Reagan Legacy Project: most important group we're not watching

[jmowreader]

If you venture over to Grover Norquist's website you will find all the assorted "organizations" that work out of his suite of offices. There's a bunch--Americans for Tax Reform (his main group), the Leave Us Alone Coalition, the American Shareholders Association, the K Street Project, a couple of others.

And then there's the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project--Norquist's effort to get something in every county in the United States named for Ronald Reagan. Tis a curious project. I mean, Ronnie was probably a nice enough guy if you can overlook the fact that he armed and bankrolled both Saddam and Osama. And he's a law-abiding guy if you can get past the 167 formally-indicted crooks in his administration. Reagan was a freedom-loving guy, whch explains why more communist governments were founded during Reagan's tenure than at any point before or since in the history of the world. He was a peace-loving man, which naturally explains why he bought so many nuclear weapons; a fiscally-responsible man once you forget about his tripling the national debt, a tax-hating man (well, except for the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, a law which made the infamous Clinton Tax Increases look moderate),

All right, all right, I know, Reagan was quite possibly the most two-faced son of a bitch who ever walked the earth and even Grover Fucking Norquist has to be able to see that. But still, this fuckwad is running all over the country attempting to get things BESIDES dog pounds, county jails, sewage treatment plants and toxic waste treatment facilities named for Ronald Reagan. There's got to be a point to this whole exercise, you may think.

Indeed there is. Look closely at the membership lists of this group--they're right at reaganlegacy.org. This is a roster of every high-end Repuke in the United States. Karl Rove's on there. Jesse Helms is on there. Tom DeLay makes an appearance. The president of the Heritage Foundation is in here, as are two College Republican National Committee officers.

Let's review what we know about Grover Norquist, who runs this outfit:
* He hates Democrats with a passion.
* He hates government spending with equal zeal.
* He is exceptional at raising money for various conservative causes.
* And he is very good at establishing and maintaining front organizations.

The reason this group is more important than any other Norquist front is the state-level organizations. He's connected to the most powerful Republicans in most of the state legislatures through this group. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that when the top Repukes in America meet under the auspices of this organization, they don't restrain themselves to smoking Habanos and swapping war stories about how great it was when Ronnie shut the mental hospitals down. Nay, they're up to something. Check this shit out: One of the members of the executive board of the Reagan Legacy Project is the Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Rabbi Lapin is president of Toward Tradition...which is directed by Jack Abramoff.

These guys bear serious watching. I've started a file.

[blm]

1. Thankyou jmow - this is what DU does best - keep watch and inform and

share that information as best we can.

You have provided a perfect example.

Kand R from the anti-corruption, open government wing of the Democratic party.

[muntrv]

2. I saw an ad on CNBC that showed a dime

with raygun's face on it instead of FDR's. My question to these raygun lovers is:

WHAT THE FUCK HAS RAYGUN DONE THAT'S BETTER THAN LEADING OUR NATION THROUGH THE GREAT DEPRESSON AND WWII, LIKE FDR?

[mcscajun]

3. And the association between FDR and the dime is unique

because of his own battle with polio and his efforts in the March of Dimes campaign against that disease.

Fortunately, the first such effort to replace FDR with Reagan failed, with the surprising opposition of Nancy Reagan to the effort.

"While I can understand the intentions of those seeking to place my husband's face on the dime, I do not support this proposal and I am certain Ronnie would not. When our country chooses to honor a great president such as Franklin Roosevelt by placing his likeness on our currency, it would be wrong to remove him and replace him with another."

So, since they couldn't get what they wanted, some enterprising asshole out there is producing (for profit, naturally) .999 silver proof commemorative dimes with Reagan's likeness on them.

[GreenCommie]

6. The commemorative coins are not unique

I've seen ones for Clinton and W. They just want to make money off gullible people.

[mcscajun]

8. Oh, I know they're not unique. I was livid when those thieving bastards

came out about two years ago with their WTC commemoratives.

NYS Attorney General Eliot Spitzer went after them and nailed their hides to the wall.

It was the National Collector's Mint, Inc. and their "2004 Freedom Tower Silver Dollar." The television ads promoted the coin as a "legally authorized government issue silver dollar" and as a "U.S. territorial minting" from the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. This was all bullshit. So was their claim that the coins were pure silver, from silver recovered at Ground Zero during recovery operations. The first claim was TOTAL Bullshit, and the second was still being investigated when the court ruled against the manufacturers for committing fraud and deceptive advertising.

It's my belief the second claim was bullshit as well. The gold and silver stored in vaults below ground at the WTC was owned by banks and other investments firms. When it was recovered, they weren't about to turn it over to the "National Collector's Mint", a business a few steps BELOW "The Franklin Mint" (another producer of pop collectibles.)

Of course, what REALLY Got My Fire Going wasn't their fraud or deceptive practices, but that they were trading on tragedy and purporting to be honoring the victims and heroes of 9/11. The ultimate bullshit claim made by vultures.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Withjout suggesting in any way that I endorse their theories,

a lot of the delusional wingnuts (to be clearly distinguished from the psychopathic opportunist wingnuts like Norquist, Rove & Robertson) believe Ronnie Raygun devised the policies that brought about the downfall of the Soviet Union. He also restored American military pride by heroicallly leading us to victory in Grenada. Etc.

I presume this whole campaign is one in which the psychopathic opportunists are once again fleecing their delusional flocks, lining their own pocketrs & building their war chests for whatever little operations they may have planned for '06 and '08.

[GreenCommie]

5. I hate that group

I don't care WHAT the sign says--it will never be Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

NEVER.

(And fyi, most DC area natives call it National, in case anyone seeks directions.)

[bemildred]

7. Bush and his stupid war are Raygun's legacy. nt

[eppur_se_muova]

9. How many times I've proposed the "Ronald Reagan Memorial National Debt"...

although, in fairness, it should be the "Bush-Reagan National Debt".