In 2002, before the mainstream media widely discussed Tea party politics, Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), a nonprofit funded in part by cigarette companies since 1987 to support a pro-tobacco political agenda, started its US Tea Party project. Its website stated "Our US Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.'' In 2004, CSE split into the Tea Party organizations Americans for Prosperity (AFP) and Freedom Works. Those two groups, say the authors, have since waged campaigns to turn public opinion against tobacco taxes, smoke-free laws and health care reform in general. "If you look at CSE, AFP and Freedom Works, you will see a number of the same key players, strategies and messages going back to the 1980s," said lead author Amanda Fallin, PhD, RN, also a CTCRE fellow. "The records indicate that the Tea Party has been shaped by the tobacco industry, and is not a spontaneous grassroots movement at all." "Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party movement have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, and continue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry's anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda," said senior author Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE) and a UCSF professor of medicine and American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor in Tobacco Control. The study, which appears on Feb. 8 in the journal Tobacco Control, shows that rhetoric and imagery evoking the 1773 Boston Tea Party were used by tobacco industry representatives as early as the 1980s as part of an industry-created "smokers' rights'' public relations campaign opposing increased cigarette taxes and other anti-smoking initiatives. From previously secret tobacco industry documents available at the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, IRS filings and other publicly available documents, the study authors traced a decades-long chain of personal, corporate and financial relationships between tobacco companies, tobacco industry lobbying and public relations firms and nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party.
You mean to tell me that tobacco companies and executives also want lower taxes and less government??? Im shocked, im surprised they didnt back the occupy wallstreet crowd.
Did you get this out of the Onion? Tea from leaves, tobacco from leaves - get it? Oh, I see. It is just a liberal hit piece coming out of San Fran. with no actual connections provided other than the reference to the Boston tea party incident of our ancestors. http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/02/13...-have-ties-tobacco-industry-dating-back-1980s This just shows how low the left will go to discredit any group they feel is a threat to them. They will use lies and innuendo to try and make a connection that is only in their heads. This from a University of supposedly higher learning no less.
Why not ask Dick Armey, the founder of Freedom Works? In 1987, Armey wrote a letter to Samuel Chilcote, President of the Tobacco Institute, saying he had a lot to learn about politics and asking if Chilcote would do him the "great personal favor" of sitting on his Political Action Committee Advisory Committee. Handwriting on the letter, apparently by Chilcote, cites a scheduling conflict, and indicates Chilcote likely did agree to Armey's request. Nevertheless, after that the Tobacco Institute started regularly donating funds to Armey's re-election campaigns through its political action committee ("TIPAC") in fairly small amounts at first -- just $250 in 1987. The industry's donations to Armey grew steadily as his time and his influence in the House increased. By 1991, Armey was getting $500 donations from TIPAC, plus additional donations from individual cigarette companies. By 2000-2001, Armey was routinely pulling in $1,000 donations from TIPAC and individual tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds (RJR), Lorillard and Philip Morris.
Dick Army left the Tea Party because it wasn't doing what he advocated. But, I think Max's comment is valid. There are diverse groups that want a smaller government and more power given back to the people.
I thought he left because the âgrassrootsâ Tea Party group FreedomWorks paid him $8 million to leave like two months early.
What a totally ridiculous comment to make. NO ONE is against affordable healthcare except maybe the healthcare lobby. the Tea Party is FOR fiscal conservatism, and responsible spending. Take your bullshit back to the cult hive where you can all sit around nodding vapidly.
That was the settlement but it is reportedly because of disputes about policy. You can read into the statements what ever fits ones preference. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks