Welcome to Tuesday on another dreary day. I keep hearing rumors that the end of the week will be nice and sunny. Bring it on! What’s on your mind today? Share it in our daily open thread.
I’m not so sure that Republican donors should be that outraged at the RNC’s expenses. Scamming their followers seems like a way of life for national conservative leaders. Sean Hannity and Oliver North are holding charity concerts where most of the money is going to the Hannity-North charity:
CREW’s complaint, lodged with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alleges that Hannity and Freedom Concerts have been dishonest in suggesting that the entirety of the revenues from ticket sales goes straight to a scholarship fund. Freedom Alliance does not actually manage the concerts, Crew discovered via a Freedom of Information request and promotional materials. Instead, they’re organized by a middleman—a promotional company called Premiere Marketing. The firm is headed by Duane Ward, who is also the president of Premiere Motivational Speakers Bureau, which represents both Hannity and North and has a “long history in conservative activism.” Ward previously worked for Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and ran North’s legal defense fund following the Iran-Contra scandal in the late 1980s. Premiere in turn donates an “unknown portion of the concert proceeds to the Freedom Alliance,” alleges CREW. “We have no idea how much money it actually is,” CREW executive director Melanie Sloan told reporters on Monday. But CREW argues that Hannity and Freedom Alliance’s claims that the revenues go directly to scholarships amounts to “illegal and deceptive marketing practices.”
A man was arrested yesterday for making threatening You Tube videos. The newest one directly threatened the life of Eric Cantor. The Philadelphia man, Eric Leboon, seems to be severely mentally disturbed and also seems to have quite a hobby making threatening videos:
The initial portrait emerging of the man charged with threatening to kill Eric Cantor and his family suggests he’s made similar, if not criminally actionable, threats on dozens of occasions against an ideologically diverse array of public figures.
According to the federal complaint against him, Norman Leboon of Philadelphia has admitted making some 2,000 videos that contained threats. A sampling of his “work” reveals rambling incoherent videos that mix pseudo-religious incantations with random warnings and threats. In one video he addresses President Obama, Vice President Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid by name and says, “Your punishment is coming, the swine, it will be severe, and you will beg for mercy to your god, it will be severe, you will know god’s swine, god has warned you.” (Some conservatives are already chortling over the fact that Leboon contributed to Obama’s 2008 campaign, though it’s not clear what that’s supposed to signify.)
Leboon did give $505 dollars to the Obama campaign. The DNC announced they are planning on giving that amount to charity.