Showing posts with label Donald Trump Jr.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump Jr.. Show all posts

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Old Glory: banking on reich-wing conspiranoia

 

Old Glory Bank wraps itself in the American flag and the bogus banner of anti-wokeness to appeal to reich-wingers' grievances and fuel their conspiranoia.

For years I've been harping on the theme of reich-wing/"conservative"/Christofascist whining -- members of those interrelated tribes are perpetually griping about being "censored" or "cancelled" or "deplatformed" or some such -- so The Great Debanking Narrative, one of the more recent vintages of the same tired old red whine, comes as little surprise.

The Great Debanking Narrative holds that good, patriotic, law-abiding Americans are being "cancelled" by big banks solely because of their political and/or social and/or religious values. A driving force in this narrative at the moment is a relatively new digital financial institution, based in Oklahoma, that calls itself Old Glory Bank, which uses the debanking issue as its primary marketing hook.

Formerly the First State Bank of Elmore, Oklahoma, Old Glory was founded by a quartet of reich-wingers. These include conservative political commentator, radio host, former GOP presidential candidate and ardent Trumper/election denier Larry Elder; country music singer and reich-wing zealot/Trump supporter/former Celebrity Apprentice winner John Rich; former Trump HUD secretary "Sleepy" Ben Carson; and former two-term Governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin-Christensen, a woman with impeccable reich-wing credentials (anti-LGBTQ... anti-public-school-teachers... anti-affordable-health care... anti-reproductive-rights... but pro-Big-Oil and a Trump ally to boot).

Old Glory proudly declares that its mission statement is the United States Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights, with a focus on the First and Second Amendments. Judging from examples cited in the press release linked to in the previous sentence, that focus is framed in a host of imaginary grievances:

If the government requests that Old Glory Bank punish or cancel a customer for lawfully attending a protest, Old Glory Bank confirms it will not comply. If the government requests that Old Glory Bank cancel a customer for participating in the American lifestyle and using fossil fuels and lawful firearms, Old Glory Bank states it will not comply.

I noticed that the press release neglects to mention customers who -- armed with tear gas, stun guns, pepper spray, bear spray, metal bars, flagpoles, baseball bats etc. -- attend a "peaceful tour" of the United States Capitol Building (which is, after all, the people's building!), and break its windows, smear feces on its walls and floors, threaten to murder legislators and the vice president, beat police officers within an inch of their lives, and attempt to violently overthrow the United States government in order to keep their Cheeto Jesus in power. But maybe that wasn't mentioned because it goes without saying that the J6 "patriots" are among the oppressed/repressed/censored/egregiously wronged target market for Old Glory.

Old Glory Bank has been popping up on my Xitter feed frequently of late, due to its paid ads, most notably this one from October 17, 2023:

Too many law-abiding Americans are having their bank accounts canceled simply because their bank doesn’t like what they stand for. That’s un-American. Old Glory Bank’s mission statement is the Constitution. Open your account today at [old glory bank dot com].

When one reader expressed cynicism about Old Glory Bank's allegation, the bank responded with a flustercuck of multiple links defending its opinion that good, God-fearing, patriotic Muricans are in fact getting debanked solely because of their anti-woke beliefs and values. That response was copied and pasted several additional times on the thread, and on other Old Glory posts where the bank's allegation was challenged.

Links that prove... not much at all
Since I don't believe in presenting multiple links as a flustercuck, I'll break them down for you here [with annotations by me], in the order in which they were (repeatedly) presented by Old Glory Bank. You can follow the links and decide for yourself whether or not they actually prove the allegations or merely document them.

Before you accuse me of engaging in ad hominem arguments and failing to prove my point, I'll add that I am aware of the fact that my annotations to the link list and my criticisms of the debanked accusers do not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were not targeted by their banks purely for their personal values and beliefs. That said, the only completely honest statement about the accusations against the banks is that we just don’t know for sure. Anecdotal evidence and opinions do not constitute proof.

Much to the credit of Xitter-at-large, there has been plenty of trolling on the Old Glory ad cited above. Overall the responses are skeptical, with several folks declaring that OGB is most likely just another Trumpian grift. (One naughty wag expressed distrust in a bank that was named after a glory hole.) Apparently Old Glory gave up on responding to every one of the doubters. But at least the remarks have been allowed to stand, so far, so it could be said that OGB is at least honoring its stated commitment to free speech.

* * * * *

As you can imagine, the reich-wing media were all agog at the news about the formation of Old Glory Bank. For instance, Western Journal had this to say:

Financial organizations including PayPal, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase Bank, and online fundraisers including GoFundMe have all canceled customers merely because they support conservative causes or traditional American values.

In June of last year, for instance, two Florida-based banks, BankUnited and Professional Bank, canceled President Donald Trump’s accounts after the left falsely accused him of fomenting an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2020.

"Falsely" accusing Trump of fomenting an insurrection... yeah, okay. Totally objective reporting there.

The American Tribune wrote:

A group composed of Larry Elder, Ben Carson, John Rich, and other American patriots has banded together to buy a bank in Oklahoma, First State Bank of Elmore City, so that they can run it as a bank that caters to ordinary Americans that don’t want to be “debanked” for supporting the same values as their ancestors, as many conservatives, particularly those in the punditry and firearms industries, have been in recent years.

So it's all about the guns and the punditry (gunditry?).

The Daily Wire focused its announcement about Old Glory Bank on the evil censorship and "cancellation" of conservatives by Big Tech. Other outlets basically parroted the Old Glory Bank press releases. Press releases are the eternal blessing for lazy journalists.

Real values or empty words?
Some might argue that there’s nothing inherently bad about establishing a business based upon specific political/social values or principles, nor with choosing that company’s products or services based on one’s support of those values. It happens all the time, and certainly there are businesses -- yes, even financial institutions -- that are based on or cater to progressive or liberal or "woke" values such as environmental friendliness or social responsibility. Live and let live, give consumers a wide range of choices, let the market decide, and so forth. And, in general, I would agree with these arguments, but in the case of blatantly right-wing factions these days, there seems to be a glaring double standard.

For instance -- and I hope you'll pardon what might appear to be a digression -- consider the intensive effort by red (MAGA-poisoned) states in the US to seriously restrict ESG (environmental, social, governance) investment of public funds. ESG investing means, in theory, that in addition to financial analysis of the investment, environmental, social, and corporate governance factors are also taken into account.

Never mind the credible argument, calmly and rationally laid out in this February 2023 piece from The New Republic, that the whole "woke investors" thing is mostly a fabrication (the CRT of the investment world?), since the so-called "woke" money managers really care only about their bottom line. The red pols have deemed ESG to be "woke" and they don't like it at all -- partly on general [fascist] principle, and partly or mostly because they reflexively fight anything that might possibly smooth the transition from fossil fuels to more sustainable energy. Mustn't let the big oil and gas companies down.

Accordingly, red states from Texas to Florida to West Virginia have labored mightily to stop public pension funds from using ESG as a consideration when making investment decisions, and they have pulled billions from asset management firms such as BlackRock, despite concerns that doing so would cause financial harm. To them, anti-woke values are clearly more valuable than woke ones, potential adverse financial consequences be damned.

Since we're on the topic of values and principles, let's get back specifically to Old Glory Bank, which proudly proclaims its own values as "American" ones while flagrantly catering specifically to the reich. I wonder, as it seems that others have wondered (judging from the Xitter trolls) if the bank would be equally willing to embrace individuals or companies with blatantly “woke” values such as LGBTQ rights, racial equality, reproductive choice, assault weapons bans and other sensible gun safety measures, the phasing out of fossil fuels in order to address the climate crisis, and the like. And what about flag burners, who are only exercising their First Amendment rights, after all? Or advocates of police defunding/abolition? Would OGB remain true to their slogan, “We stand with you, no matter where you stand”?

Finally, I think it's appropriate to address Old Glory Bank's general branding as having the customer's best interests at heart, as opposed to the evil big banks. I have to wonder why the reich/republicans -- whose base is clearly the target market for Old Glory Bank -- seem so determined to undermine larger efforts at real, widespread banking reform and consumer protection in general. Yes, I know that unfortunately the banking lobby is so powerful that even some Democrats, fearing their reelection chances, joined forces with the republicans in 2018 to weaken banking regulations. But by and large it's the republicans who fight regulation of the banking and finance industries, mainly because they're deeply beholden to Big Banking. Repubs are even trying to destroy the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other hard-fought-for consumer protection agencies and initiatives.

For that matter, the reich/republicans and their allies seem hellbent on destroying as many consumer protection agencies, laws, regulations, and practices as possible, taking us back to the bad old daze. Xitter owner Elon Musk has been preaching the word about the urgent need for "comprehensive deregulation." One of my favorite Xitter wags, Mrs. Betty Bowers, responded to one of Musk's tweets a couple of days ago:

Bring back: Lead paint. Asbestos. Flammable pajamas. No seatbelts. Canned tuna fish with mercury. Grocery stores bleaching chicken to make it look less rancid. Car companies, like Tesla, endangering drivers with exploding cars. Payday loans that steal from people.

Viewed in that greater context, Old Glory Bank's expressed concern for protecting their customers in any substantial way is hypocritical, and their overall mission amounts to little more than grandstanding on behalf of reich-wing identity politics. They may be fooling MAGAts, but they aren't fooling the rest of us.

"Anti-wokeness" is a growth industry
The marketing strategy for Old Glory Bank is rooted in two intertwining myths: (1) that the American reich holds the undisputed monopoly on patriotism, faith, support for liberty and freedom of speech, support for first responders and the military, concern about national security, and every other fine American value you could name; and (2) that because of their embrace of these stellar values, the reich are being grievously oppressed by the government, the courts, the media, Big Tech, the education system, and now, the financial system as well. In this garbled hero/martyr narrative, every aspect of American life has been "weaponized" against the good guys.

As it happens, Old Glory Bank wasn't the first bank to attempt to do the very thing they accuse big banks of doing: weaponizing the financial system. In late 2022, a banking startup called GloriFi collapsed before it had even begun. From Rolling Stone, November 21, 2022:

Pitching itself as a financial institution that allowed one to be “free to celebrate your love of God and country without fear of cancellation,” GloriFi’s marketing read more like a campaign ad than an enticing APR offer on a new credit card. Highlights from the “about us” page include: “OUR BILL OF RIGHTS IS NON-NEGOTIABLE” and “WE ARE ONE NATION UNDER GOD.” 

In its short tenure GloriFi, managed to launch checking and savings accounts as well as credit cards, with plans to offer mortgages and insurance in a future that will no longer take place. Founder and CEO Toby Neugebauer pitched plans to offer gun owners discounts on home insurance, credit cards made of shell casing material, and assistance paying legal bills if customers shot someone in self-defense. Over the summer, GloriFi secured conservative commentator Candace Owens as a co-founder and spokesperson for the brand. 

Wow... there are those gun-nut/ammosexual values again. These people are obsessed with their firearms. Alas, GloriFi was unable to put its real-world money where its grandstanding mouth was. Reported chaos among staff and financiers, and clashes with Texas financial regulators, caused it to miss its planned launch date several times. The drinking habits of Toby Neugebauer, who converted his Dallas mansion into the company headquarters, didn't help matters at all. In the end, GloriFi went down in a blaze of... well, not exactly glory.

But the idea of "anti-woke" banking just wouldn't die, and along came Old Glory, proudly waving its colors and its ideology. And it's not just banking that has captured the anti-woke crapitalist imagination. There is a whole parallel economy developing in America, composed of firms whose stated mission is to fight the perceived threat of "wokeness" -- you know, such devilish concepts as LGBTQ rights, racial and ethnic diversity and equality, reproductive autonomy for women, rational gun safety laws, acceptance of climate science, and so on.

But again... not surprising. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, fascists gotta fash.

Debunking the debanking narrative? Maybe it's just the algorithms
Reich-wing whining aside, there are plenty of reasons to hate big banks. I get it. At one time or another, many if not most consumers (me included) have been frustrated by banking policies and practices, such as outrageous fees for every activity or mistake; incomprehensible and seemingly arbitrary terms and conditions; lousy customer service; systemic racial bias in loan practices; big banks' support of predatory lenders; lack of transparency; data breaches; and on and on. And yes, banks have been known to close customers' accounts for reasons that don't make sense and/or that the banks refuse to divulge to bewildered account holders.

And, indeed, if any of the above-mentioned reich-wing whiners' accounts were closed solely because of their political beliefs or their faith, that is unacceptable, no matter how strongly I may disagree with those beliefs.

But from what I have seen so far, there is no hard evidence that right-wingers/conservatives/religious (translate: right-wing Christians) are being targeted for those reasons. What we have instead is only their own and their allies' anecdotal evidence, rooted, as always, in an intractable persecution complex.

More importantly, suffering consumers are not, in fact, limited to members of the conspicuously righteous reich. In recent years, banks have been suspending, restricting, or closing accounts belonging to a broad demographic of hapless consumers, oftentimes citing "suspicious activity" as a reason but refusing to offer the account holders any further explanation.

And while some may claim that attributing the arbitrary actions to "algorithms" is a convenient coverup for nefarious activities on the part of the banks, in many cases the problems may very well be rooted in algorithms, and exacerbated by confusing and conflicting laws and regulations as well as plain human incompetence. An article in the New York Times (April 8, 2023) went into these issues in some detail.

Whatever your opinion may be of the Times, the article is worth reading if you can get past the paywall. For those who can't, here's a Bing search results link to other resources.

But I really don't expect my little shout into the void to make any difference at all in the reich-wing persecution narrative, which has become such rich marketing/fundraising fodder not only for politicians and theocrats but also for "anti-woke" businesses such as Old Glory Bank. Reality is nuanced and complex, but marketing strategies almost never are. The ongoing attempt to repress the righteous is their story, and by golly, they're sticking to it.

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Monday, May 31, 2021

Right-wing whiners celebrate (unconstitutional) Florida bill against Big Tech "censorship"

 As you've no doubt heard by now, Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a Big Tech "censorship" bill into law on May 24, 2021, boasting that it provides, at long last, a defense against Silicon Valley banning conservatives from social media. At least in Florida. From the Orlando Sentinel:

The law would slap daily fines of $100,000 on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Amazon for each statewide political candidate removed from their platforms, and $10,000 a day for other candidates.

Other users must be notified when they’re banned or censored, including when a warning or other notice of false or disputed information is attached to their posts. Users also have the ability to sue companies for violating the law.

A provision of the bill, however, exempts companies that own a theme park, such as Walt Disney Co., which runs Disney+, a streaming service.

Since theme parks are such big business in Florida, the exemption for companies that own them is understandable from a strictly capitalistic perspective, but not from a perspective that has anything to do with free speech or moral principles or any of the other factors that contemporary republicans like to posture about. But even from a capitalistic perspective it's nonsensical in light of the fact that it will probably sabotage efforts by local governments to woo tech firms to Florida. Oops.

Here is a link to a page that provides links to everything you could possibly want to know about the history of Senate Bill 7072 (which apparently began life, appropriately enough, on April Fool's Day). Here's a link to a PDF of the text of the bill.

Over the past few years I've written numerous blog posts about the rantings and ravings of right-wing nuts who whine that they're being censored because of their "conservatism" -- f'rinstance, Scamworld hucksters like cancer quack/right-wing fanatic/predator Leonard Coldwell; lunatic rabble-rousers like Alex Jones or Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams; politicians like California's Devin Nunes, or the bastard children of Scamworld and politix such as Donald Trump and Junior.

All of these folks have spent a great deal of time snowflaking about being censored and persecuted and even death-threated because they're bold and fearless "truth tellers" and because the entire social media universe is in a conspiracy against "conservative voices." It's a given that if you're a republican or self-styled conservative these daze, you have a persecution complex that's bigger than Trump's butt in a pair of tennis shorts.

So it's no surprise that in the lead-up to the signing into law of the Florida bill, right-wing republicans from across the country were engaged in their usual moaning and pearl-clutching about being "censored" on tyrannical social media platforms. On May 6, 2021, one of my favorite bloggers and Facebook posters, Jim Wright, mused on the utter hypocrisy of the repubs' complaints.

Right Wing congresswoman Elise Stefanik [New York] is mad. Mad! Raging mad. Because her communications director was (briefly) suspended from Twitter.

"Republicans are united in fighting back against Big Tech’s tyranny?"

Something has to be done about this tyranny ... of an automated system briefly flagging an obscure functionary with 24 followers and then restoring the account a few hours later -- like pretty much every poor proletarian who's ever used social media.

Give me unrestricted Twitter or give me death!

Republicans are united in fighting against this tyranny!

Republicans. Yes, Republicans are united against the tyranny of big ... business?

Really?

The same 256 congressional Republicans who VOTED AGAINST NET NEUTRALITY and DELIBERATELY gave the very same big tech companies the power to decide who could and could not access the internet?

THOSE Republicans?

Are THOSE the Republicans united against Big Tech's tyranny?

The same "tyranny" they very specifically GAVE those very same companies?

The VERY SAME REPUBLICANS who are "on the march" currently passing laws in a multiple states making freedom of speech and the right to protest illegal in direct violation of the 1st Amendment?

THOSE REPUBLICANS?

Are those the republicans we're talking about here? The VERY SAME REPUBLICANS led by Ron DeSantis who just just passed draconian anti-voting laws in Florida this very morning and barred the press from access to the signing?

Is THAT one of the Republicans we're talking about? The VERY SAME REPUBLICANS who handed Big Tech billionaires a massive tax giveaway? And who rewarded the very same companies they're now complaining about with massive tax breaks? The same Republicans who said those companies were PEOPLE with more rights than actual people? The VERY SAME REPUBLICANS who side with billionaires and corporations and banks over ACTUAL AMERICAN CITIZENS every fucking day?

Are those the Republicans we're talking about?

I mean, godDAMN! Tell me more about these Republicans who are fighting Big Tech, standing up for the little guy, the average citizen.

Let's hear about THOSE Republicans.

Man, I love THAT fucking fairy tale.

That's about the size of it.

But hypocrisy hasn't stopped right-wing nutcakes from celebrating the Florida bill as a win. And some apparently can't wait to start suing those big tech companies, since the law allows individuals to take their grievances to court.

Well, I hate to rain on anyone's parade... no, I don't. I love doing that, at least if it's a fascist parade... but anyway, this bill is almost certainly unconstitutional. The wonderful Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for free speech and equal access online, explains the constitutional flaws of the bill in this May 5 piece, posted a little over two weeks before DeSantis signed it into law. Following a brief history lesson regarding a similar-in-spirit bill from nearly 50 years ago, the writer nails the real reason for the current legislation.

...you might wonder why the Florida Legislature would pass a law doomed to failure, costing the state the time and expense of defending it in court. Politics, of course. The legislators who passed this bill probably knew it was unconstitutional, but may have seen political value in passing the base-pleasing statute, and blaming the courts when it gets struck down.

Politics is also the reason for the much-ridiculed exception for theme park owners. It’s actually a problem for the law itself. As the Supreme Court explained in Florida Star v BJF, carve-outs like this make the bill even more susceptible to a First Amendment challenge as under-inclusive.  Theme parks are big business in Florida, and the law’s definition of social media platform would otherwise fit Comcast (which owns Universal Studios' theme parks), Disney, and even Legoland. Performative legislation is less politically useful if it attacks a key employer and economic driver of your state. The theme park exception has also raised all sorts of amusing possibilities for the big internet companies to address this law by simply purchasing a theme park, which could easily be less expensive than compliance, even with the minimum 25 acres and 1 million visitors/year. Much as Section 230 Land would be high on my own must-visit list, striking the law down is the better solution.

The EFF piece acknowledges, as I have myself in previous blog posts, that there are real issues that need to be tackled regarding Big Tech's control over public conversation. I think most of us have experienced firsthand the confusion and frustration of being arbitrarily warned, suspended, or even banned by one of the social media platforms for a minor or accidental infraction, when others continue to get away with posting offensive or hateful or bigoted or threatening content. Or maybe, like me, you've reported offensive or threatening content to the platform and have been informed that it doesn't violate their community standards.

Long-time readers of this blog may recall that a few years ago, I was receiving harassing messages and emails as a direct result of a series of Facebook screeds posted by the notorious Leonard Coldwell, in which he falsely accused me of killing his favorite dog (!). He published my home address and cell phone number, the latter of which he could only have gotten from a mutual former friend of ours, or from an inquiry I had sent to the Mount Pleasant, SC police department regarding a police report about Coldwell (I never received a response from the PD, but later found out that my inquiry, address and all, became part of that report).

Along with the doxxing, Coldwell openly invited his followers to get in touch with me directly and let me know exactly what they thought about my vicious act. It was his lame and cowardly attempt to silence me, by inciting his followers to do his dirty work for him, because he was angry about the blog posts I had written about his quackery, scams, and general awfulness.

People were threatening to burn down my house in the middle of the night, and they were holding public discussions on Coldwell's Facebook page about all of the things that should be done to me as punishment for killing the dog -- shooting me, poisoning me, slowly torturing me to death...oh, yes, I got to read all of those sick and twisted fantasies posted by the sick and twisted followers of a sick and twisted man. Coldwell also posted some graphically detailed -- and false -- allegations about me sexually harassing him. I was blocked from participating on his forums so I couldn't even defend myself.
I reported these posts to Facebook... and Facebook said the posts didn't violate their community standards. Nice. Ultimately most of the posts were taken down, but some still remain.

So yeah, there's a lot that needs to be worked out with the tech giants; they do need to be reined in. A good starting place: The Santa Clara Principles On Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation, which the EFF and numerous other non-profits came up with a few years ago. It's a reasonable basic guideline.

But unconstitutional laws like Florida's SB 7072 that pander to right-wing lunatics and whiners are not the answer to this problem that affects every one of us -- conservative, liberal, or apolitical.

Update, 2 July 2021: On Wednesday, June 30, a federal judge blocked this new law from going into effect July 1. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction via a 31-page order, citing SB 7072 as unconstitutional and discriminatory. From the Miami Herald:

Calling it “riddled with imprecision and ambiguity,” a federal judge Wednesday blocked a new state law targeting social media behemoths such as Facebook and Twitter that can strip politicians and other users from their platforms.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction as he sided with online industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which filed the lawsuit challenging the measure pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and approved by Republican lawmakers this spring.

“The legislation now at issue was an effort to rein in social-media providers deemed too large and too liberal. Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate government interest,” Hinkle wrote in Wednesday’s 31-page order.

Hinkle directed the state to suspend implementation until a final ruling on the lawsuit is released. He made it clear that he knows this law is politically motivated, and took several swipes at it during a hearing on June 28, saying to lawyers representing the DeSantis administration, "I won't put you on the spot and ask you if you've ever dealt with a statute that was more poorly drafted."

Of course, like most stories in both Scamworld and politix, this one has no neat and tidy ending, at least not yet. The right-wing whiners, led by Governor DeSantis and others, have no intention of giving up the battle. DeSantis is confident the state will prevail in the lawsuit. If it does, that will set an appalling precedent.

* * * * *
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Thursday, August 20, 2020

We Bilk Them All: Steve Bannon, Brian Kolfage & 2 others indicted for We Build The Wall fraud


Americans have always been famous for their can-do attitude, and for their willingness to take matters into their own hands when the Powers That Be are moving too slowly for them. Maybe that's why so many people bought into a crowdfunding project to privately build the border wall that #NotMyPresident Donald J. Trump has been promising to his xenophobic base for years. But now the leaders of that project, most recently known as We Build The Wall, are under federal indictment for defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors. The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York has unsealed the indictments, as reported on the Department of Justice web site on August 20, 2020.

Brian Kolfage, Stephen Bannon, and Two Others Alleged to Have Funneled Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars From the Organization to Kolfage; All Four Defendants Allegedly Profited From Their Roles in the Scheme


Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Philip R. Bartlett, Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the United States Postal Inspection Service (“USPIS”), announced the unsealing of an indictment charging BRIAN KOLFAGE, STEPHEN BANNON, ANDREW BADOLATO, and TIMOTHY SHEA for their roles in defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as $25 million.  The defendants were arrested this morning.  “We Build the Wall” that raised more than KOLFAGE will be presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Hope T. Cannon in the Northern District of Florida.  BANNON will be presented today in the Southern District of New York.  BADOLATO will be presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Wilson in the Middle District of Florida.  SHEA will be presented today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix in the District of Colorado.  The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in the Southern District of New York.
I first saw this matter reported on Axios, but it's all over the news media now.

Here is a link to the 24-page indictment.
A portion of page 2 of the Kolfage, Bannon et al. indictment

If you're like me, you may be tempted to declare that the folks who poured their money into this scam in good faith completely deserved to be bilked, since they were consciously donating to a cause rooted in the hateful xenophobia and bigotry that form the very foundation of toxic Trumpism. As you'll see below, that's precisely the view I had when I first heard of this scheme, but in my more charitable moments I have made a (mostly futile) effort to view at least some of these donors as merely misguided and fearful rather than hateful. In any case, from a legal as well as arguably a moral standpoint, fraud is fraud, and people who commit fraud should be held accountable. And so far, it looks like there's at least an effort in that direction.

I am as (un)shocked as you probably are that malignant nihilist Steve Bannon, who infested the White House for a while early in the Trump "administration," is among those indicted. Bannon, who was arrested by US Postal Inspection agents while lounging off the the coast of Connecticut on a $28 million yacht owned by a Chinese businessman, has pleaded not guilty. (He called his arrest "a political hit job" -- an effort to stoke fear in people who support Trump's wall -- and he says he isn't going to back down.) Bannon was released on a $5 million bond and ordered not to travel abroad, or to haul his spotty, bloated carcass aboard a private plane or a yacht (such as the one he was arrested on), sans court approval.

Given Bannon's extraordinary arrogance, his massive upopularity, and his general repulsiveness, not to mention his ongoing threat to American democracy, it's not surprising that he has been the main focus of most of the reporting and unabashed schadenfreude. I totally get that. But I was particularly interested in this story not only because I think Bannon is a loathsome toad (absolutely no offense intended to toads), but also because as it happens, the man who actually started We Build The Wall, Brian Kolfage, was the subject of a blog post that I wrote and published back on January 12, 2019 about this project and its many red flags.

Don't go looking for it in the 2019 Whirled archives, though. Out of an (over)abundance of caution I took the post down a few hours after I had published it -- something I very rarely do. I put it back in my drafts folder, even though I continued to update it even after it had been removed from public view.

Why did I remove it? Simply because of Kolfage's fiercely litigious history and the fact that he had so many well-funded backers. Not that anybody reads this blog, but again... abundance of caution. Here's my post about that deleted post.

But in light of the current development, I feel moved to reinstate the original post here and now. You'll see a lot more about Kolfage's volatility and litigiousness in that post, as well as info about the history of his boondoggle, which began life as a GoFundMe called We The People Will Build The Wall, with a goal to raise a billion dollars, which would then be handed over to the government to help fund Trump's dream project. When that effort ran into glitches and logistical problems -- not to mention complaints -- Kolfage moved to Plan B, and the project was re-branded as We Build The Wall.

Back from the drafts folder: the original Whirled post


Although much has happened since January 2019 (boy, is that an understatement), I felt that this post nevertheless provides some pertinent background. Since the stories about his questionable fundraising first broke, Kolfage has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has offered details that he says counter some of the most damning reports. And I can't vouch for the functionality of all of the links in this post -- they were valid at the time I first published it -- but I'm keeping them intact anyway. With those disclaimers in mind, here is the original post in its entirety:
Big sale at Wall-mart: right-wing grifter gives donors another chance to squander their money

It really pains me to rag about a military veteran, particularly one who has been grievously wounded. In general I go out of my way to express compassion and support for the (mostly young) men and women who risk and all too often lose their lives in service to their country, though I have zero sympathy or empathy for the war profiteers and politicians who continually put these young people in harm's way in order to enrich themselves.

But Brian Kolfage is a veteran who, I think, richly deserves any ragging that comes his way. Kolfage is a decorated war hero and triple amputee who lost both legs and an arm after a rocket attack in 2004 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. So... thank you for your service and all that, Brian. Really. But being a wounded war hero -- even "the most severely wounded Airman ever to survive any war," as your promos continually remind us -- doesn't give a person moral or legal license to exploit that "war hero" persona in order to spread lies and scam people, which is what you, sir, have allegedly been doing. (I'll elaborate, with links, momentarily.)

Kolfage became part of the news cycle (again) last month when he started a GoFundMe campaign, We The People Will Build the Wall, to pay for #NotMyPresident Donald John Trump's extravagantly expensive (and useless) xenophobic-dogwhistle vanity project. The goal was to raise a cool billion of We The People's hard-earned dollars within one month, and then to somehow spirit those moneys over to the government to help build Donnie's wall. Kolfage wasn't really clear about how the getting it to the government part would work, but he assured his marks that he and his team would work it out somehow. And he promised that if the fund didn't reach the one bil goal, or come significantly close, 100 percent of the donations would be refunded. That was Plan A.

Well, now it seems that they're on to Plan B. While significantly more than 300,000 people who apparently have more money than sense have donated to the cause, raising more than $20 million and making it one of the most successful GoFundMe campaigns ever, that's pretty far short of $1 billion. So now GoFundMe is poised to issue refunds to donors. But wait, there's more! Instead of simply getting their money back and spending it on something useful, the suckers who donated have another chance to potentially get scammed while expressing their various fears and hatreds.

For Kolfage has announced a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, We Build The Wall, Inc., which is gladly accepting donations, and to which he will happily re-route any donations made to the GoFundMe page. (That GoFundMe page, by the way, is still up and running as of this writing, making the whole issue a little confusing at the moment.) The nonprof is based in Florida, where Kolfage lives, though the address for old-school rubes who want to send a check is a P.O. box in Houston.

By way of 'splaining the decision to form a nonprof, Kolfage insists that he and his team are much more capable of analyzing needs and getting the job done than any dumb ol' government analysts, and certainly more capable than those horrid obstructionist unpatriotic Democrats, who, according to Kolfage, will do anything in their power to thwart this patriotic endeavor. Which brings us to the part that is even more interesting than the decision to funnel everything into a nonprof: the lineup of folks who are part of that "team." Here's more on Gizmodo, from a writer, Rhett Jones, who minces no words.
At the moment, donations are still rolling in on the GoFundMe page (which complicates the official story of what triggered the refunds) and Kolfage is far from done. It remains to be seen just how many previous donors will choose to pass their money to the new effort, but Kolfage has assembled a rogues gallery of prominent conservative grifters to serve on his new border wall construction company’s advisory board. Some of the board members include:
  • David Clarke, the disgraced former sheriff of Milwaukee who is the subject of numerous lawsuits related to abuse of inmates. Clarke is also a big fan of wearing shiny trinkets that look like military medals, but are not.
  • Kris Kobach, the Kansas politician who spreads fantasies about voter fraud. Kobach oversaw Trump’s election integrity commission which was shut down without issuing a report after it failed to find evidence of widespread voter fraud.
  • Erik Prince, the founder of the Blackwater security group. Prince is one of the shadiest people on the planet and oversaw Blackwater when its mercenaries were indiscriminately committing war crimes in Iraq. [Erik Prince is also Trump "Education" Secretary Betsy DeVos' brother. ~ CC]
It seems the only person missing from Kolfage’s impressive board of imposters and sadists is Sebastian Gorka.
And here, straight from the grift horse's mouth, is the full lineup of Team Kolfage.

Clearly, I'm not in sync politically with Kolfage and I do not share his goal for a walled-off southern border. That said, I can disagree with someone's politics without believing that the person in question is a scammer. (Then again, as I've observed ad nauseam on this very blog, in the Trump era the line between politics and Scamworld has been blurred almost beyond recognition.) Trump or no Trump, though, it appears that Kolfage has a history of deceptive marketing, to put it politely.

For instance, there are reports that in a 2015 GoFundMe campaign, Kolfage apparently pocketed more than $16,000 that was supposed to go to a veteran mentorship program. Despite Kolfage's naming of specific beneficiaries of his largess, GoFundMe spokesman Bobby Whithorne said the money went directly to Kolfage.
Kolfage in Facebook posts that have been deleted said that he was working with Walter Reed, Brooke Army Medical Center and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Representatives for the centers told BuzzFeed News that they don't have record of Kolfage working with veterans at their facilities.

“We do not have a record of Mr. Kolfage visiting Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in any official capacity after 2012,” Gia Oney, chief of public affairs at Landstuhl, told the online outlet. “We have no record of a donation made in his name to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.”
The Hill piece cited above sources a January 10, 2019 report from BuzzFeed, which not only mentions the veteran funding scheme but also Kolfage's documented history of running web sites and Facebook pages promoting right-wing conspiranoid and racist content. In other words, Kolfage pushed fake news, some of it racist, to line his own pockets.

One former employee of Kolfage's, Lindsay Lowery, aka Prissy Holly, worked for Kolfage's chief conservative news website, Freedom Daily, for about a year in 2017. But it appears that it was on Facebook rather than on the website that Kolfage really did his dirty work, according to Lowery.
"After I started challenging some of his business decisions that I felt were reckless for the company and for my career, the real Brian emerged,” she told BuzzFeed News. “Everything is only about his ‘war hero’ persona and money. If there’s a perceived slight on his part, he viciously attacks people...and, in my case, tries to destroy their life and livelihood.”

BuzzFeed News reviewed a cache of internal emails and text messages from several of Kolfage’s former employees and acquaintances that show how he pushed to sensationalize and fabricate right-wing content on Facebook to amass clicks, manipulate users, and in the process, make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in advertising revenue. In one text, he claimed to run a “multi-million business.”

In addition to Lowery, three sources corroborated the documents and their experience with Kolfage, but were afraid to go on the record, citing his past behavior of lashing out and threatening legal action against those who have spoken against him.

Former employees told BuzzFeed News that Kolfage instructed his crew to produce Facebook content to more flagrantly convey a false narrative, in one instance photoshopping former president Obama’s head onto another body to make it appear as though he was having an affair, with the caption, “BREAKING!! OBAMA BUSTED!!! VIDEO LEAKED!!”
Another former employee, who didn't want to be identified due to fear of retaliation, said that at first her work with Kolfage was going pretty well; the pay was fair, and she was able to pitch and write stories. But as time went by her work and the company's mission changed.
“He started creating more [Facebook] pages. I think he had around 10 when I was there and I remember I would see shares and be like, ‘Where did this page come from?’” she recalled. “He was very smart in how he would do it. He never wanted the truth. It was all just for clicks, and the more inflammatory, the better. I felt dirty writing the stuff.”
Later on in the BuzzFeed piece we're told that in one email to employees, Kolfage warned them, “NEVER tell anyone who operates Freedomdaily. It’s a tightly guarded secret, and our LLC has a privacy veil set up to protect it. It allows us to operate without consequence where we can’t be sued or attacked by trolls.”

Without consequence? Sounds like fun! Alas, Facebook did eventually suspend several of his pages, along with hundreds of others, during the Great Fake Account Purge of October 2018. Kolfage claimed that the pages that were suspended were indeed fakes but that he had nothing to do with them (see the sub-head, "Buzzfeed raises questions," in the linked article).

But the suspensions just prompted Kolfage to double down on his role as a crusader for "American values," most notably, free speech. One of the things he did to fight for free speech was to start another online fundraising venture called Fight4FreeSpeech, which raised more than $73,000 of a $100,000 goal in two months, with the money to be used for... well, beats the heck out of me. I think it's to sue Facebook for deleting his fake accounts that he had nothing to do with, or something like that. Anyway, he apparently has moved that campaign to a new web site.

Funny thing, though. Kolfage didn't seem to be so enamored of free speech from "radical left-wing extremists" whom he claimed were defaming him and whom he sued in 2014 in Maricopa County, Arizona superior Court. And once again he used to his crowdfunding skills, this time to pay his legal fees. (The suit was settled in 2015.) According to this earlier (December 2018) BuzzFeed article...
Ken Vanderzanden was one of [the people Kolfage sued]. In 2013, he came across one of Kolfage’s Facebook posts in which he dissected Obama’s birth certificate in an effort to prove it was fake. Amused, the 64-year-old sent him a private message pointing out some flaws in Kolfage’s analysis.

“He turned my private statement into a public statement and made a photo of me a meme, telling the world what a horrible person I was,” Vanderzanden told BuzzFeed News by phone from his home in Portland. “I was endlessly harassed on Facebook and then started getting death threats to my house and had to change my phone number and go into hiding for a while.”

Kolfage published the retiree’s name, address, and phone number on his personal page, according to court documents. Vanderzanden repeatedly reported the harassment until Facebook finally shut down the veteran’s profile, prompting Kolfage to sue for defamation.

Ultimately, they reached a settlement in which both sides agreed to end any disparagement and pay their own legal fees, which Kolfage turned to GoFundMe and other fundraising efforts to cover.
Wow. The free-speech double standards... the right-wingnuttery... the litigious m.o.... the doxxing... Sounds a little like someone else I've blogged about on this Whirled.

According to the January 2019 recent BuzzFeed piece previously cited, former Kolfage employee Lindsay Lowery said that both she and her husband were threatened and harassed by Kolfage after she quit working for him. Two other former employees confirm this story. Lowery says that she'd seen her former boss go after others, but that being on the receiving end of his harassment was terrifying. "He thinks he's untouchable," she told BuzzFeed.

So I'm thinking that maybe Brian Kolfage isn't such a hero after all. And while I am normally sympathetic to people who get taken in by scammers, I will find it immensely difficult to work up any compassion whatsoever for those who choose to throw their money at any of his schemes -- either through GoFundMe campaigns or through web sites or nonprofits -- and who might subsequently feel that they've been had. I'm especially unsympathetic to folks who participate in this latest scam. Like those who voted for Trump, these Wall-mart shoppers deserve what they get. I'm out of patience.

UPDATE: On January 16 [2019], CBS News reported that GoFundMe donors to Kolfage's wall project have so far given $7 million to his new nonprofit -- or, rather, they have allowed their donations to the GoFundMe page to be redirected to the nonprof. Donors who take no action to have their funds redirected will have their money automatically refunded by April 11, and those who specifically ask for a refund should get it back within three business days. Kolfage also says he has received 3,500 mail-in donations so far, but hasn't yet totaled them. And in an email to CBS News, Kolfage disputed the BuzzFeed report that questioned his fundraising for the veterans' mentorship program. He claimed that he used the funds to travel to the hospitals where he conducted his "award winning mentor trips" to visit wounded veterans, and called the BuzzFeed piece a "fake article."

Two days previous to the CBS News piece, an investigative reporter for The Daily Caller -- which, I should note, is a conservative site -- wrote that Kolfage's new nonprofit org raises, in the words of Charity Watch president Daniel Borochoff, a "huge red flag." According to the article, Kolfage is refusing to answer basic questions about his new nonprofit, which was actually founded two weeks before it was announced. And though he claims that the bylaws of We Build The Wall, Inc. prevent him from taking any salary from donor funds that originate from GoFundMe, he refused to provide The Daily Caller News Foundation with a copy of the nonprof's bylaws to corroborate his claim.

The Daily Caller also noticed the interesting fact that I mentioned in my original post above: check donations are being directed to an entirely different organization with a P.O. box in Houston. Kolfage has ignored multiple inquiries from The Daily Caller asking why he is directing check donations to an org in a different state (We Fund the Wall, Inc.), and whether donations sent to that org can be used to compensate him in any manner. Another big question The Daily Caller had was why Kolfage waited over two weeks to inform his donors of his intention to transfer their contributions to his new nonprof. He has ignored multiple inquiries about this point as well.

Here's a link to info about Kolfage's Florida nonprof.

And here's a link to the founding documents, which were signed on December 27, 2018. The stated purpose of the nonprof is "to promote social welfare within the meaning of Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, including but not limited to funding, construction, administering, and maintaining a United States Southern Border Wall and the processes associated therewith." Seems to me that this give Kolfage a lot of leeway to do whatever he wishes with We The People's hard-earned bucks.
###
Back to the present: hold your applause
I will of course continue to follow this developing story, and I hope you will too. Politico has reported that in the wake of Bannon's arrest Trump has distanced himself from Bannon, calling private funding of The Wall "inappropriate." Actually, as ProPublica reported on an August 1, 2020 update to an article originally published on July 2 in partnership with The Texas Tribune, Trump initially distanced himself from the We Build The Wall project after it was revealed that the wall is unsound and could be in danger of falling into the Rio Grande. He said that the project was built to embarrass him.

But Trump has a habit of changing his tune and contradicting himself; he may be condemning the project today, but who knows what he'll say tomorrow? After all, as Politico also noted, last summer The New York Times reported that Trump (according to one of the project's backers, Kris Kobach) had given the project his blessing. So there's that. As well, Donald Trump Jr. has also praised the group behind We Build The Wall, gushing that it is "what capitalism is all about." So there's that. (After the arrests were made public, however, DJTJ hastened to distance himself from Kolfage's project too.)

And even though Trump Sr. now claims that he knows nothing about Kolfage's project, Forbes noted these interesting points:
Trump also “personally and repeatedly” lobbied for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award a $1.28 billion wall-building contract to Fisher Industries, a politically-connected firm that was also helping We Build The Wall build a private portion of the wall, according to the Washington Post.

The company, which is not mentioned in the indictment, is run by GOP donor and frequent Fox News guest Tommy Fisher and won the contract after it “captured Trump's attention” and was “repeatedly touted” by him, according to CNN.

The White House declined to comment on whether Trump knew of the connection between Fisher and We Build The Wall.
And I imagine that scads of Wall fans and xenophobes will dismiss this whole case either as "fake news" or as an overblown political witch hunt -- or "hit job," as Bannon put it -- and that they will support Brian Kolfage as the hero/martyr he so wants us to believe that he is. I'm guessing that they'll see this case not as an indictment of Kolfage and his project but rather as an indictment of the Southern District of New York, which has remained unafraid of going after Trump's dodgy business dealings and other related matters.

But even if those charged are tried and ultimately convicted, which at this point is far from a certainty, it's anyone's guess how this will end. You only have to think of Michael Flynn, or Roger Stone, to know that these days, anything goes. In Trumpistan, you're guilty until proven innocent if you're a critic of Trump, and innocent even after proven guilty if you're a Trump crony or sycophant.

So as delightful as the vision of Steve Bannon in handcuffs may be, maybe hold off on the celebration for now.

Update, August 21, 2020: I have added several links and other content to this post since I first uploaded it on August 20. ~ CC

Related on this Whirled:
Related off-Whirled:
  • August 20. 2020: Steve Bannon, Kris Kobach, and the 'We Build the Wall' Scandal
    Writing for investigative journalist Greg Palast's site, Zach D. Roberts sheds some much-needed light on We Build The Wall principal and founding attorney Kris Kobach, who, though as mentioned above was not named in the current indictment, is a scoundrel who's just as much of a threat to American democracy as Trump is. (Also be sure to read     the linked excerpt about Kobach, taken from Greg Palast's new book, How Trump Stole 2020.)
  • August 20, 2020: Bannon Grifter Indictment: More Steel Bracelets for Team Trump
    Amanda Carpenter, writing for The Bulwark, is a writer after my own heart (of snark). She really nails Trump and the rogue's gallery of grifters with whom he has long surrounded himself.
  • August 20, 2020: Trump struggles to explain the 'culture of lawlessness' around him
    Spoiler alert: The best he could come up with, when cornered by a reporter, was, "There was great lawlessness in the Obama administration. They spied on our campaign illegally." But don't let the spoiler keep you from reading Steve Benen's short but link-filled piece on the utter hypocrisy of the man who claims to be "tough on crime" and "the law and order president."
  • August 21, 2020: Prosecutors Arrest 'We Build The Wall' Leaders For Convincing Donors They Weren't Taking Cash
    A good capsule summary of the whole saga, from Snopes. Includes background about specific accusations leveled against Brian Kolfage in 2019, and his denial of the accusations, and explanations about where he really got the money to buy his expensive toys.
  • August 19, 2019: Brian Kolfage; A Pattern of Cons
    From The Weird Turn Professional blog (the name of the blog is apparently derived from a quotation by the late "gonzo journalist," Hunter S. Thompson). The blog's author, whose name doesn't seem to appear on his blog (maybe I'm just overlooking it?), claims to have originally broken the story of Kolfage's scammery. Whether he did or not, his post is filled with exhibits and links that seem to reinforce the narrative of Kolfage as a serial huckster. Embedded in the post is this video, dated August 6, 2019, stating that Kolfage's project was under criminal investigation in the state of Florida. If I had seen that vid when it was first posted, I would have reinstated my back-burnered January 2019 blog post then and there.
  • Ongoing: Wikipedia entry on Brian Kolfage
  • August 23, 2020: Trump Claims He Rejected Wall Scam, But Sponsors Boasted Of His Support
    Not to belabor the point, but Trump's attempts to distance himself from this scam and these scammers are about as credible as his tan.
  • August 24, 2020: Federal Prosecutors Have Steve Bannon's Murky Nonprofit In Their Sights
    ProPublica highlights details in the 24-page indictment that seem to be describing Bannon's group, Citizens of the American Republic.
  • Ongoing: The Brian Kolfage Facebook "fan" page, which publishes whiny posts appearing to be from Kolfage himself (going on and on about "witch hunts" and whatnot). The right-wing followers and fans are just eating it up.
    Facebook's transparency info states that the confirmed page owner of the Brian Kolfage page is the above-mentioned Citizens of the American Republic in Mclean, Virginia. The page was originally created in November 2014, under the name, "Fans Of Brian Kolfage -- American Patriot." At the time this link is being posted here (on August 25, 2020), 584,065 people "like" this page, and 630,184 folks are following it. Kolfage's latest post at this time compares the SDNY action against him to the court action against the National Rifle Association (NRA). He writes:"I gave 3 limbs defending this freedom, and I'd proudly give another to fight back at this injustice to preserve the future of this nation."
    ###
    So... don't expect the hero/martyr narrative, either from Bannon or Kolfage, to let up any time soon. And as I noted in my post above, it would be a mistake to assume that any of these con artists will see a moment of jail time. 


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