Saturday, January 5, 2013

Leaked docs show how phony Tea Party group really is (Glenn Beck too)

Billionaires' stooge.
You knew all along that FreedomWorks wasn't what it claimed to be, right? You knew it wasn't anything close to a "grassroots army" fighting to give "individuals the greatest control over what they own and earn." Right?

After all, it's an offshoot of Benedict Arnold Koch brothers-linked Club for Growth.

So you figured it was a front group for corporations to weaken workers' rights, limit consumer protections, send jobs overseas and make sure CEOs can plunder thriving enterprises while paying the least possible amount in taxes.

Not quite.

Mother Jones found out FreedomWorks is less of a corporate front group than it used to be. Now it's just a front group for the super-wealthy. Who want to weaken workers' rights and so forth.

FreedomWorks' former chairman, Dick Armey, told the magazine the group used to rely more heavily on corporate support. Now, according to the leak, it relies on rich individuals.

One of them, Illinois mogul Richard Stephenson, is accused of laundering $12 million to the group.

And according to the leaked documents, 81 percent of FreedomWorks' revenue came from big donations last year. Reports Mother Jones:
Well-heeled individual contributors ponied up $31 million—or 94 percent—of those major gifts, according to the FreedomWorks board book. Eight donors gave a half-million dollars or more; 22 donated between $100,000 and $499,999; 17 cut checks between $50,000 and $99,999; and 95 gave between $10,000 and $49,999. Foundations contributed $1.6 million in major gifts, and corporations donated $330,000.
And guess who benefits from the multimillionaires' largesse? None other than Glenn Beck, who now runs a sophomoric website called The Blaze. Mother Jones reports,
FreedomWorks also plans to continue its financial support for Glenn Beck's media enterprise, including sharing a TV studio with and leasing office space to the Washington bureau of TheBlaze, Beck's website and TV network.
But you always knew Glenn Beck wasn't a man of the people, right?