When Astroturf is really Astroturf: Phony Grassroots PAC Reveals Massive 527 Network Run By Two Activists Backed with Union Millions
It is a standard Leninist tactic to accuse your enemy of being what you yourself are, and this tactic has become yet another familiar ploy in the seemingly bottomless slime bag of Democrat propaganda tricks.
Tea Party groups have been called everything by our illustrious leaders in Washington: "fringe," "wingnuts," "lunatics" and famously, "Astroturf" by none other than Queen "Stretch" Pelosi Herself. But the true astroturfers are all on the Democrat side of the ledger, from Obama advisor David Axelrod, who became synonymous with Astroturfing as a prominent PR executive, to their busloads of "paid volunteer" Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and ACORN flunkies storming Tea Party rallies.
But the latest in the Democrat's increasingly transparent Astroturf campaign is an organization which personifies the word: http://www.theteapartyisover.org/. Presenting itself as a group whose mission is to "...prevent the Tea Party's dangerous ideas..." you know, the really subversive ones like lower taxes, state's rights and limited government, "from gaining legislative traction." They call the widespread belief in Obama's blatantly socialistic tendencies "dangerous," - not his socialism that is, but the belief that he is socialist - and call the Tea Party movement a mere "fad."
As has now been widely documented here, here, here, here and here, the entire Tea Party is Over "movement" is the work of two long-time Democrat activists, Craig Varoga and George Rakis. In fact, this kind of thing is actually their business. A look at their website, Independent Strategies makes this indisputably clear:
Independent Strategies is the only consulting firm in the country specializing in independent-issues communications. A full-service firm, Independent Strategies provides clients with strategic planning, voter-contact support and communications strategy. The firm's partners, Craig Varoga and George Rakis, use cutting-edge, results-driven methodologies to benefit their high-profile clients, including Presidential, Senate, Congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns; international and local labor unions; national political committees; state parties; independent-communications entities and hundreds of candidates in every region in the country.
The website boasts of the pair's success in high profile Democrat campaigns around the country, with clients such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), General Wesley Clarke, Congressman John Dingell (D-MI), Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and others. Just to be clear, these two "independents" have no record, nada zero, zilch, of working with anyone other than Democrats.
The TeaPartyIsOver.org website names the American Public Policy Committee (APPC) as their sponsoring organization. Interestingly, APPC provides no link, and Google searches bring up nothing. The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org reveals that the APPC received funding in 2010 from only two sources: Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West.
Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West are Craig Varoga creations. Here is yet another pathetic example of Democrats trying to wrest the "patriot" mantle from conservatives. Good luck.
The website describes itself thusly:
Patriot Majority believes it is our patriotic duty as Americans to pursue new (emphasis mine) policies that strengthen our national security, boost the economy, achieve energy independence, make health care affordable, provide quality education and protect public safety.
Sounds a lot like the standard Democrat boilerplate, doesn't it? Except maybe the part about national security, a subject which normally gives Democrats hives. The key here is "new." Their "new" approach to national security probably echoes Obama's, like Mirandizing the Christmas Panty Bomber within an hour of his arrest, trying 9-11 terrorists as criminals or talking to lunatics like Iranian President Ahmadinejad with "no preconditions" while Ahmadinejad's thugs murder anti-government protesters in the streets. Oh yeah, that's new alright.
Hopey Changey.
A particularly slick little bit of deception is Patriot Majority's "Issues" page. It lists absolutely no issues. Instead it provides a blog roll, which they call "issue links." The blog roll names the familiar leftist ones like Daily Kos and Huffington Post, but also a long list of conservative sites like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Drudge, American Spectator, Hugh Hewitt, Powerline and others. Someone just glancing at the site might conclude that here is a genuinely nonpartisan organization.
However, the sidebar features a number of the ads they have produced. These are all plainly partisan, leading off with a 2 ½ minute piece that slams former VP Dick Cheney with the "Bush Lied" mantra.
In fact, their entire website is plastered with examples of their ads, and little else. Patriot Majority appears to be little more than a promotional venue for Messrs. Varoga and Rakis' political marketing business. Every page features ads "paid for by Patriot Majority" in the sidebar. Their "About" page is mostly promotion:
Patriot Majority was formed in 2005 and is one of the most successful issue-advocacy groups in the United States. In 2008, Patriot Majority aired more than $14 million of issue ads in 22 states and jurisdictions throughout the country. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, Patriot Majority (together with Patriot Majority West and Patriot Majority Midwest) ranked fourth nationwide last year in spending on issue ads by independent groups. Patriot Majority also aired issue ads in Massachusetts in 2006, Ohio in 2007 and just recently released a web ad challenging recent policy statements by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Patriot Majority is currently planning its next round of issues communications for 2009 and the coming years.
The site lists no affiliates and names no individuals but merely highlights all its advertising accomplishments. And as we shall see, a nice "consulting" fee goes to Independent Strategies for all these noble efforts.
That is clearly what has happened with TheTeaPartyIsOver.org. APPC got a measly $30,000, so this really isn't a very serious effort. But $10,000 of this was paid to Independent Strategies. Their only other activity was in 2008, when they spent about $137,000, all related to political campaigns. Independent Strategies received $17,541 of that.
Small change. Patriot Majority on the other hand, is not. The organization received over $9 million during the 2008 cycle, mostly from organized labor. An American Thinker blogger laid out the list of donors to Patriot Majority in 2008:
American Federation of St/Cnty/Munic Employees (AFSCME) $5,800,000
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) -- $770,000
Change to Win -- $500,000
Patriot Majority West -- $300,000
Communications Workers of America -- $300,000
Teamsters Union -- $250,000
Patriot Majority Midwest -- $161,000
United Food & Commercial Workers Union -- $125,000
Bauman Foundation -- $25,000
American Affordable Health Care -- $11,874
Oklahoma Freedom Fund -- $10,469
Pennsylvania AFL-CIO -- $6,500
Bluegrass Freedom Fund -- $5,000
Public Security Now -- $920
American Public Policy Cmte -- $861
But it really doesn't matter. APPC is Patriot Majority, Patriot Majority is Patriot Majority West and about half a dozen or more other organizations. A Fox News article lays out the scam pretty clearly:
Varoga and Rakis keep a central mailing address in Washington, pulling in soft money contributions from unions and other well-padded sources to engage in what amounts to a legal laundering system. The money -- tens of millions of dollars -- gets circulated around to different states by the 527s, which pay for TV ads, internet campaigns and lobbyist salaries, all while keeping the hands of the unions clean -- for the most part.
The system helps hide the true sources of funding, giving the appearance of locally bred opposition in states from Oklahoma to New Jersey, or in the case of the Tea Party Web site, in Illinois...
The center of their activity appears to be a single office in Southeast D.C. -- 300 M Street, Suite 1102 -- which plays host to a sprawling political shell game they have established (although a second search by this author pulled up Apt 911, 930 Wayne Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910 for both Independent Strategies and Patriot Majority.)
Public records show at least seven political shops listed in Suite 1102, most of which are essentially clones of one another, but all of which have offered money -- from measly thousands to game-changing millions -- in state-level elections across the country:
The American Public Policy Committee Donations | IRS forms
Patriot Majority Donations | IRS forms
Citizens for Progress Donations | IRS forms
Oklahoma Freedom Fund Donations | IRS forms
Mid Atlantic Leadership Fund Donations | IRS forms
Public Security Now Donations | IRS forms
Pioneer Majority Donations | IRS forms
Bluegrass Freedom Fund Donations | IRS forms
These are all Varoga and Rakis creations and if you examine the list of donors to these groups, it is apparent that it is a huge shell game. APPC received funding from Patriot Majority, but Patriot Majority receives funds from Oklahoma Freedom Fund and Bluegrass Freedom Fund. Meanwhile, Patriot Majority has been renamed Citizens for Progress and Citizens for Progress received funds from APPC this year, while Bluegrass Freedom Fund receives money from Patriot Fund. Confused yet? Oh yes, and the Pioneer Majority is now called the "Alliance for North Carolina," and Public Security Now has changed its name to "Midwest Alliance for Better Government." Who knows how many more names they have out there?
Far and away the largest donor to these groups is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). AFSCME donated about $11 million to these groups in 2008. That is your tax dollars at work! Other large donations came from unions like SEIU and the National Education Association, and other leftwing or Democrat Party groups.
Checking the "expenditures" tabs for these groups at Opensecrets.org reveals that all make expenditures to Independent Strategies or one of these front groups. But even that isn't all. Another company called VR Research (as in Varoga Rakis) also is on the take. There may be others. The Mid-Atlantic Leadership Fund lists Waterfront Strategies as receiving $1.5 million in 2010. Their website is simply a title page with a DC address and no further information. These are the kinds of front organizations you would expect from a Russian or Chinese spy operation.
The Fox News article quotes Paul Ryan of Campaign Legal Center as saying that "It's not illegal but it is, I think, dishonest on the part of the organizations..."
It may be legal, but it certainly doesn't look so from here. The way the money moves seemlessly from 527 organization to 527 organization and then back to for profit companies, I suspect their Byzantine shell game covers more than just the tracks of big labor.
Because TheTeaPartyIsOver.org is such a clearly modest effort, we may well be needlessly giving this blatant Astroturf operation unwarranted publicity. However, the exposure of the vast, corrupt network of big labor, Party machinery and professional activists behind it has also served to place in stark relief the sleazy and duplicitous methods by which Democrats promote their phony agenda - all the while making big bucks in the process.
Yet more reasons to fire the entire lot in November.
James Simpson is an economist, businessman and former university instructor, who from 1987 to 1993 worked at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) analyzing and reporting on various economic and budgetary issues for high-level policy makers, including the President. Mr. Simpson left government service in 1993 to develop a business idea.
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