Free the Eagle

Free the Eagle, Inc., "[r]un by hardcore conservative" Tammy J. Lyles, is "taking on Congress to make" the "hot-button issues" of illegal immigration, repealing the death tax, and getting the U.S. out of the United Nations "well known to all. Miss Lyles is leading the way for Congress to pass legislation that repeals the Clinton Death Tax, removes the U.S. from the grasps of the U.N. all together, and helps to stop granting amnesty to illegal aliens." 

Controversy & Affiliations

 * "Through another group, Free the Eagle, [Howard J.] Ruff helped rally members of Congress behind infamous Lieut. Col. Oliver North and the Contras in Nicaragua. And Free the Eagle also provided office space and PR advice to anti-Communist rebels in Mozambique and Angola. ... But Ruff has run afowl of the law on occasion. The Federal Election Commission has fined Ruffpac twice and Free the Eagle once for illegal activities supporting Senator Jesse Helms and Senator Orrin Hatch, among others. And critics also take aim at the 'stealth' nature of Ruff's campaigns, which often leave even his beneficiaries unaware of his help. One former U.S. Representative from the Midwest who received help from Ruffpac said, 'Until you mentioned Howard Ruff's name, I didn't know who he was. I always thought Ruff was some kind of acronym'," Dan Harrie reported in the March 23, 2000, Salt Lake Tribune.


 * "By November 1985, the Wall Street Journal reported that 'President Reagan endorsed covert aid for the insurgents [UNITA], a move welcomed by right-wing groups.' Among the stalwart supporters of UNITA were the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation, the American Republic Foundation, a group established by the College Republican National Committee, the American Angolan Public Affairs Council, an offshoot of Free the Eagle, a group also supporting Afghan 'freedom fighters,' and the Conservative Caucus," Bill Berkowitz wrote October 15, 2001, in WorkingForChange.


 * "But when [Libertarian] [Gary] Nolan touted his affiliation with/appointment to the board of an organization (Free the Eagle) as a campaign qualification, it was 'dirty politics' to ask what that organization was about, what it did and who its principals were (Free the Eagle was originally founded to provide covering fire for the Iran-Contra ring, but by 2004 its leader, Tammy Lyles, had switched tacks — to demanding the expulsion from the US of 17,000 refugees from Muslim nations)," Thomas L. Knapp commented June 13, 2006, on Small Government Blog.


 * "On April 29, 1992, Tom DeLay stood up on the House floor and decried a 'tax-funded boondoggle' that sent freshman members of Congress to Harvard for a seminar. 'Yes,' DeLay asserted, 'the congressional freshman orientation at Harvard doesn't cost millions of dollars. But even the thousands of dollars of tax money used for this congressional boondoggle sets a bad example for new Members of Congress.' Instead, DeLay urged, 'grass-roots organizations' should conduct orientations at no cost to the American taxpayer. The organizations DeLay named were" the Coalition for America, the Council for National Policy, Free Congress Foundation, and Free the Eagle, "all radical conservative groups with ties to the right-wing Christian evangelical movement," Sarah Posner wrote February 21, 2005, for The Gadflyer.

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Howard J. Ruff
 * U.S. congressional elections in 2006