Charlie Pierce has picked up on a Washington Post report that follows the money.
One of the great perplexities of our time is how do we get this country back on the rails if there's so much money to be made peddling ignorance and dangerous nonsense. The Washington Post reports that Covid misinformation has become a viable growth industry.
From The Washington Post article by Lauren Weber:
….Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., received $23.5 million in contributions, grants and other revenue in 2022 alone — eight times what it collected the year before the pandemic began — allowing it to expand its state-based lobbying operations to cover half the country. Another influential anti-vaccine group, Informed Consent Action Network, nearly quadrupled its revenue during that time to about $13.4 million in 2022, giving it the resources to finance lawsuits seeking to roll back vaccine requirements as Americans’ faith in vaccines drops. Two other groups, Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance and America’s Frontline Doctors, went from receiving $1 million combined when they formed in 2020 to collecting more than $21 million combined in 2022, according to the latest tax filings available for the groups...
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The groups named in the article spread disinformation, attacking vaccine safety, and promoting bogus remedies that are ineffective and potentially dangerous. They apparently attract a lot of donations. And if you follow the money…
...Many of the contributors are not known because nonprofits are generally not required to publicly report their donors. But nonprofits are supposed to disclose groups to which they contribute more than $5,000. In addition to the tax forms filed by the four groups, The Post reviewed more than 330 filings by nonprofits that donated to the groups during the pandemic. Half of those gifts over $100,000 were made through a tax vehicle popular among the ultrawealthy known as “donor-advised funds,” which allow individuals to obscure their identities. The Post identified two funds dedicated to advancing biblical, libertarian or conservative values that each had given at least $1 million in total to at least three of the groups since 2020.
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The money flowing into these organizations increased during the pandemic — in part because as a spokesman for one the groups said, people were looking for “medical information free from special interests.”
Could he be referring to special interests like doctors, virologists, the CDC, and pharmaceutical companies? People who might actually know stuff and use Science to find answers?
What is of interest is where some of that money ended up:
As the groups’ coffers grew, so did the salaries of some top executives. Children’s Health Defense paid Kennedy, then chairman and chief legal counsel and now an independent candidate for president, more than $510,000 in 2022, double his 2019 salary, tax records show. Informed Consent Action Network paid Executive Director Del Bigtree $284,000 in 2022, a 22 percent increase from 2019. Bigtree now works as communications director for Kennedy’s presidential campaign.
Some of the individuals behind the family foundations or trusts that fund the four groups also contributed the legal maximum in personal donations to Kennedy’s presidential bid, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks political donations.
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The Washington Post article has a lot of disturbing information in it. It’s worth a read.
One of the consequences of Citizens United opening the floodgates for dark money to enter politics isn't just that it’s put government up for sale. It’s also drawn in a lot of scammers and con artists looking to cash in. Rick Perlstein’s 2012 “The Long Con” is still a must-read about the way conservative politics has always included people looking to make a quick buck and cash in on the gullibility and fever dreams of their base. The assimilation of the religious right’s bad shepherds into the GOP has only made it worse.
There’s still suspicion that the former guy ran for president, but didn’t really expect to win. He was looking at the money. A political campaign is a great way to ask people to hand you money without expecting to get it back — and nobody asks questions about where it all went if you lose or win — unless you were really blatant about what you did with it.. (Remember all those questions about the expenses for the inauguration festivities?) Besides — what a great way to build his brand, right?
Now, he’s in the race because he’s got massive legal bills and fines to pay, and he’s got the GOP on the hook for it all as long as he’s their leading candidate. Funny how that works.
The con goes on.