FreedomWorks Koch

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NO MERRI

wow, many tags

see kibbe, armey, koch, TP

capt bak 420 html unprincipled

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let's go brandon!

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steven moore

pjt 2025 list affil as freedomworks

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GUK2

Stephen Moore, a conservative economist whose controversial remarks about women cost him a seat on the Federal Reserve board in 2019, is now co-author of a plan to radically reform the US treasury as part of Project 2025, a vast rightwing effort to advance radical policy proposals for Donald Trump’s possible White House return.

“Project 2025 is all about forcing a far-right agenda on to everyday Americans,” said Tony Carrk, the executive director of the progressive watchdog Accountable.US, which produced an extensive report on Moore’s views and positions.

“So it’s no wonder they tapped a notorious social security opponent like Stephen Moore to help write their policy schemes.”

Moore, Carrk said, had “dedicated his career to slashing social security benefits and taxes for billionaires”.

Like other welfare programmes such as Medicare, social security is a longstanding target of the US right but also something of a third rail for politicians of either party, given public support. Recognising such support, Trump has pledged to “always protect social security” should he return to power. His last opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, says she wants to reform it.

Joe Biden has said he “will not cut a single social security or Medicare benefit”.

Moore remains loyal to Trump but in the past has for privatising social security, which he has called a “Ponzi scheme”, and told students they should march on the Capitol and burn their social security cards.

Responding to Carrk, Moore said by email: “Actually I favor higher social security benefits with personal accounts. That would give seniors benefits that would net three to five times higher.”

Moore advocates mandatory 401k accounts, in place of social security.

He added: “Yes, I am strongly in favor of cutting tax rates to make [the] American economy No 1.”

By its own description, Project 2025 is the work of “a broad coalition of over 70 conservative organisations”, brought together by the Heritage Foundation and aiming to shape the presidential transition should a Republican win election this year.

In the words of Paul Dans, its director, Project 2025 aims to prepare “a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponised conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state”.

According to a conspiracy theory championed by Trump’s ally and adviser Steve Bannon – though Bannon reportedly said the “deep-state conspiracy theory is for nutcases” – the deep state consists of bureaucrats, government functionaries and intelligence operatives, all working to thwart Trump’s agenda.

Legal sources and sources close to the presidential transition have said extreme actions proposed under Project 2025 are unlikely to happen swiftly, should Trump or another Republican take office, given existing guardrails in and around the federal bureaucracy.

Nonetheless, as other chapters recommend rolling back LGBTQ+ rights or dismantling climate policy, so the chapter co-authored by Moore says a Trump treasury should eliminate policies attributed to Biden including the “racist ‘equity’ agenda” and the “economically destructive and ineffective climate-related financial-risk agenda”.

Moore’s co-authors are William L Walton, a private equity investor, and David R Burton, an economic policy expert. The three authors identify social security as a program relevant to treasury reform, including it in “issues of concern” that “cut across multiple parts of treasury or other governmental agencies”.

Elsewhere, Jonathan Berry, who was chief counsel to the Trump transition in 2016-17 and led the regulatory section of the Department of Labor in the Trump administration, notes the potential for privatisation of social security, writing: “Existing statutory language in the Social Security Act does not prohibit non-public organisations from administering the programme.”

In his statement, Carrk also accused Moore of “belittling women and people of color”.

In May 2019, Moore withdrew from consideration for a seat at the Fed. Amid intense media scrutiny, the Guardian reported tax and legal issues affecting Moore including underpaying alimony to his ex-wife. Columns written by Moore also came under scrutiny, unearthed sexist remarks including complaints about women in sports and asking whether there was anywhere in life “men can take a vacation from women”. Moore also wrote that Black families were replacing men with “a welfare check” and that increased earnings for Black women would make Black men “financially expendable”.

Withdrawing from consideration for the Fed, Moore said that the “unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family” but told Trump he would “continue to be a loud economic voice advocating your policies” and would “always [be] at your disposal”.

Moore went on to advise Trump during the Covid pandemic. Now, as well as writing books and providing analysis for Fox News, he is attached to a range of rightwing groups – he is a Heritage Foundation fellow; the senior economist at FreedomWorks; and chair of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity (CUP).

Moore co-founded CUP in 2015 with the billionaire Steve Forbes, the economist Larry Kudlow (later Trump’s chief economic adviser) and Arthur Laffer, an economist and pundit who advised Ronald Reagan and Trump and to whom Trump gave the presidential medal of freedom.

The Accountable.US report details donations of at least $1.77m to CUP from DonorsTrust, a rightwing group not required to reveal the names of its donors.

“A principled philanthropic partner for conservative and libertarian donors” in its own words, but “the right’s dark-money ATM” in the words of Mother Jones magazine, DonorsTrust has links to the Koch network and Leonard Leo, two dominant figures in rightwing political funding.

Carrk said: “With extremists like Moore calling the shots, Project 2025 may not have any credibility, but unfortunately they have limitless resources from the dark-money Leonard Leo network to undermine the health and retirement security of millions of Americans.”

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GUK1

This article is more than 6 years old

Pro-Trump donors in huge cash drive to boost doctors pushing states to reopen

This article is more than 6 years old

Save Our Country coalition, with links to Trump administration, building support for new tax cuts and curbs on Covid-19 spending

Peter Stone in Washington

Mon 1 Jun 2020

A powerful conservative coalition whose key members have strong Trump administration ties, is seeking to raise $5m to back hundreds of doctors pressing states to open rapidly and to build support for new tax cuts and curbing pandemic spending, say its leaders.

The Save Our Country (SOC) coalition was launched in April by veteran advocates of small government policies who lead rightwing groups like FreedomWorks Foundation, Tea Party Patriots and the shadowy state policy network the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec).

Nearly all top public health voices, like the White House adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, urge caution in reopening states. There is broad consensus among most public health experts worldwide that too swiftly ending lockdowns risks a potentially devastating second wave of infections in a pandemic that has already cost more than 100,000 American lives.

But the Tea Party Patriots have spearheaded a drive, in radio and TV interviews, to mobilize doctors urging states to move faster. It is now attracting broader financial support from rightwing donors and groups in the shape of the SOC. Doctors in the group have also pushed unscientific theories about the pandemic in ways that have sparked anger and criticism.

The Tea Party leader Jenny Beth Martin said the group has about 800 members and its mission is to “educate the American public about the unintended side-effects” of the shutdown. Martin said 800 doctors signed a letter in May to Donald Trump which called the lockdowns a “mass casualty” event causing depression and other ills and urged Trump to end the “national shutdown”. A copy of the letter is going this week to governors nationwide.

The coalition’s key groups are dark money non-profits that historically have been funded by a mix of wealthy donors, corporations and conservative foundations. One leading figure in the loose-knit coalition is the FreedomWorks economic adviser and free markets advocate Stephen Moore.

The coalition’s economic and health agendas are drawing fire from scientists and economists of all political stripes

Brandon said the SOS coalition has raised just over $800,000 towards a $5m goal for projects including new ad efforts – online, radio and print – to rev up grassroots pressure to reopen states faster, plus curtail more federal spending and promote business-favored tax cuts.

Los Angeles-based Dr Simone Gold, who has been prominent in the doctors’ drive, was featured over Memorial Day weekend at a rally in Los Angeles which drew the conservative radio host Dennis Prager.

According to the Associated Press, the Council for National Policy Action, another SOS member, on 11 May held a call about the doctors’ effort with Trump campaign officials who indicated they plan to launch a similar drive soon. Gold told the AP that there was “no scientific basis that the average American should be concerned about” Covid-19 – something that downplays all medical evidence about the pandemic’s risks.

Gold has also used talk radio to tout the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine – which Trump has taken in hopes of blocking Covid-19 – despite growing scientific evidence it carries big health risks.

The coalition’s economic and health agendas are drawing fire from scientists and economists of all political stripes.

“The fact that these organizations have found doctors who are willing to support a rightwing agenda designed to help Donald Trump against all scientific evidence and appropriate public health practices is shameful,” said Irwin Redlener, a professor of public health at Columbia University.

Critics notwithstanding, Brandon said the coalition recently spent $50,000 for videos on Facebook, Hulu and Twitter targeting independents and Republicans with the message that Covid-19 mostly hits the elderly to minimize risks for others.

FreedomWorks, which boasts an arm whose tax status permits lobbying, has also been prodding the Senate “to pump the brakes on new spending”, Brandon said referring to the $3tn-plus that has already been allocated for corporate relief and the pandemic’s painful fallout for tens of millions.

Besides coalition projects, Tea Party Patriots and FreedomWorks have tapped their email lists and social media to mobilize activists to join “liberate” demonstrations in more than 10 states including North Carolina, Wisconsin, Virginia and Michigan, with the latter attracting some gun-toting activists.

Key groups in the SOC coalition, which has 200 members, have been funded by prominent billionaires, including some who have been active in the sprawling big-money network led by the oil and gas billionaire Charles Koch.

Tea Party Patriots, for instance, received almost $2m in 2017 and 2018 from Richard Uihlein, whose net worth in early 2020 was almost $25bn according to public records. Charles Koch, whose net worth Forbes last month pegged at $46.5bn, has been an Alec funder. The Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, whose net worth in February was $6.5bn, has backed Job Creators Network which also belongs to the coalition.

The coalition and some member groups have held strategy conference calls that include some wealthy donors and underscore White House ties. FreedomWorks and Brandon hosted one such call on May 21 with Vice-President Mike Pence and Moore.

A GOP source who heard the call said Pence offered mostly familiar rhetoric about “restoring American greatness” and congratulated the call’s “distinguished” participants.

In turn, Moore stressed FreedomWorks support for a payroll tax cut, an idea Trump has pushed but which has faced bipartisan Senate opposition in part because it mainly helps workers with jobs, and not the tens of millions newly unemployed.

Jerry Taylor, who heads the non-partisan Niskanen Center and used to work at Alec leading a taskforce on energy and the environment, faults the coalition’s economic and health analyses.

“The political actors involved with these groups are united both in their hostility to mainstream science – which they consider a conspiratorial leftist plot to destroy free market capitalism – and their superficial understanding of economics. Fully reopening the economy will not produce an economic recovery until the coronavirus is contained and can stay contained,” he said.

GGL 6 26

[### Revealed: 'extremist' Trump economist plots rightwing ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › feb › trump-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/29/trump-economist-stephen-moore-us-treasury-project-2025)

Feb 29, 2024 — Stephen Moore, who withdrew from Fed consideration after sexist remarks were uncovered, co-author of radical Project 2025 effort.

[### FreedomWorks - Influence Watch

InfluenceWatch

https://www.influencewatch.org › non-profit › freedom...](https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/freedomworks/)

Conservative economist Stephen Moore acted as an advisor to the organization and chaired the group's task force on economic revival. Financial Statistics. Total ...Read more

Missing: STEVEN ‎| Show results with: STEVEN

[### Republicans plan mega marketing push to sell unpopular ...

Politico

https://www.politico.com › story › 2017/12/21 › gop-ta...](https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/21/gop-tax-plan-marketing-push-313231)

Dec 21, 2017 — The Koch network will launch a multimillion-dollar push next year to sell the bill, with paid advertising and town halls to educate voters. A ...Read more

Missing: STEVEN ‎| Show results with: STEVEN

[### Disinformation campaign stokes fears about mail voting, ...

The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com › politics › 2020/08/20](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/disinformation-campaign-stokes-fears-about-mail-voting-using-lebron-james-image-and-boosted-by-trump-aligned-group/2020/08/20/fcadf382-e2e2-11ea-8181-606e603bb1c4_story.html)

Aug 20, 2020 — FreedomWorks, which has roots in the network backed by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch ... Stephen Moore, also advised Trump on ...Read more

Missing: STEVEN ‎| Show results with: STEVEN

[### Pro-Trump donors in huge cash drive to boost doctors ...

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › jun › save-ou...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/01/save-our-country-coalition-states-reopen)

Jun 1, 2020 — One leading figure in the loose-knit coalition is the FreedomWorks economic adviser and free markets advocate Stephen Moore. The coalition's ...Read more

[### Koch network

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Koch_network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_network)

The Koch brothers are the sons of Fred C. Koch (1900–1967), who founded Koch Industries, now the second largest privately held company in the United States.Read more

[### The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/coronavirus-protests-trump.html)

Apr 21, 2020 — Moore had been coordinating with FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots and the American Legislative Exchange Council in a coalition called “Save ...Read more

[### Citizens for a Sound Economy (disbanded

Greenpeace

https://www.greenpeace.org › usa › climate › front-groups](https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/climate/climate-deniers/front-groups/citizens-for-a-sound-economy-now-freedomworks/)

After its estrangement from the Koch family, Freedomworks opposed the need for climate legislation, declaring: “organizations pushing action on global ...Read more

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WAPO https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/24/republican-gop-pro-russia-pro-putin-ukraine-war-isolationism/

ukraine war

That brings us to the bad news: Isolationism — or is it Putinism? — remains disturbingly resilient within Republican ranks. In the Pew poll, more than twice as many Republicans as Democrats said that the United States is providing too much aid to Ukraine. Roughly a quarter of House Republicans and a fifth of Senate Republicans share that view. Some of the influential voices opposing aid to Ukraine include former president Donald Trump, Fox “News” host Tucker Carlson, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Heritage Action for America (the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation), and FreedomWorks (the Koch-supported advocacy organization).

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REF by EID unidentified "non-profit" above, tho ID'd elsewhere

https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/05/climate-investigations-center-misrepresented-nonprofit-taxpayers-bill/

no lnx

ENERGY

Environmental Group Misrepresented Itself As A Nonprofit In Order To Stick Taxpayers With The Bill For Its Open Records Requests

Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Holds "Fridays For Future" Event In Denver

DREW JOHNSON

NATIONAL DIRECTOR, PROTECT INTERNET FREEDOM

December 05, 2019

An attorney for FreedomWorks filed a complaint against Climate Investigations Center, an environmental activism organization, alleging that it misrepresented its nonprofit status to take advantage of FOIA requests.

Allegedly, the Center files FOIA requests for information on organizations it opposes and also requests a fee waiver as a nonprofit, even though it is not listed as one in the IRS database.

Climate Investigations Center has submitted in numerous FOIA requests involving energy corporations and think tanks involved with the energy industry as well as testified at House hearings on climate change.

An environmental activism outfitfocused on attacking energy companies and exposing funding for so-called “anti-environmental” organizations is using dishonest and potentially unlawful business practices and wasting tax dollars to engage in its investigations, critics claim.

According to its website, Climate Investigations Center “was established in 2014 to monitor the individuals, corporations, trade associations, political organizations, and front groups who work to delay the implementation of sound energy and environmental policies that are necessary in the face of ongoing climate crisis.”

Chris K. Gober, an attorney representing D.C.-based free market organization FreedomWorks, argues Climate Investigations Center’s efforts to “monitor” its opponents in public policy discussions include misrepresenting itself to federal agencies in order to collect documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at no expense to the Center.

Gober filed a complaint with the Department of Justice on behalf of FreedomWorks accusing Climate Investigations Center of defrauding taxpayers.

[A girl kisses a makeshift Earth during a march for the climate in Bordeaux, southwestern France on December 8, 2018. – Thousands of people were participating today in climate marches in several cities in France. (Photo by NICOLAS TUCAT / AFP) (Photo credit should read NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP via Getty Images)]

The complaint claims the Center requests massive numbers of government documents from federal agencies using the FOIA process. Climate Investigations Center then requests a fee waiver — allowing the organization to receive the FOIA documents at taxpayers’ expense — on the basis that the outfit is a nonprofit.

A review of the IRS charitable database, however, indicates that Climate Investigations Center has never received a nonprofit status from the federal government. The group is also not registered or incorporated as a charity or business in any state.

Kert Davies, the founder and director of Climate Investigations Center did not respond to emails asking for clarification about the structure of the organization. The organization also failed to provide evidence that the Center is a federally registered nonprofit.

The federal government makes documents available through the Freedom of Information Act in order to broaden the public’s understanding of the actions of the federal government. Gober believes information collected and disseminated by Climate Information Center “does not accomplish this task.”

“Climate Investigations Center,” Gober wrote, “is brazenly asking federal taxpayers to repeatedly foot their bill so they can engage in fishing expeditions into the annals of government records for the purpose of attacking the private entities they are averse to.”

One of the Center’s broadest and most burdensome FOIA requests asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide digital copies of all emails containing any mention of two large oil and natural gas pipeline projects that were sent or received by a former official in the agency’s Office of Policy over a 49-month period. Due to the expansive and inexact nature of the request, EPA employees were still working to compile documents for Climate Investigations Center nearly seven months later.

In addition to the FOIA fee waivers received by the EPA for this and other requests, the Center has improperly requested and received fee waivers from the Justice Department, the Department of Energy, and the Department of the Interior, according to the complaint. (RELATED: DOJ Requests Information That Could Identify Trump Official Behind ‘Anonymous’ Op-Ed)

[HONG KONG, HONG KONG – MARCH 15: Students hold placards and shout slogans as they participate in a protest on March 15, 2019 in Hong Kong, China. (Photo by Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)]

“Itappears that Climate Investigations Center uses the FOIA process to secure government records related toentities averse to its apparent commercial interests, and that it then posts and distributes this information to cause commercial harm to the private subjects of the government records,” Gober said.

In addition to apparently misleading federal agencies in order to receive public records at no cost, Climate Investigations Center appears to have taken extreme measures to mask its supporters and sources of funding.

The organization’s website domain is registered through a proxy server that intentionally conceals the identity of those involved in purchasing the domain name and setting up the website. Climate Investigations Center also does not list a physical office address, only a post office box in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Virginia.

No fewer than 78 articles appear on the Center’s website related to funding of corporations and nonprofits engaged in influencing climate and environmental policy. One article demands ExxonMobil publish recipients of the company’s corporate giving.Others attack conservative think tanks and other political nonprofit organizations for receiving money from donors with investments in the energy industry.

In an interview with the Energy and Policy Institute, Davies criticized a conservative foundation for refusing to disclose its donors. “There’s no transparency, no accountability for the money. There is no way to tell who is funding them,” Davies complained.

Climate Investigations Center, however, fails to publicly disclose its own donors.

The Center does not solicit donations on its website. In fact, there is no clear way to contribute to the organization, indicating Climate Investigations Center has a stable, reliable source of financing.

Davies did not respond to emails asking how the Center is funded and requesting a list of donors.

Jason Pye, the Vice President of Legislative Affairs for FreedomWorks,said Climate Investigations Center is operating under a hypocritical double standard. “Climate Investigations Center is guilty of hypocrisy,” Pye said. “It’s clear the left doesn’t play by the rules. If any conservative or free-market organization did what Climate Investigations Center has done, there would be cries for donor disclosure laws.”

In addition to failing to publish its sources of funding, the Center also does not reveal salaries for top officers, and hides the identity of its board members. Such information is commonly available for both for-profit businesses and non-for-profit organizations – particularly those engaged in advancing transparency and accountability.

“Climate Investigations Center appears to be nothing more than a well-funded attack website that advances the agenda of its unknown financial backers,” said Gober.

The Center’s staffers may also be violating federal lobbying rules.

Neither Davies nor Climate Investigations Center’s other employee, investigator and freelance reporter Dan Zegart, are registered as lobbyists, but they appear to be engaging in undisclosed lobbying activities.

In the last year, both Davies and Zegart have been in attendance at [PUBLIC? VIDEO?] House subcommittee hearings about climate change, according to sources at the hearings. According to a Congressional staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, Davies was overheard saying he got Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to appear at the hearing. He also boasted of plating a question that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez asked about the Koch brothers. (RELATED: Greenpeace Co-Founder: ‘Climate Crisis Is Not Only Fake News. It’s fake Science)

In his complaint to the Department of Justice, Gober asks that no more fee waivers be granted for Climate Investigations Center’s FOIA requests and calls for an investigation into the Center for misrepresenting itself as a nonprofit.

Pye said taxpayers should be reimbursed for the cost of providing FOIA records to the Center under false pretenses.

“Climate Investigations Center should be responsible for paying the FOIA fees they would’ve paid without the improper fee waivers.”

Tags : department of energy freedom of information act justice department

DREW JOHNSON

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guk

...In another radio segment, Mitchell said that last September she told Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, there was a “massive effort to steal the election”.

More recently, Mitchell told the AP that she and Trump have been in contact “fairly frequently”, but declined to provide details.

Meanwhile, other right leaning groups with which Mitchell has had good ties are engaged in campaigns that seem to overlap those of FreedomWorks and CPI to limit voting rights.

For example, Mitchell told the AP: “I’ve been working with state legislatures for several years to get them to pay attention to what I call the political process.”

To be sure, Mitchell prior to the election served as outside counsel and helped coordinate a major voting law initiative for the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), an influential group of conservative state legislators which promotes model bills for states. Alec has reportedly been increasingly active this year in pushing its ideas for changing voting laws.

Known as well connected in conservative big money circles, Mitchell also serves on the board of the deep pocketed Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, a top donor to many rightwing groups including Alec to which it gave $750,000 dollars in 2020, records show.

Further, Mitchell has attended meetings of the famously secretive Council for National Policy, an influential rightwing group that boasts top donors, evangelical leaders and prominent conservatives like FreedomWorks’ Brandon.

At a CNP national meeting in mid November one panel featured Mitchell, Christian Adams the president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (Pilf), and other lawyers discussing “Election results and legal battles: What now?”

Mitchell, who also chairs Pilf, which received $300,000 in 2020 from the Bradley foundation, has indicated it could get active in the legal battles over the new Georgia law....

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seems odd?

an 921

Brandon Prenzlin is among the many Donald Trump supporters who is facing charges in connection with the January 6 insurrection. And he has been fired from his position as a grassroots organizer for the right-wing group FreedomWorksbecause of his arrest, according to HuffPost reporter Ryan J. Reilly.

Prenzlin, Reilly reports, was arrested by the FBI in Arlington, Virginia on September 17, and he is facing four misdemeanor charges — which include disorderly conduct on the grounds of the Capitol, entering a restricted building without authority, disorderly conduct inside a restricted building, and parading inside the Capitol.

Reilly notes that Peter Vicenzi, a FreedomWorks spokesman, confirmed that Prenzlin has been fired but did comment on his case.

According to Reilly, an "FBI affidavit lays out Prenzlin's alleged activities inside the Capitol on January 6, and shows how they were able to build a case against Prenzlin by citing his presence on social media."

"The FBI affidavit doesn't explicitly say it," Reilly reports, "but it suggests that online sleuths known as the 'Sedition Hunters' played a role in the case against Prenzlin. The sprawling community of open-source investigators, often working under the #SeditionHunters hashtag, has been working to identify the hundreds of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. The Sedition Hunters website, where a photo of Prenzlin was labeled as No. 640 on a list of 'Sedition Insiders,' noted before Prenzlin's arrest that he had been identified."

Reilly adds, "It's unclear precisely when the identification was made, but an image of Prenzlin included in a tweet from the @SeditionHunters Twitter account indicated that Prenzlin had been IDed by early July. That's about the same time, according to the affidavit, that the FBI investigation got underway thanks to a tip."

FreedomWorks has been aggressively promoting voter suppression with its "Election Protection Initiative," which features far-right attorney and Trump ally Cleta Mitchell. In a video posted on FreedomWorks' website, Mitchell falsely claims, "The 2020 election was chaotic and deliberately overwhelmed the elections systems in many places in our country. It's no wonder that people across this country believe that there was really something wrong in the 2020 election. There was."

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baaaack?

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OMG anti-stay at home/mask protests could be prep for voter intim at polls or worse in chaos after?! xian UNIFYING

TRUMP BS ON INVALID ELECTION //BUILDS ON PUTIN DISINFO

nyt

no lnx

The Quiet Hand of Conservative Groups in the Anti-Lockdown Protests

Groups in a loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals and financed lawsuits, polling and research to combat the stay-at-home orders.

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Jim Rutenberg and Lisa Lerer

April 21, 2020

WASHINGTON — An informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the White House, has been quietly working to nurture protests and apply political and legal pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The groups have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies in state capitals, dispatched their lawyers to file lawsuits, and paid for polling and research to undercut the arguments behind restrictions that have closed businesses and limited the movement of most Americans.

Among those fighting the orders are FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, which played pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials,a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy.

The effort picked up some influential support on Tuesday, when Attorney General William P. Barr expressed concerns about state-level restrictions potentially infringing on constitutional rights, and suggested that, if that occurred, the Justice Department might weigh in, including by supporting legal challenges by others. Separately, in Wisconsin, Republicans in the state legislature sued to block the Democratic governor’s order extending stay-at-home rules through May 26.

Those helping orchestrate the fight against restrictions predict the effort could energize the right in the same way the Tea Party movement did in 2009 and 2010,and potentially be helpful to President Trump as he campaigns for re-election. But the cause has yet to demonstrate that kind of traction.

Polls show a majority of Americans are more concerned about reopening the country too quickly than they are about the damage to the economy. And coronavirus protests have drawn smaller crowds ranging from a few dozen to several thousand at a rally in Michigan last week.

Conditions are hardly ideal for a protest movement related to the virus. In addition to the health risks, demonstrators potentially face legal exposure for violating the very measures they are protesting. Plus, some key Republican leaders have embraced the types of restrictions being targeted, while powerful grass-roots mobilizing groups, including those spearheaded by the billionaire activist Charles Koch, have so far not embraced the protests. [BUT FREEDOMS WORKS HAS?!]

Still, the fight has emerged as a galvanizing cause for a vocal element of Mr. Trump’s base and others on the political right. Organizers see it as unifying social conservatives, who view the orders as targeting religious groups; fiscal conservatives who chafe at the economic devastation wrought by the restrictions on businesses; andcivil libertarians who contend that the restrictions infringe on constitutional rights.

“Groups are united in purpose on this,” said Noah Wall, advocacy director for FreedomWorks, which in 2009 organized a Tea Party protest that drew tens of thousands of people or more to Washington. He described the current efforts as appealing to a “much broader” group. “This is about people who want to get back to work and leave their homes,” he said.....

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several like this/ 420 an

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/stoking-divisions-and-driving-a-new-explosion-in-the-pandemic-republicans-think-they-can-win-through-sheer-chaos

digby no lnx

...

FreedomWorks, the instrumental force behind the Tea Party, “is holding weekly virtual town halls with members of Congress, igniting an activist base of thousands of supporters across the nation to back up the effort” led by right-wing commentator Stephen Moore.the Associated Press reported. Other right-wing groups vocally opposing shutdowns include Americans for Prosperity, an organization funded by the Koch brothers, and the conservative Heritage Foundation. There is even a connection to the family of Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. As Michigan’s governor noted, the DeVos family foundation helped fund Facebook ads for this week’s protest.

Pro-gun activists have gotten in on the act as well. It’s an astroturf Tea Party reunion tour. If there’s one thing that riles up the right wing, it’s apparently the government trying to save lives.

‘There’s no pandemic…Media’s the cancer’ — People across the U.S., many of whom are vocal Trump supporters, are protesting stay-at-home orders.

COVID-19 has killed more than 37,000 people in America within the last 7 weeks. pic.twitter.com/2xtbPXfjz9

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 19, 2020

Trump has personally praised the protesters, as has Vice President Pence, even as they both pretend to care about their new guidelines for opening up the country.

All of this seems odd, considering that common sense and all legitimate scientific advice says that prematurely letting our guard down will likely lead to a resurgence of the epidemic, which means shutting down the economy all over again, with even worse consequences. But there’s a method to their madness. As chaotic and dysfunctional as they are at governing, Trump and the Republicans are united on their electoral strategy. They’ve decided that opening up the economy as soon as possible is their ticket to re-election.

According to Politico, conservatives are still convinced that a highly divisive strategy focused entirely on their base voters divisive, is the way to go, even in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis:

Trump-supported activists are protesting strict stay-at-home orders. Conservative groups’ internal polling in red-leaning and swing states show a significant uptick in Americans who favor reopening the country. A growing chorus of Republican lawmakers across the nation are on board.

“If you don’t see something start to happen … you’re going to see a conservative revolt by our base,” said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, a conservative group which recently polled on reopening the economy. “The worst strategy for him is to keep things shut until August. Trump is basically going to win or lose his election right now, in the next month.”

Yes, that would be the same FreedomWorks that is ginning up the protests, along with the other big money groups financed by the likes of Charles Koch. Big-money donors seem to have activated their astroturf groups to get people out in the streets to make sure that Trump feels the pressure from his beloved base to open up the economy. These donors care about preserving their power, privilege and profit margins, but Trump only cares about the November election. They are manipulating him, and his supporters, to make him believe that his ends are aligned with theirs.

Republicans in Congress are doing their part as well. The bill coming up for a vote this week to refill the small-business bailout fund is missing something vital that Democrats and governors of both parties have been begging for: help for state and local governments, many of which are in dire economic trouble and hamstrung by balanced-budget requirements.

You might think that providing them with federal funds to keep the lights on would be a no-brainer. But according to Axios, Republicans will use this prospect as a cudgel to force states to reopen: “The thinking among some Trump administration officials is that many states should be reopening their governments soon and that additional funding could deter them from doing so.”

If anyone thinks that depriving aid won’t hurt Trump’s political enemies more than his allies, they still don’t understand how he plays this game. (There’s already evidence that more federal aid has gone to red states.) This may end up being the most destructive thing Trump has done, at least in economic terms.

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lee f

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/15/dark-money-irs-reporting-501c

DARK MONEY GROUPS backed by foreign corporate donors are supporting the Trump administration’s decision to roll back one of the last remaining ways for authorities to monitor the flow of unlawful campaign cash in American elections.

In recent years, 501(c) nonprofits have become the entities of choice for secret campaign spending.These nonprofit groups, which do not have to report any donor information to the public, can receive unlimited contributions from any source and, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, spend unlimited amounts on elections.

Foreign spending, whether by a foreign national or a foreign-owned corporation, is still illegal under federal law. But the law has been poorly enforced, and the few instances in which penalties have been applied in recent years have come in reaction to publicly reported foreign corporate spending to Super PACs, such as The Intercept’s reporting on Chinese corporate donations in 2016 and the recent federal indictment over a shell company owned by a Russian national that gave to President Donald Trump’s Super PAC in 2018.

The one check on foreign contributions to dark-money groups has been the Schedule B form, which reports 501(c) donor information confidentially to the Internal Revenue Service. Under a new rule proposed last September by the Treasury Department and the IRS, nonprofits will no longer be required to report donor information, even to the government, allowing an unprecedented level of secrecy.

Lobbyists for foreign-funded groups have pushed the administration to move forward with the rule, which is close to being finalized. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest business lobby organization in the world, spent over $10 million to influence the last 2018 midterm election cycle using its general fund. The group, which has foreign corporate donors, has lobbied in support of the IRS rule to repeal the Schedule B requirement, claiming in a letter to officials that the accidental leak of donors could reduce corporate free speech rights.

“Identifying, harassing, and intimidating the organization’s supporters is a chief means of silencing that organization’s speech,” wrote Caroline L. Harris, the Chambers’ chief tax policy counsel, and Ryan P. Meyers, the deputy general counsel of the group, in a regulatory letter to officials overseeing the rule change. “The Chamber applauds the work of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in eliminating onerous reporting requirements.”

The National Association of Manufacturers, which counts several corporations based in foreign countries as members, in a letter to IRS officials, similarly called the Schedule B requirement an “unnecessary administrative filings that raise the potential for misuse in a way that chills protected speech.”

Both NAM and the Chamber of Commerce, which spends more than $160 million a year, are organized as 501(c)(6) trade associationsand under no obligation to disclose donor money to the public — only to the government through the annual Schedule B form to its 990 annual filing. After the Citizens United decision, the two groups led an effort to defeat the DISCLOSE Act, legislation that would have forced groups engaged high-dollar election advocacy to reveal donor information. The Chamber also lobbied successfully to stop President Barack Obama from issuing an executive order to force government contractors to disclose grants to 501(c) groups.

Foreign-based firms such as Brazilian petrochemical firm Braskem, Al Zayani Investments in Bahrain, and Turkish conglomerate Tekfen are listed on the Chamber’s website as dues-paying members. Faced with criticism in the past that its foreign funding might bleed into the Chamber’s vast domestic lobbying and campaign spending budget, the group has claimed that any foreign donations are walled off from domestic funds, and that foreign donors make up a small percentage of its overall budget.

But the removal of the Schedule B requirement could make those claims impossible to verify. A large foreign national firm could provide multimillion-dollar donations for use in U.S. elections to the Chamber under the new rule and such giving would never be reported to government officials.

That’s precisely the danger of removing Schedule B forms, campaign finance experts warn. The Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog that has filed the ethics complaints that led to enforcement action on foreign money in the past, cautioned the IRS that the rule would simply open the door to more foreign spending.

“Congress has failed to pass new transparency legislation, and the FEC has failed to enforce the transparency laws that are on the books,” said Brendan Fischer, director of Campaign Legal Center’s federal reform program. “As a result, the only donor disclosure reports that dark-money groups file with any federal agency are the confidential Schedule B reports filed with the IRS. These confidential donor reports are one of the few ways that federal agencies could detect and deter foreign money in U.S. elections.”

It’s not hard to comprehend the many ways in which completely secret legal entities could incentivize illegal election behavior. In 2016, reporters from the Telegraph conducted a sting operation on a Republican campaign operative working in support of Trump. The operative was offered a $2 million check from a Chinese businessman by the reporters.He responded by offering a plan for how to conceal the money, suggesting that it be routed through his consulting firm to a pair of 501(c)4 groups and then to a pro-Trump Ssuper PAC.

The FBI is also investigating the National Rifle Association over allegations that the group, which is organized as a 501(c)4, may have received financial support from Russian sources. McClatchy reported that counterintelligence officials believe that Russian interests may have contributed to the NRA’s $30 million election advertising campaign in 2016.

Foreign firms increasingly finance major American business associations. As The Intercept has previously reported, a major Chinese chemical company joined the American Chemistry Council, a 501(c)6 that routinely lobbies lawmakers and spends money in elections.

The Trump administration had originally tried to remove the Schedule B form last summer in a surprise decision. A federal judge in Montana, however, ruled that the IRS had failed to follow proper regulatory procedure and ordered the agency to conduct a formal rule-making to allow the public and stakeholders to weigh in on the change.

“The rise of ‘dark money’ in U.S. elections has made it easy for foreign entities to contravene these laws by funneling money into U.S. elections through groups that that [sic] do not publicly disclose their donors, such as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations and 501(c)(6) trade associations,” wrote the Campaign Legal Center in a letter to the IRS.“This change would further enable foreign entities to donate millions of dollars to such organizations for the purpose of influencing U.S. elections without any risk of scrutiny by federal regulators.”

Republican-aligned think tanks have joined the business-backed push to eliminate the Schedule B.Several nonprofits backed by billionaire Charles Koch, including his marquee group Americans for Prosperity,testifiedon February 7 in support of the rule change.FreedomWorks, a conservative grassroots group backed by business interests, has also mobilized hundreds of letters to the agency.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member now with the Heritage Foundation, appeared at the hearing alongside other conservative activists in support of the rule change.

Von Spakosvsky, an avowed critic of campaign finance regulations and voting rights laws, testified that “their claim that this will somehow allow foreign money to suddenly flood into American elections is absurd,” according to a transcript of his remarks. Von Spakovsky said the FEC had plenty of authority and expertise in combating foreign money during his tenure, despite the fact that the agency has historically only intervened to investigate foreign money through disclosed political action committees on a few occasions in its 45-year history. He did not cite any examples of the FEC investigating 501(c) groups.

impeach

hmm redstate: hit vuln dems: tv ad, dark post; rad left witchunt: acu schalpp, heritage action, fredomworks, presidential coalition, am 1st pol, cfg; censure schiff, text msg dirty 30--> 75K calls to congress;

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2019

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https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/03/interest-groups-lobby-for-democrats-hr1-ahead-of-friday-house-vote/

On Friday, the House will vote on H.R. 1 or the “For the People Act,” a massive overhaul of transparency, campaign finance and lobbying rules. The 571-page bill, backed by Democrats, tackles a variety of issues from requiring “dark money” groups to release their donors and presidents to release their tax returns to tightening FARA registration to making Election Day a federal holiday. Like any major legislative effort, this one has attracted a number of groups to lobby on its behalf.

As the House prepares to vote on H.R. 1, a group of 71 predominantly liberal groups are working to convince lawmakers to support the measure. Notable names backing the legislation include End Citizens United Action Fund, the Center for American Progress and Planned Parenthood.

The package includes legislation to establish automatic voter registration, the creation of an independent redistricting commission, legislation restricting the use of straw companies for donations, and stricter rules on super PAC-candidate coordination, among many other new proposals.

Like most large-scale reform bills, interest groups have been involved with H.R. 1 since the beginning. Public Citizen assisted in writing parts of the legislation which dealt with ethics and conflict of interest issues. The Brennan Center for Justice helped develop aspects of the bill that address voting registration and small-donor public financing of elections.

End Citizens United is an organization which advocates for stricter campaign finance rules and a reversal of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. It boasts an impressive fundraising apparatus raising almost $33.1 million in the 2018 cycle and spending nearly $32.9 million from the FEC disclosed committee. A significant amount of that, more than $12.3 million, was used on independent expenditures in the cycle.

The group also contributed directly to a wide variety of Democratic candidates in the cycle. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) and unsuccessful candidate Gina Ortiz Jones (D-Texas) received $15,000 each from the organization — the most among House members and candidates. It also contributed heavily to the DCCC and the DSCC, handing each organization $150,000.

In a letter sent on March 4 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and sponsor of the legislation Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller called H.R. 1 a “once-in-a-generation government reform bill that will restore the promise of our democracy.” The letter notes that the organization and its four million members “enthusiastically support” the legislation.

The Center for American Progress, one of the leading liberal think tanks, is a regular campaign contributor and lobbying presence. In 2018, the group spent $90,000 on lobbying Capitol Hill. Individuals from the think tank contributed $309,415 during the midterm cycle. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and 2020 presidential candidate was the leading recipient with $10,800.

Another liberal interest group, People for the American Way, is pushing for the H.R. 1 legislation. People for the American Way includes a lobbying arm, which dropped $170,000 in 2018 focusing on bills like the Voter Rights Amendment Act and legislation introduced to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The group also has an independent expenditure wing and a separate PAC. During the 2018 cycle, the group spent $515,590 on independent expenditures, the biggest race it spent on was for the Texas Senate.

Marge Baker, executive vice president of People for the American Way, applauded the legislation. “HR1 takes dead aim at some of the most pressing issues threatening our democracy,” she said in a statement to The Center for Responsive Politics. “Our members have been working on these issues for years, and now they’re focused on pushing hard on Congress to pass HR1, with calls, emails, digital and on the ground organizing.”

Public Citizen, the liberal consumer rights group founded by Ralph Nader, is another outside source pressuring Congress to support the sweeping legislation. The organization maintains a fairly robust lobbying apparatus, spending $250,000 in 2018.

All 235 members of the House Democratic caucus have co-sponsored H.R. 1. Even members who receive a significant amount of campaign contributions from business PAC sources, like Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) who got more than $1 million in the recent cycle, have signed on.

While there is essentially universal Democratic support in the House, the measures have been staunchly opposed by Republicans and other interest groups. Opponents include the National Association of Business Political Action Committees (NABPAC), an organization that represents and lobbies for business PACs, the Conservative Action Project and FreedomWorks.

In January, NABPAC hosted a luncheon which looked to address H.R. 1. The event description notes that “many of the provisions, if enacted, could severely restrict the role of the business community and their PACs” and calls it “potentially onerous.”

FreedomWorks, a conservative and libertarian-leaning organization, has recently become a major lobbying player. In 2018, it spent the most it ever had on influence with almost $1.9 million.

Peter Vicenzi, press secretary for FreedomWorks, said in a statement to The Center for Responsive Politics, “The main issues we have with HR 1 are that it would have a chilling effect on political speech, take power from individual states in how they conduct elections and fund political campaigns with taxpayer dollars.”

While the package of bills will likely pass the House on a party-line vote, there is essentially no chance of it passing the Senate or even being brought up for a vote. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell(R-Ky.) wrote an op-ed in which he called the legislation the “Democrat Politician Protection Act.”

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"The ‘Legislative Wall’: Dick Armey’s Top Five Tea Party Republican Candidates"

As most independent groups focus on the presidential nomination contest, FreedomWorks for America is focused on electing far-right Republicans to the U.S. Senate. The independent-expenditure-only super PAC is part of the FreedomWorks astroturf network of former U.S. House Republican Leader Dick Armey (R-TX).

Yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union, Armey said his groups aim to elect tea party-minded conservatives to Congress to force the White House on a far-right path. “We’ll build a legislative wall… We’ll either be walling a Republican president in, or walling a Democratic president out.”

Here are the bricks they aim to put in their wall:

– A not-yet-determined Republican primary challenger to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) ($237,065 in independent expenditures to date). Hatch has veered sharply to the right since the 2010 defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett (R) by conservative activists and earned a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union for 2010. But FreedomWorks wants Hatch out of the senate too, given his past support for crazy things like the Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development.

–Former Texas Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz (R), a candidate for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R)’s open senate seat ($71,647 in independent expenditures to date). Cruz has offered an unconstitutional proposal for a backdoor method of state nullification of federal laws and the Affordable Care Act and co-authored a white paper advocating a radical reading of the Constitution that would lead to Medicaid and most federal education programs being declared unconstitutional.

– Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), who is challenging Sen. Dick Lugar (R) in a primary ($47,180 in pro-Mourdock independent expenditures to date and another $12,378 against Lugar). Critics say Mourdock wasted $2 million in state funds in his unsuccessful legal challenges to the 2009 Chrysler reorganization and federal bailout. And in a September 12, 2009 speech to the FreedomWorks “Taxpayer March on Washington,” Mourdock warned that “through obvious, brutal, criminal acts of tyranny or through subtle, creeping

incremental-ism, governments corrupt the ideal of individual freedom into statism, economic slavery, and governmental dependency, and dependency is the opposite of liberty.”

– Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg (R), a former state attorney general and candidate for Sen. Ben Nelson (D)’s open senate seat ($33,230 in independent expenditures to date). He has endorsed an extreme proposal to cripple our system of federal regulation by requiring that Congress approve every single major rule or regulation before it takes effect. In its endorsement, FreedomWorks for America said “Nebraskans described Stenberg to us as ‘tea party-minded before we had tea parties.’”

– Former Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, a former senatorial candidate who recently dropped out of the race to defeat Sen. Bill Nelson (D) ($12,378 in independent expenditures to date). The outspoken conservative is now a candidate for U.S. House. He supports a national anti-union “right to work” law and a freeze on any new regulation that might have a “substantial economic impact on job creators.”

If Armey and his allies succeed in electing these and other far-right conservatives to Congress, the legislative wall would continue to block progress.

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interpersonal or cya or both?:

Washington, DC- On Thursday July 11th, the John Cornyn for Senate campaign issued a statement announcing the addition of a former FreedomWorks employee, Brendan Steinhauser, claiming he “led the group's effort to elect Ted Cruz to the Senate in 2012." The Cornyn campaign further claims that "Steinhauser also led grassroots campaigns to help elect Senators Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Pat Toomey.”

FreedomWorks issued the following statement to correct the record:

FreedomWorks is obligated to clarify the false and potentially misleading statements made about Brendan Steinhauser by the John Cornyn for Senate campaign. Steinhauser did not lead our efforts to elect Ted Cruz. As a FreedomWorks employee, Steinhauser was not in charge of our political efforts in 2010 or 2012. FreedomWorks is a 501 (c3) and a 501 (c4), engaging in education and issue advocacy. All political “Get out the Vote” activity is conducted exclusively through our Super PAC, FreedomWorks for America. All financial and strategic decisions and executive management of FWFA’s political initiatives were made exclusively by FWFA National Political Director, Russ Walker, and FWFA Chief Operating Officer, Ryan Hecker.

As a 501 (c3) and (c4) employee, Brendan Steinhauser was not involved in the decision to endorse Ted Cruz early in the Texas Republican primary. Like all candidate endorsements, thedecision to endorse Ted Cruz was made by senior management before June 1, 2011, after extensive feedback from our membership in Texas. Any field work conducted by Steinhauser for FWFA was directed by Walker and Hecker....

By Michael Beckel

October 24, 2013

This story was originally published by The Center for Public Integrity, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.

Tea party-aligned nonprofit FreedomWorks Inc. boasted its largest fundraising year on record in 2012, primarily fueled by a handful of million-dollar gifts, according to previously unpublished documents obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The self-described "grassroots service center," which is based in Washington, D.C., reported raising $15 million last year -- a 50 percent increase above the $10 million it raised in 2011, according to a new annual tax report filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

That's a larger sum than any year on the books, according to a Center for Public Integrityreview of IRS records going back to 2006.

The new IRS filing shows that nearly 60 percent of the money FreedomWorks raised came from four publicly unnamed donors that each gave at least $1 million.

The group's top donor -- who contributed nearly $4.9 million -- alone accounted for about one-third of FreedomWorks' overall receipts.

In all, 106 unnamed donors are listed in the new tax filing as contributing at least $5,000 last year to the nonprofit that describes its mission as fighting for "lower taxes, less government and more freedom."

The IRS documents detail millions of dollars spent in 2012 on "public education," "events," tracking "legislation on Capitol Hill" and alerting "members when issues of interest become relevant."

Among FreedomWorks' many recent initiatives was its enthusiastic endorsement of the 21-hour talk-a-thon last month by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, as he railed on the Senate floor against Obamacare.

Earlier this month, the group urged members of Congress to reject the bipartisan legislation developed that re-opened the federal government last week and raised the debt ceiling until February. It said the bill "allows for more uncontrolled spending and debt, with no reforms to either, [and] does nothing to address Obamacare."

The IRS documents also show that FreedomWorks made just one grant to another nonprofit organization last year: $30,000 to Indiana Right to Life, an affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, which is seeking to "make Indiana inhospitable to abortion on demand."

The revelations about FreedomWorks' 2012 fundraising come at a time when it is weathering its share of internal -- and financial -- troubles.

After the November 2012 election, Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader who has long served as FreedomWorks' chairman, tendered his resignation.

Prior to the election, Richard J. Stephenson, who serves on FreedomWorks' board of directors, arranged an $8 million buyout for Armey, which would be paid in annual $400,000 installments as consulting fees, according to the *Associated Press*.

Armey told *Mother Jones* that other FreedomWorks executives were insisting on a "direction" that he believed was "unproductive."

The new IRS annual report includes a confirmation that Armey and Stephenson entered into a "business relationship" last year.

It also shows that Armey received compensation totaling $489,000 from FreedomWorks and its related organizations.

That was slightly more than the$470,000 in compensation received in 2012 by Matt Kibbe, FreedomWorks' president and chief executive officer.

FreedomWorks, which is organized as a "social welfare" nonprofit under Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code, also operates a 501(c)(3) foundation arm and multiple political committees.

Federal law requires all political committees, including super PACs, to reveal their funders. There is no such requirement for 501(c)(4) nonprofits to identify their funders.

According to a report from *BuzzFeed* earlier this month, FreedomWorks' fundraising has plummeted since Armey's departure, and it has even taken out a $1 million line of credit.

FreedomWorks spokeswoman Jackie Bodnar maintained the group was "on track" and "exactly where we anticipated being for the year," but she declined to provide BuzzFeedwith fundraising figures.

Bodnar did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Center for Public Integrity.

(Update, Oct. 24, 2:20 p.m.:In an email statement, Bodnar attributed the group's fundraising success to "our donor base of tens of thousands of individuals across the United States." She added: "We have an organizational policy not to discuss donors, big or small, out of respect for their privacy.")

FreedomWorks ended 2012 with net assets totaling about $5.4 million, according to the IRS filing.

In 2011, the conservative nonprofit added a super PAC to its stable of advocacy organizations. Its goal: to advocate on behalf of its preferred candidates -- and tear into political opponents.

The super PAC -- known as FreedomWorks for America -- came in addition to the group's traditional PAC, which, unlike super PACs, can only accept limited contributions.

The super PAC ultimately raised about $23 million during the 2012 election cycle, with about $2.6 coming from the 501(c)(4) nonprofit arm of FreedomWorks itself, including in-kind contributions such as paying staff salaries and administrative costs.

That ranked FreedomWorks Inc. as its affiliated super PAC's No. 2 donor, behind only a mysterious Tennessee-based limited liability company that was reportedly a conduit for Stephenson, the FreedomWorks board member.

FEC records show the FreedomWorks for America super PAC spent roughly $20 million on advertisements that endorsed or opposed federal candidates. By and large, it worked to defeat Democrats and boost Republicans, although it did push for conservative candidates in multiple, high-stakes intra-party GOP contests.

For instance, FreedomWorks for America spent almost $500,000 to aid Cruzduring hiscontentious GOP primary fight with David Dewhurst, Texas' lieutenant governor and the favorite of many of the Republican Party's establishment.

The super PAC also went after incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, unsuccessfully, to the tune of roughly $1 million during his 2012 Republican primary.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-center-for-public-integrity/tea-party-aligned-freedom_b_4158172.html

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 published 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 *TheBlaze*, 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 arepaying Limbaugh as well as Beck." FreedomWorks did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Beck has been reading on-air appeals 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 highlighted 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 donation requested at some of the locations, while a Dallas, TX., FreePAC last summercharged 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 budget plan includes "Glenn Beck Radio Ads," "Blenn Beck TV," "TheBlaze Action Center," and the "Rush Limbaugh Contract."

http://mediamatters.org/print/blog/2013/01/04/exclusive-dick-armey-dishes-on-freedomworks-dea/192036

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/07/8350/pac-profile-freedomworks-america

Type of organization: Super PAC

Supports: Conservative candidates

Founded: Sept. 6, 2011

Website: freedomworksforamerica.org

Social media: Twitter profile, Facebook page, YouTube channel

Principals:

Ryan Hecker (COO, treasurer, legal counsel): A Houston-based activist who laid out a platform for the nascent tea party on his online “Contract from America.”
Russ Walker (executive director, assistant treasurer): Head of Oregon’s FreedomWorks chapter that funded a campaign against two ballot initiatives that would have raised taxes on the wealthy and corporations in 2010.
Matt Kibbe (president and CEO of Freedomworks, Inc.): Tea party architect, former chief economist for the Republican National Committee and policy analyst for Citizens for a Sound Economy.
Dick Armey (now ex-chairman of FreedomWorks Inc): A leader in the tea party movement, Armey is a former Republican House Majority Leader and co-author of the 1994 Contract with America. He left FreedomWorks in the fall of 2012.
Dean Clancy (assistant treasurer): FreedomWorks legislative counsel who served as a senior policy adviser to Armey.

Profile:

FreedomWorks for America is part of a political one-stop shop. In addition to the super PAC, there is FeedomWorks, Inc., a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit; FreedomWorks Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit; FreedomWorks, Inc. PAC, a traditional political action committee and various state-level PACs.

The FreedomWorks nonprofit was born in 2004 from the merger of Empower America and Citizens for a Sound Economy, an industry-funded think tank promoting deregulation and funded in large part by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. After two federal court rulings, including the U.S. Supreme Court's *Citizens United* decision, made way for super PACs, FreedomWorks spawned one of its own: FreedomWorks for America.

A major tea party benefactor, FreedomWorks for America “utilizes its over a million-strong grassroots volunteer base to elect candidates who fight for lower taxes, less government and more freedom,” according to its website.

Even as the group’s website urged visitors to “Fire Obama,” FreedomWorks for America was not shy about targeting Republican candidates. Ahead of the election, the organization rated dozens of congressional and presidential candidates — and its top presidential picks for the Republican presidential nomination were Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich.

In 2012, the super PAC poured money into Senate primaries, throwing its support behind Republican candidates Adam Hasner, Richard Mourdock and Donald Stenberg. The group also spent money opposing incumbent Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind. The organization focused a signficant portion of its early expenditures on thwarting the re-election of Utah’s Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, an effort that was unsuccessful.

FreedomWorks for America became especially active in the U.S. Senate GOP primary in Texas where Ted Cruz, the tea party favorite, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who was preferred by many in the GOP Party establishment, faced off. Cruz ultimately won after the primary went to a runoff between the two men. The super PAC spent more than $487,000 supporting Cruz and attacking Dewhurst prior to the runoff.

The super PAC released several waves of online ads targeting contested U.S. Senate races, including 11 on Sept. 17, as the Center for Public Integrity reported.

By the end of March, nearly half the super PAC's receipts were from its sister nonprofit, FreedomWorks Inc. April's reportto the Federal Election Commission revealed that the super PAC continued to receive major funding from the nonprofit, with $155,000 out of $345,000 (44 percent) raised in April coming from FreedomWorks Inc. in the form in in-kind contributions for staff, overhead and travel.

The trend continued in the subsequent months, but changed dramatically in the fall.

Specialty Group Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., wrote seven checks totaling nearly $5.3 million to FreedomWorks for America in early October. By Election Day, the company's total giving was $10.6 million.

The corporation was created on Sept. 26. The name and address listed on incorporation records are those of a Knoxville, Tenn., area attorney named William S. Rose, Jr. Another of Rose's companies, called Kingston Pike Development LLC, also donated $1.5 million to FreedomWorks for America.

On Dec. 20, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, two campaign finance reform groups, filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice allegedly that Specialty Group and Kingston Pike were "straw companies" created to obscure the true source of political contributions from the public.

On Dec. 27, the Washington Post reported that Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who founded the for-profit Cancer Treatment Centers of America and sits on FreedomWorks board, was the original source of the money that went through Rose's companies.

In April, the Center reported on the large salary and first-class flights for FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey.

The former Republican House Majority Leader tendered his resignation from the organization on Nov. 30, according to *Mother Jones*. Armey was upset with the direction of the organization and left with an $8 million pay-out.

Advertisements:

A January ad entitled ” claimed the senator’s 35-year career was riddled with broken promises, including support for auto industry bailout.
A September ad took aim at President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy. In ,” FreedomWorks blamed Obama for citing natural disasters to deflect blame for the slow economy since 2008. The ad was created by independent filmmaker Ben Howe, who is also responsible for the Obama Volt parody ad, the Center for Public Integrity discovered.
Tea party-aligned U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, garnered support from FreedomWorks, which ran calling Cruz a “special candidate” and likening him to former President Ronald Reagan.
,” an ad against David Dewhurst, the lieutenant governor of Texas and Cruz's rival, put a photo of his head on an animated bucking bronco. The ad accused him of being a “country club moderate,” not a “conservative cowboy.”
Thisreleased in July featured an incorrect news report that liberal billionaire George Soros was backing an anti-Allen West super PAC in Florida.
Thi ad that aired in Texas in early July said Cruz was "fighting the epic fight" against the Affordable Care Act.
t" opposed Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Last Updated: Jan. 16, 2013

Created from merger of CSE and Empower America in 2004

In July 2004, FreedomWorks was created from the merger of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) and Empower America.^{[5]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-merge-4) (Although the FreedomWorks' website stated until late 2007 that it was founded in 1984^{[6]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-5), it was CSE that was founded at that time.)

[

FreedomWorks has a long history of using such campaigns. Founded in 2004 by Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader and lobbyist from Texas, and publishing titan Steve Forbes, FreedomWorks represented the consolidation and rebranding of two older think tanks, Citizens for a Sound Economy,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy

founded by the notorious Koch family, and Empower America, a powerful lobbying firm that has battled health care reform and minimum-wage bills while championing deregulation, corporate tax cuts and whatever else their corporate clients desire.

The idea was to bring these two dinosaurs into the Internet age so they could compete with the newly created MoveOn.org.

Initial press release

In late July 2004, the initial FreedomWorks media release stated that "three of the most respected and accomplished leaders of the conservative, free-market movement" -- former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Dick Armey, former White House Counsel and conservative luminary, C. Boyden Gray, and Jack Kemp -- "will serve as the Co-Chairmen of FreedomWorks. Bill Bennett will focus on school choice as a Senior Fellow. Matt Kibbe is FreedomWorks’ new President and CEO."^{[5]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-merge-4)

In this initial statement, FreedomWorks outlined that its initial plan was to "run major voter education campaigns and Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) efforts in key races" in the 2004 Congressional elections. Kibbe stated that the role of FreedomWorks was to be a "powerful answer to the challenge presented by the Left and groups like America Coming Together (ACT), MoveOn.org, and the Media Fund."^{[5]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-merge-4)

The statement said that FreedomWorks:

"...boasts over 360,000 members and a legal structure that includes a 501(c)(3), a 501(c)(4), a 527, a federal PAC, and various state PACs. FreedomWorks is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with full-time campaign staff on the ground in the battleground states of Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. The new organization also houses a sophisticated conservative political database containing over 600,000 activist names in all 50 states."^{[5]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-merge-4)

Positions taken

In 2009, FreedomWorks was a prominent opponent of proposals by U.S. President Barack Obama to reform the U.S. healthcare system, of the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill to address global warming, and of state proposals to raise taxes.^{[3]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-Action-2)

Tobacco

According to the U.K. Guardian, FreedomWorks has received funding from the tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. The Guardian also reports that local branches of FreedomWorks' sister organization, Americans for Prosperity have also received tobacco money and opposes smoke-free workplace laws and cigarette taxes.^{[7]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-6) Freedomworks also opposes tobacco taxes.^{[8]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-7)

Activities

FreedomWorks has mobilized opposition to health care reform, taxes, and climate legislation.

Astroturfing

2010

In January 2010, FreedomWorks was offering a "Citizen Lobby Training" for a Tea Party Patriot group^{[9]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-8) whose cofounder^{[10]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-9) was featured in a January 15 New York Times article on the movement's push to take control of the Republican party^{[11]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-10)

2009 - taxes, health care reform, climate

FreedomWorks was one of the lobbying groups involved in orchestrating the April 15, 2009 anti-Obama, anti-tax "tea parties". In February 2009, the FreedomWorks website said the group was "now working with other groups to plan a massive, nationwide tea party protest day for Tax Day on April 15th, 2009"^{[12]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-11), the Tax Day Tea Party protests.

Summer 2009: In summer of 2009, FreedomWorks began pursuing an aggressive strategy to create the image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform at Congressmembers' town-hall meetings in their districts. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website "Tea Party Patriots," describes how members should infiltrate town hall meetings and harass and intimidate Democratic members of Congress:

"Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up ... You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep's presentation. Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep's statements early. If he blames Bush for something or offers other excuses -- call him on it, yell back and have someone else follow-up with a shout-out ... The goal is to rattle him ..." ^{[13]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-12)

August 2009: In August 2009, FreedomWorks supported the American Petroleum Institute's "Energy Citizens" rallies to oppose the Waxman-Markey Climate Bill, held in about 20 states. Other backers included the National Association of Manufacturers, American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform and Council for Citizens Against Government Waste. ^{[14]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-13)

2008 - mortgage bailout

In 2008, FreedomWorks was behind the creation of a fake grassroots web site called Angryrenter.com which rallied opposition to "the Obama Housing Bailout"; the site claimed to represent "Renters and responsible homeowners against a government mortgage bailout", and urged people to oppose bailing out mortgage companies. Michael M. Phillips of the Wall Street Journal investigated AngryRenter.com and reported^{[15]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-14):

"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."

2005 asbestos hidden conflict of interest

In early 2005, "Radio listeners in 15 states in recent weeks ... heard a broadcast appeal from former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) asking them to help scuttle a bill designed to contain asbestos litigation," reported Roll Call. "But at no time in the ad - made in his capacity as co-chairman of FreedomWorks, a conservative grass-roots network - does Armey disclose that he is also working as a lobbyist for Equitas, a British insurer that has lobbied to thwart the asbestos trust fund legislation." Armey was a registered lobbyist for Equitas, as part of his work at the DLA Piper firm. Equitas "directed $920,000 of the $1.7 million it spent on outside lobbying help last year [in 2004] to DLA Piper." ^{[23]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=FreedomWorks#cite_note-22)

^-----^

cse funders http://www.nndb.com/org/906/000051753/

Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) was a powerful industry-funded think tank, promoting deregulation. It was founded by Koch Industries interests and continues to maintain strong links. In 2003, an internal rift between CSE and its affiliated Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation led to a split in which CSEF was renamed as a separate organization, called Americans For Prosperity.

In July 2004, CSE announced it was merging with Empower America to create FreedomWorks.^{[1]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy#cite_note-0)

Main article: FreedomWorks

CSE was often described as a "consumer group," but according to internal documents leaked to the Washington Post, 85 percent of its 1998 funding came from major corporations. "The 'citizens' in question [are] companies like Amoco, Bell Atlantic, Citibank, General Electric and General Motors", wrote Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein in the book Washington Babylon.^{[2]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy#cite_note-1). "During recent years, the CSE, headed by C. Boyden Gray, who acted as counsel to the president under George W. Bush, has opposed health care reform and a rise in the minimum wage, while championing corporate tax cuts, deregulation and a balanced budget."

In 1995, CSE's budget hit $10 million and its "research" - funded entirely by corporations, conservative foundations, and wealthy businessmen -- is tailored to ensure results favorable to its patrons. Hence, a recent CSE study found that the American people were furious with the Food and Drug Administration. The CSE discovered this by asking respondents if they agreed with rigged statements such as, "The additional years it takes for the FDA to approve products costs lives by forcing people, including those with incurable diseases, to go without potentially beneficial drugs." Sixty-eight per cent agreed.^[citation ^needed]

Armed with this information, Gray went before a House subcommittee in early 1995 and demanded "reform" of the FDA. Gray told members of Congress that as a result of FDA dawdling, tens of thousands of Americans die annually. One particularly absurd case was that of the miracle drug nitrazepam. Deprived by FDA bureaucrats of the right to take this drug, some 4,000 people had perished. Or so Gray claimed.^[citation ^needed]

Questioned by committee members, CSE's head conceded that he wasn't sure what nitrazepam was used for. Rep. Richard Durbin informed him: insomnia.^[citation ^needed]

CSE has been criticised by the Nader-founded group, the Government Accountability Project (GAP), as lacking independence. In 2000 GAP spokesperson Gary Ruskin told the Washington Post, "It's part of a rent-a-mouthpiece phenomenon. ... There are mercenary groups that function as surrogates when industry feels it's not advantageous for it to speak directly."^{[3]^}(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_a_Sound_Economy#cite_note-2)

^---related ^to ^{http://www.claremont.org/projects/projectid.39/project_detail.asp}

^docs ^for ^guns, ^contra ^new ^engl ^jrnl ^!^

^---^

^Armstrong ^funded

^---^

^map

http://mapper.nndb.com/start/?id=24139

Empower America

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Empower America was a right-wing think tank established in 1993. In July 2004 it merged with Citizens for a Sound Economy to form a new group called FreedomWorks. [1]

Contents

[hide]

* 1 Mission statement

* 2 Board of Directors

o 2.1 Others

* 3 Connection with the Claremont Institute

* 4 Contact

* 5 Related SourceWatch Resources

* 6 External links

Mission statement

According to its web site, Empower America was "devoted to ensuring that government actions foster growth, economic well-being, freedom and individual responsibility. The ideas that have fueled America's stunning economic expansion - opportunity, competition, ownership and freedom - must be the framework for reform of century-old public systems such as K-12 education, the tax code and social security. Uniquely positioned in Washington, Empower America bridges the gap between the array of think tanks that produce white papers on the public-policy debate and the actual enactment of policy. In implementing our free-market, entrepreneurial principles into law, we are convinced, through actual experience, that we are the most effective 'delivery' system in existence.

"In pursuit of our mission, Empower America practices strategic intervention to achieve our goals. Our response to issues, whether reaching out through the media, communicating directly with legislators and political leaders, sponsoring solution-finding or consensus-building forums, or mobilizing public opinion at the grassroots level, is always results-oriented.

"Empower America has demonstrated that it has considerable influence on our core issues - education reform, technology policy, tax reform, social security reform and national defense. Our victories are attributable, in large part, to our ability to focus on the right issue, at the right time, with maximum impact and maximum exposure."

Board of Directors

* William J. Bennett, Co-Director

* Jack F. Kemp, Co-Director

* Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Co-Director

* Vin Weber, Co-Director

* William Sebastian Cohen, Co-Director

* E. Floyd Kvamme, Chairman of the Board

* James R. Taylor, President

* Joseph G. Fogg III, Chairman of the Advisory Board

* Theodore J. Forstmann, Founding Chairman

* Tim Blexseth, President, Blixseth Companies, Rancho Mirage, CA

* Jamie B. Coulter, Chairman/CEO, Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon, Inc., Dallas, TX

* Ronald E. Eibensteiner, President, Wyncrest Capital, Minneapolis, MN

* Raul Fernandez, Chairman Emeritus, Dimension Data, Reston, VA

* Gov. James S. Gilmore III, Partner, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, Washington, DC

* David W. Hanna, Chairman, Hanna Capital Management, Newport Beach, CA

* Lisa Graham Keegan, CEO, Education Leaders Council, Washington, DC

* Michael Novak, George Fredrick Jewett Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

* Joseph Schmuckler, COO, Nomura Holding America, Inc., New York, NY

* Judy Shelton, Economist, Professor, Author, Marshall, VA

* Jack Thompson, Co-founder (retired), J.E. Edwards, Larkspur, CO

* Thomas W. Weisel, CEO, Thomas Weisel Partners, San Francisco, CA

Others

* Tex Lezar was chairman of Empower America in 1996-97.

* Shawn Small — Director of Policy[2]

EMPOWER.org was formally established on November 19, 1999, as the education and research arm of Empower America. EMPOWER.org was sponsored by an independent Board of Directors, and described itself as a non-partisan, non-profit organization.

William J. Bennett and Jack F. Kemp were Co-Directors of EMPOWER.org. David W. Hanna was Chairman of the Board; James R. Taylor was President and CEO; Noreen E. Burns was Secretary; and Joan Y. Nicolaysen was Treasurer.

Connection with the Claremont Institute

Empower America appears to have been operationally connected to the Claremont Institute. Although it is based in California, and Empower America was based in Washington, a November 4th 2003 press release from the Claremont Institute directs press inquiries to Seth Leibsohn at Empower America's Washington telephone number [3].

Contact

Empower America/EMPOWER.org

1775 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, 11th Floor

Washington, DC 20006-5805

Phone: 202 452-8200

FAX: 202 833-0388

Web site: www.empoweramerica.org or www.empower.org

Related SourceWatch Resources

* David Kuo

* FreedomWorks

* Citizens for a Sound Economy

* Claremont Institute

External links

* "Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE) and Empower America Merge to Form FreedomWorks", Media Release, July 22, 2004.

* "Profile: Empower America," Interhemispheric Resource Center

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Empower_America"

Categories: Think tanks | United States

FreedomWorks is a conservative advocacy organization that has been a key backer of the Tea Party movement.[1] FreedomWorks was created in 2004 as part of a merger between Citizens for a Sound Economy, a rightist pro-free market organization, and Empower America, which was founded in 1993 by William Bennett, secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan and a rightist pundit on issues from defense policy to family values. As of late 2010, FreedomWorks was led by board chairman Dick Armey, the former right-wing Republican from Texas who along with Newt Gingrich helped draft the 1994 “Contract with America,” and president Matt Kibbe, a long-standing Republican Party operative.[2]

A purported champion of small government conservatism, FreedomWorks claims to drive “policy change by training and mobilizing grassroots Americans to engage their fellow citizens and encourage their political representatives to act in defense of individual freedom and economic opportunity.”[3]

Despite its grassroots claims, observers have argued that FreedomWorks is an establishment organization that has endeavored to co-opt grassroots movements. Shortly after the Tea Party began to emerge as a force in national politics, FreedomWorks was one of several establishment groups that stepped in to claim the leadership of the movement.

Wrote Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, “Suddenly, tens of thousands of Republicans who had been conspicuously silent during George Bush's gargantuan spending on behalf of defense contractors and hedge-fund gazillionaires showed up at Tea Party rallies across the nation, declaring themselves fed up with wasteful government spending. From the outset, the events were organized and financed by the conservative wing of the Republican Party, which was quietly working to co-opt the new movement and deploy it to the GOP's advantage. Taking the lead was former House majority leader Dick Armey, who as chair of a group called FreedomWorks helped coordinate Tea Party rallies across the country.”[4]

FreedomWorks financial backers have included several conservative foundations—including the Bradley, Scaife, Castle Rock, Earhart, and Olin foundations[5] —as well as the Koch brothers (David and Charles), who along with Rupert Murdoch have provided much of the financial backing for anti-Obama administration activism.[6]

Commenting on the Koch brothers, the New York Times’ Frank Rich wrote, “There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the ‘death panel’ warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. … Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond, and sometimes counter to, the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s unfocused political strategy, they might.”[7]

After FreedomWorks was created in the run up to the 2004 presidential election, Bill Berkowitz wrote in MediaTransparency: "Stealing a page from MoveOn.org 's successful organizing playbook, the leaders of FreedomWorks … hope to conduct massive get out the vote and political education campaigns in the swing states on behalf of President George W. Bush. The two groups decided to merge because there was 'an overlap in issues between the two organizations,' Shawn Small, the director of policy at Empower America, told me in a telephone interview. It was an opportunity to bring together Empower America, which Small characterized as a 'grasstops' organization driven by such inside the beltway 'superstars' as William Bennett, Vin Weber, and Jean Kirkpatrick, and CSE's 'grassroots' following.”[8]

Despite the claims of overlap, FreedomWorks has largely abandoned the get-tough foreign policy advocacy that characterized much of Empower America's work, especially in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Among Empower's more notable efforts during the early years of the "war on terror" was the creation of the Bill Bennett-led Americans for Victory over Terrorism (AVOT), an advocacy outfit closely aligned with pro-war neoconservative groups that helped push public opinion to support the invasion of Iraq. AVOT eventually merged with the conservative Claremont Institute.

On foreign policy, FreedomWorks has little to say aside from advocating free trade agreements and pushing through immigration reform, including border security. As of late 2010, FreedomWorks’ “Key Issues” web page failed to mention any foreign policy concerns. On “border security,” the group wrote on its website, "Large-scale illegal border crossings—the vast majority for economic reasons—are compromising the security of America's borders. … By providing American employers and temporary guest workers a legal way to operate, we can eliminate the source of much of the current lawlessness at the border. Reducing the overall flow of illegal traffic at the border will allow law enforcement to focus on stopping criminal gangs and capturing terrorists."[9]

Describing FreedomWorks pre-Tea Party work, Rolling Stones’ Taibbi writes, “Prior to the Tea Party phenomenon, FreedomWorks was basically just an AstroTurfing-lobbying outfit whose earlier work included taking money from Verizon to oppose telecommunications regulation. Now the organization's sights were set much higher: In the wake of a monstrous economic crash caused by grotesque abuses in unregulated areas of the financial-services industry, FreedomWorks—which took money from companies like mortgage lender MetLife—had the opportunity to persuade millions of ordinary Americans to take up arms against, among other things, Wall Street reform.”[10]

A 2007 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists listed FreedomWorks as an organization that received much money from “Big Oil” and also promoted an agenda that did not recognize global warming: "CSE received $275,250 from ExxonMobil in 2001, an increase from $30,000 the year before. CSE merged with Empower America and became FreedomWorks in 2004. FreedomWorks maintains that the science of climate change is 'far from settled' and cites scientists such as Sallie Baliunas" (Baliunas is an astrophysicist who has criticized theories of global warming).[11]

FreedomWorks earned hundreds of thousands of dollars through a plan, designed by Citizens for a Sound Economy in 2000, in which people buying tax-free medical savings accounts sold by Medical Savings Insurance Co. were asked to become members of the advocacy group. The plan, which was the subject of a class-action lawsuit begun in 2005, was challenged on the basis that insurance holders were not made clearly aware that they were becoming members of the CSE when signing on. According to the lawsuit's motion for class-action status, "The certificates of insurance issued to class members, despite the clear language contained herein, did not disclose the identity of the Group Policyholder [CSE, and later FreedomWorks] of the group policy, despite the fact that each putative insured must 'join' and pay money to such group as a condition of obtaining insurance.”[12]

Contact Information

FreedomWorks

601 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20004

Phone: 202-783-3870

Fax: 202-942-7649

Website: http://www.freedomworks.org

Founded

2004

Mission (as of 2010)

“FreedomWorks fights for lower taxes, less government and more economic freedom for all Americans. FreedomWorks combines the stature and experience of America’s greatest policy entrepreneurs with the grassroots power of hundreds of thousands of volunteer activists all over the Nation.

FreedomWorks, led by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, has an unrivalled ability to reach opinion leaders and elected officials with innovative policy ideas and effective strategies for change. FreedomWorks drives policy change by training and mobilizing grassroots Americans to engage their fellow citizens and encourage their political representatives to act in defense of individual freedom and economic opportunity.”

Principals (as of 2010)

o Dick Armey, board chairman

o C. Boyden Gray, board member

o James Burnley, board member

o Matt Kibbe, president

o Thomas Knudsen, board member

o Richard Stephenson, board member

The Right Web Mission

Right Web tracks militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy.

Sources

[1]FreedomWorks, http://www.freedomworks.org/.

[2]FreedomWorks, "Board of Directors," http://www.freedomworks.org/about/board-of-directors.

[3]FreedomWorks, "Mission," http://www.freedomworks.org/about/our-mission.

[4]Matt Taibbi, "Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party,” Rolling Stone, September 28, 2010, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904?RS_show_page=0.

[5]For more on FreedomWorks funding, see Media Matters, "FreedomWorks," http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/organization/FreedomWorks/overview.

[6]Frank Rich, “The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party,” New York Times, August 28, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html.

[7]Frank Rich, “The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party,” New York Times, August 28, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html.

[8]Bill Berkowitz, "FreedomWorks Challenges Progressive Organizations," MediaTransparency, July 31, 2004, http://old.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=40.

[9]FreedomWorks, “Border Security," http://www.freedomworks.org/issues/border-security.

[10]Matt Taibbi, "Matt Taibbi on the Tea Party,”Rolling Stone, September 28, 2010, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904?RS_show_page=0.

[11]Union of Concerned Scientists, "Smoke, Mirrors, & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science," January 2007, p. 31, http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf.

[12Jonathan Weisman, "With Insurance Policy Comes Membership," Washington Post, July 23, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200683.html.

rww

The now-defunct Empower America was a right-wing pressure group founded by former Education Secretary William Bennett in 1993 that championed conservative domestic policies and hawkish foreign policies. After the 9/11 attacks, Empower America became part of a network of neoconservative-aligned groups that helped promote militarist “war on terror” policies. Empower merged in 2004 with Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), a rightist pro-free market think tank, to create a new group called FreedomWorks.[1] FreedomWorks focuses largely on U.S. domestic policy, promoting smaller government and less taxes, and has served as one of the key promoters of establishment “Tea Party” politics in the United States.

According to its mission statement, Empower America was "devoted to ensuring that government actions foster growth, economic well-being, freedom, and individual responsibility. The ideas that have fueled America's stunning economic expansion—opportunity, competition, ownership, and freedom—must be the framework for reform of century-old public systems such as K-12 education, the tax code, and social security. Uniquely positioned in Washington, Empower America bridges the gap between the array of think tanks that produce white papers on the public-policy debate and the actual enactment of policy. In implementing our free-market, entrepreneurial principles into law, we are convinced, through actual experience, that we are the most effective 'delivery' system in existence."[2]

On national security, the group pushed for a "strong and proactive—but distinctively American—foreign policy, one that rejects both short-sighted isolationism and imprudent multilateralism. We believe that the federal government is primarily responsible for guaranteeing the safety of its citizens. Therefore, our goals are twofold: to insure that the U.S. military is prepared for any challenge it may face, and to rapidly deploy an effective missile defense to protect American citizens and allies."

Among Empower's more notable efforts during the early years of the "war on terror" was the creation of the Americans for Victory over Terrorism (AVOT), an advocacy outfit closely aligned with pro-war neoconservative groups that helped push public opinion to support the invasion of Iraq. AVOT eventually merged with the conservative Claremont Institute.

According to writer James D'Entremont, while Empower America billed “itself as a 'nonpartisan, nonprofit organization,'” its board of directors was a blue-ribbon panel of right-wing pro-corporate Republicans, and the organization itself is a kind of stepchild of the Heritage Foundation.”[3]

Among Empower America's main outputs was the yearly publication of “The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators,” which billed itself as a “compilation of facts and figures about the state of American society.”[4] Bennett's introduction to the 2001 index stated: "By many measures, the state of our union is extraordinarily strong. We live in a time of peace and unprecedented prosperity. Citizens of America live longer, and more comfortably, than any other citizens in history. The average American today enjoys luxuries undreamed of by the richest and most powerful of kings in the last century."

The report also celebrated the country's unrivalled leadership in the world, likening the United States to a "colossus." Wrote Bennett: "In terms of military and foreign affairs, we bestride the world like Colossus. Our military dominance is arguably as great as any other nation's in history. No nation is perfect, but to a degree unlike any other nation, we have used our power to advance the causes of liberty, human rights, and democracy worldwide."

Contact Information

FreedomWorks (formerly Empower America)

601 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20004

Phone: 202-783-3870

Fax: 202-942-7649

Website: http://www.freedomworks.org

The Right Web Mission

Right Web tracks militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy.

Sources

[1]“Citizens for a Sound Economy and Empower America Merge as FreedomWorks,” National Review, September 13, 2004.

[2]Empower America Mission Statement (Web Archive), http://web.archive.org/web/20030622093625/www.empoweramerica.org/stories/storyReader$2.

[3]James D'Entremont, "Empower America Profile," MediaTransparency, http://www.mediatransparency.org/recipientprofile.php?recipientID=523.

[4]Empower.org, White Papers and Supplemental Reports (Web Archive), http://web.archive.org/web/20021111111850/http://www.empower.org/pubs.htm.

March 8, 2013 |

Conservative organization FreedomWorks is fundraising off of Fox News contributor Karl Rove's efforts to, in the group's words, "silence grassroots activists and make sure that only big-government RINO's call the shots in Washington."

Rove, along with allies from his Crossroads political groups, recently launched the Conservative Victory Project. According to The New YorkTimes,the group will work to "recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts." The project has sparked a civil war among conservative commentators, with some of Rove's own Fox News colleagues calling the group "absolutely repulsive" and "an incumbency protection racket."

FreedomWorks, which attacked Rove when the project was announced, has launched NotKarlsParty.com. In a touting the effort, FreedomWorks spokeswoman and Fox News contributor Deneen Borelli says that "Karl Rove and his unprincipled establishment candidates" are trying to "take over the GOP." The message asks followers to visit NotKarlsParty.com to "file a petition to give Karl Rove a piece of your mind."

FreedomWorks Koch

Pro-Trump donors in huge cash drive to boost doctors pushing states to reopen

By Michael Beckel

October 24, 2013

This story was originally published by The Center for Public Integrity, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.

More stories about

Solution Revolution

Created from merger of CSE and Empower America in 2004

Initial press release

Positions taken

Tobacco

Activities

Astroturfing

2010

2009 - taxes, health care reform, climate

2008 - mortgage bailout

2005 asbestos hidden conflict of interest