Both Cheney and Rove Owe Their Positions to the Armstrong Family

[Clara T]

Both the vice president and the deputy chief of staff, as it happens, owed their previous, lucrative jobs in the private sector to their relationships with the Armstrong family. Anne Armstrong, Katharine's mother, was on the board of Halliburton that made Dick Cheney its chief executive officer. Tobin Armstrong, Katharine's father, had financed Karl Rove & Co., Rove's political consulting firm. Katharine herself is a lobbyist for Houston law firm Baker Botts, a major Texas power broker since it was founded in the 19th century by the family of James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state and close associate of George H.W. Bush's.

Katharine Armstrong took up lobbying after her recent divorce. Her contracts include Parsons, a construction firm that has done work in Iraq, among others. Her business partner, Karen Johnson, a close friend of Rove's, does extensive business with the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and defense contractors. But Armstrong's protestations to news media that she does not lobby Cheney should probably be taken at face value given her background.

Katharine Armstrong is linked to two family fortunes -- those of Armstrong and King -- that include extensive corporate holdings in land, cattle, banking and oil. No one in Texas, except perhaps Baker, but certainly not latecomer George W. Bush, has a longer lineage in its political and economic elite. In 1983, Debrett's Peerage Ltd., publisher of "Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage," printed "Debrett's Texas Peerage," featuring "the aristocrats of Texas," with the King family noted as the "Royal Family of Ranching." The King Ranch, founded by Richard King in 1857, is the largest in Texas, and its wealth was vastly augmented by the discovery of oil on its tracts, making the family a major shareholder of Exxon. The King Ranch is the model for Edna Ferber's novel of Texas aristocracy, "Giant.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/02/15/cheney/

[shain from kane]

1. Does anyone know anything about Katharine

Armstrong's divorce? The party of family values, another divorce. What I'm driving at - who was she committing adultery with that led to the divorce? A secret rendezvous at the ranch?

I won't go hunting with you Jake, but I'll go chasing women.

[Burried News]

2. Nice post, glad you made it a thread. K&N nt

[havocmom]

3. And the Armstrong family probably profitted handsomely

or OBSCENELY, depending on how you feel about companies and stockholders (assuming they hold stock) profiteering from war.

We'll make sure you boys get nice jobs. You make sure our stock portfolio soars. What's a few hundred thousand dead between friends and business chums?

[fooj]

7. Obscenely is my choice.

Peace.

[MADem]

4. And Monkeyboy owes his presidency to Whittington

...who single-handedly built the TX GOP, enabling that putz to run for governor. He owns a building where for years he has given the TX GOP office space at bargain prices. Old KKKarl Rove used to have an ofice there, as well.

See what ya get for yer trouble, Harry? Grow that party, and get shot in the head...and heart!

[cliss]

5. Great job in pointing this out, Cl.

The DU has more publicity than we realize. I just found out that one of my posts about Bush made it to a news web site with millions of readers.

Thank you for bringing this up -- we need to air THEIR DIRTY LAUNDRY.

[Clara T]

6. The Armstrong Family IS Texas Royalty

The White House's secretive response to Cheney's misfire cannot be understood apart from the society of Texas royalty.

The Armstrong Ranch developed far-flung holdings in Australia and South America. Meanwhile, President Ford appointed Anne, a major Republican activist, U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, and President Reagan appointed her a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is reportedly Anne's best friend, and Anne was instrumental in launching her political career. Tobin, for his part, worked as an advisor to Texas Republican Gov. William Clements, where he first encountered the young Karl Rove and decided to give him a helping hand when Rove struck out in the political business on his own.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/02/15/cheney/

[Mr_Spock]

8. ...and they are the two single most despicable figures in our history

These evil monsters will go down in history as symbolic of a very dark period in American history.

It one single person will say that the two combined have even half the integrity of, say, Richard Nixon, I may reconsider...

[annabanana]

9. Let's keep this thread around for the monday morning

cube rats...
We should all get a load of our Kakistocracy in action!

[sandnsea]

10. Baker Botts, Scanlon, Abramoff

Mercedes Baker Whittington. Even Salon skirts the real story. Powerful people. Maybe that's been the real problem these past 5 years.

[Clara T]

11. As an added note

The King-Armstrong families connected in blood and money are two of the more most storied families in Texas.

Edna Ferber's famous novel "Giant", made into an equally famous movie, was modelled partly on the doin's at the aristocratic King ranch and the Texas "lifestyle" during the oil boom years.

[dogday]

17. That makes sense, I have heard of the King Ranch

and their own town Kingsville. Does this mean that this Ranch is also part of the King Ranch or is that a different one.

[RazzleDazzle]

13. More like past 60 or more years

[UTUSN]

12. K&R. But it was Rick PERRY who appointed Katherine to the

Parks and Wildlife commission. And if there is one single individual who helped Shrub take the governorship from RICHARDS, it was Democratic Bob BULLOCK, an autocrat of the Southern Dem variety.

[annabanana]

14. big fat am kick for the cubers and cubettes. . . n/t

[SpiralHawk]

15. Scene of the Crime funded by Massive War Profiteering

The "aristocrats" of Texas take their special leisure at the Armstrong Ranch, a paradise for the Have Mores that was made possible by your tax dollars in the form of Massive War Profiteering by the BushCo Cabal of Corrupt Cronies.

[Supersedeas]

16. lobbying for Construction firms in Iraq....no way