Friday, March 01, 2013

Time For Another Bloggers' Ethics Panel

Josh "SuperHacks" Trevino made nearly 400K (gross) over three years shilling for the Malaysian government, without disclosing his payoffs and his paymasters to the rubes who hired him and his beards.
The payments to conservative American opinion writers — whose work appeared in outlets from the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner to the Washington Times to National Review and RedState — emerged in a filing this week to the Department of Justice. The filing under the Foreign Agent Registration Act outlines a campaign spanning May 2008 to April 2011 and led by Joshua Trevino, a conservative pundit, who received $389,724.70 under the contract and paid smaller sums to a series of conservative writers.
...
Trevino's subcontractors included conservative writer Ben Domenech, who made $36,000 from the arrangement, and Rachel Ehrenfeld, the director of the American Center for Democracy, who made $30,000. Seth Mandel, an editor at Commentary, made $5,500 (his byline is attached to the National Review item linked to above). Brad Jackson, writing at the time for RedState, made $24,700. Overall, 10 writers were part of the arrangement.
"It was actually a fairly standard PR operation," Trevino told BuzzFeed Friday. "To be blunt with you, and I think the filing is clear about this, it was a lot looser than a typical PR operation. I wanted to respect these guys' independence and not have them be placement machines."
That Box Turtle Ben was a recipient of Malayasian largesse should also surprise no one.  The Malaysian government probably wrote his pieces too.

Given that nobody takes Trevino seriously, it seems the Malaysian government overpaid by roughly  $389,724.40. 

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:59 PM

    Maybe they'll ask for a refund?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wingnutz welfare goes global.

    But, geez, if Malaysia is willing to pay that sort of money to a hack like Trevino, think about what Mossad or the government of Dubai would be willing to pay to the A-list shills?

    I'm betting that this is just a little chip off the right-wing iceberg, and there's a lot more of this foreign money floating around in wingnut accounts.

    ReplyDelete
  3. my weblog - Wingnut Hack Leasing
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    ReplyDelete
  4. A right wing blogger without ethics. Amazing. Next up, dog bites man.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JohnR9:12 AM

    It wasn't that long since Turkey bought a couple of US Congressman for pretty cheap, and Israel owns several of them outright (package deal, maybe), so why the fuss about this. Heck, the last President was a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Saudi nobility. Surprisingly, that didn't fash folks like Rubin excessively. I guess they figured the Saudis and the Israelis are on the same side.

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  6. Warren Terra11:38 AM

    Joshua Trevino, a conservative pundit, who received $389,724.70
    Given that nobody takes Trevino seriously, it seems the Malaysian government overpaid by roughly $389,724.40
    Your math is slightly wrong: thirty pieces of silver is three dollars, not thirty cents (assuming we're talking pre-1965 dimes).

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  7. 10 cents a year seemed about right for Tictac's services. You can't expect a man to work for free.

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  8. Anonymous2:46 PM

    I wonder how shilling for Malaysia jibes with the militant Lukidism of some of these guys.

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  9. Quaker in a Basement3:52 PM

    $400K? Dang, where do I sign up? I'll lie like Lance Armstrong for that kinda money.

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  10. Warren - Silver is only paid for something of value. Copper seems about right for Trevino.

    And I apologize for insulting copper like that, but we don't use stones or dirt or driftwood as specie in the US.

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  11. wow thats a much money. thats can make great change for many people life. Like every student who have financial problem. this my Site

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous1:07 PM

    400k for almost 3 years? wew hope i can make that number too
    my site

    ReplyDelete
  13. $400K ....
    when I can make that amount of money?

    ReplyDelete