Introduction

The Republican Party has been taken over by what are kindly called "the Neocons," as in new conservatives (I like to call them “corporazis” ). . But what the NeoCons in fact represent is a massive multilevel marketing operation – a Ponzi scheme, to be specific. Am I, as usual, being satirical or euphemistic? No. I am dead serious.

First, for those of you blissfully ignorant of what a multilevel marketing operation is, here's the dope. Selling anything directly to the public door to door is generally not very lucrative, because it is time intensive and there are only so many doors one can knock on. However, if you can get thousands of people to knock on doors FOR you, while you pocket a goodly cut of the proceeds, then not only will you make more, eventually, you won't have to knock on any doors yourself - just sit back and let the cash roll in. So how do you induce people to do this for you? Promise them the same easy-street future you yourself plan to enjoy at their expense. In the end, only about 5% of all people sucked into a multilevel marketing operation actually see any significant financial rewards themselves. To keep a steady crop of suckers coming, the primary pitch artists add the "dream" element: we aren't just selling soap - we're selling a DREAM.

These outfits are hardly new. In the early 1970s.My sister got a call from a friend who gushed enthusiastically about the wonderful opportunity she’d just been offered, and how she wanted to share it - could she come to a special gathering? When asked what the opportunity was, the friend said it was too special a secret to share over the phone...she'd discover it for herself at the gathering. Well, it turned out the "special opportunity" was selling Amway soap products door to door.. My sister said the experience was surrealistic: Everyone in the room seemed swept off their feet - planning their future mansions and charitable works....the idea that what the plan amounted to was selling soap door to door didn't seem to register. They had all been sold "a dream."

Another example is a "publishing" company I worked for briefly years back. This company made a FORTUNE off an international multilevel marketing scheme that disguised itself as an insiders' club for entrepreneurs. The publication I worked for (hired as a "journalist" - only later did I discover what the job really amounted to) targeted older people near or post-retirement who probably hoped to find a way to make lots of extra money in a short time to supplement their dwindling retirement incomes. Although the company bought lists of pre-profiled people, the "targets" were sent letters saying how they had been "specially selected" because they had what it took to be a winning entrepreneur. The deal was, that the monthly newsletter was filled with priceless "insider" info available nowhere else and thus well worth paying for - along with an array of tapes, books, and videos. But the newsletter was a combination of empty fluff and fantasy. No real tips were ever shared - just success stories that were trawled up from out of thousands of readers or simply manufactured. Most were heavily padded with stock stuff like : So and so came to this country with just a NICKEL IN HIS POCKET AND A DESIRE TO MAKE MONEY. Some of the main "advisors" featured in the newsletter were also totally made up - a bogus name chosen because it sounded "entrepreneurial," accompanied by a photo of some guy who was considered the right "look" for the part. Never ever would the company dream of referring to itself as a cheap multilevel marketing operation.

Nope, like AmWay, like the Moonies (whose primary product is rightwing propaganda), they claim to be "selling a dream" - more to the point, in terms of the NeoCon Story, the specific dream is the "Freemarket ideal": If you can just do away with the rules and regulations cramping the style of "independent" American ingenuity, then life will become one big castle in the clouds. It is seductive for more people than you can imagine - and it is very easy to get sucked into the inner circle of pitch artists. The salary I was given was outrageous for what I actually did. But me being me, I asked one too many questions (one of them being "Are you running a scam?") and soon found myself fired. Other people were not so lucky and, as far as I know, remain trapped in the gilded cage. Once no doubt folks of reasonable conscience, they could not resist the bloated salaries or the lure of perks like annual "getaways" to the chateau in France and the phony prestige the company enjoyed. Just as with Enron, the public never really knew just what the company really did – they only knew they were a “publishing company” (just as Enron was just an “energy company”) and that they contributed lots to charity (people knew more about Ken Lay’s donations to college and cancer funds than they knew about how he made the money – which of course, was the point).

So, that brings us back to the NeoCons. This group is composed of what I would describe as “America’s greediest” – people with a multilevel marketing mentality whose primary goal is to make as much money in as short a time as possible by exploiting everyone else. The best way to do this, of course, is to tap into the source of the biggest bucks. What are the two sources of biggest bucks in America? The U.S. government and the biggest, greediest corporations. So, the NeoCons’ fundamental plan, boiled down, is to achieve “one-stop-shopping” by combining the two, Not only combining the two, but actually using the US government as a giant money pipeline for their corporate pals. This is done by finding ever more inventive ways to cut out what these corporations and their execs (the same 1% scooping up most of America's wealth, as pointed out repeatedly by Al Gore and others), have to pay into the government, while maximizing what they can take out of the government in terms of contracts, favorable regulations, etc. Meanwhile, the rest of the American public are the "targets" - the poor slobs who are supposed to be out there selling that soap door to door for a few bucks,. But, just like any multilevel marketing syncophants, they have been duped into believing they are selling the “American Ideal” or, as the lastest NeoCon buzzphrase puts it “American pride..” How they are doing this is the gist of this series. Through “In Broad Daylight,” I will attempt to take you on a guided tour of the NeoCon’s twisting labyrinth of deceit and expose what amounts to the greatest Ponzi schene ever pulled.

Renewing American Rightwing Fraud: The Return of Newt Gingrich

Just last month, Newt Gingrich reappeared in Washington D.C., hanging around the Bush administration as chummily as if he hadn't all but been run out of town on a rail a few years back. In fact Gingrich, who evaded service during the Vietnam War, is now - incredibly - an advisor to Donald Rumsfeld. But it should come as no surprise. This is the new Washington - one in which con artists, thieves, murderers, and war criminals are not hidden behind the curtains - they are welcome on stage, front and center.

In fact, it is quite fitting that Gingrich should be back on the scene and a prominent player. He is, afterall, one of the primary crafters of the current Rightwing Regime - one of the very folks who made it all possible. Gingrich was disgraced in the late 1990s for a host of offenses, ranging from lying to Congress to using a charity allegedly intended for poor inner city kids to illegally channel money to a GOP election/propaganda. This scheme, which ended up costing $1.6 million dollars all told consisted of the dissemination of rightwing corporate propaganda designed, by Gingrich's own admission, to stack the House of Representatives with rightwing Republicans and, as a longer term objective, to take over every branch of the US government. To finance the scheme, Gingrich, using the GOP Action Committee (GOPAC) stationary letterhead, personally induced big donors to make out checks to the Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Fund. As soon as they were deposited, these funds were transferred right to Gingrich's operation.

The ALOF was founded in 1984 by the Colorado GOP, a scheme cooked up by Howard "Bo" Callaway, a former Congressman with a history of high-handed scheming. While serving as Secretary of the Army under Nixon and Ford, Callaway greatly enriched his family ski resort business and therefore personal fortune by pressuring and/or possibly bribing the Forest Service and the Civil Aeronautics Board to make rulings favorable to the resort. See www.ford.utexas.edu/library/faintro/callawa1.htm.

The whole idea behind the bogus inner city fund was all part of the GOP's phony "Renewing America" routine (the official title invented by Newt Gingrich a few years later). One of the basic tenets of this shallow-as-spit sham of a "philosophy" was a "commitment to renewing America's inner cities. You see how "committed" the GOP has been to this goal since winning power, eh?. The other big "plank" in this "philosophy" was a commitment to "ending the welfare state." Of course, since the GOP took over the House in 1994, they most certainly have nearly ended the welfare state for the truly needy, pushing the number of American homeless to the highest numbers since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, by 1996, corporate welfare had reached the highest point in history EVER, totaling, say some economists, an amount higher than the federal deficit.

Callaway and the GOP decided that the ALOF, a 501C3 with its high-minded sounding title made a dandy medium for laundering money for the GOP. You see, it is totally illegal to use any funds from a 501C3 to promote a political agenda or fund any political candidate. In fact, that is what the IRS created 501C4s for. 501C4 funds can be used for lobbying for specific legislation if the issue is social welfare (a catchall term that has been outrageously exploited by corporazis). Because they are used for lobbying, 501C4 funds are NOT tax deductible, as they should not be. Afterall any time that a tax break is given, that is money, in essence, is sucked out of the America’s collective tax pool. To protect the American tax pool from exploitation by political/special interests, 501C3s absolutely cannot use their funds for any political lobbying without having to kick money back into the tax pool in the form of penalties and/or loss of their 501C3 status. Because of this requirement, contributions to 501C3s enjoy tax deductibility. Thus, 501C3s are much more attractive to potential donors, who, winning a tax break, are likely to be generous. This fact was not lost on the GOP.

So, in the early 1990s, Callaway’s good buddy Newt Gingrich began to use the fund as a way to channel tens of thousands of tax-deductible dollars into "Renewing America." Other employees of the GOPAC office also solicited funds for the ALOF. Because the donations given to ALOF were tax deductible, they put money back into the pockets of Gingich's donors, many of them his friends. This is the sort of crime that would have brought criminal charges and a stiff prison term for any liberal (Clinton was impeached for far, far less or on charges that proved groundless, while Democrat Martha Stewart is still being investigated for a case where any real proof of any wrongdoing has yet to be found). So blatant and obvious was Gingrich's fraud against taxpayers, so flagrant was his performance during hearings - supplying such an outrageous stream of false and contradictory evidence that his key counsel refused to continue to represent him - that 395 out of 423 members of the House of Representatives - including most of his fellow Republicans - voted to condemn his actions. In the end, to all intents and purposes he was drummed out of Congress.

After the IRS officially ruled that the ALOF was illegally using its 501C3 status to channel money to the GOP, thereby making the Foundation’s operator’s liable for all ill-gotten tax benefits, Callaway appealed, just as he always has done in all his conflict of interest/fraud cases. However, a federal tax court upheld the IRS ruling, as did the 11th District Court. Then, in April, 2003 - the same month Gingrich's name started appearing in the papers in stories that fail to make any reference to any of the above, Bush administration operatives in Congress and the IRS went behind America's back in closed door, highly secretive sessions and OVERTURNED THE IRS RULING AGAINST THE ALOF!!! That's right. Not only that, but they ruled that the fund should have ALL penalties repaid to it, plus $70,000 toward poor Mr. Callaway's legal expenses, PLUS all lost tax benefits RESTORED. Unbelievable!! Even people who have been wrongfully held in prison for decades don't get that kind of treatment when they are finally vindicated and released. The trouble is - Gingrich ADMITTED HIMSELF what he had done! He was guilty as hell, and the misuse of the ALOF was blatant, obvious, and unquestionable. Yet now, to slip Gingrich back into Washington and pave the way toward more GOP money laundering for the 2004 election, the Bush IRS and Gingrich's buddies in Congress (Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee rumored to be one of the key behind-closed-doors deal cutters), want to make money laudering, fraud and debunking taxpayers LEGAL!! See The only reason I knew about this outrageous development was that I happened to listen to the House Ways and Means Committee Hearing on the Bush tax cut. The issue about the closed-door collusions with the IRS and GOP reps was introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott. McDermott is a Democrat from Washington State who has a powerful history of taking a stand against the Bush administration’s insanity – including making an heroic position against the war in Iraq (he is currently being viciously targeted by the Washington Times, Clear Channel talk show bullies, and other rightwing propaganda outlets). In a clear proof of just how much of a stranglehold the rightwingers now have not just on the US government – all branches, just as they had schemed – but on the truth, the only way that McDermott could get the issue out to the public was by stealth – he had to slip it in as a ” discussion amendment to the tax bill. Committee Chairman Bill Thomas’s (R-CA) attack dog Billy Tauzin (R- LA) immediately became belligerent and preemptive, hurriedly calling for a “point of order” to shut McDermott up and to have the issue stricken from the record. Thomas acted as if he were just about to call for the Storm Troopers to clear the hall. Yet still, despite these highly suspicious buzzers and bells, and despite the fact that McDermott was able to get the main point out, not a word have I since seen in the main stream press, even after this call for action. The only thing I have located is a small bit in a website called ombwatch:

www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1474/1/3/

Here is the entire story of the Gingrich case in great detail. These articles from the Washington Post, New York Times, and other sources were archived by an activist named Stephen. Thankyou, Stephen for making pulling this information together. It made my job about 100 times easier:

Overview of Gingrich money-laundering scam by Glen bunting, LA times
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GingrichPACUsedCharity.html

Projects Seen as Cogs in a Political Machine

By GLENN F. BUNTING - Los Angeles Times
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/CogsOfPoliticalMachine.html

Excerpts from the Special Counsel's Case against Gingrich - Washington Post
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/ExcerptsSpecialCounsel.html

The Record Shows It Clearly: the Abraham Lincoln Opportunity Foundation Under Gingrich was a FRAUD

members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GingrichPACUsedCharity.html

A Pattern of Deceit Apparent in Gingrich Case: LA Times
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/PatternsBecameApparent.html

Gingrich Flimflam Shown to be Intentional and Reckless

By Ruth Marcus and Charles R. Babcock Washington Post
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/ActionsIntentionalReckless.html

501C3 Tax Laws Ignored by Gingrich – Post

members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/TaxLawInThisAreaIsClear.html

Gingrich's own notes on his bogus Course:: "Renewing America" calls for an end to the "welfare state" and seeks GOP control of House by 1994.

members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GingrichsNotes.html

Gingrich Defense Admits testimony was "glaringly inconsistent"

Charles R. Babcock and John E. Yang Post
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GingrichFilesDetailLies.html

Gingrich Breaks Promise Not To Use Political Connections to Try to Whitewash Charges against Him

By Eric Pianin and Kevin Merida Washington Post
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/AgreementWasViolated.html

Lawyer Refuses to Represent Gingrich in Case Any Longer, Citing His Client's False and Conflicting testimony

AP News
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/LawyerFiresGingrichAsClien.html

Ethics Panel Urges $300,000 Fine, Reprimand for Gingrich

By JANET HOOK
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/EthicsPanelUrges300KFine.html

Bipartisan Panel Votes 7-1 to fine and reprimand Gingrich

By Stephen Green Union-Tribue publishing
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GingrichReprimandAndFine.html

House overwhelmingly approves Gingrich Punishment by 395-28

Janet Hook, LA Times
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/HouseApprovesPunishment.html

Democrats Make Major mistake by going easy on Gingrich in effort to end Partisan bickering -

Adam Clymer - NY Times
members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GingrichIsChastened.html

Congress Ignores Public's Demand for Gingrich punishment, Gives him equivalent of "speeding ticket."

Adam Clymer, NY Times

members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GOPAppearsDivided.html

Gingrich warned not to use campaign funds to pay fine

members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/newt/GOPWarnsUproarIfNewtTap.html

1996: Under GOP-led Congress, Rich Now Scoop in a Corporate Welfare Total that Exceeds the Entire Federal Deficit

members.cts.com/crash/s/stephen/gop/End_Welfare_for_the_Rich.html

TaxAnalyst site - a nonprofit "nonpartisan" tax site that promotes tax breaks for nonprofits (no conflict of interest here!!) promotes Callaway's ALOF suit against IRS


www.tax.org/taxa/tadiscus.nsf/8525624b005f29198525624a0064a42b/df183afe926cc6b38525694400595394

In a Closed Door Session, a Handful of Republicans with IRS Reps Overturns the 1998 Ruling Against Gingrich

www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1474/1/3/

ANATOMY OF THE RENEWING AMERICA” PROPAGANDA BLITZ

Excerpts from a document filed at website "Counsel Connect Web":


"A public version of the findings of the House of Representatives regarding ethical violations by Newt Gingrich. Rep. Gingrich was fined $300,000 in settlement of charges covered in this report."

courttv-web1.courttv.com/archive/legaldocs/government/gopac1.html

Comments and headings in bold are by Cheryl Seal

The Basic “Renewing America” Propaganda Scheme

The core message of the movement and the course was that the welfare state had failed, that it could not be repaired but had to be replaced, and that it had to be replaced with an opportunity society based on what Mr. Gingrich called the "Five Pillars of American Civilization." These were: 1) personal strength; 2) entrepreneurial free enterprise; 3) the spirit of invention; 4) quality as defined by Edwards Deming; and 5) the lessons of American history. The message also concentrated on three substantive areas. These were: 1) jobs and economic growth; 2) health; and 3) saving the inner city. This message was also Mr. Gingrich's main campaign theme in 1993 and 1994
As General Chairman of GOPAC, Mr. Gingrich decided that GOPAC would use Renewing American Civilization as its political message and theme during 1993-1994. GOPAC, however, was having financial difficulties and could not afford to disseminate its political messages as it had in past years. GOPAC had a number of roles in regard to the course. For example, GOPAC personnel helped develop, manage, promote, and raise funds for the course. GOPAC Charter Members helped develop the idea to teach the course as a means for communicating GOPAC's message. GOPAC Charter Members at Charter Meetings helped develop the content of the course. GOPAC was "better off" as a result of the nationwide dissemination of the Renewing American Civilization message via the course in that the message GOPAC had adopted and determined to be the one that would help it achieve its goals was broadcast widely and at no cost to GOPAC. The course was taught at Kennesaw State College ("KSC") in 1993 and at Reinhardt College in 1994 and 1995. Each course consisted of ten lectures and each lecture consisted of approximately four hours of classroom instruction, for a total of forty hours. Mr. Gingrich taught twenty hours of each course and his co-teacher, or occasionally a guest lecturer, taught twenty hours. Students from each of the colleges as well as people who were not students attended the lectures. Mr. Gingrich's 20-hour portion of the course was taped and distributed to remote sites, referred to as "site hosts," via satellite, videotape and cable television. As with AOW/ACTV, Renewing American Civilization involved setting up workshops around the country where people could gather to watch the course. While the course was educational, Mr. Gingrich intended that the workshops would be, among other things, a recruiting tool for GOPAC and the Republican Party. The major costs for the Renewing American Civilization course were for dissemination of the lectures. This expense was primarily paid for by tax-deductible contributions made to the 501(c)(3) organizations that sponsored the course. Over the three years the course was broadcast, approximately $1.2 million was spent on the project.

GOPAC's mission was defined as follows: GOPAC's mission for the 1990's is to create and disseminate the doctrine which defines a caring, humanitarian reform Republican Party in such a way as to elect candidates, capture the United States House of Representatives and become a governing majority at every level of Government
But the Mission Statement demands that we do much more. To create the level of change needed to become a majority, the new Republican doctrine must be communicated to a broader audience, with greater frequency, in a more usable form. GOPAC needs a bigger "microphone"
One of the purposes of the program was to build a citizens' movement that would communicate the principles of Entrepreneurial Free Enterprise, Basic American Values, and Technological Progress.

AOW consisted of workshops set up throughout the country where activists could gather to watch the broadcast and, in the words of those responsible for AOW, help build a citizens' movement and increase citizen involvement

ALOF was established in 1984 in Colorado by Mr. Callaway to fund programs for inner city youth.- but once that political purpose had been served, the plug was pulled and the fund discontinued. Far more money was spent on Gingrich through the fund than on inner city youth.

The theory's explanation of what is wrong in society was put in terms of "the bureaucratic welfare state" and the "values of the left." The theory's explanation of what is good in society was put in terms of "technological progress," "entrepreneurial free enterprise," and "basic American values" which were summarized as "the Triangle of American Success."

Gingrich, Callaway and GOPac intentionally targeted young people, and deceived them by manipulatively omitting that this was a GOP program.

"But second, most young people under 40 are not politicized. The minute you politicize this and you make it narrow and you make it partisan -- you lose them. "

Gingrich admits that the formation of what we now call the "Freeper brigades" (a parallel to Hitler Youth) was one of the three goals of the Republican Takeover movement.

The GOP's list of goals is totally chilling, considering how far they have been pushed forward now.

: 1. By April 1996 have a thorough, practical blueprint for replacing the welfare state that can be understood and supported by voters and activists.

Welfare "reform" was not, alas, vetoed by Clinton. As a result, the number of homeless Americans is over 30% higher today than it was in 1996 and climing steadily. By 1996, Corporate Welfare had reached levels never before seen in US history.

..."We will teach a course on Renewing American civilization on ten Saturday mornings this fall and make it available by satellite, by audio and video tape and by computer to interested activists across the country. A month will then be spent redesigning the course based on feedback and better ideas.

In other words, the original "college course" was simply a Trojan horse designed to be packed with its real ammunition later, and marketed with taxpayer funds (every tax dollar lost is a taxpayer dollar shelled out)

Then the course will be retaught in Winter Quarter 1994. It will then be rethought and redesigned for nine months of critical re-evaluation based on active working groups actually applying ideas across the country the course will be taught for one final time in Winter Quarter 1996.

1994 and 1996 were both election years.

2. Have created a movement and momentum which require the national press corps to actually study the material in order to report the phenomenon thus infecting them with new ideas, new language and new perspectives.

Not only has the press been successfully "infected," it is now totally diseased and at death's door.

3. Have a cadre of at least 200,000 people committed to the general ideas so they are creating an echo effect on talk radio and in letters to the editor and most of our candidates and campaigns reflect the concepts of renewing America.

Thus you have the Freeper brigades who attack on command through organized letter and call in campaigns....and, more Hitler Youth like every day, through hate mail/threat campaigns (the Dixie Chicks, Peter Arnett, Cynthia McKinney, Paul Wellstone, Barbara Lee and several other outspoken activists have all been threatened with bodily harm in what appears to have been a well-organized intimidiation effort).