Former House Republican Leader Dick Armey (R-TX)

Yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union, Armey said his groups aim to elect tea party-minded conservatives to Congress to force the White House on a far-right path. “We’ll build a legislative wall… We’ll either be walling a Republican president in, or walling a Democratic president out.”

Here are the bricks they aim to put in their wall:

– A not-yet-determined Republican primary challenger to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) ($237,065 in independent expenditures to date). Hatch has veered sharply to the right since the 2010 defeat of Sen. Bob Bennett (R) by conservative activists and earned a 100 percent rating from the American Conservative Union for 2010. But FreedomWorks wants Hatch out of the senate too, given his past support for crazy things like the Departments of Education and Housing and Urban Development.

–Former Texas Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz (R), a candidate for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R)’s open senate seat ($71,647 in independent expenditures to date). Cruz has offered an unconstitutional proposal for a backdoor method of state nullification of federal laws and the Affordable Care Act and co-authored a white paper advocating a radical reading of the Constitution that would lead to Medicaid and most federal education programs being declared unconstitutional.

– Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), who is challenging Sen. Dick Lugar (R) in a primary ($47,180 in pro-Mourdock independent expenditures to date and another $12,378 against Lugar). Critics say Mourdock wasted $2 million in state funds in his unsuccessful legal challenges to the 2009 Chrysler reorganization and federal bailout. And in a September 12, 2009 speech to the FreedomWorks “Taxpayer March on Washington,” Mourdock warned that “through obvious, brutal, criminal acts of tyranny or through subtle, creeping
incremental-ism, governments corrupt the ideal of individual freedom into statism, economic slavery, and governmental dependency, and dependency is the opposite of liberty.”

– Nebraska State Treasurer Don Stenberg (R), a former state attorney general and candidate for Sen. Ben Nelson (D)’s open senate seat ($33,230 in independent expenditures to date). He has endorsed an extreme proposal to cripple our system of federal regulation by requiring that Congress approve every single major rule or regulation before it takes effect. In its endorsement, FreedomWorks for America said “Nebraskans described Stenberg to us as ‘tea party-minded before we had tea parties.’”

– Former Florida House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, a former senatorial candidate who recently dropped out of the race to defeat Sen. Bill Nelson (D) ($12,378 in independent expenditures to date). The outspoken conservative is now a candidate for U.S. House. He supports a national anti-union “right to work” law and a freeze on any new regulation that might have a “substantial economic impact on job creators.”

If Armey and his allies succeed in electing these and other far-right conservatives to Congress, the legislative wall would continue to block progress.

Occupy Sacramento demonstrator

ThinkProgress spoke to several participants at the OccupySacramento rally. Mark Bradley, a local resident holding a sign condemning the Koch brothers and former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, explained that he joined the movement because of his concern about the influence of corporate money over government. He also invited rank-in-file Tea Party members to the OccupySacramento event, claiming that he’s already been in conversations with a few. Bradley, however, said “corporate shills” like Armey’s FreedomWorks are unwelcome:

BRADLEY: With the Citizens United case that the Supreme Court approved, there’s now no limit on the amount of money that can be used for lobbying purposes and influencing elections. And we want, we the 99 Percent, are looking for our voice to be heard. Not just the voice of the one percent, but the ninety-nine percent. It’s people over money. [...] Charles and David Koch are representing their own interests. Dick Armey represents the interests of plenty of other large corporations. [...]

BRADLEY: What I have advised my fellow protesters out here is to not shut the door on Tea Party members if they want to become involved in this. They can make common cause with us; we can make common cause with them. We’re talking about the actual grassroots Tea Party people, I’ve talked to several of them and I’ve blogged with some of them. They’re perfectly welcome. We don’t intend to be co-opted by any outside group, especially FreedomWorks or some corporate shill organization.

Watch:

Bradley is right about FreedomWorks being a front group that shills for corporate interests. The organization, run by longtime corporate lobbyist Dick Armey, generates quasi-grassroots events to promote big business priorities. For instance, a lobbying consortium that represents companies like Chevron, Shell Oil, BP and Consol Energy, organized “EnergyCitizen” rallies to kill clean energy reforms last year. According to reports, Armey’s group mobilized Tea Parties participation for the EnergyCitizen rallies. The astroturfing for the polluter has continued, with FreedomWorks recently generating Tea Party support for a bill that allows polluters to release more mercury, carcinogenic dioxins, and soot into the air. The same fossil fuel lobbying association involved in the EnergyCitizen rallies and the push to deregulate air pollutants has given FreedomWorks at least $130,000 in donations.

The same dynamic happened with Bush’s push for privatizing Social Security. While Wall Street firms paid Armey’s corporate lobbying salary, Armey’s FreedomWorks group planted questions in town halls to support of the Bush plan. Even though polls show roughly half of Tea Partiers want the government to do more to crack down on outrageous banker bonuses, FreedomWorks expressed support for bailed out banks to use taxpayer money to for six and seven figure rewards atop their regular salary. Whether its whipping up Tea Party support for repealing the few financial reforms that made it passed the corporate-filibuster or allowing bankers to gamble with America’s retirement savings, FreedomWorks promotes the corporate interest over the public interest.

Although FreedomWorks is now urging demonstrators to ignore the big banks, the group’s influence may be waning.

In a post titled “Wall Street Protesters Should Instead Focus on the Federal Reserve,” a staffer for the group FreedomWorks claims:

The Occupy Wall Street website—which surely does not represent the views of all the protesters—has released a 13-point list of pro-government demands. OccupyWallSt.org demonstrates their economic illiteracy by demanding free college education for all, one trillion dollars in infrastructure and ecological spending. One little detail is missing: who is going to pay for all of this?

FreedomWorks is a front group used by Wall Street lobbyists to concoct bank-friendly schemes. FreedomWorks is playing its usual role: masquerading as a grassroots group to confuse activists and help big corporations. Even the Wall Street Journal has mocked the organization for its astroturf campaigns, which often include “amateur-looking” websites to promote the lobbying interests of FreedomWork’s leaders. Here’s a short run-down of how FreedomWorks manipulates people to promote their Wall Street donors:

– FreedomWorks is run by super lobbyist Dick Armey. Armey left his lobbying firm after ThinkProgress first revealed his long history of orchestrating fake grassroots efforts on behalf of his corporate lobbying clients. Still, Armey has a history of influence-peddling as a registered lobbyist for the Royal Bank of Scotland, Citizens Bank, the Investment Company Institute, and many other banks. His longtime firm DLA Piper represented AIG, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch during the bank bailouts.

– FreedomWorks has pushed a myriad of bank-friendly policies to benefit Armey’s lobbying clients and other FreedomWorks board members. The biggest example would be FreedomWork’s central role in promoting President Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security. In 2005, FreedomWorks literally paid people to attend rallies to support Bush’s event. The New York Times caught a FreedomWorks operative pretending to be a regular town hall citizen standing up to support Bush’s plan. In more recent history, FreedomWorks has instructed Tea Party members to oppose financial reforms designed to clean up corruption on Wall Street, regulate predatory bank practices, and limit risky behavior that has systemic implications for the economy.

– FreedomWorks is headed by a group of Wall Street investors and bank lobbyists: FreedomWorks board member C. Boyden Gray is a longtime DC lobbyist whose firm Grey and Shmitz represents the trade association for Goldman Sachs, AIG and JP Morgan — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Other board members include James Burnley, a corporate lobbyist for a firm that represents ING Bank, right-wing bank apologist Steve Forbes, as well as investors Frank Sands and Robert Lansing.

The demand that protesters avoid big banks and instead picket the Federal Reserve is typical FreedomWorks misdirection. As Matt Yglesias notes, the Federal Reserve is not inherently the problem; the Federal Reserve not doing enough to promote fiscal and monetary stimulus to encourage jobs growth is the issue.

FreedomWorks, a right-wing group bankrolling the Tea Party, has a new advertisement it is planning to run in Ohio supporting Gov. John Kasich’s union-busting efforts. The advertisement tries to paint union protesters in Ohio as violent thugs. One problem: the ad uses footage from an old union protest in California.

How do we know? This is the same footage from California, which features palm trees, that was used by Bill O’Reilly just days ago. He used it to argue that the protesters in Wisconsin were violent thugs. Here’s the video evidence produced by TP’s Jeff Spross:

Bill O’Reilly’s stunt inspired Wisconsin protesters to mockingly carry inflatable palm trees in Madison:

The larger point is that these protests have been remarkably peaceful, which forces the right to distort the truth.

A war is brewing among the right wing over the chairmanship of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over health care, climate policy, and energy policy. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) is the leading contender, but Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is seeking a waiver from Republican leadership to retake the gavel, while Reps. John Shimkus (R-IL) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL) are also in the hunt. Although the candidates are lockstep in opposition to the Obama agenda and in their intention to launch witch hunts against climate science, Upton is a relative moderate, having admitted in the past that greenhouse emissions should be reduced. In contrast, Barton — who famously apologized to BP this summer — is fully aligned with the oil and gas industry, with $1,482,630 in lifetime contributions.

Now this internal fight has exploded into a Tea Party battle royale. FreedomWorks, run by veteran GOP lobbyist Dick Armey, has launched Down With Upton, a website attacking “Big Government Republican Fred Upton” for a record “full of votes for more regulation, more spending, and more taxes.” In an email announcing the campaign, FreedomWorks cited Glenn Beck’s warning that “light bulbs are just the beginning”:

Fred Upton, currently considered the front-runner for chairmanship of the critical House Energy and Commerce committee, is far out of step with the Tea Party movement, the GOP and the American people as a whole. You may have heard Glenn Beck talking about Fred Upton introducing a bill to ban incandescent light bulbs in favor of so-called “environmentally-friendly” alternatives. The truth is, Fred Upton has a Big Government record a mile long, and light bulbs are just the beginning.

Upton has already reneged his position on light-bulb efficiency, telling Politico “he’s not afraid to go back after an issue he once supported but that has come under withering assault on the conservative airwaves, including on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck’s talk shows.”

There was, in fact, no bill to ban incandescent light bulbs. Because of the advanced light-bulb standards Upton helped pass in 2007, “the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation,” the New York Times reported last year. “There have been more incandescent innovations in the last three years than in the last two decades.”

The Tea Party movement is increasingly attacking American innovation and 21st-century jobs on all fronts: Rush Limbaugh is leading the charge against the breakthrough Chevy Volt, Republican governors are killing high-speed rail, Glenn Beck is cooking up conspiracy theories about smart grid technology, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is trying to kill the wind industry, and the entire right-wing movement is convinced green jobs are going to destroy the United States economy.