FreedomWorks tea party group nearly falls apart in fight between old and new guard [View all]
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Source: Washington Post
The day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall.
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.
The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was gone — with a promise of $8 million — and the five ousted employees were back. The force behind their return was Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who has exerted increasing control over one of Washington’s most influential conservative grass-roots organizations.
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 in exchange for Armey’s agreement to leave the group.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/freedomworks-tea-party-group-nearly-falls-apart-in-fight-between-old-and-new-guard/2012/12/25/dd095b68-4545-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
The fact that Armey, the former House majority leader, was paid $8,000,000 as a payoff to leave a "grassroots" organization should have the media in a frenzy. We are not talking about some BS string operation with some dude airing footage dressed as a pimp at an Acorn office. We are talking about a millions of dollars being thrown around at an astroturf outfit. Yet, the corporate media happily ignores this episode that would seem right at home in a banana republic.
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