Posted on 08/05/2014 9:54:09 AM PDT by C19fan
In February 2013, Move America Forward announced an ambitious fundraising goal. The charity, launched in part by one of the most prominent figures in the Tea Party movement, had adopted the 800 Marines in a battalion fighting in Afghanistan and wanted to send them all care packages.
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Yet an examination of its fundraising appeals, tax records and other documents shows that Move America Forward has repeatedly misled donors and inflated its charitable accomplishments, while funneling millions of dollars in revenue to the men behind the group and their political consulting firms.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
I don’t donate to charities I don’t personally know about and I would never donate to any charity with the communist slogan word ‘Forward’ in the title.
Never thought of “Forward” that way before, but you’re right.
Also “fair” as opposed to “free,” as in trade.
I would be skeptical about the Daily Beast reporting on this
The far left Daily Beast picked this up and publishes it.
Kim Barker was a reporter covering campaign finance and the aftermath of the BP oil spill; her stories have run in outlets such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic and Salon.
Ping.
Agree. It reads like a smear/hit piece. Daily Beast? No thanks.
OK, so she is seriously left. BUT, is the story true or untrue? The source vs content here is more important. It’s not as if the left has a monopoly on con artists.
“Move America Forward calls itself the nation’s “largest grassroots pro-troop organization,” and has recruited a bevy of Republican luminaries, including former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, to support its efforts.”
Now I know why Cheney started Alliance for a Stronger America.
Perhaps you can tell us something about this.
Alas, the facts check out on the deployment dates and the announcement dates. Remember, just because it's a smear doesn't mean it's false.
heheh. Crazy Eyes Syndrome. Could be a reasonable job requirement, I guess.
Hey Free Republic, this is Danny Gonzalez with Move America Forward. I have been a member of the site for a long long time but I admit I don’t post often enough :)
Longtime free republic people will remember us from way back when we did our bus tours. We are good friends with, and have personally met many Freepers all across the country.
I want to tell you all that these allegations are completely untrue and misconstrued by Kim Barker and Pro Publica. She is a far left wing hack and she did this attack piece as her last letter before leaving the publication to begin a new job at the New York Times.
She has attacked MAF in previous articles as well as the Tea Party movement. I wanted to reach out to you guys and make sure that you know we have nothing to hide and I want to answer all your concerns and questions.
This is Free Republic. Do we take the stories told by serious leftists as true? NO! Serious leftists are agitators and deceivers. It's a waste of time to fact check them when we already know them for what they are.
I have no doubt that Move America Forward is quite familiar with Kim Barker and her ilk and will respond if they think it's worth their time and effort. IMHO, she's not worth it.
Dead
Thank you for your questions - we spend about 30% on overhead and 60% on postage and items for the care packages. The overhead includes everything from advertising, staff, rent, bills, travel costs, and storage. Care packages and the items in them take an enormous amount of room and we need a large space to fit all the stuff for the volunteers and give them room to actually work and pack the boxes up. Then we need some space to store them temporarily before they can get shipped. Also bear in mind that 30% encompasses the cost of producing Troopathon every year, which is an enormous and expensive event. We hire professional directors and sound and stage crew, and they all work for bare minimum so I feel we are lucky to get away with only 30% overhead costs. This is just as efficient as many of the other non-profits out there.
On the subject of photos - yes we use stock photos and stuff gathered from all around the web, but we have NEVER misrepresented them as our own or claimed that we took them on our own. There may be some individuals who make that link in their own mind, but I think the vast majority of intelligent people will read our emails and realize that we simply use the images to support the story and give the reader a feel for what they are reading about. Most of the stories we post about are directly quoted from news articles and we always include the name and date of the article. Most of the time we use the same image from the news articles too but sometimes I will go google a different picture if I don’t like the one that Fox or NBC used.
Never did we claim that another image was evidence of our own operations. the only time we explicitly state that an image was “us” were in images of our own volunteers packing or shipping boxes, or images of our own staff in Iraq, for example.
On the issue of the wounded soldier - this was one incident and yes we used it. It’s very simple...we saw an article published from a well known news source (i don’t remember specifically if it was Fox or someone else) that was written about a soldier who was disabled but still risked his own life to help a family whose car had run off the road during a snow storm. We showcased it in an email to simply say look here is a great example of one of our troops who is still a hero even after he’s sacrificed so much. we NEVER implied that the soldier in question had endorsed our group.
We never said anything about him that wasn’t already publicly published by the news. Nevertheless the family was upset about it and we pulled the article off our website at their request. We did this out of compassion for the family but not because we felt we had done anything wrong. All we did was bring attention to a story that was already published and available for everyone to read. I do not see how that impeaches our reputation as an organization.
thank you for the kind words Smooth - yes we are prepared to answer every question YOU have for us because we know you guys are fair and can think with your heads... but as far as replying directly to Kim Barker or Pro Publica we have no plans to respond directly to them. they are not worth our time or effort
Shooting the messenger isn’t much of a response. Were funds diverted??
Timely article on how the lefty group ProPublica “cooks up” their *stories*....looks like they provide the *meat* and the reporter/lap dogs can just add the rest....
http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/08/how-propublica-uses-a-reporting-recipe-to-cook-up-collaboration/
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