Dick Armey

gINNI

some bad hombres

true beleiver? ideol entre, furies candidate?

merri ok

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clinton jihad

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB861917340688900500

clinton jihad:

no lnx

By Edward Felsenthal and David Rogers Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

April 25, 1997

WASHINGTON -- Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had to force herself to be pleasant when she met Hillary Clinton for the first time four years ago.

Mrs. Clinton had been an outspoken supporter of Anita Hill, the woman who had famously accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearings. Ms. Thomas couldn't get the association out of her mind.

"For me, it was, 'Wow, now I have to, in my role, be respectful and cordial and courteous,' " Ms. Thomas recalls thinking as she moved through a receiving line toward the new first lady. Although the brief encounter was awkward for her, Ms. Thomas says she was proud of how she handled it. She gave Mrs. Clinton some verses from the Bible, along with a warning about how tough this city can be.

Today Ms. Thomas feels a kinship with Mrs. Clinton. Like the first lady, she is best known as the spouse of a prominent man. But also like Mrs. Clinton, she has become a controversial political player and has been the subject of vigorous public criticism for her partisan activities.

Although she takes pains to carve out her own identity, Ms. Thomas, 40 years old, is inevitably linked with her husband in much of what she does. "A lot of people treat her a certain way ... because of who she is married to," says radio-host Armstrong Williams, a former close aide and a friend to Justice Thomas.

Awkward Predicament

Ms. Thomas says there are challenges that come with "being a Supreme Court spouse, as opposed to just a lawyer working in Washington." Her dual role highlights an increasingly common political phenomenon: Now that many political partners are professionals themselves, they face an awkward predicament. Many find they have to struggle to avoid being used as political tools or being perceived as benefiting from their spouse's position.

Barbara Olson, an aide to the Senate leadership who has worked in congressional investigations of the Clinton administration, has been a target of Democratic sniping that she is a proxy for her husband, Theodore Olson, a prominent lawyer who has represented one of the president's accusers in the Whitewater affair. Republicans in the last Congress delighted in cutting money for a small anticrime program that paid consulting fees to Sylvia Panetta, wife of then-White House Chief-of-Staff Leon Panetta. That put Mr. Panetta in the uncomfortable position of having to fight to get the money back.

Ms. Thomas had already made a name for herself as an activist in conservative circles before Republicans took over Congress in 1994. But her influence grew after that election when her boss, Rep. Dick Armey of Texas, became House majority leader.

Ms. Thomas operates much as an eager young administrative officer back at the base camp for the Republican infantry. She works behind the scenes, serving as part strategist and part cheerleader for the leadership's effort tobeef-up the GOP's ability to investigate and oversee the White House and executive agencies.[benghazi much later?]

Partisan Battles

It is a role that takes her from dry, detailed General Accounting Office reports to the higher-profile and more partisan-edged investigations of administration scandals. She has assisted with the investigations of White House ethics, Whitewater, the firing of the White House travel staff, and the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's financial dealings. When Republicans approved an expanded budget for House committee investigations last month, the move partly reflected Ms. Thomas's influence.

She has figured in several high-profile fights involving the House Appropriations Committee. Over the objections of some Republicans on the committee, she pressed hard for deep cuts in funding to Legal Services Corp., a provider of legal aid to the poor that she viewed as using federal money to advance liberal causes.

And in a stormy panel meeting in1995, she stood watch on behalf of Mr. Armey as Republicans reluctantly lined up behind a leadership attempt to bar funding for nonprofit organizations that engage in advocacy, in many cases for poor constituencies. The measure ultimately failed because of opposition in the Senate.

During this Congress, Ms. Thomas has stepped back, as the leadership has relaxed its efforts to control committee chairmen. But she is still a force behind continuing investigations, and before last year's election she helped gather information on White House scandals for Republicans to use on the campaign trail. (That project was abandoned after word of its existence leaked, prompting concern that it would make Republicans look like scandalmongers.)

A memo this past January titled "Foreign Money Contributions Scandal" illustrates Ms. Thomas's style. Throwing as wide a net as possible, she addressed it to Republican staff on 19 committees, including the sensitive Intelligence panel. In it, she cited statutes or regulations that might have been violated by overseas contributions to Democrats. She urged staff directors to be "watchful" for administration efforts to dismiss problems as just "campaign finance." Ms. Thomas wrote, "what we don't know is how much was for sale in the Clinton presidency."

Though Ms. Thomas is good-humored and engaging, her writing sometimes gets her into trouble.Much of her job is simply informational: She helps produce a biweekly "Oversight Bulletin" publicizing current investigations. But when she pens strategy, she betrays a partisan edge that makes experienced staff directors blanch.

A case in point is an April 1996 memo she wrote for Republican congressmen Bob Walker and Jim Nussleand sent to House committees, asking for "examples of dishonesty or ethical lapses in the Clinton administration" and "anecdotes that amplify these areas." The memo requested that all such materials be sent to her as quickly as possible and reminded committee chairs that "you are a tremendous resource for this project."

Democratic Backlash

Democrats quickly turned Ms. Thomas's memo on the Republicans, claiming it proved that the investigations were partisan. During one hearing, Democrats blew up the memo and posted it on an easel to suggest that the proceeding was part of a GOP plot to denigrate the administration.

Even some Republican staff members complained that it went too far. "It didn't dawn on her that in Congress, things aren't supposed to appear politically driven,"even if they are, says a senior GOP aide who has worked with her.

In May, two weeks after the memo was distributed, Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia spotted Ms. Thomas in the audience at a hearing on the White House travel-office firings. In a rare public attack on a congressional staffer, he demanded to know why "Mrs. Clarence Thomas in that bright blue dress" was present. "I really smell a political witch hunt," he said.

Ms. Thomas didn't endure the attack silently. Later that day, she confronted Mr. Moran on a House elevator and showed him a copy of a book, "Everything Men Know About Women," in which all the pages are blank. "This book is about you," she said.Justice Thomas later left his wife a voice-mail message in which he teasingly sang verses of the song, "Devil With a Blue Dress On."

Spousal Conflict?

Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, who also questioned Ms. Thomas's role at the travel-office hearing, believes it is a conflict of interest for her to be involved in disputes between Congress and the White House that the Supreme Court might be called on to settle. "We may have a problem here where the marital relationship confuses the constitutional intent" of the separation of powers, Mr. Kanjorski says. Ms. Thomas laughs when told of Mr. Kanjorski's statement, but declines to comment.

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context, see below

https://www.alternet.org/**2010/10**/ginni_thomas_think_tank_allied_with_group_that_celebrates_spanish_inquisition/

In recent days, the media has turned its attention to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- not for her troubling ties to right-wing extremist groups, but for her bizarre demand for an apology from the woman who accused her husband of sexual harassment more than a decade ago. Yet Mrs. Thomas' Tea Party think tank, Liberty Central, promotes the causes of groups that take pride in intolerance, including one right-wing Catholic group, Tradition, Family and Property, whose founder declared the Spanish Inquisition "the most beautiful page in the history of the Church."

Earlier this year, AlterNet reported on Liberty Central's embrace of Gun Owners of America, whose president, Larry Pratt -- guru to the militia movement -- unapologetically addressed a rally of white supremacists in 1992, and more recently told attendees of a gun owners' rally in Washington, D.C., that they are "at war" with the federal government. We also looked at Liberty Central's relationship with the Missouri Sovereignty Project, which threatens armed insurrection against the government. Since then, Thomas has added to the "Friends of Liberty Central" page on her think tank's Web site a plug for Tradition, Family and Property, a virulently anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-democratic Catholic group founded in 1960 in opposition to Brazilian land reform.

TFP has long enjoyed ties to the far right in American politics, including the International Freedom Foundation, which existed primarily as an American front group for the apartheid regime in South Africa during the Reagan years, according to researcher Richard Bartholomew, and was once led by convicted felon and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But TFP is better known for its role in promoting and supporting authoritarian regimes in South America. Here's Bartholomew:

TFP played a role in the 1964 coup in Brazil, and in Uruguay it allegedly received explosives from the Brazilian military attaché that were used to attack communist installations. The editor of TFP's Chilean magazine, Jaime Guzmán, became chief ideologist for General Pinochet's regime.

If TFP's activities on behalf of torturers and anti-democratic forces weren't enough to give one pause, there's its status as a cult. TFP is an all-male organization that finds its recruits among adolescent boys, whom it trains in the use of the combat regalia of the Middle Ages -- maces, crossbows, and the like -- according to the late Penny Lernoux's 1989 book,People of God: The Struggle for World Catholicism. The medieval games in which the boys partake are so brutal, Lernoux reported, that one recruit told her his arm had been broken three times in the exercises.

The medieval games continue today. Last July, TFP sponsored a 10-day "Call to Chivalry" camp in rural Louisiana, where, according to the group's Web site, boys and young men took part:

Some new skills were learned such as medieval spear throwing and archery. Mock sword battles with padded weapons were a great success as were paintball wars in the thick tropical-looking forest surrounding the property. An exhausting hike in the Tunica Hills Park taught a poignant lesson of endurance.

At the time Lernoux was reporting, recruits were taught to worship not only the Blessed Virgin Mary, the holiest woman in Catholicism, but also the flesh-and-blood mother of TFP founder Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, whom he referred to as Santa Monica. Oliveira, who died in 1995,  loved the Spanish Inquisition, he wrote, "because, while it went on, the Catholic Church managed to cleanse itself of heretics." (Never mind that many of those so-called heretics were Jews who wanted nothing more than to practice their own faith, or people whose politics were inconvenient to the Spanish throne.)

I first learned of the American branch of TFP by stumbling upon one of their demonstrations in midtown Manhattan in the late 1980s, when thegroup was coddled by the late Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor.They often assembled on the sidewalk near St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, decked out in red polyester sashes emblazoned with a yellow lion. Their big issue at that moment was the criminalization of flag desecration, which was a lure for collecting names and addresses on petition forms. I remember feeling disconcerted by their need to videotape each interaction they had with those they were trying to attract.

The group remains active in New York, though its red-sashed members are as likely to be seen in lower Manhattan than around the cathedral.

The Catholic crusades against the Muslim world are viewed as a time of glory by the devotees of TFP. Roberto de Mattei, who wrote a friendly biography of Oliveira and is said to be close to TFP, presented his revisionist history of the crusades at a 2006 conference at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome. TFP is expressing its embrace of the medieval crusades in the chorus of intolerance raised against the Parc51 Islamic cultural center planned for lower Manhattan, dispatching student volunteers to a September protest at the site where the World Trade Center once stood. (TFP video here.)

TFP maintains a presence on the campuses of U.S. Catholic colleges, and currently sponsors a petition drive to purge them of LGBT rights groups. It describes a Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the suit that struck down anti-sodomy laws, as America's "Moral 9/11." Clarence Thomas, incidentally, joined Antonin Scalia's dissent in that case, which accused the court's majority of having "largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda."

Related stories:

Tea Party Think Tank Headed By Clarence Thomas' Wife Makes Common Cause With Militia Guru Larry Pratt

Group Allied With Ginni Thomas' Think Tank Threatens Armed Insurrection

Will Clarence Thomas' Wife Demand Apology From Latest Accuser? (It's His Ex-Girlfriend)

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Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has a new job, running a think-tank she founded to appeal to Tea Party supporters. Liberty Central, according to Kenneth P. Vogel, writing in Politico, "appears to be positioning itself as ahybrid think tank/advocacy group/campaign arm for the tea party movement."

Thomas herself explained it this way to Human Events magazine, Vogel reports:

“I’m getting to know the Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” Thomas told:{ Human Events:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: late last month. “What I think I can bring to the table is a connective (t)issue between the new people and the old people.”

On the Liberty Central Web site, visitors are urged to sign a "pledge to activism" that states the organization's commitment to small government, saying, in part:

In an effort to hold their government accountable to its constitutional limitations,many Americans have voiced their opposition to a “Big Government” agenda through protests and election upsets only to be blatantly ignored by many elected representatives,

Therefore, I pledge to be more informed and more active, and encourage others to do likewise, in order to maximize my impact and influence in preserving, protecting andpromoting liberty, freedom, and limited Constitutional government in America.

Call it the Great Convergence, this coming together of old-guard groups and extremists under the Tea Party brand -- something perhaps that only someone close to a major power center in the U.S. government could pull off. Unlike grassroots Tea Party organizations that struggle for donations, Thomas got off to a quick start last year with two large donations, according to Politico -- one for $50,000 and another for $500,000 -- whose sources the group declines to disclose. (One imagines that for certain players on the legislative field -- especially those signing on to cases that might come before the high court -- saying "I gave at the office" to the spouse of a sitting justice might not come so easily.)

AlterNet took a spin through Thomas' Web site, to see if we could get a sense of who might be showing her some love. What we found was a cadre of groups listed as "friends" -- ranging from the typical Tea Party Inc. types, such as FreedomWorks, to the downright radical, like Gun Owners of America, led by executive director Larry Pratt.

In our ongoing chronicle of right-wing events, we last left Larry Pratt at the 2nd Amendment March on Washington, where he appeared to be calling for war against the U.S. government. The 2nd Amendment March wasn't really a march at all, but a rally on the grounds of the Washington monument of some 2,000 gun owners that took place April 19 -- the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing by self-styled militiaman Timothy McVeigh. (The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building took the lives of 168 innocents, including 19 children under the age of six.)

When Pratt took the stage on the grounds of the Washington monument about 15 years later, he could barely contain his ire for former President Bill Clinton, who was in office at the time of McVeigh's act of mass murder. On the day of the rally, Clinton published an op-ed that seemed to be aimed at the gun owners convening on the Mall in which he urged readers not to forget that McVeigh's act was born of the belief that government is the enemy. "[W]e must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged," he wrote.

At the gun rally, Pratt expressed his displeasure at Clinton's admonition, and at the attendance of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at an Oklahoma City ceremony commemorating the lives lost in the bombing. "I look around: it's so good to see all these terrorists out here," Pratt said to the gun activists. "Janet Napolitano, she figured, as governor of Arizona, that we didn't have a border problem, but she knows who the real enemy is. Ha, ha, ha, ha. And Bill Clinton's been runnin' cover for her, too. Watch out how you guys speak out there, you know, words can have consequences.

"Remember Oklahoma City?" Pratt continued. "Yeah, I do. And I also remember the Waco barbecue that your attorney general gave us. Thanks a lot...We're in a war. The other side knows they're at war, because they started it. They're comin' for our freedom, for our money, for our kids, for our property. They're comin' for everything because they're a bunch of socialists."

Is Larry Pratt's anti-government "war" the sort of activism that Ginni Thomas, CEO of Liberty Central and wife of a member of the high court, would condone? [YOU BETCHA]

It is highly unlikely that Pratt's bitter rhetoric is a secret to Ginni Thomas. Pratt is no stranger to controversy. He's an unabashed supporter of the militia movement; his1990 book, Armed People Victorious,is viewed by many in the movement as an inspirational text.

In 1996, Pratt was forced to resign his role as an adviser to Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign when it was revealed that, in 1992, he addressed a gathering of white supremacists in Estes, Colorado. Included on the roster of speakers that day were neo-Nazis and militia advocates, including Louis Beam, a former Texas Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who had taken his cause over to the Aryan Nation organization. The meeting had been called by Pete Peters, then leader of the Christian Identitymovement, whose theology states that black people are subhuman and Jews are the spawn of Satan.

Pratt came to make clear his advocacy for unfettered gun rights. "The Second Amendment ain't about duck hunting," he told the crowd, according reporter Leonard Zeskind, reporting in *Rolling Stone*. Pratt explained that he bought his first gun during the 1968 riots that engulfed Washington, D.C., in the wake of the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "If they'd had that assault rifle, so-called, for sale, and I'd seen that big old magazine there at the time, that's exactly what I would have bought," Pratt said, according to Rolling Stone.

Pratt represents a kind of pivot point between the right-wing extreme and the right-wing establishment. While Pratt is cozy with Howard Phillips, the Christian Reconstructionist founder of the Constitution Party, he's also friendly withformer House Majority Leader Richard Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, the kingpin of Tea Party Inc. astroturf groups. Armey once served on the advisory board of the now-defunct Family Foundation, an organization founded by Pratt, that housed an anti-immigrant group,English First (which still exists).

Ginni Thomas worked as an aide to Armey when he served in Congress in the GOP leadership, according to Politico. Today,Armey chairs FreedomWorks, the powerful Washington, D.C., organization that helped organize last summer's disruptions of town-hall meetings conducted by members of Congress about health care reform legislation. FreedomWorks also sponsored the stage program at the conclusion of last fall's 912 march [TRUMP? BECK] on Washington, and an anti-health care rally on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol last spring. Ginni Thomas also worked with FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe when both were on staff at the anti-regulatory lobbying group, the Chamber of Commerce.Like FreedomWorks, in last month's GOP primary runoff for Utah's U.S. Senate seat, Thomas' Liberty Central endorsed Tea Party candidate Mike Lee (the only candidate Liberty Central has endorsed so far).

Gun Owners of America is hardly the only eyebrow-raising friend listed on Liberty Central's Web site -- just the most extreme. Also nestled amid the group of 32 largely establishment outfits such as the Hudson Institute and the National Taxpayers Union, is Concerned Women for America, which has been on an anti-gay tear for the last two decades, and ParcBench.com, which currently features a post alleging that President Barack Obama committed treason when he presided over a session of the U.N. Security Council last fall --and that his administration won't prosecute violations of voting laws committed when white people are the victims.

Gun Owners of America frequently participates in lawsuits headed for the high court, and its attorney, William J. Olson, testified against the nomination of Elena Kagan to the bench of the high court at last week's Senate hearings. Likewise, Concerned Women for America also features an anti-Kagan post on the front page of its Web site. Not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, but it seems a bit untoward that the spouse of a sitting justice is running an organization that forges alliances with groups arrayed against her husband's next new colleague.

But more disturbing than that is the fact that Ginni Thomas, who shares her life with one of the most powerful men in the United States government, should use her social standing to recruit people to rage against the government in the company of the likes of Larry Pratt.

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religious right’s professed insistence upon “family values” might appear at first blush to be at odds with the anything but saintly personal behavior of many of its leading proponents. Some of this may be due to the general inability of human beings to reflect on conflicting information: I have never ceased to be amazed at how facts manage to bounce off people’s consciousness like pebbles off armor plate. But there is another, uniquely religious aspect that also comes into play: the predilection of fundamentalist denominations to believe in practice, even if not entirely in theory, in the doctrine of “cheap grace,” a derisive term coined by the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. By that he meant the inclination of some religious adherents to believe that once they had been “saved,” not only would all past sins be wiped away, but future ones, too—so one could pretty much behave as before. Cheap grace is a divine get- out-of-jail-free card. Hence the tendency of the religious base of the Republican Party to cut some slack for the peccadilloes of candidates who claim to have been washed in the blood of the Lamb and reborn to a new and more Christian life. The religious right is willing to overlook a politician’s individual foibles, no matter how poor an example he or she may make, if they publicly identify with fundamentalist values. In 2011 the Family Research Council, the fundamentalist lobbying organization, gave Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois an award for “unwavering support of the family.” Representative Walsh’s ex-wife might beg to differ, as she claims he owes her over one hundred thousand dollars in unpaid child support, a charge he denies.

Of course, the proper rituals must be observed before an erring politician can obtain absolution. In November 2011, at a forum sponsored by religious conservatives in Iowa, all of the GOP presidential candidates struck the expected notes of contrition and humility as they laid bare their souls before the assembled congregation (the event was held in a church). Most of them, including Cain, who was then still riding high, choked up when discussing some bleak midnight of their lives (he chose not to address the fresh sexual harassment charges against him, which surely would have qualified as a trying personal experience preying on his mind). Even the old reprobate Gingrich misted up over some contrived misdeed intended to distract attention from his well-known adventures in serial matrimony.

All of these gloomy obsequies of repentance having been observed, Gingrichgave a stirring example of why he is hands-down the best extemporaneous demagogue in contemporary America. Having purged his soul of all guilty transgressions, he turned his attention to the far graver sins bedeviling the American nation.

If we look at history from the mid-1960s, we’ve gone from a request for toleration to an imposition of intolerance. We’ve gone from a request to understand others to a determination to close down those who hold traditional values. I think that we need to be very aggressive and very direct. The degree to which the left is prepared to impose intolerance and to drive out of existence traditional religion is a mortal threat to our civilization and deserves to be taken head-on and described as what it is, which is the use of government to repress the American people against their own values.

That is as good an example as any of cheap grace as practiced by seasoned statesmen like Gingrich—a bid for redemption turned on its head to provide a forum for one of the Republican Party’s favorite pastimes: taking opportunistic swipes at the dreaded liberal bogeyman. How quickly one forgets one’s own moral lapses when one can consider the manifold harms inflicted on our nation by godless leftists!

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Some liberal writers have opined that the socioeconomic gulf separating the business wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no basic disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far it should go. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age; the theocrats to the Salem witch trials. If anything, the two groups are increasingly beginning to resemble each other. Many televangelists have espoused what has come to be known as the prosperity gospel—the health-and- wealth/name-it-and-claim-it gospel of economic entitlement. If you are wealthy, it is a sign of God’s favor. If not, too bad! This rationale may explain why some poor voters will defend the prerogatives of billionaires. In any case, at the beginning of the 2012 presidential cycle, those consummate plutocrats the Koch brothers pumped money into Bachmann’s campaign, so one should probably not make too much of a potential plutocrat-theocrat split.

Most of the religious enthusiasts I observed during my tenure on the Hill seemed to have little reluctance to mix God and Mammon. Rick Santorum did not blink at legislative schemes to pay off his campaign contributors: In 2005 he introduced a bill to forbid the National Weather Service from providing weather forecasts for free that commercial forecasters—like AccuWeather, a Pennsylvania- based company which had contributed to his campaign—wanted to charge for. Tom DeLay’s purported concern about the dignity and sanctity of human life, touchingly on display during the controversy over whether Terri Schiavo’s husband had the right to tell doctors to remove her feeding tube after seeing her comatose for fifteen years, could always be qualified by strategic infusions of campaign cash. DeLay’s quashing of bills to prohibit serious labor abuses demonstrates that even religious virtue can be flexible when there are campaign donations involved.

One might imagine that the religious right’s agenda would be incompatible with the concerns for privacy and individual autonomy by those who consider themselves to belong to the libertarian wing of the Republican Party—the “don’t tread on me,” “live free or die” crowd that Grover Norquist once called the “leave me alone” conservatives. Given their profound distaste for an oppressive and intrusive federal government, one would think they might have trepidations about a religious movement determined to impose statutory controls on private behavior that libertarians nominally hold to be nobody’s business, and particularly not the government’s business.

Some more libertarian-leaning Republicans have in fact pushed back against the religious right. Former House majority leader Dick Armey expressed his profound distaste for the tactics of the religious right in 2006—from the safety of the sidelines—by blasting its leadership in unequivocal terms:

[James] Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There’s a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn’t work unless it’s dumb, shallow as water on a plate. These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic. These issues become bigger than life, largely because they’re easy. There ain’t no thinking.

Armey had previously been an economics professor at several cow colleges in Texas, and when he came to Congress in 1985, libertarian economics was his forte. I do not recall religious issues motivating his political ideology; instead, economics was what gripped him, particularly the flat tax, which he tirelessly promoted. I believe his departure from Congress was impelled not only by the fact that he was not on the inside track to become Speaker, but also because of his disillusionment with the culture wars, as his passionate denunciation of Dobson suggests. But later, Barack Obama’s election and the rise of the Tea Party induced a miraculous change of heart in Armey, as no doubt did the need to raise money for his lobbying organization, known as FreedomWorks. By 2009, Armey had become a significant voice of the Tea Party. As such, he attempted to declare a truce between fiscal and social conservatives, who would thenceforth bury their squabbles and concentrate on dethroning the Kenyan usurper in the Oval Office. That meant soft-pedaling social issues that might alarm fiscally conservative but socially moderate voters, particularly women, who lived in the wealthier suburbs.

In September 2010 Armey took one step further in his reconciliation with the people he had called thugs and bullies when he announced that a GOP majority in Congress would again take up the abortion fight, which was only right and proper for those who held such a sincere moral conviction. When the Republicans duly won the House two months later, they did precisely that. State legislatures across the country followed suit: Ohio, Texas, and Virginia enacted the most severe abortion restrictions in any legislative session in memory. Suddenly Armey didn’t seem to have any problem with social issues preempting his economic agenda.

The Tea Party, which initially described itself as wholly concerned with debt, deficit, and federal overreach, gradually unmasked itself as being almost as theocratic as the activists from the religious right that Armey had denounced only a few years before. If anything, they were even slightly more disposed than the rest of the Republican Party to inject religious issues into the political realm. According to an academic study of the Tea Party, “[T]hey seek ‘deeply religious’ elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates.” The Tea Party faithful are not so much libertarian as authoritarian, the furthest thing from a “live free or die” constitutionalist.

Within the GOP libertarianism is a throwaway doctrine that is rhetorically useful in certain situations but often interferes with their core, more authoritarian, beliefs. When the two precepts collide, the authoritarian reflex prevails. In 2009 it was politically useful for the GOP to present the Tea Party as independent-leaning libertarians, when in reality the group was overwhelmingly Republican, with a high quotient of GOP activists and adherents of views common among the religious right. According to a 2010 Gallup poll, eight in ten Tea Party members identify themselves as Republicans. Another study found that over half identified as members of the religious right and 55 percent of Tea Partiers agree that “America has always been and is currently a Christian nation”—6 points more than even the percentage of self-described Christian conservatives who would agree to that. This religious orientation should have been evident from the brouhaha that erupted in mid- 2009 over the charge that the Obama administration’s new healthcare reform plan would set up “death panels.” While there was plenty to criticize about the health-care bill, the completely bogus charge garnered disproportionate attention. Republican political consultants immediately recognized that they had found a classic emotional issue that would resonate with the same people on the religious right who had been stirred up over the Terri Schiavo case. The Tea Party, a supposedly independent group of fiscal conservatives outraged by Obama’s profligate spending plans, fell prey to the hysteria Republican Party operatives whipped up over end-of- life counseling. This self-unmasking of the Tea Party may help explain why, after three years in existence, public support for the organization has been dropping precipitously.

Ayn Rand, an occasional darling of the Tea Party, has become a cult figure within the GOP in recent years. It is easy enough to see how her tough-guy, every-man-for-himself posturing would be a natural fit with the Wall Street bankers and the right-wing politicians they fund—notwithstanding the bankers’ fondness for government bailouts. But Rand’s philosophy found most of its adherents in the libertarian wing of the party, a group that overlaps with, but is certainly not identical to, the “business conservatives” who fund the bulk of the GOP’s activities. There has always been a strong strain of rugged individualism in America, and the GOP has cleverly managed to co-opt that spirit to its advantage. The problem is that Rand proclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for Christianity as a religion of weaklings possessing a slave mentality. So how do Republican candidates manage to bamboozle what is perhaps the largest single bloc in their voting base, the religious fundamentalists, about this? Certainly the ignorance of many fundamentalist values voters about the wider world and the life of the mind goes some distance toward explaining the paradox: GOP candidates who enthuse over Rand at the same time as they thump their Bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction because most of their audience is blissfully unaware of who Ayn Rand was and what she advocated. But voters can to some extent be forgiven their ignorance, because politicians have grown so skillful at misdirecting them about their intentions.

This camouflaging of intentions is as much a strategy of the religious right and its leaders—James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, and the rest—as it is of the GOP’s more secular political leaders in Washington. After the debacle of the Schiavo case and the electoral loss in 2008, the religious right pulled back and regrouped. They knew that the full-bore, “theoconservative” agenda would not sell with a majority of voters. This strategy accounts for Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition (who famously said that God sent a hurricane to New Orleans to punish the sodomites), stating the following in October 2011: “Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off of this stuff. They’re forcing their leaders, the front-runners, into positions that will mean they lose the general election.” I doubt he thought the candidates held positions that were too extreme, merely that they should keep quiet about those positions until they had won the election. Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah, argues that this is a “lying for Jesus” strategy that fundamentalists often adopt when dealing with the snares of a wicked and Godless world. Since Satan is the father of lies, one can be forgiven for fighting lies with lies.

Hence the policies pursued for at least two decades by the religious right on the federal, state, and local levels. It usually starts at the school board, after some contrived uproar over sex education or liberal indoctrination. The stealthily fundamentalist school board candidates pledge to clean up the mess and “get back to basics.” After a few years they capture a majority on the board, and suddenly “Catcher in the Rye” is heaved out of the curriculum and science teachers are under pressure to teach the (imaginary) controversy about evolutionary biology. This was the path to greater glory of Michele Bachmann: Her first run for public office, barely a dozen years ago, was for a seat on the school board in Stillwater, Minnesota. Up until then she had drawn a taxpayer-funded salary for five years working as an attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, not, of course, because she was one of those lazy, good-for-nothing government bureaucrats that Republican candidates routinely denounce. She was secretly studying the ways of the government beast so as to defeat it later on.

Bachmann, Rick Perry, and numerous other serving representatives and senators have all had ties to Christian Dominionism, a doctrine proclaiming that Christians are destined to dominate American politics and establish a new imperium resembling theocratic government. According to one profile of Perry, adherents of Dominionism “believe Christians—certain Christians—are destined to not just take ‘dominion’ over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the ‘Seven Mountains’ of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world.” Note the qualifier: “stealthily.”

At the same religious forum where the GOP candidates confessed their sins, Bachmann went so far as to suggest that organized religion should keep its traditional legal privilege of tax exemption while being permitted to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. The fact that government prohibits express political advocacy is in her imagination muzzling preachers rather than just being a quid pro quo for tax-exempt status equivalent to that imposed on any 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 nonprofit organization. But for Bachmann and others of like mind, this is persecution of a kind that fuels their sense of victimhood and righteous indignation.

Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from “The Party is Over” by Mike Lofgren

==

==

dem in chains

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

libtard had to present their bills as opposite of what actually were; so reform will kill; manne retires; 2/5 of all fed judge summer inst; greens biggest threat to corps, "quest for control over industry" 195

gov't health and welfare rules hobble labor mkt; flat rate tax more fair to rich; feminism "heavily socialistic for no apparent reason" 196 socialism is gov't $ for anything other than mil or police.

===

CNP GINNI

let's go brandon!

===

DAVID CORN

FreedomWorks Made Video of Fake Giant Panda Having Sex With Fake Hillary Clinton

The investigation at the influential tea party group could get weird.

By David Corn | Thu Feb. 14, 2013

---

Aninternal investigation [1] of FreedomWorks—the prominent conservative advocacy group and super-PAC—has focused on president Matt Kibbe's[2]management of the organization, his use of its resources, and a controversial book deal he signed [3], according to former FreedomWorks officials who have met with the private lawyers conducting the probe. One potential topic for the inquiry is a promotional video produced last year under the supervision of Adam Brandon [4], executive vice president of the group and a Kibbe loyalist. The video included a scene in which a female intern wearing a panda suit simulates performing oral sex on Hillary Clinton. [Author's note: The previous sentence contains no typos.] 

In December, after months of bitter in-fighting, two members of FreedomWorks' board of trustees—C. Boyden Gray,the White House counsel for President George H.W. Bush, and James Burnley IV, a secretary of transportation during the Reagan years—notified [1] Kibbe that they had received "allegations of wrongdoing by the organization or its employees" and had hired two lawyers, Alfred Regnery and David Martin, to investigate. Soon after, Regnery and Martin began interviewing past and present FreedomWorks employees and officials. This list included Dick Armey, the former House majority leader who in November resigned [5] as chairman of the group (and pocketed an $8 million payout [6]), citing concerns about the management of the organization. The investigating lawyers, Armey says, "picked my brain. I told them a forensic audit would be imperative because so much is hidden there." ...

===

lots of mojo in fw split:

Armey, the former House majority leader who helped develop and promote the GOP's Contract with America in the 1990s, tendered his resignation in a memo sent to Matt Kibbe, president and CEO of FreedomWorks, on November 30.Mother Jonesobtained the email on Monday, and Armey has confirmed he sent it. The tone of the memo suggests that this was not an amicable separation. (See Armey's email below.) Armey demanded that he be paid until his contract ended on December 31; that FreedomWorks remove his name, image, or signature "from all its letters, print media, postings, web sites, videos, testimonials, endorsements, fund raising materials, and social media, including but not limited to Facebook and Twitter"; and that FreedomWorks deliver the copy of his official congressional portrait to his home in Texas.

"The top management team of FreedomWorks was taking a direction I thought was unproductive, and I thought it was time to move on with my life," Armey tellsMother Jones. "At this point, I don't want to get into the details. I just want to go on with my life."

In the email, Armey indicated that he wants nothing to do with FreedomWorks anymore. He asked that all user names, passwords, and security-related data created in his name be emailed to him by the close of business on December 4. He even insisted that FreedomWorks—"effective immediately"—was "prohibited" from using a booklet he authored. Was Armey's resignation a reaction to the recent election results? "Obviously I was not happy with the election results," he says. "We might've gotten better results if we had gone in a different direction. But it isn't that I got my nose out of line because we should've done better."

Armey declined to specify his disagreements with FreedomWorks. Asked if they were ideological or tactical, he replies, "They were matters of principle. It's how you do business as opposed to what you do. But I don't want to be the guy to create problems."

After leaving Congress in 2003, Armey joined the conservative advocacy group Citizens for a Sound Economy as co-chairman. The following year, the organization, which had been cofounded by Charles and David Koch, split off to become FreedomWorks. Its sister outfit, Americans for Prosperity, has been a prominent grassroots conservative group.

FreedomWorks, under Armey's leadership, was a key player in the rise of the tea party in 2010. The organization helped elect tea party favorites, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Reps. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.). Armey led the fight to eliminate Obamacare, emailing every Republican member of Congressafter the 2010 elections with a strategy for gutting President Obama's signature health care law. FreedomWorks has acted an connector between tea party groups around the country, organizing protests against Obamacare and expanding the ranks of the conservative movement. In 2010, Armey and Kibbe together published Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto.

Mother Jones contacted Kibbe and FreedomWorks spokeswoman Jacqueline Bodnar for comment. Neither responded.

Armey says he doesn't know what he will do next, but he is considering consulting work.

Here is Armey's November 30 memo to Kibbe:

===

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."

==

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

--

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

==

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

And then there isDick Armey, the former House majority leader who has returned in triumph to the public stage in recent years as the chairman of the FreedomWorks pressure group and the de facto leader of the tea-party movement. Last month Mr. Armey even attended the annual meeting of the Republican National Committee to speak on the tea partiers' behalf.

As you may recall, Mr. Armey was once one of Congress's staunchest defenders of the Marianas way. Several of his aides traveled to the free-market paradise, and in 1997 Mr. Armey even wrote a letter jointly with former Rep. Tom DeLay in which he praised the islands' dedication to "the principles of free markets, enterprise, education choice, tax reform and other innovative approaches to governance."

Behold your Third Great Awakening, America. Lobbyists, sweatshops, and the junkets designed by lobbyists to make sweatshops seem like liberty are, presumably, the sort of things tea partiers should have trouble with. Will the grass-roots nation call these gentlemen to account for their freedom flimflamming of the past?

I wouldn't count on it. It is no secret, for example, that Mr. Armey was until recently something of a superlobbyist himself, ritually denouncing Washington's ways as he worked behind the scenes on behalf of multinational liquor conglomerates and international commercial real-estate concerns. His lobbying has been well-publicized since before the tea-party movement began. And yet criticism of Mr. Armey from the grass-roots right for that particular transgression remains difficult to find.

The reason we haven't heard more in this respect, I suspect, is because deep down it doesn't offend. The history of conservative idealism is, in some ways, a history of lobbying, of ever-more inventive schemes to make politics answer to money. Each of the movement's succeeding bursts of idealism have led, ineluctably, to the doors of K Street.

This one, I suspect, will be no different.

Write tothomas@wsj.com

==

politico

Ex-Armey aide indicted in Abramoff probe

Horace Cooper, 44, a former aide to Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas), was indicted Friday on five felony counts in the investigation stemming from D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The indictment alleges that Cooper took from Abramoff and his associates more than $5,000 in tickets to sporting events and concerts between 1998 and 2001 while working for Armey. Between 2001 and 2005, while working as chief of staff at the Voice of America and in a later job at the Labor Department, Cooper took another $9,000 in tickets from Abramoff's team, the indictment claims.

Cooper was also regularly "comped" at Abramoff's restaurant, Signatures, the Justice Department claims. When getting a free meal, sometimes Cooper would pay for a soft drink on a credit card making "it appear that he had paid for his Signatures meals and drinks when actually he did not," the indictment says.

Prosecutors contend that in exchange for the largesse, Cooper used his influence to help Abramoff get federal funds from the Department of State and to help an Abramoff colleague trying to resolve a wage-and-hour investigation at Labor. In one e-mail, Cooper allegedly offered to "fix" problems related to the inquiry. Cooper "concealed" the gifts from Abramoff on personal financial disclosures filed with the government, the indictment says.

"We’re very disappointed the Department of Justice decided to go forward with these charges," Cooper's attorney Sol Wisenberg told POLITICO. "Horace Cooper is innocent, and we look forward to our day in court. We intend to vigorously try this case."

The indictment also says that in his dealings with Abramoff in 2002 Cooper used a personal e-mail account that invoked his tie to Armey: armeyman@netscape.net. The former House majority leader is not charged or named in the indictment, besides the mention in the e-mail address.

In 2003, Cooper allegedly invited about 50 friends to an Abramoff-hosted Super Bowl party at Stacks, another D.C. eatery controlled by the lobbyist.

Abramoff and his associates allegedly gave Cooper tickets — often in skyboxes — for the Redskins, the Capitals, the Orioles, the Wizards, the Harlem Globetrotters, the U.S. Open tennis championships and the NBA draft. Cooper also received tickets to concerts by N'Sync, Destiny's Child, and the not-very-GOP-friendly Dixie Chicks, the indictment asserts.

Cooper has been summoned to appear in federal court in D.C. on Sept. 9. If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum possible sentence of 40 years, though his actual sentence would likely be lower in accordance with federal guidelines.

Cooper, who was a press secretary, director of coalitions and legislative counsel for Armey, has worked more recently as a legal commentator and a law professor at George Mason University, where he earned his law degree.

Abramoff, who is cooperating with prosecutors, is serving a four-year sentence on fraud, tax and conspiracy charges.

==

from CRC

In April 1995, House Majority Leader Richard Armey wrote on official letterhead to 82 companies warning them that their contributions to non-profit groups helped "support expansion of the welfare state." The companies were selected on the basis of a classification by CRC which ranked Greenpeace as "radical left" and groups such as the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association as "liberal", the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Spokesman for CRC Robert Berkebile explained that the American Cancer Society was classed as 'liberal' because it supported taxes on cigarettes. (It is now known that Philip Morris was funding CRC at the time). The American Lung Association got the same rating because it supported regulations on burning hazardous waste in cement kilns.Monsanto, not known for its support for radical causes, got a "centre-left" tag because it contributed to the Nature Conservancy, amongst others.

Equally interesting is CRC's assessment of who it viewed as the real conservatives. The RAND Corporation was tagged as "center left" while the American Enterprise Institute was designated as in the "center". The true believers, gaining the "conservative" badge of honour were CRC itself, the Center for the Study of American Business, the Chamber Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution and the Hudson Institute.

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

In mid-February 2001, CRC President Terrence Scanlon addressed the 28th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) stating "for the first time we have an opportunity to go after these [liberal nonprofit] groups and take away their federal money."

===

Dick Armey's Attempted Armed Coup of the Tea Party

By Amy Gardner, The Washington Post

26 December 12

The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall.

Richard K. Armey, the group's chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group's Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey's enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks' top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was gone - with a promise of $8 million - and the five ousted employees were back. The force behind their return was Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who has exerted increasing control over one of Washington's most influential conservative grass-roots organizations.

Stephenson, the founder of the for-profit Cancer Treatment Centers of America and a director on the FreedomWorks board, agreed to commit $400,000 per year over 20 years in exchange for Armey's agreement to leave the group.

The episode illustrates the growing role of wealthy donors in swaying the direction of FreedomWorks and other political groups, which increasingly rely on unlimited contributions from corporations and financiers for their financial livelihood. Such gifts are often sent through corporate shells or nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose their donors, making it impossible for the public to know who is funding them.

In the weeks before the election, more than $12 million in donations was funneled through two Tennessee corporations to the FreedomWorks super PAC after negotiations with Stephenson over a preelection gift of the same size, according to three current and former employees with knowledge of the arrangement. The origin of the money has not previously been reported.

These and other new details about the near-meltdown at FreedomWorks were gleaned from interviews with two dozen current and past associates, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk freely.

The disarray comes as the conservative movement is struggling to find its way after the November elections, which brought a second term for President Obama and Democratic gains in the House and Senate. Armey said in an interview that the near-meltdown at his former group has damaged the conservative cause.

"FreedomWorks was the spark plug, the energy source, the catalyst for the movement through the 2010 elections," Armey said, referring to the GOP midterm sweep. "Harm was done to the movement."

Stephenson, 73, declined a request for an interview. Matt Kibbe, the group's president, and Adam Brandon, its senior vice president, declined to discuss the issue.

"I don't comment on donors," Brandon said. "He's on our board, he's a board member like anyone else. That's it. I see him at board meetings."

Stephenson, a longtime but little-known player in conservative causes, is a resident of Barrington, Ill., a northwest suburb of Chicago known for its affluence and sprawling horse estates such as his Tudor Oaks Farm. He founded the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in 1988 following his mother's death from bladder cancer, according to the for-profit company's Web site and his public remarks. Stephenson also holds investments in a broad portfolio of other businesses, including finance and real estate companies.

Stephenson has a passion for libertarian politics stretching back to the 1960s, when he attended seminars featuring "Atlas Shrugged" author Ayn Rand and economist Murray Rothbard, according to those who know him at FreedomWorks. Like Armey, Stephenson was an early supporter of Citizens for a Sound Economy, the conservative lobbying group founded by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch in 1984 that split into FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity 20 years later. The Kochs, known for bankrolling a variety of conservative causes, kept control of AFP, while Stephenson and Armey stayed with FreedomWorks.

FreedomWorks has been on a remarkable run in recent election cycles, growing its annual budget from $7 million to $40 million in just a few years and helping lead the tea party movement against Obama's agenda. The group was among several that rose up last week in opposition to a failed proposal from House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to raise federal taxes on millionaires.

The group played a crucial role in ushering a wave of tea party candidates into office in recent years, staging rallies, hawking books and videos, and organizing media appearances with conservative personalities such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

"I've enjoyed my association with FreedomWorks," said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who defeated incumbent Bob Bennett with help from the group. "Matt Kibbe and Dick Armey endorsed me early in my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, and they were a big help to me."

Despite such testimonials, FreedomWorks has struggled with accusations that it is an "astro­turfer" - a national organization of big-money donors that swept in to lay claim to an independent movement.

According to public records, FreedomWorks received more than $12 million before the election from two corporations based in Knoxville, Tenn.: Specialty Investments Group and Kingston Pike Development. The firms were established within a day of each other by William S. Rose III, a local bankruptcy lawyer.

Rose, who could not be reached for comment, has said publicly he would not answer questions about the donations. But according to three current and former FreedomWorks employees with knowledge of the donations, the money originated with Stephenson and his family, who arranged for the contributions from the Tennessee firms to the super PAC.

Brandon, FreedomWorks' executive vice president, told colleagues starting in August that Stephenson would be giving between $10 million and $12 million, these sources said. Brandon also met repeatedly with members of Stephenson's family who were involved in arranging the donations, the sources said.

Stephenson attended a FreedomWorks retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August at which a budget was being prepared in anticipation of a large influx of money, according to several employees who attended the retreat. At the retreat, Stephenson dictated some of the terms of how the money would be spent, the employees said.

"There is no doubt that Dick Stephenson arranged for that money to come to the super PAC," said one person who attended the retreat. "I can assure you that everyone around the office knew about it."

Among other things, Stephenson wanted a substantial sum spent in support of Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), a tea party favorite and Stephenson's local congressman, several who attended the retreat recalled. Walsh garnered national headlines during the campaign when he questioned whether his opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot who lost both legs in Iraq, was a "true hero." Despite internal misgivings about the value of the investment, FreedomWorks spent $1.7 million on ads supporting Walsh; he lost the race.

Two watchdog groups last week asked the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department to investigate the donations from the two Tennessee companies. The groups, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, say the arrangement could violate federal laws that prohibit attempting to hide the true source of a political contribution by giving it under another name. (Brandon declined to comment on the complaints, but he said the group's books were in order.)

Partnership Unravels

For years, FreedomWorks was headed by an unlikely duo: Armey, 72, the old-guard pol who wears a black cowboy hat even when he's not on his Texas ranch, and Kibbe, 49, who sports mutton-chop sideburns and has a passion for the Grateful Dead.

But the most important relationship appears to be the bond between Kibbe and Stephenson, who bridged their age gap through shared libertarian views and Kibbe's battle with testicular cancer a decade ago, Armey and others said.They said Kibbe, after being given a terminal diagnosis, was encouraged by Stephenson to get treatment at his cancer clinics; more than a decade later, they said, he is cancer-free.

Until this year, the partnership between Kibbe and Armey worked well. Armey's renown as a former House member drew media attention and crowds of conservative activists - most of them old enough to remember Armey's role in the Republican revolution in Congress in 1994. And Kibbe's youthful intellectualism drew a new generation of libertarian soldiers into the FreedomWorks fold. In 2010, the two co-wrote a book, "Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto," that became a New York Times bestseller and a successful marketing tool for FreedomWorks, which collected the book's proceeds and used it to attract donations.

The partnership came to a crashing end when Armey marched into FreedomWorks's office Sept. 4 with his wife, Susan, executive assistant Jean Campbell and the unidentified man with the gun at his waist - who promptly escorted Kibbe and Brandon out of the building.

"This was two weeks after there had been a shooting at the Family Research Council," said one junior staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. "So when a man with a gun who didn't identify himself to me or other people on staff, and a woman I'd never seen before said there was an announcement, my first gut was, 'Is FreedomWorks in danger?' It was bizarre.'?"

By nearly all accounts, including from those loyal to him, Armey handled his attempted coup badly. Armey says he was stepping in because of ethical breaches by Kibbe and Brandon, accusing them of improperly using FreedomWorks staff resources to produce a book - ironically, named "Hostile Takeover" - for which Kibbe claimed sole credit and was collecting royalties. The use of internal resources for Kibbe's benefit could jeopardize the group's nonprofit tax status; the group denies any impropriety.

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

Armey also accused Brandon, Kibbe and other staff members loyal to them of squeezing him out of media appearances and management decisions while using his name to market the group.

Armey appeared out of touch and unsure of how FreedomWorks operated when he took over that Tuesday morning, according to interviews with more than a dozen employees on both sides who witnessed the takeover. Sitting in a glass-walled conference room visible to much of the staff, he placed three young female employees on administrative leave, then reversed himself when they burst into tears; his wife lamented aloud that maybe they had "jumped the gun."

In subsequent meetings, Susan Armey passed her husband notes that several employees assumed contained suggestions on what to say. According to a recording of a staff conference call provided to The Washington Post, Armey bewildered his audience by demanding more FreedomWorks support for Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican whose Senate campaign had already cratered after his comments about "legitimate rape."

"It was clear that under Armey's leadership, the organization as we knew it was going to be driven into the ground," said one junior employee.

Enter Stephenson, who agreed to the multimillion-dollar financial incentive to push Armey out and install Kibbe back at the helm.

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

"It was very clear to him that I would not work with Matt," Armey said, referring to Stephenson. "He felt that Matt knew the levers and understood it better than I did and was very urgent to reinstate that."

Brandon, back in the No. 2 spot as executive vice president, scoffed at the notion that the group is in trouble or that the dispute with Armey was indicative of a larger problem for the tea party. He said FreedomWorks has 2.1 million members, nearly 4 million fans on Facebook and a budget that has grown sixfold in five years. He also pointed to the elections of Senate conservatives Ted Cruz in Texas and Jeff Flake in Arizona as evidence of the group's electoral success.

"We doubled our budget, and we doubled our membership," Brandon said, referring to the group's growth since 2011. "That's how we ended up the year."

===

TP gop platorm:

6. Dick Armey. Former Republican insider Dick Armey now runs FreedomWorks, the Koch [20]- [20]backed [20],[20]corporate [20]- [20]funded [20],[20]Murdoch [20]- [20]promoted [20] Tea Party astroturfing group – or, in its words, a “grassroots service center.” Armey has been a major force behind this year’s victories of Tea Party Senate challengers like Ted Cruz in Texas and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, both of whom knocked off “establishment” candidates. FreedomWorks also backed Rand Paul in Kentucky and Mike Lee in Utah in 2010. As Adele Stan has reported [21], FreedomWorks’ goal is to build a cadre of far-right senators to create a “power center around Jim DeMint,” the Senate’s reigning Tea Party-Religious Right hero.

To put Armey’s stamp on the platform, FreedomWorks created a “Freedom Platform” project, which enlisted Tea Party leaders to come up with proposed platform planks and encouraged activists to vote for them online. Then FreedomWorks pushed the party to include these planks in the official platform:

• Repeal Obamacare; pursue patient-centered care
• Stop the tax hikes
• Reverse Obama’s spending increases
• Scrap the tax code; replace with a flat tax
• Pass a balanced budget amendment
• Reject cap and trade
• Rein in EPA
• Unleash America’s vast energy potential
• Eliminate the Department of Education
• Reduce the bloated federal workforce
• Curtail excessive federal regulation
• Audit the fed

An Ohio Tea Party Group, Ohio Liberty Coalition, celebrated [22] that 10 of 12 made it to the draft – everything but the flat tax and eliminating the Department of Defense. But FreedomWorks gave itself a more generous score, arguing [23] for an 11.5 out of 12. FreedomWorks vice president Dean Clancy said the platform’s call for a “flatter” tax “opens the door to a flat tax” and said they considered the education section of the platform a “partial victory” because it includes “a very strong endorsement of school choice, including vouchers.”

===

lee fang:

For instance, former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), another self-proclaimed tea party leader, rails against the Wall Street bailout and efforts to rebuild the foundations of the economy, even though his own lobbying firm represented AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch during the bailouts. Armey, who is still paid a lobbyist salary of at least $550,00 a year, told the New York Times that although he does not believe in “death panels” or other “exaggerations,” he encourages others to spread falsehoods to advance his agenda. Armey’s willful lying is instructive for understanding the profiteers: in the most condescending way, they are exploiting the tea party movement to line their own pockets.

Tags:

• Dick Armey
• Radical Right
• Tea Party

---

– Dick Armey: As ThinkProgress has documented, Armey has a long history of organizing conservative grassroots causes in support of his corporate clients. Armey presents himself as a ideologue, who helms his nonprofit FreedomWorks as a mere exercise in his free market beliefs. But while Armey rails against the Wall Street bailout and efforts to rebuild the foundations of the economy, his own lobbying firm represented AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch during the bailouts. Indeed, even his nonprofit still pays him a lobbyist salary of $550,000 per year.

===

spoke at ALEC sponsored by visa?

http://www.alternet.org/news/151930/journalists_kicked_out_of_alec_conference,_threatened_with_arrest/</small/</</</</small/</small/comments/</small?page=1

Dick Armey is the Chairman of FreedomWorks (previously Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), and co-chairman of the Alliance for Retirement Prosperity. A lifelong Republican, Armey served as Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2002.^[1]

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

On August 5th, 2011, Armey spoke at a plenary session of the 38th Annual Meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in New Orleans, Louisiana.^[2] The Institute for Policy Innovation, which Armey founded in 1987, is also an ALEC member.^[3] Bartlett Cleland, Director of the Center for Technology Freedom at the Institute for Policy Innovation, represents IPI as a co-chair of the ALEC Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force.^[4]

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.

Biography

Armey graduated in 1963 from the University of North Dakota with a Masters in economics and a Ph. D from the University of Oklahoma. He then held a number of teaching positions culminating in a 13-year stint at the University of North Texas.^[5] From there he entered Congress as part of the Reagan revolution.

In 1984 Armey was elected as a Republican member of U.S. House of Representatives from Texas.^[5]

In 1987 he founded the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), a non-profit, non-partisan public policy "think tank" based in Lewisville, Texas.^[6]

During his political career Armey worked his way up through the Republican ranks serving as the senior Republican on the Joint Economic Committee and as Chairman of the Republican Conference.^[5]

He is described as the main author of the Contract with America, which was promoted by then House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich. In 1995, after Gingrich's demise, Armey became House Majority Leader, a position he held until his retirement from Congress at the end of 2002.^[1]

During the 2000 presidential campaign, the campaign to ridicule Al Gore was organized through Armey's congressional office. "We would just kind of compile stuff and send it out to talk radio and to members," said Armey spokeswoman Michele A. Davis.^[7]

The Republican PR machine spun Gore's statement about his role in policy development to imply a claim that he technically developed the Internet. A news release by Armey was one of the notable barbs in this campaign. "If the Vice President created the Internet then I created the Interstate highway system," Armey stated.^[8]

During 2002 he was Chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security. In August 2002 he said that an "unprovoked attack" on Iraq would be illegal. "If we try to act against Saddam Hussein, as obnoxious as he is, without proper provocation, we will not have the support of other nation states who might do so," Armey said. "I don't believe that America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation. It would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a nation."unjustifiable.^[9]

In January 2003 he was appointed Co-chairman of CSE, later becoming Chairman.^[10]

Armey is also listed with the Premiere Speakers Bureau as being available for conference programs with an indicative speaking fee of $25,000 for a keynote speech and $20,000 for non-profits. According to the Premier profile Armey prefers to speak on "Negotiation, Peak Performance, Politics & Current Events, Society And Culture, Strategy" and that he requires first class tickets for two from Dallas.^[11]

"Now retired from Congress, Armey continues to speak with warmth and wit on crucial issues such as the Electronic Revolution and the Economy, How Homeland Defense Affects the Lives of All Americans, The Imperative for Tax Simplification [and] Why We Must Support Israel", the bureau bio note states.^[11]

With his Alliance for Retirement Prosperity hat on, Armey advocates a radical overhaul of social security and personal responsibility for retirement incomes. "We must transformSocial Securitycompletely. We must change it from an unfunded tax-and-transfer government program into a fully-funded personal retirement accounts plan where every worker can save, invest and build a nest egg," he wrote in a June 2004 opinion column.^[12]

"The good news is there is already a way to do this. The Alliance for Retirement Prosperity has developed just such a solution. I co-chair this organization along with former vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and former Commissioner of Social Security Dorcas Hardy. We support an economically optimal solution that leaves everyone better off," he wrote.^[12]

Records and Controversies

Astroturfing activities

Dick Armey's organization, FreedomWorks was behind the creation of a fake grassroots web site called Angryrenter.com which rallies opposition to "the Obama Housing Bailout." The site urges people to oppose bailing out mortgage companies. The site claims to represent "Renters and responsible homeowners against a government mortgage bailout."

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

AngryRenter.com looks a bit like a digital ransom note, with irregular fonts, exclamation points and big red arrows -- all emphasizing prudent renters' outrage over a proposed government bailout for irresponsible homeowners. "It seems like America's renters may NEVER be able to afford a home," AngryRenter.com laments. The Web site urges like-minded tenants to let Congress feel their fury by signing an online petition. "We are millions of renters standing up for our rights!" Angry they may be, but the people behind AngryRenter.com are certainly not renters. Though it purports to be a spontaneous uprising, AngryRenter.com is actually a product of an inside-the-Beltway conservative advocacy organizationled 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.^[13]

Tobacco

As a Representative, Dick Armey was described in the Washington Times as "a chain smoking Texas Democrat" who "says antismoking and other wellness programs should not be promoted as part of health care reform. "If there are no smokers," he reportedly said, "how are we going to pay for health reform? But then again, if we can pay farmers for not growing tobacco, perhaps we can tax nonsmokers for however much they're not smoking."^[14]

Lorillard Tobacco supported Dick Armey's re-election in 1998.^[15]

Iraq War

Armey voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 that started the Iraq War.^[16]

Former staffers

• Michele A. Davis
• Susan Sheybani in 2001 ^[17]. Sheybani subsequently worked as a staffer for the 2004 Bush campaign.^[18]

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Ed Gillespie
• FreedomWorks
• Heritage Foundation
• Institute for Policy Innovation
• Operation Iraqi Freedom: Military and Political Dissent and preemptive war.
• Progressive Donor Network

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Dick Armey, 'Compassionate' Conservatism Was a Mistake, Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2008.
2. ↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, "Solutions for the States," 38th Annual Meeting agenda, on file with CMD, August 3-6, 2011
3. ↑ Telecommunications and Information Technology, ALEC website, Accessed May, 2011
4. ↑ Telecommunications and Information Technology, ALEC website, Accessed May, 2011
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1 5.2} "FreedomWorks Chairman and Former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey", FreedomWorks website, accessed October 2009.
6. ↑ "About the Institute for Policy Innovation", Institute for Policy Innovation website, accessed October 2009.
7. ↑ "A Sustained G.O.P. Push to Mock Gore´s Image", New York Times, October 14, 2000.
8. ↑ Dick Armey, "Armey Applauds Vice President Gore for Ingenuity, Creativity and Imagination", Media Release, March 11, 1999.
9. ↑ "Armey: 'Unprovoked' Iraq War Would Be Illegal", Chicago Tribune, August 9, 2002.
10. ↑ "Dick Armey to Lead Citizens for a Sound Economy", Media release, January 08, 2003.
11. ↑ ^{11.0 11.1} "Dick Armey", Premiere Speakers Bureau, accessed October 2009.
12. ↑ ^{12.0 12.1} "Time for political courage on Social Security", Naplesnews.com, June 25, 2004.
13. ↑ Michael M. Phillips "Mortgage Bailout Infuriates Tenants (And Steve Forbes): 'Angry Renter' Web Site Has Grass-Roots Look, But This Turf Is Fake", Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2008.
14. ↑ "Inside Politics: Smoking Policy?", Washington Times, May 31, 1994. page 5. Bates No. 2050161682B
15. ↑ Lorillard Political Contribution Master List July 15, 1998. Bates No. 83585613/5645 at page --5631.
16. ↑ Roll call vote, Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.
17. ↑ "Cherry Blossom Festival - Queens and Princesses", Ray Bowers Photography, archived from January 2008.
18. ↑ "Susan Sheybani and Nelson Peacock", New York Times, August 29, 2008.

External resources

• Armey's Financial and Contributions Profile.
• An extensive listing of publications about Armey is available at Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "ARMEY, Richard Keith, 1940", undated, accessed July 13, 2004.
• Economic Externalities and the Theories of Balanced and Unbalanced Growth. N.p., 1969.
• Price Theory: A Policy-Welfare Approach. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1977.
• It's Long Enough: The Decline of Popular Government Under Forty Years of Single-Party Control of the U.S. House of Representatives. N.p., 1994.
• The Freedom Revolution: The New Republican House Majority Leader Tells Why Big Government Failed. Washington: N.p., 1995.
• The Flat Tax: A Citizen's Guide to the Facts on What It Will Do for You, Your Country, and Your Pocketbook. New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1996.
• A Republican Agenda to Reverse the Clinton Crunch. Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation , 1996.
• "Why We Need the Flat Tax." World & I 10 (May 1995): 90-97.
• Armey's Axioms: 40 Hard-earned Truths from Politics, Faith, and Life. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003.
• "Caveat Emptor: The Case Against the National Sales Tax." Policy Review 73 (Summer 1995): 31-35.

External articles

Articles by Armey

• Dick Armey, 'Compassionate' Conservatism Was a Mistake, Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2008.

General Articles

• Malcolm S. Forbes, "A $2-billion-to-$5-billion-a-year Congressman", Forbes, May 30, 1988.
• Randy Fitzgerald, "This Congressman Beat the System", Reader's Digest, April 1989.
• Timothy Noah, "Armey's Aesthetic", The New Republic, September 11, 1989.
• William McGurn, "Mr. Outsider", National Review, October 15, 1990.
• Eleanor Clift,. "Mr. Outsider", National Review, October 15, 1990.
• Phil Kuntz, "Crowning a Cannon", Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, December 12, 1992, page 3782.
• Alan Freedman, "An 'Uppity Minority Guy' Takes Charge", National Journal, January 16, 1993.
• "Dick Armey, Bomb Thrower", The Economist, March 6, 1993.
• Richard S. Dunham, "The Republican in Clinton's face: Dick Armey has emerged as the House's chief budget-basher", Business Week, March 29, 1993.
• Jackie Koszczuk, "Armey's March to Power in the House", Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, November 12, 1994, page 3223.
• Michael Isikoff, "An Armey for the Revolution", Newsweek, November 28, 1994.
• Hilary Hylton, "Newt's Battle-ready Armey", Time, November 28, 1994.
• Gloria Borger, "A Think Tank in Cowboy Boots", U.S. News & World Report, December 12, 1994.
• Paul Starobin, "True Believer", National Journal, January 7, 1995.
• "Is the Flat Tax Full of Holes?", Consumer Reports, February 1996.
• Richard S. Dunham, "Dick Armey: Immovable Force or Sitting Duck?", Business Week, February 12, 1996, 33.
• Jackie Koszczuk, "With Humor and Firm Hand, Armey Rules the House: Majority Leader Will Wield More Power as Gingrich Hits the Campaign Trail", Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, March 2, 1996, page 523.
• J. Guadalupe Carney, "Fishing for Converts", Time, May 6, 1996.
• Richard E. Cohen, "No Cakewalk for 'Speaker' Armey", National Journal, February 28, 1998.
• John J. Miller, "Today's Armey", National Review, June 22, 1998.
• Eliza Newlin Carney, "Armey's Boots May Be for Walkin'", National Journal, November 14, 1998.
• House Majority Leader Armey, "Armey Applauds Vice President Gore for Ingenuity, Creativity and Imagination", Media Release, March 11, 1999.
• Alison Mitchell, "Sustained GOP Push to Mock Gore's Image," New York Times, October 15, 2000.
• Suzi Parker, David E. Kaplan, and Ben Wildavsky, "Rebels Beware", U.S. News & World Report, August 6, 2001.
• Robert S. McIntyre, "Armey's Austerity", The American Prospect, August 13, 2001.
• Nicholas Confessore, "Look Who's Talking", The American Prospect, December 3, 2001.
• "The End of the Big Right Idea? Dick Armey Moves On", The Economist, December 15, 2001.
• Karen Tumulty, "Armey Halted: DeLay Marches On", Time, December 24, 2001.
• Paige Albiniak, "You and what armey?" Broadcasting & Cable, April 22, 2002.
• Molly Ivins, "The Masters of Mean: Goodbye to Phil Gramm and Dick Armey, the Last of a Bitter Breed of Texas Politician", Mother Jones, March-April 2002, 26.
• "Dick Armey, Thinker", The American Prospect, June 3, 2002.
• Tim Reid, "General tells Bush: Don't go it alone", The Times, August 19, 2002.
• "Retiring, Not Shy", The New York Times Magazine, September 1, 2002.
• Kelly Heyboer, "Revenge, Texas-style", American Journalism Review, November 2002.
• Paul Bedard, Paul, Kevin Whitelaw, David E. Kaplan, and Suzi Parker. "Even as He Splits, Dick Armey is Stirring It Up", U.S. News & World Report, November 25, 2002.
• "Social Security Reform Ripe, GOP's Retiring Armey Says", Investor's Business Daily, December 16, 2002.
• Citizens for a Sound Economy, "Dick Armey to Lead Citizens for a Sound Economy", Media Release, January 8, 2003.
• "Dick Armey Co-Chairman of CSE", undated, accessed July 13, 2004.
• "Time for political courage on Social Security, Naples Daily News, June 25, 2004.
• "CSE Chairman and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey", undated, accessed July 13, 2004.
• Deirdre Shesgreen, "Nonprofit group skirts lobbying laws, critics charge", St Louis Post Dispatch, March 5, 2005.
• David D. Kirkpatrick, "Republican Woes Lead to Feuding by Conservatives," New York Times, October 20, 2006.
• Opinion: "Where We Went Wrong," Washington Post, October 28, 2006.
• " Lobbyist Tea Party", Media Matters Action Network, April 16, 2009.
• "Lobbyist Dick Armey’s Pollution Gospel: ‘As An Article Of Faith,’ It Is ‘Pretentious’ To Believe In Global Warming", ThinkProgress, July 31st, 2009.
• DLA Piper, "Statement on Dick Armey`s Decision to Leave DLA Piper", Media release, August 14, 2009.
• "FreedomWorks, Run By Former Beverage Industry Lobbyist Dick Armey, Launches Attack Against Soda Tax", ThinkProgress, May 15th, 2009.
• "Armey leaves firm amid health care flap", Politico, August 14, 2009.
• David D. Kirkpatrick, "Drug Firms Cost Lobbyist His Position", New York Times, August 14, 2009.
• Meredith Simons, "Armey says he’s busier than ever: Ex-House GOP leader is firing up opposition to health care overhaul", Houston Chronicle, October 17, 2009.

Categories: ALEC Exposed | Water | Energy | Tobaccowiki | Chickenhawks | People | Tobacco documents biographies | Tea Party Movement

wikipedia:

Richard Keith "Dick" Armey (pronounced /ˈɑrmi/; born July 7, 1940) is a former U.S. Representative from Texas's 26th congressional district (1985–2003) and House Majority Leader (1995–2003). He was one of the engineers of the "Republican Revolution" of the 1990s, in which Republicans were elected to majorities of both houses of Congress for the first time in four decades. Armey was one of the chief authors of the Contract with America. Armey is also an author and former economics professor. After his congressional career he worked as a consultant, advisor and lobbyist.

[edit] Early life, education and career

Armey was born in the farming town of Cando, North Dakota, the son of Marion (née Gutschlag) and Glenn Armey.^[2] He grew up in a rural area. He graduated from Jamestown College with a B.A. and then received an M.A. from the University of North Dakota and a PhD in economics from the University of Oklahoma. Armey is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.^[3]

Armey served on the economics faculty at the University of Montana from 1964 to 1965, was an Assistant Professor of economics at West Texas State University from 1967 to 1968, an Assistant Professor of economics at Austin College from 1968 to 1972, an Associate Professor of economics at North Texas State (now the University of North Texas) from 1972 to 1977 and Chairman of the economics department at North Texas State from 1977 to 1983.^[4]

[edit] U.S. House of Representatives

Armey was first elected to the House in 1984 in the 26th District of Texas, defeating freshman congressman Tom Vandergriff in what is still considered a huge upset (Vandergriff is well known in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, most notably for bringing Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers to the area). Armey was one of six freshmen Republican Party congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 that were known as the Texas Six Pack. Due to the increasingly Republican tilt of the Metroplex, Armey would never face another tough race and was reelected eight times. In his early years in Congress, Armey was influenced by libertarian Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises.^[5]

[edit] Leadership challenge

In the summer of 1997 several House Republicans, who saw Speaker Newt Gingrich's public image as a liability, attempted to replace him as Speaker. The attempted "coup" began July 9 with a meeting between Republican conference chairman John Boehner of Ohio and Republican leadership chairman Bill Paxon of New York. According to their plan, House Majority Leader Armey, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, Boehner and Paxon were to present Gingrich with an ultimatum: resign, or be voted out. However, Armey balked at the proposal to make Paxon the new Speaker, and told his chief of staff to warn Gingrich about the coup.^[6]

On July 11, Gingrich met with senior Republican leadership to assess the situation. He explained that under no circumstance would he step down. If he was voted out, there would be a new election for Speaker, which would allow for the possibility that Democrats—along with dissenting Republicans—would vote in Dick Gephardt as Speaker. On July 16, Paxon offered to resign his post, feeling that he had not handled the situation correctly, as the only member of the leadership who had been appointed to his position—by Gingrich—instead of elected.^[7]

[edit] Later congressional career

After heavy Republican losses in the 1998 elections, Armey had to fend off a bruising challenge for his majority leader post from Steve Largent of Oklahoma, a member of the Republican class of 1994. Although Armey was not popular in the Republican caucus, Largent was thought to be far too conservative for the liking of some moderate Republicans, and Armey won on the third ballot.^[8] Soon afterward, Speaker-elect Bob Livingston of Louisiana announced he wouldn't take the post after the revelation of an extramarital affair, Armey initially seemed to have the inside track to become Speaker. As majority leader, he was the number-two Republican in the chamber. However, he was still badly wounded from Largent's challenge, and opted not to run. The post eventually went to Chief Deputy Whip Dennis Hastert of Illinois.

Armey served another four years before announcing his retirement in 2002. In his last legislative effort, he was named chairman of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security and was the primary sponsor of the legislation that created the Department of Homeland Security.

After Armey's retirement, fellow Texan and Republican Tom DeLay, then House Majority Whip, was elevated to Armey's Majority Leader position. Armey's son, Scott, ran for his father's seat in the 2002 election, but lost in the Republican Party (GOP) runoff to Michael C. Burgess, who would go on to hold the strongly Republican 26th District for the GOP in November.

[edit] Political positions

[edit] Contract with America

In 1994, Armey, then House Republican Conference Chairman, joined Minority Whip Newt Gingrich in drafting the Contract with America. Republican members credited this election platform with the Republican takeover of Congress, rewarding Gingrich with the position of Speaker and Armey with the number two position of House Majority Leader. Gingrich delegated to Armey an unprecedented level of authority over scheduling legislation on the House floor, a power traditionally reserved to the Speaker. Armey has been accused of being involved in a 1997 attempt to oust Gingrich as Speaker,^[9] something Armey has strongly denied. In 1995 Armey referred to openly homosexual Congressman Barney Frank, as "Barney Fag". Armey said it was a slip of the tongue.^[10] Armey and his staff, especially spokesman Jim Wilkinson, took the lead in spreading the idea that Al Gore claimed to have "invented the internet."^[11][12][13]

[edit] Defense spending

During his time in Congress, Armey conceived the independent nonpolitical commission that became responsible for identifying those military bases to be closed as a cost-cutting measure. After his retirement from Congress, he told the New York Times: "A lot of people say if you cut defense, you’re demonstrating less than a full commitment to our nation’s security, and that’s baloney."^[14]

[edit] Economy and taxation

As a free-market economist influenced by the ideas of Milton Friedman, Armey favored relatively open immigration and the elimination of barriers to the movement of goods and people across national boundaries. Armey was one of Congress's fervent supporters of privatization of Social Security and phasing-out of farm subsidies. He is a strong supporter of replacing the progressive tax levels and a complex system of deductions with a simplified single rate known as a flat tax where the poorest taxpayer would pay the same tax percentage as the wealthiest. Armey is very critical of a competing tax reform proposal that would replace the current system with a national sales tax, the FairTax.

[edit] Health Care

In 1999, Armey sponsored the Fair Care for the Uninsured Act: something that would also be proposed in 2001, 2003, and 2005 (by Mark Kennedy, after Armey left Congress). It proposed using tax credits to offset the cost of health insurance; providing for individuals to be able to go outside the workplace to obtain portable private health coverage directly from an insurance company; and the creation of a "safety net" for the uninsured. The law never made it through Congress, but some of these concepts did make it into the Massachusetts "Romneycare" law of 2006 and from there into President Obama's controversial health-care reform in 2010 ("Obamacare"). Armey is a vocal opponent of the most controversial element of the Romney/Obama approach to health reform, namely, its individual mandate to purchase health benefits. He also voiced public opposition to the individual mandate when it was proposed by both First Lady Hillary Clinton and the conservative Heritage Foundation during the contentious national health care reform debate of 1993 and 1994.

[edit] Iraq War

In 2006, Michael Isikoff's book Hubris included Armey as an on-the-record source, who said he was initially reluctant to support the Bush administration's call for war with Iraq, and that he had warned President George W. Bush that such a war might be a "quagmire". Armey said that the intelligence presented to him in support of the war appeared questionable, but he gave Bush the benefit of the doubt.

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman, former Vice President Dick Cheney told Armey that Saddam Hussein's family had direct ties to Al-Qaeda and that Saddam was developing miniature nuclear weapons. Armey then voted for the Iraq War, but after it became clear this was not true, stated that he "deserved better than to be bullshitted by the Vice President."^[15] Robert Draper's Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush recounts a conversation in late summer 2002 between Armey and Cheney. Armey insisted that American forces would get "mired down" in Iraq if they invaded, but Cheney offered this assurance: "They're going to welcome us. It'll be like the American army going through the streets of Paris. They're sitting there ready to form a new government. The people will be so happy with their freedoms that we'll probably back ourselves out of there within a month or two."^[16]

[edit] Israel

On May 1, 2002, on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews", Armey, then the House Republican Majority Leader, called for Palestinians to be expelled from the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Armey repeatedly said that he would be "content" with Israel completely taking over all of the Palestinian Occupied Territories and transfer the Palestinian population out. He further stated that the Palestinians could then build their state in the "many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land".^[17][18][19]

[edit] Controversies

In 1989 he wrote a letter to the National Endowment for the Arts about the grants for Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, calling their work "morally reprehensible trash."^[20]

[edit] Quote during Clinton Impeachment

In 1998, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a reporter asked him what he would do if he were in President Bill Clinton's position. He replied "If I were in the President's place I would not have gotten a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood, hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, 'How do I reload this damn thing?'"^[21]

[edit] Focus on the Family

According to Armey, he also sparred with Focus on the Family leader James Dobson while in office. Armey wrote, "As Majority Leader, I remember vividly a meeting with the House leadership where Dobson scolded us for having failed to 'deliver' for Christian conservatives, that we owed our majority to him, and that he had the power to take our jobs back. This offended me, and I told him so." Armey states that Focus on the Family targeted him politically after the incident, writing, "Focus on the Family deliberately perpetuates the lie that I am a consultant to the ACLU."^[22] Armey has also said that "Dobson and his gang of thieves are real nasty bullies."^[23]

[edit] DLA Piper

At the start of 2003, Armey joined the Washington office of the law firm DLA Piper (formerly DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary) as a senior policy advisor.^[24] Armey was also the firm's co-chairman of its Homeland Security Task Force.^[25]

In August 2009 Armey was asked to step down from his lobbying position at DLA Piper, which was doing lobbying work for the pharmaceutical industry regarding health care reform legislation. Armey was simultaneously chairing the conservative group FreedomWorks which was actively working to defeat health care reform by encouraging and organizing high conservative turnouts at congressional and senatorial town hall meetings. DLA Piper was concerned about the conflict of interest particularly since their clients were spending millions in advertising and lobbying money to support the passage of health care reform and FreedomWorks was linked to demonstrations at town hall forums where health care reform was being discussed.^[26]

[edit] FreedomWorks

In 2003, Armey became co-chairman of Citizens for a Sound Economy, which in 2004 merged with Empower America to become FreedomWorks. "FreedomWorks" is a common Armey saying and the organization is dedicated to advancing a "Freedom Agenda" of "lower taxes, less government, and more freedom." FreedomWorks states that it has 700,000 members nationwide and full time staff in 10 states. In his role as Chairman, Armey continues to be a national political figure and grassroots leader. He travels widely, meeting with activists and legislators. In 2005, for example, he testified before the President's Advisory Panel on Tax Reform and debated Governor of Colorado Bill Owens on a tax increase ballot measure.

[edit] August 2009 town hall meetings health care controversy

In 2009, FreedomWorks launched a campaign against health care reform proposals, accusing the Obama administration of attempting to "socialize medicine".^[27][28] A strategy manual disseminated by a FreedomWorks volunteer explained "best practices" including "Inflate your numbers", describing how one group succeeded in dominating a group of 150 voters in which only 30 opposed healthcare reform.^[29]

Referencing a piece entitled "On Private Conference Call, Tea Party Organizers Say No Reform At All is Goal" on Greg Sargent's liberal blog The Plum Line,^[30] Rachel Maddow argued in her opinion piece "TRMS Investigates FreedomWorks"^[31] that the right's strategy was to disrupt and shut down the August 2009 town hall congressional meetings on health care reform^[31] by “scaring real Americans with increasingly paranoid and kooky lies about health care and then providing a script for how to express that fear.”^[32] At many of the town halls Democratic "members of Congress have been shouted down, hanged in effigy and taunted by crowds"^[33] in an apparent organized effort to rattle the congresspeople presiding over the meetings rather than to seek a compromise solution to health care reform.

The phone conversation cited by Sargent in "On Private Conference Call . . ." was moderated by The Tea Party Patriots, a national co-partner of Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, according to FreedomWorks itself. The Tea Party Patriots website later called for Patriots to begin making calls to melt Congress' phone lines and to weigh in on the health care debate actively, aggressively, and with big numbers.^[34] In addition to being the chair of FreedomWorks, Dick Armey was a senior policy adviser for DC-based lobbying firm DLA Piper, whose recent and/or current clients include "pharmaceutical maker Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, ... health care provider Metropolitan Health Networks, and the pharmaceutical firm Medicines Company,".^[31] Dick Armey's concurrent posts with both FreedomWorks and DLA Piper became particularly controversial in light of the $1,290,000 DLA Piper received in 2009 from the pharmaceutical company Medicines Co.^[35] However, Pharmaceutical companies generally supported and lobbied in favor of the Democratic health care agenda, since it is expected to increase their profits.^[36] In the report cited above, Maddow also cited the example of The American Council of Life Insurers, which paid DLA Piper $100,000 shortly before FreedomWorks lobbied to deregulate life insurance, as one instance of a possible conflict of interest involving Armey and the two organizations.

Addressing DLA Piper's role in the situation, chairman Francis Burch said “…DLA Piper represents clients who support enactment of effective health care reform this year and encourages responsible national debate."^[37][38] Amid what Politico called "the health care flap", on August 14, 2009, DLA Piper asked Armey to resign, and he left the firm.^[39]

[edit] Books

• Armey, Dick (1995). The Freedom Revolution. Washington, DC: Regnery. ISBN 9780895264695.
• Armey, Dick (1996). The Flat Tax: A Citizen's Guide to the Facts on What It Will Do for You, Your Country, and Your Pocketbook. New York: Ballantine. ISBN 9780449910955.
• Armey, Dick (2003). Armey's Axioms: 40 Hard-Earned Truths from Politics, Faith, and Life. New York: Wiley. ISBN 9780471469131.
• Armey, Dick; Matt Kibbe (2010). Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 9780062015877.

[edit] References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ [2]
3. ^ "Prominent Pikes". Pikes.org. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
4. ^ Guttery, Ben R. "Representing Texas: a comprehensive history of U.S. and Confederate senators and representatives from Texas", 2008, pp. 16–17
5. ^ Rothbard, Murray (1994-12-30) Newt Gingrich Is No Libertarian, Washington Post
6. ^ "Attempted Republican Coup: Ready, Aim, Misfire". CNN. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
7. ^ Gingrich, Newt (1998). Lessons Learned the Hard Way. HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 159–160. ISBN 978-0060191061.
8. ^ Guy Gugliotta and Juliet Eilperin. House Republicans Embrace Livingston, Armey, Watts. Washington Post, 1998-11-19.
9. ^ "Newt Gingrich: House Ethics Case". The Washington Post. 1997-07-22. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
10. ^ Rich, Frank (February 2, 1995). "Journal; Closet Clout". The New York Times. Retrieved August 11, 2010.
11. ^ Ben Smith (October 27, 2003). "Iraq Media Guy Rebuilds Qatar At the Garden". The New York Observer: p. 1.
12. ^ Harvey Rice (March 21, 2004). "A war story I wish I'd written". Oakland Tribune.
13. ^ Catalina Camia (May 30, 1999). "Armey takes lead in criticizing Gore's potential campaign themes". Dallas Morning News: p. 8.A. "(Abstract) House Majority Leader Dick Armey has appointed himself the chief congressional critic of Al Gore, taking every opportunity to attack the vice president. "Armey believes we should let the sun shine on what Gore stands for," said Jim Wilkinson, the congressman's spokesman. "As long as Gore comes up with nutty ideas, we'll come up with sharp responses." The unofficial "truth squad" began in earnest when an Armey aide heard Mr. Gore say in a CNN interview that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet.""
14. ^ Bumiller, Elizabeth and Shanker, Tom (2011-01-27) G.O.P. Splits Over Plans to Cut Defense Budget, New York Times
15. ^ David Edwards, Muriel Kane (2008-09-16). "Author: Dick Armey livid Cheney 'bullshitted' him about Iraq 'mini-nuke'". the raw story. Retrieved 2009-01-28.^{[dead link]}
16. ^ Draper, Robert. Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. p.178, New York, 2007, ISBN 0-7432-7729-5
17. ^ "CounterPunch Wire: Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians". Counterpunch.org. Retrieved 2010-08-18.
18. ^ "Richard Armey Supports Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians (by Ahmed Amr) – Media Monitors Network". Mediamonitors.net. 2002-05-01. Retrieved 2010-08-18.
19. ^ Matthew Engel in Washington (2002-05-04). "Calls on Israel to expel West Bank Arabs | World news". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 2010-08-18.
20. ^ Margaret Quigley. "The Mapplethorpe Censorship Controversy". The Public Eye. Political Research Associates. Retrieved March 2, 2009.
21. ^ http://snopes.com/quotes/armey.htm
22. ^ Dobson, James (2006-10-31). "Mr. Armey, You've Become a Bitter Man". Fox News Channel. Retrieved 2009-05-26.
23. ^ McCarthy, Daniel (2007-01-29) The Failure of Fusionism, The American Conservative
24. ^ Noah, Timothy (2003-01-08). "Who is Dick Armey kidding? – By Timothy Noah – Slate Magazine". Slate.msn.com. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
25. ^ DLA Piper | Our People | Richard K. Armey^{[dead link]}
26. ^ Kirkpatrick, David D. (2009-08-14). "Former Congressional Leader Departs Lobbying Firm - Prescriptions Blog". Prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
27. ^ Stein, Sam (April 2, 2009). "Dick Armey Fighting Obama On Health Care Reform". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2010-08-18.
28. ^ "CBS, Fox reports on town hall disruptions ignore conservative strategy" Media Matters (August 5, 2009)
29. ^ "Memo Details Co-ordinated Anti-Reform Harrassment Strategy" TPM Document Collection (August, 2009)
30. ^ Greg Sargent's blog. "On Private Conference Call, Tea Party Organizers Say No Reform At All Is Goal | The Plum Line". Theplumline.whorunsgov.com. Retrieved 2010-08-18.
31. ^ ^a(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-msnbc.msn.com_30-0) ^b(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-msnbc.msn.com_30-1) ^c(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Armey#cite_ref-msnbc.msn.com_30-2) "Rachel Maddow Show". MSNBC. Retrieved 2010-08-18.
32. ^ Politico, Armey leaves firm amid health care flap, Aug 14, 2009
33. ^ New York Times, August 7, 2009, Beyond Beltway, Health Debate Turns Hostile
34. ^ "Health Care Events". Tea Party Patriots. Retrieved 2010-08-18.
35. ^ "Lobbying Spending Database-Medicines Co, 2009". OpenSecrets. Retrieved 2010-08-18.
36. ^ Herper, Matthew (2009-08-20). "Why Pharma Wants ObamaCare". Forbes. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
37. ^ Politico, Armey leaves firm amid health care flap, August 9, 2009
38. ^ Legal Times blog, Armey Leaves DLA Piper, August 14, 2009
39. ^ Politico, Armey leaves firm amid health care flap, August 9, 2009

[edit] External links

• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Issue positions and quotes at On The Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Appearances on Charlie Rose
• Profile at SourceWatch
• Dick Armey political contributions from Influence Explorer at the Sunlight Foundation
• Works by or about Dick Armey in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile at FreedomWorks
• Profile on PremiereSpeakers.com

Articles

• Tea Partiers air doubts about Dick Armey, Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico, March 25, 2010
• Secrets of the Tea Party: The Troubling History of Tea Party Leader Dick Armey, Beau Hodai, Truthout, March 26, 2010
• 'Tea party's' Dick Armey: A GOP majority would take up abortion fight, Dave Cook, Christian Science Monitor, September 13, 2010

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2014

Tauzin says he and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey were the original architects of the tea party. In 1997, Tauzin writes, he and Armey staged a series of debates  held in 40 cities called "Scrap the Code," which called for a flat tax and a national retail sales tax. 

The tour kicked off in the Boston Harbor, where Tauzin said he tossed overboard a chest containing the then-1,100-page Tax Code (it’s now longer). During each of his stops, he called for a new American tea party, he said. Armey argued on behalf of a flat tax over the current income tax system.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Billy-Tauzin-tea-party-Republicans/2014/06/24/id/578905#ixzz37CvUdA44 

Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed?Vote Here Now!

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