My life is very strange these days: I turn on the TV or listen to the radio, or cruise the internet, and people are citing my OWN reporting back to me, without attribution, and without a clue that I’ve been telling you for years. Yesterday, on the Rachel Maddow Show, Steve Kornacki read back a story of insider politics that I knew about more than seven years ago. And now this, one of the oldest scandals I’ve covered, dating back to 2005. [icopyright one button toolbar]
from 28 March 2010
Move America Forward has been caught, along with the “Tea Party Express,” Sal Russo, Russo + Marsh and Freedom PAC, et al.
I’ve told you about these creeps since 2005, when I was one of the first reporters on the scene and I have faithfully chronicled their misdeeds under various guises over the years. Now listen:
Exclusive: ‘Pro-Troop’ Charity Pays Off Tea Party Cronies Instead
Kim Barker / The Daily BeastMove America Forward has collected millions to send care packages to U.S. troops. But its assets have been used to benefit conservative political consulting firms close to its Tea Party founder.
[…]
Move America Forward calls itself the nation’s “largest grassroots pro-troop organization,” and has recruited a bevy of Republican luminaries, including former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, to support its efforts.
Yet an examination of its fundraising appeals, tax records and other documents shows that Move America Forward has repeatedly misled donors and inflated its charitable accomplishments, while funneling millions of dollars in revenue to the men behind the group and their political consulting firms….
Oh, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg:
Sal Russo
In several instances, the charity has taken images and stories from other groups and from veterans themselves without permission to use in fundraising appeals.
Last year, Move America Forward even solicited funds by claiming a partnership with Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the largest hospital for wounded service members in the country. No such partnership existed, Defense Department officials say.
The charity’s funds and other assets also appear to have been used to subsidize three conservative political action committees, records show….
And remember our old friends, the Tea Party Express?
The driving force behind Move America Forward is Sal Russo, 67, the longtime political consultant who is listed on the 10-year-old charity’s tax returns as chief strategist.
Russo is better known for helping to form the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, also known as the Tea Party Express, one of the largest Tea Party groups in the country. Consultants from his Sacramento-based firm, Russo, Marsh and Associates, also set up two other PACs, the Move America Forward Freedom PAC and the Conservative Campaign Committee, to aid conservative causes and candidates.
Russo and his associates have previously drawn attention for lavishing funds raised through the committees on themselves, using this money on an Alaskan cruise and fancy hotels as well as paying themselves huge consulting fees….
As I reported to you in 2010: CNN beclowns itself
Less than two weeks ago (July 23) I reprinted The Tea Party Express is a FRAUD – redux (originally published 28 March 2010):
The so-called populist “tea party” movement has been completely and utterly co-opted by the shadowy plutocrats (or, kleptocrats, if you will) and their media manipulators, as was seen yesterday in the “Tea Party” rally in Searchlight, Nevada.
As usual, a smallish event (less than 10,000, estimated at 7,000 by the Nevada State Police) was PRE-advertised as 10,000, REPORTED from the press release as 10,000 and then is being hyped as much MORE than 10,000 with ANOTHER “fish story” from Jim Hoft, the new Confederate Wanker of the ruling elite (they move their point man around, you know, to keep it all “grass rootsy”).
Now, why would I attack the sanctity of the “Tea Party Express III”?
The only thing authentic here is Sen. Harry Reid
I mean, OTHER than it’s fake and a media manipulation from Russo Marsh + Rogers, a Sacramento political shop (“public relations”) with deep ties to the old California GOP of Nixon, Reagan and the Gray Davis recall?* (* As I reported in 2005 and have, ever since, to the sound of crickets, until recently. See: Swift Boat Moms in Winnebagos 30 Aug 05.)
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I can smell BS when it’s piled this high….
There’s more.
And more from me, but I have been telling about these shady political quick buck artists ever since they started out in 2005 as a phony “pro-war” group shadowing Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war movement in Crawford, Texas, to their transformation into a “Tea Party” group in 2009/10 to their participation last month in Mississippi’s “Tea Party” insurgency against Sen. Thad Cochran.
Nevadan/Libertarian Wayne Allen Root in Mississippi, 26 June 2014
Maybe somebody out there will finally listen.
God knows.
You might want to revisit the reprint from two weeks ago, “The Astroturf on Lambeau Field – redux” 21 July (originally from 3 August 2011, or slightly over 3 years ago) which shows the bus in ALL its incarnations.
How CNN totally gave cover to these quick buck artistes
Courage.
UPDATE: As usual, the Usual Suspects only spend time distancing themselves, pretending that they weren’t conned, or associated with con men. Lady MacBeth might attempt to use Lava® soap, the soap with pumice!
Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:Misrepresentations from Move America Forward/Troopathon call charity into serious question
As a donor and sponsor of Troopathons going all the way back to my days at Captain’s Quarters, this exposé from ProPublica and The Daily Beast disappoints profoundly. We helped raise money to take care of the troops on the front lines, and we were hardly alone; lots of people joined in, including celebrities from the political and entertainment worlds in order to send care packages through Move America Forward to men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the investigation by ProPublica is correct, though, a significant amount of the money raised went into the pockets of organizers rather than into those care packages ….<
If true, this saddens, angers, and sickens me — and I’m sure I’m not alone. How true is it? I’ve asked MAF for a response, and as of this writing, I have not received a reply. I would love to believe that it’s not true and that all of those resources went to where they were intended; I’m sure some of them did, so that’s at least some comfort while we wait for a full accounting from MAF and TPE…. If these allegations turn out to be true, I apologize for being misled.
Update: Leon Wolf has more thoughts on our sister site RedState:
Leon H. Wolf / RedState: A Charity “Scandal”, not a TEA Party One
ProPublica, for those who don’t know, is a far left-wing rabblerousing organization that has spent a ton of time and energy attempting to dig up dirt on right wing charities and PACs in an effort to slow the effectiveness of these groups. Ever willing to play the useful idiot, many establishment cronies are trumping up this story as proof of TEA Party corruption as alleged by Steve LaTourette’s nonsensical and hypocritical piece yesterday….*
The basic thrust of Barker’s article is that Move America Forward, a charitable organization that purports to collect care packages to troops and which regularly hosts a Troopathon fundraising drive that is headlined by prominent conservatives, is being run improperly in a number of particulars. The overall insinuation and tone of the article is that Move America Forward does either little or no actual charity work and is in fact merely an improper conduit to make TEA Party consultants and/or their PACs rich. The folks who have a vested interest in discrediting the TEA Party have taken these insinuations and innuendo and are presenting them as what the article actually proves. …
Facts don’t matter in Rightie World. This merely serves as confirmation.
Before they repainted it to the “Tea Party Express”
* Funny how that’s exactly what I covered yesterday: the snark of the Right in denying reality in favor of smears. Leon H. Wolf now proves my thesis for yesterday AND today. Continue getting conned, Leon. It’s only YOUR money, after all. (cf. GW Bush 2000: It’s YOUR money! It’s YOUR money!)
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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. This is cross-posted from his blog.
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.