Tag Archives: Freedom Works

Rachel Maddow Rips Conservative Media For Scamming Donors

Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow has no qualms about exposing the underbelly of the Right-Wing Super PAC scamming business and the Right-Wing media’s compliance.  This woman is awesome.  No wonder she’s beating brain dead Hannity in the ratings.

The Huffington Post

Rachel Maddow tore into members of the conservative media on her Monday MSNBC show for what she called “scamming” gullible members of their own party who donate to various Super PACs.

Maddow discussed how watchdog group Media Matters recently looked into conservative pundit Dick Morris’ Super PAC and found that some of his key expenditures included renting his own email list, which is operated by Newsmax Media.

“So your money … goes to Dick Morris, who apparently then pays it to Newsmax to send emails, and then Newsmax maybe just pays it back to Dick Morris to pay for the email addresses to which they just sent all of his emails,” Maddow said. “What these financial reports seems to indiciate is that donations to Dick Morris’ Super PAC substantially end up just going to Dick Morris.” She added that Morris’ Super PAC has been around for a couple of years “so maybe it doesn’t always look like a scam,” but that more and more “scammy-looking” arrangements have been coming to light — as in the case of the well funded Tea Party group Freedom Works.

Dick Armey, the man who helped build the conservative group, recently left and arranged an $8 million golden parachute for himself upon his departure, which raised some eyebrows. Then news broke that Freedom Works president Matt Kibbe allegedly used the group’s staff and funds to write part of his book. “So if you think about it, anyone donating to Freedom Works was effectively paying for the staff time and the resources to produce a project that just personally profited one of the people who works there,” Maddow said. “A scam.”

Maddow likened the situation to what she called Newt Gingrich’s “direct mail scam,” where he would give businesses fake awards, which gave them the opportunity to donate $5,000 to meet him. “Congratulations to you!” Maddow quipped. “Where is your check to me?”

She also compared the situation to what she called the “scammy campaign” where Mike Huckabee asked supporters to donate $2,500 to “help fund the battle” against Obamacare, which also went towards helping to keep Huckabee on TV to repeal Obamacare.

“Will having Mike Huckabee on TV repeal Obamacare? I’m checking with the constitution, but I don’t think so,” Maddow said. She later added, “If you are a person who has long been fascinated by how similar the conservative ‘be afraid’ direct mail that asks for money looks to the kind of direct mail that tries to scam your grandmother out of her savings … it is amazing to see, if you have been watching this over time … is how persistent this is.”

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Filed under GOP PAC Scams, Right Wing Internet Scams, Right-wing disinformation campaign

Fox News: Megyn Kelly and Monica Crowley probe the subtle nuances of Geico-Gate

Look at how Megan Fox and Monica Crowley spin the Geico-gate  incident.  I posted something about this yesterday.

These women saw the incident totally different than what I interpreted it to be, which is that Geico over reacted in firing their spokesman, based on what I perceived to be an innocuous, albeit smarmy phone call to Freedom Works, the tea-party’s deep pockets organization, asking a question.   Watch the video:

FreedomWorks, GEICO and Tortious Interference

Update:  The guy who was fired, D.C. Douglas has posted this on his blog:

[UPDATE:  Four things need clarifying.  1) Please DO NOT call GEICO.  If you read the blog carefully, you'll see I hold no animosity toward them,  only FreedomWorks.  2) Some readers seem to miss the fact that I did apologize for my words.  Please read carefully.  3) I was NOT the gecko or the main vo tag announcer.  That was a conflation by Matt Kibbe.  4) Comments have been closed because the server can't handle it, man.  Please go here to enjoy a debate: HuffingtonPost Article.  We now return you to your originally scheduled blog post.]

I never wanted to be political in this blog.  It was supposed to be about my life in the biz.  But my biz life and personal life were recently slammed together by a political bully group.

I hate bullies. It’s a mentality that starts with children and doesn’t evolve much more in quality or nuance through the adult years.  Yes, this is going to be a huge blog post, kids.  Get your Cheetos out.

The Nutshell:

 FreedomWorks encouraged Tea Baggers to get me fired from GEICO because I left a complaint on their voice mail. (Press Release)

Oh yeah, I’m serious.  Read on…

THE PLAYERS:

Me.  An actor and voice over guy.  Not famous (except in my mind).  An American citizen.  Impetuous.  Likes long walks on the beach and nipple-twisting any idiots-in-power on occasion (but usually anonymously).

FreedomWorks.  The conservative lobbying firm headed by the Ex-Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, which has been behind the Fox News sponsored tea bagging party movement that miraculously materialized the moment the Republican party lost the Presidential election on 11/4/08.

GEICO.  A good insurance company owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway that has hired me in the past.

Now, let’s follow the drama, shall we?  The following blog is my opinion of what happened.

Prologue: The Rise of “Facts Averse” Tea Baggers

December 2007: Ron Paul supporters attempted to rent a blimp with “Google Ron Paul” on the side.  It would fly to Washington, DC and then on to Boston, where they would dump tea bags into the Boston Harbor in a symbolic protest against the big-spending of…wait for it… Republicans!  It failed due to lack of cash.  But at least they knew their facts and where the blame should go.

February 2009: CNBC’s Rick Santelli proposed a Chicago Tea Party because he was ticked-off that distressed homeowners would be getting loan modifications (he’s all heart). Thus the new Angry “bring your guns” Tea Bagger Movement was stolen, er, born. And FreedomWorks Tom Gaithens helped organize the astroturf events.  Since then, FreedomWorks has been the engine of the Tea Party, though they deny it — regardless of the facts.

Summer 2009: Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe aimed their angry mob at Health Care Reform.

The blog goes into an extensive report of how Mr. Douglas saw things evolving to what we witnessed in the news yesterday. 

Read more here>>>

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Filed under Freedom Works