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Right-wing influencers earn higher fees for sponsored posts than left-wing counterparts
Sora strangulations, Slurmcore, Bearista breakdowns, a skincare line for 3 yr olds, fitness influencers' hotness problem, MrBeast + Dealbook, Rizzwiches, how far ChatGPT will really go
Taylor Lorenz
Nov 10
∙
Preview
Reuters has an excellent new investigation out examining, in excruciating detail, how right wing influencers and Trump officials have formed a powerful alliance. The piece details how the Trump admin and influencers work together to target enemies, spread lies and transform the media landscape.” All of this is happening right as the social media platform landscape is being reshaped to privilege right-wing views and censor speech under the guise of “child safety.”
One of the most important takeaways from the story is how much money that can be made on the right. The piece talks about how Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichick charges $250,000 for vague social media consulting services. Conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley, aka DC_Draino, who has 5.3 million followers across Instagram and X, got paid $164,000 for just a few Instagram posts in 2024 by Smart & Safe Florida, the political committee sponsoring a push to legalize marijuana in the state.
Other right wing influencers including Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin and Tim Pool were paid millions ahead of the 2024 election. One was paid $400,000 a month, a $100,000 signing bonus and a performance bonus to create “four weekly videos.” The money was from a Russian propaganda scheme.
Reuters found that top right-wing influencers earn significantly higher fees for sponsored posts than their left-wing counterparts.
This tsunami of money on the right has allowed a new class of corporate centrist Democrats to fleece liberal donors out of millions of dollars for nonsensical schemes to “create the left Joe Rogan.” Chorus, a project of the notorious liberal dark money group the Sixteen Thirty Fund, for instance, is funneling tens of thousands of dollars to a slew of liberal influencers who take part in their Democrat messaging program.
But the influencers in the Chorus program and others like it, aren’t advocating for any meaningful changes to the system. Instead, they’re taking selfie videos with Chuck Schumer, leveraging interviews with politicians to create promotional content for their podcasts, and relentlessly attacking organically popular leftist influencers like Hasan Piker.
These Chorus influencers and others like them have also launched multi platform harassment and deplatforming campaigns against seemingly anyone on the left who doesn’t adhere to their pro-capitalism centrist Democrat talking points. They’ve sought to get prominent leftist influencers deplatformed and demonetized.
All of this has resulted in a system where influencers on the left face a 24/7 barrage of attacks from both centrist Democrats and the far right, who are increasingly aligned ideologically. Just like in congress, there is little to no actual meaningful opposition to Trump and the far right’s network of influence.
This asymmetric system is why I currently have zero advertising deals(!) and why buying a paid subscription to this newsletter or supporting my work on Patreon makes such a difference. I am not getting tens of thousands of dollars from centrist corporate Democrat dark money groups, or shady right wing causes. I earn my money directly from subscriptions.
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influencewatch BS:
Controversies
“DARK MONEY” CRITICISM FROM THE LEFT AND RIGHT
Arabella and its nonprofit network have been criticized as “dark money” funders both for channeling hundreds of millions of dollars to left-wing organizations and for hosting hundreds of “pop-up groups”—websites designed to look like standalone nonprofits that are really projects of an Arabella-run nonprofit. [59]
In April 2021, the New York Timescriticized Arabella’s “system of political financing, which often obscures the identities of donors,” as “dark money,” calling the network “a leading vehicle for it on the Left.” [60] In May 2021, the New York Times identified Sixteen Thirty Fund as one of the “leading dark money spenders on the Left” for quietly supporting Democrats with more than $63 million in super PAC donations that hurt Republicans in the 2020 election, as well for “help[ing] create and fund dozens of groups, including some that worked to block Mr. Trump’s nominees and push progressive appointments by Mr. Biden.” [61]
Robert Maguire, research director for the far-left Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said of Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2021: [62]
“Altogether this is absolutely one of the largest fundraising machines I have ever come across . . . I am really struggling to think of any other group, especially recently, that could rival it,” he added, comparing the amount of money flowing through Sixteen Thirty Fund to the Koch brothers’ network at the height of its influence earlier this decade.
In November 2019, Politico criticized the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the 501(c)(4) advocacy wing of Arabella’s nonprofit network, as a “little-known,” “massive ‘dark money’ group [that] boosted Democrats” in the 2018 midterm elections with $140 million. “The money contributed to efforts ranging from fighting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and other Trump judicial nominees to boosting ballot measures raising the minimum wage and changing laws on voting and redistricting in numerous states,” the left-leaning website reported. Politico also noted that Sixteen Thirty Fund’s biggest single donation (made anonymously) was for $51.7 million, “more than the group had ever raised before in an entire year before President Donald Trump was elected,” adding that “the group’s 2018 fundraising surpassed any amount ever raised by a left-leaning political nonprofit.” [63] However, Politico failed to tie the Sixteen Thirty Fund to Arabella Advisors’ nonprofit network.
The left-leaning Washington Postfurther criticized Arabella’s Sixteen Thirty Fund as a “big campaign donor” in a November 21, 2019 opinion by the editorial board, which called on Congress to change nonprofit disclosure laws, noting in particular a $26.7 million anonymous donation to the Fund. [64] However, the Postalso failed to connect the Sixteen Thirty Fund to Arabella Advisors and its other three nonprofits.
In a November 24, 2019 letter to the editor published by the Washington Post, Capital Research Center president Scott Walter identified the $26.7 million donation as originating with the New Venture Fund, the largest of Arabella’s in-house nonprofits, and confirmed Politico’s suspicion that the Sixteen Thirty Fund is “part of a larger network of dark money.” [65]
In November 2020 Politicocalled the Sixteen Thirty Fund a “liberal dark-money behemoth” and “one of the Left’s biggest financial hubs” for raising $137 million in 2019, much of which was spent on an “eight-figure ad campaign attacking Republican senators.” Politicoalso noted that “more than half of the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s money came from just three anonymous sources in 2019” and it made grants to over “100 different liberal organizations” that year. [66]
ILLEGAL ELECTION INTERVENTION COMPLAINT (2021)
On May 15, 2021, the right-leaning watchdog Americans for Public Trust (APT) filed a complaint (archived here) with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which oversees political groups’ spending, alleging violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act by Hansjorg Wyss, the Wyss Foundation, the Berger Action Fund, the New Venture Fund (in its capacity as the parent of the Hub Project), and Sixteen Thirty Fund. [67] According to APT, “Mr. Wyss indirectly funded federal electoral advocacy through his nonprofit organizations,” failing to set them up as political action committees (PACs), and “the intended recipient of these funds was ultimately a variety of organizations whose primary purpose is to engage in electoral advocacy.”
Organizations which receive contributions in excess of $1,000 or makes contributions in excess of $1,000 in a calendar year is considered a PAC for the major purpose of influencing elections. PACs are subject to strict financial reporting requirements that 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) nonprofits are not. [68] The complaint points out that the Wyss Foundation, BergerAction Fund, and New Venture**Fund**, which are all 501(c) nonprofits, have failed to file a statement of organization with the FEC, despite Wyss contributing at least $56.5 million from the Wyss Foundation to the New Venture Fund and another $135 from the Berger Action Fund to the Sixteen Thirty Fund. The 501(c)(4) Sixteen Thirty Fund spent $30 million influencing the 2018 midterm elections in order to favor Democratic candidates, “thereby triggering classification as a political committee,” according to APT.
U.S. law strictly prohibits foreign nationals from making direct or indirect contributions to political action committees. [69] Wyss, who was born in Switzerland, resides in the U.S. under an “E-2 VISA” (which is intended for foreign investors who live and work in the country) and “is not a permanent resident of the U.S. under a ‘green card,'” according to his attorney. [70] The complaint cites $41,000 in illegal federal campaign contributions Wyss paid between 1998 and 2003, claiming that, “Since that time, [Wyss] has made indirect contributions and expenditures by means of an intricate network of organizations in a scheme to obscure his role as the source of these funds.” [71]
APT alleges that Wyss established the Hub Project, a front for the “dark money” funder New Venture Fund and the recipient of significant funding from the Wyss Foundation, in order “to avoid any connection with the sizeable election activities carried out by the Hub Project and Change Now,” a super PAC associated with the Hub Project. “Operating since 2015
without the requisite FEC filing,” APT writes, “the Hub Project has been immune to any oversight and accountability despite significant spending in federal election.” It adds:
The Hub Project has served as a vehicle for the political spending of Mr. Wyss. This is demonstrated by the fact that Mr. Wyss has not publicly disclosed his role in founding the Hub Project. Neither his influence nor his financial support can be found anywhere on the group’s website. Rather, information regarding his involvement with the Hub Project was the result of “interviews with five people with knowledge of The Hub Project, an internal memo from another liberal group that was obtained by The New York Times.”
HIDING POLITICAL AGENDA BEHIND “FAKE NEWS SITES”
The nonprofit watchdog OpenSecrets (published by the Center for Responsive Politics) reported in May 2020 on Arabella’s involvement in numerous “fake news sites,” pouring millions of untraceable dollars into advertisements and other digital content “masquerading as news coverage to influence the 2020 election.” [72]
OpenSecrets identified five Facebook pages (Colorado Chronicle, Daily CO, Nevada News Now, Silver State Sentinel, Verified Virginia) that “gave the impression of multiple free-standing local news outlets,” but are in fact “merely fictitious names used by the Sixteen Thirty Fund,”Arabella’s 501(c)(4) lobbying nonprofit. [73] These pages published Facebook political advertisements that favored Democrats and left-wing causes during the 2020 election. After the report was published a number of these pages were deleted.
States Newsroom, which runs another network of left-wing “fake news” websites, was originally created as “Newsroom Network,” a project of the Arabella-run 501(c)(3) Hopewell Fund. In June 2019, States Newsroom was spun off as an independent nonprofit with its own 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, but a number of its local affiliates are used by the Hopewell Fund as its own legal aliases. [74]
While States Newsroom does not disclose its donors (and is not required to by the IRS), [75]
IRS application records obtained by OpenSecrets show the States Newsroom was offered a $1 million donation from the Wyss Foundation, a private foundation primarily funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, who made his fortune as CEO of a controversial medical device manufacturer called Synthes.
A financial statement in the IRS records obtained by OpenSecrets shows that the States Newsroom plans to bring in more than $27 million in contributions before the end of 2021.
And in 2018 theHopewell Fund gave $1.72 million to News for Democracy, which OpenSecrets points out “was at the crux of a network of seemingly independent Facebook pages disguised as news outlets that started spending on digital ads in 2018,” with backing from the Sixteen Thirty Fund and Investing in US, an investment vehicle funded by LinkedIn founder and liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman. [76]
Also among these “dark money” groups was ACRONYM, which raised $9.4 million from “secret donors” through April 2019, including $250,000 from Arabella’s 501(c)(3) New Venture Fund. ACRONYM is affiliated with a super PAC, PACRONYM, which spent close to $18 million aiding Democrats and hurting Republicans through independent expenditures in the 2020 election. [77] ACRONYM also owns and operates Courier Newsroom, which in turn manages a network of left-wing websites that present themselves as local news outlets while spreading “hyperlocal partisan propaganda,” according to the centrist watchdog Newsguard. [78] Courier Newsroom spent at least $20,000 in digital advertising campaigns on Facebook between March 2019 and May 2020; its total spending in Facebook ads as of June 2021 is nearly $1.4 million. [79] [80]...
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/02/08/lawsuit-alleges-illegal-tactics-in-house-democrats-climate-probe-of-oil-companies/
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House Democrats are using privately funded staff to investigate oil companies for spreading “disinformation” on climate change, a possible violation of federal law and the chamber’s own rules, a lawsuit alleges.
A spokesperson for Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is conducting the yearlong investigation, said the committee has followed all relevant laws and rules in consulting with others.
Co-Equal, the private nonprofit group named in the federal public information lawsuit, denies being part of a major hearing in the climate-related investigation of oil companies.
Co-Equal, founded by two of House Democrats’ former staffers who led the congressional tobacco hearings in the 1990s, is sponsored by Arabella Advisors, a liberal megadonor. The group also received $300,000 from an organization backed by another major donor on the left, billionaire financier George Soros.
Virginia talk radio host Rob Schilling, a former reporter who won awards from The Associated Press and the Virginia Association of Broadcasters, filed the lawsuit seeking records from the House of Representatives. Schilling is represented by a private watchdog group called Government Accountability & Oversight.
Democrats v. Big Oil
The subject of Schilling’s lawsuit is the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s investigation alleging “disinformation” from oil companies misled the public about the dangers of climate change. The suit alleges that the Democrat-run committee violated the law in its zeal to go after oil companies.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., chairman of the panel’s environment subcommittee, told The Hill in September that the committee enlisted the aid of “a lot of people” who planned the 1990s hearings into tobacco companies chaired by then-Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
The first big public event from the probe was an Oct. 28 hearing by the full oversight panel questioning CEOs of six major oil companies. But, as Khanna said in a Reuters story published a day earlier: “This will be a yearlong investigation and the hearings mark the beginning of it.”
The committee held another hearing Tuesday at which climate activists and scientists testified about whether oil companies are acting to address global warming, as well as their alleged disinformation effort.
Congress must properly use its subpoena power, Schilling said.
“Congress has the power to issue subpoenas when it has a proper legislative purpose,” Schilling told The Daily Signal in an email. “This seems to be no more than scapegoating Congress’s failure to persuade the public about this agenda, after all this time and money. But members of Congress are getting ever more bold about confessing the true purpose here is not legitimate legislative inquiry.”
Lawsuit Alleges Violation of House Rules, Law
The lawsuit, filed Jan. 24 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks “access to certain records pertaining to the use of outside private donations, funds, or in-kind goods or services to conduct and support the activities of, or pay the expenses of, a congressional office in violation of House rules.”
The lawsuit seeks all emails and any Skype and other recordings regarding the House Oversight and Reform Committee and donor-provided consultants.
Congress exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act, however, so the lawsuit refers to “common law” precedent for access to public records that preceded FOIA.
“During the Nixon administration, the courts repeatedly ruled that there was a common law right of access and that it was quite broad,” Schilling told The Daily Signal. “I hope that the courts haven’t forgotten the importance of the common law right since then.”
“The issue here is whether the public’s interest in these arrangements is outweighed by the interest in keeping these arrangements secret, and that does not seem to be a high bar,” the former journalist said.
His suit goes on to state that House Rule XXIV and federal law, specifically 31 U.S. Code Section 1342, prohibit the use of outside private donations and in-kind goods or services.
The Oversight and Reform Committee has followed all rules in its investigation, the spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email.
“Congressional offices routinely speak with outside experts,” the spokesperson wrote. “The committee has followed all applicable House rules in this critically important investigation into Big Oil’s disinformation campaign to deny climate change, and will continue to do so in the future.”
The lawsuit notes that Democrat state attorneys general withdrew subpoenas to more than 100 think tanks, scientists, and others in a 2016 climate investigation after Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian think tank, challenged the subpoenas on First Amendment grounds.
Co-Equal Ties to Arabella, Soros
Co-Equal, a private nonprofit, has been helping to supplement congressional staff since at least 2019.
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Schilling’s lawsuit identifies Co-Equal’s founders as similar to Khanna’s description of who is assisting in the probe of oil companies. That’s because two staffers who worked for Waxman during the tobacco hearings—counsel Phil Barnett and staff director Phil Schiliro—founded Co-Equal.
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Schiliro held three White House positions during Barack Obama’s presidency. In his 25 years on Capitol Hill, Barnett also was staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Khanna said in September that “a lot of people” who planned the 1990s Waxman hearings into the tobacco industry were assisting Democrats in the oil company investigation.
However, Barnett said Co-Equal was not involved with the Oct. 28 hearing with oil company CEOs.
The Co-Equal website says: “Co-Equal is a project of the Hopewell Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Co-Equal Action is a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization.”
Arabella Advisors, a Washington-based consulting firm, is the fiscal sponsor of the Hopewell Fund, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, and other nonprofits that bankroll liberal organizations.
Moreover, the Open Society Policy Center, a group financed by Soros, earmarked $300,000 for the Co-Equal Action Fund in a donation to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, according to the policy center’s fourth-quarter 2018 report. The report said the donation was specifically “to support work to enhance congressional effectiveness and oversight.”
“It’s the kind of textbook Beltway insider scheme that Arabella deserves to be famous for: Funding from George Soros to shadowy nonprofits running a partisan campaign to push radical environmentalism on the country,” Hayden Ludwig, a senior investigative researcher with the conservative think tank Capital Research Center, told The Daily Signal.
Co-Equal met questions about the lawsuit from The Daily Signal by referring to a Jan. 31 letter from co-founder Barnett to Sally Dudley, an associate director at Arabella Advisors.
“The allegations in the complaint regarding Co-Equal are false. The Government Accountability and Oversight group claims that Co-Equal—and by extension Arabella—were involved in an Oct. 28, 2021, climate hearing held by the House Oversight and Reform Committee,” wrote Barnett, a former staffer for Waxman on two separate House committees, including the Oversight panel during the tobacco hearings of the 1990s.
Barnett added in the letter:
I want to make sure you know Co-Equal had no involvement in that [climate] hearing and no Co-Equal resources were used in connection with the committee’s investigation. Apart from the false allegation about Co-Equal, the theory of the complaint rests on an erroneous interpretation of House Rule 24 that conflicts with the history of the rule and how it has been interpreted by the House Ethics Committee.
The organization did not respond to a follow-up email from The Daily Signal asking whether the separate political action entity, Co-Equal Action, was involved in the hearing or the investigation.
Schilling said Co-Equal was responding to an allegation he doesn’t make in the lawsuit.
“They’re distracting from the issue and answering a claim I haven’t made,” Schilling told The Daily Signal. “Whether or not certain individuals attended a hearing is a very different issue from whether they were involved in the hearing and planning the hearing. And whether Co-Equal resources were used in connection with the investigation or any particular hearing is something that the appropriate officials ought to look into, rather than accept on faith, especially under these very unusual circumstances.”
Schilling’s lawsuit references a 2019 news report in The New York Times about Co-Equal forming to help Congress “reassert” itself by investigating the Trump administration.
Co-Equal’s website notes that the number of congressional staffers responsible for conducting oversight has declined since 1994. It says the organization can provide advice and “connect congressional offices with experts who level the information playing field.”
Schilling’s lawsuit doesn’t directly allege that Co-Equal is part of the investigation, but says only:
Plaintiff states on information and belief, including based upon Chairman Khanna’s admissions and other materials in the public domain, that among the outside parties brought in as consultants to execute this new quasi-judicial pursuit of private parties are individuals operating through and as part of an organization called Co-Equal.
The lawsuit also refers to a June 15, 2017, memo from Barnett and Schiliro on climate issues that doesn’t appear to be related to Co-Equal, the group they founded.
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