Operation Steele/Armey: GOP, Tea Party Movement Co-Opt Each Other

Originally published in the Huffington Post

Today Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and Dick Armey, head of tea party support groupFreedomWorks, held a joint conference call expressing their willingness to work together.

The call was held at 11am and included various members of the right-wing media. According to Politico:

The call is the first joint effort between Steele and the tea party movement -- which Republican candidates have been trying to court since the widespread anti-tax rallies in April that launched the populist uprising. "The two have connected on the matters of this health care bill," said an RNC source.

According to live-Tweeting from Dana Mozie of RockStarPolitics, the two spoke of how Congress had "flipped the bird" at the American people. Michael Steele also mentioned that"the fix is in" as far as health care is concerned. There was also talk about this morning's 1 am 60-40 vote for cloture on the bill being a cowardly move by Democrats. Armey ultimately said that no one can claim to be the leader of the Tea Party movement.

The implicit connection between the two groups is a new and distinctive development that stands in stark contrast to the Tea Party movement's prior aversion to the GOP. Eric Odom is a self-proclaimed founder of the modern Tea Party movement and an organizer of the Chicago Tax Day Tea Party, at which Michael Steele attempted to speak on tax day.

When Steele requested to address the event, however, Odom rebuffed him publicly, going so far as to post his response online. In regards to Steele, Odom wrote:

[I]t appears that he has only just decided to reach out after realizing how big the movement has gotten and how much media is now involved.

During the October ruckus surrounding the special election in NY-23, the GOP endorsed moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava while the Tea Party movement ran its own candidate, Doug Hoffman. Odom flew out to help coordinate the offensive, and even accused the GOP ofopen war against the Tea Party movement:

Not only is the NRCC going to waste donor dollars on a failed candidate with no hope of winning the race,they're also going to attack the actual conservative in the race! At this point, the only logical conclusion is that the NRCC (a huge hub of establishment consultants who leech off of donor money) and the rest of the old guard will arm itself for battle and wage war against the grassroots base rather than give it control.

Dick Armey himself stepped into the race, throwing the support of FreedomWorks behind Hoffman to such a degree that when Hoffman was interviewed by a local newspaper editorial board, Armey was seated right next to him. In fact Armey did Hoffman harm when, after Hoffman was asked about local issues, Armey dismissed the question, referring to such issues as "parochial" claiming this was an election about a national movement.

Scozzafava ended up dropping out of the race and supporting the Democrat, who was able to take a seat held by Republicans since Reconstruction thanks to the GOP and the Tea Party splitting the conservative vote.

Within two weeks of his movement's embarrassing loss, Odom's aggression was tempered. In a November 10 blog post entitled "It's Time to Take Over the GOP" Odom switched his strategy from something out of Rambo to something out of Aliens, seeing the GOP as a host to invade.

I know many of my fellow Tea Party activists are going to hate me for this, but it's time to face reality. The Republican Party must be our vessel in 2010...As a libertarian who voted for Bob Barr in 2008, I find it very difficult to state this in a public manner, but I will now be joining the Republican Party... I'm in no way advocating that we as a movement stand behind the existing Republican establishment. I am, rather, suggesting that we become the establishment... I know many of us in the movement have different goals. Some are to weaken the two party stronghold. This is understandable and a good long term goal... Love or hate the Republican Party... it's our only vessel in the short term. We either unify through it and make a stand strong enough to stop this madness in government, or we fracture over third party efforts and meet uncertain political demise.

Through his organization, American Liberty Alliance, Odom has worked with Armey and FreedomWorks since the spring, and has known Armey since at least 2007, when Odom organized a Conservative Leadership Conference at which Armey spoke. Both groups worked hand-in-glove to support Tax Day Tea Party rallies as well as town hall protests and marches on Washington. Now both organizations are working together to help plan the Tax Day 2010 protests, as well as a conference called the Patriot Caucus to follow immediately after tax day.

Eight months ago, Odom was chiding the GOP as johnny-come-lately tea-party crashers, calling out Steele specifically. Then Odom and Armey worked together against the GOP and Steele in trying to elect Doug Hoffman. Now Odom has capitulated and rejoined the GOP, while Armey and Steele are holding joint conference calls. As one snake bites into the tail of the other and vice-versa, it remains to be seen who will consume who.

Tea Party Movement Plans 2010 Caucus

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE HUFFINGTON POST


This story was produced by HuffPost'sEyes&Ears Citizen Journalism Unit.

The Tea Party movement hopes to calm dissension in its ranks in time for an April meeting of what is being called the Patriot Caucus. The conference will take place the weekend of April 16 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania -- a site chosen to invoke the essence of George Washington, whose army held Valley Forge through the desolate winter of 1777-1778. Over that winter Washington lost over 2,000 men to such maladies as typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, pneumonia, and simple malnutrition. The Tea Party movement hopes for a more successful winter.

This is very possible. The Tea Party movement will use the next few months to develop and strengthen the bonds between its sometimes-warring factions, and, in fact, they have already begun. Four major groups have joined forces and pooled their resources, as evidenced by the top of the TaxDayTeaParty.com website. The result is the Patriot Caucus, a joint effort ofAmerican Liberty Alliance, FreedomWorks, the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition and Tea Party Patriots, the same groups working to plan a 2010 Tax Day Tea Party on April 15 -- one day before the Caucus. All four groups worked together this summer to support the Tax Day Tea Parties and the town hall protests but not in such a tight-knit coalition.

The Caucus identifies itself as not just another Tea Party organization but an "unbiased infrastructure" which will exist only to identify and facilitate communications between like-minded Tea Party groups. The Patriot Caucus Facebook group already boasts over 2,000 members. The group's oldest wall entry was posted December 4, but the Caucus itself did not "go live" for another four days, when their planning wiki went online. The founding conference will include "intense training, debate panels and general session special guests" as well as the first election of "the 155 delegation of the national Patriot Caucus." There's a [sic] in there somewhere.

Why start a non-organization to organize other organizations? Messaging, apparently. According to the overview published on the Caucus wiki,

"We believe a part of the problem is the fact that those who advocate in favor of one idea over another, or one effort over another, do so because of partisanship or bias for the group he/she is involved in. This, of course, is natural and expected. But it does us little good in the end.

As an example, there are constant emails floating around within the movement that say, "why is your group doing that when our group is doing the same thing?" These are perfectly legitimate emails and great questions. But the more important question is, why did the two groups not conference with each other before the plans were made? We can't fault a group for making plans. We can, however, fault the movement for not properly communicating about potential plans as they're brewing."

Another way to put this is that the Caucus is designed to keep all the various Tea Party groups marching to the beat of just one drum, with Eric Odom as the little drummer boy.
Odom is Executive Director of American Liberty Alliance, the logo of which sits atop ThePatriotCaucus.net, a website registered to Odom. As well as being a member of theTemporary Patriot Caucus Development Committee, Odom is a self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party movement (though the Libertarian Party of Illinois and Ron Paul devotees would beg to differ). American Liberty Alliance worked hand-in-hand with FreedomWorks this summer to utilize the Tea Party Movement as a weapon against health care reform.

FreedomWorks is run by Dick Armey, former Republican House Majority Leader and the very epitome of partisanship. Armey was recently forced to resign his lobbying position at the firm DLA Piper when journalists pointed out that FreedomWorks tended to support causes which happened to intersect with the interests of certain DLA clients. On December 15, Armey was among the few who addressed the crowd at a woefully under-attended "Die In" organized by the Tea Party Patriots, in which protesters were supposed to flood Congressional offices in Washington en masse, then pretend to die as a result of government-run health care. Did it work out? Not so much. Dave Weigel of the Washington Independentcalled the die-in "very gentle" and estimated the crowd at upwards of "a few dozen." No dying-in is reported to have occurred. The event was organized by Caucus coalition partner Tea Party Patriots.

The Patriot Caucus wiki offers visitors a series of campaign resources, including a link to asample press release that happens to be on dtv.gov - a project of the Federal Communications Commission. This, despite the Tea Party movement's antipathy towards the government. The campaign page also encourages potential candidates to start a blog at "blogovists.com", a twice-misspelled link which takes you to Blogivists, another Eric Odom operation which functions as a hub for conservative bloggers.

The event is advertised as taking place at the Valley Forge Convention Center. However, despite the event's heavy promotion on through Tax Day Tea Party, 73Wire.com and American Liberty Alliance, it appears that the Convention Center has no such event on their books. Megan Tomlinson, National Sales Manager, told the Huffington Post, "there was a group with a name similar to [Patriot Caucus] who called, and the matter was discussed, but nothing has been planned as of yet." Despite Odom hyping up the Caucus on 73Wire.com and TaxDayTeaParty.com and AmericanLibertyAlliance.com, and despite the support of Tea Party Patriots, Nationwide Tea Party Coalition and FreedomWorks, no one person or organization has yet to make reservations.

According to a post on 73Wire.com -- yet another Odom project, which purports to be the right wing's answer to the Huffington Post -- planners wanted the conference to be free. However, they felt required to impose a five dollar fee "because we had to expand the size of the venue and we wanted to try and minimize the risk of registrations that do not actually attend."

In a December 13 email to ALA's listserv, Odom wrote that "anyone can run for delegate of the Patriot Caucus." On December 4 Odom posted on TaxDayTeaParty.com that "There will be no charge for attending the three day event, but there will be a credentialing process." However, the Caucus registration page itself advises you to "not even bother" registering if you are "considering attending, but you're not quite sure yet." Other disqualifiers:

• You believe government has the ability to solve our economic problems


• You believe bailouts, either by Bush or Obama, are justifiable under certain circumstances


• You believe an incumbent who voted for the stimulus, healthcare and cap-and-trade legislation should be given a pass


• You're considering attending, but you're not quite sure yet (You need to be certain and we may ask for travel plans in February to ensure it)


• You believe the Twin Towers fell as a result of government involvement on 9/11 (ok this one is not real, but come on... let's not go there. Deal?)


• You are not willing to campaign like your life depends on it in 2010 and 2012


• You believe that taxes in place to support government expansion are ok


• You think we're all nutty

Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (American Future Fund))

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

The American Future Fund describes itself as a "multi-state issues advocacy group designed to effectively communicate conservative and free market ideals." It appears to be a coalition of high-powered conservative political operatives who were among the first supporters of the Tea Party phenomenon and is already one of the first Tea Party groups to begin taking concrete steps toward the 2010 elections by working to ease robo-calling restrictions.

Founded in 2007, the Fund's address of incorporation matches an address for the law firm of Holzmann Vogel PLLC. The firm's managing partner, Jill Holtzman-Vogel, is former chief counsel to the Republican National Committee and acted as counsel to the 2000 Bush/Cheney campaign in the Florida recount. Currently she serves as a Virginia State Senator. The firm has so far refused to comment on its associations with the Fund.

On February 19, the same day that Rick Santelli's infamous MSNBC ignited the Tea Party movement, the Fund put up a petition on its website for those interested in attending the Chicago Tea Party. The site asks, "Would YOU join us in Chicago for a new, "Boston Tea Party?" IF WE GET ENOUGH SIGNATURES, IT WILL HAPPEN!" The Fund's other known involvement in the Tea Party movement was to help FreedomWorks distribute preparatory materials for the summer's town hall protests. The Fund also emailed its "tens of thousands" of members to help direct them to the town hall meetings.

Read full coverage detailing the various parts of the Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement:

• Tea Party Patriots
• FreedomWorks
• Tea Party Express
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Liberty Alliance
• Sam Adams Alliance
• American Future Fund
• RecessRally.com
• The Media

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (Americans for Prosperity))

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorksare the result of a 2005 split between feuding factions of Citizens for a Sound Economy. Americans for Prosperity is still directly supported by the Koch family. The founder of Americans for Prosperity and chairman of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, David Koch, the co-owner of oil conglomerate Koch Industries, is the 19th richest man in the world. Americans for Prosperity's director, Art Pope, has donated so much money to the North Carolina Republican Party that it named its headquarters after him.

Americans for Prosperity's propensity for fueling negative hysteria over health care reform and the Obama administration prompted MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to call the group "a parasite that gets fat on Americans' fears."

In the fall of 2008, at least two different state directors for Americans for Prosperity published nearly identical anti-EPA op-eds, each one even including the same misspelling. In June, Americans for Prosperity sent Joe the Plumber around the country on the "Save My Ballot" bus tour lobbying against the Employee Free Choice Act.

Americans for Prosperity is also behind Patients First, which made a name for itself this summer with its "Hands Off My Health Care"bus tours. Events on the tour featured speakers who compared President Obama to Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe and Adolf Hitler.

At a conference in October hosted by Americans for Prosperity, Koch claimed to haveorchestrated the Tea Party movement:

"Days like to today bring to reality the vision of our board of directors, when we founded this organization five years ago," Koch told the audience. "We envisioned a mass movement, a state-based one, but national in scope, of hundreds of thousands of American citizens from all walks of life standing up and fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in history."

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, formerly worked at Century Strategies with Ralph Reed. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff hired Century to support Abramoff's casino interests.

Americans for Prosperity was a strong proponent of ending the ban on offshore drilling during the 2008 presidential campaign while taking large donations from Exxon/Mobil, as revealed by Rachel Maddow. On August 6, Phillips told MSNBC's Maddow that Americans for Prosperity is "happy to take corporate money."

Read full coverage detailing the various parts of the Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement:

• Tea Party Patriots
• FreedomWorks
• Tea Party Express
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Liberty Alliance
• Sam Adams Alliance
• American Future Fund
• RecessRally.com
• The Media

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Follow Dawn Teo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dawnteo

Follow Alex Brant-Zawadzki on Twitter: www.twitter.com/beezling

Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (FreedomWorks)

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

FreedomWorks, formed in 2004 through the union of Citizens for a Sound Economy and Empower America, two conservative think tanks. A year before that merger, an ugly schism within CSE produced another splinter group, Americans for Prosperity. Oil billionaire David Koch founded Citizens for a Sound Economy and went on to start Americans for Prosperity, while FreedomWorks became more of an independent offspring. Koch is the billionaire co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately-held oil company in America.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's American Solutions for Winning the Future has been on the scene since 2007. Last year, the organization fought to expand offshore drilling. The campaign was dubbed "Drill Here, Drill Now" but is better known as "Drill, Baby, Drill." American Solutions for Winning the Future and an online movement known as #DontGo both began their pro-drilling campaigns around the same time, in August of last year. Gingrich and American Solutions also lobbied for coal and advocated for tax breaks for coal companies. Such acts directly benefited Peabody, the world's largest private-sector coal company, whichdonated at least $500,000 to ASWF in 2008 and 2009.

FreedomWorks, currently headed by former US House Majority Leader Dick Armey, has advocated for corporate interests since its inception. In December of 2005, Armey appeared on CNBC to lobby for a company known as RX Outreach, which is run by a company called Express Scripts, a mail-order prescription drug program for the poor. A week later FreedomWorks put out a press release praising RX Outreach. It was later revealed thatFreedomWorks worked with Express Scripts's public relations firm and that Express Scripts planned to donate money to FreedomWorks, which critics charge may call into question the group's tax-exempt status.

Recently Armey had to step down from his job at lobbying firm DLA Piper, when it was suggested that his ardent opposition to health insurance reform might be influenced by DLA clients such as Metropolitan Health Networks, a "leading provider of health care services to people with Medicare in Florida", drug manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis and the American Council of Life Insurers.

FreedomWorks and #DontGo are credited with initially taking the reins of the Tea Party movement. #DontGo was founded by Eric Odom and Allen Fuller in Chicago in the summer of 2008. Odom eventually dubbed himself the executive director of American Liberty Alliance, shortly after he began organizing Tea Parties in February. Though FreedomWorks only appears on the Tea Party Patriots website, it supported both the Tea Party Patriots and theTea Party Express this past summer. FreedomWorks's Florida Outreach Director Tom Gaitensmanages the Tea Party Patriots email list.

In April, Paul Krugman attacked FreedomWorks for "manufacturing" protests. Brendan Steinhauser of Freedomworks responded:

If journalists actually did their job, did some journalism and reporting, and talked to local organizers, they'd see that this is a grassroots movement... If Paul Krugman doesn't want to believe me, that's fine. But this came from the ground up.

Yet on February 9, 2009, two months prior to that statement and ten days before Rick Santelli's rant, Steinhauser set up a pre-Tea Party. He contacted Mary Rakovich of Florida, who had attended a FreedomWorks training session, and recommended that she organize a protest in response to President Obama's visit to Ft. Myers. FreedomWorks staffers called local supporters across the country within hours of Rick Santelli's Feb. 19 rant on CNBC, asking if they were willing to organize a Tea Party. FreedomWorks hosted the first event with $20,000, four staff members and a volunteer intern.

Read full coverage detailing the various parts of the Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement:

• Tea Party Patriots
• FreedomWorks
• Tea Party Express
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Liberty Alliance
• Sam Adams Alliance
• American Future Fund
• RecessRally.com
• The Media

Get HuffPost Eyes&Ears on Facebook and Twitter!

Follow Dawn Teo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dawnteo

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Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (Tea Party Patriots))

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

The Tea Party Patriots is a nationwide coalition of Tea Party groups, that is the de facto face of the movement.

The local groups it represents may include grassroots activists, but the coalition's backers and organizers are among the nation's most powerful strategists, operatives and financiers. TeaPartyPatriots.org lists two major heavyweights among its partners:FreedomWorks, helmed by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, andAmerican Solutions for Winning the Future, a 527 group created by former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The American Liberty Alliance is another listed partner.

It makes sense that the American Liberty Alliance would support the Tea Party Patriots as well as American Solutions for Winning the Future. After all, the American Liberty Alliance is simply an outgrowth of the #DontGo movement, a right-wing online advocacy group that worked in conjunction with American Solutions for Winning the Future in 2008 to lobby in favor of off-shore oil drilling. Both #DontGo and American Liberty Alliance were founded by Eric Odom, an online activist and a self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party movement. One of Odom's fellow Tea Party activists, Amy Kremer, is the founder of the Tea Party Patriots. Ironically, after involving herself in the rival Tea Party Express, Kremer was ousted from the Tea Party Patiorts, which considers the Tea Party Express to be an Astroturf group under the direction of Republican strategists.

The Tea Party Patriots' email listserv is managed by FreedomWorks staffer Tom Gaitens. This summer the listserv distributed a memo (pdf) from a group called Right Principles outlining the best practices for protesters to disrupt Congressional representatives' town hall meetings during the August recess. It included such advice as, "You need to rock the boat early in the Rep's presentation. Watch for an opportunity to yell something out and challenge the Rep's statements early," as well as, "The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda."

The Tea Party Patriots listserv also distributed a spreadsheet containing a list of over 100 congressional town halls from late July into September. The list was released by Conservatives for Patients' Rights, a group run by Rick Scott, the ex-CEO of Columbia/HCA, the largest private operator of health care facilities in America. Under Scott's stewardship, Columbia/HCA committed extensive Medicare fraud by overbilling state and federal health plans. When caught, the company pleaded guilty and settled the case for $1.7 billion in fines, the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history.

American Solutions for Winning the Future is a 527 group that's been on the scene since 2007. Last year ASWF fought to expand offshore drilling with a campaign dubbed "Drill, Baby, Drill." The campaign was supported by members of Congress and Eric Odom, a Sam Adams Alliance staffer who publicized the movement on Twitter via the #DontGo hashtag as well as through a now-defunct website. Last year Gingrich and ASWF lobbied on behalf of the coal industry, advocating for tax breaks for coal companies. Such acts directly benefited Peabody Coal, the world's largest private-sector coal company, which has donated at least $500,000 to ASWF in 2008 and 2009.

Read full coverage detailing the various parts of the Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement:

• Tea Party Patriots
• FreedomWorks
• Tea Party Express
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Liberty Alliance
• Sam Adams Alliance
• American Future Fund
• RecessRally.com
• The Media

Get HuffPost Eyes&Ears on Facebook and Twitter!

Follow Dawn Teo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dawnteo

Follow Alex Brant-Zawadzki on Twitter: www.twitter.com/beezling

Reading Tea Leaves - Part 4: Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement (Intro)

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

The Tea Party movement has gained national prominence for leading organized protests against big government. But the movement itself is far from a cohesive group of supporters. No less than eight separate and sometimes competing organizations make up the Tea Party network. And though it purports to be a grassroots movement, wealthy and politically-connected individuals have been feeding the phenomenon, according to research by Huffington Post Eyes&Ears citizen reporters.

During the spring's Tax Day Tea Parties and the summer's ubiquitous town-hall protests, unity was on display as a disparate group of protesters took aim at the Obama administration and the federal government. But once the fervor cooled down, some of the movement's best-known affiliates began feuding. The Tea Party Patriots and several regional organizationspublicly accused the Tea Party Express of Astroturfing, claiming that it was directed by Republican strategists, and even ousted and sued one of its own founders for associating with the Express.

Though they may be wracked by infighting, the two groups have plenty in common when it comes to their funding base, their partnerships and their links to Republican strategists. Both claim to be new grassroots organizations, spawned out of frustration over the bailouts. Yet neither group really fits the dictionary definition of grassroots -- "involving the common people, especially contrasted with... an elite" -- due to their ties to the wealthy and powerful.

Rick Santelli's infamous CNBC rant in February that ignited the Tea Party movement was also used as a call to action by many previously existing groups. Of those, the three most prominent are Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity and the American Liberty Alliance.All three claim to be grassroots. All three are primary sponsors of both Tea Party factions (Tea Party Patriots and Tea Party Express), and all three have been sponsored by organizations supported by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who co-own America's largest privately held company as of 2008, Koch Industries.

This slideshow details each of the Tea Party movement's disparate parts. Click through the links below for full reports on each organization:

Read full coverage detailing the various parts of the Anatomy of the Tea Party Movement:

• Tea Party Patriots
• FreedomWorks
• Tea Party Express
• Americans for Prosperity
• American Liberty Alliance
• Sam Adams Alliance
• American Future Fund
• RecessRally.com
• The Media

Get HuffPost Eyes&Ears on Facebook and Twitter!

Follow Dawn Teo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dawnteo

Follow Alex Brant-Zawadzki on Twitter: www.twitter.com/beezling