Truthout: Right-Wing Turncoat Gives the Inside Scoop on Why Conservatives Are Rampaging Town Halls

By Frank Schaeffer

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. Consider Former Congressman Dick Armey. Several far right foundations and the multitrillion dollar health-insurance industry have teamed up with him to organize the far right foot soldiers of the Republican Party to intimidate people speaking on behalf of health-care reform. They are using my old shock troops - given many of these folks were first energized by the Evangelical pro-life movement that my late father and I started in the 1970s. What we did to clinics they are now doing to congressmen and others speaking out for health care reform.

Having failed at the ballot box, having watched their Fox News-organized "tea parties" fizzle the intimidation tactics which the Republicans have embraced are being used in a well-financed, top-down orchestrated fake grass roots campaign by corporate interests to try and protect the profits of the insurance business. Armey's FreedomWorks is organizing against health care reform. Armey's lobbying firm represents pharmaceutical companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb. Armey's lobbying firm also represents the trade group for the life insurance industry. FreedomWorks is supporting the status quo at all costs. (They are also fans of fossil fuels. Armey's lobbying firm represents Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE, on energy related issues.)

Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks for building "amateur-looking" websites to promote far right interests of Armey. FreedomWorks represents a top-down, corporate-friendly approach that's been the norm for conservative organizations for years. How do I know this is the norm? Because I used to have strategy meetings with the late Jack Kemp and Dick Army 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 (D-NY) 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.

How Can the Right Stoop So Low?

I used to know Dick Armey quite well. One of my sons even worked for him as an intern. I knew Armey in the context of his being a fan of my late Evangelical Religious Right leader father Francis Schaeffer. (Back in the day when I was a right wing "pro-life" organizer who has long since quit the Republicans in disgust at their - our - descent into extremism and hate.) Armey was once 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?

I think I know what happened to him, Gingrich and the rest: They 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... for them this is the Apocalypse.

The last presidential election (to paraphrase Bart Simpson) "broke their brains." What else could explain their embrace of intimidation - rather than discourse - over the health care debate and such unsavory moments of madness as the Republicans accusing Obama and Judge Sonia Sotomayor of racism, knowing full well that they'd just destroyed their chances with the Hispanic community forever?

The "Scorched Earth Policy"

Dick Army and company have been driven mad by their reversal, not just of political fortunes but of seeing that they've wasted their lives. They now know they were wrong: about the country, the free market, war for fun and profit, and what the American people really want. They made their best case and were rejected by the American people - and by history. Bush was their man and he turned out to be a fool. So now 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!

The Lobbyist-run Groups "Americans for Prosperity " and "FreedomWorks/ Dick Armey-Orchestrated Memo:

Here is a leaked excerpt from the folks organizing the intimidation campaign:

# Artificially Inflate Your 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."

# Be Disruptive Early And Often: "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."

# Try To "Rattle Him," Not Have An Intelligent Debate: "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 Last Republican Tactic: Outright Lies

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 is now being combined with physical intimidation that in several cases has required police escorts to protect pro health-care reform speakers surrounded by angry plants sent to disrupt public forums on the health-care issue. Demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. (Missing from the reporting of these stories - with the notable exception of Rachel Maddow - is the fact that much 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. All we're missing is actual uniforms, otherwise we now have a full blown American version of the Nazi Brown Shirts.

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.

Conclusion: the Fascist Formula

Here's the emerging American version of the fascist's formula: 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.

What's the results of the fascist formula for the rest of us? Well, think how this "method" worked against Dr. Tiller's abortion clinic and how that story ended. 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.

What Can Be Done?

It's time that this whole shabby (and insane) business be exposed, vilified in run out of town on a rail by whatever responsible Republicans - if any - that are still in the party and who want to see the fortunes of their party revived. Republican leaders taking insurance industry money via lobbying firms and using it to organize what amounts to roving bands of thugs not only need to be exposed but thrown out of the public debate forever. They should become absolute pariahs.

It's time to give this garbage in name: insurance industry funded fascism.

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Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

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Senate Confirms Sotomayor

The United States Senate confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, by a vote of 68-31.

Only 9 of 40 Republicans Supported Sotomayor

• Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.)
• Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.)
• Sen. Christopher Bond (Mo.)
• Sen. Susan Collins (Maine)
• Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine)
• Sen. Richard Lugar (Ind.)
• Sen. Mel Martinez (Fla.)
• Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.)
• Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio)

The 31 Republicans Who Opposed Sotomayor

• Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.)
• Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah)
• Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa)
• Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.)
• Sen. John Cornyn (Texas)
• Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.)
• Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.)
• Sen. Robert Bennett (Utah)
• Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.)
• Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.)
• Sen. Jim Bunning (Ky.)
• Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.)
• Sen. Thad Cochran (Miss.)
• Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.)
• Sen. Mike Crapo (Idaho)
• Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.)
• Sen. John Ensign (Nev.)
• Sen. Mike Enzi (Wyo.)
• Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (Tex.)
• Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.)
• Sen. Johnny Isakson (Ga.)
• Sen. Mike Johanns (Neb.)
• Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)
• Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.)
• Sen. James Risch (Idaho)
• Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.)
• Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.)
• Sen. John Thune (S.D.)
• Sen. David Vitter (La.)
• Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.)
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

All 59 Democrats and the 1 Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont voted to confirm. 91-year-old Robert Byrd of West Virginia who has been in frail health was brought in in a wheelchair for the vote. Edward Kennedy, suffering from brain cancer, was the only senator absent.

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President Obama Sings Happy Bithday to Helen Thomas

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From the New York Times:

North Korea Is Said to Pardon Two American Journalists

KCNA, via Reuters

A photo released by North Korea's news agency Tuesday shows former president Bill Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.

By CHOE SANG-HUN, MARK LANDLER and PETER BAKER

Published: August 4, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, pardoned two jailed American journalists, the official KCNA news agency has reported, according to Reuters. The report came after former President Bill Clinton met with the reclusive and ailing Mr. Kim in Pyongyang on Tuesday

Related

The Lede: Clinton Said to Meet With Journalists (August 4, 2009)

Times Topics: Euna Lee | Laura Ling

Enlarge This Image

Zhang Binyang/Xinhua, via Associated Press

Former President Bill Clinton shook hands with a North Korean official in Pyongyang.

Enlarge This Image

APTN/Associated Press

Mr. Clinton was greeted with flowers.

Yonhap/Associated Press

Euna Lee, top, and Laura Ling.

Mr. Kim granted “a special pardon,” KCNA said in a statement. It was not clear how rapidly the two journalists, Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, might be allowed to leave the country. They were being held near Pyongyang after having been sentenced to 12 years at hard labor for entering North Korea illegally.

The pardon added to speculation among analysts in Seoul that North Korea, after months of raising tensions and hostile rhetoric towards Washington, may be ready to return to dialogue with Washington.

Tensions have been high since a nuclear test by the North on May 25 and the subsequent American-led effort to impose international sanctions against the North.

Administration officials sought to temper suggestions that Mr. Clinton would engage in sweeping discussions with Mr. Kim about North Korea’s nuclear program. His brief, one official said, was strictly limited to the imprisoned journalists

Since its last short-range missile tests in early July, North Korea has refrained from taking any provocative actions, setting the stage for a possible return to dialogue. In recent weeks, it has indicated that it wanted one-on-one talks with Washington. The United States insists that such discussions are possible only within the six-nation talks involving other regional powers, a multilateral forum the North has declared “dead.”

Accompanying Mr. Clinton was John Podesta, who was his last chief of staff at the White House and is now an informal adviser to the Obama administration. Mr. Podesta, the president of the Center for American Progress, a research organization in Washington, is an influential player in Democratic policy circles. Mr. Clinton also brought longtime personal aides, including Douglas Band.

Kang Sok-ju, the first vice foreign minister and Mr. Kim’s most trusted adviser on Pyongyang’s relations with Washington, attended the meeting, and later in the evening the North’s National Defense Commission, the country’s top governing agency chaired by Mr. Kim, hosted a dinner party for Mr. Clinton, state media reported.

Mr. Clinton flew into Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in an unmarked jet early Tuesday morning local time, Central TV, a North Korean station, reported. The White House confirmed the visit on Tuesday, but said it was a private mission.

“While this solely private mission to secure the release of two Americans is on the ground, we will have no comment,” Mr. Gibbs said in a statement. “We do not want to jeopardize the success of former President Clinton’s mission.”

It was widely assumed that Mr. Clinton would not have undertaken the mission without specific assurances that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee would be released.

The last time an American official met with Mr. Kim was in October 2000, when Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Mr. Clinton’s top envoy, traveled to Pyongyang. Mr. Kim reportedly suffered a stroke last August, raising uncertainty about his health and the future of his regime.

Television footage from Pyongyang showed Mr. Clinton being greeted at the airport by North Korean officials including the chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and Yang Hyong-sop, the vice parliamentary speaker. The footage showed him smiling and bowing as a young girl presented him with flowers. Photographs released by North Korea showed Mr. Clinton sitting next to a thin, though not sickly looking, Mr. Kim.

The two journalists were detained by soldiers on March 17 near the North Korean border with China. In June, they were convicted and sentenced for “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry.”

The Obama administration had been considering for weeks whether to send a special envoy to North Korea. The visit by Mr. Clinton, even if officially a private effort, was clearly undertaken with the blessings of the White House, and marked his first diplomatic mission abroad on behalf of the administration. Mr. Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been deeply involved in the journalists’ case.

Mr. Clinton is the first former American president to travel to North Korea since 1994, when Jimmy Carter went to Pyongyang — with Mr. Clinton’s half-hearted blessing — to try to strike a deal to suspend the North’s nuclear work in return for concessions from the United States. Ultimately that led to a 1994 nuclear accord, which froze North Korea’s production of plutonium until the deal fell apart in 2003.

As president, Mr. Clinton was initially ambivalent about Mr. Carter’s intervention. But Mr. Carter’s trip also proved that a former president could break a logjam, and Mr. Clinton has some cards to play with the North. In December, 2000, the last days of his presidency, he came close to traveling to the country in hopes of striking a deal to contain North Korea’s missiles. Mr. Clinton ultimately decided not to go because the deal was not pre-cooked, and his advisers feared he would be appearing desperate for an end-of-presidency deal.

Relations with the North deteriorated rapidly under the Bush administration, with the North renouncing the 1994 nuclear agreement, harvesting enough plutonium for approximately eight nuclear weapons and conducting a nuclear test. Mr. Obama never had time to get talks off the ground with the North before it conducted a second nuclear test and terminated the one significant deal it struck with the Bush administration. It is in the process of restarting its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon.

It is not clear whether the timing is propitious for Mr. Clinton to revive the broader relationship, with Mr. Kim in failing health after a stroke last summer and the North Korean leadership facing an apparent succession struggle.

In fact, the jailing of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee came amid a period of heightened tensions following the second nuclear device in May and the subsequent launchings of several ballistic missiles.

In recent months, the White House has marshaled support at the United Nations for strict sanctions against the North Korean government, including a halt to all weapons sales and a crackdown on its financial ties.

But the administration has tried to keep its diplomatic campaign separate from this case, which American officials have portrayed as a humanitarian issue, appealing to North Korea to return the women to their families.

“Their detainment is not something that we’ve linked to other issues, and we hope the North Koreans don’t do that, either,” Mr. Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said to reporters in June.

At the time they were detained, Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were on a reporting assignment from Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president. They were researching a report about North Korean women sold through human traffickers and refugees who had fled to search for food in China.

The administration initially said the charges against the women were “baseless.” But last month, Mrs. Clinton said the United States was now seeking “amnesty” for the women, signaling a readiness to acknowledge some degree of culpability in return for their freedom.

“The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,” Mrs. Clinton said in early July. “What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible.”

Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul and Mark Landler and Peter Baker from Washington. David Sanger contributed reporting from Aspen, Colo., and Sharon Otterman from New York.

This photo was released by China's Xinhua News Agency of the two female American journalists preparing to board former President Bill Clinton's chartered jet.

Video: From Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann

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