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The image of Willie Horton as shown in the 'Weekend Pass' campaign ad. [Source: University of Virginia]A political advertisement on behalf of the George H. W. Bush presidential campaign appears, running on televisions around the country between September 21 and October 4, 1988. Called "Weekend Pass," it depicts convicted murderer William "Willie" Horton, who was granted 10 separate furloughs from prison, and used the time from his last furlough to kidnap and rape a young woman. The advertisement and subsequent media barrage falsely accuses Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, of creating the "furlough program" that led to Horton's release, and paints Dukakis as "soft on crime." It will come to be known as one of the most overly racist political advertisements in the history of modern US presidential politics. Ad Content - The ad begins by comparing the positions of the two candidates on crime. It notes that Bush supports the death penalty for convicted murderers, whereas Dukakis does not. The ad's voiceover narrator then states, "Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison," with the accompanying text "Opposes Death Penalty, Allowed Murderers to Have Weekend Passes" superimposed on a photograph of Dukakis. The narrator then says, "One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times," accompanied by a mug shot of Horton. The voiceover continues: "Despite a life sentence, Horton received 10 weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend." At this point, the ad shows another picture of Horton being arrested while the accompanying text reads, "Kidnapping, Stabbing, Raping." The ad's narration concludes: "Weekend prison passes. Dukakis on crime." The ad is credited to the "National Security Political Action Committee." [Inside Politics (.org), 1999; Museum of the Moving Image, 2008; University of Virginia, Introduction to American Politics, 11/18/2009] 'Soft on Crime' - The ad is a reflection of the measures the Bush campaign is willing to undertake to defeat the apparently strong Dukakis candidacy. Dukakis is a popular Democratic governor and widely credited with what pundits call the "Massachusetts Miracle," reversing the downward economic spiral in his state without resorting to hefty tax increases. At the time of the ad, Dukakis enjoys a 17-point lead over Bush in the polls. Bush campaign strategists, led by campaign manager Lee Atwater, have learned from focus groups that conservative Democratic voters, which some call "Reagan Democrats," are not solid in their support of Dukakis, and are swayed by reports that he vetoed legislation requiring teachers to say the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the school day. They also react negatively when they learn that during Dukakis's tenure as governor, Horton had been furloughed and subsequently raped a white woman. Atwater and the Bush campaign decide that Dukakis can successfully be attacked as a "liberal" who is "not patriotic" and is "soft on crime." Atwater, who has a strong record of appealing to racism in key voting groups (see 1981), tells Republican Party officials, "By the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name." Although Dukakis had vetoed a bill mandating the death penalty for first-degree murder in Massachusetts, he did not institute the furlough program; that was signed into law by Republican governor Francis Sargent in 1972. The ads and the accompanying media blitz successfully avoid telling voters that Sargent, not Dukakis, instituted the furlough program. [Regardie's Magazine, 10/1/1990; Inside Politics (.org), 1999] Running the Horton Ad - The ad is sponsored by an ostensibly "independent" political organization, the conservative National Security Political Action Committee (NSPAC), headed by former Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Thomas Moorer. NSPAC's daughter organization "Americans for Bush" actually put together the ad, created by marketer Larry McCarthy in close conjunction with Atwater and other Bush campaign aides; Atwater determined months before that the Horton ad should not come directly from the Bush campaign, but from an "independent" group supporting Bush, thus giving the Bush campaign the opportunity to distance itself from the ad, and even criticize it, should voters react negatively towards its message (see June-September 1988). The first version of the ad does not use the menacing mug shot of Horton, which McCarthy later says depicts "every suburban mother's greatest fear." McCarthy and Atwater feared that the networks would refuse to run the ad if it appeared controversial. However, the network censors do not object, so McCarthy quickly substitutes a second version of the ad featuring the mug shot. When Democrats and progressive critics of the Bush campaign complain that Bush is running a racist ad, Bush media adviser Roger Ailes says that neither he nor the campaign have any control over what outside groups like "Americans for Bush" put on the airwaves. InsidePolitics will later write, "This gave the Bush camp plausible deniability that helped its candidate avoid public condemnation for racist campaigning." Accompanying Newspaper Reports, Bush Campaign Ads - The ad airs for the first time on September 21. On September 22, newspapers around the nation begin publishing articles telling the story of Angie and Clifford Barnes, victimized by Horton while on furlouogh. On October 5, the Bush campaign releases a "sister" television ad, called "Revolving Door." Scripted by Ailes, the commercial does not mention Horton nor does it show the now-infamous mug shot, but emphasizes the contention that Dukakis is "soft on crime" and has what it calls a "lenient" furlough policy for violent convicts. The central image of the ad is a stream of African-American inmates moving slowly in and out of a revolving gate. The voiceover says that Dukakis had vetoed the death penalty and given furloughs to "first-degree murderers not eligible for parole. While out, many committed other crimes like kidnapping and rape." At the same time, Clifford Barnes and the sister of the youth murdered by Horton embark on a nationwide speaking tour funded by a pro-Bush independent group known as the Committee for the Presidency. Barnes also appears on a number of television talk shows, including those hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Geraldo Rivera. Barnes and the victim's sister also appear in two "victim" ads, where Barnes says: "Mike Dukakis and Willie Horton changed our lives forever.… We are worried people don't know enough about Mike Dukakis." In 1999, InsidePolitics will write that the media gives the "Revolving Door" ad a "courteous reception," and focuses more on the two ads' impact on the election, and the Dukakis campaign's lack of response, instead of discussing the issues of race and crime as portrayed by the ads. It is not until October 24, less than two weeks before the election, that anyone in the mainstream media airs footage of critics questioning whether the ads are racially inflammatory, but these appearances are few and far between, and are always balanced with appearances by Bush supporters praising the campaign's media strategy. [Inside Politics (.org), 1999; Inside Politics (.org), 1999; University of Virginia, Introduction to American Politics, 11/18/2009] Denials - Bush and his vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle will deny that the ads are racist, and will accuse Democrats of trying to use racism to stir up controversy (see October 1988). Failure to Respond - The Dukakis campaign will make what many political observers later characterize as a major political blunder: it refuses to answer the ads or dispute their content until almost the last days of the campaign, hoping that viewers would instead conclude that the ads are unfair without the Dukakis campaign's involvement. The ads will be hugely successful in securing the election for Bush (see September-November 1988). [Museum of the Moving Image, 2008]
Entity Tags: Angie Barnes, Clifford Barnes, Committee for the Presidency, Dan Quayle, George Herbert Walker Bush, Americans for Bush, InsidePolitics (.org), Francis Sargent, Michael Dukakis, William ("Willie") Horton, Lee Atwater, National Security Political Action Committee, Thomas Moorer, Roger Ailes, Larry McCarthy
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, Elections Before 2000
Fox News logo. [Source: Fox News]Fox News begins broadcasting on US cable television. Fox News provides 24-hour news programming alongside the nation's only other such cable news provider, CNN. Fox executive Roger Ailes, a former campaign adviser for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush (see 1968, January 25, 1988, and September 21 - October 4, 1988), envisions Fox News as a conservative "antidote" to what he calls the "liberal bias" of the rest of American news broadcasting. Ailes uses many of the methodologies and characteristics of conservative talk radio, and brings several radio hosts on his channel, including Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, to host television shows. [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 47; New York Magazine, 5/22/2011] Referring to Ailes's campaign experience, veteran Republican consultant Ed Rollins later says: "Because of his political work, he understood there was an audience. He knew there were a couple million conservatives who were a potential audience, and he built Fox to reach them." [New York Magazine, 5/22/2011] Ailes Planned for Fox News as Far Back as 1970 - Ailes began envisioning a conservative news provider to counter what he considers the mainstream media's "liberal bias" as early as 1970, when he became heavily involved with a Nixon administration plan to plant conservative propaganda in news outlets across the nation (see Summer 1970). In 1971, he headed a short-lived private conservative television news network, Television News Incorporated (TVN—see 1971-1975), which foundered in 1975 in part because of its reporters and staffers balking at reporting Ailes-crafted propaganda instead of "straight" news. Ailes told a New York Times reporter in 1991 that he was leaving politics, saying: "I've been in politics for 25 years. It's always been a detour. Now my business has taken a turn back to my entertainment and corporate clients." But Ailes misinformed the reporter. He continued to work behind the scenes on the 1992 Bush re-election campaign, providing the campaign with attack points against Democratic contender Bill Clinton (D-AR) and earning the nickname "Deep Throat" from Bush aides. Though Ailes did do work in entertainment, helping develop tabloid television programs such as The Maury Povich Show and heading the cable business news network CNBC for three years, Ailes has continued to stay heavily involved in Republican politics ever since. Ailes became involved in the creation of Fox News in early 1996 after he left NBC, which had canceled his show America's Talking and launched a new cable news network, MSNBC, without asking for Ailes's involvement. Fox News is owned by News Corporation (sometimes abbreviated NewsCorp), an international media conglomerate owned by conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch. When NBC allowed Ailes to leave, Jack Welch, the chairman of NBC's parent company General Electric, said, "We'll rue the day we let Roger and Rupert team up." Murdoch has already tried and failed to buy CNN, and has already begun work on crafting news programs with hard-right slants, such as a 60 Minutes-like show that, reporter Tim Dickinson will write, "would feature a weekly attack-and-destroy piece targeting a liberal politician or social program." Dan Cooper, the managing editor of the pre-launch Fox News, later says, "The idea of a masquerade was already around prior to Roger arriving." Eric Burns, who will work for ten years as a Fox News media critic before leaving the network, will say in 2011: "There's your answer right there to whether Fox News is a conventional news network or whether it has an agenda. That's its original sin." To get Fox News onto millions of cable boxes at once, Murdoch paid hundreds of millions of dollars to cable providers to air his new network. Murdoch biographer Neil Chenoweth will later write: "Murdoch's offer shocked the industry. He was prepared to shell out half a billion dollars just to buy a news voice." Dickinson will write, "Even before it took to the air, Fox News was guaranteed access to a mass audience, bought and paid for." Ailes praised Murdoch's "nerve," saying, "This is capitalism and one of the things that made this country great." [New York Magazine, 5/22/2011; Rolling Stone, 5/25/2011] Using Conservative Talk Radio as Template - In 2003, NBC's Bob Wright will note that Fox News uses conservative talk radio as a template, saying: "[W]hat Fox did was say, 'Gee, this is a way for us to distinguish ourselves. We're going to grab this pent-up anger—shouting—that we're seeing on talk radio and put it onto television.'" CBS News anchor Dan Rather will be more critical, saying that Fox is a reflection of Murdoch's own conservative political views. "Mr. Murdoch has a business, a huge worldwide conglomerate business," Rather says. "He finds it to his benefit to have media outlets, press outlets, that serve his business interests. There's nothing wrong with this. It's a free country. It's not an indictable offense. But by any clear analysis the bias is towards his own personal, political, partisan agenda… primarily because it fits his commercial interests." [New Yorker, 5/26/2003] Putting Ideology Over Journalistic Ethics, Practices - Ailes, determined not to let journalists with ethical qualms disrupt Fox News as they had his previous attempt at creating a conservative news network (see 1971-1975), brought a hand-picked selection of reporters and staffers with demonstrable conservative ideologies from NBC, including business anchor Neil Cavuto and Steve Doocy, who hosts the morning talk show "Fox and Friends." Both Cavuto and Doocy are Ailes loyalists who, Dickinson will say, owe their careers to Ailes. Ailes then tapped Brit Hume, a veteran ABC correspondent and outspoken conservative, to host the main evening news show, and former Bush speechwriter Tony Snow as a commentator and host. John Moody, a forcefully conservative ABC News veteran, heads the newsroom. Ailes then went on a purge of Fox News staffers. Joe Peyronnin, who headed the network before Ailes displaced him, later recalls: "There was a litmus test. He was going to figure out who was liberal or conservative when he came in, and try to get rid of the liberals." Ailes confronted reporters with suspected "liberal bias" with "gotcha" questions such as "Why are you a liberal?" Staffers with mainstream media experience were forced to defend their employment at such venues as CBS News, which he calls the "Communist Broadcast System." He fired scores of staffers for perceived liberal leanings and replaced them with fiery young ideologues whose inexperience helps Ailes shape the network to his vision. Before the network aired its first production, Ailes had a seminal meeting with Moody. "One of the problems we have to work on here together when we start this network is that most journalists are liberals," he told Moody. "And we've got to fight that." Reporters and staffers knew from the outset that Fox, despite its insistence on being "fair and balanced" (see 1995), was going to present news with a conservative slant, and if that did not suit them, they would not be at Fox long. A former Fox News anchor later says: "All outward appearances were that it was just like any other newsroom. But you knew that the way to get ahead was to show your color—and that your color was red." The anchor refers to "red" as associated with "red state," commonly used on news broadcasts to define states with Republican majorities. Ailes will always insist that while his network's talk-show hosts, such as O'Reilly, Hannity, and others, are frankly conservative, Fox's hard-news shows maintain what he calls a "bright, clear line" that separates conservative cant from reported fact. In practice, this is not the case. Before Fox aired its first broadcast, Ailes tasked Moody to keep the newsroom in line. Early each morning, Ailes has a meeting with Moody, often with Hume on speakerphone from the Washington office, where the day's agenda is crafted. Moody then sends a memo to the staff telling them how to slant the day's news coverage according to the agenda of those on "the Second Floor," as Ailes and his vice presidents are known. A former Fox anchor will later say: "There's a chain of command, and it's followed. Roger talks to his people, and his people pass the message on down." After the 2004 presidential election, Bush press secretary Scott McClellan will admit, "We at the White House were getting them talking points." Targeting a Niche Demographic - Fox New's primary viewership defies most demographic wisdom. According to information taken in 2011, it averages 65 years of age (the common "target demographic" for age is the 18-24 bracket), and only 1.38% of its viewers are African-American. Perhaps the most telling statistics are for the Hannity show: 86% describe themselves as pro-business, 84% believe government "does too much," 78% are "Christian conservatives," 78% do not support gay rights, 75% are "tea party backers," 73% support the National Rifle Association, 66% lack college degrees, and 65% are over age 50. A former NewsCorp colleague will say: "He's got a niche audience and he's programmed to it beautifully. He feeds them exactly what they want to hear." Other polls from the same time period consistently show that Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers, and one study shows that Fox News viewers become more misinformed the more they watch the network's programming. Ailes's Security Concerns Affect Operations, Broadcasting - Ailes is uncomfortable in his office, a second-floor corner suite in the Fox News building at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. His office is too close to the street for his tastes; he believes that gay activists intend to try to harm him, either by attacks from outside the building or through assaults carried out from inside. He also believes that he is a top target for al-Qaeda assassins. Ailes barricades himself behind an enormous mahogany desk, insists on having "bombproof" glass installed in the windows, surrounds himself with heavily-armed bodyguards, and carries a firearm (he has a concealed-carry permit). A monitor on his desk shows him what is transpiring outside his office door; once, when he sees a dark-skinned man wearing what he thought was Muslim garb on the monitor, he will order an immediate lockdown of the entire building, shouting, "This man could be bombing me!" The man will turn out to be a janitor. A source close to Ailes will say, "He has a personal paranoia about people who are Muslim—which is consistent with the ideology of his network." A large security detail escorts him daily to and from his Garrison, New Jersey home to his Manhattan offices; in Garrison, his house is surrounded by empty homes Ailes has bought to enhance his personal security. According to sources close to Ailes, Fox News's slant on gay rights and Islamist extremism is colored by Ailes's fear and hatred of the groups. 'We Work for Fox' - Sean Wilentz, a Princeton historian and Reagan biographer, will say: "Fox News is totalized: It's an entire network, devoted 24 hours a day to an entire politics, and it's broadcast as 'the news.' That's why Ailes is a genius. He's combined opinion and journalism in a wholly new way—one that blurs the distinction between the two." Dickinson will write: "Fox News stands as the culmination of everything Ailes tried to do for Nixon back in 1968. He has created a vast stage set, designed to resemble an actual news network, that is literally hard-wired into the homes of millions of America's most conservative voters. GOP candidates then use that forum to communicate directly to their base, bypassing the professional journalists Ailes once denounced as 'matadors' who want to 'tear down the social order' with their 'elitist, horse-dung, socialist thinking.' Ironically, it is Ailes who has built the most formidable propaganda machine ever seen outside of the Communist bloc, pioneering a business model that effectively monetizes conservative politics through its relentless focus on the bottom line." Former Bush speechwriter David Frum will observe: "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us. Now we're discovering that we work for Fox." [New York Magazine, 5/22/2011; Rolling Stone, 5/25/2011]
Entity Tags: Eric Burns, Tim Dickinson, Neil Cavuto, Dan Cooper, Steve Doocy, Joe Peyronnin, John Moody, David Frum, Sean Wilentz, News Corporation, Scott McClellan, Jack Welch, Tony Snow, MSNBC, Brit Hume, Television News Incorporated, Ronald Reagan, Roger Ailes, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, George Herbert Walker Bush, Sean Hannity, Neil Chenoweth, Ed Rollins, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, Bill O'Reilly, Nixon administration, Dan Rather, Bob Wright, Rupert Murdoch
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda
'AngryRenter.com' logo. [Source: AngryRenter (.com)]The Wall Street Journal learns that a supposedly amateur-based, citizen-driven protest Web site is actually a product of a professional public relations and lobbying organization, FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009). The site, AngryRenter.com, is designed to look like something an "ordinary citizen" would produce. Michael Phillips of the Journal writes, "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." The site's home page proclaims, "It seems like America's renters may NEVER be able to afford a home," and exhorts visitors to sign an online petition directed at Congressional Democrats. (The petition, with some 44,500 signatures, was delivered to Senate leaders earlier in the week.) "We are millions of renters standing up for our rights!" the site proclaims. 'Astroturf' - However, it is designed and hosted by FreedomWorks, which the Journal describes as "an inside-the-Beltway conservative advocacy organization led by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, and publishing magnate Steve Forbes, a fellow Republican. [Forbes is an unpaid board member.]… [AngryRenter.com is] a fake grass-roots effort—what politicos call an astroturf campaign—that provides a window into the sleight-of-hand ways of Washington." FreedomWorks opposes the proposed government bailout of the housing industry, and says it plans to oppose any further bailouts. AngryRenter.com is copyrighted by FreedomWorks, which discloses its ownership of the site on a page deeper into the site. However, Phillips writes, "The site is nonetheless designed to look underdoggy and grass-rootsy, with a heavy dose of aw-shucks innocence." The site says: "Unfortunately, renters aren't as good at politics as the small minority of homeowners (and their bankers) who are in trouble. We don't have lobbyists in Washington, DC. We don't get a tax deduction for our rent, and we don't get sweetheart government loans." Most visitors to the site have no idea that lobbyists for FreedomWorks actually wrote that copy, nor that FreedomWorks garnered $10.5 million in lobbying fees in 2006, most of which came from large donors the organization is not obligated to disclose. FreedomWorks Operated by Millionaires - FreedomWorks president Matthew Kibbe says the site is an attempt to "reach out" to disgruntled renters who share the free-market views of Armey, Forbes, and others. Kibbe calls himself "an angry homeowner who pays his mortgage." He lives on Capitol Hill in DC, in a home valued at $1.17 million. Forbes lives in a home in New Jersey worth $2.78 million, and owns, among other properties, a chateau in France. (The Forbes family recently sold its private island in Fiji and its palace in Morocco.) Armey earns over $500,000 a year working for FreedomWorks, and lives in a Texas home valued at $1.7 million. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) says he finds it amusing that Armey is portraying himself as a champion of ordinary renters. "I worked a long time trying to improve the condition of renters," he says. "Dick Armey has usually been on the other side." Looking Out for the 'Poor Devil' Who Can't Afford to Buy a Home - Armey says he's looking out for "the poor devil" who can't afford to buy a house. "From our point of view, we have an industry in which people were very careless, very reckless—both lenders and borrowers. What various policy makers are saying is we need to rush in here with a program to protect people from the consequences of their own bad judgment." Deliberately Misleading? - Armey defends AngryRenter.com's deliberately amateurish appearance, and calls it "voluntary" for civic participation. San Diego financial adviser Rich Toscano, who rents his home, thought the site was an amateur venture similar to his own blog, Professor Piggington's Econo-Almanac for the Landed Poor, which chronicles foreclosures and other financial misfortunes suffered by real-estate brokers whom Toscano says helped inflate the area's real-estate bubble. AngryRenter.com appeared to Toscano as genuinely citizen-produced: "It looks like a young person did it," he says. He still supports the site even after learning that it is a production of a DC lobbying firm, saying the message is more important than the identity of the bailout. Web designer Chris Kinnan, a FreedomWorks employee, actually designed the site. Of himself, he says: "I'm a renter. I'm not an angry renter." [Wall Street Journal, 5/16/2008]
Entity Tags: Michael Phillips, Chris Kinnan, Barney Frank, AngryRenter (.com), Dick Armey, Matt Kibbe, Wall Street Journal, FreedomWorks, Rich Toscano, Steve Forbes
CNBC stock analyst Rick Santelli's "impromptu" on-air "rant" against President Obama's economic stimulus program, in which Santelli calls for a "tea party" protest and tells viewers he intends to begin organizing a "Chicago Tea Party," galvanizes nascent "tea party" groups around the nation. Chicago radio producer Zack Christenson has already registered the Internet domain "chicagoteaparty.com" (see August 2008), and hours after Santelli's rant Christenson puts up a "homemade" tea party Web site. A Chicago Libertarian activist, Eric Odom (see After November 7, 2008), puts up a similar site at "officialchicagoteaparty.com." The next day, the short-lived "Nationwide Tea Party Coalition" forms. At the same time, a new Facebook group, "Rick Santelli is right, we need a Taxpayer (Chicago) Tea Party," is created by Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity, and is administered by Odom. The Facebook page leads back to a site called "taxpayerteaparty.com," run by Americans for Prosperity. Simultaneously, Brendan Steinhauser, the campaign director of FreedomWorks (see March 2, 2009) and another administrator of the Facebook group, begins organizing "tea party" groups—or actually continues his efforts, since on February 9, 10 days before Santelli's broadcast, he had contacted a Florida activist who had attended a FreedomWorks training session and asked her to organize a protest in Fort Myers. Steinhauser later writes that the day after Santelli's broadcast: "I just wrote this little 10 quick easy steps to hold your own tea party, wrote it up, and kinda was proud of it and sent it to Michelle Malkin. She linked to it from her blog." Malkin's blog is overwhelmed by the response. FreedomWorks staffers call activists around the country asking them to organize "grassroots" tea party organizations, and on March 9, FreedomWorks announces a nationwide "Tea Party Tour," saying in a statement, "From [Santelli's] desperate rallying cry FreedomWorks has tapped into the outrage building from within our own membership as well as allied conservative grassroots forces to organize a 25-city Tea Party Tour where taxpayers angry that their hard-earned money is being usurped by the government for irresponsible bailouts, can show President Obama and Congressional Democrats that their push towards outright socialism will not stand." By February 27, the first official "tea party" events take place, organized by the Sam Adams Alliance, FreedomWorks, and Americans for Prosperity. Many of the original organizations will eventually be subsumed by, or merge with, national structures, again primarily organized and funded by FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and other right-wing lobbying organizations. Eventually, six nationwide networks will form (see August 24, 2010). [Huffington Post, 4/15/2009; Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 8/24/2010] During this period, conservative media outlets such as the Weekly Standard will claim that the tea party movement was entirely spontaneous in its origins (see March 2, 2009). However, facts stand in the way of that claim (see February 15, 2009, February 16, 2009, February 17, 2009, February 18, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 2009 and After, April 6-13, 2009, April 8, 2009, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 16, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 24, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 28, 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 30, 2010, and September 20, 2010).
Entity Tags: Sam Adams Alliance, Zack Christenson, Weekly Standard, Rick Santelli, Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, Michelle Malkin, Barack Obama, Americans for Prosperity, Brendan Steinhauser, Eric Odom, FreedomWorks, Phil Kerpen
Mark Ames. [Source: Guardian]CNBC's Rick Santelli has become something of a superstar among conservative media pundits and others exasperated by the Obama economic bailouts, after engaging in a purportedly impromptu "rant" during an on-air broadcast (see February 19, 2009). Investigative reporters Mark Ames and Yasha Levine discover that Santelli's rant may have been a pre-planned incident timed to coincide with the launch of a so-called "tea party movement" predicated on opposing the Obama administration and supporting conservative and Republican ideas and agendas. In the hours and days following Santelli's appearance on CNBC, the authors write, "[a] nationwide 'tea party' grassroots Internet protest movement has sprung up seemingly spontaneously, all inspired by Santelli, with rallies planned today in cities from coast to coast to protest against Obama's economic policies." Connections to the Koch Family - Ames and Levine write that Santelli's CNBC "rant" was "a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a 'Chicago Tea Party' was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest right-wing oligarch clans this country has ever produced." Ames and Levine are referring to the Koch family, headed by Fred Koch (see 1940 and After), the billionaire co-founder of the extremist John Birch Society (see March 10, 1961 and December 2011) and whose sons are heavy donors to right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups such as the Cato Institute (see 1977-Present) and FreedomWorks (see 1984 and After). ChicagoTeaParty.com - On the air, Santelli said, "We're thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July, all you capitalists who want to come down to Lake Michigan, I'm gonna start organizing." Within minutes, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report had posted headlines about the "tea party" rant on his Web site. Within hours, a new Web site, chicagoteaparty.com, had appeared, featuring a YouTube video of Santelli's rant and calling itself the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain name had been registered months before by right-wing media figure Zack Christenson (see August 2008), but had remained dormant until after Santelli spoke on CNBC. Ames and Levine note that Christenson bought the domain around the same time that Milt Rosenburg, the Chicago talk show host whom Christenson produces, began attempting to link then-presidential candidate Barack Obama with "left-wing terrorist" William Ayers (see August 2008). Ames and Levine write: "That Rosenberg's producer owns the 'chicagoteaparty.com' site is already weird—but what's even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg's launch of the 'Obama is a terrorist' campaign. It's as if they held this 'Chicago tea party' campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was." The Sam Adams Alliance - The ChicagoTeaParty.com Web site, Ames and Levine report, is part of a larger network of conservative Web sites set up over the last few months under the auspices of the "Sam Adams Alliance" (SAA), an organization linked to the Koch family and to FreedomWorks, a public relations group funded by Koch and headed by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey (see April 14, 2009). The SAA is a Chicago-area libertarian/conservative group named for Samuel Adams, who led the Boston Tea Party protest in 1773. [Playboy, 2/27/2009] In 2008, the New York Times described the SAA as having "started an ambitious project this year to encourage right-leaning activists and bloggers to get online and focus on local and state issues." [New York Times, 7/19/2008] OfficialChicagoTeaParty.com - Another Web site, officialchicagoteaparty.com, went live on February 19 as well. That site is registered to Eric Odom, a Republican specializing in faux-grassroots PR campaigns sometimes called "astroturf" (see April 15, 2009). Odom has worked with Koch Industries, a large oil and natural gas corporation and the source of the Koch family fortune, in supporting offshore oil-drilling legislation. Odom was, until January 2009, the "new media coordinator" for the Sam Adams Alliance. Upon his departure, the SAA removed Odom's name from its Web site. The SAA also removed any mention of Koch's funding, or any other connections between Koch and the organization, from its site. Two of the SAA's board members, Eric O'Keefe and Joseph Lehman, are tied both to Koch and to FreedomWorks. FreedomWorks - In the hours after Santelli's rant, FreedomWorks posted a large photo of Santelli on its Web site's front page with the caption: "Are you with Rick? We are. Click here to learn more." Other Sites - In the hours after Santelli's rant, other Web sites such as Right.org, promoting a tea party support group that purports to be a citizen-launched organization "created by a few friends who were outraged by the bailouts" and headed by "Evan and Duncan," and numerous pro-tea party Facebook pages, were launched. Right.org is sponsoring a $27,000 prize for an "anti-bailout video competition." Ames and Levine ask: "Who are Evan and Duncan? Do they even really exist?" No Connections on the Surface - Ames and Levine note that the numerous Web sites and Facebook pages have remarkable similarities in language and appearance, "as if they were part of a multi-pronged advertising campaign planned out by a professional PR company. Yet, on the surface, they pretended to have no connection. The various sites set up their own Twitter feeds and Facebook pages dedicated to the Chicago Tea Party movement. And all of them linked to one another, using it as evidence that a decentralized, viral movement was already afoot. It wasn't about partisanship; it was about real emotions coming straight from real people." Santelli and the Tea Party Organizers - Ames and Levine ask why Santelli, and CNBC, would "risk their credibility, such as it is, as journalists dispensing financial information in order to act as PR fronts for a partisan campaign." Santelli's contract with CNBC is about to expire, they note. Until the "tea party" rant, Santelli was an obscure financial commentator with few prospects. Now, though, he is a "hero" of the right. As another Chicago tea party organization, the Daily Bail, wrote on its site: "Rick, this message is to you. You are a true American hero and there are no words to describe what you did today except your own. Headquartered nearby, we will be helping the organization in whatever way possible." Ames and Levine speculate that Santelli may have been brought into the fold by one of his CNBC colleagues, Lawrence Kudlow, who himself has strong connections to FreedomWorks. [Playboy, 2/27/2009] Steve Megremis of the Daily Bail will call Ames and Levine's allegations about his Web site's involvement "categorically untrue," writing: "It's unfortunate because I believe that the article did some great investigative work and then at the end they threw me under the bus for no apparent reason. Apparently, the authors just assumed we were part of this conspiracy because of my own personal excitement about the prospect of a mid-summer tea party." Megremis will post a response on his site, but the response will soon disappear. [Barry Ritholtz, 2/28/2009] Playboy Removes Article - By March 2, Playboy will remove the Ames and Levine article from its Web site. No explanation is offered. The article will instead become available on a Web site called "The Exiled," which bills itself as an "alternative" press outlet. [Jeffrey Feldman, 3/2/2009]
Entity Tags: Rick Santelli, William Ayers, Playboy, Sam Adams Alliance, Yasha Levine, The Exiled, Steve Megremis, Zack Christenson, Obama administration, Milt Rosenburg, Right.org, Mark Ames, Dick Armey, CNBC, Cato Institute, Eric O'Keefe, Chicago Tea Party, Eric Odom, FreedomWorks, Lawrence Kudlow, Joseph Lehman, Matt Drudge, John Birch Society, Fred Koch
Megan McArdle. [Source: New Economist (.com)]The Atlantic's business blogger, Megan McArdle, lambasts Playboy for publishing an article that claims the Rick Santelli "tea party" "rant" (see February 19, 2009) may have been a pre-planned incident designed to coincide with the launch of a number of "tea party" Web sites and "grassroots" organizations (see February 27, 2009). McArdle says that the suspicious timing of the chicagoteaparty.com Web site launch, hours after Santelli's "impromptu" rant on CNBC, was nothing more than an example of someone "leap[ing] in when opportunity arose." McArdle denies that oil giant Koch Industries, or the Koch family, funds the conservative lobbying firm FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009), and says, "[A]stroturfing [the practice of forming fake 'grassroots' organizations clandestinely organized and funded by lobbying groups or corporate entities] doesn't really seem like their style." McArdle may not be aware of a recent Wall Street Journal expose of a FreedomWorks "astroturf" endeavor (see May 16, 2008). She does acknowledge that since FreedomWorks does not publicize its donor list, she cannot be sure Koch is not funding the group. She admits that many "tea party" organizations are funded and operated by large conservative PR and lobbying firms, and writes: "So what? Groups—often funded by God knows who—coordinate protests." McArdle calls the article's allegation that Santelli participated in a pre-planned, scripted event "potentially libelous," and writes, "If I were Santelli, I'd sue." At the very end of her column, McArdle admits that she lives with a former FreedomWorks official, Peter Suderman. She denies that Suderman influenced her writing in any way except to give her an e-mail address of "the right employee to… make inquiries" of at the firm. "I haven't asked him about his former employer, and he hasn't told me anything. I debated whether to write about this, but since I'm not actually defending FreedomWorks, I think it's kosher." [Atlantic Monthly, 3/2/2009] Shortly after posting her column online, McArdle posts a follow-up, with details of her conversation with FreedomWorks official Brendan Steinhauser. She identifies Steinhauser as "the chap at FreedomWorks who has helped organize the tea parties." She calls the firm "completely open about their interest in furthering the tea parties" (see May 16, 2008 and March 13, 2009 and After). She says Steinhauser got the idea for the "tea parties" from Michelle Malkin's blog, which is at odds with Santelli's claim of "spontaneously" using the term (see March 2, 2009). [Atlantic Monthly, 3/2/2009]
Entity Tags: Megan McArdle, CNBC, Brendan Steinhauser, Fred Koch, Koch Industries, Peter Suderman, The Atlantic, Michelle Malkin, FreedomWorks, Playboy, Rick Santelli
9/12 Project logo. [Source: Springfield 9/12]Conservative radio and Fox News television host Glenn Beck tearfully announces the inception of the "9/12" project, which he claims is a nonpartisan effort to reclaim the spirit of cooperation and unity that suffused the nation on September 12, 2001, the day after the 9/11 attacks. "We weren't told how to behave that day after 9/11, we just knew," he says. "It was right; it was the opposite of what we feel today." With tears flowing down his cheeks, Beck asks, "Are you ready to be the person you were that day after 9/11, on 9/12?" He assures his viewers, "You are not alone," and says that the project has already grown into "something that millions are now participating in." The project is "not about parties or politics or anything else," he continues, but "about proving that the real power to change America's course still resides with you. You are the secret. You are the answer." He apologizes for his on-air weeping, and, holding his hand over his heart, sniffles: "I just love my country, and I fear for it. And it seems that the voices of our leaders and the special interests and the media that are surrounding us, it sounds intimidating. But you know what? Pull away the curtain. You'll realize that there isn't anybody there. It's just a few people that are pressing the buttons, and their voices are actually really weak. Truth is, they don't surround us. We surround them. This is our country." He tells his viewers to visit The912Project.com, the Web site for the new organization. Beck then cuts to his producer, Steve (Stu) Burguiere, broadcasting from a "massive gathering" in Hollywood, "one of the most liberal cities in the country." Burguiere begins reporting from an empty room, and begins by saying, "There's still no one here." He reiterates Beck's opening line of "You're not alone, unless you're me." Beck says, "Well, it must be traffic or something." [Media Matters, 3/13/2009; Media Matters, 9/11/2009] Days before, Beck had announced his "We Surround Them" movement (see March 9, 2009), featuring actor/martial arts expert and secessionist Chuck Norris. The two organizations seem to dovetail with one another, and with the "tea party" groups (see April 8, 2009). Bloggers at SaveTheRich (.com) later learn that the 9/12 movement is actually a creation of FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009), the conservative, corporate-funded "astroturf" organization behind the 2009 anti-health care protests. The organization begins planning for its September 12, 2009 march on Washington the same day as Beck announces his 9/12 project on Fox. SaveTheRich concludes that the entire project is a collusion between Fox News and FreedomWorks. Beck does not inform his audience of the connections between the organizations and his project. [SaveTheRich (.com), 4/17/2009; Media Matters, 9/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Glenn Beck, 9/12 Project, Chuck Norris, FreedomWorks, Steve ("Stu") Burguiere, Fox News, SaveTheRich
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, 2010 Elections
Bill Hemmer. [Source: New York Daily News]Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer, host of Fox News's flagship news program America's Newsroom, hosts several segments touting the April 15 "tea party" protests (see April 8, 2009 and April 15, 2009). Hemmer notes protests in Florida and Ohio that occurred in recent days, and directs viewers to the Web site for America's Newsroom for more information. He says: "Protesters, well, they waved flags and signs and with slogans like 'Repeal the Pork' and 'Our Bacon is Cooked.' I say, our bacon is cooked. They're popping up literally all across the country now.… If you go to our Web site, you will find a growing list of these events, hundreds of photos, and a new tea party anthem that you will hear from the man who wrote it and recorded it next hour. And there's a list of the nationwide Tax Day tea party events coming up on the 15th of April, which will be a huge deal for those organizations. So check it out online right now" (see October 13, 2009). The song is by Lloyd Marcus of the National Association for the Advancement of Conservative People of Color, who has been on what he tells Hemmer was "a 40-city 'Stop Obama' tour." Marcus's song is extremely critical of President Obama's policies and supportive of the "tea parties." The lyrics are posted on FoxNews.com. [Media Matters, 4/8/2009]
Entity Tags: Fox News, National Association for the Advancement of Conservative People of Color, Lloyd Marcus, Bill Hemmer
The right-wing advocacy group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), funded largely by Koch Industries (see August 30, 2010), has worked closely with the "tea party" movement since its inception (see February 27, 2009 and April 15, 2009). In the weeks before the first Tax Day protests (see April 8, 2009, April 15, 2009, and April 15, 2009), AFP hosts a Web site offering its visitors "Tea Party Talking Points." The Arizona branch of AFP urges people to send tea bags to President Obama. The Missouri AFP urges its members to sign up for "Taxpayer Tea Party Registration" and provides driving directions to nine protests. After the protests, the North Carolina AFP will launch a "Tea Party Finder" Web site, advertised as "a hub for all the Tea Parties in North Carolina." [New Yorker, 8/30/2010]
Entity Tags: Americans for Prosperity, Koch Industries, Barack Obama
According to an analysis by progressive media watchdog Media Matters, Fox News airs at least 20 segments on the so-called "tea party" protests (see April 6-7, 2009, April 8, 2009, and April 13-15, 2009) scheduled for April 15 (see April 15, 2009, April 15, 2009 and April 15, 2009). The network also airs at least 73 in-show and commercial promotions for its April 15 coverage. Media Matters claims that Fox is "aggressively promot[ing] the events… encouraging viewers to get involved with tea party protests across the country." Fox describes the events as "FNC [Fox News Channel] Tax Day Tea Parties." The network has assigned four of its hosts, including Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren, and Neil Cavuto, to broadcast live from various "tea parties" around the nation. The analysis does not include a number of "teasers" that Fox shows air to preview upcoming segments on "tea parties." [Media Matters, 4/15/2009] On April 15, Fox will devote much of its day's coverage to the tea parties. [Media Matters, 9/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Greta Van Susteren, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Media Matters
Screenshot of Fox News promoting the 'Tea Party' rally in Houston. [Source: Fox News / Media Matters]Republican lawmakers announce their intention to join with right-wing protesters on April 15, 2009, in what is envisioned as a nationwide protest against the Obama administration's tax policies. The primary organizers are the think tanks Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, and right-wing bloggers such as Michelle Malkin. They say that under President Obama, taxes are "too high" and freedoms are being "eroded." They have also called for Obama's impeachment and refer to him as "Obama bin Lyin" and other derogatory nicknames. Republicans, Neo-Nazis, Secessionists Joining in 'Tea Party Protests' - Malkin has called the movement the "Tea Party Protests," in an attempt to connect the protests with the American Revolution's Boston Tea Party. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) is sponsoring legislation to honor the protests. Representatives David Davis (R-TN), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), John Fleming (R-LA), Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), Bob Latta (R-OH), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Sue Myrick (R-NC), Bill Posey (R-FL), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) will attend local protests, as will Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) and former Representative J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ). Officials from Senator Bob Corker's (R-TN) and Representative Sam Graves's (R-MO) office will attend the rallies as well, and Representatives Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Jack Kingston (R-GA), and Tom Rooney (R-FL) are urging their constituents to attend tea party protests. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who heads American Solutions for Winning the Futures (ASWF) and who will speak at the New York City rally, is encouraging his supporters to join the protests, and has provided them with what he calls a "toolkit" of talking points. ASWF is funded by oil and energy interests, and led the recent "Drill Here, Drill Now" campaign. ASWF has been an official "partner" in the Tea Party campaign since March. The Tea Party Protests are being joined by gun rights militias, secessionists, and neo-Nazi groups. Protests Orchestrated by Lobbyist Organizations and Promoted by Fox News - The protests are being heavily promoted on Fox News, which intends to hold all-day "news reports" on April 15 featuring several of its commentators, including Glenn Beck (see March 3, 2009), Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, and Greta Van Susteren, live at different venues. Many of the protest organizers' Web sites feature one or more of the Fox commentators as part of their promotion efforts (see October 13, 2009). Beck is one of several Fox commentators and hosts who claims that the protests are "grassroots" organizations "spontaneously" led by "ordinary people," but in reality, the protests are being orchestrated by two lobbyist-run and lobbyist-organized organizations, Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. According to progressive news site Think Progress, "[t]he two groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests." Freedom Works staffers are coordinating conference calls among protesters and working with conservative organizers to give them what it calls "sign ideas, sample press releases, and a map of events around the country" as well as guides featuring talking points and instructions on delivering a "clear message" to the public and the media. Freedom Works has set up numerous Web sites, some of which Think Progress claims are deliberately constructed to appear as the work of amateurs, to promote the protests. In Florida, Freedom Works took over the planning of events. Americans for Progress is writing press releases and planning events in New Jersey, Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, Kansas, and several other states. Think Progress calls these activities "corporate 'astroturfing,'" which it defines as corporations' attempts to orchestrate events appearing to be grassroots, citizen-led actions. Freedom Works is headed by former Texas Republican Representative Dick Armey, who is a lobbyist for the firm DLA Piper; Americans for Prosperity is headed by Tim Phillips, who is a former partner of right-wing activist Ralph Reed in the lobbying firm Century Strategies. Americans for Prosperity has organized numerous pro-oil company "grassroots" events. [Think Progress, 4/8/2009; Media Matters, 4/8/2009; Think Progress, 4/9/2009]
Entity Tags: Newt Gingrich, Neil Cavuto, Louis Gohmert, Marshall Clement ("Mark") Sanford, Jr, Obama administration, Michelle Malkin, Rob Bishop, Sue Myrick, Sean Hannity, Tom Rooney, Todd Tiahrt, Tim Phillips, Think Progress (.org), John Shadegg, Sam Graves, John Fleming, Jason Chaffetz, Jack Kingston, Bob Latta, Bill Posey, Century Strategies, Barack Obama, Americans for Prosperity, American Solutions for Winning the Futures, Ander Crenshaw, DLA Piper, Bob Corker, David Vitter, Greta Van Susteren, J.D. Hayworth, Freedom Works, Fox News, Denny Rehberg, David Davis, Glenn Beck, Dick Armey
Fox News's flagship morning news broadcast, America's Newsroom, repeatedly airs video clips promoting the upcoming "tea party" protests for April 15 (see April 8, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 15, 2009, and April 15, 2009). Host Bill Hemmer urges viewers to attend protests near them, and alerts them to "virtual tea parties" being hosted on Fox's "non-partisan" Web site Fox Nation. One clip exhorts viewers to "say no to biased media and yes to fair play and free speech," and then prompts them to "express your views, your values" at Fox Nation. Hemmer then tells viewers that commentators Glenn Beck (see April 15, 2009), Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, and Greta Van Susteren are reporting and helping host protests in four separate areas around the nation. "Can't get to a tea party?" Hemmer asks. "Fox Nation hosts a 'virtual tea party.' You can check it out on the site." During Hemmer's pitch, Fox News airs a clip of a protest sign with "NO to socialism!" written across an American flag with a Soviet-style hammer and sickle in place of the 50 stars (see October 13, 2009). [Media Matters, 4/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto, Bill Hemmer, Fox Nation, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Greta Van Susteren
FreedomWorks logo. [Source: FreedomWorks]The progressive news and advocacy site Think Progress profiles FreedomWorks, a conservative lobbying firm that uses the practice of "astroturfing" to press its agenda home. FreedomWorks is one of the organizations behind the anti-tax "tea party" movement (see April 8, 2009). The organization denies that it is "astroturfing"—creating fake "citizens groups" that purport to be spontaneously organized grassroots organizations—and compares its work to that of liberal activism group MoveOn.org. However, Think Progress notes that MoveOn is a citizen-organized group, while FreedomWorks is headed by former Republican activists and corporate officials, and is funded by oil, energy, and tobacco companies. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and current Washington lobbyist (R-TX) leads FreedomWorks. [Think Progress, 4/14/2009] 'Amateur-Looking' Astroturfing Sites - Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks' use of "amateur-looking" Web sites for its "astroturf" groups to bolster their credibility as purported "citizen groups" pushing for corporate interests (see May 16, 2008). [Think Progress, 4/14/2009] Represented by PR Firm with GOP Links - FreedomWorks is represented by the Washington public relations firm Shirley & Banister Public Affairs. Shirley & Banister also represents conservative organizations such as the National Rifle Association, Citizens United, news outlet Human Events, and organizer Richard Viguerie's direct-mail firm. (It also represents the Bradley Foundation, a conservative funding organization that in 2008 gave $25,000 to both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity [AFP], gave FreedomWorks $75,000 in 2009, and is considering a grant request from AFP.) One of Shirley & Banister's partners is Craig Shirley, a veteran Republican PR operative who helped develop the overtly racist 1988 "Willie Horton" political ad (see September 21 - October 4, 1988). Progressive MSNBC host Rachel Maddow tells her audience: "This is a perfect system for the Republican Party. It's a constant feedback loop. The Republican Party activists stir up fear and anger on the Internet… Fearful, angry people go to town hall events and then Republican Party officials say they are just responding to that anger and they have no idea where it came from. It's [a] perfect cycle. Rile them up with made-up stuff and then sympathize with them that are so riled." [MSNBC, 8/14/2009; MSNBC, 8/17/2009] Led by Millionaires - Three of FreedomWorks' most prominent senior officials are millionaires. Armey makes over $500,000 a year working for the organization, and lives in a Texas home valued at $1.7 million. FreedomWorks president Matthew Kibbe lives on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in a home valued at $1.17 million. Board member Steve Forbes, the billionaire publisher of Forbes magazine, lives in a New Jersey home valued at $2.78 million, owns a chateau in France, and recently sold a private island in Fiji and a palace in Morocco. [Wall Street Journal, 5/16/2008] FreedomWorks Supports Armey's Lobbying Efforts - Armey's lobbying firm, DLA Piper, represents pharmaceutical firms such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, medical device supplier SleepMed, health care provider Metropolitan Health Networks, and another pharmaceutical firm, Medicines Company. One member of FreedomWorks's board of directors is Richard Stephenson, the founder and chairman of Cancer Treatment Centers of America. He is also the president of International Capital and Management Company, which runs a hospital consulting company. The president of FreedomWorks is Matt Kibbe, the former senior economist for the Republican National Committee and the former chief of staff for Representative Dan Miller (R-FL). FreedomWorks is organizing protests against health care reform that would cut into pharmaceutical firms' profits. DLA Piper represents a number of life insurance firms; FreedomWorks has organized support for the deregulation of the insurance industry. DLA Piper represents not only several American oil firms, but also Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on energy related issues such as maintaining the close ties between the US and the UAE. US oil firms are deeply involved in the UAE's oil industry. [Center for Responsive Politics, 2009; Think Progress, 4/14/2009; MSNBC, 8/12/2009] In August 2009, after reporting on FreedomWorks, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will tell her audience: "Washington lobbyists and health care executives and former Republican Party officials have just as much a right to shout down the policy debate about health care reform as anyone else does. These folks have just as much a right to try to derail this entire process as anyone else does. But we have a right to know who they are and who is paying them for their efforts. These guys are pros. This is an industry. This is beltway politics being organized and played out in town halls across the country." [MSNBC, 8/12/2009] DLA Piper has also received $830,000 this year, so far, from the pharmaceutical firm Medicines Company; the same firm paid DLA Piper $1.5 million in 2008. [MSNBC, 8/7/2009] FreedomWorks Lobbying on Behalf of DLA Piper? - In August 2009, Maddow will ask, "[W]hy are DLA Piper's clients relevant?" She answers herself, "There appears to be some pretty good evidence that when you pay Dick Armey's lobbying firm, DLA Piper, you get what Dick Armey's grassroots organization FreedomWorks does." In the first half of 2007, the American Council of Life Insurers paid DLA Piper $100,000 to lobby on its behalf. During that time span, FreedomWorks began lobbying Congress on a "grassroots" basis to deregulate the life insurance industry. Maddow will sarcastically ask: "And, of course, perhaps it is just mere coincidence that FreedomWorks happened to have a newfound, ideological, purist grassroots commitment to life insurance deregulation at the same time the American Council of Life Insurers hired Dick Armey's lobbying firm. It could just be a coincidence. Could be, right?" In 2006, DLA Piper began lobbying for the Senado de Republica, the Mexican Senate, for the purpose of "enhancing US-Mexico relations." At the same time, FreedomWorks began promoting itself as "one of the few organizations willing to aggressively promote meaningful immigration reform." In 2004, during the Bush administration's push to privatize Social Security, a single mom from Iowa was introduced at a White House economic conference as a supporter of privatization. That mom was a FreedomWorks employee. Maddow will say: "This is how FreedomWorks does their work. They try to create the impression that their just regular grassroots Americans without any financial or political interests in the outcome of these policy fights." [MSNBC, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: MoveOn (.org), Steve Forbes, Think Progress (.org), Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Wall Street Journal, Matt Kibbe, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DLA Piper, Medicines Company, FreedomWorks, Dick Armey
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda, 2010 Elections
The Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive think tank and lobbying organization, releases a report that says the "tea party" movement protesting the various policies of the Obama administration (see April 8, 2009) is not, as purported, entirely a grassroots movement of ordinary citizens, but an "astroturf" movement created, organized, and funded by powerful conservative and industry firms and organizations. (CAP notes that the anti-tax "tea parties," with "tea" standing for "Taxed Enough Already," fail to note that President Obama's recent legislation actually has cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans.) Two of the most prominent organizations behind the "tea parties" are FreedomWorks and Americans for Progress (AFP). FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009) is a corporate lobbying firm run by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), and organized the first "tea party," held in Tampa, Florida, on February 27. It then began planning and organizing "tea parties" on a national scale; officials coordinated logistics, called conservative activists, and provided activists with sign ideas and slogans and talking points to use during protests. AFP has coordinated with FreedomWorks. AFP is a corporate lobbying firm run by Tim Phillips, a former lobbying partner of conservative activist Ralph Reed, and funded in part by Koch Industries, the largest private oil corporation in America (see May 29, 2009). Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) is also involved, through his lobbying form American Solutions for Winning the Future, which is supported by oil companies. Support, Promotion from Fox News - On cable news channels, Fox News and Fox Business have run promotions for the "tea parties" in conjunction with enthusiastic reports promoting the affairs (see April 13-15, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 15, 2009, and April 6-13, 2009); in return, the organizers use the Fox broadcasts to promote the events. Fox hosts Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto, and Sean Hannity all plan to broadcast live reports from the events. Fox also warns its viewers that the Obama administration may send "spies" to the events. (Fox justifies its depth of coverage by saying that it provided similar coverage for the 1995 Million Man March. However, Fox did not begin broadcasting until 1996—see October 7, 1996.) Republican Support - Congressional Republicans have embraced the "tea parties" as ways to oppose the Obama administration. Many leading Republicans, such as Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), Paul Ryan (R-WI), and some 35 others, will speak at AFP-funded "tea parties." Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has moved the RNC to officially support the protests. And Senator David Vitter (R-LA) has introduced legislation formally honoring April 15 as "National Tea Party Day." "It's going to be more directed at Obama," says reporter and commentator Ana Marie Cox. "This is very much, I think, part of the midterm strategy" to win elections in 2010. Fringe Elements - According to CAP, many "fringe" elements of the conservative movement—including "gun rights militias, secessionists, radical anti-immigrant organizations, and neo-Nazi groups"—are involved in the "tea parties." [Think Progress, 4/15/2009; Think Progress, 5/29/2009]
Entity Tags: Ralph Reed, Republican National Committee, Paul Ryan, Tim Phillips, Obama administration, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, John Boehner, Michael Steele, Barack Obama, Neil Cavuto, Center for American Progress, Ana Marie Cox, Americans for Progress, Fox Business Channel, Fox News, Koch Industries, David Vitter, American Solutions for Winning the Future, FreedomWorks, Glenn Beck, Dick Armey
Progressive news and advocacy Web site Think Progress profiles Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the conservative Washington lobbying organization that is planning to coordinate anti-tax "tea party" protests (see April 8, 2009 and April 15, 2009) with a summer push against the White House's health care reform proposals. AFP is largely funded by Koch Industries, the largest private oil corporation in the US; AFP has long advocated positions favorable to the energy and health care industries. AFP also uses the technique of "astroturfing," the creation of ostensibly citizen-driven "grassroots" advocacy groups that are actually funded and driven by corporate and lobbying interests. AFP's most recent creation is a "front group" called "Patients United Now" (PUN), a group explicitly designed to thwart health care reform. PUN's Web site declares, "We are people just like you," and actively solicits participation and donations from ordinary Americans without revealing its corporate roots. AFP employs close to 70 Republican operatives and former oil industry officials. Other 'Astroturf' Campaigns - Think Progress notes that other AFP "Astroturf" groups have organized events such as the "Hot Air Tour" attacking environmental regulation, the "Free Our Energy" movement to promote domestic oil drilling, the "Save My Ballot Tour" which sent conservative activist "Joe the Plumber" (see October 10, 2008) around the country attacking the Employee Free Choice Act, the "No Climate Tax" group aimed at defeating the Clean Energy Economy legislation, and the "No Stimulus" organization, which opposes the Obama administration's economic policies. Headed by Former Abramoff Colleague - AFP's president is Tim Phillips, a veteran conservative lobbyist and "astroturfer." In 1997, Phillips, then a Republican campaign strategist, joined Christian conservative activists in a new lobbying firm, Century Strategies. The firm promised to mount "grassroots lobbying drives" and explained its strategy as "it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard—and by whom." Century Strategies was given a boost by Texas GOP political operative Karl Rove, and began its career representing the Texas oil giant Enron. The firm was paid $380,000 to mobilize "religious leaders and pro-family groups" to push energy deregulation on the federal and state level, an effort which helped lead, says Think Progress, "to the energy crisis and economic meltdown of 2001." As part of their efforts, Phillips and his partner, former Christian Coalition official Ralph Reed, used their congressional connections and "placed" purported "news" articles in the New York Times and other prominent newspapers. Phillips managed the firm's direct mail subsidiary, Millennium Marketing, which was hired by then-GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff to pressure members of Congress to oppose federal wage and worker safety legislation. Phillips and Reed also worked with Abramoff in the lobbyists' efforts to fraudulently charge Native American tribes millions of dollars in lobbying fees over their efforts to build casinos on tribal lands. And they helped Abramoff launder gambling money. Phillips and Reed are responsible for the ads that helped Republicans win election victories by comparing Democratic candidates to Osama bin Laden, and helped George W. Bush (R-TX) defeat Senator John McCain (R-AZ) in 2000 by accusing McCain of fathering an illegitimate black child. They were unsuccessful in preventing the 2000 election of Republican Eric Cantor (R-VA) to the House by attacking his Jewish heritage. [Think Progress, 5/29/2009] Headed by Oil Billionaire, Republican Party Funder - MSNBC's Rachel Maddow will later note that AFP's director is Art Pope, a multi-millionaire who has given so much money to the North Carolina Republican Party that it named its headquarters after him. The national chairman of AFP is David Koch, who with his brother runs Koch Industries, the largest privately held oil company in the US and a longtime supporter of right-wing causes. Koch is the 19th richest man in the world. [MSNBC, 8/6/2009]
Entity Tags: Tim Phillips, Think Progress (.org), Ralph Reed, Patients United Now, Millennium Marketing, Century Strategies, David Koch, Art Pope, Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity, Jack Abramoff
Fake 'ObamaCare' card distributed by FreedomWorks. [Source: FreedomWorks]The corporate lobbying firm FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009) sends out a detailed memo, written in part by founder Dick Armey (R-TX), laying out strategies for protesting the Obama administration's health care reform proposals. The memo claims that the White House intends to supplant the current privately owned and operated health care system with a "government-run" system "that would cost taxpayers trillions of dollars in new taxes" and feature "government bureaucrats," not doctors and patients, deciding who received what health care. "This takeover of the health care system would be costly in terms of our money, our freedom, and even our lives," the memo states. Members and sympathizers should descend on the "town hall" meetings and other venues hosted by their Congressional representatives and demand that they oppose the proposals. The memo states that its "action kit" should be used at the "tea parties" being sponsored by FreedomWorks and other right-wing organizations (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, and May 29, 2009). The memo contains talking points, slogans, sample questions, a "sample" letter to the editor that members can copy and sign, a petition, and a satirical "Obamacare Card" issued to "Nancy P. Pelosi," the Democratic Speaker of the House, saying that the bearer is entitled to "rationed health care, long waits, less choice and control, poorer care, fewer doctors and drugs, massive government, higher taxes, growing debt, zero innovation, rising costs, waste, fraud, and abuse, [and] anxiety, pain, [and] fear of death." [Dick Armey, 6/26/2009 ]
Entity Tags: Dick Armey, Nancy Pelosi, Obama administration, FreedomWorks
Paul Topete of Poker Face. [Source: AmericanFreePress (.net)]A thousand people attend a "tea party" rally in Washington, DC. Speakers include members from a number of anti-tax "reform" groups, the lobbying organization and tea party sponsor FreedomWorks (see April 8, 2009 and April 14, 2009), and a number of radio talk show hosts. A rock band, Poker Face, provides entertainment and technical support. Poker Face's lead singer, Paul Topete, has publicly called the Holocaust a "hoax" and has written for Holocaust-denial publications. Poker Face was refused permission to play at a Rutgers University event in 2006 and a Ron Paul (R-TX) campaign event in 2007 because of the band's open bigotry and anti-Semitism. However, as the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights's Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind will later note, "they made it to the stage of the tea party without any questions asked." [Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 10/19/2010]
Entity Tags: FreedomWorks, Devin Burghart, Leonard Zeskind, Paul Topete, Poker Face
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, US Domestic Terrorism
Republicans intend to use the fight over health care reform to "break" President Obama, says at least one Republican senator. Jim DeMint (R-SC) joins other Republican lawmakers in a conference call with so-called "tea party" organizers (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, and Before August 6, 2009) to plan how to use town hall confrontations with Democratic lawmakers to help stall any health care reform bill from being voted on in Congress until at least after the August recess. The call was organized by the lobbying organization Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR). "I can almost guarantee you this thing won't pass before August, and if we can hold it back until we go home for a month's break in August," members of Congress will hear from "outraged" constituents, DeMint says. "Senators and Congressmen will come back in September afraid to vote against the American people.… [T]his health care issue is D-Day for freedom in America. If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." One of the talking points from CPR is to characterize the reform package as a "government takeover" of health care. [Politico, 7/17/2009] When Obama says on PBS that "[w]hat they [DeMint and other Republicans] don't recognize is, this isn't about me; it's about the American people… [a]nd things have gotten worse since 1993," DeMint takes to Fox News to say the argument is about "socialism versus freedom," and challenge Obama to a debate. "So, I'm glad to have the debate with him," DeMint says, "but frankly, I've been working on health care for over 10 years. I think I know a lot more about how it works than he does. So I'm ready." [Think Progress, 7/22/2009]
Entity Tags: Conservatives for Patients Rights, Jim DeMint, Barack Obama
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda, 2012 Elections, 2010 Elections
Patients First bus featuring the "Hands Off Our Health Care" slogan and bloody handprint logo. [Source: Associated Press]The citizens' organization Patients First, a subsidiary of the conservative lobbying group Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, and May 29, 2009), schedules a 13-state bus tour. The tour is aimed at bringing conservative protesters to rallies and "town hall" meetings where the White House's controversial health care proposals are being discussed. AFP's board includes James Miller, a Federal Trade Commission chairman and budget director during the Reagan administration. The tour begins with a "tea party" rally in Richmond. According to AFP official Ben Marchi, organizers will urge constituents to call or visit their senators and sign a petition that asks members of Congress to "oppose any legislation that imposes greater government control over my health care that would mean fewer choices for me and my family and even deny treatments to those in need." The bus will make 26 stops in Virginia alone before journeying to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Louisiana. Another bus will visit Nebraska, Colorado, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Iowa, Arkansas, and Missouri. "Virginians are fired up about health care and what they see as an overreaching federal government," Marchi says. "We don't want legislators to come between them and their doctor. The relationship that exists between doctors and patients is sacred and should not be interfered with." [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 7/23/2009; Politico, 7/28/2009]
Entity Tags: Obama administration, Americans for Prosperity, Patients First, Ben Marchi, James Miller
Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR), an anti-health care reform lobbying organization owned by former health care industry executive Rick Scott (see August 4, 2009), sends an e-mail to a listserv called the Tea Party Patriots Health Care Reform Committee detailing over 100 "town hall" meetings to take place during the August recess. All are to be hosted by Democratic members of Congress, and most will feature discussions of the White House/Congressional Democrats' health care reform proposals. [TPMDC, 8/3/2009] The Tea Party Patriots Health Care Reform Committee has hundreds of members on its mailing list, and cross-connects to other, larger mailing lists for anti-reform groups such as Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), Patients First, Patients United Now (an affiliate of Americans for Prosperity), and FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009). CPR features the same list of town hall meetings on its own Web site. The liberal news site TPMDC notes that the same listservs have featured blatantly racist messages such as pictures of President Obama with a bone through his nose (see July 28, 2009). [Conservatives for Patients' Rights, 7/2009; TPMDC, 8/3/2009]
Entity Tags: Rick Scott, Conservatives for Patients Rights, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks, Patients United Now, Tea Party Patriots Health Care Reform Committee, Patients First, TPMDC
The conservative lobbying group Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see April 15, 2009 and May 29, 2009), in conjunction with the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition, organizes a large protest at a town hall meeting organized by Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO). Michelle Sherrod, a McCaskill aide, intends to discuss the senator's opinion on the Obama administration's health care reform proposals with the protesters, but AFP volunteers and associated protesters have a different agenda. The AFP Web alert says, "We hope we can have a vigorous yet courteous exchange Monday evening," but according to liberal blog OpenLeft, whose contributors videotape part of the proceedings for YouTube, the conservative protesters—numbering somewhere around 1,000—are disruptive, often preventing Sherrod and other citizens from asking or answering questions. AFP later calls the protest a "smashing success." The Fox News blog, Fox Nation, celebrates the protest with the headline, "Tea Party Protest Erupts During Senator's Town Hall!" [Americans for Prosperity, 7/24/2009; Open Left, 7/27/2009; St. Louis Business Journal, 7/27/2009; Americans for Prosperity, 7/28/2009; Fox Nation, 7/29/2009]
Entity Tags: St. Louis Tea Party Coalition, Claire McCaskill, Americans for Prosperity, Michelle Sherrod, Fox News, OpenLeft
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says of the corporate-led resistance to health care reform (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, and August 6-7, 2009): "Insurance companies are out there in full force, carpet bombing, shock and awe against the public option. These are initiatives that are very important in this legislation, and they are to correct what the insurance companies have done to America and to the health of our people over the years." Afterwards, Pelosi is equally blunt, telling reporters: "It is somewhat immoral what they are doing. Of course, they have been immoral all along how they have treated the people they insure. They are the villains in this. They have been part of the problem in a major way. The public has to know that." [MSNBC, 7/31/2009]
Entity Tags: Nancy Pelosi
A screenshot from a Democratic National Committee ad highlighting phrases from the memo. [Source: Weekly Standard]The conservative Web site and political action committee (PAC) Right Principles releases a memo entitled "Rocking the Town Halls: Best Practices," written by Bob MacGuffie, a founder of the organization and a volunteer with the "Tea Party Patriots," a subsidiary of the conservative lobbying group FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009). [Think Progress, 7/31/2009; Tea Party Patriots, 8/6/2009] The organization is very small—basically MacGuffie and four friends—and although MacGuffie volunteers with the aforementioned tea party group, he insists he and his organization have no connections to the much larger and well-funded FreedomWorks or other lobbying organizations that support anti-health care protests. "We are recommending with that memo that other grassroots groups that share our view should go to the town halls of their members and use the strategy that we did," MacGuffie says. "We are trying to get into that town halls to make them understand that they do not have the unanimous support from people in their communities." [TPMDC, 8/3/2009] Although the site either never posts the memo or takes it down shortly after, it quickly circulates throughout the conservative community (see July 23, 2009), and will be used to disrupt "town hall" meetings by Democratic House members, who intend to spend time during the August recess holding such meetings to discuss the Obama administration's health care proposals. [Right Principles, 2009; Think Progress, 7/31/2009] MacGuffie later claims to have first e-mailed the memo to "8-10 community activists" in June. [Weekly Standard, 8/5/2009] 'Best Practices' - The memo advises conservative activists and protesters of the best ways to dominate and disrupt the town hall meetings. Basing the memo on actions conducted by Right Principles members and supporters during a May 2009 town hall meeting held by Congressman Jim Himes (D-CT), MacGuffie writes, "We believe there are some best practices which emerged from the event and our experience, which could be useful to activists in just about any district where their congressperson has supported the socialist agenda of the Democrat leadership in Washington." Some of the steps include: Artificially inflating numbers. "Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington." Being disruptive from the outset. "You need to rock the boat early in the rep's presentation. Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the rep's statements early." The memo also advises, "Don't carry on and make a scene, just short, intermittent shout-outs." Attempt to rattle or goad the speaker. "The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions." The memo also attaches some possible questions for the representatives, "which apply to most any Democrat that is supporting the socialist agenda," it says. [Bob MacGuffie, 7/2009 ; Think Progress, 7/31/2009] Progressive news and advocacy Web site Think Progress will note that the questions closely resemble talking points handed out in July by FreedomWorks. [Think Progress, 7/31/2009] Liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will accuse Right Principles of crafting a "how-to" manual for disruptive "rent-a-mob" activities. [Washington Times, 8/6/2009] The conservative Weekly Standard will accuse "liberal media" outlets such as Think Progress and MSNBC of "manufacturing outrage" over the memo, and prints MacGuffie's denials of having any connections to FreedomWorks. "There is no formal connection," he says. "I don't know anyone from FreedomWorks." [Weekly Standard, 8/5/2009]
Entity Tags: Weekly Standard, Tea Party Patriots, Right Principles, Jim Himes, Obama administration, Rachel Maddow, Think Progress (.org), FreedomWorks, Bob MacGuffie
Anti-reform protesters carry signs depicting Doggett with 'devil horns' and a sign featuring Nazi SS lettering. [Source: Raw Story]Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) receives a hostile reception in a town hall meeting in an Austin grocery store. The meeting is to discuss the controversial Democratic health care reform proposal. The crowd is much larger than some had anticipated, and apparently packed with anti-health care reform protesters; anti-reform and anti-Obama signs are prominently displayed, including signs that read, "No Socialized Health Care." Protesters also wave signs with Doggett depicted with devil horns, of a marble tombstone with Doggett's name on it, and with slogans alleging Democrats are Nazis. When Doggett tells the crowd that he will support the reform plan even if his constituents oppose it, many in the crowd begin chanting "Just say no!" and, according to news reports, "overwhelm… the congressman as he move[s] through the crowd and into the parking lot." One resident says of the meeting: "The folks there thought their voices weren't being heard. They were angry, but they were respectful. There wasn't any violence." Another says, laughing: "He jumped in [his car] and fled. It was like he was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. It was a beautiful thing." Doggett later notes that because of the disruption, he is unable to engage in discussion with constituents who have other issues, including a father who wants his help in getting his son into a military academy. [Austin American-Statesman, 8/3/2009; New York Times, 8/3/2009; Atlantic Monthly, 8/4/2009] Congressman: Protesters a 'Mob' - Doggett will later characterize the anti-reform protesters as a "mob." In a statement, he says: "This mob, sent by the local Republican and Libertarian parties, did not come just to be heard, but to deny others the right to be heard. And this appears to be part of a coordinated, nationwide effort. What could be more appropriate for the 'party of no' than having its stalwarts drowning out the voices of their neighbors by screaming 'just say no!'… Their fanatical insistence on repealing Social Security and Medicare is not just about halting health care reform but rolling back 75 years of progress. I am more committed than ever to win approval of legislation to offer more individual choice to access affordable health care. An effective public plan is essential to achieve that goal." [Politico, 8/3/2009; CBS News, 8/3/2009] Coordinated by Local Republicans, Washington Lobbyist Firm, 'Tea Party' Group - The protest is coordinated by Heather Liggett, a local Republican Party operative, and by officials with the lobbying firm Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which has organized numerous anti-tax "tea party" demonstrations (see April 15, 2009 and May 29, 2009). Liggett confirms she is part of a national network of conservative organizers putting together anti-reform protests. Doggett says: "This is not a grassroots effort. This is a very coordinated effort where the local Republican Party, the local conservative meet-up groups sent people to my event." Of the event itself, he says: "In Texas, not only with the weather but with the politics, it is pretty hardball around here. I have a pretty thick skin about all of this. But this really goes over the line." And Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), adds: "Conservative activists don't want to have a conversation. They want to disrupt." [New York Times, 8/3/2009] Democratic National Committee (DNC) spokesman Brad Woodhouse says, "The right-wing extremists' use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the president's citizenship, and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are." Another group with connections to the "tea party" movement, "Operation Embarrass Your Congressman," helped organize the protest. It says on its Web site: "These arrogant, ignorant, and insolent [Congress members] have embarrassed America, trampled the Constitution, and ignored their constituents for far too long. Attend their townhall meetings during recess and press them with intelligent questions (unlike the mainstream media), asked in an intelligent manner to see if they are really in touch and on board with 'the will of the people.'" [CBS News, 8/3/2009] After the meeting, FreedomWorks, a conservative lobbying organization that actively promotes disruptive behavior at Congressional town halls (see April 14, 2009), posts video from the meeting, and exhorts its members, "If you know of a town hall meeting your Congressman is having, be sure to show up, bring some friends, and them know what you think." [FreedomWorks, 8/3/2009]
Entity Tags: Lloyd Doggett, Heather Liggett, Brad Woodhouse, FreedomWorks, Jennifer Crider, Operation Embarrass Your Congressman, Americans for Prosperity
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda, US Domestic Terrorism, 2010 Elections
Fox News covers the Sebelius/Specter town hall meeting. [Source: Eyeblast (.org)]Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) hold a meeting at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to discuss the White House's health care reform proposals. A large and vocal crowd of anti-reform protesters attempts to shout over, or shout down, both Sebelius and Specter during the event. Over 400 people attend the meeting, and many "cheered, jeered, and booed" the two, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Sebelius's response to the crowd: "I'm happy to see democracy is at work." The Inquirer reports, "Sebelius and Specter managed, barely, to impose a tenuous civility on the hour-long meeting titled 'Health Insurance Reform—What's in it for You.'" At one point, the booing and screaming become so pervasive that Sebelius informs the crowd, "We can shout at one another, or we can leave the stage." Audience members verbally engage with each other as well: one, a self-identified Republican "political junkie," says the nation cannot afford to insure 47 million uninsured Americans, and is countered by a rheumatologist who works with underinsured and uninsured patients, and who describes the horrific situations many of them face. One anti-reform participant tells the pair, "The American people don't want rationed health care," winning cheers from many in the audience. When Sebelius retorts that health care is already rationed for the 12,000 people a day whose insurance disappears when they lose their jobs, she wins applause from other audience members. About a dozen members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are there to support Sebelius and Specter, and some members of the pro-reform group Physicians for Obama are also in attendance. Countering them are numerous audience members with "Tell Washington No" bumper stickers plastered to their chests. One anti-reform organization, the Philadelphia Tea Party Patriots, will later claim to have around 40 members in attendance. Outside the hall, dozens of anti-reform protesters picket with signs saying, among other slogans, "Government Health Care: Dangerous to Your Health," "Welcome to the United States Socialist Republic," and various anti-abortion signs. After the meeting, Sebelius says: "Health care touches everybody personally.… I find it difficult, because so much misinformation gets repeated in questions at town hall meetings. We have a challenge to get the message out." [Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/3/2009] After the meeting, FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009), a lobbying organization that actively promotes the town hall disruptions by conservative protesters, calls the event "a must emulate at town halls across the country over the next month." [FreedomWorks, 8/3/2009]
Entity Tags: US Department of Health and Human Services, Arlen Specter, FreedomWorks, Service Employees International Union, Kathleen Sebelius, Physicians for Obama
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh says that if the recent spate of disruptive and violent protests against health care reform (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, and August 4, 2009) are, in fact, orchestrated (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, and Before August 6, 2009), then it is "about damn time." He continues: "We have had groups like ACORN [the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] and Democrat rent-a-mobs making up excuses and lying about things they oppose to affect public policy for years, while people like me haven't had time because we work. We do not protest for a living. We do not rent ourselves out to be part of mobs. So, if this is actually an orchestrated event, then I'm glad somebody on our side's getting in gear.… It doesn't matter to me one way or the other [if the protests are coordinated]. The people who are showing up are genuinely angry. And if their transportation is being facilitated—about damn time. You've got to take these people on the way they play the game. The aggressor sets the rules in a conflict." [Media Matters, 8/6/2009]
Entity Tags: Rush Limbaugh, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
Local 'tea party' protesters at the Arcuri/Hoyer town hall. [Source: WKTV]Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), taking part in a town hall meeting in upstate New York hosted by House member Michael Arcuri (D-NY), is browbeaten and verbally assaulted by conservative protesters who are against health care reform. The meeting is to discuss a proposal for a high-speed rail system for the area. "You're lying to me!" one protester, local conservative activist Don Jeror, screams during the assemblage. "Just because I don't have sophisticated language, I can recognize a liar when I see one!" Jeror adds, "Why would you guys try to stuff a health care bill down our throats in three to four weeks, when the president took six months to pick a dog for his kids?!" Jeror and many of the activists, who continue to scream and shout over Hoyer during his entire presentation, belong to a group called the "Fort Stanwix Tea Party 'Patriots.'" House Member Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), who was recently accosted by conservative protesters during a town hall meeting in his district (see August 1, 2009), says the protests are anything but spontaneous and citizen-driven. "This notion of a grass-roots campaign is totally and completely phony," he says. "The Republican Party has coordinated this apparent outrage and stirred it up." While he and fellow Democrats welcome dialogue, he says, "there's no way you can change the legislation to satisfy any of these Republicans and their insurance allies." Doggett is referring to allegations that corporate lobbying groups such as Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, and Before August 6, 2009) are behind the protests. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs agrees, saying, "I think what you've seen is they have bragged about manufacturing, to some degree, that anger." Bob MacGuffie, a Connecticut conservative activists who recently wrote a strategy memo directing fellow conservatives in methods to disrupt and dominate town hall meetings (see Late July, 2009), says that while there is organization, the anger and resistance to reform is "most assuredly real.… We're organizing those voices, but it's a real emotion, coast to coast." ABC News reports that polls show the "protesters are not representative of the public at large, which overwhelmingly supports provisions such as 'requiring insurance companies to sell health coverage to people, even if they have pre-existing medical conditions' and 'requiring that all Americans have health insurance, with the government providing financial help for those who can't afford it.'" [ABC News, 8/4/2009; TPMDC, 8/4/2009; WKTV, 8/4/2009]
Entity Tags: Lloyd Doggett, Americans for Prosperity, ABC News, Bob MacGuffie, FreedomWorks, Robert Gibbs, Don Jeror, Michael Arcuri, Steny Hoyer, Republican Party
Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) says that a House member has been physically assaulted during a town hall meeting by anti-health care protesters (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, and August 4, 2009). He refuses to identify the representative in question. Instead, he warns that the increasingly riotous confrontations at town hall meetings by conservative protesters are rising to "a dangerous level." He blames misinformation disseminated by conservative lobbying organizations who are helping orchestrate the town hall disruptions (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, and Before August 6, 2009) and on Fox News (see August 3, 2009 and August 3, 2009). "When you look at the fervor of some of these people who are all being whipped up by the right-wing talking heads on Fox, to me, you're crossing a line," he says. "They're inciting people to riot with just total distortions of facts. They think we're going to euthanize Grandma and the government is going to take over." Another Democratic staffer says flatly, "These people are crazy." Connolly notes that many of the more elderly protesters receive Medicare, but are seemingly unaware that Medicare is a government program. Steve Driehaus (D-OH), who recently held a contentious health care discussion (see August 3, 2009), says: "We're not going to say we're no longer going to listen to constituents because of a few angry protesters. We have no intentions of changing our plan based on any extracurricular nonsense." Grover Norquist, president of the conservative advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, says the protests are nothing more than spontaneous outbursts of real public anger. He also says his organization encourages its members to attend town halls, and gives them talking points, suggested questions to ask, and slogans to chant (see August 5, 2009). "People are pissed," he says. "They've been lied to." [Roll Call, 8/5/2009]
Entity Tags: Fox News, Americans for Tax Reform, Steve Driehaus, Gerry Connolly, Grover Norquist
Tim Phillips (r) being interviewed by Rachel Maddow (l). [Source: YouTube]Tim Phillips, the president of the corporate lobbying firm Americans for Prosperity (AFP), is interviewed by progressive MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. AFP, like FreedomWorks, Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), and other organizations, is responsible for what Maddow calls "astroturfing" the health care reform debate—creating "fake grassroots organizations" such as Patients First and Patients United Now that purport to represent ordinary citizens, but are in fact entities created and controlled by corporate and/or political interests (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, and August 6-7, 2009). Representing 'Real Folks' - Phillips is jovial with Maddow, insisting that AFP merely represents the interests of "real folks." When asked who funds AFP's "grassroots" offshoot, Patients First, instead of answering, Phillips tells Maddow that the organization is made up of patients "just like us. I'm a patient. Rachel, you're a parent. So I think we're all patients in this issue. And we all have something at stake here." Phillips even denies being a Washington lobbyist, but instead calls himself "a community organizer" similar to the position once held by President Obama. "What do you think about that?" he asks. "Maybe I'm qualified to be president." He finally claims that AFP is funded by citizen donors, though he admits that the bulk of its money comes from foundations such as the Koch Industries Foundations, the grant-giving arm of Koch Industries, the largest privately held oil company in the US. Maddow says, "[I]t seems odd to just call yourself patients like us when you're a huge recipient of funding from a big company, and you're trying to distinguish yourself from lobbyists and big companies." Phillips in turn says that to label groups like AFP anything but citizen organizations is "demeaning" to the ordinary citizens who turn out at the rallies and forums. Maddow responds: "I'm not calling anybody, any individual American, a front group. I'm calling Americans for Prosperity's subgroups a front group for the corporate interest that funds you, guys. Honestly, I mean, that's the allegation that we're making here." 'We Would Love to Have More Corporate Funding' - Phillips says: "[C]orporate interests are a minuscule part of our funding.… And by the way, we would love to have more corporate funding. So if there's more corporations watching us, feel free to give to us. We'll be happy to have their support as well. We will get the message out on this health care issue." He denies ever taking money from Exxon, but says AFP would be more than happy to accept Exxon and other such funding. Maddow notes that Exxon has listed AFP as a recipient of large amounts of money, and Phillips qualifies his statement: "This year, we haven't had any Exxon money.… But again, though, we're happy to take corporate money." Maddow says that she isn't sure the protesters showing up at the town halls at the behest of AFP know that the organization is funded by oil and health care corporations. 'Gotcha Politics' - After Maddow notes Phillips's involvement with several Republican political and lobbying campaigns, Phillips accuses her of playing "gotcha politics." Maddow retorts that Americans "want to know who the players are in this fight and who's organizing what are being maintained as if they're just spontaneous efforts happening organically by Americans who are angry and they're aren't being coordinated by industry and by lobbyists and by political campaign groups associated with the Republican Party. And that's why I want to talk about who you are, because you have such an important role in coordinating these events and I think the American people are curious." In his turn, Phillips says that it is "gotcha politics" that is helping the anti-reform movement win the issue. Before Maddow ends the interview, Phillips invites her to join AFP on the bus tour "as my guest to see these real Americans. Would you do that?" Maddow replies, "I can't bear the conflict of interest with your corporate funders." [MSNBC, 8/7/2009]
Entity Tags: Koch Industries Foundations, Conservatives for Patients Rights, Americans for Prosperity, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, Republican Party, FreedomWorks, Patients United Now, Patients First, Tim Phillips, Rachel Maddow
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (l) interviews Frank Schaeffer (r). [Source: Crooks and Liars (.com)]Frank Schaeffer, who with his late father Francis Schaeffer helped shape the social and religious conservatism that currently dominates much of American politics, writes what he calls an "inside scoop" on "why conservatives are rampaging town halls" to disrupt discussions of health care reform (see June 30, 2009, July 6, 2009, July 25, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 31, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 2, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6-8, 2009), and, ultimately, to deliberately foment political violence. Schaeffer was once a leader of the conservative evangelical movement who has now repudiated his former positions, and has written a book on the subject. [AlterNet (.org), 8/7/2009; MSNBC, 8/10/2009] Schaeffer's father wrote a book, A Christian Manifesto, which compared pro-abortion policies to those of Adolf Hitler, and said that the use of force to roll back abortion law would be justified. Schaeffer himself has written a very different book, entitled Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elects, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back. [MSNBC, 6/1/2009] Comparing Pro-Abortion Activists to Nazis - He tells MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that his father used to compare pro-abortion activists to Nazis, and told his followers "that using violence or force to overthrow Nazi Germany would have been appropriate for Christians, including the assassination of [Adolf] Hitler." It is a straight, short line, Schaeffer says, to go from the concept of justifiably assassinating Hitler to using violence against those who are compared to Nazis. "It's really like playing Russian roulette," he says. "You put a cartridge in the chamber, you spin, and once in a while it goes off. And we saw that happen with Dr. Tiller (see May 31, 2009). We've seen it happen numerous times in this country with the violence against political leaders, whether it's Martin Luther King or whoever it might be. We have a history of being a well-armed, violent country.… There is a coded message here. And that is that you have a group of people who, like Rush Limbaugh (see July 21, 2009, July 27, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6, 2009) would rather see the president and the country fail, and their coded message to their own lunatic fringe is very simple—and that is go for broke. When you start comparing a democratically elected president, who is not only our first black president but a moderate progressive, to Adolf Hitler (see August 7, 2009), you have arrived at a point where you are literally leading—leaving a loaded gun on the table, saying the first person who wants to come along and use this, go ahead. Be our guest." [MSNBC, 8/10/2009] Conservative World View Shattered by Obama Election - In a separate op-ed, Schaeffer writes: "The Republican Old Guard are in the fix an atheist would be in if Jesus showed up and raised his mother from the dead: Their world view has just been shattered. Obama's election has driven them over the edge." Schaeffer says that when he worked with Dick Armey (R-TX), the former House Majority Leader and now lobbyist was "a decent guy, whatever his political views. How could he stoop so low as to be organizing what amounts to America's Brown Shirts today?" He answers his own question: Armey, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), and others "can't compute that their white man-led conservative revolution is dead. They can't reconcile their idea of themselves with the fact that white men like them don't run the country any more—and never will again. To them the black president is leading a column of the 'other' into their promised land. Gays, immigrants, blacks, progressives, even a female Hispanic appointed to the Supreme Court (see May 26, 2009)… for them this is the Apocalypse.… [N]ow all the the Republican gurus have left is what the defeated Germans of World War Two had: a scorched earth policy. If they can't win then everyone must go down. Obama must fail! The country must fail!" Using 70s-Era Anti-Abortion Protest Tactics - Schaeffer says conservative and industry lobbying firms orchestrating the anti-reform movement (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, May 29, 2009, and August 6-7, 2009) are using the same tactics he and his father helped create for anti-abortion clinic protesters in the 1970s. He notes one lobbying organization, Armey's FreedomWorks. "FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach that's been the norm for conservative organizations for years," Schaeffer writes. "How do I know this is the norm? Because I used to have strategy meetings with the late Jack Kemp (R-NY) and Dick Armey and the rest of the Republican gang about using their business ties to help finance the pro-life movement to defeat Democrats. I know this script. I helped write it. Democratic members of Congress are being harassed by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior at local town halls. It's the tactic we used to follow abortion providers around their neighborhoods. 'Protesters' surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (see June 22, 2009) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety. We used to do the same to Dr. Tiller… until someone killed him." [AlterNet (.org), 8/7/2009] Aware of Potential for Violence - In a previous interview with Maddow, Schaeffer expounded on this same topic. "[W]hat we did is we talked one game to the large public and we talked another game amongst ourselves," he told Maddow. "And amongst ourselves, we were very radical.… I know that this is the case because of the fact that I was part of the movement, but also understood very well what we were doing back then was to attack the political issue when we talked to people like Ronald Reagan and the Bush family and Jack Kemp—the late Jack Kemp that we were very close to in all this. But on a private side, we also were egging people on to first pick at abortion clinics, then chain themselves to fences, then go to jail. We knew full well that in a country that had seen the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, two Kennedy brothers, and others, that what we were also doing was opening a gate here. And I think there's no way to duck this. We live in a country in which guns are all over the place. We have plenty of people with a screw loose, plenty of people on the edge. It only takes one." [MSNBC, 6/1/2009] Using Lies to Obscure Facts, Disrupt Debate - The health care reform opponents are using what Schaeffer calls "[a] barrage of outright lies, wherein the Democrats are being accused of wanting to launch a massive euthanasia program against the elderly, free abortions for everyone, and 'a government takeover' of health care" to disrupt informed debate. Some protesters have escalated to physical violence and intimidation. Schaeffer says that just as in the 1970s, the protesters engaging in the physical violence are often "plants sent to disrupt public forums on the health care issue.… [M]uch of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama's reforms. There is no daylight between the Republican Party, the health care insurance industry, far-right leaders like Dick Armey, the legion of insurance lobbyists, and now, a small army of thugs.… No, I don't believe that these people are about to take over the country. No, the sky is not falling. But the Republican Party is. It is now profoundly anti-American. The health insurance industry is run by very smart and very greedy people who have sunk to a new low. So has the Republican Party's leadership that will not stand up and denounce the likes of Dick Armey for helping organize roving bands of thugs trying to strip the rest of us of the ability to be heard when it comes to the popular will on reforming health care." American Fascism - Schaeffer accuses the right of undermining American democracy and attempting to establish an almost-fascist control of society. "Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula," he writes: "combine millions of dollars of lobbyists' money with embittered troublemakers who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi-literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing—evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob together with the insurance companies' big bucks. That's how it works—American Brown Shirts at the ready." He notes that the murder of Tiller closed down his clinic, one of the few in the country that performed late-term abortions. So the murder of Tiller achieved the goal of the anti-abortion movement. "In this case a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save our economy from going bankrupt because of spiraling health care costs may be lost, not because of a better argument, but because of lies backed up by anti-democratic embittered thuggery. The motive? Revenge on America by the Old White Guys of the far right, and greed by the insurance industry." Schaeffer concludes, "It's time to give this garbage a name: insurance industry funded fascism." [AlterNet (.org), 8/7/2009]
Entity Tags: Frank Schaeffer, Francis Schaeffer, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, FreedomWorks, Tim Bishop, Rachel Maddow, Barack Obama
60+ logo. [Source: 60 Plus Association]An anti-health care reform television ad designed to frighten seniors into believing that so-called "death panels" will have government officials choosing to terminate them (see August 7, 2009, August 10, 2009, and August 10, 2009) is produced by a supposedly "non-partisan seniors advocacy group." However, in fact the group is led, organized, and funded by senior Republican operatives. The ad says in part that health care reform will, for seniors, "mean long waits for care, cuts to MRIs, CAT Scans, and other vital tests. Seniors may lose their own doctors. The government, not doctors, will decide if older patients are worth the cost." The organization that produced and released the ad is called the "60 Plus Association," or "60+," a registered non-profit organization that claims to be non-partisan. The president of 60+ is Jim Martin, a former official for the National Conservative Action Committee and another group, Americans Against Union Control of Government. The honorary chairman of 60+ is Roger Zion, a former Illinois Republican congressman whom the group's site calls "one of Washington's leading spokesman for the conservative cause." When 60+ began running ads against prescription drug reform a few years ago, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) discovered that, in the organization's words, "virtually all of their largest contributions in recent years have come from the same source—the nation's pharmaceutical industry." John Rother of AARP will confirm that 60+ is "funded primarily by corporate interests, especially pharmaceuticals." Speaking to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, he says that 60+ and other anti-reform groups are specifically targeting seniors. "I don't think you can look at those commercials and not conclude that seniors are the target of a very intentional scare campaign," he says. "And many seniors, of course, are worried about change because they depend on Medicare. They are perhaps not in the greatest of health, and they definitely want to know that Medicare will be there, their doctor will be there when they need it. So, change can be a little scary.… It certainly makes me angry because, you know, there are real issues and people should be engaged in this debate. But to scare people, to raise these bogus issues, to intentionally mislead a big part of the population is—you know, it's a subversion of democracy." Rother adds: "[W]e've looked at this bill and we read every page, we've concluded that the bills proposed in the Congress would be good for seniors, would actually help them afford their medications better, make sure that doctors are there when they need them. So, we feel there's nothing to be scared about in the actual legislation." In 2003, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer paid 60+ to organize opposition against prescription drug reform in Minnesota and New Mexico. 60+ in turn hired a PR firm, Bonner & Associates, which according to the AARP "specializes in 'Astroturf lobbying'" (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6-7, 2009). Bonner paid employees to call residents of those states and, identifying themselves as volunteers for 60+, urge them to oppose the legislation. 60+ also has ties to former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who directed Native American tribes to donate to 60+ in return for Republican support in Congress. 60+ has also lobbied in favor of approving the storage of nuclear waste at the infamous Yucca Mountain, Nevada, storage site. Maddow says: "[T]he campaign against health care reform in this country is being brought to you by professional, corporate-funded, Republican-staffed political PR operations. In this case, an organization that promotes itself as non-partisan but appears to be anything but. These are professional PR operatives that are scaring real Americans with increasingly paranoid and kooky lies about health care. And they're getting rich in the process, thanks to the largess of extremely interested parties who are more than willing to pay for their services." [MSNBC, 8/11/2009; MSNBC, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: John Rother, 60 Plus Association, American Association of Retired Persons, Jim Martin, Roger Zion, Rachel Maddow
The progressive news Web site AlterNet publishes an analysis of how health insurance and medical industry firms use so-called "Astroturf" organizations (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6-7, 2009) to work against health care reform. One firm investigated is the Medicines Company, a small pharmaceutical firm, which has hired the Washington lobbying firm DLA Piper to promote its interests, including fighting health care reform. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) is a senior policy adviser for DLA Piper, and heads the "grassroots" organization FreedomWorks, which apparently conducts protests and advocacy for the interests of DLA Piper's clients (see April 14, 2009). The AlterNet analysis, by Adele M. Stan, accuses Armey of having a conflict of interest in his dual roles as lobbyist and "grassroots" organizer. The Medicines Company's contract with DLA Piper comprises 15 percent of that firm's business. (The Medicines Company will later claim that it does not contract with any lobbying firms to influence anyone's position on health care legislation.) Other "Astroturf" organizations such as Grassfire.org and its subsidiary, ResistNet, are also involved in combating reform. ResistNet bills itself as "[t]he online community for patriotic citizens who are opposing the Obama-led socialist agenda." The home page of ResistNet's Web site features a video entitled "Obama Equals Hitler." ResistNet is run by Grassfire, which says it funds ResistNet as part of "our overall patriotic resistance efforts." Stan expands her analysis to include media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose NewsCorp owns Fox News. NewsCorp invests heavily in health industry firms, and, according to Stan, would profit by keeping reform from becoming law. Stan notes that one of Murdoch's key hires was radio and former CNN host Glenn Beck. Beck was hired, Stan claims, to host a Fox News show and to organize a group called the 9/12 Project. Beck's 9/12 Project, which, like Grassfire and ResistNet, serves as a "social networking" tool to bring together reform opponents, has been involved in a number of raucous anti-reform protests (see June 30, 2009 and August 6, 2009). Stan says the combination of these elements, along with what she calls "an oppressed-white-people narrative that has its roots in the origins of what used to be called the New Right," has created the "perfect storm" of converging trends to create a chaotic and confrontational season for anti-reform protests and lobbyists. [AlterNet (.org), 8/10/2009; MSNBC, 8/14/2009]
Entity Tags: ResistNet, News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, Medicines Company, FreedomWorks, Glenn Beck, AlterNet (.org), Adele M. Stan, 9/12 Project, DLA Piper, Grassfire (.org), Dick Armey, Fox News
Top "tea party" and other conservative organizers, taking part in a private conference call, discuss their primary goal for health care reform: blocking any kind of compromise entirely, and ensuring that no health care reform package of any kind is passed. An AFL-CIO organizer manages to get involved in the call, and his notes are provided to, first, the union itself, and then to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent. The call consists of representatives of powerful lobbying and "grassroots" organizations (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, and August 6-7, 2009) such as the American Liberty Alliance, the "Tea Party Patriots," and RecessRally.com (see August 5, 2009). [Plum Line, 8/11/2009] The conference call is sponsored by the "Tea Party Patriots," which labels itself the "official grassroots American movement." The group is sponsored and organized by, among other organizations, FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009). When the "Tea Party Patriots" organized a trip to Washington in July, FreedomWorks provided the members with prepared packets of information and briefed them on how a visit to Capitol Hill works. [MSNBC, 8/12/2009] Sargent writes: "It's certain to be seized on by [Democrats] to argue that organized tea party opposition to [President] Obama has no constructive intentions and is fomenting public 'concern' about Obama's plan solely to prevent any reform from ever taking place. GOP officials would argue that they don't share these goals." The moderator on the call tells participants that bipartisan compromise on the Senate Finance Committee, where senators are holding talks, must be stopped at all costs. Organizers are told to pressure Republican senators seen as likely to compromise with Senate Democrats, including Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), to stop the negotiating. "The goal is not compromise, and any bill coming out this year would be a failure for us," the moderator says. He adds that "the Democrats will turn even a weak bill from the Senate Finance Committee into Canadian-style single-payer through underhanded implementation." Single-payer, or a system of government-only health care, is not in any versions of the legislation in either house of Congress. Another organizer says, "The purpose of tea parties is not to find a solution to the health care crisis—it is to stop what is not the solution: Obamacare." A spokeswoman for the American Liberty Alliance later acknowledges that comments like the ones noted by the AFL-CIO source were likely made, and that the organization's specific goal is to prevent the current legislation in Congress from becoming law. No audio of the call exists, she claims. A "tea party" organizer later denies that his organization has any intention of "politically 'accepting' or denying legislation." [Plum Line, 8/11/2009]
Entity Tags: Greg Sargent, American Liberty Alliance, AFL-CIO, Barack Obama, FreedomWorks, Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, Olympia Snowe, Mike Enzi, Tea Party Patriots, Recess Rally
Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive with CIGNA who has now become a whistleblower against the industry (see July 10, 2009 and August 10, 2009), says that the raucous and contentious protests at health care "town halls" are the result of what he calls "covert," or "stealth" efforts by health insurance companies. Potter says he lacks the specifics for the current campaign, but he witnessed and actually took part in similar efforts in earlier years. This year's efforts follow similar patterns to the ones he was familiar with, he says. "The industry is up to the same dirty tricks this year," Potter says after meeting with House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY), who supports the Democrats' health care reform initiative. "When you hear someone complaining about traveling down a 'slippery slope to socialism,' some insurance flack, like I used to be, wrote that," Potter says. He notes that during his 20 years in the industry, he watched—and participated in—the industry's funneling money to large public firms who would create "Astroturf," or fake grassroots, organizations (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, and August 10, 2009) and use friendly conservative media voices. Slaughter says, "[T]he notion that this is going to be something devilish comes from the people who would lose money on it." [The Hill, 8/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Wendell Potter, Louise Slaughter
In an op-ed for USA Today, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) takes the White House to task for "letting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] and Congress run health care reform into the ground," and says that Republicans have always "stood ready to work with him to pass bipartisan health care reforms that reflect the priorities of struggling American families and small businesses." Boehner says Pelosi and the Congressional Democrats have crafted a bill that "puts Washington in control of Americans' health care—something most Americans staunchly oppose." He then accuses President Obama of trying to "spin the American people" about what he calls the "hopelessly flawed bill." He terms the bill "radical," and claims, falsely, that Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer labeled opponents of the bill "un-American" (see August 10, 2009—Pelosi and Hoyer wrote that "[d]rowning out opposing views is simply un-American"). Boehner says that neither Republicans nor anyone else "condone… the actions of those who disrupt public events," but decries those who claim the dissent against the bill is in any way "manufactured" (see April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, Before August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, and August 12, 2009). He says Obama is lying about the portion of the bill that would allow Americans to keep their present health care, and cites the debunked study by the Lewin Group (see July 27, 2009) as evidence. He says the bill would add $239 billion to the deficit over the next decade, says Obama is lying about not cutting Medicare benefits, and says Obama is lying when he says the bill would not lead to health care "rationing." Boehner concludes by claiming that "Republicans are offering better solutions that would make quality health care more affordable and accessible for every American," and calls on Obama to "scrap this costly plan, start over, and work with Republicans on reforms that reflect the priorities of the American people." [USA Today, 8/13/2009] Liberal news and advocacy Web site Think Progress notes that Boehner's office has sent out messages promoting the town hall disruptions, and notes that Boehner's claims of "rationing" are wrong. [Think Progress, 8/13/2009]
Entity Tags: Think Progress (.org), Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Steny Hoyer, John Boehner, Medicare
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), the head of the "astroturf" organization FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009), leaves his position as senior policy adviser for the Washington lobbying firm DLA Piper. Armey says he is leaving because of the negative press attention FreedomWorks is garnering, including "unwarranted" accusations that it is organizing "grassroots" citizen protests against health care reform on behalf of DLA Piper's clients. In an interview, he says: "The firm [DLA Piper] is busy with its business, and shouldn't be asked to take time out from their work, to defend themselves of spurious allegations. No client of this firm is going to be free to mind its own business without harassment as long as I'm associated with it." DLA Piper chairman Frank Burch says that the decision for Armey to leave is mutual. In his statement, Armey adds: "It is painful and frustrating to see a good, decent, able, and effective partnership of honorable men and women and their clients attacked for things in which they are not involved simply because of their association with me. One would expect a higher degree of competence and professionalism from members of the media than spurious attacks on innocent bystanders.… Let me be perfectly clear about DLA Piper. It is a fine firm with good, competent people. It has been my privilege to be associated with them and I will miss them. I am leaving the firm with regret but also with anticipation of being more fully engaged in the nation's struggle [against health care reform] and without having attacks on me being directed at others." Armey says he will now focus all of his efforts on FreedomWorks: "It is imperative for me, within the context of my life's work in the defense of personal liberty against the encroachments of big government, to give my undivided attention to the work we do at FreedomWorks. In short, the threat to personal liberty in America is so serious and imminent at this time that it requires the full commitment of my efforts. While I consider it a personal sacrifice to leave DLA Piper, it is a sacrifice I must make in light of the important work I am committed to at FreedomWorks." [Politico, 8/14/2009; TPM Muckraker, 8/14/2009]
Entity Tags: FreedomWorks, Dick Armey, DLA Piper, Frank Burch
MSNBC reports that FreedomWorks, the non-profit "grassroots" lobbying organization that has spearheaded anti-health care reform efforts (see April 14, 2009, June 26, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 14, 2009, and August 17, 2009), has recently raised the amount of money it charges organizations to take part in anti-reform protests. FreedomWorks used to charge groups $2,500 to distribute their materials at FreedomWorks-sponsored events; now the price is $10,000. However, the new price includes the opportunity for a group to have a speaker at a FreedomWorks rally. FreedomWorks says it is trying to offset costs for stages, equipment, and other operating costs. [MSNBC, 8/20/2009]
Entity Tags: FreedomWorks
One of many signs held by protesters at the 9/12 rally in Washington. [Source: Daily Kos]An organization called the "9/12 Project" (see March 13, 2009 and After), sponsored by Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck, holds a protest rally on the Capitol Mall in Washington. Other sponsors include lobbying firm FreedomWorks (see February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 2, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, and April 15, 2009), ResistNet (see August 10, 2009) and Tea Party Patriots (see July 17, 2009 and Late July, 2009). Many protesters credit Beck for inspiring them to come to the protest, though Beck himself does not attend. [Talking Points Memo, 9/12/2009; Washington Post, 9/12/2009] Many of the signs praise Beck and Fox News, while others celebrate former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), and other conservative figures. Still others further the claim that health care reform will "kill Grandma" (see August 12, 2009) and "kill babies." One sign, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), reads, "I need my health care… Pelosi makes me sick!" Many signs depict President Obama as a Communist or socialist; one claims, "I work hard so Obama voters don't have to!" and another refers to "Comrade Obama." One sign, declaring "Yes! We are a Christian nation!" is signed by one of the rally speakers, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC). [John Lewandowski, 9/12/2009] Inflating the Numbers - Reports by local police and fire officials estimate the crowd at between 60,000 and 70,000, which columnist Josh Marshall calls "smallish by big DC protest/event standards but definitely respectable." The Washington Post reports, "Tens of thousands protest Obama initiatives and government spending." However, estimates by conservative radio hosts, bloggers, and media commentators put the numbers far higher, at up to two million. (TPMDC's Brian Beutler notes that expectations were inflated the day before by a Democratic House staffer, who sent out an e-mail predicting a turnout "ranging from hundreds of thousands to two million people." Beutler writes: "For reference, two million is just a hair under four times the total population of Washington, DC, and approximately the number of people who showed up to the history-making inauguration of President Barack Obama. Sound like a bit of an exaggeration? It probably is." He also notes, "A source at a major liberal organization in Washington says, 'one of the things we decided to do was try to raise expectations for turnout.'" When the initial figures are published in the media, protest organizers and various participants begin claiming that the actual turnout was somewhere between one and two million, but the numbers are being suppressed by pro-Obama media outlets. [TPMDC, 9/11/2009; Talking Points Memo, 9/12/2009] One conservative blogger writes: "'Media' estimates range from 60,000 to 500,000 to around two million (yes, 2,000,000). Those estimates, the language employed, and the visuals chosen for use in reporting the rally and representing the people gathered, vary greatly based solely on bias." [St. Petersburg Times, 9/14/2009] Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin initially reports third-hand claims that ABC News is reporting turnouts between 1.2 and two million, then updates her report to note ABC denies making any such claim. She quotes another conservative blogger who writes, "However big it was, it was bigger than expected." By day's end, Malkin notes an ABC report that the wildly inflated crowd estimate came from FreedomWorks: "Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally Saturday that ABC News was reporting that one million to 1.5 million people were in attendance. At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, DC, fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as 'tens of thousands.' Brendan Steinhauser, spokesman for FreedomWorks, said he did not know why Kibbe cited ABC News as a source." Malkin then writes, "The Left, of course, has seized on the error to discredit the undeniably massive turnout today." [Michelle Malkin, 9/12/2009; ABC News, 9/13/2009] The next day, unidentified people circulate a photo from 1997 to 'prove' that the rally actually attracted over a million protesters (see September 13-14, 2009). Two days after the event, London's Daily Mail reports "up to two million" at the rally. [London Daily Mail, 9/14/2009] Fears of Socialism - The Post reports that many protesters wave signs and tell reporters about their fears of a "socialist America" under Obama, and warn that the Democrats' attempts to reform US health care are undermining the Constitution. One protester bellows into a bullhorn: "You want socialism? Go to Russia!" "Hell hath no fury like a taxpayer ignored," Andrew Moylan, head of government affairs for the National Taxpayers Union, tells the crowd, which responds with lusty cheers. One speaker, Representative Tom Price (R-GA), tells the crowd: "You will not spend the money of our children and our grandchildren to feed an overstuffed government. Our history is decorated by those who endured the burden of defending freedom. Now a new generation of patriots has emerged. You are those patriots." Many of the signs support Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC), who days before accused Obama of lying during the president's appearance before Congress (see September 9, 2009). [Washington Post, 9/12/2009] Exhortations to Violence? - Some of the signs and slogans chanted by the protesters strike observers as perhaps calling for violence against elected officials or citizens who disagree with the protesters' views, or are racist and/or personally slanderous. One sign depicts an assault rifle and the words, "We came unarmed from Montana and Utah… this time!" Another reads, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time… Pennsylvanians are armed and ready!" Another, referencing proposed "triggers" that would launch a government program to provide health insurance, depicts a rifle with the caption, "I got your 'trigger' right here… it's called the Second Amendment!" A number of protesters hold professionally printed signs referencing the recent death of Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), reading, "Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy." Another, referencing the Cleveland Zoo and the discredited "birther" theory, asks: "What's the difference between Cleveland and the White House? One has an African lion and another a lyin' African!" A related sign calls Obama the "president of Kenya." Another, purporting to speak in "ghetto slang," asks, "Where my white privilege males at?" A protester waves a sign reading, "Fascist are [sic] now in control they [sic] are like a cancer slowly killing America WAKE UP." The now-familiar signs of Obama with a Hitler mustache, and of "socialist" Obama made up like the Joker from Batman comics and movies, are also in evidence. One speaker calls Obama the "parasite-in-chief." [Washington Post, 9/12/2009; London Daily Mail, 9/14/2009] Reaction from Democrats - The reaction from Congressional Democrats is tepid. Doug Thornell, an adviser to Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), tells reporters, "There is a lot of intensity on the far right to defeat the president's agenda, but I am not sure that holding up signs that say we have to bury health reform with Senator Kennedy will go over well with moderates and independent voters." [Washington Post, 9/12/2009]
Entity Tags: Michelle Malkin, Matt Kibbe, Nancy Pelosi, Joshua Micah Marshall, Tom Price, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul, Washington Post, Tea Party Patriots, Joe Wilson, National Taxpayers Union, Jim DeMint, ResistNet, FreedomWorks, 9/12 Project, ABC News, Barack Obama, Andrew Moylan, Brian Beutler, Brendan Steinhauser, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Doug Thornell
Mark Williams, speaking on Anderson Cooper's CNN broadcast. [Source: TPM Muckraker]Mark Williams, a conservative talk radio host in Sacramento and a prominent spokesman for the nationally based Tea Party Express (TPE), appears on a CNN panel during that network's Anderson Cooper 360° and, while defending his organization against charges of racism, himself uses racist allegations against President Obama. Williams denounces those who carry openly racist signs against Obama during tea party events (see June 30, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, September 11, 2010), and September 12, 2010), calling them "no more part of the mainstream of America than the hippies who wear nipple clips and feather boas in San Francisco streets during so-called peace demonstrations." Cooper informs Williams, "What you're saying makes sense to me here when I'm hearing what you say but then I read on your blog, you say, you call the president an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief." Williams shrugs and answers, "Yeah, that's the way he's behaving." Cooper asks Williams if he really believes Obama is an Indonesian Muslim and a welfare thug, to which Williams responds: "He's certainly acting like it. Until he embraces the whole country what else can I conclude." [Huffington Post, 9/15/2009] TPE is one of the most "establishment" of the various tea party organizations. It was founded and run by Republican operatives and lobbyists, in a similar fashion to the Washington conservative lobbying firm FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009). Williams is a key element in making TPE a large and influential organization, and has publicly associated the organization with conservative Republican 2010 candidates such as Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle and Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller. [TPM Muckraker, 7/19/2010]
Entity Tags: Sharron Angle, Mark Williams (radio host), Anderson Cooper, Barack Obama, FreedomWorks, Tea Party Express, Joseph Wayne ("Joe") Miller
White House communications director Anita Dunn says that the White House believes Fox News is not a traditional, non-partisan news provider, but a media outlet for the Republican opposition. Fox News is "a wing of the Republican Party," Dunn says. "They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is." Dunn continues: "[W]e're not going to legitimize them as a news organization.… We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent. As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave." [Time, 10/8/2009; New York Times, 10/11/2009; Fox News, 10/12/2009] In late September, Dunn told a reporter: "It's opinion journalism masquerading as news. They are boosting their audience. But that doesn't mean we are going to sit back." [Time, 9/30/2009] Fox News retorts that its news reporting segments, which its vice president Michael Clemente defines as being broadcast between "9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays," are non-partisan, and criticism of the White House and Congressional Democrats is limited to commentary by on-air personalities such as Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck (see October 13, 2009). "The average consumer certainly knows the difference between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page," Clemente says, and adds that the White House is intentionally conflating Fox's news programs with its opinion shows: "It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part.… Instead of governing, the White House continues to be in campaign mode, and Fox News is the target of their attack mentality. Perhaps the energy would be better spent on the critical issues that voters are worried about." Another Fox News vice president, Bill Shine, welcomes the criticism, saying, "Every time they do it, our ratings go up." Fox News has recently hired more outspoken conservative media figures, including former ABC News reporter John Stossel for its spin-off channel, Fox Business, and is reputedly negotiating to hire commentator Lou Dobbs away from CNN. Dunn and others say that it will not ostracize Fox News, and its White House correspondent, Major Garrett, will continue to be welcome at White House press conferences. Clemente has instructed Garrett, news anchor Shepard Smith, and other Fox reporters not to appear on some of its commentary programs. However, the White House has limited appearances by its members on Fox News shows; in mid-September, when President Obama made the rounds of Sunday morning talk shows, he skipped Fox, and the White House called Fox an "ideological outlet" instead of a legitimate news provider (see September 18-19, 2009). White House advisers note that in the past, Fox News hosts have falsely accused Obama of attending an Islamic "madrassa" to receive indoctrination in radical Islam (see January 22-24, 2008), promoted "tea party" rallies against the government (see March 23-24, 2009, April 6-7, 2009, April 6-13, 2009, April 13-15, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 16, 2009, May 13-14, 2009, July 28, 2009, and August 28, 2009), called Obama "unpatriotic" for attempting to land the 2016 Olympics for the US (see October 2, 2009), and led a push to force low-level White House adviser Van Jones out of his job (including accusations from Beck that Jones was a "communist-anarchist radical"). The White House notes that Beck and other Fox commentators regularly lie about the day's events, and cites a recent example where Beck complained that Garrett was "never called on" at White House press briefings, when Garrett had asked a question of the president that same day. Beck has repeatedly called Obama a "racist," leading to a boycott of advertisers for Beck's show (see July 28-29, 2009). [Time, 10/8/2009; New York Times, 10/11/2009; Media Bistro, 10/11/2009] Fox News encourages and promotes the dispute with the White House, and its ratings improve. Later, a Fox News executive tells Clemente that the White House's attacks were like "a hanging curveball" for the network. [New York Magazine, 5/22/2011]
Entity Tags: Shepard Smith, Michael Clemente, Van Jones, Lou Dobbs, Obama administration, John Stossel, Major Garrett, Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Anita Dunn, Glenn Beck, Bill Shine
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, political activist Virginia Thomas. [Source: Associated Press]In November 2009, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a former Republican campaign operative and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, establishes a new "tea party" organization she calls Liberty Central. (Some media sources claim that Liberty Central begins operations in January 2010.) She describes the group as intended to bridge the gap between the conservative Republican establishment and the anti-government tea party movement. "I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Nebraska, who just may have the chance to preserve liberty along with you and other people like you," she says at a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) discussion with tea party leaders in Washington. "I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across this country. I have felt called to the front lines with you, with my fellow citizens, to preserve what made America great." She also says she started the group because of her reaction to what she calls President Obama's "hard-left agenda." The group also intends to work to elect Republicans and defeat Democrats, and provide political strategies and "talking points" for conservative candidates. [Los Angeles Times, 3/14/2010; Commission, 7/1/2010; Politico, 7/6/2010; Politico, 2/4/2011] In May 2010, the organization officially declares itself open for business, launching a $27,000 Web site, and touting partnerships with a number of prominent conservative groups and the backing of prominent conservatives such as former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo, whom Justice Thomas has called "my good friend." [Politico, 7/6/2010] Questions of Conflict of Interest, Ethics - Almost immediately, legal ethicists assert that Virginia Thomas's role as the head of a partisan, openly political advocacy organization could taint her husband's impartiality, especially in light of the Citizens United Court decision, in which her husband sided with the 5-4 majority (see January 21, 2010), that allows her group to accept donations and spend them without publicly disclosing information about them. The group could have benefited from the Court's decision, and Justice Thomas's decision could be seen as being influenced by his wife's decision to start the group. Law school professor Lucas A. "Scot" Powe, a Court historian, says, "I think the American public expects the justices to be out of politics." The expectations for spouses are not so clear, he adds, saying, "I really don't know because we've never seen it." Legal ethicist Stephen Gillers, another law professor, says, "We expect the justice to make decisions uninfluenced by the political or legal preferences of his or her spouse." Moreover, the press learns that while the Court was deliberating the Citizens United case, Liberty Central received an anonymous $550,000 donation. Government watchdog organization Common Cause wrote a letter to the Justice Department asking if Justice Thomas should recuse himself from the case, and wrote that "the complete lack of transparency of Liberty Central's finances makes it difficult to assess the full scope of the ethics issues raised by Ms. Thomas's role in founding and leading the group." (The media later learns that $500,000 of the anonymous $550,000 donation for the organization comes from Dallas real estate investor Harlan Crow, who also hosts a fundraising event for the organization at his home. Crow once gave Justice Thomas a $19,000 "Frederick Douglass Bible" as a gift, and donated $150,000 to build a new wing named for Justice Thomas on a Savannah, Georgia, library that he visited frequently in his youth.) Common Cause also notes that Justice Thomas had failed to report on his financial disclosure filings his wife's income over the last 13 years, prompting him to file amendments to the filings that indicated the sources, but not the amounts, of his wife's income. Justice Thomas refuses to recuse himself from the case. Period of Success - Liberty Central flourishes for a brief time, with Virginia Thomas assembling a veteran staff and forging relationships with conservative donors, with most of whom she and her husband had long, close relationships. Carl Graham of the Montana Policy Institute, one of the over 30 state and national tea party groups that are listed as partners in Liberty Central's affiliate network, says, "Her association with Justice Thomas clearly provides a level of credibility that others wouldn't be able to have, just because of the beliefs that he has and the stands that he has on the different positions that align with our own." Liberty Central's connection with Justice Thomas, Graham says, "gets you to open the email, if nothing else, as opposed to some other one that you may not even open." Liberty Central hires the services of CRC Public Relations, a prominent Washington communications firm that has garnered some $15 million in fees from a number of clients, including top Republican Party committees and the presidential campaigns or political committees of George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, among others. Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, a tea party lobbying organization also partnered with Liberty Central (see April 14, 2009 and April 15, 2009), says, "Ginni was able to raise the seed capital to have a real launch" because of her connections in small-government conservative circles. Kibbe says most people are unaware that she is the wife of a Supreme Court justice. Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin calls Thomas a "mentor" for many tea party organizations, and says she helps these organizations "to navigate some of the waters in DC.… She's been kind of a mentor, and when we had questions about things that we were doing, we bounced a few of the ideas off of her and also off of a few other people in DC just to make sure that what we were doing made sense." [Los Angeles Times, 3/14/2010; Politico, 7/6/2010; Politico, 2/4/2011] Media Attention - In a June 2010 interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Thomas says she is sure "liberals" will "persecute" her just as she says they did when her husband was undergoing confirmation for the Supreme Court. "They're after me now sometimes," she says. "And so, we're not going to be dissuaded. We are in the fight for our country's life." She and Hannity engage in a lively conversation about the "tyranny" of the Obama administration. She also promises to "watch for conflicts" between herself and her husband. In October 2010, the media reports that Virginia Thomas leaves a voice mail for former college professor Anita Hill, who accused her husband of sexual harassment during his confirmation hearings for the Court (see October 8, 1991, October 8-12, 1991, and October 11-12, 1991), demanding that Hill issue an apology to her husband. The voice mail says: "Good morning, Anita Hill, it's Ginni Thomas. I just want to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometimes and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay, have a good day." The attention from the voice mail prompts more negative media attention, and some donors begin distancing themselves from the organization. (Virginia Thomas later admits that her voice mail message for Hill was "probably a mistake," though she will call the media's response to it "laughable." She will call the message "an olive branch" she extends to Hill. For her part, Hill says: "I don't apologize. I have no intention of apologizing and I stand by my testimony in 1991.") [Los Angeles Times, 3/14/2010; Fox News, 6/8/2010; Politico, 7/6/2010; Politico, 10/19/2010; Washington Post, 11/15/2010] Thomas Steps Down, Group Merges with Another Organization - In November 2010, Virginia Thomas steps down from her leadership post at Liberty Central. The group then merges with another, similar group called the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, an organization founded by ex-CIA agent Gary Aldrich, who wrote a largely discredited book "exposing" the "secrets" of the Clinton administration. Sources later tell reporters that Virginia Thomas sells off Liberty Central because it cannot raise the funds needed to support its large staff and high overhead. According to CRC spokeswoman Caitlin Carroll, Thomas will "take a back seat so that Liberty Central can continue with its mission without any of the distractions. After discussing it with the board, Mrs. Thomas determined that it was best for the organization." However, Sarah E. Field, general counsel of Liberty Central, disagrees, saying: "There are many opportunities being presented to Liberty Central, but there is no agreement at this time.… The sources of this story appear to be people without full understanding of the facts." Keith Appell of CRC tells a reporter that the Washington Post's Amy Gardner "breached confidentiality" by reporting her conversation with Carroll. Gardner responds, "Everything I attributed to Caitlin Carroll comes from an on-the-record conversation we had by telephone this morning." Within hours, Thomas files incorporation papers for a new political lobbying and consulting firm, Liberty Consulting (see February 4, 2011). [Politico, 7/6/2010; Politico, 11/15/2010; Washington Post, 11/15/2010; Politico, 2/4/2011]
Entity Tags: Lucas A. ("Scot") Powe, Liberty Central, US Department of Justice, Matt Kibbe, Leonard Leo, Obama administration, US Supreme Court, Sean Hannity, Virginia ("Ginni") Thomas, Keith Appell, Stephen Gillers, Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, Jenny Beth Martin, Sarah E. Field, Gary Aldrich, Barack Obama, Anita Hill, Amy Gardner, CRC Public Relations, Caitlin Carroll, Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas, FreedomWorks, Carl Graham, Donald Rumsfeld, Common Cause, Conservative Political Action Conference
An image of Dede Scozzafava, altered by a conservative activist to make her appear as Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold. [Source: Saberpoint (.com)]Democratic candidate Bill Owens wins an unexpected, narrow victory in a special election for the US House seat representing New York State's 23rd District, a win widely seen as a setback to the national tea party movement. Owens ran against Conservative Party candidate Douglas L. Hoffman in a race that saw the original Republican Party candidate, Dede Scozzafava, drop out under heavy pressure from local, state, and national tea party organizations to give way to Hoffman, their preferred candidate. Scozzafava was the unanimous choice of the 11 county chairs of the district's Republican Party organization. The 23rd District is traditionally Republican. Conservative figures identified with the tea party, such as former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), who has presidential aspirations, came out strongly in favor of Hoffman and against Scozzafava, as did talk show hosts Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Fred Thompson, and the editorial pages of the Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal. Scozzafava is a moderate Republican who supports gay and abortion rights, and the federal economic stimulus package promoted by the Bush and Obama administrations. The Republican National Committee (RNC), which had backed Scozzafava, applauded her decision to withdraw and endorsed Hoffman. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who like the RNC had supported Scozzzafava but in the days before the election endorsed Hoffman, says he worries that having third-party candidates routinely enter races would split conservative votes and give Democrats control of federal and state governments. "This makes life more complicated from the standpoint of this," he says."If we get into a cycle where every time one side loses, they run a third-party candidate, we'll make [Nancy] Pelosi [D-CA] speaker for life and guarantee [President] Obama's re-election.… I think we are going to get into a very difficult environment around the country if suddenly conservative leaders decide they are going to anoint people without regard to local primaries and local choices." After Hoffman's loss, some tea party figures blame the Republican Party for the defeat, saying that if the party had gotten behind Hoffman from the outset, he would have defeated Owens. Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, agrees, saying: "I think Doug Hoffman likely would have won if he had been the Republican candidate from the get-go. It wasn't a spike in the end zone for the Democrats. They got that seat not because Democrats were brilliant, but because Republicans were stupid." Some conservatives attempt to frame the loss as a victory because they forced the more moderate Scozzafava out of the race. Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) says, "Our number one goal was to make clear that the Republican Party cannot take someone as liberal as Dede Scozzafava and thrust her out on the voters and expect the voters just to accept it." The seat became vacant after Representative John M. McHugh (R-NY) was appointed by President Obama to become secretary of the Army. After facing a barrage of heavy criticism from Limbaugh, Palin, and the like, Scozzafava abruptly withdrew from the race and threw her support to Owens. Some critics questioned Hoffman's eligibility to run for the seat, noting that his home in Lake Placid, New York, is not in the district. The conservative Club for Growth spent $1 million promoting Hoffman's candidacy, and other conservative organizations such as the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List and NOM also supported Hoffman. The groups funneled cash into Hoffman's campaigns, printed up literature, and sent volunteers from other areas in the country to work for Hoffman. Dick Armey, the former House majority leader who now heads the conservative lobbying group FreedomWorks (see February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 2, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, and April 15, 2009), says the race proves Republicans need to stop fielding moderate candidates. "My own view right now is the myth that you have to be a moderate—a Democrat lite—to win in the Northeast probably has less standing now than in any time since I've been in politics," Armey says. "The small-government candidate in the Republican Party—or running as an independent—is going to be the one to draw the energy of these voters." Marilyn Musgrave, a former representative from Colorado who works for the Anthony List, says after the election that the conservative backing of Hoffman proves to Washington lawmakers that they should not take conservative votes for granted. "Don't just assume we're yours," she says. [Christian Science Monitor, 10/29/2009; New York Times, 10/31/2009; New York Times, 11/3/2009]
Entity Tags: Dick Armey, Dede Scozzafava, Tim Pawlenty, Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, Brian Brown, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Bill Owens, Rush Limbaugh, Susan B. Anthony List, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Fred Thompson, Douglas L. Hoffman, John M. McHugh, Republican National Committee, Nancy Pelosi, Mike Huckabee, National Organization for Marriage, Marilyn Musgrave, Club for Growth
Reporter Lee Fang of the liberal Center for American Progress writes an op-ed for the Boston Globe comparing the current political attacks against Democratic efforts to reform health care being coordinated by the Koch brothers (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, and November 2009) with the efforts of their father, Fred Koch (see 1940 and After), to label former President John F. Kennedy a traitor and a Communist tool. David Koch recently helped coordinate, from behind the scenes, a protest that compared health care reform to the Holocaust, and other protests that have turned violent. More systematically, he and his reclusive brother Charles have funded such conservative organizations as Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004) and other front groups, none of which bear the Koch name. Fang writes: "Americans for Prosperity's tactics are not new. Just as Koch inherited his oil business from his father, Americans for Prosperity borrows from the ultra-right group also founded in part by his dad, the John Birch Society" (see 1945 and After, March 10, 1961, 1963, August 4, 2008, and April 26, 2010). Fred Koch helped conceive the far-right, anti-Communist John Birch Society (JBS), which, Fang writes, "cloaked its pro-business, anti-civil rights agenda in the rhetoric of the Cold War." The JBS labeled Kennedy a Communist-inspired traitor and advocated his impeachment (see November 1963), stood against taxation as another aspect of "creeping Communism" inside the federal government, and claimed that the civil rights movement was being directed by the Soviet Union (see April 13, 2009 and December 11, 2009). The JBS helped promote the 1964 presidential candidacy of Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and helped Republicans win key Congressional seats in 1966. AFP and the JBS are alike, Fang notes, in that they rarely acknowledge their funding from wealthy corporate magnates. Both portray themselves as grassroots organizations that are dedicated to promoting freedom. For a time, the JBS succeeded in aligning the interests of the very rich with the idea of anti-Communist patriotism. Similarly, AFP promotes the interests of the extremely wealthy, including the Koch brothers, as synonymous with patriotic opposition to health care reform, financial regulation, net neutrality, and the estate tax. All are labeled as "socialist," a favorite JBS epithet. Fang concludes that "[w]ith his millions," David Koch will have "contributed greatly to the obstruction of universal health care, the denial of climate change, and the derailment of much of President Obama's domestic agenda. His dad would be pleased." [Boston Globe, 12/6/2009]
Entity Tags: Barry Goldwater, Americans for Prosperity, Barack Obama, Charles Koch, David Koch, John Birch Society, John F. Kennedy, Lee Fang, Fred Koch
Richard Mack speaks to a tea party rally in Post Falls, Idaho, in November 2009. [Source: Rajah Bose / New York Times]The New York Times publishes a large front-page story on America's "tea party" movement. The report is written by staff reporter David Barstow, who researched the story for five months, first joining a bus tour by the Tea Party Express (see August 28, 2009) and then staying for the month of October in and around Spokane, Washington, to interview tea party members and others, such as white supremacist militia members, who have some affiliation with tea party organizations. The first person he mentions is a retiree named Pam Stout, who once worked for federal housing programs and is now aghast at the government's handling of the economic crisis. She told Barstow that one day "she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated—even manufactured—by both parties to grab power." She went to a tea party rally, then a meeting of the Sandpoint Tea Party Patriots, where she surprised herself by nominating herself for president. Under her leadership, the Sandpoint group joined a coalition, Friends for Liberty, that includes representatives from Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project (see March 13, 2009 and After), the extremist, anti-Communist John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011), and the Oath Keepers (see March 9, 2009 and March 2010), a far-right militia organization. Stout told Barstow that her family worries that she has become enmeshed in a group of conspiracy theorists and ad hoc revolutionaries, but she said she has never felt more engaged. [New York Times, 2/15/2010; Columbia Journalism Review, 2/18/2010] Increasing Tilt towards Anti-Government Militia Ideology - Barstow writes that many tea party members are like Stout, with an inclination to conservative anti-government politics, but also with a fear of eventual government tyranny that has driven them to join the movement. "These people are part of a significant undercurrent within the tea party movement that has less in common with the Republican Party than with the Patriot movement," he writes, "a brand of politics historically associated with libertarians, militia groups, anti-immigration advocates, and those who argue for the abolition of the Federal Reserve. Urged on by conservative commentators, waves of newly minted activists are turning to once-obscure books and Web sites and discovering a set of ideas long dismissed as the preserve of conspiracy theorists, interviews conducted across the country over several months show." Many tea partiers hold former President Bush and President Obama in equal contempt, holding them jointly responsible for deliberately undermining the Constitution and the free market system "for the benefit of a shadowy international network of wealthy elites" (see February 4-8, 2010). Coalition groups like Friends of Liberty are "forming hybrid entities of tea parties and groups rooted in the Patriot ethos. A fear of government tyranny is one of the most common ideological threads running through virtually all tea party organizations." Targeting Republicans as Well as Democrats - Barstow continues: "These coalitions are not content with simply making the Republican Party more conservative. They have a larger goal—a political reordering that would drastically shrink the federal government and sweep away not just Mr. Obama, but much of the Republican establishment, starting with Senator John McCain" and other Republicans whom they consider part of the "government conspiracy" to destroy democracy. While tea parties routinely target Democrats in elections, they are also targeting more moderate Republicans, especially those who support ideas or legislation that they feel is part of the "conspiracy." Republicans who supported the government bailouts of large corporations are being targeted, as are those who support global warming legislation or who have shown any impetus to work with the White House or with Congressional Democrats (see January 29, 2010). Barstow notes that the tea party movement is anything but homogenous and rigidly organized: "It is an amorphous, factionalized uprising with no clear leadership and no centralized structure." Some groups are "essentially appendages of the local Republican Party," but many are not. However, many of the beliefs espoused by individual tea partiers tend to be reflected in most groups. Not all believe that Obama wants to impose a dictatorship, with or without McCain's help, but many do. The frustration expressed by Stout in the economy and the government's response to it is echoed throughout tea party groups in every state. Turning to Radical Ideologies and Conspiracy Theorists - One of the tea partiers' favorite thinkers is Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck (see March 29, 2009). Beck's often-revisionist, often-inaccurate opinions led many tea partiers to read the Federalist Papers (or, more often, right-wing blogs about the Federalist Papers), conspiracist "exposes" of the Federal Reserve, and the novels of Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Online resources tailored for tea party organizations provide a wealth of what Barstow calls "radical critiques of Washington." Two of the primary sites are ResistNet.com and InfoWars, both of which combine far-right ideology with a plethora of conspiracy theories covering everything from 9/11 and the Federal Reserve to the New World Order (see September 11, 1990). Some tea partiers are joining with militia groups, or forming their own, and making stockpiles of food, gold, and weaponry to prepare for the end of civilization. Many tea party leaders say they believe that a return to a strict adherence to constitutional law would solve most of the nation's problems, but many of them espouse a radical view of the Constitution, such as that delineated by radical Constitutional revisionist W. Cleon Skousen (first popularized among the tea party community by Beck—see 1963). Many want to completely do away with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the federal income tax, and most government agencies, all of which they say violate the Constitution. Some go even farther, advocating secession, states "nullfying" federal laws, and the formation of citizen militias. The tea parties in the Pacific Northwest, Barstow writes, have been shaped by influences such as libertarian Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) and by the sometimes-violent anti-government activism of northern Idaho (see Early 1970s, 1980-1982, 1983-1995, and February 15, 1995). The 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992), which occurred in nearby Idaho, is a touchstone for many tea partiers, just as it was for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see August 21-31, 1992). Many, but not all, tea party members and groups embrace the "birther" conspiracy theory that Obama is not a natural American citizen. A favorite news blog, WorldNetDaily, routinely electrifies the movement by warning of new White House plans to build massive internment camps and stuff them with tea party members, or of plans to send waves of United Nations troops throughout the nation to confiscate Americans' guns. ResistNet regularly warns that Obama is trying to convert Interpol, the international police organization, into his own personal police force, and advises tea partiers to "grab their guns." Tea partiers like Mary Johnson of New Mexico points to the Bush-era wiretapping scandal as proof that the government can, and is, preparing to bring democracy to an end. As the groups' fear and contempt for the federal government grows, Barstow writes, they turn more frequently to "fringe" groups such as white supremacist, anti-government militias. In Indiana, a militia coalition called Defenders of Liberty is networking with tea party groups and other "Patriot" organizations throughout the state. Darin Stevens, the leader of the Spokane 9/12 project, told Barstow that before tuning in to Beck's show, he had paid almost no attention to politics. After the recession hit and his personal financial structure started to collapse, he began watching Beck. "I had no clue that my country was being taken from me," he explains. He began the Spokane chapter of Beck's 9/12 project, and was astounded that 110 people attended the first meeting. Stevens now belongs to the Oath Keepers as well as the 9/12 Project. Spokane tea partier Leah Southwell became a convert after stumbling on Paul's speeches on YouTube. Southwell turned from being a successful Mary Kay makeup sales representative to being a self-described member of "the uprising." Southwell, through Paul, is now fully supportive of the Patriot ideology, and holds as evident truth a number of conspiracy theories involving the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations. "The more you know, the madder you are," she told Barstow. "I mean when you finally learn what the Federal Reserve is!" Southwell is now a local official with the John Birch Society. She says that the affiliation between organizations like the JBS and the tea parties will continue to grow: "Most of these people [tea partiers] are just waking up." Former car salesman Richard Mack, a longtime militia supporter who co-wrote Ruby Ridge survivor Randy Weaver's memoirs, is a favorite speaker at tea party events. "People just do not trust any of this," Mack told Barstow. "It's not just the fringe people anymore. These are just ordinary people—teachers, bankers, housewives." Amorphous Structure - Local tea party groups often join, in one degree or another, one of several competing national tea party organizations such as ResistNet or the Tea Party Express, most of which are organized, staffed, and funded by conservative lobbying groups such as FreedomWorks (see February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 2, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, and April 15, 2009) or Americans for Prosperity (see Late 2004, February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, and April 2009 and After). Some tea party groups have been joined by, or in some cases overrun by, other groups, from "birthers" to militias, supporters of Lyndon LaRouche, pro-gun groups, and the sovereign states movement. Many coalitions such as Friends of Liberty were formed in opposition to what leaders called the endless "hijack attempts" by state and county Republican Parties. Dann Selle of the Official Tea Party of Spokane told Barstow, "We had to stand our ground, I'll be blunt." Support from Elected Politicians - Rick Perry, the governor of Texas and a possible 2012 Republican candidate for president, has joined with Texas tea parties in supporting the state's secession from the United States. Nevada Republican Joe Heck, who ran for Congress in 2008, attacked both parties for moving the nation towards "socialist tyranny" and solicited tea party support at a rally in Las Vegas. Indiana Republican Richard Behney, running for the US Senate, told tea party supporters that if the 2010 elections did not turn out to his liking: "I'm cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show. And I'm serious about that, and I bet you are, too." [New York Times, 2/15/2010]
Entity Tags: ResistNet, Richard Behney, Richard Mack, Republican Party, Ron Paul, US Federal Reserve, Tea Party Express, WorldNetDaily, Sandpoint Tea Party Patriots, W. Cleon Skousen, Timothy James McVeigh, Pam Stout, Oath Keepers, New York Times, Mary Johnson, Defenders of Liberty, 9/12 Project, Americans for Prosperity, Barack Obama, Dann Selle, Fox News, FreedomWorks, Friends for Liberty, Glenn Beck, Leah Southwell, John McCain, Darin Stevens, John Birch Society, James Richard ("Rick") Perry, InfoWars, Joe Heck, David Barstow
A portion of the Northern Colorado Tea Party logo. [Source: Northern Colorado Tea Party]In the wake of tea party anti-health care reform protests that resulted in protesters verbally abusing a disabled man (see March 16, 2010), hurling racial and homophobic slurs at lawmakers, spitting on a lawmaker (see March 20, 2010), and threatening Democrats with violence (see March 24-25, 2010), the leaders of some tea party organizations condemn the harassment and threats of violence their members are producing. At the same time, these leaders say that their members are responsible for the incidents they condemn. Politico reports, "There hasn't been any hard evidence that the reported harassment is linked to the tea party movement, but Democrats have tried to draw the link between the harassment and the sometimes-inflammatory rhetoric that tea partiers and Republicans deployed in opposing the health care overhaul." A group of Florida tea party organizers releases a letter to Congress and President Obama saying they "stand in stark opposition to any person using derogatory characterizations, threats of violence, or disparaging terms toward members of Congress or the president." The letter calls the tea parties "a peaceful movement," and says its leaders denounce "all forms of violence" and "support all efforts to bring [any perpetrators] to justice and have encouraged full cooperation within our movement and have asked for the same from the members of Congress who have laid such claims." The letter is also signed by the Florida chapter of FreedomWorks, the Washington-based lobbying group that sponsors and coordinates many tea party organizations (see April 14, 2009). FreedomWorks spokesman Brendan Steinhauser, who helps organize local tea parties around the country for FreedomWorks, issues a statement saying, "Political violence is both immoral and ineffective, and will only set the movement back." He says he is "reminding all grassroots leaders that it's important to focus our efforts on peaceful, political efforts like protests, office visits, letters, petitions, and of course, voting." However, Steinhauser says, there is no evidence that tea party members have engaged in any such actions: "We must remember that the folks committing these acts are small in number, extreme in their methods, and not yet proven to be members of our movement. But we must be diligent in denouncing all acts of political violence and racism, when they occur." A Colorado tea party coalition issues a similar statement, which reads in part, "Tea party and similar groups across Colorado are saddened tonight to hear of threats made upon Democratic lawmakers in response to the passing their recent health insurance reform legislation, specifically… Rep. Betsy Markey." Office staffers for Markey (D-CO) have reported at least one death threat from an unidentified caller. The Colorado release states, "[I]t does not appear that these threats stemmed from those within Colorado's tea party movement." However: "organizers and members alike are firmly denouncing any acts of intimidation or threat. Statewide, tea party leadership has encouraged disappointed members to get involved in the political process rather than dwell on the passage of the health care bill." Lesley Hollywood, the director of the Northern Colorado Tea Party, promises: "I can assure you that myself and my colleagues will take immediate action if any of these allegations are discovered to be connected to our organizations. At this time, our internal investigations have not revealed any correlation between the threats and the Tea Party." [Politico, 3/25/2010; Fox News, 3/26/2010] Of the threats directed towards Markey, Hollywood says: "Tea Party and similar groups across Colorado are saddened tonight to hear of threats made upon [Markey]. Although it does not appear that these threats stemmed from those within Colorado's tea party movement, organizers and members alike are firmly denouncing any acts of intimidation or threat.… These threats are likely coming from rogue, outside sources." [KDVR-TV, 3/25/2010] Days before, FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon said: "If the movement gets tattooed as at all sympathetic to those [racist and homophobic] views, I won't want to be involved in it anymore. It's very distracting not only to our side but also to the debate and the country." [Politico, 3/22/2010] Atlanta Tea Party co-founder Debbie Dooley, a national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, says: "We support peaceful means.… There are so many tea party groups that are out there.… It's like herding cats. It's impossible." James Clyburn (D-SC), a Democratic House member, accuses House Republicans of egging on abusive behavior from the tea partiers. "If we participate in it, either from the balcony or on the floor of the House, you are aiding and abetting this kind of terrorism, really," he says. Steinhauser alleges that similar threats and rhetoric have come from liberal activists, and accuses the media of ignoring those actions. [Fox News, 3/26/2010]
Entity Tags: FreedomWorks, Barack Obama, Atlanta Tea Party, Adam Brandon, Betsy Markey, Debbie Dooley, Politico, US Congress, Northern Colorado Tea Party, Brendan Steinhauser, Tea Party Patriots, James Clyburn, Lesley Hollywood
Tea party leaders angrily deny that their movement has any tolerance for racism and anti-Semitism, and say that accusations of this are attempts by "liberals" to "marginalize" the movement. Any incidents of racist or anti-Semitic sloganeering or other activities, they say, are isolated and not tolerated by the organizations themselves (see February 18, 2009, August 1, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 11, 2009, September 2009, September 14, 2009, March 16, 2010, March 20, 2010, March 24-25, 2010, May 14, 2010, July 14, 2010, July 15, 2010, July 23, 2010, August 6, 2010, September 11, 2010, September 12, 2010, and April 15, 2011). Sal Russo, chief strategist of the Tea Party Express, says: "Liberals and Democrats, with help from their friends in the media, have tried to marginalize the tea party movement. First they said [the tea party movement] was AstroTurf, that these weren't real people (see March 13, 2009 and After, April 2009 and After, April 6-13, 2009, April 8, 2009, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 16, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 24, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 28, 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 30, 2010, and September 20, 2010).… Then they said it's just a bunch of crackpots, and they would go out and find the oddest person in the crowd. Now they're using race. But the attempts to vilify this movement is what you'd expect. It's not going to work with the tea party." Tea party leaders say that recent reports of harassment, threats, and vandalism of Democratic lawmakers by opponents of the Obama administration's health care reform initiative (see August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 10, 2009, March 20, 2010, and March 24-25, 2010) are isolated incidents that have nothing to do with their organizations; House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) says he has also received hateful emails and telephone messages, but has chosen not to publicize them. Cantor has previously said that someone fired a bullet into his Richmond office, an event that local police will determine was a ricochet and not fired directly at his office. As to suggestions that Republican lawmakers such as himself have encouraged their supporters to harass or threaten Democrats, Cantor says, "Any suggestion that a leader in this body would incite threats or acts against other members is akin to saying that I would endanger myself, my wife, or my children." However, Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) says he and others were singled out by Cantor, and have received death threats and harassing emails and telephone calls, including some from people identifying themselves as tea party members. Senate Sergeant at Arms Terry Gainer has told reporters that there is "no evidence that annoying, harassing, or threatening telephone calls or emails are coordinated." Dale Robertson of TeaParty.org says that he believes the reports of tea partiers vilifying or spitting on Democratic lawmakers are lies concocted by Democrats: "These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there. They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never seen any racial slurs." In February 2009, Robertson was photographed holding a sign at a tea party rally in Houston bearing a racial slur (see February 27, 2009). [Washington Independent, 1/4/2010; Washington Times, 3/26/2010; Mediaite, 3/26/2010]
Entity Tags: Eric Cantor, Chris Van Hollen, Dale Robertson, Sal Russo, Obama administration
The exterior of the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colorado. [Source: Real Aspen (.com)]The reclusive but highly influential Charles Koch, of the Koch brothers oil empire (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, and July 3-4, 2010), holds a private meeting with some 200 wealthy financial and political figures at the exclusive St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colorado. The meeting is designed to bring the participants together to combat what Koch calls "the threats posed to American freedom and prosperity" by Democrats and the Obama administration. To that end, many of the sessions in the two-day event target methods and plans to influence and manipulate the upcoming 2010 midterm elections. The meeting is highly secretive, with participants warned not to discuss the proceedings with anyone, especially members of the media, but in August, the liberal news Web site Think Progress will obtain a copy of a September 2010 memo from Koch that contains the June 2010 event program. The various events include: a seminar on "The Bankrupting of America"; a seminar on the "regulatory assault" on environmental concerns and how to further business goals by defeating environmental regulations; a seminar on how to influence universities and colleges to "advance liberty"; a seminar on how to "micro-target" the electorate in order to win elections for conservative Republican candidates; a seminar on "The Threats to American Freedom and Prosperity" conducted by Koch himself; "Understanding the Threats We Face," a seminar moderated by Wall Street Journal reporter Stephen Moore (see May 6, 2006), Ramesh Ponnuru of the National Review, Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004), and Peter Wallinson of the far-right American Enterprise Institute (AEI); a seminar on "An Integrated Strategy to Face These Threats," moderated by Koch's senior assistant Richard Fink; an evening address, "Is America On the Road to Serfdom?" by former Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck; a seminar, "We're Spending Too Much," on how to lower government spending, conducted by Russ Roberts of the far-right libertarian Mercatus Center; a seminar, "Understanding This Year's Electorate," by journalist and AEI fellow Michael Barone; a follow-up seminar on how to "Fram[e] the Debate on Spending" for the elections, moderated by members of AEI and the Mercatus Center; a seminar, "Mobilizing Citizens for November," featuring Tim Phillips, the head of AFP (see August 6, 2009) and Karl Crow, the head of Themis, the Koch-funded computer database being used in "micro-targeting" voters (see April 2010 and After); a seminar hosted by Arthur Brooks of AEI on how to frame the "fight" as one between "free enterprise and Big Government"; a seminar on how best to target participants' philanthropic gifting; a seminar on "reforming" K-12 public and charter schools; a seminar on impacting judicial elections in several key states; a seminar on transitioning from the 2010 elections to the 2012 presidential elections and how "supporters of economic freedom" can "start planning today" for that election; a final evening address, "What's Ahead for America?" by noted neoconservative columnist and Fox News pundit Charles Krauthammer. The event features David Chavern, a senior official at the US Chamber of Commerce, one of the entities contributing the most funding to conservative political organizations (see August 2, 2010, September 13-16, 2010, and October 2010). Think Progress's Lee Fang will write: "In an election season with the most undisclosed secret corporate giving since the Watergate-era, the memo sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between extremely profitable, multi-billion dollar corporations and much of the conservative infrastructure. The memo describes the prospective corporate donors as 'investors,' and it makes clear that many of the Republican operatives managing shadowy, undisclosed fronts running attack ads against Democrats were involved in the Koch's election-planning event." Many of the "investors" listed as attending or participating in the events include executives from health care corporations; executives from fast-food and other food-industry executives who have fought against providing health insurance to their employees; an array of banking and financial executives; and a number of energy industry executives. Fred Malek, who serves as the top fundraiser for a $56 million attack ad campaign against Democrats (see Mid-October 2010), attends, as does Heather Higgins of the Independent Women's Forum, another organization that has spent millions opposing health-care reform. Many of the election-focused seminars address how to take advantage of the Citizens United ruling that lifted restrictions on corporate election spending (see January 21, 2010). The Aspen meeting, as with earlier meetings, is managed by Kevin Gentry, a Koch Industries executive and Washington lobbyist. [Think Progress, 8/23/2010; Koch, 9/24/2010 ]
Entity Tags: David Chavern, Tim Phillips, Stephen Moore, St. Regis Resort, Glenn Beck, Charles Koch, Arthur Brooks, Fred Malek, Charles Krauthammer, Russ Roberts, Think Progress (.org), Ramesh Ponnuru, Kevin Gentry, Richard Fink, Heather Higgins, Lee Fang, Karl Crow, Obama administration, Phil Kerpen, Michael Barone, Peter Wallinson
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties
The advocacy wing of the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Foundation, founded by right-wing billionaire David Koch in 2004 (see Late 2004 and August 30, 2010), holds a weekend summit called "Texas Defending the American Dream" in Austin, Texas. Koch-Funded, Koch Brand Not in Evidence - Neither David Koch nor his brother, Charles, attend the affair, and the name Koch is not in evidence. An advertisement for the event portrays it as a populist uprising against vested corporate power, stating: "Today, the voices of average Americans are being drowned out by lobbyists and special interests. But you can do something about it." The ad makes no mention that the event is funded by Koch Industries, the second-largest private corporation in the US. Of Americans for Prosperity, Obama adviser David Axelrod says, "What they don't say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens' movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires." Funding and Training the Tea Parties - Koch Industries has long denied that it has any connection to tea party organizations, and has denied that either the firm or the Koch brothers have funded any tea party groups (see February 27, 2009 and April 15, 2009). David Koch has denied ever being approached by tea party representatives. But at the Austin event, event organizer Peggy Venable—an AFP employee who has worked for Koch-funded political groups since 1994—tells the crowd, "We love what the tea parties are doing, because that's how we're going to take back America!" She calls herself one of the earliest members of the tea party movement, telling a reporter, "I was part of the tea party before it was cool!" AFP, she says, is in business to help "educate" tea party activists on policy details and to train them for further activism so that their political energy can be channelled "more effectively." AFP has provided tea party organizers with lists of elected Democrats to target. Of the Kochs, she says: "They're certainly our people. David's the chairman of our board. I've certainly met with them, and I'm very appreciative of what they do." 'Victory or Death!' - Some 500 people attend the event, which features training seminars for "tea party" activists around the state and a series of speakers launching blunt attacks against President Obama and his administration. Venable warns the attendees that the Obama administration has "a socialist vision for this country." She gives the Texas AFP "Blogger of the Year" award to a woman named Sibyl West, who recently called Obama the nation's "cokehead in chief." Featured speaker Janine Turner, an actress best known for her role in the TV series Northern Exposure, tells the audience: "They [Obama and the Democratic Party] don't want our children to know about their rights. They don't want our children to know about a God!" Former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz tells the crowd that Obama is "the most radical president ever to occupy the Oval Office," and has a hidden agenda: "the government taking over our economy and our lives." Defeating Obama and his "secret agenda" is, Cruz says, "the epic fight of our generation!" As the crowd gives him a standing ovation, Cruz shouts the words said by a Texan at the Alamo: "Victory or death!" [New Yorker, 8/30/2010]
Entity Tags: Janine Turner, Barack Obama, Americans for Prosperity, Charles Koch, David Koch, Obama administration, Sibyl West, David Axelrod, Koch Industries, Ted Cruz, Peggy Venable
NAACP logo. [Source: NAACP / University of Albany]The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) unanimously passes a resolution at its annual convention asking that the nation's various tea party organizations repudiate the racism that is sometimes displayed in their ranks (see June 30, 2009, July 28, 2009, July 28-29, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 11, 2009, September 11, 2010, and September 12, 2010). An NAACP press release reads: "The resolution condemns the bigoted elements within the tea party and asks for them to be repudiated. The NAACP delegates presented this resolution for debate and passage after a year of vitriolic tea party demonstrations during which participants used racial slurs and images." The NAACP notes that African-American congressmen have been called racial slurs by tea party protesters, an African-American congressman was spat upon by tea party protesters (see March 20, 2010), and other incidents. NAACP president Benjamin Jealous says: "We take no issue with the tea party movement. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy. What we take issue with is the tea party's continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry in their movement." Jealous adds: "Last night after my speech, I was approached by an African-American member of the NAACP and the tea party. He thanked me for speaking out because he has begun to feel uncomfortable in the tea party and wants to ensure there will always be space for him in both organizations. I assured him there will always be a place for him in the NAACP. Dick Armey (see April 14, 2009) and the leadership of the tea party need to do the same." [NAACP, 7/13/2010] Jealous tells a reporter: "We do not think the tea party is a racist movement. Our concern is that it tolerates racism and bigotry by its members.… Either you make it clear that there's no room for racism in your party or you take full responsibility for racist things that have happened at your rallies." [TPMDC, 7/14/2010]
Entity Tags: Dick Armey, Benjamin Jealous, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Tea party protesters during a Washington, DC, rally. [Source: TPMDC]In the wake of the NAACP's condemnation of racist speech being condoned by the various "tea party" groups around the nation (see July 13, 2010), Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams, a California radio talk show host, tells NPR that NAACP leaders "make more money off of race than any slave trader ever." Williams says: "We are dealing with people who are professional race-baiters who make a very good living off this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader, ever. It's time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong, along with all the other vile, racist groups that emerged in our history." The national Tea Party Federation cites New York Tea Party activist David Webb as saying: "A false charge of racism is itself, racist. This resolution shows they no longer serve the black community's interests to advance people of color within American culture. Instead, they exert their power to isolate and control people of color." Former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), a popular supporter of the tea party movement, asks why the NAACP would criticize what she calls "liberty-loving, equality-respecting patriots." Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin calls the NAACP convention a "grievance-palooza" and a "smear-fest against the tea party." Another conservative blogger, Power Line's John Hinderaker, posts, "It is a sad day for a once-respected organization; truthfully, though, it has been a long time since anyone has taken the NAACP seriously." A St. Louis tea party group calls on the IRS to revoke the NAACP's tax-exempt status, saying that the resolution proves the organization is nothing more than a political arm of the tea party's opponents. NAACP media director Eric Wingerter counters: "It's clear that the far right has been waiting for this battle. We're ready for it, too." NAACP president Benjamin Jealous said after his organization released its resolution that the NAACP does not characterize the tea party movement as inherently racist; instead, he says, tea party organizers and leaders do not make enough of an attempt to curb racism in their ranks. "We do not think the tea party is a racist movement," Jealous said. "Our concern is that it tolerates racism and bigotry by its members." Many tea party spokespersons tell reporters that their organizations already condemn racism and do not tolerate it during their rallies or on their Web sites, a contention disputed by Jealous, who says: "Do you see the press releases on their Web site? I don't. What you do behind the scenes is important but it's not enough if you don't make it public.… We need the anti-racists in the tea party movement to stand up and be clear that this will not be tolerated." Jealous goes on to say that Dick Armey, the head of FreedomWorks, a Washington lobbying firm that funds and coordinates many tea party organizations (see April 14, 2009), and other tea party leaders "tolerate bigotry and racism within the ranks," and allow racist groups to piggyback on the tea party into political legitimacy. Many conservatives counter the NAACP's position with countercharges that the NAACP and other organizations tolerate and/or support the rhetoric of the New Black Panther movement; Jealous says: "Our message to them is the same thing. They should not tolerate racism and bigotry in their ranks. Move those people out of your organization." However, Jealous notes, the citations of the New Black Panthers are attempts to change the subject from the overt and repeated acts of racism perpetuated by some tea party members. "The Black Panther party is a flea compared to the tea party dog," Jealous says. [TPMDC, 7/14/2010; TPMDC, 7/14/2010] In the past, Williams has called President Obama the "racist in chief" (see September 14, 2009) and "our half white, racist president" (see September 2009).
Entity Tags: Tea Party Express, Sarah Palin, Tea Party Federation, New Black Panthers, Mark Williams (radio host), Michelle Malkin, Eric Wingerter, Dick Armey, David Webb, John Hinderaker, Benjamin Jealous, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, FreedomWorks
Liberal New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes an op-ed focusing on the billionaire Koch brothers (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, 1997, Late 2004, August 5, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 30, 2010, and October 4, 2011), the oil magnates who are the driving force behind the tea party movement. Rich writes that "even those carrying the Kochs' banner may not know who these brothers are." Rich, using information from historian Kim Phillips-Fein's book Invisible Hands, notes that the Kochs are the latest in a long line of behind-the-scenes corporate manipulators "who have financed the far right (see September 2010 and August 17, 2011) ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down" the Roosevelt administration (see August 23, 1934 and After). "You can draw a straight line from the Liberty League's crusade against the New Deal 'socialism' of Social Security, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and child labor laws to the John Birch Society-Barry Goldwater assault on [the Kennedy administration] and Medicare (see 1962 and November 1963) to the Koch-Murdoch-backed juggernaut against our 'socialist' president," Rich writes. "Only the fat cats change—not their methods and not their pet bugaboos (taxes, corporate regulation, organized labor, and government 'handouts' to the poor, unemployed, ill, and elderly). Even the sources of their fortunes remain fairly constant. Koch Industries began with oil in the 1930s and now also spews an array of industrial products, from Dixie cups to Lycra, not unlike DuPont's portfolio of paint and plastics. Sometimes the biological DNA persists as well. The Koch brothers' father, Fred (see 1940 and After), was among the select group chosen to serve on the Birch Society's top governing body. In a recorded 1963 speech that survives in a University of Michigan archive, he can be heard warning of 'a takeover' of America in which Communists would 'infiltrate the highest offices of government in the US until the president is a Communist, unknown to the rest of us.' That rant could be delivered as is at any tea party rally today." Rich also focuses on FreedomWorks (see 1984 and After, May 16, 2008, February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, June 26, 2009, Late July, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 14, 2009, August 19, 2009, August 24, 2010, September 2010, September 12, 2010 and August 17, 2011), one of the two "major sponsor[s]" of the tea party movement, along with Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004, October 2008, January 2009 and After, February 16, 2009, February 16-17, 2009, February 17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, April 2009 and After, April 8, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 14, 2009, October 2, 2009, November 2009, February 15, 2010, April 15, 2010, July 3-4, 2010, August 24, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 20, 2010 and August 17, 2011). Both FreedomWorks and AFP are heavily funded by the Koch brothers. Rich writes: "Tea partiers may share the Kochs' detestation of taxes, big government, and [President] Obama. But there's a difference between mainstream conservatism and a fringe agenda that tilts completely toward big business, whether on Wall Street or in the Gulf of Mexico, while dismantling fundamental government safety nets designed to protect the unemployed, public health, workplace safety, and the subsistence of the elderly." Rich writes that the Koch brothers' agenda is "inexorably… morphing into the GOP agenda," and points to Republican luminaries such as incoming House Speaker John Boehner (R-MO) and tea party candidates such as Rand Paul (see March 27, 2010, May 17, 2010, October 25, 2010 and After, October 26, 2010 and November 10, 2010), Sharron Angle (see January 2010, Mid-May, 2010, Mid-June 2010, June 16, 2010 and September 18, 2010), and Joe Miller (see July 19, 2010, July 23, 2010, October 17, 2010, October 17, 2010 and October 18, 2010). "The Koch brothers must be laughing all the way to the bank knowing that working Americans are aiding and abetting their selfish interests," Rich concludes. [New York Times, 8/28/2010]
Entity Tags: Rand Paul, Koch Industries, Sharron Angle, Joseph Wayne ("Joe") Miller, Kim Phillips-Fein, John Birch Society, Barack Obama, Americans for Prosperity, American Liberty League, Charles Koch, John Boehner, David Koch, Fred Koch, FreedomWorks, Frank Rich
Charles and David Koch. [Source: PRWatch (.org)]The New Yorker publishes a lengthy analysis of the Koch (pronounced "coke") financial empire, and its long-time financial support for right-wing causes (see 1981-2010). The article, written by investigative reporter Jane Mayer, shows that Koch Industries, led by brothers David and Charles Koch, has donated over $250 million to Republican and conservative politicians and organizations since the mid-1990s. The Koch brothers are also well-known philanthropists, having given millions to New York City's Metropolitan Opera, $100 million to the Lincoln Center's New York State Theatre building, $40 million to the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, $20 million to the American Museum of Natural History, and $10 million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Second-Largest Private Industry in US - Koch Industries, a $100 billion conglomerate, garners most of its profits from oil refineries and associated interests; it owns the firms that manufacture Brawny paper towels, Dixie cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber and paper products, Stainmaster carpet, and Lycra fabric. Koch Industries is the second largest private company in the US after Cargill, and taken together, the Koch brothers' fortune of some $35 billion places them just behind Microsoft's Bill Gates and Wall Street financier Warren Buffett as the nation's richest people. Longtime Libertarians - Personally, the Koch brothers espouse a libertarian philosophy—drastic reductions in corporate and personal taxes, huge cuts in government expenditures on social services, and widespread deregulation of industry, particularly environmental. Koch Industries was recently listed in the top 10 of US air polluters, and has for years funded organizations that oppose climate change, giving even more than ExxonMobil to organizations, foundations, and think tanks that work to derail or overturn climate change legislation. Koch funds so many different organizations that oppose various initiatives of the Obama administration that Washington insiders call the Koch ideological network the "Kochtopus." While the Koch brothers have protested being characterized as major supporters of the right-wing agenda—David Koch has complained that the "radical press" is intent on making him and his brother into "whipping boys"—Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, says: "The Kochs are on a whole different level. There's no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I've been in Washington since Watergate, and I've never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times." The Kochs have embraced the pure free-market ideology of economist Friedrich von Hayek, who argued that any form of centralized government would lead to totalitarianism and that only complete, unregulated capitalism could ensure freedom. Many "tea party" supporters, such as Fox News host Glenn Beck, have openly embraced von Hayek's ideals. Inculcated Ideals of Anti-Communist Father - Both brothers are steeped in the anti-Communist, anti-government, minority-disparaging views of their father, Koch Industries co-founder Fred Koch (see 1940 and After). Using the 'Tea Parties' - Conservative economist Bruce Bartlett, who has worked at a Koch-funded think tank, says that the Kochs are playing on the anti-government fervor of the "tea parties" to further their pro-business, libertarian agenda. "The problem with the whole libertarian movement is that it's been all chiefs and no Indians," Bartlett says. "There haven't been any actual people, like voters, who give a crap about it. So the problem for the Kochs has been trying to create a movement." With the emergence of the "tea parties," Bartlett says, "everyone suddenly sees that for the first time there are Indians out there—people who can provide real ideological power. [The Kochs are] trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies." A Republican campaign consultant who has worked for the Kochs says of the tea party movement: "The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It's like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they're our candidates!" The consultant says that the Kochs keep an extremely low profile, in part to avoid accusations that they are funding an "astroturf" movement (see April 15, 2009). A former Koch adviser says: "They're smart. This right-wing, redneck stuff works for them. They see this as a way to get things done without getting dirty themselves." Democratic political strategist Rob Stein, who has studied the conservative movement's finances, says the Kochs are "at the epicenter of the anti-Obama movement. But it's not just about Obama. They would have done the same to Hillary Clinton. They did the same with Bill Clinton. They are out to destroy progressivism." Since a 2009 rally attended by David Koch (see November 2009), the brothers have all but explicitly endorsed the tea party movement, with David Koch praising it for demonstrating the "powerful visceral hostility in the body politic against the massive increase in government power, the massive efforts to socialize this country." Echoing the sentiments of many tea party leaders, Charles Koch said in a newsletter sent out to Koch Industry employees that President Obama is comparable to Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. Strategy - Charles Koch told a reporter that "[t]o bring about social change" requires "a strategy" that is "vertically and horizontally integrated," spanning "from idea creation to policy development to education to grassroots organizations to lobbying to litigation to political action.… We have a radical philosophy." The Kochs launched their first "think tank," the libertarian Cato Institute, in 1977 (see 1977-Present), which has been effective in promoting corporate tax cuts, deregulation, cuts in social spending, and in opposing governmental initiatives to combat climate change. Other Koch-funded institutes such as the Heritage Foundation and the Independent Women's Forum have also publicly opposed efforts to combat climate change. History professor Naomi Oreskes, the author of a book, Merchants of Doubt, that chronicles attempts by American industries to manipulate public opinion on science, says that the Kochs have a vested interest in keeping the government from addressing climate change. "If the answer is to phase out fossil fuels," she says, "a different group of people are going to be making money, so we shouldn't be surprised that they're fighting tooth and nail." David Koch has said that though he doesn't believe that any global warming effects have been caused by human activities, if indeed the globe is warming, it will benefit society by lengthening growing seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. Several years after founding Cato, the Kochs provided millions in funding to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, which Stein describes as "ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington." Mercatus is headed by Richard Fink, a Koch Industries lobbyist and president of several Koch-funded foundations. Mayer describes Fink as the chief political lieutenant of the Koch brothers. Mercatus was quite successful at having the Bush administration adopt a number of its deregulatory strategies, particularly environmental deregulation. Like Cato, critics of Mercatus accuse it of serving the brothers' corporate needs while hiding behind the facade of a nonpartisan academic organization. "Ideas don't happen on their own," says Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, a tea party advocacy group heavily funded by the Kochs (see April 14, 2009). "Throughout history, ideas need patrons." FreedomWorks is one of many citizen activism groups founded and/or funded by the Kochs, usually masquerading as "grassroots" organizations started by "ordinary citizens" (see 1984 and After, 1997, and Late 2004). Disrupting the Obama Administration - Since well before the 2008 presidential election, the Koch brothers have been involved in full-throated efforts to derail any policies or initiatives that would be launched by a Democratic president. In January 2008, Charles Koch wrote in the industry newsletter that America was on the verge of "the greatest loss of liberty and prosperity since the 1930s." The Kochs have used their "astroturf" advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP), to great effect against the Obama administration, launching its efforts even before the November 2008 election (see October 2008 and January 2009 and After). Conservative activist Grover Norquist says that AFP's August 2009 anti-health care rallies were instrumental in undermining Obama's policy initiatives. Norquist says the rallies "discouraged deal-makers," Republicans who otherwise might have considered cooperating with Obama and Congressional Democrats, and affected corporate donors to Washington lobbyists, steering millions into the hands of Republican lobbyists. [New Yorker, 8/30/2010]
Entity Tags: Matt Kibbe, Koch Industries, Naomi Oreskes, Richard Fink, Obama administration, New Yorker, Rob Stein, Jane Mayer, Independent Women's Forum, Mercatus Center, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Center for Public Integrity, Bruce Bartlett, Americans for Prosperity, Barack Obama, Charles Koch, Hillary Clinton, David Koch, FreedomWorks, Friedrich von Hayek, Charles Lewis, Glenn Beck, Grover Norquist, Fred Koch
Mother Jones columnist Kevin Drum compares the "tea party" movement to earlier organizations, each formed, he writes, to oppose Democratic presidencies. "[T]oo many observers mistakenly react to the tea party as if it's brand new, an organic and spontaneous response to something unique in the current political climate," he writes. "But it's not. It's not a response to the recession or to health care reform or to some kind of spectacular new liberal overreach. It's what happens whenever a Democrat takes over the White House. When FDR was in office in the 1930s, conservative zealotry coalesced in the Liberty League (see August 23, 1934 and After). When JFK won the presidency in the '60s, the John Birch Society flourished (see November 1963). When Bill Clinton ended the Reagan Revolution in the '90s, talk radio erupted with the conspiracy theories of the Arkansas Project. And today, with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, it's the tea party's turn." While differences between the various groups are substantive, Drum writes, the similarities are overwhelming. Drum notes that industrialist Fred Koch, an early backer of the Birchers (see 1940 and After), gave way to his sons, David and Charles Koch, who helped launch the organization that would become FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, both of which are major funders and organizers of the tea party movement (see 1979-1980 and 1984 and After). Tea partiers rely on a 50-year-old radical reinterpretation of the Constitution, W. Cleon Skousen's The 5000 Year Leap; Skousen's anti-Communist polemics were popular with the Birchers. And Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961 and December 2011), believed that the 17th Amendment, which affirms the direct election of US senators, was what Drum calls "a poisonous concentration of power in the federal government." Tea partiers and Fox News hosts hawk this same theory today (see October 16, 2009, April 8, 2010, and June 11, 2010). Drum writes that, far from being motivated by personal economic hardship (tea party supporters tend to be more affluent and less affected by the economic downturn than the average American—see April 14, 2010) or even because of a dislike of President Obama because of his race, the tea party exists because "[e]ver since the 1930s, something very much like the tea party movement has fluoresced every time a Democrat wins the presidency, and the nature of the fluorescence always follows many of the same broad contours: a reverence for the Constitution, a supposedly spontaneous uprising of formerly nonpolitical middle-class activists, a preoccupation with socialism and the expanding tyranny of big government, a bitterness toward an underclass viewed as unwilling to work, and a weakness for outlandish conspiracy theories." Constitutional 'Purity' - One similarity is the focus of each group on what they term the "purity" or "sanctity" of the US Constitution, even as they apply their sometimes-radical reinterpretations of constitutional mandates. "The Liberty Leaguers… spoke of it with 'worshipful intensity,'" Drum writes. "The John Birch Society—which is enjoying a renaissance of sorts today (see July 22, 2007, August 4, 2008, October 10, 2008, April 13, 2009, April 19, 2010, and August 24, 2010)—says of itself, 'From its earliest days the John Birch Society has emphasized the importance of the Constitution for securing our freedom.' And… study groups dedicated to the Constitution have mushroomed among tea partiers" (see May 2010). Fear of 'Creeping Socialism' and Tyranny - Drum writes: "Other shared tropes include a fear of 'losing the country we grew up in,' an obsession with 'parasites' who are leeching off of hardworking Americans, and—even though they've always received copious assistance from business interests and political operatives—a myth that the movement is composed entirely of fed-up grassroots amateurs" (see 1984 and After, Late 2004, January 2009 and After, February 17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, March 13, 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, July 3-4, 2010, and August 30, 2010). Above all, though, is the recurring theme of "creeping socialism and a federal government that's destroying our freedoms." The American Liberty League fought to stop the Roosevelt administration from establishing Social Security, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and what Drum calls an "alphabet soup of new regulatory agencies." In the 1960s, the John Birch Society (JBS) felt the government was being overrun by Communism and "collectivism." Drum notes that JBS founder Robert Welch's mantra, "Less government and more responsibility," echoes central tenets of tea party beliefs. In the 1990s, then-Representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) became House Speaker in large part because of his opposition to the Clinton administration and his leadership in the right's battle to defund federal social-net programs. Today, tea partiers echo the JBS in their insistence that Obama is a closet Marxist or socialist, and echo fears from earlier groups that Obama, the Democrat, intends to turn American democracy into a tyranny. Conspiracy Theories - Drum echoes conservative writer Jonathan Kay by noting the tea partiers' "insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories" (see February 4-8, 2010). Welch argued that the federal government was bowing to Communist manipulation by fluoridating the water supply (see 1945 and After), but more importantly, promoted the idea that a mysterious group of "insiders" had been running the world since at least 1776, when the Illuminati took over most European governments. The "insiders" continued their influence, Welch avowed, through the years, taking over France after the French Revolution, Russia and other nations after the advent of Communism, and continued to exercise control through such organs as the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. The same groups are at the center of many conspiracy theories embraced by numerous tea partiers. Drum points out the fondness of the "anti-Clinton zealots" for their "colorful and ever-growing bestiary of shadowy plots," most surrounding their belief that Clinton was a rapist, a murderer, and a drug peddler. Similar conspiracy theories were promulgated by the JBS about John Kennedy. "Today's conspiracy theories are different in detail but no less wacky—and no less widespread," Drum writes. The "birther" conspiracy theory, which holds that Obama is not a natural-born citizen, is quite popular with tea party supporters, and many more believe that Obama intends to place conservatives such as themselves in internment camps, a theory peddled by the JBS in the early 1960s. And many believe that ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the now-defunct community service organization, somehow took control of the Democratic Party, destroyed banks by forcing them to make loans to indigent minorities, crashed the economy, and installed Obama into power. Effectiveness Improving over Time - Drum writes that each iteration of this right-wing phenomenon is more successful than the last. The Liberty League made no impact whatsoever on President Roosevelt's 1936 re-election attempt. In 1964, the JBS succeeded in helping right-wing libertarian candidate Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) win the Republican presidential nomination. In the 1990s, Gingrich rode the wave of far-right activism to become speaker of the House, and the activism culminated in the impeachment of President Clinton and the election of President George W. Bush. Drum predicts that the latest wave, the tea party movement, will for all intents and purposes take over the Republican Party. In each iteration, moderate Republicans resisted the wave of right-wing change, but, Drum believes, not enough moderate Republicans exist in any position of power to resist the tea party transformation. The GOP has been shifting ever rightward since the 1970s, Drum notes, and the tea party movement has profited from a transformed media environment, where it can present its ideology almost nonstop on Fox News and rely on social media such as Facebook to connect with new recruits. Drum calls the paradigm shift "the mainstreaming of extremism." In 1961, Time magazine disparaged the JBS as "tiresome" (see March 10, 1961); in 2009, it hailed Fox News personality Glenn Beck as "gifted." Moderates have virtually no chance in today's environment of pushing back against the tea party's rightward surge. "Unlike the Birchers, or even the Clinton conspiracy theorists, the tea partiers aren't a fringe part of the conservative movement," Drum writes. "They are the conservative movement." Drum believes that even with all the tea party's current success, it will eventually burn itself out, "while its broader identity becomes subsumed by a Republican Party that's been headed down the path of ever less-tolerant conservatism for decades. In that sense, the tea party movement is merely an unusually flamboyant symptom of an illness that's been breeding for a long time." [Mother Jones, 9/2010]
Entity Tags: Robert Welch, Newt Gingrich, W. Cleon Skousen, Kevin Drum, Charles Koch, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Jonathan Kay, American Liberty League, Fred Koch, John Birch Society, Fox News, David Koch
The Guardian reports that American tea party organizations are working with British anti-tax groups, teaching the British to emulate their mass-protest techniques. The Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA), a British organization that stands for tax cuts and decreased government spending, is being advised by FreedomWorks (see 1984 and After, May 16, 2008, February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, June 26, 2009, Late July, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 14, 2009, August 19, 2009, August 24, 2010, September 2010 and September 12, 2010), an American lobbying organization that helped found and organize the tea party movement. Today a group of libertarian tea party leaders take part in a London conference with their British and European counterparts, calling their activities "an insurgent campaign" against the US government's taxation and spending policies. British groups believe they can import tea party tactics to help expand their influence. "You could say our time has come," says TPA founder Matthew Elliott, whose group has swelled to some 55,000 members. "Take the strikes on the London underground this week and how much they annoyed and inconvenienced people. Couldn't we get 1,000 people to protest that? We need to learn from our European colleagues and the tea party movement in the US.… It will be fascinating to see whether it will transfer to the UK. Will there be the same sort of uprising?" FreedomWorks consultant Terry Kibbe says she wants to help mobilize British "grassroots" activists in much the same way her organization did in the US, by working through established right-wing lobbying groups to produce campaign materials, train community organizers, and pay for television advertisements. "We have been working to identify groups in Europe that would be amenable to becoming more activist-based, thinktanks that could start activist wings," she says. "We have worked with the Taxpayers' Alliance, in Austria and in Italy, and we want to do more." Another lobbying group heavily involved in the tea party movement, Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004, October 2008, January 2009 and After, February 16, 2009, February 16-17, 2009, February 17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, April 2009 and After, April 8, 2009, May 29, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 27, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 14, 2009, October 2, 2009, November 2009, February 15, 2010, April 15, 2010, July 3-4, 2010, August 24, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 20, 2010 and August 17, 2011), is also involved in the outreach effort. AFP leader Tim Phillips says: "In the US there is a growing consciousness of the effect of government spending and debt on their own prosperity. It strikes me that many Britons are coming to the same conclusion." Other right-wing organizations that have funded the London conference include the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the Heritage Foundation. Representatives from Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco, along with a British think tank that opposes climate change research, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, take part in the conference. "We need to reach out to a broader audience," says Barbara Kohn, secretary general of the Hayek Institute in Vienna, one of Europe's leading low tax campaigners that has also worked with FreedomWorks. "We need to come from various angles. We have all seen what our friends in the tea party movement, and their march, have achieved." [Guardian, 9/9/2010]
Entity Tags: Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Barbara Kohn, Americans for Prosperity, Global Warming Policy Foundation, The Guardian, Tim Phillips, Taxpayers' Alliance, Imperial Tobacco, Matthew Elliott, Terry Kibbe, FreedomWorks, Philip Morris, Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation
Former President Bill Clinton warns that the "tea party" movement is led, not by grassroots organizers and ordinary Americans, but by "people backing ultra right-wing corporate interests" who have been pushing the same agenda "for the last 30 years" (see May 16, 2008, August 2008, February 19, 2009, February 27, 2009, March 2, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, March 23-24, 2009, April 2009 and After, April 6-7, 2009, April 8, 2009, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 16, 2009, May 13-14, 2009, July 23, 2009, July 24, 2009, August 4, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 12, 2009, August 28, 2009, July 3-4, 2010, and August 30, 2010). Clinton has advised Democrats to "listen to the tea party" because many of its supporters are "people who feel the middle class has been hosed… by big business and government.… There are a lot of real people in this tea party movement that are saying something everyone should hear—which is: 'Seems like everyone but average Americans are doing all right here. The people that caused the financial crisis are all back in great shape.'" Clinton expresses his "sympathy" for the members, but draws a sharp distinction between the "tea party" rank and file and its leadership. "The problem is that if you look at the financial energy behind the tea party movement, it's not about restricting abuse of big public and private power," Clinton says. "It's about destroying the role of government in our life so that private centers of power will be untrammeled, and I don't think that's good for average Americans." Democrats should listen to "tea party" members, but Clinton warns against letting their rhetoric "cloud their judgment." If Republicans take back the House of Representatives in November 2010, Clinton warns that that body will spend most of its time launching pointless, politically-driven investigations into the White House. The nation will experience "two years of unrelenting investigations into the White House, staff, and cabinet," he says. That is how President Obama will be "rewarded" by Republicans for not investigating alleged Bush administration wrongdoing, he adds. [Politico, 9/20/2010; Salon, 9/21/2010]
Entity Tags: William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, Obama administration
The reclusive but highly influential Charles Koch, of the Koch brothers oil empire (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, and August 30, 2010), pens an 18-page memo inviting some 210 wealthy American corporate and political leaders to a meeting with him and his brother David at the exclusive Rancho Las Palmas resort in Rancho Mirage, California, in January 2011. The theme is how to "combat… the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it… it is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes.… We must stop—and reverse—this internal assault on our founding principles." The meeting will help plan how to use the prospective Republican gains in the November 2010 elections to "foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity." The memo references a June 2010 meeting in Aspen, Colorado, where strategies to manipulate and influence the 2010 elections were codified (see June 26-28, 2010). "In response, participants committed to an unprecedented level of support," Koch writes. He includes the program from the June 2010 meeting. [Think Progress, 8/23/2010; Koch, 9/24/2010 ]
Entity Tags: Rancho Las Palmas, David Koch, Charles Koch
In a wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone magazine, President Obama says that he believes the loose amalgamation of groups and organizations under the "tea party" rubric is "still defining itself." Obama says: "I think the tea party is an amalgam, a mixed bag of a lot of different strains in American politics that have been there for a long time. There are some strong and sincere libertarians who are in the tea party who generally don't believe in government intervention in the market or socially. There are some social conservatives in the tea party who are rejecting me the same way they rejected Bill Clinton, the same way they would reject any Democratic president as being too liberal or too progressive. There are strains in the tea party that are troubled by what they saw as a series of instances in which the middle-class and working-class people have been abused or hurt by special interests and Washington, but their anger is misdirected. And then there are probably some aspects of the tea party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the president. So I think it's hard to characterize the tea party as a whole, and I think it's still defining itself." Asked how the tea parties are being financed, Obama says: "There's no doubt that the infrastructure and the financing of the tea party come from some very traditional, very powerful, special-interest lobbies. I don't think this is a secret. Dick Armey and FreedomWorks (see May 16, 2008, April 14, 2009, and April 15, 2009), which was one of the first organizational mechanisms to bring tea party folks together, are financed by very conservative industries and forces that are opposed to enforcement of environmental laws, that are opposed to an energy policy that would be different than the fossil-fuel-based approach we've been taking, that don't believe in regulations that protect workers from safety violations in the workplace, that want to make sure that we are not regulating the financial industries in ways that we have. There's no doubt that there is genuine anger, frustration, and anxiety in the public at large about the worst financial crisis we've experienced since the Great Depression. Part of what we have to keep in mind here is this recession is worse than the Ronald Reagan recession of the eighties, the 1990-91 recession, and the 2001 recession combined. The depths of it have been profound. This body politic took a big hit in the gut, and that always roils up our politics, and can make people angry. But because of the ability of a lot of very well-funded groups to point that anger—I think misdirect that anger—it is translating into a relevant political force in this election." [Rolling Stone, 9/28/2010]
Entity Tags: FreedomWorks, Barack Obama
Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind, writing for their organization Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR), examine the role of "nativism" in the ideology of "tea party" members in a multi-part IREHR report (see August 24, 2010). (The Free Dictionary defines "nativists" as having "a sociopolitical policy… favoring the interests of established inhabitants over those of immigrants," and favoring "[t]he reestablishment or perpetuation of native cultural traits, especially in opposition to acculturation.") According to Burghart and Zeskind, many members and leaders of various "tea party" organizations are convinced that President Obama is not a "native-born" American, has never produced a valid birth certificate (see June 13, 2008), and is not a valid American citizen. They write that the idea "that Barack Obama is not a real American, but a 'lying African,' is… found across the entirety of the tea party movement. Hundreds of posts echoing these sentiments are on the Tea Party Nation Web site." Since the first tea party protests in April 2009, they write: "those who do not believe that President Obama is a native born American have been widely visible. They have claimed he was a Muslim instead of a Christian, that he was born in Kenya or Indonesia, rather than in Hawaii. And that Barack Obama was a non-American socialist who conspiratorially slipped into the White House." Characterizations that the tea party movement is based almost solely on economic concerns are belied by the strong threads of social conservatism, including "nativism," evident in tea party ideology (see August 16, 2011). Conservative activists such as Pamela Geller, the authors note, have fueled tea party nativism and anti-Muslim/anti-immigrant stances. Geller is, the authors claim, a classic "Islamophobe," expressing what a 1997 study by the Runnymede Trust termed an "unfounded hostility towards Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims." Geller has frequently spoken at tea party events, often declaiming about the "threat" Muslims pose to America. Geller's three "organizational fronts," as Burghart and Zeskind call them, are her blog, "Atlas Shrugs," and her two groups, SIOA (Stop Islamization of America) and the Freedom Defense Initiative. All are listed as official "partner" organizations of the ResistNet Tea Party faction. Geller is also a "birther" (see October 24, 2008, August 4, 2009, April 27, 2011, and April 29, 2011) who believes Obama is a "third worlder and a coward" who is "appeas[ing] his Islamic overlords." Many tea party organizations also support anti-immigration legislation; Burghart and Zeskind cite a July 29 decision by the National Leadership Council of Tea Party Patriots to support Arizona's controversial anti-immigration bill, SB1070. The largest umbrella tea party organization, the 1776 Tea Parties, holds as two of its "non-negotiable beliefs" that "illegal aliens are illegal" and "English only is required." The 1776 Tea Parties also support Arizona's SB1070, and has as members of its board two members of the violently anti-immigrant Minuteman Project. The tea party groups' support for "birtherism" and nativist ideology has caused "something of a rift" between the groups and FreedomWorks, the lobbying organization that has funded the groups since their inception (see April 8, 2009 and April 14, 2009). Tea party members have targeted FreedomWorks founder Dick Armey over his limited support for pro-immigrant reform; one Tenneessee tea party organizer recently wrote, "I think we should tar-and-feather Dick Armey." Conservative blogger and activist Michelle Malkin, a vocal supporter of the tea party groups, has called Armey an "amnesty stooge." Tea party organizer Roy Beck of anti-immigration organization NumbersUSA recently wrote that Armey "wants immigration to be treated as a social issue with no place in the tea parties," and suggested FreedomWorks may be trying "to intimidate local tea parties" to stay away from the issue at the behest of "corporate benefactors [who] want the foreign labor to keep pouring in." Congress members such as Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and others in Bachmann's House Tea Party Caucus are strongly anti-immigrant. And 42 of the 51 Tea Party Caucus members also belong to the House Immigration Reform Caucus, which supports blocking any immigration reform that would give illegal residents a pathway to citizenship. Burghart and Zeskind write, "Opposition to 'birthright citizenship' extends throughout the tea party movement, and is often linked to an explicit fear of the demographic transformation underway in the United States, in which white people are projected to become one minority in a country of minorities during the next several decades." ResistNet's state director in Alabama, Jason Leverette, recently wrote of his fear that whites ("real Americans") were being "out-bred" by "Mexicans" who want to take over the nation and "rule America! If this trend continues… by 2050 the United States will be ruled by Hosea Jesus Delgado Gonzalez Calderon, Esq. WTF!" Burghart and Zeskind conclude, "It is here, at the conjunction of nativism, opposition to birthright citizenship, the denigration of President Obama, and the fear of the new majority in American life, that the unstated racism embedded within the tea parties becomes vocal and unmistakable." [The Free Dictionary, 2009; Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, 10/19/2010]
Entity Tags: FreedomWorks, Tea Party Nation, US House of Representatives Immigration Reform Caucus, US House of Representatives Tea Party Caucus, Devin Burghart, Barack Obama, Freedom Defense Initiative, Roy Beck, Stop Islamization of America, Pamela Geller, Leonard Zeskind, Jason Leverette, Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, ResistNet, Michelle Malkin, Dick Armey, Michele Bachmann, National Leadership Council of Tea Party Patriots
Protesters in Los Angeles demonstrate against Proposition 23 outside a Tesoro refinery in Wilmington, California. [Source: Los Angeles Times]The liberal news Web site AlterNet shows that a very small number of wealthy, influential donors are driving campaign efforts to pass Proposition 23, a California ballot initiative that would suspend state legislation designed to help reduce carbon emissions and hold polluters accountable. The legislation, AB 32, is already in effect, and requires California to decrease global warming emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, beginning in 2012. Prop 23, as it is called, would suspend AB 32 until the state's unemployment rate drops below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. Currently unemployment in California is around 12 percent. AlterNet provides data showing that AB 32 will actually create jobs developing "clean" technologies and energies, an industry sometimes called "green tech." Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla recently said: "AB 32 created markets. Prop. 23 will kill the market and the single largest source of job growth in California in the last two years." The funding for the advertising and other political activities pushing Prop 23 comes from two primary sources: Texas oil giant Valero Energy Corporation and Tesoro Corporation. Both companies have refineries in California that make them two of the state's biggest polluters. The two oil companies are aided by large donations from the Koch brothers, who own oil conglomerate Koch Industries (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, and September 24, 2010). Valero has spent $5 million to bolster Prop 23 and Tesoro has spent $2 million. Flint Hill Resources, a Koch Industries subsidiary, has spent $1 million. Marathon Petroleum has spent $500,000, as has the conservative Adam Smith Foundation of Missouri. Occidental Petroleum has spent $300,000; Tower Energy Group, $200,000; CVR Energy, $150,000; and about $100,000 each has been spent by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, and World Oil Corporation. Of the $10.6 million raised so far to push Proposition 23, only 30 percent of it comes from inside California. In contrast, opponents to Proposition 23 have raised $30.6 million to defeat it, with 70 percent of that money coming from inside California. Jorge Madrid of Climate Progress recently warned: "If we allow Prop 23 to succeed, big oil refineries in the state could continue to spew greenhouse gases without strict regulation. Even worse, a victory for big oil in California could mean certain death for greenhouse gas regulation for the rest of the nation." [AlterNet, 10/30/2010; Los Angeles Times, 11/2/2010] Prop 23 will lose by a 61-39 margin, with analysts noting that the anti-proposition forces gained ground by pointing out the support for the proposition coming primarily from Texas oil interests. Even many of California's largest oil companies either stayed neutral or opposed the initiative. The anti-proposition forces were fueled primarily by financiers such as San Francisco hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, the National Wildlife Federation and the ClimateWorks Foundation, and green-tech moguls such as Khosla and John Doerr. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) stumped in opposition to the initiative, attacking the "self-serving greed" of Valero and Tesoro. The Environmental Defense Fund's Fred Krupp says of the defeat: "It is the largest public referendum in history on climate and clean energy policy. Almost 10 million Californians got a chance to vote and sent a clear message that they want a clean energy future. And this was in an economic downturn. There has never been anything this big. It is going to send a signal to other parts of the country and beyond." [Los Angeles Times, 11/2/2010]
Entity Tags: Fred Krupp, David Koch, World Oil Corporation, Charles Koch, CVR Energy, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Valero Energy Corporation, Adam Smith Foundation, AlterNet (.org), Tower Energy Group, Vinod Khosla, Tesoro Corporation, Marathon Petroleum, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, Koch Industries, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Jorge Madrid, National Wildlife Federation, Proposition 23 (California), ClimateWorks Foundation, Tom Steyer, Occidental Petroleum
Tim Phillips (L) and David Koch, together at an Americans for Prosperity event. [Source: Americans for Prosperity]Oil billionaire and conservative activist David Koch (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, and September 24, 2010) attends the 112th Congress's swearing-in ceremony, accompanied by Tim Phillips, the head of the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see May 29, 2009) and a number of current and former Koch Industries lobbyists, including Nancy Pfotenhauer. The event marks the ascendance of Republicans to the majority of the House, and the selection of John Boehner (R-OH) as speaker of the House. After the ceremony, Koch asks Frank Guinta (R-NH), a freshman Republican and "tea party" member elected in part by lavish AFP spending on his behalf, if he will attend a party that Koch is throwing for Republican Congressional members. Guinta affirms that he will attend. Lee Fang, a reporter for Think Progress who observes the Koch-Guinta conversation, speaks to Koch after the two conclude their discussion. Fang identifies himself as a Think Progress reporter and asks Koch what he expects from the Boehner-led Congress; Koch replies, "Well, cut the hell out of spending, balance the budget, reduce regulations, and, uh, support business." Phillips immediately intervenes, identifying Fang to Koch as "a good blogger on the left, we're glad to have him—" but Fang continues interviewing Koch. During the relatively brief interview, Phillips repeatedly attempts to push Fang's cameraman Scott Keyes away from Koch, and shouts into Keyes's camera, in an apparent attempt to disrupt the interview. However, Koch is cooperative with being interviewed. Koch is apparently proud of the work being done by AFP and says, "We're going to do more too in the next couple of years." Fang asks Koch if he is proud of the tea party movement, and Koch replies: "Yeah. There are some extremists there, but the rank and file are just normal people like us. And I admire them. It's probably the best grassroots uprising since 1776 in my opinion." Koch is hesitant to answer questions about "climate change," agreeing only that "[c]limate does fluctuate," but refusing to answer questions about the effect of carbon pollution on the climate. Instead, he says that any attempts to regulate carbon emissions will "really damage the economy." Fang concludes by asking about the Citizens United decision that allows unlimited corporate spending on elections (see January 21, 2010). According to Fang, Koch looks uncomfortable discussing the subject and is quite reticent. Koch refuses to answer when Fang asks him about a recent meeting he sponsored with former Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck "and several other conservatives" (see June 26-28, 2010). While Phillips continues to interrupt and chide Fang for asking about the Citizens United decision, Koch refuses to answer Fang's question, "Could you tell the public what you discussed at that meeting?" [Think Progress, 1/5/2011; Think Progress, 1/6/2011; Think Progress, 1/7/2011; Think Progress, 1/10/2011]
Entity Tags: Koch Industries, David Koch, Americans for Prosperity, Frank Guinta, John Boehner, Scott Keyes, Glenn Beck, Tim Phillips, Nancy Pfotenhauer, Lee Fang
The government watchdog and campaign finance advocacy group Common Cause asks the Supreme Court to explain why Justice Clarence Thomas did not completely disclose the nature of his participation in a 2008 retreat hosted by Charles and David Koch, the influential oil billionaires and conservative advocates (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, and October 4, 2011). According to a Court spokesperson, Thomas made a "brief drop-by" at a four-day event in Palm Springs, California, held in January 2008, and gave a talk. But disclosure reports filed by Thomas show that he was reimbursed an undisclosed amount for four days of "transportation, meals, and accommodations" over the weekend of the retreat. The reimbursement came from the Federalist Society, an influential conservative legal group. Today Common Cause sends a letter to the Court asking for "further clarification" as to why the two statements are at odds. Common Cause official Arn Pearson says, "I don't think the explanation they've given is credible." If Thomas's visit was a "four-day, all-expenses paid trip in sunny Palm Springs," Thomas should have reported it as a gift under federal law. The Court, the Federalist Society, and Koch Industries all refuse to comment on the issue. Common Cause has said that because of Thomas's past appearances at the Koch retreats, and the conservative political work done by his wife Virginia Thomas (see November 2009 - November 2010 and February 4, 2011), he should have recused himself from the 2010 Citizens United decision (see January 21, 2010). Common Cause notes that both Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia have appeared at Koch-hosted retreats. Both Thomas and Scalia voted as part of the 5-4 majority that decided the case. Political analysts say the Koch brothers have been some of the main beneficiaries of the decision. [New York Times, 2/14/2011]
Entity Tags: David Koch, Antonin Scalia, Arn Pearson, Charles Koch, Federalist Society, US Supreme Court, Virginia ("Ginni") Thomas, Common Cause, Clarence Thomas
Four of Fox News's presumptive presidential candidates. Clockwise from upper left: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee. [Source: Huffington Post]New York Magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman profiles Fox News chairman Roger Ailes (see October 7, 1996), who also serves as a Republican campaign consultant (see 1968, January 25, 1988, and September 21 - October 4, 1988). According to close friends and advisers to Ailes interviewed by Sherman, Ailes wants far more than the continued ratings and advertiser success of Fox News—he wants the network to steer one of its own into the White House in 2012 (see October 2008). He is tremendously influential; a Republican strategist tells Sherman: "You can't run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger. Every single candidate has consulted with Roger." Letdown? - Ailes has been keenly disappointed in the results of his network's official and unofficial candidates so far. Former Alaska governor and Fox commentator Sarah Palin (see September 15-16, 2010), who has not yet announced her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, is polling at around 12 percent among Republican voters. Official presidential candidates Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, and Rick Santorum, a former senator, who both are commentators for Fox, have even lower numbers, at 10 percent and 2 percent respectively. Ailes has asked Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ), who is not a Fox employee, to run; until recently, Fox News was enthusiastically promoting the putative presidential run of billionaire "birther" Donald Trump (see March 17, 2011). Ailes has envisioned General David Petraeus as a potential candidate, but Petraeus has instead accepted the post of CIA director. "He thinks things are going in a bad direction," says a Republican close to Ailes. "Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of [President] Obama is a disaster." None of the current crop of candidates meets Ailes's expectations. Ailes is particularly disappointed in Palin; according to the same Republican, Ailes considers her "an idiot": "He thinks she's stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven't elevated the conservative movement." After Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in January 2011, and other media outlets focused on Palin's use of gunsight graphics to "target" Giffords and other vulnerable Democrats in the 2010 election (see March 24, 2010), according to Sherman, "Ailes recognized that a Fox brand defined by Palin could be politically vulnerable." After the Giffords shooting, Ailes told an interviewer, "I told all of our guys, 'Shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually.'" Ailes was infuriated when Palin refused his advice to remain quiet until after the memorial service, and accused her critics of committing "blood libel," a phrase often seen as anti-Semitic. The problem with Palin was further exacerbated when she argued about the amount of work Fox expects her to do: she does not want to host special broadcasts or other tasks the network expects of her. In March 2011, Fox suspended the contracts of Gingrich and Santorum so they could run their campaigns without legal or ethical entanglements. Shortly thereafter, Huckabee chose to remain at Fox and abandon his plans for a primary challenge. The network is still waiting for Palin's decision whether to run for president. Creation of the Tea Party - While Ailes and Fox News did not directly create the "tea party" "grassroots" movement, Ailes was involved in its creation and promotion from its outset (see February 19, 2009, February 27, 2009, and April 15, 2009). Ailes has always been somewhat leery of having Fox News too closely associated with the burgeoning movement (see March 13, 2009 and After, March 23-24, 2009, April 2, 2009, April 6-7, 2009, April 6-13, 2009, April 8, 2009, April 13-15, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 16, 2009, May 13-14, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 28, 2009, September 12, 2009, and September 12, 2010), and at one point banned Fox News host Sean Hannity from hosting a tea party rally. However, according to Sal Russo, a former Reagan aide and the founder of the national Tea Party Express tour, "There would not have been a tea party without Fox." Fox News has promoted a number of successful "tea party" candidates (see May 14, 2008 - February 2010), including former host John Kasich (see March 27, 2008 - June 1, 2009 and After), who won the Ohio gubernatorial election in 2010. Before that election, Gingrich, still a Fox News commentator at the time, said that he was confident the "tea party" would evolve into "the militant wing of the Republican Party" (see April 21, 2010). Ailes used some of the same "astroturf" tactics (see February 27, 2009 and April 14, 2009) in developing the "tea party" as he did when he represented tobacco companies such as R.J. Reynolds, creating phony, seemingly independent "front" groups to push the "tea party" messages in the media. [New York Magazine, 5/22/2011]
Entity Tags: John Kasich, Donald Trump, David Petraeus, Christopher J. ("Chris") Christie, Fox News, Gabrielle Giffords, Rick Santorum, Sal Russo, Gabriel Sherman, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Roger Ailes
Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda, 2012 Elections
The US Supreme Court strikes down part of an Arizona law providing public funding for political campaigns. In the case of Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom PAC v. Bennett, the Court rules 5-4 that a provision in Arizona law providing additional funds to publicly funded candidates whose opponents use private donations to outspend them is illegal. Some opponents of unfettered outside spending feared that the Court would use the case to put an end to most, if not all, programs that provide public money to candidates; Think Progress's Ian Millhiser explains: "Candidates will only agree to accept public financing if it won't prevent them from running a competitive race. If a state offers only a few thousand dollars in public funds to a candidate whose opponent is backed by tens of millions of corporate dollars, then the non-corporate candidate will have no choice but to raise money on their own. To defend against this problem, Arizona developed a two-tiered public financing system. Candidates receive additional funds if their opponent or corporate interest groups overwhelm them with attack ads, and thus candidates who are determined not to be tainted by the corrupting influence of major donors are not left defenseless." The ruling will not have an impact on the presidential race, since the federal public financing system lacks such a provision, and since it seems unlikely that either President Obama or his Republican challenger Mitt Romney (R-MA) will use public financing in 2012. The case was brought by two organizations, the Institute for Justice and the Goldwater Institute, on behalf of Arizona state candidates who rejected public funds. The groups argued that the provision infringed on those candidates' freedom of speech by compelling them to spend less money to avoid triggering the additional funds. Majority, Minority Opinions - Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed: "We hold that Arizona's matching funds scheme substantially burdens protected political speech without serving a compelling state interest and, therefore, violates the First Amendment." The matching funds provision "imposes an unprecedented penalty on any candidate who robustly exercises [his] First Amendment right[s]," Roberts adds. If the provision is allowed to stand, "the vigorous exercise of the right to use personal funds to finance campaign speech" leads to "advantages for opponents in the competitive context of electoral politics." The privately funded candidate, Roberts writes, must "shoulder a special and potentially significant burden" when choosing to exercise his First Amendment right to spend funds on behalf of his candidacy. Justice Elena Kagan dissents, writing that the plaintiffs "are making a novel argument: that Arizona violated their First Amendment rights by disbursing funds to other speakers even though they could have received—but chose to spurn—the same financial assistance. Some people might call that chutzpah." Reactions - Attorney Bill Maurer, who represented the Institute for Justice, says the ruling "makes clear that the First Amendment is not an exception to campaign finance laws; it is the rule" (see January 30, 1976 and January 21, 2010). He adds that he hopes the ruling will serve as "a clear reminder to government officials that they may not coerce speakers to limit their own speech." Millhiser writes: "So public financing laws can technically remain, but Arizona's attempt to protect publicly financed candidates from a wave of corporate attack ads is absolutely forbidden. Moreover, because few candidates can know in advance whether the will face an onslaught of hostile corporate ads, most candidates will hedge their bets and avoid the risk of public financing.… Without unlimited corporate money in elections, most candidates could afford to take public funds unless their opponent had unusual access to wealth or wealthy donors." Referring to the 5-4 Citizens United decision (see January 21, 2010), Millhiser continues, "In the post-Citizens United America, however, no one is safe from corporate America's nearly bottomless pool of potential campaign expenditures." Nick Nyhart of Public Campaign, an organization opposed to the unrestricted influence of outside donors, says, "The five-vote Big Money majority on the court has spoken again in favor of wealthy special interests." Fred Wertheimer of the campaign finance group Democracy 21 calls the ruling "another seriously misguided campaign finance decision," but adds "it does not cast any doubt on the continued viability or constitutionality of a number of other existing public financing systems that do not include 'trigger funds' or similar provisions." Common Cause President Bob Edgar says, "This is not the death knell of public financing." [Politico, 6/27/2011; Think Progress, 6/27/2011] Plaintiffs Financed by Wealthy Conservative Interests - The next day, Think Progress's Lee Fang will reveal that the two groups who filed the lawsuit, the Institute for Justice and the Goldwater Institute, are financed by wealthy conservative interests. The Institute for Justice, a group dedicated to bringing cases to court in order to deregulate private corporations and to increase the participation of wealthy corporate interests in elections, was created with "seed money" from oil billionaire Charles Koch (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, and September 24, 2010). The Walton Family Foundation, a foundation run by the billionaire family of Arkansas retailer Sam Walton (the founder of Wal-Mart), has donated $1.64 million to the group. The Foundation has written that the Citizens United decision and the Arizona case are two top priorities for the Institute. The Goldwater Institute, one of Arizona's most prominent conservative think tanks, is focused on rolling back health care reform. The Institute is funded by several foundations, including the Walton and the Charles Koch Foundations. Fang notes that much of the funding for both groups remains undisclosed. [Think Progress, 6/28/2011]
Entity Tags: Fred Wertheimer, Elena Kagan, Bob Edgar, Bill Maurer, Barack Obama, Willard Mitt Romney, Walton Family Foundation, US Supreme Court, Nick Nyhart, Institute for Justice, John G. Roberts, Jr, Ian Millhiser, Goldwater Institute, Lee Fang, Charles Koch
Liberal columnist Joan Walsh uses a recent op-ed by authors and researchers David Campbell and Robert Putnam (see August 16, 2011) to ask why the media portrays the "tea party" movement as a powerful new force of non-partisan advocates of small government, when research shows that the movement is, as Walsh and others have long argued, largely formed of right-wing social conservatives. Walsh writes: "It's great to have data, but this is something a lot of us believed all along—the tea party was the Republican base dressed up in silly costumes. Why was the media so quick to declare them a vital new force in politics?" Walsh points to the early involvement of the billionaire Koch brothers (see July 3-4, 2010 and August 30, 2010), lobbying groups such as FreedomWorks (see April 8, 2009 and April 14, 2009) and Americans for Prosperity (see Late 2004), and Fox News, whom she says did early and "energetic publicity for… tea party rallies" (see March 23-24, 2009, April 6-13, 2009, April 6-7, 2009, April 8, 2009, April 13-15, 2009, April 15, 2009, April 16, 2009, May 13-14, 2009, July 28, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 3, 2009, August 8, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 11, 2009, August 28, 2009, September 1, 2009, September 12, 2009, September 18, 2009, Early November 2009, and May 22, 2011). Former Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck helped start one of the earliest nationwide "tea party" organizations, the "9-12 movement" (see March 13, 2009 and After). The first "tea party" rally Walsh attended, in San Francisco in April 2009, was sponsored by right-wing talk radio station KSFO and featured speakers such as Melanie Morgan, who, Walsh recalls, "whipped the crowd into an anti-government frenzy that day." Many "birthers"—people who insist that President Obama is not the legitimate president because he is not an American citizen—were on hand. Race is a big issue for many "tea party" members, Walsh writes: while Obama's race is a bone of contention for many "tea partiers," "it's worth noting that these are the same people who've been fighting the Democratic Party since the days of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the beginning of the War on Poverty, almost 50 years ago. They associate those long overdue social reforms with giving folks, mainly black people, something they don't deserve. I sometimes think just calling them racist against our black president obscures the depths of their hatred for Democrats, period." [Salon, 8/17/2011] Walsh is echoing similar claims made by Mother Jones columnist Kevin Drum almost a year ago (see September 2010).
Entity Tags: David Koch, Barack Obama, Americans for Prosperity, Charles Koch, Fox News, FreedomWorks, Joan Walsh, Melanie Morgan, Kevin Drum, Glenn Beck
Rolling Stone reporter Ari Berman writes that Republican lawmakers across the nation have launched "an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that helped elect Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots." The initiative is ostensibly to counter the "epidemic" of "voter fraud" that Republicans insist is not only plaguing the nation, but affecting the outcome of elections. (In 2007, the Brennan Center released a report that found the instance of voter fraud vanishingly small, and concluded that more people die by lightning strikes than commit voter fraud—see 2007). Judith Browne-Dianis of the Advancement Project tells Berman, "What has happened this year is the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century." As far back as 1980, powerful Republican operative Paul Weyrich told evangelical leaders: "I don't want everybody to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." In 2010, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group founded by Weyrich and funded in part by the billionaire Koch brothers (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011), began working to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of legitimate voters, almost of all identified as being part of ethnic or gender groups that are more likely to vote Democratic. Thirty-eight states have submitted legislation designed to impede voting "at almost every step of the electoral process." Requiring Proof of Citizenship - Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to show proof of US citizenship before being allowed to vote. Impeding Voter Registration - Florida and Texas have passed legislation making it more difficult for groups like the League of Women Voters, an organization widely considered to lean Democratic, to register new voters. Maine repealed same-day registration, which had been in effect since 1973 and had worked to significantly increase voter participation. The Florida legislature passed a law requiring groups to hand in voter registration forms within 48 hours of collection, and imposed what Berman calls "a barrage of onerous, bureaucratic requirements" and serious criminal penalties for those who fail to comply. As a result, many people who once volunteered to help register voters are afraid to do so again. The League of Women Voters says it will no longer operate in Florida, and called Florida's efforts "good old-fashioned voter suppression." The Florida statute took effect one day after its passage, under an emergency statute designed for "an immediate danger to the public health, safety or welfare." Since 2009, Florida has arrested a total of three people for suspected voter fraud. Republican state senator Mike Fasano, one of the few in his party to oppose the restrictions on registrations, says, "No one could give me an example of all this fraud they speak about." Curbing Early Voting - Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia have cut short early-voting periods. Six states have moved to impose new restrictions on voter registration drives. In 2004, then-Florida governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) said he thought early voting was "great.… It's another reform we added that has helped provide access to the polls and provide a convenience. And we're going to have a high voter turnout here, and I think that's wonderful." However, his successor Rick Scott (R-FL) does not agree, and neither do most Republicans. After analysis showed what a benefit early voting was for Obama's numbers, early voting became a key target. Florida has cut early voting days from 14 to 8 days. Ohio, where early voting numbers gave Obama a narrow victory in 2008, has cut its early voting days from 35 to 11, with only limited hours on weekends. Both states have banned voting on the Sunday before elections, when many black churches historically mobilize their constituents. The Early Voting Information Center at Reed College states, "There is no evidence that any form of convenience voting has led to higher levels of fraud." Denying Convicted Felons the Right to Vote - Florida and Iowa have passed laws denying convicted felons the right to vote, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters even if they have already served their sentences and have returned to society. Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist (R-FL) restored the voting rights of 154,000 felons convicted of non-violent crimes. In March 2011, after 30 minutes of public debate, Governor Scott overturned that decision, instantly disenfranchising almost 98,000 citizens and prohibiting another 1.1 million convicts from being allowed to vote after they are released from prison. Former President Bill Clinton asked in July: "Why should we disenfranchise people forever once they've paid their price? Because most of them in Florida were African-Americans and Hispanics and would tend to vote for Democrats—that's why." Iowa Governor Terry Branstad (R-IA) recently took a similar action, overturning his predecessor's decision to restore voting rights to some 100,000 ex-felons. Until recent years, Iowa saw up to five percent of its residents ineligible to vote, including 33 percent of its African-American residents. Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and Virginia require former felons to apply for the right to vote to be restored. Voter Identification - Six states—Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin, all controlled by Republican governors and legislatures—have passed laws requiring an official government ID to cast a ballot. Berman notes that some 10 percent of US citizens lack such identification, and the number of young and black voters, groups that traditionally lean Democratic, are much higher. The turn towards voter ID requirements began in 2008, when the US Supreme Court upheld an Indiana photo-ID requirement even though state lawyers could not produce a single instance of the kind of voter fraud that photo ID laws are designed to prevent. After the ruling, ALEC orchestrated a nationwide move towards photo ID requirements. ALEC wrote draft legislation for Republican legislators based on Indiana's ID requirement. Five of the states that passed those laws had their legislation submitted by legislators who belong to ALEC. Heather Smith, president of the voter-registration group Rock the Vote, says: "We're seeing the same legislation being proposed state by state by state. And they're not being shy in any of these places about clearly and blatantly targeting specific demographic groups, including students." In Texas, the Republican-dominated legislature passed "emergency" legislation that was signed into law by Governor Rick Perry saying that a concealed-weapons permit is acceptable ID, but a college ID is not. Republicans in Wisconsin effectively disenfranchised every college student by requiring that acceptable IDs contain information that no colleges put on their IDs. Dane County board supervisor Analiese Eicher says, "It's like creating a second class of citizens in terms of who gets to vote." In Wisconsin, for example, about half of African- and Hispanic-American citizens do not have a driver's license, and the state has an extremely small number of Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices—some of which are only open one day a month. Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) attempted to close 16 DMV offices, all in heavily Democratic-voting areas. Berman notes, "Walker planned to close a DMV in Fort Atkinson, a liberal stronghold, while opening a new office 30 minutes away in the conservative district of Watertown." Democratic governors in five states—Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, and North Carolina—have all vetoed ID laws. Voters in Mississippi and Montana are considering ballot initiatives requiring voter IDs. Legislation is currently pending in Pennsylvania. Perhaps the most restrictive law was signed into effect by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC). Voters must have a free state ID to vote—but they must pay for a passport or birth certificate. Brown-Dianis says, "It's the stepsister of the poll tax." Many elderly black residents who were born at home in the segregated South and were never issued birth certificates can no longer vote unless they go to family court to prove their identity. Significant Impact on 2012 Voting - Berman writes that when these measures are taken in the aggregate, the turnout of Democrats to the 2012 votes will be significantly smaller, perhaps enough to throw races to Republican candidates. In July, Clinton told a group of student activists: "One of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. Why is all of this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate." Clinton was referring to the 2010 elections, widely considered a Republican "wave" election in part because of far smaller turnouts among young and minority voters than in 2008, and because of a large number of "tea party" voters. Clinton added, "There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today." Cracking Down on Voter Fraud? - Republicans insist that voter fraud is rampant in America. Since George W. Bush took office in 2001 after losing the popular vote (see 9:54 p.m. December 12, 2000), his administration made "voter fraud" a top priority for Justice Department prosecutors. In 2006, the DOJ fired two US Attorneys who refused to prosecute patently fraudulent voter fraud allegations. Bush advisor Karl Rove called voter fraud "an enormous and growing problem." He told the Republican National Lawyers Association that America is "beginning to look like we have elections like those run in countries where the guys in charge are colonels in mirrored sunglasses." The Republicans successfully destroyed the community activism group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) after false allegations were made that it was, as Berman writes, "actively recruiting armies of fake voters to misrepresent themselves at the polls and cast illegal ballots for the Democrats." A massive DOJ probe in 2006 and 2007 failed to prosecute a single person for intentionally impersonating another person at the polls, an action that the DOJ claimed was at the heart of the voter fraud investigation. Eighty-six cases of voter fraud did win convictions, but most of those were immigrants and former felons who did not intentionally cast illegal votes. An enormous investigation in Wisconsin resulted in 0.0007 percent of the electorate being prosecuted for voter fraud. And the Brennan Center report found the instance of voter fraud in America extraordinarily small (see 2007). Voter Fraud Allegations Dog Obama Victory - Republican lawmakers and activists made a raft of allegations after the November 2008 elections that placed the White House in the hands of Barack Obama (D-IL). The 29 states that register voter affiliation showed a roughly 2-1 increase in new Democratic voters over Republicans for 2008, and Obama won almost 70 percent of those votes. Election reform expert Tova Wang says flatly, "This latest flood of attacks on voting rights is a direct shot at the communities that came out in historic numbers for the first time in 2008 and put Obama over the top." Berman cites Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach as emblematic of the Republican pushback against the Obama victory. Kobach is a former Bush-era Justice Department advisor who helped push through his state's requirement that every voter prove his or her citizenship, ignoring the fact that Kansas has prosecuted exactly one case of voter fraud since 2006. Kobach used fear of illegal immigrants to help push his requirement through, stating without evidence, "In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive." He also stated that many people were casting ballots in the name of dead voters, and cited the example of Alfred K. Brewer as a dead voter who mysteriously voted in 2008. However, as the Wichita Eagle showed, Brewer is very much alive. "I don't think this is heaven," Brewer told the Eagle, "[n]ot when I'm raking leaves." Representative John Lewis (D-AL), a civil rights crusader who was brutally beaten during the 1960s effort to win voting rights for African-Americans, says bluntly, "Voting rights are under attack in America." On the House floor in July, Lewis told the assemblage, "There's a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process." Fighting Voter Disenfranchisement - Voting-rights organizations are fighting back as best they can. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging several of the new voter-restriction laws in court. Congressional Democrats are pushing the Department of Justice to block or weaken laws that impede minority voters from exercising their rights. Lewis says, "The Justice Department should be much more aggressive in areas covered by the Voting Rights Act." Meanwhile, many voting-rights experts predict chaos at the polls in November 2012, as voters react with confusion, frustration, and anger at being barred from voting. "Our democracy is supposed to be a government by, of, and for the people," says Browne-Dianis. "It doesn't matter how much money you have, what race you are, or where you live in the country—we all get to have the same amount of power by going into the voting booth on Election Day. But those who passed these laws believe that only some people should participate. The restrictions undermine democracy by cutting off the voices of the people." [Rolling Stone, 8/30/2011]
Entity Tags: Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Scott Kevin Walker, Rick Scott, Republican Party, Ari Berman, Tova Wang, US Department of Justice, US Supreme Court, Alfred K. Brewer, Paul Weyrich, American Civil Liberties Union, William Jefferson ("Bill") Clinton, American Legislative Exchange Council, Analiese Eicher, Terry Branstad, League of Women Voters, Mike Fasano, Charles Koch, Charles Joseph ("Charlie") Crist, Jr, Brennan Center for Justice, Barack Obama, David Koch, Early Voting Information Center, Nikki Haley, Heather Smith, John Lewis, Judith Browne-Dianis, John Ellis ("Jeb") Bush, George W. Bush, Kris Kobach, Karl C. Rove
An unofficial logo for the Cain presidential campaign. [Source: Draft Cain (.org)]Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain (R-GA), who is battling allegations that he sexually harassed two former employees, is further shaken by reports that his campaign may have accepted illegal corporate donations. The apparently-defunct corporation, Prosperity USA, was run by Wisconsin political operatives Mark Block and Linda Hansen, who now serve as Cain's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, respectively. The corporation, which incorporated itself as a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization under federal tax law, helped get Cain's campaign up and running by paying for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses, including computers, chartered flights, and travel to several states. Such payouts are possible violations of federal tax and campaign law. According to documents obtained by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Prosperity USA claims it was owed about $40,000 by the Cain campaign for a variety of items in February and March. It is unclear whether the Cain campaign has reimbursed Prosperity USA. Cain began taking donations for his presidential bid on January 1, 2011, but records indicate Prosperity USA may have been spending money on behalf of him well before that date. The records have been verified as authentic by sources close to Prosperity USA. Cain's federal election filings make no mention of monies owed to Prosperity USA, and the figures in the documents do not match payments made by the Cain Campaign. Other payouts include a $100,000 fee to the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a conservative black organization; Cain spoke at the organization's annual Martin Luther King Jr. dinner in mid-January, an event hosted by controversial conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart. CORE is heavily involved in tea party events. Apparently Cain was not paid for the appearance, inasmuch as his personal financial disclosure forms do not show any honorariums for speeches. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 10/30/2011; USA, 10/31/2011 ] Apparent Violations of Tax, Campaign Law - Election law experts say the transactions raise many questions about Priorities USA and its connection to the Cain campaign. A Washington, DC, lawyer who advises many Republican candidates and conservative groups on campaign issues, and refuses to be publicly identified, says, "If the records accurately reflect what occurred, this is way out of bounds." She says it is a violation of tax law for Prosperity USA to advance money to the Cain campaign for the items invoiced, and the expenditures also seem to violate federal campaign regulations. "I just don't see how they can justify this," she says. "It's a total mess." Wisconsin campaign attorney Michael Maistelman, a Democrat who has worked for candidates from both parties, agrees, saying, "The number of questionable and possibly illegal transactions conducted on behalf of Herman Cain is staggering." Think Progress legal expert Ian Millhiser writes that "if Prosperity USA effectively donated money to the Cain campaign by fronting money to them and agreeing not to be paid back, that is a violation of federal election law," even if the Cain campaign eventually pays the money back. Block and Hansen have refused to comment on the issue. In 1997, Block, then advising the campaign of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox, settled allegations of election-law violations by agreeing to pay a $15,000 fine and to stay out of Wisconsin politics for three years. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 10/30/2011; Think Progress, 10/31/2011] Election lawyer Lawrence H. Norton, who formerly served as a general counsel for the Federal Election Commission (FEC), later says, "If they are supporting his campaign, whether directly or indirectly, they are violating the law." [New York Times, 11/3/2011] Connections to Koch-Funded Political Organization - In recent years, Block has run the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004), a nonprofit conservative lobbying and political action group co-founded by the conservative Koch brothers (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011). AFP played a key role in organizing the tea party movement. Block met Cain through AFP, and encouraged him to run for president. Block has incorporated a number of offshoot organizations and corporations from AFP, most of which bore the word "prosperity" in their names. AFP officials insist that Block's organizations are legally separate from theirs. Documents show that when Block left AFP at the beginning of 2011, he left behind tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices. History of Involvement with Cain Campaign - Block's largest group was the now-defunct Wisconsin Prosperity Network (WPN), envisioned as an umbrella organization that would spend over $6 million a year underwriting other conservative political organizations. Hansen was the group's executive director. WPN was also set up as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Under the law, neither WPN nor Prosperity USA can have direct political involvement with any candidate or candidate organization. Sources familiar with the situation say the two organizations were closely linked, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wisconsin conservatives. One supporter, who still advocates for Cain and thusly refuses to have his name publicly disclosed, says he and many others are very upset with the groups for failing to use the money they raised for their intended purposes. The supporter names Hansen as being particularly responsible for the groups' money usage. By February 2011, both groups were deeply in debt, with WPN showing a net loss of $62,000 and Prosperity USA showing net losses of $110,000. Prosperity USA's biggest debt was an almost-$40,000 debit to "FOH," which records show means "Friends of Herman Cain," the name of Cain's presidential operation. The debt includes almost $15,000 for what is called an "Atlanta invoice"; $17,000 for chartered flight service; $5,000 for travel and meetings in Iowa, Las Vegas, Dallas, Houston, and Louisiana; and $3,700 for iPads purchased for the Cain campaign. Other small-ticket items for travel and expenses by Block are listed as "not billed to FOH but due from them." Other expenses include a September 2010 bill for $5,000 for costs incurred by Cain's speech to the conservative Right Nation rally in Chicago, which records show Cain attended at the request of AFP; the Cain campaign later used a segment from that speech in a campaign ad. Prosperity USA also paid for a trip by Block to Washington, DC, to meet with billionaire oil magnate and conservative financier David Koch. Singer Krista Branch, who recorded "I Am America," the unofficial anthem of the tea party movement, was supposed to be paid $3,000 by Prosperity USA; Cain has since adopted the song as his campaign theme. Branch's husband, Michael, is a Cain campaign and fundraising consultant. The records also show $150,000 in loans from individuals who are not identified. Sources say Hansen paid much of that loan money to CORE earlier in the year. Michael Dean, the attorney for both Prosperity USA and WPN, resigned his position with WPN in the summer of 2011, and contacted the IRS about the organization's tax-exempt status. And WPN is a listed litigant in a case pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 'Outside Counsel' Will Review Allegations - The Cain campaign will respond by saying that an "outside" lawyer will review the allegations. "As with any suggestions of this type, we have asked outside counsel to investigate the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's suggestions and may comment, if appropriate, when that review is completed," says campaign spokesman J.D. Gordon. Gordon refuses to identify the "outside counsel," or give a time frame as to when the review will be complete. [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 10/30/2011; New York Times, 11/3/2011]
Entity Tags: Herman Cain, Americans for Prosperity, Ian Millhiser, Andrew Breitbart, Congress of Racial Equality, Herman Cain presidential campaign (2012), Wisconsin Prosperity Network, J.D. Gordon, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Prosperity USA, Linda Hansen, Lawrence H. Norton, Mark Block, Michael Dean, Michael Maistelman, Jon Wilcox
Timeline Tags: Civil Liberties, 2012 Elections
Former Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), now a supporter of Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney (R-MA), tells a reporter from the liberal news Web site Think Progress that the 2010 Citizens United decision allowing donors to contribute unlimited amounts of money to independent groups supporting individual candidates (see January 21, 2010) is "leveling the playing field" in politics. Reporters Scott Keyes and Travis Waldron call Pawlenty's comment "a turn of phrase that would give George Orwell satisfaction." Since the decision, a relatively small number of wealthy corporations and individuals have transformed US politics with their multi-million dollar donations (see January 21-22, 2010, March 26, 2010, August 2, 2010, September 13-16, 2010, September 21 - November 1, 2010, September 28, 2010, October 2010, Around October 27, 2010, November 1, 2010, (May 4, 2011), May 5, 2011, July 12, 2011, August 4, 2011, October 27, 2011, October 30, 2011, December 1, 2011, December 19, 2011, January 3, 2012, and January 6, 2012). But Pawlenty seemingly believes that campaign finance laws are still too restrictive, and says he believes that donors should be able to make unlimited donations directly to candidates (see December 21, 2011 and January 10, 2012) instead of making those donations to third-party groups. Pawlenty refuses to say the Citizens United decision will help Romney defeat President Obama in the November general election, and instead says that the decision helps "free speech" (see January 21, 2010 and January 22, 2010). Pawlenty continues: "Every time they try to contain speech, it pops up somewhere else. This is just me talking personally, I'm not speaking for Mitt's position on this. The better position is to allow full and free speech in whatever form, but have instant disclosure." Keyes asks, "You're talking completely unlimited donations?" and Pawlenty responds: "We have that now, it's just a question of where the money gets pushed to the third party groups. This leveling the playing field to some extent because in the past, unions in particular (see June 25, 1943 and June 23, 1947) and other interest groups had an advantage in the old system. Now the playing field's being leveled a little bit." He clarifies: "Right now, with super PACs and third party groups, there's essentially unlimited giving to various aligned super PACs and groups. The point is, the United States Supreme Court has spoken. They have said we're going to have free speech as it relates to political contributions. The First Amendment should be respected and protected, but I think we should also have full disclosure." Keyes and Waldron write that billionaire corporate owners such as the Koch brothers (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011) have pledged staggering amounts of money to defeat Obama in the November elections, and conclude, "This massive influx of unregulated campaign spending will almost certainly be the new normal as wealthy individuals and corporations find new ways to influence elections, helped in large part by the now-two year old Citizens United decision." [Think Progress, 1/21/2012]
Entity Tags: Travis Waldron, Barack Obama, US Supreme Court, Scott Keyes, Willard Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty
Oxbow Carbon logo. [Source: Mississippi Valley Transit and Transport]The presidential campaign of Mitt Romney (R-MA) has benefited from at least $1.22 million in donations from coal, oil, and gas corporations, which have given their donations to Romney's "independent" super PAC, Restore Our Future (ROF—see June 23, 2011). ROF has already raised $30 million for Romney's presidential campaign. It has spent $800,000 on pro-Romney ads and $17 million in ads attacking Romney's Republican primary challengers. The entirety of ROF's funds comes from fewer than 800 donors, and 85 percent of those donors have already given the maximum allowed under law—$2,500—to Romney's campaign itself. Romney's campaign has raised $500,000 from legitimate, aboveboard donations from oil and gas companies. Those same corporations have given far more to ROF, and are poised to give more. Some of the ROF energy industry donors are: Coal mining corporations: Oxbow Carbon at $750,000, Oxbow president William Koch at $250,000, and Consol Energy at $150,000. Oil and gas corporations: Ballard Exploration at $25,000, Bassoe Offshore president Jonathan Fairbanks at $25,000, Murphy Wade of Murphy Oil Corporation at $15,000, and Joseph Grigg of American Energy Operations at $5,000. Oxbow Carbon's Bill Koch contributed $250,000 to the Romney campaign; he is the brother of oil billionaires Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011). Romney has benefited from the departure of primary challenger Rick Perry (R-TX); with Perry out of the race, Romney has received more money from mining and oil than any other presidential candidate. Think Progress's Rebecca Leber says that with Romney's increase in energy industry donations, his positions on energy issues have moved closer to the positions of his corporate supporters. Romney once supported regulations on coal pollution, but now questions whether carbon emissions are even dangerous. He has abandoned his belief in man-made climate change, and has criticized government regulations designed to force industries to produce cleaner energy. [Think Progress, 2/6/2012; Forbes, 9/2012]
Entity Tags: Joseph Grigg, Consol Energy, Ballard Exploration, Jonathan Fairbanks, William I. ("Bill") Koch, Restore Our Future, James Richard ("Rick") Perry, Murphy Wade, Rebecca Leber, Mitt Romney presidential campaign (2012), Oxbow Carbon, Willard Mitt Romney
Billionaire oil magnate David Koch, who with his brother Charles Koch has become one of the driving financial forces behind the US conservative political movement (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011), gives an interview to the Palm Beach Post's Stacey Singer. Koch, who rarely gives interviews, chose to meet with Singer because of her background as a health and science writer, according to Koch spokesperson Cristyne Nicholas. The interview focuses in part on the cancer research underway at the University of Texas's MD Anderson Cancer Center, where Koch is being treated for prostate cancer. However, the interview also touches on the Koch brothers' political participation. Singer begins her report of the interview by informing her readers of the media portrayal of the "secretive" brothers and their construction of what she calls "a clandestinely built political machine that disdains government regulation and taxes, obfuscates the science on global warming, and now pulls the strings of decision-makers at every level, from Florida Tea Party members to Wisconsin state senators—even US Supreme Court justices." She writes that Koch seems "baffled" by that perception, saying: "They make me sound like a bully. Do I look like a bully?" According to Singer, Koch wants to improve his media image. The Koch brothers have given, Singer reports, "many millions to far-right organizations dedicated to spreading an Ayn Rand-infused ideology, one in which a benevolent business class flourishes, unfettered by taxes and regulations. Some have called it free-market fundamentalism." Nicholas says Koch wants to be remembered more for his philanthropy than his political involvement. "That's what his legacy will hopefully be: finding a cure for cancer," she writes. "That is his goal in life right now and it far exceeds any political views he has. Which are strong." Koch is proud of his political activism, admitting without restraint his organizations' involvement in protecting Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) from being recalled. "We're helping him, as we should. We've gotten pretty good at this over the years," he says. "We've spent a lot of money in Wisconsin. We're going to spend more." The "we" in his statement is primarily Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004), the "astroturf" lobbying and advocacy organization that is spending some $700,000 on a single advertisement buy in Wisconsin on Walker's behalf, an ad that makes statements many union members and public workers say is filled with false and misleading praise for Walker's policies. In a now-famous prank phone call, a blogger posing as Koch got Walker to say that his goal was to "crush" Wisconsin's unions, a goal Koch may share, though he is more circumspect in his language. "What Scott Walker is doing with the public unions in Wisconsin is critically important," Koch says after an expansive dinner featuring salmon and white wine. "He's an impressive guy and he's very courageous. If the unions win the recall, there will be no stopping union power." Nicholas later "clarifies" Koch's remarks, saying: "Koch companies support voluntary associations, and where they so choose, we recognize employees' rights to be represented and bargain collectively. We think the best workplace relationships are fostered when the employer works directly with its employees. It is a mischaracterization of our principles to say this means we oppose unions or want to dismantle all unions." Singer writes that Koch's usage of the term "union power" seems as biting as one might have said "Bolshevik" in an earlier time—"a new red scare for a new century," she writes. Besides funding such organizations as AFP, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Republican Governors Association, the American Legislative Exchange Council (where, Singer writes, "copycat conservative legislation is passed among conservative state politicos"), and others, the Koch brothers are one of the most powerful and influential financial forces behind the "tea party" movement, largely through AFP. Singer conducts the interview on February 11; the Palm Beach Post publishes the report based on the interview on February 20. [Palm Beach Post, 2/20/2012; Nation, 2/20/2012] Koch's public admission of support for Walker could constitute a violation of the laws administering such "nonprofit" organizations as AFP, according to one journalist (see February 20, 2012).
Entity Tags: Cristyne Nicholas, Americans for Prosperity, American Legislative Exchange Council, Charles Koch, Stacey Singer, Palm Beach Post, Republican Governors Association, Heritage Foundation, David Koch, Cato Institute, Scott Kevin Walker, MD Anderson Cancer Center
The Republican presidential primaries are being largely controlled, at least from a financial standpoint, by a very few extraordinarily wealthy individuals, according to research provided by former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich and the news organization ProPublica. In January 2012, the campaign of frontrunner Rick Santorum (R-PA) was almost entirely funded by billionaires William Dore and multi-millionaire Foster Friess (see February 16-17, 2012), who between them supplied over three-quarters of the $2.1 million donated to Santorum's "super PAC" "Red White and Blue Fund." Dore is the president of a Louisiana energy corporation and Friess is a fund manager in Wyoming. Of the $11 million raised by the super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich (R-GA), $10 million came from Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. Adelson runs a casino ownership group in Las Vegas. Most of the rest of Gingrich's funding came from Texas billionaire Harold Simmons. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel provided $1.7 million of the $2.4 million raised in January by the super PAC for Ron Paul (R-TX). As for Mitt Romney (R-MA), himself a multi-millionaire, his super PAC "Restore Our Future" raised $6.6 million in January. Almost all of it came from 40 donors, including hedge fund billionaires Bruce Kovner, Julian Robertson (the largest donor at $1.25 million), and David Tepper, hotel owners J.W. Marriott and Richard Marriott, and Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman. The lobbying firm FreedomWorks (see 1984 and After, May 16, 2008, February 16-17, 2009, February 19, 2009 and After, February 27, 2009, March 13, 2009 and After, April 2009 and After, April 14, 2009, April 15, 2009, June 26, 2009, Late July, 2009, August 5, 2009, August 6, 2009, August 6-7, 2009, August 10, 2009, August 14, 2009, August 19, 2009, August 24, 2010, September 2010, September 12, 2010 and August 17, 2011) has contributed over $1.4 million to various Republican candidates. Reich writes, "Whoever emerges as the GOP standard-bearer will be deeply indebted to a handful of people, each of whom will expect a good return on their investment." Reich goes on to cite American Crossroads's "super PAC" Crossroads GPS, founded by Republican political consultant Karl Rove, and its lineup of corporate moguls contributing hundreds of millions of dollars. The lineup of Crossroads supporters includes Charles and David Koch (see 1940 and After, 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, 1997, Late 2004, Late 2004, October 2008, August 5, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 2010, August 17, 2011, April 2010 and After and October 4, 2011), and Harold Simmons, owner of Contran Corporation, who has contributed $10 million to the organization. Reich says there is no legal way to know exactly how much the Kochs and their fellows have contributed: "The public will never know who or what corporation gave what because, under IRS regulations, such nonprofit 'social welfare organizations' aren't required to disclose the names of those who contributed to them." The previous limit of $5,000 per year per individual was erased by the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, a decision Reich calls "grotesque." Reich writes: "In a sense, Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, and Romney are the fronts. Dore et al. are the real investors.… Now, the limits are gone. And this comes precisely at a time when an almost unprecedented share of the nation's income and wealth is accumulating at the top. Never before in the history of our Republic have so few spent so much to influence the votes of so many." [The Atlantic, 2/2/2012; Salon, 2/21/2012; ProPublica, 2/21/2012] President Obama's super PAC, "Priorities USA Action," has received $2 million from Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and another $1 million from the Service Employees International Union's Committee on Political Education (SEIU COPE). However, Priorities USA has raised relatively paltry sums in comparison to the monies raised by the Republican super PACs, according to a Reuters report. Obama and his re-election campaign had originally distanced themselves from the super PAC operating in their name, in part because they disapprove of the Citizens United decision and the influence of super PACs in electoral politics. Since the Obama campaign officially endorsed the organization, donations have risen. Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod says that Obama "believes that this is an unhealthy development in our political process, but it is a reality of the rules as they stand. This was not a quick decision, but he also feels a responsibility to win this election. There's a lot hanging on this beyond him." By the end of January, Priorities USA had raised $4.2 million. In contrast, Romney's "Restore Our Future" had raised $36.8 million by the end of last month. [Reuters, 2/2012; ProPublica, 2/21/2012] Partly in response to reports of billionaires' influence on the 2012 elections, comedian Bill Maher will announce his donation of $1 million to the Obama super PAC. Maher will tell an audience that an Obama victory over any of the Republican contenders is "worth a million dollars" and will describe the donation as "the wisest investment I think I could make." [Los Angeles Times, 2/24/2012] Friess is often described in the press as a "billionaire," but both Friess and Forbes magazine say that appellation is inaccurate. [Forbes, 2/8/2012]
Entity Tags: Republican Party, Richard Marriott, Rick Santorum, Peter Thiel, Robert Reich, William Dore, Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education, Newt Gingrich, Willard Mitt Romney, Sheldon Adelson, Ron Paul, Miriam Adelson, ProPublica (.org), Karl C. Rove, Charles Koch, American Crossroads, David Axelrod, American Crossroads GPS, Meg Whitman, Bill Maher, Barack Obama, David Koch, David Tepper, Foster Friess, Julian Robertson, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Bruce Kovner, J. W. ("Bill") Marriott, FreedomWorks, Harold Simmons
The billionaire oil magnates and conservative political financiers Charles and David Koch (see 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011) launch a court battle to take control of the libertarian Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. The Cato Institute began in 1974 as the Charles Koch foundation and changed its name to the Cato Institute in 1976, with the support and funding of the Koch brothers (see 1977-Present). Until last year, the institute had four primary shareholders with a controlling interest: the Koch brothers, Cato president Edward H. Crane III, and William A. Niskanen, a former Reagan administration economic advisor who died in 2011. The Kochs believe that there should be only three shareholders now, which would give them complete control of the organization, but Crane says Niskanen's 25 percent share should go to Niskanen's widow, Kathryn Washburn. Koch lawyer Wes Edward says the dispute is about nothing but shareholder rights. Cato has 120 full-time staffers and around 100 visiting or adjunct scholars. Its annual operating budget is $23 million. [Politico, 3/1/2012]
Entity Tags: David Koch, Charles Koch, William A. Niskanen, Kathryn Washburn, Cato Institute, Edward H. Crane III, Wes Edward
Kenneth Griffin. [Source: Start a Hedge Fund (.com)]Billionaire hedge fund investor Kenneth Griffin tells a Chicago reporter that he does not believe the extraordinarily wealthy wield enough political influence in America, and says that they must step up to stop America's "drift" towards Soviet-style "socialism." Griffin, alone and in conjunction with his wife Anne, has given $150,000 to Restore Our Future, the super PAC that supports Mitt Romney (see June 23, 2011). He has also given over $560,000 to the Republican Governors Association and $300,000 to American Crossroads, the advocacy organization founded by Republican strategists Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove. The Griffins have been heavy Republican donors in previous election cycles, and have given around $1.5 million to Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004), the "astroturf" lobbying and advocacy organization founded and sponsored by the billionaire oil magnates Charles and David Koch. Of his contributions to AFP, he explains: "Charles and David Koch are huge advocates for free markets (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011). I have a tremendous respect for their intellectual and financial commitment to embracing a set of economic policies that will give us global competitiveness.… I share their fundamental belief that economic freedom is core to the ethos of our country. It's the idea that any person can pursue their dreams, whether it's starting a business or who they choose to work for." Asked, "Do you think the ultrawealthy have an inordinate or inappropriate amount of influence on the political process?" Griffith replies: "I think they actually have an insufficient influence. Those who have enjoyed the benefits of our system more than ever now owe a duty to protect the system that has created the greatest nation on this planet. And so I hope that other individuals who have really enjoyed growing up in a country that believes in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—and economic freedom is part of the pursuit of happiness—[I hope they realize] they have a duty now to step up and protect that.… At this moment in time, these values are under attack. This belief that a larger government is what creates prosperity, that a larger government is what creates good [is wrong]. We've seen that experiment. The Soviet Union collapsed. China has run away from its state-controlled system over the last 20 years and has pulled more people up from poverty by doing so than we've ever seen in the history of humanity. Why the US is drifting toward a direction that has been the failed of experiment of the last century, I don't understand. I don't understand." Asked if he believes he should continue to be allowed to make unlimited donations on behalf of candidates (see January 21, 2010), he answers: "In my opinion, absolutely. Absolutely. The rules that encourage transparency around that are really important.… My public policy hat says transparency is valuable. On the flip side, this is a very sad moment in my lifetime. This is the first time class warfare has really been embraced as a political tool. Because we are looking at an administration that has embraced class warfare as being politically expedient, I do worry about the publicity that comes with being willing to both with my dollars and, more importantly, with my voice to stand for what I believe in (see July 20, 2011).… I live in financial services, and every bank in the United States is really under the thumb of the government in a way it's never been before. And that's really worrisome to me, as someone who's willing to say, 'Wait, we need to step back and try to push government outside the realm of every dimension of our lives.'" [Think Progress, 3/10/2012; Chicago Tribune, 3/11/2012]
Entity Tags: David Koch, American Crossroads, Americans for Prosperity, Charles Koch, Republican Governors Association, Willard Mitt Romney, Kenneth Griffin, Anne Griffin, Restore Our Future
American Energy Alliance logo. [Source: NJI Media]The press learns that a recent $3.6 million television ad campaign attacking President Obama on gasoline prices was funded by the oil billionaires Charles and David Koch (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011 and February 14, 2011). The ad campaign was launched by the American Energy Alliance (AEA), the political arm of the Institute for Energy Research. Both organizations are heavily funded by the Koch brothers and their donor network, though information about their finances is sketchy, as the groups do not have to disclose their donor rolls to the public. The two groups are run by Tom Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. Pyle regularly attends what news Web site Politico calls "the mega-donor summits organized by the Koch brothers." Koch-funded organizations intend to spend well over $200 million on behalf of conservative groups before the November elections. The AEA ad claims that the Obama administration is responsible for the recent surge in gasoline prices. Democratic National Committee (DNC) spokesman Brad Woodhouse says that the Koch brothers are "funding yet another shadowy outside group to defend the interests of Big Oil and protect their own tax breaks and profits with [Republican presumptive presidential nominee] Mitt Romney being the ultimate beneficiary." The DNC and the Obama campaign have targeted the Koch brothers in previous statements, calling them some of the "secretive oil billionaires" funding the Romney campaign. AEA spokesman Benjamin Cole accuses the DNC and the Obama campaign of playing "shadowy" politics intended "to delay, deny, and deceive the American public about the president's record on energy prices." The AEA ad is not connected to the Romney campaign, Cole says, and adds that the ad campaign is not intended to benefit Romney, stating, "[W]e have been public and unashamed of criticizing Mitt Romney or any candidate for office, Republican or Democrat, that doesn't support free market energy solutions." Cole refuses to confirm that the Koch brothers are financing the ad campaign, instead saying: "People ask if Koch is behind this ad. There is only one person behind this ad and it is President Barack Obama." The Koch brothers are becoming increasingly involved in the 2012 presidential campaign, sending representatives like Marc Short to network with former Bush advisor Karl Rove, who runs the super PAC American Crossroads and its sibling Crossroads GPS. [Politico, 3/29/2012]
Entity Tags: Karl C. Rove, Barack Obama, American Energy Alliance, Benjamin Cole, Brad Woodhouse, Obama administration, Charles Koch, David Koch, Thomas Pyle, Willard Mitt Romney, Marc Short
USA Today, using data provided by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), reports that much of the unprecedentedly high political contributions in the 2012 presidential campaigns comes from anonymous donors. The report also shows that eight out of the top 10 donors give to Republican and/or conservative super PACs. The pattern is similar to that described in earlier reports, such as an August 2011 report that found a dozen wealthy donors made up the majority of super PAC donations, and most of those donors contributed to Republican or conservative organizations (see August 4, 2011), and a February 2012 analysis that found a quarter of the donations flowing into the super PACs came from just five wealthy donors, four of whom are Republican contributors (see February 21, 2012). The latest data shows that eight out of 10 of the top super PAC donors are either individuals or corporations who donate to Republican causes. One of the remaining two donors, the Cooperative of American Physicians, supports a single Democratic candidate and a range of Republicans. The other is a teachers' union, the National Education Association. The top three donors—casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam, Dallas industrialist Harold Simmons and his wife Annette, and Houston real-estate mogul Bob Perry—have between them contributed over $45 million, more than four times the donations coming from the "bottom" six donors. Much of the money collected by nonprofit political advocacy organizations remains undocumented; for example, 80 percent of the donations collected by the Republican-aligned American Crossroads super PAC and its 501(c)4 sister organization Crossroads GPS is from anonymous donors (see April 13-20, 2012). The groups plan on spending at least $300 million during the campaign. FreedomWorks for America, the super PAC arm of the "astroturf" lobbying organization FreedomWorks (see April 14, 2009), garnered about a third of its contributions from anonymous donors who gave to the organization's nonprofit arm. Law professor and campaign finance expert Richard Hasen says, "We have a dysfunctional system for financing our elections," when anonymous donations can fund political activity. "It's bad for our democracy when people refuse to be held accountable." Russ Walker, the national political director of FreedomWorks for America, says simply, "Everything we are doing is within the law." [USA Today, 4/22/2012; Think Progress, 4/23/2012]
Entity Tags: Cooperative of American Physicians, USA Today, American Crossroads GPS, American Crossroads, Bobby Jack Perry, Russ Walker, Sheldon Adelson, National Education Association, FreedomWorks for America, FreedomWorks, Federal Election Commission, Richard L. Hasen, Miriam Adelson, Annette Simmons, Harold Simmons
Politico reports that Republican super PACs and other outside groups are coordinating under the leadership of what it calls "a loose network of prominent conservatives, including former Bush political advisor Karl Rove, the oil billionaire Koch brothers, and Tom Donohue of the US Chamber of Commerce," to spend an unprecedented $1 billion between now and November to help Republicans win control of the White House and Congress. The plans include what Politico calls "previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers" (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, February 14, 2011, February 29, 2012, and Late March 2012) to organize funding for county-by-county operations in key states, using tools such as the voter database Themis (see April 2010 and After) to build "sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states." The Kochs' organizations have upped their spending plans to $400 million. Just the Kochs' spending will outstrip the $370 million spent by the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign, and the $1 billion will exceed the $750 million spent by the 2008 Barack Obama campaign. The "independent" super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, Restore Our Future (ROF—see June 23, 2011 and January 31, 2012), plans on spending $100 million on the campaign to unseat Obama. American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, the two Rove-led groups coordinating much of the Republican spending efforts, plan to spend $300 million on efforts to elect Romney and other Republicans (see February 21, 2012). The raised millions will go to, among other things, television, radio, and Web advertising; voter turnout efforts; mail and telephone appeals; and absentee- and early-balloting drives. The $1 billion is entirely "outside" spending. Romney and the Republican National Committee (RNC) intend to raise some $800 million on their own. According to Politico: "The Republican financial plans are unlike anything seen before in American politics. If the GOP groups hit their targets, they likely could outspend their liberal adversaries by at least two-to-one, according to officials involved in the budgeting for outside groups on the right and left.… The consequences of the conservative resurgence in fundraising are profound. If it holds, Romney and his allies will likely outraise and outspend Obama this fall, a once-unthinkable proposition. The surge has increased the urgency of the Democrats' thus-far futile efforts to blunt the effects of a pair of 2010 federal court rulings—including the Supreme Court's seminal Citizens United decision (see January 21, 2010)—that opened the floodgates for limitless spending, and prompted Obama to flip-flop on his resistance to super PACs on the left." The super PAC supporting Obama's re-election, Priorities USA Action, has not raised anywhere near the amount of money being garnered by Rove and the Koch brothers, partly because of Obama's initial reluctance to have such groups operating on his behalf (see January 18, 2012). US labor unions may be able to raise some $200 to $400 million on behalf of Obama and other Democrats. The AFL-CIO's Michael Podhorzer says his organization does not intend to try to match the Republican donor groups, but instead will spend most of its money reaching out to union members and other workers: "Progressives can't match all the money going into the system right now because of Citizens United, so we have to have a program that empowers the worker movement." Politico notes that billionaire Sheldon Adelson single-handedly kept the Newt Gingrich (R-GA) primary challenge afloat (see December 1, 2011, December 19, 2011, January 3, 2012, January 6, 2012, January 23, 2012, February 21, 2012, February 21, 2012, March 26, 2012, April 22, 2012, and May 2, 2012), and billionaire Foster Friess (see February 16-17, 2012) was the key funder for Republican primary challenger Rick Santorum (R-PA). Outside money helped "tea party" challengers defeat incumbents like Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) in the 2012 primaries (see February 21, 2012). "Republicans have taken one big lesson away from campaigns conducted to date in 2011 and 2012," Politico states: "outside money can be the difference-maker in elections." [Politico, 5/30/2012]
Entity Tags: Foster Friess, Sheldon Adelson, Tom Donohue, American Crossroads GPS, American Crossroads, David Koch, Richard Lugar, Rick Santorum, Republican National Committee, Karl C. Rove, Michael Podhorzer, Newt Gingrich, Priorities USA Action, Charles Koch, Politico, Restore Our Future
Politico reporters Kenneth P. Vogel and Tarini Parti report on the difficulty of getting solid information about the donors being organized by the billionaire Koch brothers. Oil magnates Charles and David Koch (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, December 6, 2009, November 2009, July 3-4, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, and February 14, 2011) intend to raise at least $400 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 election (see Late May 2012), and to ensure victory for Republicans in state and local races around the nation (see February 21, 2012). Vogel and Parti call the Koch political operation "its own political party," almost, even going so far as to hold its own semi-annual conventions, including one scheduled for late June in San Diego. That convention will bring together dozens of millionaire and billionaire conservatives, who will write big checks for the Koch efforts. Additionally, the Kochs will unveil their new voter database, Themis (see April 2010 and After), which they expect will help in targeting potential Republican voters around the country. Themis played a big part in a recent successful effort to stop Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) from being recalled, as did huge amounts of Koch-organized donations on behalf of Walker. Three of the prime figures in the Koch efforts are convention "emcee" Kevin Gentry and political operatives Marc Short and Tim Phillips (see May 29, 2009); the operation is orchestrated primarily by Koch advisor and operative Richard Fink. Additionally, the Koch brothers intend to take over the Cato Institute think tank (see February 29, 2012) and make it more politically active. Minnesota television station owner Stanley Hubbard, a longtime Koch supporter, says: "They ask for support—and they get it because we all love our country and we have a different vision than do the liberals. I've gotten friends to be involved, and I think others have, too, so I would guess, yes, that's expanding." Vogel and Parti expand on how secretive the Koch network (which they call "Koch World") actually is. They are unable to find out where the San Diego convention is to be held, though they did determine that it is scheduled to take place over the weekend of June 23. A Republican who has worked with Koch-backed groups says: "The Koch groups are very complex in the way they do things. They're difficult to penetrate from the outside, which is smart. You often need a Sherpa." The conventions are heavily patrolled by hired security guards, who at one recent convention threw out a Politico reporter under threat of arrest. Participants are required not to discuss the convention with outsiders, including making posts on Facebook or Web blogs. (The winter 2011 convention in Rancho Mirage, California, leaked to the press, sparking what Politico calls "raucous protests" outside the exclusive resort hosting the conference.) According to Vogel and Parti, Phillips runs the lobbying organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004 and November 2009). Short oversees the spending of Koch network monies by other approved groups, some of which air television ads attacking Democrats. Gentry raises money for the Koch network. Gentry often uses urgent and even apocalyptic rhetoric in his fundraising appeals, warning potential donors of "dangerous and imminent threats" to American society and comparing the Koch conventions to the Continental Congress of 1776. One recent email lauded efforts by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to help the Koch brothers' fundraising. Gentry also spearheads the fundraising efforts for an informal network of conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, AFP, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Some conservatives are uncomfortable with the Koch brothers' attempts to gain dominance in conservative party politics. "Koch has been angling for the last three or four years to consolidate more of the conservative movement within their network," says one conservative operative. "That's why they do these seminars—to try to consolidate more big donors' money and direct it into their projects." The operative admits that the Koch fundraising efforts are very effective, saying, "Some of the donors believe giving to one source makes it easier for them instead of having to give to a dozen different places, and others just want to come out to hang with the billionaire brothers and be part of a very elite universe." Koch conventions regularly feature prominent conservatives like Thomas and fellow Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Texas Governor Rick Perry, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Virginia Governor Bob McConnell, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and right-wing radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. While federal documents track some $120 million in donations from recent Koch summit donors, most of the money raised and spent goes untracked, instead being hidden away by "nonprofit" groups that purport to be non-political social advocacy groups. Gentry has assured donors, "There is anonymity that we can protect." [Politico, 6/15/2012]
Entity Tags: Cato Institute, Stanley Hubbard, Scott Kevin Walker, Tarini Parti, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Themis, Tim Phillips, Rush Limbaugh, Americans for Prosperity, Antonin Scalia, Bob McConnell, Richard Fink, Marc Short, Clarence Thomas, Christopher J. ("Chris") Christie, Charles Koch, Politico, Eric Cantor, David Koch, Heritage Foundation, Barack Obama, Kenneth Vogel, James Richard ("Rick") Perry, Kevin Gentry, Glenn Beck
Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson gives $10 million to the billionaire Koch brothers, joining them in their efforts to defeat President Obama in the November presidential elections. Charles and David Koch (see 1977-Present, 1979-1980, 1997, 1981-2010, 1984 and After, Late 2004, May 6, 2006, April 15, 2009, May 29, 2009, November 2009, December 6, 2009, April 2010 and After, July 3-4, 2010, June 26-28, 2010, August 28, 2010, August 30, 2010, September 24, 2010, January 5, 2011, October 4, 2011, February 14, 2011, February 29, 2012, Late March 2012, and June 15, 2012) are planning to spend some $400 million to elect Republican candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA) and defeat Obama. The information about Adelson's donation comes from a Republican Party source in Nevada. Adelson makes his pledge at a Koch donor convention in San Diego, the first time he has attended a Koch-sponsored political event. He has already given $10 million to a Romney "super PAC" (see June 13, 2012), $10 million to a "super PAC" operated by former Bush White House advisor Karl Rove, and $10 million to two groups backing Republican House candidates (see Mid-June, 2012). The Kochs are the driving force behind the "astroturf" organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see Late 2004, May 29, 2009, and November 2009), which has spent millions of dollars on advertisements attacking Obama and other Democrats. The Kochs are also funding Themis, a voter information database (see April 2010 and After). Koch funding extends well into state and even local elections. [Huffington Post, 6/16/2012; Washington Post, 6/29/2012]
Entity Tags: Sheldon Adelson, Barack Obama, Charles Koch, Willard Mitt Romney, David Koch, Karl C. Rove
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