NYT: A New Target for Advisers to Swift Vets

[quaoar]

A New Target for Advisers to Swift Vets
By GLEN JUSTICE

Published: February 21, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/21/politics/21social.html?hp&ex=1108962000&en=e53f647d7614f9e4&ei=5094&partner=homepage

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - Taking its cues from the success of last year's Swift boat veterans' campaign in the presidential race, a conservative lobbying organization has hired some of the same consultants to orchestrate attacks on one of President Bush's toughest opponents in the battle to overhaul Social Security.

The lobbying group, USA Next, which has poured millions of dollars into Republican policy battles, now says it plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing AARP, the powerhouse lobby opposing the private investment accounts at the center of Mr. Bush's plan.

"They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary for the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. "We will be the dynamite that removes them."

Though it is not clear how much money USA Next has in hand for the campaign - Mr. Jarvis will not say, and the group does not have to disclose its donors - officials say that the group's annual budget was more than $28 million last year. The group, a membership organization with no age requirements for joining, has also spent millions in recent years vigorously supporting Bush proposals on tax cuts, energy and the Medicare prescription drug plan.

[Downtown Hound]

1. Oh please do

I'd love to see you lose the senior vote for the next thirty years.

[corbett]

23. Hear! Hear!

AARP's latest full-page newspaper add reads in about 100-point text,

"If you have a problem with the sink, you don't tear down the entire house."

In the same way that I tore up my AAA membership card when I learned that they oppose legislation which funds alternative transportation like mass transit and federal car pooling programs, hundreds of thousands of adults would cancel their AARP membership if the organization didn't oppose privatization.

This could get bloody!

[renaissanceguy]

27. Without the senior vote, the pugs will lose badly.

Keep it going... this will be one of those gifts that keeps on giving.

Didn't I hear somewhere that one of those swift liars is going to try to run against Kerry for Senate? I can't WAIT to see him get creamed!


http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/507794

[corbett]

31. I Heard The Same

As far as I'm aware, the right still plans to prop him up to run against Kerry. He doesn't know what he's in for!

[Toots]

34. With diebold they don't need anyone's vote

They have realized they are invincible. They no longer need anyone's vote so can attack whomever they please with their slime. Fascism is here... accept it.......

[genieroze]

41. I thought the same thing. eom

[depakid]

48. I unfortunately agree

The American experiment is over. People just haven't come around to realizing it yet.

No one is accontable for anything, anymore. There are no checks and balances.

[cybildisobedience]

55. count me in, too

that was my first reaction --

[Callboy]

35. Have these people no hobbies?

[Damien]

39. do we?

[Straight Shooter]

40. LOL!

ouch, that hurt

[hector459]

49. I love the way these wealthy evil-doers spend their money.

Bring it on!!! It's only going to hurt their base of red-staters.

[mazzarro]

2. Sorry to say - but Kerry campaign gave these bastards their

life-line to do all this crap. Maybe it is time we focus on them ourselves and neutralize them once and for all times.

[LynneSin]

36. Kerry campaign had no backbone when it came to this sleeze

but I can assure you that the AARP is not a group I would mess with. They rank up there with the NRA when it comes to getting their message out there.

Hopefully AARP will do what the Kerry campaign failed to do and that is put these slimeballs out of business!

[moobu2]

3. "USA NEXT" was created to battle the powerful AARP for the Republiliars

It's Chairman & CEO is Charles W. Jarvis, once "a senior executive in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, including Deputy Undersecretary of the Interior, ranking number 3 in a department"
He also served as Executive Vice President of Focus on the Family in Colorado, leading the teams for global operations, domestic and global radio/television production and distribution, video production and distribution, eleven magazines, education programs and public policy.

USA is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code.

http://www.usanext.org/Bios_charles.cfm

[starroute]

7. Here's some info on United Seniors

USA Next was previously known as United Seniors Association.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=6579

10.21.02

Who are those guys? Connecticut voters can be forgiven for asking themselves that question after being inundated with radio and television spots sponsored by two senior-citizen groups that few had heard of before. ... not coincidentally, many of the ads, which will run right up to Election Day, were bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. Not that you'd know that from the ads. The tag lines credit two organizations with senior-friendly sounding names: United Seniors Association and the 60 Plus Association.

<snip>

So who are those guys? The predecessor group to United Seniors was launched in the late 1980s by right-wing direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie as a scheme to bolster his faltering enterprise. It failed. The current group emerged from a reorganization orchestrated by J. Curtis Herge, whose legal career traces its roots to Richard Nixon's law firm and wound through Ronald Reagan's transition team. After that, Herge ended up as an assistant general counsel in James Watts' Interior Department. Herge also helped incorporate the 60 Plus association in 1992.

That same year, United Seniors earned the rebuke of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security when one of United Seniors' mailings alleged, "All the Social Security trust fund money is gone," according to a July report issued by Public Citizen, the watchdog group founded by Ralph Nader.

<snip>

In its latest incarnation as the main conduit for PhRMA's surrogate ads, United Seniors has been run for the past year and a half by 52-year-old Charles Jarvis. He previously worked with Herge at the Department of the Interior and later served as chairman of Gary Bauer's presidential campaign and vice president of Bauer's Focus on the Family. An independent political action committee, United Seniors pac, has recently run afoul of the Federal Elections Commission for failing to disclose the names and occupations of many of its contributors.

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=United_Seniors_Association

USANext, formerly called the United Seniors Association, is a conservative 501(c)4 organization that fronts for corporate interests. Direct-mail pioneer Richard Viguerie co-founded the group in 1991, according to Public Citizen.

In 2004, USANext was one of the groups pushing for the Bush administration's Social Security privatization plan. According to the New York Times, the organization had $28 million in annual revenues, and it aggressively seeks contributions from industry: "Health care companies, energy companies, the food industry, just about everybody except for financial investment companies."

<snip>

In March 2004, the United Seniors Association commissioned a push-poll scaring seniors about the potential rise in long distance telephone costs as a result of a prior DC Circuit Court ruling. ... This action appears to be coordinated with a campaign run by Voice for Choices to pressure the Bush administration and FCC to appeal a recent telecommunications court decision. In addition to being president of USA, Charlie Jarvis is a board member of Defenders of Property Rights, one of several conservative groups that comprise the AT&T-funded (and DCI Group-operated) "Voices for Choices" coalition front group.

United Seniors board members include Craig Shirley (producer of the Willie Horton ad and recently connected with "Stolen Honor") and his partner David Keene, as well as J. Curtis Herge, who has a long history going of association with Brent Bozell and Greg Mueller, both of them involved in spreading the CBS memo forgery claims. Jack Abramoff of the Indian casino gambling scandal is on the board as well In other words, this is dirty trickster/sleazeball central.

[TahitiNut]

12. "nonpartisan"?? That's a blatant lie. The IRS should jail them for fraud

Sadly, the IRS has been tasked to go after the Bush Cabal's "enemies": the poor and the working class.

[oasis]

18. Ancient ass Art Linkletter was on Hannity's show the other night plugging

away for this scam replacement of AARP. Art rattled off the web addy like it was second nature. He even had the nerve to mention that AARP pulled some shenanigans just before Bush's medicare bill was passed. He said AARP has been liberal organization for years.

Yes, Bush's medicare bill which ripped off seniors. As I recall, they endorsed the lousy bill.

[keopeli]

4. AARP endorsed Bush*'s Medicare reform

In so doing, they strengthened Bush's credibility, which he is now using against them.

If you lie down with dogs...

Keo

[manxkat]

17. I agree. AARP is therefore discredited

in the minds of many of the elderly who didn't agree with AARP's position on the Medicare reform. I seem to recall that the majority of AARP members were against the legislation, even though the AARP official position was in favor of it.

This only created mistrust within the AARP community, so AARP's hand is weakened now.... and, these USA Next slimeballs won't have as much work cut out to blast away the AARP 'boulder.'

If you lie down with dogs indeed.

[dandrhesse]

26. If they did it is news to me, I distinctly remember getting information

from AARP that lambasted the prescription drug benefit. As far as I know AARP has not endorsed anything bush has put out.

[Born Free]

45. the complaints were after the fact

AARP did complain afterward, but did support it during the voting process. That is why thousands of us quit being members. So many quit that when I called in to quit the consumer representative asked me if I was quiting over the AARP suporting the prescription drug plan - naturally I replied "YES!" I do miss their auto club though, I don't care for AAA

[Hissyspit]

5. "We will be the dynamite that removes them"

Yeah and the dynamite is LIES, LIES, LIES, and LACK OF ETHICS.

[HereSince1628]

24. Swift vets = Sturm Troopen? I suppose they'll smash the windows

on any stores selling Depends, denture cream, and reading glasses, or DVD's of Lawerence Welk or Perry Como.

[Kimber Scott]

6. I don't think the AARP is a boulder easily dynamited. Remember,

many of their members come from the "greatest generation." So, go ahead SwiftLiars. Bring 'em on!

[sandnsea]

10. The greatest generation is dying

The Korean War generation were babies during the Depression, have a huge chip on their shoulders because their war didn't get the same attention as WWII, and are more greedy and selfish. I would bet their age group is what turned the seniors to Bush. I'm not counting on them to hold the line on SS either.

[CindyDale]

8. What a cheap-looking site for a group with $28 million!

http://www.unitedseniors.org/

Features:

* Poor spelling and usage:
"Art Linkletter discusses which organizations are really working for seniors and their families -- and which one is just claiming too."

* A drive for trashy porn pic to be named Picture of the Year (The Passion).

* Tacky ads to grab senior $$s.

* Unprofessional content attacking competitor.

* Jarvis guy looking just like a pig.

[NYC Liberal]

16. And you get an error when you try to vote in the poll.

"Server.MapPath() error 'ASP 0175 : 80004005'

Disallowed Path Characters

/survey/conn_acc.asp, line 3

The '..' characters are not allowed in the Path parameter for the MapPath method."

LOL! It would be funnier if it weren't so sad.

[Historic NY]

32. It also looks like ever other Republican website....do you think they

need some website help....& the Javis fellow looks like a pig at the trough.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. As if those swift vet clowns were good at anything. Seemed to me

they were in the right place at the right time, with am August slow news season wind at their backs. I hope they invest a bundle in these "advisers".

[kk897]

11. CRC/shameless self-promoting of my thread; sorry, but help

would be great...I've reached my limit and I'm pretty positive there's some damning evidence in there somewhere.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3137074

[eddieb]

13. No one is immune from the attack machine.

If I'm correct the AARP joined with bush over the Perscription drugs fiasco.
Now this is what you get for your support! Hey Seniors! Remember Kennedy and No child left behind he was left out to twist in the wind. No one, no one goes unpunished by the repuglicans for dis-obedience to the masser.

[CoffeeCat]

14. They're going to blow up grandma?

Boy, just when you think these compassionate conservatives can't get any more sensitive and flowery with their language--they refer to our grandmas and grandpas as "the boulder in the middle of the highway" that will be "removed" with "dynamite."

You know, it wouldn't be that difficult to blow up a senior citizen. Many of them travel with personal oxygen tanks. I'm sure that's all ready noted in the Republican "dynamite" action plan.

Remember, Jesus loves the little children--but he said nothing about old people. Think about it.

[renaissanceguy]

28. Please, like they care about the children, in general.

They just don't want to be paying payroll taxes anymore, and they want to make sure THEIR kids have all the wealth, while other kids get to starve.


http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/477698

[NYC Liberal]

15. They think that their same tactics will work again this time.

But they won't because we know all about them. And we don't have to depend on Kerry to respond to their lies and innuendo - we have Dean. And a whole bunch of others who won't just sit back and sit on their hands.

[SoCalDem]

22. Their tactics WILL work.. That's exactly why they have been "re-focused"

on this "important issue".. They already have name recognition with the party faithful, and have achieved almost cult-like status with lots of republicans. The media has already shown that they will devote lots of time to their lame-ass debates, since the media now seems to feel that ANY lame idea deserves being given equal "weight", and must be debated..

There was a time when obviously stupid ideas were shot down waaaaaay in advance of any public airtime..

Now , whenever an idea that the right does not like...comes into view, all they have to do is slap together some phony group to take the other side and before you can say "Wham-Bam-Thankyou-Ma'am" , they have all the airtime they need, and if any station dares NOT to air them, The NON-AIRING then becomes a whole OTHER controversy..

These folks are marketeers... and they know their stuff..

[98geoduck]

19. Watched em for a few minutes on cspan the other day, truly a bunch

of ill people.

[caligirl]

20. Gropenator has retained these gutter scum lovers.

[lala_rawraw]

21. I feel

A digging urge coming on. Are they declaring war on the elderly?

[classof56]

30. In the words of our "fearless leader"--Bring 'em on!

I'm going to a meeting today with one of my US senators who's going to talk about Social Security. I believe I'll bring this up and make it clear that us "elders" are just itchin' for a fight, and tell the good Senator he really ought to join us. He's a Dem and has oft proven his heart's in the right place. Let's just hope his spine is, too. Time to re-activate the Gray Panthers!

Tired Old Cynic

[union_maid]

25. Good luck to them

When AARP supported Bush's policies, it lost members - including me. I'm more inclined to rejoin because of their opposition to this. Seniors aren't so easily manipulated as a group.

My husband has an uncle who's a senior who was always a conservative, pro-military...you get the idea. He thinks that the cap should be eliminated. That's his answer. He doesn't want anyone messing with Social Security. I really hope that this backfires against these bastards and there's a good chance it will.

[Historic NY]

33. I think a lot of seniors are following this issue closely.....

they realized they got screwed by the prescription fiasco. My 90 yr old 2nd cousin came to visit on Sunday and he is disgusted with this attempt to tinker with SS. He worked all his life as a baker (self taught) and now he see's * trying to take something away. The best thing to do is to raise the cap to bring more money in, thats his solution. He can't figure out why they can't see this, it only makes sense he say since wages have risen well above the present cap. I also reminded him that our government keeps taking the SS surplus and never repays it. Then again he says the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Oh he too is from the greatest generation....and has had a struggle to receive veterans benefits since he was a merchant marine sailor.

[UL_Approved]

29. Well, this is just rich

More of the Swiftboat Veterans for Trash.

I wonder how many people in this country will blindly do the boblehead step in line with this set of lies.

It sure is nice to know that this country is getting the same treatment received by NAZI German, Stalinist Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, and other choice brands of revisionist brainwashing.

It wouldn't matter how much money these people had to start, since this is an inside job, and money WILL be sent under the table.

[etherealtruth]

37. Shameless

[Eawyn]

38. I'm really happy AARP is coming out swinging against *'s plan

But I wonder how we can reach the younger generation that thinks accounts are a great idea. I heard one young woman saying "...if the accounts don't work out, then I guess the government will just have to bail me out..." apparently not quite getting the concept that the government DOESN'T just bail people out...especially now.

[DemocracyInaction]

42. Just like Falwell wrote to Rove

Remember right before the State of the Union address Falwell was demanding of Rove that Bush do the "attacking of gays" because the Christian winger nutcakes were getting restless---and then he added that if NOT he wouldn't be working the sheep to support Bush's SS plan. BUT then he admitted in the letter that it wasn't having much support among the sheep and would be hard to do. As I've said many times here: The holier than Thous little Christian facsists who would pass out if they thought a homo was sitting in the pew next to them, don't want Bush, God or nobody messin' with their SS and Medicare. I'll bet this trash that's going to attack AARP will aim for middle age and young. The elderly seem to be the group more alert about the screwing America is being given. The middle aged and the young are swallowing the Kook Aid by the barrels full and think corporate America is their lord and savior and that the government will always be there to straighten things our anyway (you know, the "they'll never let it happen" mentality). Oh, and by the way, I believe AARP is fighting for importation of drugs. Soon we are going to have a hell of a war between the retirees/elderly and the younger generations and the drug companies, et al. Hopefully it will be a bloodbath that will start waking people up!!!

[Eawyn]

43. But of course the AARP members vote so much more than the younger ones

seems like this is Bush's biggest problem. The people he needs hate his plan. I can't see social security waking up the masses of disenfranchized young folk. But it really bothers me when I hear how badly misinformed they are about so much. Like masses of Americans thinking we give huge amounts of foreign aid, when we are positively stingy, and that we go around the world promoting 'democracy' as a usual rule...

[Bouncy Ball]

44. Hey smeary assholes!

The AARP isn't running for office, you pieces of shit. You are going to have a LOT harder time railroading them with your nasty lies.

Good, piss off the senior citizens! Way to go smeary assholes, LOL!

[FourStarDemocrat]

46. In their new ad they link the AARP to gay men kissing and anti-military!

You have to see it to believe it. It's currently running on the rightwing rag website American Spectator. Daily Kos has it up on the front page. It's outrageous. Check it out.

[mitchtv]

47. I resigned from AARP due to their Ignoring Gays

It's like we all die at 49, theydid a story on Lily Tomlin last year and mentioned briefly her partner, but that's about it. AARP is a paper tiger; they will buckle, don't count on them.

[maddezmom]

50. kick

to combine threads

[emad]

51. Pensioners for Bush hire help

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday February 22, 2005
The Guardian

Republican consultants who played a key role in a Vietnam Swift Boat veterans group which helped sink John Kerry's attempt for the White House are now being recruited to take on President Bush's latest adversary, America's biggest pensioners' organisation.

The American Association of Retired People (AARP), which claims 35 million members, has adamantly opposed White House plans to privatise some federal pensions, an ambitious scheme Mr Bush has made a central plank of his second term, and it is now bracing for a counterattack.

Leading the charge is an organisation called USA Next, which presents itself as a free-market alternative to the AARP. It is hiring the same team of consultants who worked on the anti-Kerry campaign by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which did tangible damage to the Democratic senator's challenge last summer by questioning his Vietnam combat record.

Chris LaCivita, a Republican media consultant who helped script the Swift Boat commercials, has been hired by USA Next to help craft its strategy. It has also recruited the same company, Creative Response Concepts, to help its public relations effort, and is seeking to hire the same media production company.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1419807,00.html

[blm]

52. But...Bush and Rove had NOTHING to do with the Swift Liars.

They were completely independent....not part of the Republican noise machine. No. Really.

[quaoar]

53. It's gonna take a lot more than Swift Boat Liars to sell this plan

One of the biggest things to happen this week on this issue was when Pfizer pulled out of the corporate alliance to sell this plan.

[Lilith Velkor]

54. They say America First, but they mean America Next

Thus Woody Guthrie's prophecy has come to be.

[OKNancy]

56. Kick

:kick: