on What It Will Do for You, Your Country, and Your

Pocketbook. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1996.</li><li>A Republican Agenda to Reverse the Clinton Crunch. Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation , 1996.</li><li>"Why We Need the Flat Tax." World & I 10 (May 1995): 90-97.</li><li>Armey's Axioms: 40 Hard-earned Truths from Politics, Faith, and Life. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003.</li><li>"Caveat Emptor: The Case Against the National Sales Tax." Policy Review 73 (Summer 1995): 31-35.</li></ul>

<h3>External articles</h3>

<h4>Articles by Armey</h4>

<ul><li>Dick Armey, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602742263407769.html" class="external text" title="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602742263407769.html" rel="nofollow">'Compassionate' Conservatism Was a Mistake</a>, Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2008.</li></ul>

<h4>General Articles</h4>

<ul><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Malcolm_S._Forbes&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Malcolm S. Forbes (page does not exist)">Malcolm S. Forbes</a>, "A $2-billion-to-$5-billion-a-year Congressman", Forbes, May 30, 1988.</li><li>Randy Fitzgerald, "This Congressman Beat the System", Reader's Digest, April 1989.</li><li>Timothy Noah, "Armey's Aesthetic", The New Republic, September 11, 1989.</li><li>William McGurn, "Mr. Outsider", National Review, October 15, 1990.</li><li>Eleanor Clift,. "Mr. Outsider", National Review, October 15, 1990.</li><li>Phil Kuntz, "Crowning a Cannon", Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, December 12, 1992, page 3782.</li><li>Alan Freedman, "An 'Uppity Minority Guy' Takes Charge", National Journal, January 16, 1993.</li><li>"Dick Armey, Bomb Thrower", The Economist, March 6, 1993.</li><li>Richard S. Dunham, "The Republican in Clinton's face: Dick Armey has emerged as the House's chief budget-basher", Business Week, March 29, 1993.</li><li>Jackie Koszczuk, "Armey's March to Power in the House", Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, November 12, 1994, page 3223.</li><li>Michael Isikoff, "An Armey for the Revolution", Newsweek, November 28, 1994.</li><li>Hilary Hylton, "Newt's Battle-ready Armey", Time, November 28, 1994.</li><li>Gloria Borger, "A Think Tank in Cowboy Boots", U.S. News & World Report, December 12, 1994.</li><li>Paul Starobin, "True Believer", National Journal, January 7, 1995.</li><li>"Is the Flat Tax Full of Holes?", Consumer Reports, February 1996.</li><li>Richard S. Dunham, "Dick Armey: Immovable Force or Sitting Duck?", Business Week, February 12, 1996, 33.</li><li>Jackie Koszczuk, "With Humor

and Firm Hand, Armey Rules the House: Majority Leader Will Wield More

Power as Gingrich Hits the Campaign Trail", Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, March 2, 1996, page 523.</li><li>J. Guadalupe Carney, "Fishing for Converts", Time, May 6, 1996.</li><li>Richard E. Cohen, "No Cakewalk for 'Speaker' Armey", National Journal, February 28, 1998.</li><li>John J. Miller, "Today's Armey", National Review, June 22, 1998.</li><li>Eliza Newlin Carney, "Armey's Boots May Be for Walkin'", National Journal, November 14, 1998.</li><li>House Majority Leader Armey, "<a href="http://www.politechbot.com/p-00285.html" class="external text" title="http://www.politechbot.com/p-00285.html" rel="nofollow">Armey Applauds Vice President Gore for Ingenuity, Creativity and Imagination</a>", Media Release, March 11, 1999.</li><li>Alison Mitchell, "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/15/politics/15REPU.htmlA" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/15/politics/15REPU.htmlA" rel="nofollow">Sustained GOP Push to Mock Gore's Image</a>," New York Times, October 15, 2000.</li><li>Suzi Parker, David E. Kaplan, and Ben Wildavsky, "Rebels Beware", U.S. News & World Report, August 6, 2001.</li><li>Robert S. McIntyre, "Armey's Austerity", The American Prospect, August 13, 2001.</li><li>Nicholas Confessore, "Look Who's Talking", The American Prospect, December 3, 2001.</li><li>"The End of the Big Right Idea? Dick Armey Moves On", The Economist, December 15, 2001.</li><li>Karen Tumulty, "Armey Halted: DeLay Marches On", Time, December 24, 2001.</li><li>Paige Albiniak, "You and what armey?" Broadcasting & Cable, April 22, 2002.</li><li>Molly Ivins, "<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/power_plays/2002/03/mean.html" class="external text" title="http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/power_plays/2002/03/mean.html" rel="nofollow">The Masters of Mean</a>: Goodbye to Phil Gramm and Dick Armey, the Last of a Bitter Breed of Texas Politician", Mother Jones, March-April 2002, 26.</li><li>"Dick Armey, Thinker", The American Prospect, June 3, 2002.</li><li>Tim Reid, "<a href="http://www.obv.org.uk/reports/2002/rpt20020819h.html" class="external text" title="http://www.obv.org.uk/reports/2002/rpt20020819h.html" rel="nofollow">General tells Bush: Don't go it alone</a>", The Times, August 19, 2002.</li><li>"Retiring, Not Shy", The New York Times Magazine, September 1, 2002.</li><li>Kelly Heyboer, "Revenge, Texas-style", American Journalism Review, November 2002.</li><li>Paul Bedard, Paul, Kevin Whitelaw, David E. Kaplan, and Suzi Parker. "Even as He Splits, Dick Armey is Stirring It Up", U.S. News & World Report, November 25, 2002.</li><li>"Social Security Reform Ripe, GOP's Retiring Armey Says", Investor's Business Daily, December 16, 2002.</li><li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy" title="Citizens for a Sound Economy">Citizens for a Sound Economy</a>, "<a href="http://www.cse.org/newsroom/press_template.php?press_id=367" class="external text" title="http://www.cse.org/newsroom/press_template.php?press_id=367" rel="nofollow">Dick Armey to Lead Citizens for a Sound Economy</a>", Media Release, January 8, 2003.</li><li>"<a href="http://www.cse.org/know/board_members.php#armey" class="external text" title="http://www.cse.org/know/board_members.php#armey" rel="nofollow">Dick Armey Co-Chairman of CSE</a>", undated, accessed July 13, 2004.</li><li>"<a href="http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/perspective/article/0,2071,NPDN_14966_2988795,00.html" class="external text" title="http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/perspective/article/0,2071,NPDN_14966_2988795,00.html" rel="nofollow">Time for political courage on Social Security</a>, Naples Daily News, June 25, 2004.</li><li>"<a href="http://www.cse.org/armey/index.php" class="external text" title="http://www.cse.org/armey/index.php" rel="nofollow">CSE Chairman and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey</a>", undated, accessed July 13, 2004.</li><li>Deirdre Shesgreen, "<a href="http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/C74803F593DC566286256FBB0020524F?OpenDocument" class="external text" title="http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/C74803F593DC566286256FBB0020524F?OpenDocument" rel="nofollow">Nonprofit group skirts lobbying laws, critics charge</a>", St Louis Post Dispatch, March 5, 2005.</li><li>David D. Kirkpatrick, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/us/politics/20conserve.html?r=1&hp&ex=1161316800&en=b1b937b467b8fa0b&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/us/politics/20conserve.html?r=1&hp&ex=1161316800&en=b1b937b467b8fa0b&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin" rel="nofollow">"Republican Woes Lead to Feuding by Conservatives,"</a> New York Times, October 20, 2006.</li><li><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701482.html" class="external text" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102701482.html" rel="nofollow">Opinion: "Where We Went Wrong,"</a> Washington Post, October 28, 2006.</li><li><a href="http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200904160002" class="external text" title="http://mediamattersaction.org/factcheck/200904160002" rel="nofollow">" Lobbyist Tea Party"</a>, Media Matters Action Network, April 16, 2009.</li><li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/31/armey-pollution-gospel/" class="external text" title="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/31/armey-pollution-gospel/" rel="nofollow">"Lobbyist Dick Armey’s Pollution Gospel: ‘As An Article Of Faith,’ It Is ‘Pretentious’ To Believe In Global Warming"</a>, ThinkProgress, July 31st, 2009.</li><li>DLA Piper, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS206679+14-Aug-2009+BW20090814" class="external text" title="http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS206679+14-Aug-2009+BW20090814" rel="nofollow">"Statement on Dick Armey`s Decision to Leave DLA Piper"</a>, Media release, August 14, 2009.</li><li><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/armey-soda/" class="external text" title="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/armey-soda/" rel="nofollow">"FreedomWorks, Run By Former Beverage Industry Lobbyist Dick Armey, Launches Attack Against Soda Tax"</a>, ThinkProgress, May 15th, 2009.</li><li><a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26128.html" class="external text" title="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26128.html" rel="nofollow">"Armey leaves firm amid health care flap"</a>, Politico, August 14, 2009.</li><li>David D. Kirkpatrick, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/us/15lobby.html" class="external text" title="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/us/15lobby.html" rel="nofollow">"Drug Firms Cost Lobbyist His Position"</a>, New York Times, August 14, 2009.</li><li>Meredith Simons, <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6672886.html" class="external text" title="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6672886.html" rel="nofollow">"Armey says he’s busier than ever: Ex-House GOP leader is firing up opposition to health care overhaul"</a>, Houston Chronicle, October 17, 2009.</li></ul>

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</div>

wikipedia:

Richard Keith "Dick" Armey (pronounced <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English" title="Wikipedia:IPA for English">/ˈɑrmi/</a>; born July 7, 1940) is a former <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="United States House of Representatives">U.S. Representative</a> from Texas's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_26th_congressional_district" title="Texas's 26th congressional district">26th congressional district</a> (1985–2003) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_Leaders_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Party Leaders of the United States House of Representatives" class="mw-redirect">House Majority Leader</a> (1995–2003). He was one of the engineers of the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Revolution" title="Republican Revolution">Republican Revolution</a>" of the 1990s, in which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_%28United_States%29" title="Republican Party (United States)">Republicans</a> were elected to majorities of both houses of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress" title="United States Congress">Congress</a> for the first time in four decades. Armey was one of the chief authors of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America" title="Contract with America">Contract with America</a>.

Armey is also an author and former economics professor. After his

congressional career he worked as a consultant, advisor and lobbyist.

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>] </div>

<ul><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Early_life.2C_education_and_career">1 Early life, education and career</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#U.S._House_of_Representatives">2 U.S. House of Representatives</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Leadership_challenge">2.1 Leadership challenge</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Later_congressional_career">2.2 Later congressional career</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Political_positions">3 Political positions</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Contract_with_America">3.1 Contract with America</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Defense_spending">3.2 Defense spending</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Economy_and_taxation">3.3 Economy and taxation</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Health_Care">3.4 Health Care</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Iraq_War">4 Iraq War</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Israel">4.1 Israel</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Controversies">5 Controversies</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Quote_during_Clinton_Impeachment">5.1 Quote during Clinton Impeachment</a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Focus_on_the_Family">5.2 Focus on the Family</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#DLA_Piper">6 DLA Piper</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-16"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#FreedomWorks">7 FreedomWorks</a>

<ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-17"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#August_2009_town_hall_meetings_health_care_controversy">7.1 August 2009 town hall meetings health care controversy</a></li></ul>

</li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-18"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#Books">8 Books</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-19"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#References">9 References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-20"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#External_links">10 External links</a></li></ul>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=1&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Early life, education and career">edit</a>] Early life, education and career</h2>

Armey was born in the farming town of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cando,North_Dakota" title="Cando, North Dakota">Cando, North Dakota</a>, the son of Marion (née Gutschlag) and Glenn Armey.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-1">[2]</a> He grew up in a rural area. He graduated from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_College" title="Jamestown College">Jamestown College</a> with a B.A. and then received an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Arts%28postgraduate%29" title="Master of Arts (postgraduate)" class="mw-redirect">M.A.</a> from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_North_Dakota" title="University of North Dakota">University of North Dakota</a> and a PhD in economics from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oklahoma" title="University of Oklahoma">University of Oklahoma</a>. Armey is a member of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Kappa_Alpha" title="Pi Kappa Alpha">Pi Kappa Alpha</a> fraternity.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-2">[3]</a>

Armey served on the economics faculty at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Montana_%E2%80%93_Missoula" title="University of Montana – Missoula" class="mw-redirect">University of Montana</a> from 1964 to 1965, was an Assistant Professor of economics at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Texas_State_University" title="West Texas State University" class="mw-redirect">West Texas State University</a> from 1967 to 1968, an Assistant Professor of economics at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_College" title="Austin College">Austin College</a> from 1968 to 1972, an Associate Professor of economics at North Texas State (now the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_North_Texas" title="University of North Texas">University of North Texas</a>) from 1972 to 1977 and Chairman of the economics department at North Texas State from 1977 to 1983.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-3">[4]</a>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=2&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: U.S. House of Representatives">edit</a>] U.S. House of Representatives</h2>

Armey was first elected to the House in 1984 in the 26th District of Texas, defeating freshman congressman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Vandergriff" title="Tom Vandergriff">Tom Vandergriff</a> in what is still considered a huge upset (Vandergriff is well known in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas-Fort_Worth_Metroplex" title="Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex" class="mw-redirect">Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex</a>, most notably for bringing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball" title="Major League Baseball">Major League Baseball</a>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Rangers%28baseball%29" title="Texas Rangers (baseball)">Texas Rangers</a> to the area). Armey was one of six freshmen <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party%28United_States%29" title="Republican Party (United States)">Republican Party</a> congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 that were known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Six_Pack" title="Texas Six Pack">Texas Six Pack</a>.

Due to the increasingly Republican tilt of the Metroplex, Armey would

never face another tough race and was reelected eight times. In his

early years in Congress, Armey was influenced by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism" title="Libertarianism">libertarian</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics" title="Austrian economics" class="mw-redirect">Austrian economist</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Mises" title="Ludwig von Mises">Ludwig von Mises</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-4">[5]</a>

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=3&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Leadership challenge">edit</a>] Leadership challenge</h3>

In the summer of 1997 several House Republicans, who saw <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Speaker of the United States House of Representatives">Speaker</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich" title="Newt Gingrich">Newt Gingrich</a>'s public image as a liability, attempted to replace him as Speaker. The attempted "coup" began July 9 with a meeting between Republican conference chairman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boehner" title="John Boehner">John Boehner</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio" title="Ohio">Ohio</a> and Republican leadership chairman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Paxon" title="Bill Paxon">Bill Paxon</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York" title="New York">New York</a>. According to their plan, House Majority Leader Armey, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_whips_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Party whips of the United States House of Representatives">House Majority Whip</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay" title="Tom DeLay">Tom DeLay</a>,

Boehner and Paxon were to present Gingrich with an ultimatum: resign,

or be voted out. However, Armey balked at the proposal to make Paxon the

new Speaker, and told his chief of staff to warn Gingrich about the

coup.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-5">[6]</a>

On July 11, Gingrich met

with senior Republican leadership to assess the situation. He explained

that under no circumstance would he step down. If he was voted out,

there would be a new election for Speaker, which would allow for the

possibility that Democrats—along with dissenting Republicans—would vote

in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Gephardt" title="Dick Gephardt">Dick Gephardt</a>

as Speaker. On July 16, Paxon offered to resign his post, feeling that

he had not handled the situation correctly, as the only member of the

leadership who had been appointed to his position—by Gingrich—instead of

elected.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-6">[7]</a>

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=4&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Later congressional career">edit</a>] Later congressional career</h3>

After heavy Republican

losses in the 1998 elections, Armey had to fend off a bruising challenge

for his majority leader post from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Largent" title="Steve Largent">Steve Largent</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma" title="Oklahoma">Oklahoma</a>,

a member of the Republican class of 1994. Although Armey was not

popular in the Republican caucus, Largent was thought to be far too

conservative for the liking of some moderate Republicans, and Armey won

on the third ballot.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-7">[8]</a> Soon afterward, Speaker-elect <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Livingston" title="Bob Livingston">Bob Livingston</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana" title="Louisiana">Louisiana</a>

announced he wouldn't take the post after the revelation of an

extramarital affair, Armey initially seemed to have the inside track to

become Speaker. As majority leader, he was the number-two Republican in

the chamber. However, he was still badly wounded from Largent's

challenge, and opted not to run. The post eventually went to Chief

Deputy Whip <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hastert" title="Dennis Hastert">Dennis Hastert</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois" title="Illinois">Illinois</a>.

Armey served another four years before announcing his retirement in 2002.

In his last legislative effort, he was named chairman of the House

Select Committee on Homeland Security and was the primary sponsor of the

legislation that created the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Homeland_Security" title="Department of Homeland Security" class="mw-redirect">Department of Homeland Security</a>.

After Armey's retirement, fellow Texan and Republican <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay" title="Tom DeLay">Tom DeLay</a>, then <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_whips_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Party whips of the United States House of Representatives">House Majority Whip</a>, was elevated to Armey's Majority Leader position. Armey's son, Scott, ran for his father's seat in the 2002 election, but lost in the Republican Party (GOP) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runoff_election" title="Runoff election" class="mw-redirect">runoff</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_C._Burgess" title="Michael C. Burgess">Michael C. Burgess</a>, who would go on to hold the strongly Republican 26th District for the GOP in November.

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=5&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Political positions">edit</a>] Political positions</h2>

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=6&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Contract with America">edit</a>] Contract with America</h3>

In 1994, Armey, then House Republican Conference Chairman, joined <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_whips_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="Party whips of the United States House of Representatives">Minority Whip</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich" title="Newt Gingrich">Newt Gingrich</a> in drafting the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America" title="Contract with America">Contract with America</a>. Republican members credited this election platform with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.House_election,1994" title="U.S. House election, 1994" class="mw-redirect">Republican takeover of Congress</a>, rewarding Gingrich with the position of Speaker and Armey with the number two position of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Majority_Leader" title="House Majority Leader" class="mw-redirect">House Majority Leader</a>.

Gingrich delegated to Armey an unprecedented level of authority over

scheduling legislation on the House floor, a power traditionally

reserved to the Speaker. Armey has been accused of being involved in a

1997 attempt to oust Gingrich as Speaker,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-8">[9]</a> something Armey has strongly denied. In 1995 Armey referred to openly homosexual Congressman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Frank" title="Barney Frank">Barney Frank</a>, as "Barney <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot%28slang%29" title="Faggot (slang)">Fag</a>". Armey said it was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_of_the_tongue" title="Slip of the tongue" class="mw-redirect">slip of the tongue</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-9">[10]</a> Armey and his staff, especially spokesman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Wilkinson%28former_U.S._government_employee%29" title="Jim Wilkinson (former U.S. government employee)">Jim Wilkinson</a>, took the lead in spreading the idea that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore" title="Al Gore">Al Gore</a> claimed to have "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore_and_information_technology#1999_CNN_interview_misquoting" title="Al Gore and information technology">invented the internet</a>."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-Smith-10">[11]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-11">[12]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-12">[13]</a>

During his time in Congress, Armey conceived the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_Realignment_and_Closure" title="Base Realignment and Closure">independent nonpolitical commission</a> that became responsible for identifying those <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_base" title="Military base">military bases</a> to be closed as a cost-cutting measure. After his retirement from Congress, he told the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times" title="New York Times" class="mw-redirect">New York Times</a>:

"A lot of people say if you cut defense, you’re demonstrating less than

a full commitment to our nation’s security, and that’s baloney."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-13">[14]</a>

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=8&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Economy and taxation">edit</a>] Economy and taxation</h3>

As a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-market_economics" title="Free-market economics" class="mw-redirect">free-market economist</a> influenced by the ideas of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman" title="Milton Friedman">Milton Friedman</a>, Armey favored relatively open immigration and the elimination of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade" title="Free trade">barriers to the movement of goods and people across national boundaries</a>. Armey was one of Congress's fervent supporters of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate%28United_States%29#Privatization" title="Social Security debate (United States)" class="mw-redirect">privatization</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security%28United_States%29" title="Social Security (United States)">Social Security</a> and phasing-out of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy" title="Agricultural subsidy">farm subsidies</a>.

He is a strong supporter of replacing the progressive tax levels and a

complex system of deductions with a simplified single rate known as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax" title="Flat tax">flat tax</a>

where the poorest taxpayer would pay the same tax percentage as the

wealthiest. Armey is very critical of a competing tax reform proposal

that would replace the current system with a national sales tax, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax" title="FairTax">FairTax</a>.

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=9&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Health Care">edit</a>] Health Care</h3>

In 1999, Armey sponsored the <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-106hr2362ih/pdf/BILLS-106hr2362ih.pdf">Fair Care for the Uninsured Act</a>: something that would also be proposed in <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107hr1331ih/pdf/BILLS-107hr1331ih.pdf">2001</a>, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-108hr583ih/pdf/BILLS-108hr583ih.pdf">2003</a>, and <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-109hr765ih/pdf/BILLS-109hr765ih.pdf">2005</a> (by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy" title="Mark Kennedy">Mark Kennedy</a>, after Armey left Congress). It proposed using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_credits" title="Tax credits" class="mw-redirect">tax credits</a> to offset the cost of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance" title="Health insurance">health insurance</a>;

providing for individuals to be able to go outside the workplace to

obtain portable private health coverage directly from an insurance

company; and the creation of a "safety net" for the uninsured. The law

never made it through Congress, but some of these concepts did make it

into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform" title="Massachusetts health care reform">Massachusetts "Romneycare" law</a> of 2006 and from there into President Obama's controversial health-care reform in 2010 ("<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obamacare" title="Obamacare" class="mw-redirect">Obamacare</a>"). Armey is a vocal opponent of the most controversial element of the Romney/Obama approach to health reform, namely, its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_mandate" title="Individual mandate">individual mandate</a>

to purchase health benefits. He also voiced public opposition to the

individual mandate when it was proposed by both First Lady <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton" title="Hillary Clinton" class="mw-redirect">Hillary Clinton</a> and the conservative <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Foundation" title="Heritage Foundation" class="mw-redirect">Heritage Foundation</a> during the contentious national health care reform debate of 1993 and 1994.

In 2006, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Isikoff" title="Michael Isikoff">Michael Isikoff</a>'s book Hubris included Armey as an on-the-record source, who said he was initially reluctant to support the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush_administration" title="George W. Bush administration" class="mw-redirect">Bush administration</a>'s call for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War" title="Iraq War">war with Iraq</a>, and that he had warned President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush">George W. Bush</a>

that such a war might be a "quagmire". Armey said that the intelligence

presented to him in support of the war appeared questionable, but he

gave Bush the benefit of the doubt.

According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize" title="Pulitzer Prize">Pulitzer Prize</a>-winning journalist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Gellman" title="Barton Gellman">Barton Gellman</a>, former Vice President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney" title="Dick Cheney">Dick Cheney</a> told Armey that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein" title="Saddam Hussein">Saddam Hussein</a>'s family had direct ties to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda" title="Al-Qaeda">Al-Qaeda</a> and that Saddam was developing miniature nuclear weapons. Armey then voted for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War" title="Iraq War">Iraq War</a>, but after it became clear this was not true, stated that he "deserved better than to be bullshitted by the Vice President."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-cheney-connection-14">[15]</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Draper" title="Robert Draper">Robert Draper</a>'s Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush

recounts a conversation in late summer 2002 between Armey and Cheney.

Armey insisted that American forces would get "mired down" in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq" title="Iraq">Iraq</a> if they invaded, but Cheney offered this assurance: "They're going to welcome us. It'll be like the American army <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_of_Paris" title="Liberation of Paris">going through the streets of Paris</a>.

They're sitting there ready to form a new government. The people will

be so happy with their freedoms that we'll probably back ourselves out

of there within a month or two."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-draper-15">[16]</a>

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=11&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Israel">edit</a>] Israel</h3>

On May 1, 2002, on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC" title="MSNBC">MSNBC</a>'s "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardball_with_Chris_Matthews" title="Hardball with Chris Matthews">Hardball with Chris Matthews</a>", Armey, then the House Republican Majority Leader, called for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians" title="Palestinians" class="mw-redirect">Palestinians</a> to be expelled from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Occupied_Territories" title="Palestinian Occupied Territories" class="mw-redirect">Palestinian Occupied Territories</a>.

Armey repeatedly said that he would be "content" with Israel completely

taking over all of the Palestinian Occupied Territories and transfer

the Palestinian population out. He further stated that the Palestinians

could then build their state in the "many Arab nations that have many

hundreds of thousands of acres of land".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-16">[17]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-17">[18]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-18">[19]</a>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=12&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Controversies">edit</a>] Controversies</h2>

In 1989 he wrote a letter to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_the_Arts" title="National Endowment for the Arts">National Endowment for the Arts</a> about the grants for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Serrano" title="Andres Serrano">Andres Serrano</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mapplethorpe" title="Robert Mapplethorpe">Robert Mapplethorpe</a>, calling their work "morally reprehensible trash."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-19">[20]</a>

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=13&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Quote during Clinton Impeachment">edit</a>] Quote during Clinton Impeachment</h3>

In 1998, during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Lewinsky_scandal" title="Monica Lewinsky scandal" class="mw-redirect">Monica Lewinsky scandal</a>, a reporter asked him what he would do if he were in President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton" title="Bill Clinton">Bill Clinton</a>'s

position. He replied "If I were in the President's place I would not

have gotten a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own

blood, hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, 'How do I reload this

damn thing?'"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-20">[21]</a>

According to Armey, he also sparred with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focus_on_the_Family" title="Focus on the Family">Focus on the Family</a> leader <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dobson" title="James Dobson">James Dobson</a>

while in office. Armey wrote, "As Majority Leader, I remember vividly a

meeting with the House leadership where Dobson scolded us for having

failed to 'deliver' for Christian conservatives, that we owed our

majority to him, and that he had the power to take our jobs back. This

offended me, and I told him so." Armey states that Focus on the Family

targeted him politically after the incident, writing, "Focus on the

Family deliberately perpetuates the lie that I am a consultant to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACLU" title="ACLU" class="mw-redirect">ACLU</a>."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-21">[22]</a> Armey has also said that "Dobson and his gang of thieves are real nasty bullies."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-22">[23]</a>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=15&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: DLA Piper">edit</a>] DLA Piper</h2>

At the start of 2003, Armey joined the Washington office of the law firm <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLA_Piper" title="DLA Piper">DLA Piper</a> (formerly DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary) as a senior policy advisor.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-23">[24]</a> Armey was also the firm's co-chairman of its Homeland Security Task Force.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-24">[25]</a>

In August 2009 Armey was asked to step down from his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying" title="Lobbying">lobbying</a>

position at DLA Piper, which was doing lobbying work for the

pharmaceutical industry regarding health care reform legislation. Armey

was simultaneously chairing the conservative group <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks" title="FreedomWorks">FreedomWorks</a>

which was actively working to defeat health care reform by encouraging

and organizing high conservative turnouts at congressional and

senatorial town hall meetings. DLA Piper was concerned about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest" title="Conflict of interest" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">conflict of interest</a>

particularly since their clients were spending millions in advertising

and lobbying money to support the passage of health care reform and

FreedomWorks was linked to demonstrations at town hall forums where

health care reform was being discussed.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-25">[26]</a>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=16&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: FreedomWorks">edit</a>] FreedomWorks</h2>

In 2003, Armey became co-chairman of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy" title="Citizens for a Sound Economy">Citizens for a Sound Economy</a>, which in 2004 merged with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empower_America" title="Empower America" class="mw-redirect">Empower America</a> to become <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks" title="FreedomWorks">FreedomWorks</a>.

"FreedomWorks" is a common Armey saying and the organization is

dedicated to advancing a "Freedom Agenda" of "lower taxes, less

government, and more freedom." FreedomWorks states that it has 700,000

members nationwide and full time staff in 10 states. In his role as

Chairman, Armey continues to be a national political figure and

grassroots leader. He travels widely, meeting with activists and

legislators. In 2005, for example, he testified before the President's

Advisory Panel on Tax Reform and debated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Colorado" title="Governor of Colorado">Governor of Colorado</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Owens_%28Colorado_politician%29" title="Bill Owens (Colorado politician)">Bill Owens</a> on a tax increase ballot measure.

<h3>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=17&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: August 2009 town hall meetings health care controversy">edit</a>] August 2009 town hall meetings health care controversy</h3>

In 2009, FreedomWorks launched a campaign against health care reform proposals, accusing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_administration" title="Obama administration" class="mw-redirect">Obama administration</a> of attempting to "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine" title="Socialized medicine">socialize medicine</a>".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-26">[27]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-27">[28]</a> A strategy manual disseminated by a FreedomWorks volunteer explained "best

practices" including "Inflate your numbers", describing how one group

succeeded in dominating a group of 150 voters in which only 30 opposed

healthcare reform.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-28">[29]</a>

Referencing a piece entitled "On Private Conference Call, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement" title="Tea Party movement">Tea Party</a> Organizers Say No Reform At All is Goal" on Greg Sargent's liberal blog The Plum Line,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-29">[30]</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Maddow" title="Rachel Maddow">Rachel Maddow</a> argued in her opinion piece "TRMS Investigates FreedomWorks"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-msnbc.msn.com-30">[31]</a> that the right's strategy was to disrupt and shut down the August 2009 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_hall_meeting" title="Town hall meeting">town hall</a> congressional meetings on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_reform" title="Health care reform">health care reform</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-msnbc.msn.com-30">[31]</a> by “scaring real <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States">Americans</a> with increasingly paranoid and kooky lies about health care and then providing a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_%28theatre%29" title="Play (theatre)">script</a> for how to express that fear.”<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-31">[32]</a> At many of the town halls Democratic "members of Congress have been shouted down, hanged in effigy and taunted by crowds"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-32">[33]</a> in an apparent organized effort to rattle the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congresspeople" title="Congresspeople" class="mw-redirect">congresspeople</a> presiding over the meetings rather than to seek a compromise solution to health care reform.

The phone conversation

cited by Sargent in "On Private Conference Call . . ." was moderated by

The Tea Party Patriots, a national co-partner of Dick Armey's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks" title="FreedomWorks">FreedomWorks</a>,

according to FreedomWorks itself. The Tea Party Patriots website later

called for Patriots to begin making calls to melt Congress' phone lines

and to weigh in on the health care debate actively, aggressively, and

with big numbers.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-33">[34]</a> In addition to being the chair of FreedomWorks, Dick Armey was a senior policy adviser for DC-based <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_firm" title="Lobbying firm" class="mw-redirect">lobbying firm</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLA_Piper" title="DLA Piper">DLA Piper</a>, whose recent and/or current clients include "pharmaceutical maker <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol-Myers_Squibb" title="Bristol-Myers Squibb">Bristol-Myers Squibb</a> Company, ... health care provider Metropolitan Health Networks, and the pharmaceutical firm Medicines Company,".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-msnbc.msn.com-30">[31]</a>

Dick Armey's concurrent posts with both FreedomWorks and DLA Piper

became particularly controversial in light of the $1,290,000 DLA Piper

received in 2009 from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical" title="Pharmaceutical" class="mw-redirect">pharmaceutical</a> company Medicines Co.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-34">[35]</a>

However, Pharmaceutical companies generally supported and lobbied in

favor of the Democratic health care agenda, since it is expected to

increase their profits.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-35">[36]</a>

In the report cited above, Maddow also cited the example of The

American Council of Life Insurers, which paid DLA Piper $100,000 shortly

before FreedomWorks lobbied to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deregulate" title="Deregulate" class="mw-redirect">deregulate</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_insurance" title="Life insurance">life insurance</a>, as one instance of a possible conflict of interest involving Armey and the two organizations.

Addressing DLA Piper's

role in the situation, chairman Francis Burch said “…DLA Piper

represents clients who support enactment of effective <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_reform" title="Health care reform">health care reform</a> this year and encourages responsible national debate."<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-36">[37]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-37">[38]</a> Amid what <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico_%28newspaper%29" title="Politico (newspaper)" class="mw-redirect">Politico</a> called "the health care flap", on August 14, 2009, DLA Piper asked Armey to resign, and he left the firm.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_note-38">[39]</a>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=18&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Books">edit</a>] Books</h2>

<ul><li>Armey, Dick (1995). The Freedom Revolution. Washington, DC: Regnery. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number">ISBN</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780895264695" title="Special:BookSources/9780895264695">9780895264695</a>.</li><li>Armey, Dick (1996). The Flat Tax: A Citizen's Guide to the Facts on What It Will Do for You, Your Country, and Your Pocketbook. New York: Ballantine. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number">ISBN</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780449910955" title="Special:BookSources/9780449910955">9780449910955</a>.</li><li>Armey, Dick (2003). Armey's Axioms: 40 Hard-Earned Truths from Politics, Faith, and Life. New York: Wiley. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number">ISBN</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780471469131" title="Special:BookSources/9780471469131">9780471469131</a>.</li><li>Armey, Dick; Matt Kibbe (2010). Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. New York: William Morrow. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number">ISBN</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780062015877" title="Special:BookSources/9780062015877">9780062015877</a>.</li></ul>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=19&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: References">edit</a>] References</h2>

<ol class="references"><li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-0">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QDQxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WqMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5340,3045071&dq=dick-armey+presbyterian&hl=en">[1]</a></li><li id="cite_note-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-1">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=QcHPtdFdsgQC&q=Gutschlog+armey&dq=Gutschlog+armey&hl=en">[2]</a></li><li id="cite_note-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-2">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.pikes.org/alum/about/content.aspx?item=navigable/about/ProminentPikes.xml#">"Prominent Pikes"</a>. Pikes.org. Retrieved September 13, 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-3">^</a> Guttery, Ben R. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-14gbMQftG0C&lpg=PP1&dq=Representing%20Texas">"Representing Texas: a comprehensive history of U.S. and Confederate senators and representatives from Texas"</a>, 2008, pp. 16–17</li><li id="cite_note-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-4">^</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Rothbard" title="Murray Rothbard">Rothbard, Murray</a> (1994-12-30) <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.antiwar.com/rep/wp_auth.html">Newt Gingrich Is No Libertarian</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Post" title="Washington Post" class="mw-redirect">Washington Post</a></li><li id="cite_note-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-5">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/07/21/time/gingrich.html">"Attempted Republican Coup: Ready, Aim, Misfire"</a>. CNN. Retrieved May 20, 2010.</li><li id="cite_note-6"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-6">^</a> Gingrich, Newt (1998). Lessons Learned the Hard Way. HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 159–160. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number" title="International Standard Book Number">ISBN</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0060191061" title="Special:BookSources/978-0060191061">978-0060191061</a>.</li><li id="cite_note-7"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-7">^</a> Guy Gugliotta and Juliet Eilperin. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/govt/leadership/stories/house111998.htm">House Republicans Embrace Livingston, Armey, Watts</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Post" title="Washington Post" class="mw-redirect">Washington Post</a>, 1998-11-19.</li><li id="cite_note-8"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-8">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/gingrich/gingrich.htm">"Newt Gingrich: House Ethics Case"</a>. The Washington Post. 1997-07-22. Retrieved September 13, 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-9"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-9">^</a> Rich, Frank (February 2, 1995). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/02/opinion/journal-closet-clout.html">"Journal; Closet Clout"</a>. The New York Times. Retrieved August 11, 2010.</li><li id="cite_note-Smith-10"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-Smith_10-0">^</a> Ben Smith (October 27, 2003). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.observer.com/node/48249">"Iraq Media Guy Rebuilds Qatar At the Garden"</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Observer" title="The New York Observer">The New York Observer</a>: p. 1.</li><li id="cite_note-11"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-11">^</a> Harvey Rice (March 21, 2004). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.northstarinst.org/TSS/A_war_story_031304.htm">"A war story I wish I'd written"</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Tribune" title="Oakland Tribune">Oakland Tribune</a>.</li><li id="cite_note-12"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-12">^</a> Catalina Camia (May 30, 1999). "Armey takes lead in criticizing Gore's potential campaign themes". <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Morning_News" title="Dallas Morning News" class="mw-redirect">Dallas Morning News</a>:

p. 8.A. "(Abstract) House Majority Leader Dick Armey has appointed

himself the chief congressional critic of Al Gore, taking every

opportunity to attack the vice president. "Armey believes we should let

the sun shine on what Gore stands for," said Jim Wilkinson, the

congressman's spokesman. "As long as Gore comes up with nutty ideas,

we'll come up with sharp responses." The unofficial "truth squad" began

in earnest when an Armey aide heard Mr. Gore say in a CNN interview that

he "took the initiative in creating the Internet.""</li><li id="cite_note-13"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-13">^</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bumiller" title="Elizabeth Bumiller" class="mw-redirect">Bumiller, Elizabeth</a> and Shanker, Tom (2011-01-27) <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/us/politics/27pentagon.html?_r=1&ref=us">G.O.P. Splits Over Plans to Cut Defense Budget</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times" title="New York Times" class="mw-redirect">New York Times</a></li><li id="cite_note-cheney-connection-14"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-cheney-connection_14-0">^</a> David Edwards, Muriel Kane (2008-09-16). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Author_Cheney_has_been_first_deputy_0916.html">"Author: Dick Armey livid Cheney 'bullshitted' him about Iraq 'mini-nuke'"</a>. the raw story. Retrieved 2009-01-28.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot" title="Wikipedia:Link rot">dead link</a>]</li><li id="cite_note-draper-15"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-draper_15-0">^</a> Draper, Robert. Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. p.178, New York, 2007, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0743277295" class="internal mw-magiclink-isbn">ISBN 0-7432-7729-5</a></li><li id="cite_note-16"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-16">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/armey0502.html">"CounterPunch Wire: Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians"</a>. Counterpunch.org. Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-17"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-17">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.mediamonitors.net/amr115.html">"Richard Armey Supports Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians (by Ahmed Amr) – Media Monitors Network"</a>. Mediamonitors.net. 2002-05-01. Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-18"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-18">^</a> Matthew Engel in Washington (2002-05-04). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/may/04/israel3">"Calls on Israel to expel West Bank Arabs | World news"</a>. The Guardian (London). Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-19"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-19">^</a> Margaret Quigley. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.publiceye.org/theocrat/Mapplethorpe_Chrono.html">"The Mapplethorpe Censorship Controversy"</a>. The Public Eye. Political Research Associates. Retrieved March 2, 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-20"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-20">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://snopes.com/quotes/armey.htm">http://snopes.com/quotes/armey.htm</a></li><li id="cite_note-21"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-21">^</a> Dobson, James (2006-10-31). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,226522,00.html">"Mr. Armey, You've Become a Bitter Man"</a>. Fox News Channel. Retrieved 2009-05-26.</li><li id="cite_note-22"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-22">^</a> McCarthy, Daniel (2007-01-29) <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/jan/29/00019/">The Failure of Fusionism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Conservative" title="The American Conservative">The American Conservative</a></li><li id="cite_note-23"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-23">^</a> Noah, Timothy (2003-01-08). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2076510/">"Who is Dick Armey kidding? – By Timothy Noah – Slate Magazine"</a>. Slate.msn.com. Retrieved September 13, 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-24"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-24">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.dlapiper.com/us/people/biodetail.aspx?id=9343">DLA Piper | Our People | Richard K. Armey</a>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot" title="Wikipedia:Link rot">dead link</a>]</li><li id="cite_note-25"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-25">^</a> Kirkpatrick, David D. (2009-08-14). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/former-congressional-leader-departs-lobbying-firm/#comments">"Former Congressional Leader Departs Lobbying Firm - Prescriptions Blog"</a>. Prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved September 13, 2009.</li><li id="cite_note-26"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-26">^</a> Stein, Sam (April 2, 2009). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/02/dick-armey-fighting-obama_n_182279.html">"Dick Armey Fighting Obama On Health Care Reform"</a>. Huffington Post. Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-27"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-27">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200908050017">"CBS, Fox reports on town hall disruptions ignore conservative strategy" Media Matters (August 5, 2009)</a></li><li id="cite_note-28"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-28">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/08/memo-details-co-ordinated-anti-reform-harrassment-strategy.php?page=1">"Memo Details Co-ordinated Anti-Reform Harrassment Strategy" TPM Document Collection (August, 2009)</a></li><li id="cite_note-29"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-29">^</a> Greg Sargent's blog. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/on-private-conference-call-tea-party-organizers-say-no-reform-at-all-is-goal">"On Private Conference Call, Tea Party Organizers Say No Reform At All Is Goal | The Plum Line"</a>. Theplumline.whorunsgov.com. Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-msnbc.msn.com-30">^ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-msnbc.msn.com_30-0">a</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-msnbc.msn.com_30-1">b</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-msnbc.msn.com_30-2">c</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#32380712">"Rachel Maddow Show"</a>. MSNBC. Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-31"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-31">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26128_Page2.html#ixzz0ODAQyqUy">Politico, Armey leaves firm amid health care flap, Aug 14, 2009</a></li><li id="cite_note-32"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-32">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/us/politics/08townhall.html">New York Times, August 7, 2009, Beyond Beltway, Health Debate Turns Hostile</a></li><li id="cite_note-33"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-33">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://teapartypatriots.org/hc.aspx">"Health Care Events"</a>. Tea Party Patriots. Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-34"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-34">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?lname=Medicines+Co&year=2009">"Lobbying Spending Database-Medicines Co, 2009"</a>. OpenSecrets. Retrieved 2010-08-18.</li><li id="cite_note-35"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-35">^</a> Herper, Matthew (2009-08-20). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/19/pharmaceuticals-obamacare-reform-business-healthcare-washington.html">"Why Pharma Wants ObamaCare"</a>. Forbes. Retrieved 2010-11-01.</li><li id="cite_note-36"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-36">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26128_Page2.html#ixzz0OD5gExVm">Politico, Armey leaves firm amid health care flap, August 9, 2009</a></li><li id="cite_note-37"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-37">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/08/armey-leaves-dla-piper.html">Legal Times blog, Armey Leaves DLA Piper, August 14, 2009</a></li><li id="cite_note-38"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-38">^</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26128.html#ixzz0OD7Z8WqR">Politico, Armey leaves firm amid health care flap, August 9, 2009</a></li></ol>

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</div>

<h2>[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dick_Armey&action=edit&section=20&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: External links">edit</a>] External links</h2>

<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Dick_Armey">Biography</a> at WhoRunsGov.com at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post">The Washington Post</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=A000217">Biography</a> at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographical_Directory_of_the_United_States_Congress" title="Biographical Directory of the United States Congress">Biographical Directory of the United States Congress</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/A000217">Voting record</a> maintained by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post">The Washington Post</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.ontheissues.org/TX/Dick_Armey.htm">Issue positions and quotes</a> at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_The_Issues" title="On The Issues">On The Issues</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?CID=N00005638">Financial information</a> at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Responsive_Politics" title="Center for Responsive Politics">OpenSecrets.org</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/person/1798">Appearances</a> on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-SPAN" title="C-SPAN">C-SPAN</a> programs</li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/dick_armey">Collected news and commentary</a> at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times">The New York Times</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/4655">Appearances</a> on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rose" title="Charlie Rose">Charlie Rose</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Dick_Armey">Profile</a> at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SourceWatch" title="SourceWatch">SourceWatch</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.influenceexplorer.com/politician/dick-armey/eaea6f5640cc43d3a55865ef7dd151ac">Dick Armey</a> political contributions from Influence Explorer at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight_Foundation" title="Sunlight Foundation">Sunlight Foundation</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n95-4106">Works by or about Dick Armey</a> in libraries (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCat" title="WorldCat">WorldCat</a> catalog)</li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.freedomworks.org/about/chairman-dick-armey">Profile</a> at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks" title="FreedomWorks">FreedomWorks</a></li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://premierespeakers.com/dick_armey">Profile</a> on PremiereSpeakers.com</li></ul>

<dl><dt>Articles</dt></dl>

<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34990.html">Tea Partiers air doubts about Dick Armey</a>, Kenneth P. Vogel, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico_%28newspaper%29" title="Politico (newspaper)" class="mw-redirect">Politico</a>, March 25, 2010</li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.truthout.org/secrets-tea-party-the-troubling-history-tea-party-leader-dick-armey57970">Secrets of the Tea Party: The Troubling History of Tea Party Leader Dick Armey</a>, Beau Hodai, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthout" title="Truthout">Truthout</a>, March 26, 2010</li><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2010/0913/Tea-party-s-Dick-Armey-A-GOP-majority-would-take-up-abortion-fight">'Tea party's' Dick Armey: A GOP majority would take up abortion fight</a>, Dave Cook, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science_Monitor" title="Christian Science Monitor" class="mw-redirect">Christian Science Monitor</a>, September 13, 2010</li></ul>

===

2014

Tauzin

says he and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey were the original

architects of the tea party. In 1997, Tauzin writes, he and Armey staged

a series of debates  held in 40 cities called "Scrap the Code," which

called for a flat tax and a national retail sales tax.

The

tour kicked off in the Boston Harbor, where Tauzin said he tossed

overboard a chest containing the then-1,100-page Tax Code (it’s now

longer). During each of his stops, he called for a new American tea

party, he said. Armey argued on behalf of a flat tax over the current

income tax system.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Billy-Tauzin-tea-party-Republicans/2014/06/24/id/578905#ixzz37CvUdA44" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153); font-weight: bold; font-size: 18px;">http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Billy-Tauzin-tea-party-Republicans/2014/06/24/id/578905#ixzz37CvUdA44</a>

Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed?<a href="http://www.newsmax.com/surveys/Obama-Policies/Should-Congress-Repeal--Obama-s-Health-Plan-and-Ot/id/13/kw/default?PROMO_CODE=10EFE-1%22target=%22_blank%22" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153); font-weight: bold; font-size: 18px;"> Vote Here Now!</a>

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