Tom DeLay

[MichaelC]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=060404_Ne_A3_Forme

Tom DeLay to resign in May or June.  

Delaying DeLay delays resignation until May or June.

Lobbying pays more.

[Townsend]

5 years later:

Breaking: Ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison.

Tweet from @ABC

[heironymouspasparagus]

Too bad he is the only criminal of that era getting put in jail.  So many more at least as deserving.

[we vs us]

5 years later:

Tweet from @ABC

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Many years from now before he will go to jail.  And all the appeals judges are his golf buddies, so anyone think there will be any time at all??

[Townsend]

Many years from now before he will go to jail.  And all the appeals judges are his golf buddies, so anyone think there will be any time at all??

Well he claims he's done nothing wrong...

[heironymouspasparagus]

Yes, he does claim that doesn't he.

And we have a "great American hero" in Oliver North, also, don't we.  Twice convicted felon, and directly responsible for deaths of church people in Nicaragua.  According to Hannity, anyway...

[Conan71]

Well he claims he's done nothing wrong...

Convicted felons need to come up with a better story. That one has been used a few times.

[swake]

Yes, he does claim that doesn't he.

And we have a "great American hero" in Oliver North, also, don't we.  Twice convicted felon, and directly responsible for deaths of church people in Nicaragua.  According to Hannity, anyway...

North is just a disgusting human being. Especially due to the way that he and Hannity profit from their Freedom Concert series supposedly to help dead soldiers kids.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/03/29/hannity

[heironymouspasparagus]

And you expected what???


Last fall before the holidays I read somewhere that they had donated a little over $300,000 to various charity efforts, like the veteran kids scholarship funds.  Compared to the $10 million + they report taking in, it seems just a little bit disingenuous to me to call themselves a charity.  But then, hey,...that's just me....

[Gaspar]

And you expected what???


Last fall before the holidays I read somewhere that they had donated a little over $300,000 to various charity efforts, like the veteran kids scholarship funds.  Compared to the $10 million + they report taking in, it seems just a little bit disingenuous to me to call themselves a charity.  But then, hey,...that's just me....

Don't be a dude-bag.  They are a non-profit, so they have to file a form 990 and it is pubic. Last years #s are:

They took in $9,851,780
They spent a total of $8,512,857

They paid $1,420,598 in salaries to 39 full time employees.
They Spent $2,187,162 on the concerts and fundraising activities.

About $5 million was given in the form of grants, scholarships, financial assistance, and other activities for the families of soldiers. 

Scholorships
$25,000 to the USS Cole Memorial Fund for the children of the 17 sailors who were killed in the terrorist attack against the USS Cole in October 2000.
$40,000 to the dependent children of the 21 soldiers and 33 sailors killed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
55 individual student scholarships for the 2002 academic year.
73 individual student scholarships for the 2003 academic year.
80 individual student scholarships for the 2004 academic year.
95 individual student scholarships for the 2005 academic year.
105 individual student scholarships for the 2006 academic year.
113 individual student scholarships for the 2007 academic year.
167 individual student scholarships for the 2008 academic year.
201 individual student scholarships for the 2009 academic year.

Other Gifts and grants.
$253,832  in individual grants to 315 millitary families.
5,200 Christmas gift bags to our troops at Warrior Transition Units (WTU)
7,000 pounds (3 ½ tons) of “Gifts from Home” care packages to our troops on the frontlines.
Foundation of The Freedom Alliance Military Leadership Academy in Spring Grove, Virginia.

As one of the charities I support, I have a full PDF list of the scholarships granted last year.  It's 2.5 megs so I couldn't post it here, but I'll be happy to email it.

[guido911]

Don't be a dude-bag.  They are a non-profit, so they have to file a form 990 and it is pubic. Last years #s are:

They took in $9,851,780
They spent a total of $8,512,857

They paid $1,420,598 in salaries to 39 full time employees.
They Spent $2,187,162 on the concerts and fundraising activities.

About $5 million was given in the form of grants, scholarships, financial assistance, and other activities for the families of soldiers. 

Scholorships
$25,000 to the USS Cole Memorial Fund for the children of the 17 sailors who were killed in the terrorist attack against the USS Cole in October 2000.
$40,000 to the dependent children of the 21 soldiers and 33 sailors killed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
55 individual student scholarships for the 2002 academic year.
73 individual student scholarships for the 2003 academic year.
80 individual student scholarships for the 2004 academic year.
95 individual student scholarships for the 2005 academic year.
105 individual student scholarships for the 2006 academic year.
113 individual student scholarships for the 2007 academic year.
167 individual student scholarships for the 2008 academic year.
201 individual student scholarships for the 2009 academic year.

Other Gifts and grants.
$253,832  in individual grants to 315 millitary families.
5,200 Christmas gift bags to our troops at Warrior Transition Units (WTU)
7,000 pounds (3 ½ tons) of "Gifts from Home" care packages to our troops on the frontlines.
Foundation of The Freedom Alliance Military Leadership Academy in Spring Grove, Virginia.

As one of the charities I support, I have a full PDF list of the scholarships granted last year.  It's 2.5 megs so I couldn't post it here, but I'll be happy to email it.

Thanks for squashing that stupid meme about this charity.

[swake]

Don't be a dude-bag.  They are a non-profit, so they have to file a form 990 and it is pubic. Last years #s are:

They took in $9,851,780
They spent a total of $8,512,857

They paid $1,420,598 in salaries to 39 full time employees.
They Spent $2,187,162 on the concerts and fundraising activities.

About $5 million was given in the form of grants, scholarships, financial assistance, and other activities for the families of soldiers. 

Scholorships
$25,000 to the USS Cole Memorial Fund for the children of the 17 sailors who were killed in the terrorist attack against the USS Cole in October 2000.
$40,000 to the dependent children of the 21 soldiers and 33 sailors killed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
55 individual student scholarships for the 2002 academic year.
73 individual student scholarships for the 2003 academic year.
80 individual student scholarships for the 2004 academic year.
95 individual student scholarships for the 2005 academic year.
105 individual student scholarships for the 2006 academic year.
113 individual student scholarships for the 2007 academic year.
167 individual student scholarships for the 2008 academic year.
201 individual student scholarships for the 2009 academic year.

Other Gifts and grants.
$253,832  in individual grants to 315 millitary families.
5,200 Christmas gift bags to our troops at Warrior Transition Units (WTU)
7,000 pounds (3 ½ tons) of "Gifts from Home" care packages to our troops on the frontlines.
Foundation of The Freedom Alliance Military Leadership Academy in Spring Grove, Virginia.

As one of the charities I support, I have a full PDF list of the scholarships granted last year.  It's 2.5 megs so I couldn't post it here, but I'll be happy to email it.

That's far from the whole story. He's how Hannity promotes the concerts (or rather did before all of this came out)

"Every penny, 100 percent of the donations are applied to the Freedom Alliance scholarship fund." Appearing with Hannity, North has said: "There's no overhead. There's no expenses taken out. Every penny that's donated or that's raised through things like the Freedom Concerts goes to the scholarship fund."

But the problem is that isn't true. Not even remotely true. Only a $4 surcharge on tickets even goes to the charity, which is now only a two star charity in itself. The rest of the money goes to North's for profit company that puts on concerts and pays Hannity.

In fact, despite the written denials of both North and Freedom Alliance chief Thomas Kilgannon, Sean Hannity did NOT pay for his own private jet flights to the various Freedom Concerts.  In fact, the money for his expensive travel came right from the revenue of the Freedom Concerts, a big, profitable business, which isn't owned or operated by Freedom Alliance.  While the charity is technically correct that Freedom Alliance didn't pay for it in recent years, in fact Freedom Concert revenue, which is controlled by Hannity's speaking engagement agents, did.  The operant question here is, who owns the Freedom Concerts?

The answer, according to an insider, is apparently Premiere Speakers Bureau, owned by Duane Ward, Oliver North's longtime PR man, and the speaking engagement agent for both North and Hannity, as well as many FOX News and other conservative personalities.  Premiere runs the Freedom Concerts and owns the FreedomConcerts.com domain name, sells the Freedom Concerts merchandise, etc.  While only a $4 surcharge on Freedom Concert tickets goes to Freedom Alliance, the rest is controlled by Ward and his various companies.  I contacted Duane Ward via e-mail (duane@premierespeakers.com) and telephone.  He did not respond to questions, which included a request for Freedom Concerts' financial records and an accounting of Freedom Concert revenues and Premiere travel arrangements for Hannity to fly in high-style to the events.  And the inside source–who asked to remain anonymous because of legitimate fears of retaliation by Ward and Hannity–says it's a huge profit center for Ward and Premiere.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/19630/big-business-who-owns-the-freedom-concerts-how-sean-hannitys-private-jets-luxe-suvs-suites-were-paid/

[guido911]

Here is Freedom Alliances response to Schlussel's first assault.

http://spectator.org/blog/2010/03/19/freedom-alliance-statement-on

Edited:  Here is an additional response to Schlussel.
http://www.frumforum.com/hannitized-is-sanitized

[Gaspar]

Cool!  So it's "an anonymous source" vs all of their federal 990 forms since 1999.  

Here are the forms if you would like to comb through them with your angry pencil.
http://www.eri-nonprofit-salaries.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=NPO.Form990&EIN=541411430&Year=2009