'Grassroots' Freedom Works (HCR forum disruptors) paid Armey $400,000 for part-time job

Reporting by Lindsay Beyerstein of majikthise.com:


http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2009/08/grassroots-freedom-works-paid-armey-400000-for-parttime-job.html

By Lindsay Beyerstein, developing...

Former House Majority Leader turned lobbyist Dick Armey resigned from the lobbying firm of DLA Piper on Friday amid criticism of his leadership role in FreedomWorks, one of the main right wing groups organizing town hall mobs against health care reform.

Armey probably wasn't spending that much time at DLA Piper anyway. Armey earned a total of $400,000 from FreedomWorks and the FreedomWorks Foundation during the 2007 tax year, according to tax records. The records say that Armey was putting in 36 hours per week at Freedom Works and the Freedom Works Foundation. (This is original reporting. Please support Majikthise by crediting.)

One wonders whether Armey had much time left over for his lobbying clients at DLA Piper that year, which included pharma giant Sanofi-Aventis and the Medicines Co.. Armey represented Sanofi again in 2008 and continued to represent the Medicines Co. through 2009.

The former Republican congressman told Politico he was resigning because he didn't want his lobbying clients to face media scrutiny for their association with FreedomWorks.

FreedomWorks has been accused of laying down astroturf at town halls. The protesters are real people, but the town hall protests are organized by Freedom Works and other groups underwritten by industries with a financial stake in derailing healthcare reform.

Defenders say there's nothing wrong with grassroots organizing. Grassroots groups often make common cause with other interested parties, including corporations. However, it's telling that Armey thinks his clients need to be shielded from criticism of FreedomWorks, as if were something shameful.

Pro-reform, pro-Democratic groups like the SEIU, ACORN, MoveOn, and Organizing for America proudly identify themselves at town hall meetings. They make no secret of the fact that they are part of a national movement with powerful institutional backers.

Nor is it a secret that big pharma and big insurance have given heavily to influential Democrats like Max Baucus over the years. Hedging your bets is a grand old tradition in Washington. The way things are going, the money to Democrats may turn out to have been better-spent. At least it's out in the open.

Whereas, the backers of the town hall mobs are trying to paint these gatherings as spontaneous, organic uprisings as opposed to what they really are, events coordinated by Washington insiders on behalf of corporate clients.

Why wouldn't pharmaceutical and insurance companies be proud to stand with patriotic Americans against government-administered health insurance? Probably because protesters at town hall meetings are saying and doing things that no "respectable" lobbyist would want to associate with his clients.

Like the town hall attendee in New Hampshire who recommended sending immigrants home with a bullet in the head, or right wing TV personality Glenn Beck who draws parallels between Obama's health care reform efforts and Nazi eugenics. Beck is promoting FreedomWorks' 9/12 DC march on his show and heading up his own 912 Project.

This is all protected speech, of course. However, if corporations and lobby shops are funding and facilitating these types of actions, they need to be held accountable for what's happening. Any demonstration can attract the odd extremist, but these town hall meetings have established an ongoing pattern of ugly, disruptive behavior.

...

He made $500,000.