Report: Tea party group FreedomWorks is in deep financial trouble

[meegbear]

Source: RawStory.com

The conservative activist group credited with building the tea party has turned into a nearly broke wingnut welfare slush fund, according to former staffers. Sources told BuzzFeed that FreedomWorks was forced to take out a $1 million line of credit to keep extra cash on hand earlier this year.

The nonprofit organization raised more than $40 million last year but has taken in as little as $3 million so far this year, the site reported Friday, and staffers are reportedly fleeing the group as morale plummets.

The group had fallen on hard times since co-chairman Dick Armey tried to gain control of FreedomWorks in September 2012 from top executives Matt Kibbe and Adam Brandon, the sources said. Armey agreed to drop his coup attempt and leave the organization in exchange for $8 million that will be paid over 20 years by FreedomWorks’ primary donor, Chicago businessman Dick Stephenson.

The former Republican House Majority Leader had been with the group since its 2004 inception as a splinter group of the Koch brothers-funded Citizens for a Sound Economy, which Armey had joined the year before as chairman.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/11/report-tea-party-group-freedomworks-is-in-deep-financial-trouble/

---

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people

[Ash_F]

1. YEEEESSS! /nt

[Liberalynn]

2. Hope more of them fail fiancially and membership dwindles

with more people beginning to "just say no" to drinking their poisonous brand of tea.

[fitman]

3. 4-5 years ago there was over a thousand people

who showed up at a TP rally in my small town..they had one several months back and 8-10 people showed up..

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Wow- Armey really knows how to run a con game, doesn't he?

$8m for leaving a group that imploded anyway. And he gets paid by a donor, not the group, so if it goes belly-up, he presumably still gets the money.

But he's not the only grifter involved:

They also questioned the value in spending a reported $1 million a year to prop up Glenn Beck’s network, The Blaze.

[0rganism]

28. can you imagine getting paid $8 MILLION$ just to go away?

i guess Dick Armey (heh heh) is super toxic, even to republicons.

[BenzoDia]

5. And they're preaching to us about fiscal conservatism?

[coldmountain]

6. Hypocrites

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Fiscal responsibility at its greatest! nt

[vinny9698]

8. The donors, the real GOP base doesn't want Tea Party to make them lose money.

The Koch brothers, the Chamber, Wall Street are in it for their bottom lines. These Tea Party antics are causing the donors money. So they are going to cut them lose.

[Triana]

9. They can't run a teabagger outfit but they want to run a country?

Isn't it intereSTINK that the GOP/Tealiban typically does the same thing to the economy that they did to "FreedomWorks" - ie: they destroy it financially?

These clowns are a fungus on the economy - even their own economic interests. If they can't manage those, I don't want them managing the nation's. Seriously.

[C_U_L8R]

10. teabaggers are fools easily parted with their money

and someone's been lining their pockets bigtime.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. unless it is called a tax

[tosh]

11. Coolest news of the day.

Love it!

[calimary]

35. Certainly brings out some big smiles in casa de calimary!

TERRIFIC news! And it exposes their idiocy and greed, too. Just another demonstration of the IGMFU philosophy! All dick armey is in it for - is himself. Just proved it. And that idiot asshole who's bankrolled most of it - gets to keep paying and paying and paying. It always makes me think "YAY!!! It's that much less that can be donated to more teabaggery (or is it buggery?)!"

[Demeter]

13. WHAT did they do?

Golden parachute? That's insane!

[Myrina]

19. Pretty much - fleeced the 'true believers' and 'real Patriots' out of their disposable cash ...

... and got themselves some bling.

Talk about a Ponzi scheme!!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

14. Their version of "freedom" didn't work.

[hue]

15. Just a mini version of how Tea Party economics would have worked for the US. Fail.

[mountain grammy]

16. Isn't that the one batshit crazy Ginny Thomas works with??

Her Supreme Husband can wipe out the debt at any time.

[lonestarnot]

17. Delicious!

[Rebellious Republican]

20. They bit the hand that fed them!

[cer7711]

21. How Ironic! Freedom Really DOES Work . . .

. . . just not in the mind-fucked; thackwards-binking manner these cartoon-character fascists misconceived it.

Or as Inigo Montoya once remarked: "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."

Heh!

Ah, the news is FUN to read this morning!!!

[ffr]

22. What is Freedomworks?

Oh, nevermind.

[AtheistCrusader]

23. This is just one faction of the Tea Party.

So, don't get too excited just yet.

Then again, I do get a bit excited when I see Dick Armey having shit fall apart in his hands...

[Turbineguy]

24. Al Qaeda

cut off their funding?

[Historic NY]

25. "I want them to fail, miserably".

[arcane1]

26. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside

[Southside]

27. They sponsor Rush and Beck, two birds with one stone

If freedomworks, heritage foundation and Americans for Prosperity are diminished, hopefully that diminishes the ability of Mark Levine, Rush and Hannity to spew their hate at the poor and working families.

If you’re a regular listener of Glenn Beck’s radio show and you wanted to contribute to a political group that would advance the populist conservative ideals he touts on his show, you’d have plenty of reason to think that FreedomWorks was your best investment.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56997.html#ixzz2hQbMYFNZ

But if you’re a fan of Mark Levin’s radio show, you’d have just as much cause to believe that Americans for Prosperity, a FreedomWorks rival, was the most effective conservative advocacy group. And, if Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity are who you listen to, you’d be hearing a steady stream of entreaties to support the important work of the Heritage Foundation.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56997.html#ixzz2hQb9c0e2

[Thav]

29. Will they take personal responsibility for the failure?

I doubt it. Responsibility is for other people.

[DinahMoeHum]

30. Surely you know by now that when they say. . .

"Personal Responsibility"

they mean:

"Fuck You, I've Got Mine"

[cer7711]

31. How Very True!

Sadly. I see you speak "Libertarian" fluently.

[calimary]

36. Welcome to DU, cer7711!

Glad you're here! Easy to speak and understand "Libertarian." Everything they say, just add a "My ASS" to the end of it and you get the true meaning immediately!

[atufal]

32. So no more Minority Outreach?

They're minority outreach person is Deneen Borelli. She spent most of her time going on Fox and Hannity's Black Conservative Cattle Call shows and complaining that blacks love the free stuff on the Democrat Plantation and keep calling her an Uncle Tom.

Don't think she won many minorities to the cause. But then, that's why they call it wingnut welfare.

[calimary]

37. Welcome to DU, atufal!

Good to have you with us! I imagine that's the first place they'd cut. They aren't really that interested in minority outreach, in all honesty. Their policies make that perfectly clear.

[MisterP]

33. anyone remember BureauCrash? nobody else does, either! they'd pelt the Yes Men and the FTC with dust

[bitchkitty]

34. Big SMILE! Thanks for posting. n/t

[Kennah]

38. Say goodnight, Gracie