Return with us to the thrilling days of yesteryear, where, astride his faithful steed Hedgefund, the fake cowboy/real gazillionaire from Wyoming spurred into the sunset and rode valiantly to Salt Lake City, Utah. The Salt Lake City Tribune takes up the tale [emphasis added]:
V.P. talks Iraq, borders in SLC
BY ROBERT GEHRKE
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 29, 2007 1:58 AMVice President Dick Cheney and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed some of the most influential leaders of the conservative movement Friday in Salt Lake City, but their speeches, like the group itself, remain cloaked in secrecy.
The Council for National Policy is a shadowy group comprising leaders in the family values, national defense and ”decency” movements, dubbed “Sith Lords of the Ultra-Right” by the liberal blog DailyKos. Members are told not to discuss the group, reveal the topics discussed in the closed-door meetings, or even say whether or not they are members of the organization.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” said a grinning Foster Friess, who was pleasant but steadfast in his unwillingness to talk about the group….
Who is Foster Friess? I did an entire series on him, which revealed some chilling stuff, and you can read here* if you’re interested. So, let’s just cut to the chase. Freiss is a long-time member and former officer of the Council for National Policy. They were the secret bunch who met in Salt Lake City. Founded by Tim LeHaye when he was running The Moral Majority for Jerry Falwell, and before he hit paydirt with his “Left Behind” apocalypse novel series. (You know, “Twilight” in basic Revelation.)
[* see end of piece.]*
Another member Foster regularly rubs elbows with is Joseph Farah, who runs World Net Daily, makes money off of birther paraphernalia and ghost wrote Rush Limbaugh’s See, I Told You So.
Joseph Farah
Friess is also the guy who sat down over lunch, pulled out his Osmium Visa Card and bankrolled Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel’s The Daily Caller to the tune of $3 million bucks, reportedly.
Friess is cozy with the Goldwater Institute and Clint Bolick, down in Phoenix, Arizona.
And Foster was present at the infamous Koch Brothers secret meeting in Aspen, Colorado a story that the New York Times reported and ThinkProgress broke.
See “They’re Going After The Wisconsin Teachers”
Neil Patel is his Jackson Hole Neighbor and was Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Oh, and Cheney’s a Jackson Hole neighbor, too.
Friess was the largest single donor ($300K) to the Latina Republican Tea Party governor’s race in New Mexico in 2010, as listeners of KVOT in Taos, New Mexico are well aware.
And Friess is one of the TOP donors to Scott Walker’s “Don’t Recall Me, Bro!” campaign in Wisconsin THIS year. ($100K so far.)
Walker’s Out-Of-State Supporters, Opponents
December 24, 2011 – 6:36pm | Bill Lueders[…]
Nearly half of the $5.1 million raised by the embattled Republican governor since July 1 came from outside of Wisconsin. In all of 2010, when Walker won a hotly contested election that included a primary, just 8 percent of the more than $8 million he raised came from out of state.
[…]
The largest single contributor to Walker’s campaign was Bob J. Perry, a homebuilder in Houston, Texas, who gave $250,000. Perry is a prominent funder of conservative causes. He gave more than $4 million to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, a group that helped torpedo 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. In 2010, he gave $7 million to American Crossroads, a Republican campaign fund.
The next biggest donors are Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, who gave a total of $205,000. The couple lives in Lake Forest, Illinois, and own Uline Inc., a shipping and packaging business headquartered in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. (On Friday, Walker attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Uline plant set to open in Hudson, Wis.) Foster Friess, an investor in Jackson, Wyoming, also gave Walker $100,000.
Walker’s largest Wisconsin contributors were Thomas and Ruth Schuette of Wausau, who each gave $50,000
Friess is the fellow who spoke at the Tea Party Patriots’ Phoenix wingding last year.
And Friess is the fellow standing behind Rick Santorum for his 20-minute “Game On!” quasi-victory speech in Iowa.
Screencap from Fox News Latino Video is 19 min.
Oh, and he runs Santorum’s superPAC “Red, White and Blue” which just did a big ad buy in South Carolina.:
Pro-Santorum PAC in S.C. for $190k
Posted by CNN Senior Producer Kevin BohnUPDATE: Red, White and Blue will run ads in Greenville, Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina supported by $190,000 starting this weekend. The group says it spent a total of $537,000 in Iowa.
[…]
Conservative activist Foster Friess, a major Wyoming investment executive, confirmed to CNN he is one of the major supporters behind Red, White and Blue and vowed to CNN to help increase the group’s ability to put out a message supporting Santorum.
“I have been a fan since I met Rick Santorum in 1996,” Friess told CNN by telephone Thursday. He went to Iowa this week and campaigned alongside Santorum in a pickup truck along with a small group of others and spoke at one of the precinct caucuses on the former Senator’s behalf Tuesday night.
He refused to say how much he so far has donated to the group. “I don’t want my wife to find out,” he joked…
Always with the funny, that Foster.
My father was originally posted to the Jim Bridger National Forest when he entered the Forest Service — the National Forest around Jackson Hole, Teton National Park and Yellowstone — and he taught me something he learned in the forest, fresh from Kansas: if you want to know what’s going on, watch the animals.
If you want to know when a New York subway train is coming, watch the rats.
If you want to know where the odd admixture of Kochian and Dominionist interests is going, watch Foster Friess.
Courage.
Note: The J H Underground blog also caught this, and deserves your attention. Kudos.
The Foster Friess Series (all photos are linked and explained there)
- Tucker Carlson is Keith Olbermann; I am Glenn Beck (18 July)
- More Fake Cowboys (23 July)
- The Biggest Foundation That You’ve Never Heard Of (1 Aug. )
- Following Foster’s Buddies’ Money (10 Aug.)
- Foster’s Dominionist Pals (13 Aug.)
- Rubber Baby Buggy Bunglers (18 Aug.)
- Tucker Carlson – Profeshunel Jurnuhlizzum Strikes Agin! (12 Nov.)
- How Friess Fosters Tuckers Out – Conclusion (Dec. 31, 2010)
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.