The Tea Party Movement is a Grass Roots Organization – If You Believe That One Billionaire Is a Grass Roots Movement

Exposing the Myth

Billionaires like to pretend that they are just like everyone else, and that the political causes they support, particularly conservative ones, are really expression of middle class people.  Of course the truth, when it comes out, is very different.  Freedom Works, a supposed Tea Party group for example, has huge support from just one person.

Stephenson, the founder of the for-profit Cancer Treatment Centers of America and a director on the FreedomWorks board, agreed to commit $400,000 per year over 20 years

And this $ 8 million is to do what, promote the causes?  No.  It was to oust former Texas Republican Congressman Dick Armey, who headed the organization and who apparently took over the group literally in an armed coup.

Richard K. Armey, the group’s chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group’s Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey’s enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks’ top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

And this one man also secretly funded the group through dummy corporations.

In the weeks before the election, more than $12 million in donations was funneled through two Tennessee corporations to the FreedomWorks super PAC after negotiations with Stephenson over a preelection gift of the same size, according to three current and former employees with knowledge of the arrangement. The origin of the money has not previously been reported.

And yes, dummy corporations are appropriate here, the term perfectly describes the group and its wealthy backer.