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(Not you? Then who? Not me - Couldn't be. Then who? Not you?)

Twenty three Christmases ago, beginning in November, the Iran-Contra Affair was bubbling to the surface. Stories of secret arms caches, money laundering, clandestine operations, deals - all the stuff of mediocre spy novels.

But alas, it was the Reagan Years, so anything could be and was possible.

Ike Pappas (CBS News): “Secord spent less than fifteen minutes in the closed hearing room. Enough time to listen to opening statements and then claim the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions as have several other key players in the case. Secord, now a businessman is said to have helped to arrange the Iran arms sales, and has been linked in documents to the clandestine privately financed network that sent arms and equipment to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua when Congress cut off funds.”

These two news reports from December of 1986 give some indication where this all was headed. 1987 was promising to be a fun year. Sandbags and all.

. . .and boy, do we need 'em now! (donations, that is - we're full up on sandbags)

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After claiming that former Majority Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks is a grass roots organization, their President Max Pappas encourages a CCC caller to sign up for their organization, and tells another caller that there is no way for them to tamp down on the behavior of these tea baggers showing up to protest at these town hall meetings.

From Think Progress:

FreedomWorks, an industry-backed right-wing group led by former GOP congressman Dick Armey, has been heavily engaged in organizing conservatives to ambush Democratic members of Congress supporting health care reform at town halls across the country during the August recess. Its “astroturf” campaign is designed to present the appearance of wide-spread public discontent with health care reform, but the reality is that the town halls have become forums for disruption, extremism and even violence.

[.....]

Another caller who claimed to be from the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) — a group that claims the U.S. is a European country and was founded by a “longtime white-power activist” — praised Pappas. “I want to salute you, you’re a true patriot,” he told Pappas, who later urged the CCC member to join FreedomWorks. “[I]f the caller wants to join FreedomWorks, it’s free. You can sign up on our website and we’ll keep you up to dated on what’s going on on Capitol Hill,” he said.

Transcript and h/t to Think Progress for a good part of it.

CALLER: Hey Max I want to salute you, you’re a true patriot. I belong to a small group out here called Council of Conservative Citizens and once you get out of the major cities and you get out into the Midwest you realize that the average American just wants to go to work, work hard, be patriotic, pay his bills and hope that the government stays out of his way. What’s happened over the last six, eight months isn’t just a progression of the Democratic Party.

This Mr. Obama is way past Democrat/Republican, it’s a socialist view that the government can take care of everybody, and you’re seeing average folks all across America just finally getting fed up and saying “This is enough. What can I do?”. And when we have our little meetings and when we went down to the tea parties, I guess I’m one of those mob people. It’s comical. Ah, we just want to say “No”, we’re Americans and you know, the old expression is that I might not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.

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