EXCLUSIVE: Dick Armey Dishes On FreedomWorks' Deals With Beck & Limbaugh

JOE STRUPP/Media Matters for America:

Former FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey says the conservative outlet that helped launch the Tea Party paid Glenn Beck at least $1 million last year to fundraise for the organization, an arrangement he said provided "too little value" for the money. 

"The arrangement was simply FreedomWorks paid Glenn Beck money and Glenn Beck said nice things about FreedomWorks on the air," Armey, the former House majority leader, told Media Matters Friday. "I saw that a million dollars went to Beck this past year, that was the annual expenditure."

Armey, who left the organization this past fall after a dispute over its internal operations, said a similar arrangement was also in place with Rush Limbaugh, but did not know the exact financial details.

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

Media Matters contacted Armey after Mother Jones magazine published a leaked copy of the document FreedomWorks prepared for its Winter 2012 board of directors meeting. That document alluded to "embedded media programs" for fundraising that featured the two conservative radio hosts and claimed that fundraising efforts featuring them raised nearly $1.3 million in 2012, not including event ticket sales from third-party vendors. 

From the leaked FreedomWorks document:   

Mother Jones further reported that the organization "plans to continue its financial support for Glenn Beck's media enterprise, including sharing a TV studio with and leasing office space to the Washington bureau of TheBlaze, Beck's website and TV network."

Armey said he was told of the Beck arrangement when it first began, but that it would only cost the organization about $250,000 a year. "Once that was approved by the trustees, it then took on a life of its own, it got bigger than we understood it to be. All of a sudden it was we are paying Limbaugh as well as Beck." FreedomWorks did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Beck has been reading on-air appeals for FreedomWorks since at least April 2010. In June of that year, Media Matters reported that the organization was using Beck's endorsement to raise money. Politico highlighted the relationship as an example of a conservative group "paying hefty sponsorship fees to the popular talk show hosts" in exchange for "regular on-air plugs." The FreedomWorks document leaked to Mother Jones states that their fundraising relationship with Limbaugh began in 2012.

According to Armey, such programs are ineffective.

"If Limbaugh and Beck, if we were using those resources to recruit activists and inform activists and to encourage and enthuse activists, that's one thing," Armey explained. "If we are using these things to raise money; one, it's a damned expensive way to raise money; and two, it makes raising money an end on to itself not an instrumental activity to support the foundation work that our organization does."

Armey also said the relationship with Beck expanded to include rallies that were co-sponsored by Beck and FreedomWorks, and included appearances by FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe.

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

A review of promotional information for the events found $20 was a standard donation requested at some of the locations, while a Dallas, TX., FreePAC last summer charged prices as high as $971.

"You don't charge activists to attend rallies. I would consider that wholly inappropriate behavior," Armey said. "There was a lot of resentment on the part of the activists. They would naturally expect that they are providing the activist power and think that they have a right to attend."

"The principal value to anyone from the relationship with Beck was Matt Kibbe, who got to share Beck's stage with him," Armey said, adding that he found out about the July 2012 Dallas rally after his name was already being used to promote it.

"They put out an email under my name that had more information than I had," he recalled. "That is why when I resigned I had them cease and desist using my name."

Armey said he began looking into the specifics of the Beck and Limbaugh arrangements last year after hearing from others in the organization that such activities were being done without his knowledge.

"I had come to the point where I don't know how much we are spending on Beck and Limbaugh, but we are spending too damn much and we are getting too little value out of it," Armey said. "It was something I only found out about after inquiring into the affairs in September or October.

"Starting in January of last year, in that general neighborhood, what we had was a pattern that Kibbe got into a pattern of consistently working out arrangements with people without telling me what he was doing," Armey added. "They had people issue directives, 'don't tell Armey about this.' I had people close to me saying there is something fishy here, you better look into it."

Armey pointed out that any reports of revenue raised through the Beck and Limbaugh arrangements does not take into account the money paid to them in the deal.

"It is like federal budgeting," he said. "We count the receipts we get from people who have sent in money, and we, meaning they, I am not a part of it anymore, do not count what the funds that are laying out are. They don't say, we paid Beck a million dollars and we had this program where we raised $300,000, you had a net cost of $600,000, or whatever the numbers are."  

But don't expect those payments to end: FreedomWorks' leaked 2013 budget plan includes "Glenn Beck Radio Ads," "Blenn Beck TV," "TheBlaze Action Center," and the "Rush Limbaugh Contract."

Right Wing Foments Voter Fraud Conspiracies, Hatches ‘Voter Caging’ Plot To Suppress Minority Votes In WI

Josh Dorner Documents and audio recordings released yesterday by One Wisconsin Now document an apparent plot by the Wisconsin Republican Party, Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (aka Fight Back Wisconsin), and various other tea party groups to suppress votes from minorities and students in this year’s elections using a well-documented — and illegal— practice known as “voter caging.” The alleged plot offers fresh evidence that long-discredited right-wing conspiracy theories about massive voter fraud supposedly perpetrated by minorities and others remain alive and well in both the official GOP establishment and its tea party base.

“Voter caging” is a means of voter suppression and intimidation that involves sending mail to a list of voters, compiling a list of mail pieces returned as undeliverable, and then challenging those voters at the polls or otherwise attempting to remove them from the voter rolls. The mere process of challenging voters can intimidate from voting even if they are eligible, cause long lines to form at polling places that will then discourage others from voting, and may result in eligible voters casting provisional ballots which stand a high likelihood of not being counted in the final tally.

In the alleged conspiracy uncovered in Wisconsin, Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, whose Wisconsin state chair was previously banned from politics in Wisconsin for three years, would finance a test mailing and other costs associated with compiling the caging list and then coordinate with the Wisconsin Republican Party to undertake an elaborate process to remove voters from the rolls ahead of the election, if possible, or at the polls on Election Day. Tea party groups were to provide the volunteer labor and cover for the activity — with all participants signing an extensive non-disclosure agreement under which they agreed to publicly operate in the name of Wisconsin GrandSons for Liberty, who would also provide some funding for the plan. The Wisconsin GOP would also provide additional funds, trainers for the tea party volunteers and would have a team of lawyers “standing by” on Election Day to respond to tea party volunteers and “bring the police” if necessary. As is typically the case in voter caging operations, the plotters appeared intent on targeting minorities, students, and others from heavily-Democratic areas of the state.

Audio recordings of the tea party meeting where the alleged voter suppression plot was discussed include numerous references by presenters to supposed instances of minorities and college students voting illegally. Tim Dake, a prominent tea partier in the state who belongs to Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty, cited an anecdote about busloads of out-of-state voters voting multiple times in previous elections, then went on to discuss “the racial thing”:

“So, the problem is now you see elections being stolen and we have to get these guys fired up about it, which is not happening. The other thing is you run into the racial thing. You have people screaming, ‘Oh, you’re denying the minorities their right to vote.” No, we’re denying their right to vote multiple times.’”

“No, we’re not even denying the minorities anything, we’re denying fraud,” added an unidentified attendee of the meeting.

Later in the meeting, Dake offered up another anecdote that included a comment implying that individuals with Vietnamese surnames had committed voter fraud. He described how after moving into a “brand new condo” in 2004, he attempted to vote and was told that there were already twelve others registered to vote at his address:

“They said, ‘Wow, you must have a big family.” And I’m looking at names and going, ‘No, there’s nobody named “Nguyen” and “Din” and that sort of thing in my family.”

Considering that the voter rolls used to check voters in at the polls are typically organized by last name, it’s unclear how a poll worker could have immediately discovered this information or why they would have chosen to share it.

Another presenter at the meeting, Shane McVey of the Eau Claire Tea Party, raised the specter of college students voting illegally en masse; however, he then admitted that the one time he had personally challenged a student voter (based on a conversation he says he overheard in line), “[t]he kid turned away and started freaking out and it turned out he was who he said he was, but I challenged him.” He then described using a 6’4”, 300-pound man to challenge voters at the polls, which apparently provoked allegations of voter intimidation from Democratic poll watchers.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the groups chose Wisconsin’s 16th Assembly district — an inner-city Milwaukee district that is heavily Democratic (PVI +35 D) and majority-minority — for their July Americans for Prosperity-financed test run.

Presenters at the meeting also repeatedly blamed ‘quote unquote Republican’ and Democratic district attorneys, the media, and others for consistently failing to pursue purported instances of voter fraud — especially from the 2004 election in Milwaukee. However, a Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney did in fact pursue such an investigation — which some deemed politically-motivated — of the 2004 election and eventually admitted that he couldn’t find any evidence of a “massive conspiracy.”

What’s more, an exhaustive five-year investigation concluded in 2007 by the Bush administration’s Department of Justice, which was quite keen to investigate such cases, “turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections.” Indeed, the biggest impact of the Department of Justice investigation seems to have been the subsequent politically-charged removal of several U.S. attorneys the Bush White House deemed to have been insufficiently aggressive in pursuing alleged cases of voter fraud.

The total lack of any clear evidence of voter fraud did not stop the right-wing from hysterically and repeatedly invoking the bogeyman of an ACORN-led plot to ‘steal the election for Obama’ in an effort to justify their numerous attempts to disenfranchise voters in 2008. For example, this “Republican War on voting” led the Wisconsin Attorney General, a McCain campaign co-chair, to sue his state’s election officials in a maneuver that could have potentially disenfranchised all 240,000 people who had registered to vote by mail since 2006.

While ACORN is now defunct thanks to a discredited right-wing smear campaign led by a convicted criminal, that has not even stopped the right-wing from continuing to invoke it to stir fears over minority voter fraud. Just today, Sarah Palin tweeted about the group. A new poll out this week found that 20% of Americans believe that “ACORN will steal the election to keep the Democrats in control of Congress.” Another 40% aren’t sure whether the phantom group will do so or not. Sadly, Slate’s Dave Weigel predicts that with this being the first ACORN-free election since 1970, the myth of ACORN will only grow as Democratic losses are attributed to the lack of a massive fraud by the group.

Update Tim Dake of the Wisconsin GrandSons for Liberty and Mark Block, State Director of Americans for Prosperity-Wisconsin have both denied involvement in any plot to suppress votes. However, emails sent just last week and subsequently obtained by One Wisconsin Now show that Dake was having an ongoing exchange with tea party leaders and Republican Party of Wisconsin about proceeding with their project—citing plans to remove as many as 70,000 “suspect voter registrations” from the rolls. Attachments to the emails included a detailed plan for moving forward, including photographing the homes of voters to be targeted for challenge, intimidation, or removal from the rolls.

Sarah Palin Defends Her Role As A Tea Party Profiteer, Announces Her Involvement In Another Scam

By Lee Fang Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported on the rise of “Tea Party Profiteers” — Republican operatives who are exploiting the tea party movement to make money and funnel volunteers to Republican campaigns. The profiteers tap into legitimate feelings of anger and distrust among many struggling Americans, but then steer people into organizations set up to make money off of them.

Sarah Palin has been under fire for demanding fees of at least $100,000 for her speeches to tea party groups. Defending her role as a profiteer, Palin wrote in USA Today yesterday afternoon that she would continue to participate in the scandal-plagued Tea Party Convention — a for-profit venture demanding a $550 ticket price and featuring a Madison Avenue fashion firm selling tea party jewelry — this weekend. Palin said her $120,000 payment for speaking at the convention will “go right back to the cause.” But just as she promised not to profit off her appearance this weekend, she announced her participation in another Republican tea party scam:

But participation won’t be limited to those in Nashville who have a ticket. It’s much bigger than that. [...] I will not benefit financially from speaking at this event. My only goal is to support the grassroots activists who are fighting for responsible, limited government — and our Constitution. In that spirit, any compensation for my appearance will go right back to the cause. [...] This weekend, it’s Nashville, but in March, I’ll head to Searchlight, Nev., for the kickoff rally at the Tea Party Express III.

The “Tea Party Express III” is a gimmick of the Republican public relations firm Russo, Marsh and Rogers (RMR). RMR has worked on several stealth campaigns for Republican clients, including the underhanded push to recall Gov. Gray Davis (D-CA). The Tea Party Express, which RMR staffers operate, has proved to be a cash cow for RMR — in 2009 alone, it plunged at least $1,025,559 of money it raised back into RMR’s coffers. Last summer, Alex Brant-Zawadzki reported that consultants for RMR conspired to plan a tea party Caribbean cruise. According to e-mails obtained by Brant-Zawadzki, the consultants planned to raise $200,000 for the cruise, then “pocket the [remaining] $150,000 in profit.”

Palin is the epitome of a Tea Party Profiteer. After abruptly resigning as Governor of Alaska, Palin has aggressively sold her ghost-written book, signed up as a paid pundit on Fox News, and made hundreds of thousands through paid speeches. Although the original Boston tea party protested the hegemony of the London-based East India Trading over the colonies, Palin has spent most of her political career defending multinational corporations and was dumbfounded when asked a simple question about the founding fathers. Palin portrays herself as a humble public servant and an admirer of the American revolution, but it appears she is simply out to make money and amass personal power.