All The Right-wing Conspirators

.The actions of these shadowy figures on the Republican Right needs to become better known. Grover Norquist was the guy who made the remark about "Shrinking government will it's small enough to drown in the bathtub". Grover Norquist is a prime puppetier on the political scene today because he's the one who secured the "no new taxes" pledge from all the Republicans running in 2010. Should any of they break this pledge or displease him in any way he says he will "primary" them. Personally - this could be a good thing because chances are that any replacement candidate wouldn't be as whaco as the original. Randy Rhodes has been talking about everybody in the “Vast right wing conspiracy” that Hillary talked about in February of 1998. Norquist has been active back to around 1994 and engineered the Republican takeover of congress that year. Jack Abramoff is another figure that I first heard when Rush Limbaugh mentioned him on his show in an adverse way. At the time I thought he had to be a democrat because Rush never mentioned that he was a Republican. He was involved in that whole Indian gambling casino thing with Ralph Reed, who was head of the Christian coalition. The money would be raised by anti gambling moralists and then be funneled to favored India tribes, who want to beat out other tribes for the gambling casino licenses and business patronage. These kinds of Christians have no moral principles. Another figure is David Brock. This guy came up with the “a little slutty and a little nutty” pertaining to Anita Hill. But he saw the error of his ways and wrote “Blinded by the right”. I have never read this book but I should, and all you people should, too. In fact they should do a movie called "All the Right-wing Conspirators" or something which dramatizes all of these lives and events the way only Hollywood can. And if there is a little over-acting that's OK because a lot of people are dense and won't get the point otherwise.

Grover Norquist became involved with politics at an early age and in his early teenage years Norquist volunteered for the 1968 Nixon campaign, assisting with get out the vote efforts.^[11] He enrolled at Harvard University in 1974, where he would obtain both a BA and MBA. While in school, Norquist was an editor at the Harvard Crimson and helped to publish the libertarian-leaning Harvard Chronicle.^[12] Norquist has said: "When I became 21, I decided that nobody learned anything about politics after the age of 21."^[11] He attended the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia,^[13] an organization that teaches conservative Americans how to influence public policy through activism and leadership. About this same period Thom Hartman dabbled in libertarianism because he was just starting out in business and libertarianism seemed like a neat idea. I was a fan myself of Harry Brown, a libertarian, myself during this period. He believed at the time you should have some sort of underground "safe house" or a cabin in the woods in case "the worst" happens and econimic riots are breaking out everywhere. I strongly suggest that you get a podcast of Randy Rhodes' August 4th show. We have some background material below but you can bet this is only scratching the surface and has probably been largely purged of anything that might be too revealing or make him look too shady.

Norquist is best known for founding Americans for Tax Reform in 1985, which he did at the request of President Ronald Reagan.^[15] The primary policy goal of Americans for Tax Reform is to reduce the percentage of the GDP consumed by the federal government.^[8][16] ATR states that it "opposes all tax increases as a matter of principle."^[17] Americans for Tax Reform seeks to curtail government spending by supporting Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) legislation^[18] and transparency initiatives,^[19] and opposing cap-and-trade legislation^[20] and Democratic efforts to overhaul health care. Cap and trade pertains to energy use restriction, basically. In 1993, Norquist launched his Wednesday Meetings series at ATR headquarters, initially to help fight President Clinton's healthcare plan and eventually becoming one of the most significant institutions in American conservative political organizing. In 2009, Norquist received $200,000 in annual compensation for his part-time job (24 hours per week) with Americans for Tax Reform, plus an addition $22,419 other compensation from the organization and related organizations.^[22]

Early in his career, Norquist was executive director of both the National Taxpayers Union and the national College Republicans organization, holding both positions until 1983. Afterward, he held the positions of Economist and Chief Speechwriter at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 1983 to 1984.^[23]

Norquist traveled to several war zones across the world to help support anti-Soviet guerrilla armies in the second half of the 1980s. He worked with a support network for Col. Oliver North's efforts with the Nicaraguan Contras and other insurgencies, in addition to promoting U.S. support for groups including Mozambique's RENAMO and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA in Angola and helping to organize anti-Soviet forces in Laos. The trouble is that yesterday's ally is today's avowed political enemy of the US like the Muhajib in Afghanistan.

In addition to heading Americans for Tax Reform, Norquist serves on the board of numerous organizations, including the Hispanic Leadership Fund, Indian-American Republican Caucus, and The Nixon Center. He has long been active in building bridges between various ethnic and religious minorities and the free-market community through his involvement with organizations such as the Islamic Free Market Institute, Acton Institute, Christian Coalition and Toward Tradition.

In business, Norquist was a co-founder of the Merritt Group, later renamed Janus-Merritt Strategies. Norquist also serves on the board of ParentalRights.org, a grassroots organization dedicated to adding a Parental Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In 2010, Norquist joined the advisory board of GOProud, a political organization representing conservative gays, lesbians, transgendered people, and their allies, for which he was criticized by the Family Research Council. Norquist is a member of the board of directors of the National Rifle Association,^[26] the American Conservative Union,^[2] as well as the Advisory Council of GOProud,. Norquist is the co-founder of the Islamic Free Market Institute.^[28]

In 2010, Norquist, whose wife was born into a Muslim family, emerged as the most outspoken Republican foe of politicizing the mosque-in-Manhattan issue, saying:

"This is a distraction from a winning game plan… It is very stupid, when Republicans are poised to win an overwhelming victory in November over Democratic spending, to focus attention on this issue."^[29]

He has also "announced his plan to assemble a center-right coalition to discuss pulling out of Afghanistan to save hundreds of billions of dollars."^[30]

In a CPAC 2011 speech, David Horowitz accused Norquist of having connections with the Muslim Brotherhood. Working with eventual Speaker Newt Gingrich, Norquist was one of the co-authors of the 1994 Contract with America, and helped to rally grassroots efforts, which he later chronicled in his book Rock the House.^[12] Norquist also served as a campaign staff member on the 1988, 1992 and 1996 Republican Platform Committees.^[2]

Norquist was instrumental in securing early support for then Texas Governor George W. Bush, acting as his unofficial liaison to the conservative movement.^[12] He campaigned for Bush in both 2000 and 2004.^[32] After Bush's first election, Norquist was a key figure involved in crafting Bush's tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal's John Fund dubbed him "the Grand Central Station" of conservatism and told The Nation: "It's not disputable" that Norquist was the key to the Bush campaign's surprising level of support from movement conservatives in 2000.^[33]

Norquist, along with Bill Kristol, Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Clint Bolick, and David McIntosh, is one of the so-called "Gang of Five" identified in Nina Easton's 2000 book by that name,^[34] which gives a history of leaders of the modern, post-Goldwater conservative movement. Humorist P. J. O'Rourke has described Norquist as "Tom Paine crossed with Lee Atwater plus just a soupçon of Madame Defarge".^[12]

Since Norquist's opposition to any and all tax increases implies that even deficit reduction agreements that are dominated by spending cuts should be rejected (since such agreements are still not entirely spending cuts), he has been identified by some policy makers as an obstacle to deficit reduction.^[9][35]

Norquist's national strategy includes recruiting politicians at the state and local levels. Norquist has helped to set up regular meetings for conservatives in many states. These meetings are modeled after his Wednesday meetings in Washington, with the goal of creating a nationwide network of conservative activists that he can call upon to support conservative causes, such as tax cuts and deregulation. There are now meetings in 48 states.^[36]

In 2004, Norquist helped California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with his plan to privatize the CalPERS system.^[37] In Virginia's 2005 Republican primaries Norquist encouraged the defeat of a number of legislators who voted for higher taxes.^[36]

Norquist favors dramatically reducing the size of the government.^[12] He has been noted for his widely quoted quip: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."^[38]

He has also stated, "Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal. If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050".^[39] The Americans for Tax Reform mission statement is "The government's power to control one's life derives from its power to tax. We believe that power should be minimized."^[40]

Norquist is the author of the book Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives,^[41] published on March 11, 2008 by HarperCollins. He has variously served as a monthly "Politics" columnist and contributing editor to The American Spectator.

Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform were mentioned in Senate testimony relating to the lobbying scandal for which Abramoff pled guilty in 2006. Norquist has denied that he did anything wrong.^[36] Records released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee allege that ATR served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns.^[43]