Thread by @j2dumfounded

I’m scratching around the #CouncilForNationalPolicy roster and was looking for an entity that’s got low web presence when I found this month-old letter to Texas governor Abbot on voting suppression.
Its signatories are a veritable CNP who’s who.

iwf.org/2021/04/16/coa…

Let’s take a closer look starting at the top:

Edwin Meese III is listed on the letter as Attorney General to Ronald Reagan from 1985-88. At the #CNP, of which he has a been a member he serves on the CNP Senior Executive Committee and is currently an honorary member (one of 6).

The Heritage Foundation, where he is the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy, is the sister entity to Heritage Action, which has been introducing hundreds of voter suppression bills to state legislatures.

motherjones.com/politics/2021/…

Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019 Meese has opposed mob violence, writing in 2020 that, “Mob Violence Must Not Be Tolerated. Hold Accountable & Punish the Wrongdoers,” calling BLM & Antifa the antithesis of orderly protest.

His stance on insurrection is unclear.

Meese is the Founding Chairman of the Conservative Action Project, formed in 2008. Although Alfred Regnery is not listed in the CNP roster, he currently chairs CAP, which advocated for confirming a SCOTUS pick before the 2020 election.

conservativeactionproject.com/the-senate-mus…

Alfred Regnery’s publishing house, which printed the Clinton Cash graphic novel, is now owned by Salem Media, whose owners are indeed CNP members.

https://twitter.com/mattsheffield/status/1393996233191030784

Quite notably, when Simon & Schuster kicked Josh Hawley’s book to the curb, Regnery published it.

foxnews.com/media/josh-haw…

Thomas Fitton, of Judicial Watch, serves on CNP’s executive committee and is a Gold Circle member, too.

For whatever reason, Mr. Fitton has not tweeted since January 8th, 2021. 🤨

Judicial Watch appears on my mind map, illustrating Senator Whitehouse’s white paper on the Federalist Society.

I feel obliged to note that when you google Judicial Watch, the term “scam” is suggested. Many ordinary Americans believe the organization preys on elders. You might want to check in on your family.

greatnonprofits.org/org/judicial-w…

Kevin Roberts of the Texas Public Policy Foundation is not on the CNP roster. However, TPPF is a member of the Atlas Network & the State Policy Network, two Koch aligned groups. SPN advances ALEC draft legislation. Lisa Nelson of ALEC is a CNP member.

sourcewatch.org/index.php/Texa…

Brent Bozell 3 of the Media Research Center is on CNP’s executive committee and has been a member for 30+ years. He is a gold circle member, too.

I would be remiss if I failed to note here that his son, L. Brent Bozell 4, aka Zeeker, faces multiple charges for his participation in the insurrection, would I not?

ydr.com/story/news/202…

Like Bozell 3, Kelly Shackleford, Esq. is a pillar of the CNP. He is the vice chair of its executive committee and chairman of its CNP Action, Inc. Board of Directors, as well as being a gold circle member. Impressive!

Shackleford’s organization, First Liberty claims it is largest legal organization in the US dedicated to protecting freedom for all Americans. This is what pops up when you visit their website, Allen West on Marxism in the military. Didn’t a Space Force dude get fired over that?

Former Senator Jim DeMint, now at the Conservative Partnership Institute, is also a member of CNP’s executive committee.

CPI focuses upon Congressional activities, helping conservatives with networking, training, advancing policy, and communications. Mark Meadows is now employed there. We’ll let Gym Jordan sum up. The Freedom Caucus. Whoohoo.

The Honorable Kenneth Blackwell, a CNP member for 30+ years, serves as treasurer at the CNP executive committee, on the Board of Governors, and is a member of the CNP Action, Inc., too.
He is employed as senior fellow at the Family Research Council.

Many of us will recall that Blackwell was Ohio’s Secretary of State during the debacle of the 2004 elections. His ownership of Diebold stock was perceived as a conflict of interest as the voting machines malfunctioned. Diebold is now part of ES&S.

“Johns Hopkins researchers at the Information Security Institute issued a report declaring that Diebold’s electronic voting software contained “stunning flaws.” The researchers concluded that vote totals could be altered at the voting machines and by remote access.”

How’s that for voter suppression!

columbusfreepress.com/article/diebol…

If this topic interests you I highly recommend you follow Jenny Cohn’s amazing work on election integrity issues. @/ jennycohn1

We see from the signatory page that CNP Board of Governors member Cleta Mitchell has landed on her feet after being fired by Foley & Lardner for her active role in the insurrection.
Looks like she is pulling in two paychecks, from CPI and FreedomWorks. You go, girl!

When I say “role in the insurrection” I refer to both the yet-to-be-substantiated rumors of her role with Ginni Thomas in bussing in “protestors” and, more germanely to her termination, the Georgia shakedown a few days earlier.

thedailybeast.com/cleta-mitchell…

Perhaps it would be best to say “partially substantiated”.

https://twitter.com/dianesbaker1/status/1391766753772855298

If you take a look at the Trump PAC founded in September 2020, Moms for Safe Neighborhoods you can see more than one seditionist serves on its board, Cleta Mitchell among them.

washingtontimes.com/news/2020/sep/…

Probably should move on now…

I’m like a 🐶 with a 🦴.

If you are interested in Cleta Thomas, connect with @/ satirehat who thinks she is 🔑 to the whole cabal. An attorney, she rose to prominence for her Tea Party work, serves on the NRA board, & secretary for Bannon’s Citizens of the American Republic.

Bob McEwen is not simply a member of the CNP.

He is its EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. The guy in charge.

He’s also president of CNP Action, Inc.’s board of directors.

Bit of tawdriness early in his term as ED, when a teen got groped by an Ohio House candidate at, of all places, a CNP meeting. They like to hate on the LGBT unless it’s one of them. #INeedAShower

cincinnati.com/story/news/pol…

That’s not on his Wikipedia page, go figure. There’s a lot about his campaigns, in which he learned much about gerrymandering. McEwen was backed by Ollie North, Jack Kemp, & Pat Buchanan, among other notable conservatives.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_McEwe

You won’t see much of anything about McEwen’s lobbying career on Wiki. He went to work for Bob (my cheating personal parts) Livingston as a lobbyist, doing work in Ukraine and turns up in Trump’s first impeachment. Yay.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/feder…

Livingston was conniving with Rudy Colludy to remove Yovanovitch as ambassador. Meanwhile, McEwen set up a meeting between Giuliani and then-presidential-candidate Yulia Tymoshenko. After Ze won, McEwen pushed Zelensky to take her on as his vice president.

Cui bono?

One day I’ll do a thread on all the TrumpRussia collusion stuff tied to the #CouncilForNationalPolicy but for now, I must take a break from Twitter for the sake of attending an IRL party with fully-vaccinated pals.

10 of 97 signatories. Some good stuff coming up, so stay tuned!

After some technical difficulties [hello, new SIM card] this dummy is returning with an interstitial thread from a Texan journalist, Jeremy Wallace.

https://twitter.com/JeremySWallace/status/1398847956690821121

“The libertarian sociopath streak in GOP politics was on vivid display when the power went down and the now-resigned Republican Mayor of Colorado City, Texas, Tim Boyd, posted to Facebook.”

https://twitter.com/Thom_Hartmann/status/1399725697665544197

OK, time to knit a few more profiles in voter suppression into this thread on the now-stalled Texas bill, that will likely be taken back up again by the legislature later this summer.
🧶

In 2009, Jenny Beth Martin, with Mark Meckler and Amy Kremer, founded the Tea Party Patriots. You will recall they claimed Obama was Kenyan, not an American.

She currently is secretary of the executive committee at #CouncilForNationalPolicy & is a gold circle member.

Like so many other CNP people, it seems Ms. Martin has used her organization as a way to enrich herself at the expense of the little people supporting her cause.

This, from Mother Jones reporting in 2011, shows how the racket works.

motherjones.com/politics/2011/…

Out of every dollar raised, most of it goes back to further fundraising. You will see this played out in group after group.

In the case of TPP, here is MDS keeping over 70% of the take, and Capital Resources a slightly larger cut.

Another commonality among CNP-affiliated groups is their role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

Here we find Ms. Martin involved in the #StopTheSteal rally, along with details on TPP’s sugar daddy Dick Uihlein.

wbez.org/stories/chicag…

For good measure, I include this flyer from the sedition planners. As you will note, gentle reader, Jenny Beth Martin was promoted as a speaker at the Wild Protest rally.

However, Martin did not take the stage, as reported by a 2021 Mother Jones story detailing the acrimonious fall out between Martin & Kremer, the bigly grifting of TPP as it became a PAC in order to avoid legal liability, & many worthy, tawdry factoids.

motherjones.com/politics/2021/…

One might guess that Kremer had a hand in putting a kibosh on Martin’s speech at the insurrection. But we know Trump likes her best, as he gave her a shout out at the CNP meeting in August 2020.
Yay, hydroxychloroquine!

Let’s move on to former CNP president, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Now a senior executive committee member, during the Trump era he had White House access & has landed a role at the US Commission on International Religious Freedoms.

uscirf.gov/about-uscirf/t…

I’m not going to call Perkins a gay-hating, anti-abortion, white supremacist who signed a deal with KKK leader David Duke while employed as a campaign manager. Instead, this SPLC profile can fill you in the gory details.

splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…

However, given it is Pride month, please note Anne Nelson, saying, “CNP’s then-president Tony Perkins, became a regular visitor to the Oval Office, where he successfully lobbied to restrict the civil rights of LGBTQ populations.”

billmoyers.com/story/the-shad…

“The Republican Party decided not to bother drafting a new party platform for the 2020 election. Instead, it recycled the 2016 platform, which included former CNP President Tony Perkins’s drafts opposing marriage equality & promoting conversion therapy.”

washingtonspectator.org/nelson-cnp/

If you’ve gotten this far through this thread and have not yet purchased Anne Nelson’s outstanding #ShadowNetwork, I really must admonish you to correct this oversight, stat!

npr.org/2019/10/29/774…

The next signatory, David McIntosh of the Club for Growth, is a board of governors CNP member. A Scalia acolyte, he worked for Reagan & Bush 41, former MOC & is a co-founder of the SCOTUS-shaping Federalist Society.

The Club for Growth advocates for lower taxes, term limits, school vouchers, reduced regulations, smaller government, fewer entitlements, free trade, and tort reform.

I guess voter suppression doesn’t look that appealing on a website.

clubforgrowth.org/issues/

Each year, they publish a scorecard ranking legislators on their issues.

For 2020, Reps. Andy Biggs and Senators Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Marsha Blackburn, and Ron Johnson all scored a full 100%.

Whoo sees any seditionists on this list?

Like Tony Perkins, General Boykin is affiliated with the Family Research Council, serving as its EVP. It’s a crying shame that a highly decorated 3-star general would dispute the 2020 election outcome, but it is what it is. Sedition.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G…

The Flag Officers 4 America published a letter undermining the presidential vote. Guess that oath to the Constitution fell by the wayside. Unlike John Poindexter, Boykin has never been convicted of conspiracy.

politico.com/news/2021/05/1…

Unlike the other signatories profiled today, 45’ OMB director, Russ Vought, is not on the 2020 CNP roster. However, he is a contributor to the Federalist, make of that what you will.

thefederalist.com/author/russell…

OK, tweeps, this dummy needs a nice long walk to stretch her legs and clear her head. I’ll be back to this relatively soon.

And now, a moment or two today levity.

https://twitter.com/BradBeauregardJ/status/1400170431714365444

Not funny that Briscoe Cain, the Texas bill sponsor, made death threats against Beto o’Rourke.

https://twitter.com/OdoyleCharlotte/status/1400612220275470338

Let’s focus on the positive momentarily before returning to this sad slog on the support of #CouncilForNationalPolicy members supporting Briscoe Cain’s Texas voter suppression bill.

Below are organizations working for the good ⤵️

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1400883649386618887

Voter suppression:

“The bill targeted voting methods that Black and Latino voters in Houston used widely in the pandemic.”

“The bill would have barred Sunday morning get-out-the-vote programs used to mobilize Black churchgoers.”

“The measure drew comparison to Jim Crow laws.”

WaPo goes on to ask, “Would Senate Bill 7 have been unconstitutional?”

Marc Elias answered, “The bill’s restrictions of early voting, mail voting, drop boxes, voter assistance and voter transportation all would have qualified for such a challenge.”

washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…

Briscoe Cain, sponsor of the Texas bill - written by Heritage Action - which would increase voter suppression, is an Edward Rutledge Fellowship member of the #CNP as well as a Freedom Caucus member.

Should you find yourself wondering, “Who is Edward Rutledge” you will find that although the South Carolinan was the youngest signer of our Declaration of Independence, “He worked to have African Americans expelled from the Continental Army.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Ru…

The Wikipedia entry further notes that the play “1776 claims that Rutledge led the opposition to an anti-slavery clause in the original draft of the Declaration.” And then goes on to refute this claim at length. The play’s synopsis here:

bard.org/study-guides/s…

As we can tell from a biography lovingly penned by a descendant, Mr. Rutledge was a slave owner.

“The wealth of the Rutledge family increased substantially–his law practice flourished, & in partnership with his brother-in-law…he invested in plantations.

dsdi1776.com/edward-rutledg…

While one imagines CNP will tell you they are honoring Rutledge for his stance on “states rights” we all know that’s a favorite trope of white supremacy.

Interestingly, another Rutledge (by marriage) works as Dir of Finance/Administration there, for 34 years.