Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway (very appropriate last name) is likely a new—albeit haggard—face on the national scene for those who don't pay attention to politics, but she's been a part of the extremist rightwing D.C. establishment for decades. Behind the dead eyes and nauseatingly fake smile exists an insidious creature who has been directly involved in and/or an ally to several of the capital's sickest sins against democracy.
Kellyanne's husband, George Conway III, is an equally repulsive man and serves as literal proof that twisted birds of a feather do indeed flock together. The following list is only the tip of the iceberg, but will hopefully shed light on the most important things you need to know about America's newest white-power couple.
Meet the Conways
"The CNP is an intensely secretive and shadowy group of what The New York Times once described as “the most powerful conservatives in the country.” It is so tight-lipped that it tells people not to admit their membership or even name the group. Revealing when or where the group meets, or what it discusses, is also forbidden. The organization, which can only be joined by invitation and at a cost of thousands of dollars, strives mightily to keep its membership rolls secret."
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Kim Davis and Mat Staver (center); 2015.
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On the surface, there is nothing noteworthy in and of itself about the clandestine CNP. Once you delve deeper and look at the CNP's many extremist members, however, the picture grows more troubling. Here are four of a plethora of such members:
- Mat Staver: leader of Liberty Counsel, a hate group whose goal is to re-criminalize gay sex. Also a lawyer, Staver's clients include Kim Davis, the Rowan County KY clerk who infamously refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples after SCOTUS' landmark ruling. Staver compared Davis' alleged plight to that of Jews in Nazi Germany.
- Michael Peroutka: board member of League of the South, a white supremacist organization.
- Jerome Corsi: an Obama "birther" hardliner; also a frequent propagandist for the radical right.
- Philip Zodhaites: an influential religious right donor; convicted in September 2016 for kidnapping a child from her lesbian mother and smuggling her to Nicaragua. Zodhaites' defense lawyer and suspected co-conspirator was none other than Mat Staver.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
cautions Americans to take note of the sorts of people Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon break bread with because, in the SPLC's words,
"It provides an important venue in which relatively mainstream conservatives meet and very possibly are influenced by real extremists, people who regularly defame LGBT people with utter falsehoods, describe Latino immigrants as a dangerous group of rapists and disease-carriers, engage in the kind of wild-eyed conspiracy theorizing for which the John Birch Society is famous, and even suggest that certain people should be stoned to death in line with Old Testament law.”
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| Kellyanne & George Conway III |
2. The 2016 election wasn't the first time a Conway pursued a Clinton like a rabid animal. Kellyanne's husband George, a real "gem" of a low-moral lawyer, has represented mega-corps like Phillip Morris against cancer patients and news reports. A colleague and friend who defended the tobacco giant alongside him was Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor
Conway would go on to conspire with against President Bill Clinton.
It was Conway and Starr who served as Paula Jones' lawyers, pulling the sexual harassment case seemingly out of thin air. The Jones lawsuit was filed one day before the statute of limitations would have ran out, given the date the alleged incident occurred. Propaganda surrounding the case was continuously leaked to Matt Drudge of
The Drudge Report. George Conway denied being the leak, but given
Keith Olbermann's report on Kellyanne's conspiratorial effort against Bill Clinton, the denial is questionable at best.
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3. Apparently marriages that hate together stay together because both of the Conways have pressed for legislation that negatively and selectively impacts African-Americans and the poor. Among a multitude of other appalling grievances against humanity,
KAC helped Newt Gingrich draft a particularly brutal piece of anti-welfare legislation. Republican Paul Ryan, the current Speaker of the House, plans to make the law that resulted from the Conway-Gingrich effort disgustingly worse.
Not to be outdone by his wife, George—a member of the ultra conservative Federalist Society—is a staunch advocate of
denying former felons the right to vote. His argument justifying the continualization and expansion of the discriminatory practice amounts to a whole lot of rhetoric. At the end of the day, not allowing
former inmates to vote is a gross miscarriage of justice which ultimately impacts minority and poor communities at a disproportionate rate.
Conclusion
I've highlighted only three out of a veritable Pandora's Box of grave concerns to be cognizant of and watchful over. That the fanatical rightwing virus the Conways infect others with is about to nest itself in the West Wing of The White House should be equally—if not more—disturbing to all of us than the arrival of Donald Trump himself.
Remain vigilant. Don't give in so much as an inch. The most vulnerable Americans amongst us are counting on watchdogs to be strong and resist. Elected Democrats have made it clear they are a bunch of simpering, hand-wringing pussies. In other words, no help is coming. We ARE our only champions.
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Questions or Comments?
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