Fox News heavily promoted the “Tea Party Express”, a bus tour around the country of tea party events. But now, it turns out that over two-thirds of the money that was donated by Tea Partiers to this event was channeled back to Republican political operatives.
The Tea Party Express was organized by the political action committee (PAC) “Our Country Deserves Better”. But between July and November (when the tour happened), they sent $850,000 of the money they collected to the GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates.
I have sympathy for the “tea party” calls for reduced federal spending, but when the Republicans were in power they were anything but the party of fiscal restraint. What’s more, I’m sure the people donating money to the tea party cause think they are giving money to a grass roots organization that opposes spending in Washington, not a clearly partisan, astroturf, corporate-run scam to take their money and funnel it back to Republican party politicians and slush funds.
I don’t know who should be more ashamed, Fox News for shamelessly promoting this hoax, or the people who gave their hard earned money to it.
2 Comments
Truly, stupidity is America’s greatest resource.
I definitely agree, Morrius. And the GOP, to their credit, have learned how to harness and use this resource.