OSINT on conversion of the Republican Party to a far right religious party and the shadowy groups that now call the shots on Republican party policy.
""DeLay urged the gathering to contact lawmakers in both chambers to support legislation that would allow churches to become much more involved in partisan politicking" and he "blasted current federal tax law, which bars both secular and religious nonprofit groups from endorsing political candidates." "It forces Christians back into the church and that's what is going on," DeLay claimed. "That's not what Christ asked us to do. We have to fight back."" But that is exactly where the framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted all religionists...in church, not in government. After being dominated by the Church of England and the English King who led it, the U.S. patriots knew all too well the dangers of the churches being involved in politics. They took formal steps in the Constitution to separate church and state, lest zealots with their own interpretation of "God's Will" seize and destroy the freedoms those patriots had just bloodily wrested from tyranny. But it appears, at least for now, the American version of the Taliban and Wahhabi is alive, well and growing in strength and boldness. The original article has numerous links to background data on the personalities and groups involved if you care to research them. David Bier [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mediatransparency.com/stories/secretsandties.html Secret and Ties GOP Leaders' Pledge Loyalty to the Religious Right's Agenda at Secret Meetings with the Family Research Council and Council for National Policy by Bill Berkowitz for MediaTransparency.org POSTED ARRIL 17, 2005-- In the mid-1990s, during a speech to the Montana Christian Coalition, Ralph Reed, then the national Christian Coalition's executive director and more recently a top advisor to President Bush, advised the group to heed the words of the ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu. "The first strategy and in many ways the most important strategy for evangelicals is secrecy," Reed suggested. "Sun Tzu says that's what you have to do to be effective at war and that's essentially what we're involved in, we're involved in a war. It's not a war fought with bullets, it's a war fought with ballots." Reed, who is currently a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, has long been a champion of stealth politics. In a November 1991 interview with the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, he colorfully summarized the Christian Coalition's political strategy: To fool voters, Religious Right-backed candidates should hide, or disguise, their religious agenda by promoting popular issues such as tax reform: "I want to be invisible," Reed said. "I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night." In 1999, Republican Party presidential candidate George W. Bush gave a closed-door by-invitation-only speech in San Antonio, Texas, to members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a highly secretive right wing organization. Try as they might, neither interested members of the press nor Democratic Party insiders were able to wrest the text of Dubya's remarks, or a tape of the speech away from Team Bush. Nevertheless, rumors surfaced that Bush had promised the CNP that he would faithfully implement its agenda and he vowed to appoint only anti-abortion judges to the federal courts. While secret meetings with constituents isn't the sole provenance of the Republican Party, running stealth campaigns combined with private meetings with high-powered constituents has been a hallmark of the Christian right's success. Many of these gatherings are about more than merely massaging the faithful: The private/secret meetings between Vice President Dick Cheney and representatives of the oil industry -- clearly intended to plot out an energy policy faithfully reflecting the interests of America's energy corporations -- have been the subject of a number of legal proceedings and yet the transcripts have yet to see the light of day. "Extremism is best conducted behind closed doors," the Rev. Barry Lynn, the president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United), told Media Transparency in a recent telephone interview. "When you get hardcore right wing GOP representatives from Congress and their staffs meeting with luminaries of the religious right, you know that they are going to be discussing the best ways to move their radical agenda forward." In late March, a tape of Republican Party leaders kowtowing to another powerful Religious Right group surfaced. While it isn't the president's voice we hear sermonizing to the faithful, the tape -- obtained and released by Americans United -- has generated a fair amount of political buzz, particularly in light of the fact that the meet-up was held during the height of the hubbub over the Terri Schiavo case. According to Americans United, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), offered their remarks during a Family Research Council (FRC - website) -- "closed-door Washington Briefing" March 17-18 at Washington, D.C.'s Willard Hotel. At the gathering, "The pair plotted strategy and talked about a range of political promises, using Mrs. Terri Schiavo's case as a springboard." Both Frist and DeLay "assured attendees that they would do what it takes to keep Schiavo connected to a feeding tube and also would exert great power to push a whole host of issues central to the Religious Right's agenda," Americans United reported in a Press Release dated March 23. "DeLay urged the gathering to contact lawmakers in both chambers to support legislation that would allow churches to become much more involved in partisan politicking" and he "blasted current federal tax law, which bars both secular and religious nonprofit groups from endorsing political candidates." "It forces Christians back into the church and that's what is going on," DeLay claimed. "That's not what Christ asked us to do. We have to fight back." DeLay was particularly high on the blessings wrought by the Schiavo case: "One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," DeLay said. "This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," DeLay pointed out. DeLay, the subject of several investigations about his questionable ethics, "complained that 'the other side' was leading the attack, with a goal 'to defeat the conservative movement,'" Americans United noted. DeLay said that a "whole syndicate" of "do-gooder" forces was attacking him as part of "a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in." Senator Frist, who addressed the gathering by speaker phone, told the FRC attendees that they "stand up for our families, our children, [and that they]...never back down. "That's why we are winning these larger battles today. Together we are leading our nation forward. We have a president, a House of Representatives, a Senate that shares our values and the American people are on our side. In this Congress we are going to continue to work on the issues that are important to you, to me and above all, America's future," Frist continued. (Listen to Sen. Frist and Rep. DeLay, as well as the FRC's Perkins and Connie Mackey, the FRC's vice president for government affairs.) Why were Sen. Frist and Rep. DeLay sucking up to the Family Research Council? Sen. Frist clearly has a run for the presidency in mind for 2008, and he is doing all he can to shore up his radical right wing credentials with the GOP base; Rep. DeLay, on the other hand, needs all the right wing support he can get in order to withstand the cascading ethics charges being leveled against him. (For recent developments see "DeLavish, DeLoutish, DeLayly" by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders.) The other reason these two GOP leaders met-up with the FRC is because the organization has become the premier Christian right lobbying outfit in Washington. In 1983, Dr. James Dobson, the head of Focus on the Family (website), founded the Family Research Center to lobby for "traditional family values" in the nation's capital. Gary Bauer, the former head the Reagan Administration's Office of Policy Development and Reagan's chief adviser on domestic policy, was named to head the operation. Under Bauer's leadership the FRC "became a division of Focus on the Family from 1988 until October 1992, when IRS concerns about the group's lobbying led to an amicable administrative separation" People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch has reported. In 1999, Bauer left the organization for an ill-fated run for the GOP's presidential nomination. Tim Goeglein, President George W. Bush's deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison, was Bauer's chief campaign spokesperson. (For more on Goeglein, see "Tim Goeglein: Selling Brand Bush to the Christian Right".) The FRC is currently headed by former Louisiana State Representative Tony Perkins who has traveled the country stamping the organization's imprint on all things right wing. According to PFAW, Perkins' agenda in Louisiana included: "author[ing]...legislation requiring public schools to install filtering software"; "author[ing the]...American History Preservation Act, which 'prevents censorship of America's Christian heritage in Louisiana public schools'"; "author[ing] legislation providing 'a daily time of silent prayer in Louisiana public schools'"; and he was the "author of the first Covenant Marriage Law." The FRC's daily Tony Perkins' Washington Update is a must read and provides a window into the right's most immediate concerns. These days, in addition to the Terri Schiavo case, the FRC is actively promoting the "nuclear option" in the Senate -- the cut off of filibustering by Democrats by a mere majority vote -- which would allow President Bush's radical right wing judges to be confirmed, and a nationwide campaign in support of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. According to "Funding the Culture Wars: Philanthropy, Church and State," a new report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP - website), the Family Research Council has received more than $1.7 million in grants from right wing foundations in the past few years. The GOP's Secret History with the CNP One of the GOP's best-kept secrets is its relationship to the Council for National Policy. In August 2004, during the Republican National Convention in New York City, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), received the CNP's "Thomas Jefferson Award." According to a report by Americans United, "the media weren't notified [and]...in fact, they weren't welcome to attend." The membership list of the CNP is "strictly confidential," reported Americans United Jeremy Leaming and Rob Boston. "Guests can attend only with the unanimous approval of the organization's executive committee. The group's leadership is so secretive that members are told not to refer to it by name in e-mail messages. Anyone who breaks the rules can be tossed out." Now nearing its 25th anniversary, the tax-exempt Fairfax, Virginia-based CNP was founded "as an umbrella organization of right-wing leaders who would gather regularly to plot strategy, share ideas and fund causes and candidates to advance the far-right agenda." While "members have come and gone [they]...all share something in common: They are powerful figures, drawn from both the Religious Right and the anti-government, anti-tax wing of the ultra-conservative movement." "The real crux of this is that these are the genuine leaders of the Republican Party, but they certainly aren't going to be visible on television next week," Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United told the New York Times. "The CNP members are not going to be visible next week, but they are very much on the minds of George W. Bush and Karl Rove every week of the year, because these are the real powers in the party." The New York Times reported that the organization's current membership roster includes Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association and Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. According to the Times, a CNP financial disclosure form for 2002 listed Norquist and Howard Phillips, founder of the ultra-conservative Constitution Party, as directors. The current president of the group is Donald P. Hodel, former executive director of the Christian Coalition. "Other CNP directors include names that would not mean a lot to most people, but they are key players in the right-wing universe," Americans United's Leaming and Boston reported. "Becky Norton Dunlop is vice president for external relations at the Heritage Foundation. James C. Miller III is former director of Citizens for a Sound Economy. Stuart W. Epperson owns a chain of Christian radio stations. E. Peb Jackson is former president of Young Life. T. Kenneth Cribb Jr., vice president of the CNP, was a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald W. Reagan and runs the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a group that funds right-wing newspapers on college campuses. Ken Raasch is a businessman who works in partnership with popular artist Thomas Kinkade. According to an April 2002 an online ABC News report, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was the keynote speaker at a CNP meeting in a Washington, DC suburb, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales -- now Attorney General -- and Timothy Goeglein, a White House liaison to religious communities, also spoke. (For more on the CNP see "Secret Society" at Truthout.org). Two other GOP/Christian right groups operating behind closed doors are The Family and the Values Action Team. According to BuzzFlash.com's Maureen Farrell, The Family holds "prayer groups at both the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense...and is an 'invisible' association of mostly public officials who have 'strong ties' with 'the oil and aerospace industries.'" According to Harper's magazine, its members include a dozen Senators and Congressmen who, like those preferring theocracy, consider "democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride". At the behest of Focus on the Family's Dr. James Dobson, the Values Action Team (VAT) was established in 1998. Operating out of Rep. Tom DeLay's office, "Family" member Rep. Joseph Pitts was chosen by DeLay to head up the VAT, which "reportedly funnels concerns of like-minded Christian conservatives into Capital Hill," according to BuzzFlash.com's Farrell. An August 2004, Sojourner Magazine report explained that the VAT gave Dobson and "30 or so other Religious Right member organizations a direct lobbying line to the U.S. Congress". Now that the GOP has a strangle-hold on political power, secret meetings with the Family Research Council and the closed door activities of groups like the Council for National Policy and the Values Action Team raise serious questions about how public policy is being crafted, Barry Lynn pointed out. "When public policy is involved, the public has a right to know what is going on behind those closed doors." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EHLuJD/.WnJAA/cUmLAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
