If You Hear Someone Call David Brock A "Liberal," Just Ignore Them; They're Imbeciles

If the '90s doesn't see like ancient history, you may remember David Brock as one of the most vile of the right-wing villains. He was paid by the far right to write books and articles smearing Democrats and progressives. He was particularly virulent in his screeds against President Clinton. And became a far right hero for a racist and misogynistic characterization Anita Hill as "a bit nutty and a bit slutty." After he broke with the far right and started sucking at the tit of centrist establishment Democrats, he admitted he had been a habitual liar. In regard to the arguments over Anita Hill, he wrote in Blinded by the Right that "When I wrote those words, I knew they were false. I put a lie in print." That's what he does professionally-- for whomever pays him best.

Actual progressives understood what a pile of wretched turds he always was and always would be and he was largely spurned by progressives-- and, of course-- embraced by the disgusting and corrupt Democratic Party establishment. It was hilarious to see Hillary, who he helped destroy as a viable political figure, become one of his biggest cheerleaders inside the party. His SuperPACs, American Bridge and Priorities USA, led her 2016 to its demise in such a way that some wondered if he was actually a GOP mole.

On Friday, the Daily Beast published an exposé by the two Lachlans-- Mackay and Cartwright-- explaining how Brock built a personal fortune by ripping off establishment-oriented Democratic suckers who contributed to his PACs. A right wing group, the Patriots Foundation, snitched on him to the IRA for "illegally profiting from the vast network of groups he has built within the Democratic Party’s infrastructure.  They found "a series of transactions that, the group says, show the injection of money from a tax-exempt group Brock founded [American Bridge 21st Century Foundation] into a private, for-profit news business [True Blue Media LLC] that he owns."

Over the next two years [2018, '19], American Bridge’s nonprofit arm invested more than $2.6 million in True Blue Media, according to tax filings. Those filings list Brock’s ownership stake in the LLC as greater than 35 percent. The structure appears to have resembled a convertible note; in exchange for that cash infusion, American Bridge was promised future equity in the media company. It’s not clear if that equity was ever provided.

The Patriots Foundation alleges that those transactions ran afoul of Internal Revenue Service rules barring the use of a nonprofit’s funds (in this case, American Bridge’s) to financially benefit those who run it. “We’re calling on the IRS to conduct a thorough investigation of Brock’s organizations and to hold them accountable for all violations,” Robinson said.

...The complaints filed this week underscore the often murky relationships between the various nodes in Brock’s network of advocacy outfits. American Bridge’s super PAC and dark money arms, for instance, share executives, employees, and office space, according to audited financial statements for the latter.

That’s fairly common for advocacy groups with political and nonprofit arms, but best practices generally call for a clear delineation of how shared resources are divided up among those groups, so as not to commingle tax-exempt resources with those devoted to outright politicking. According to its most recent publicly-available financial statements, covering 2018, “the Foundation and American Bridge did not have a formal agreement relating to the allocation of expenses between the two entities.” A source familiar with the arrangement told the Daily Beast that a more formal agreement to that effect was put in place last year.

While such arrangements are common among various forms of nonprofit groups such as charities, dark money advocacy groups, and political action committees, they can be even more legally dicey when for-profit entities are added to the mix.

True Blue Media is just such an entity. In late 2015, it acquired an 80 percent stake in the website Blue Nation Review, which was subsequently renamed Shareblue. Late last year it changed its name again to The American Independent.

The outlet has been determined since the start of the Trump era not just to advance Brock’s political advocacy efforts, but also to generate financial returns.

"Impact and monetization are not mutually exclusive at Shareblue," declared briefing materials circulated to donors at Brock’s early 2017 retreat. "In the second half of 2017 we will move the focus to monetization with the goal of bringing in revenue in Q2 of 2018.”

Those briefing materials spelled out a host of ways that the company would look to bring in revenue, including renting out email lists, offering advertising and sponsored content, selling merchandise, and even creating a “Twitter-like” website available only to paying subscribers.

"Renting out email lists"-- what a piece of shit... or do you like getting 20-30 pieces of spam a day? And by the way, even in the reporting on this story, the media inaccurately keeps referring to Brock as a "liberal," which he may have been in his freshman year at U.C., Berkeley... but not since. He was one of the "liberals"behind knifing Bernie-- both times.