24 Comments
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Tom's avatar

Again, great reporting. Such healthy, decent work.

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Hazel's avatar

Great reporting. Very interesting indeed! I get email from those prepper sites and Conservative groups. I ordered a cool flashlight years ago for my brother as a gift from such a site. I am amazed how one thing like that grew into a slurry of emails I have dumped into Spam files over the years.

Now I know. My email address just got tagged onto list after list and sold to the highest bidder.

As for using articles from news organizations without permission, isn't that the hallmark of the GOP. Crooked as a country road but howling God, guns and apple pie all wrapped up in support of con men and women.

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Chris Woods's avatar

I made the same cool flashlight mistake and found that they were also hitting up my cc for a monthly subscription, which took some effort to cancel.

As Judd notes, "follow the money".... the right wing wouldn't be as energized if the provocateurs didn't make money (by scamming their followers) for it.

See Alex Jones's site shilling all manner of scams or the "patriots" behind the re-opening protests scam https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/conservative-activist-family-behind-grassroots-anti-quarantine-facebook-events-n1188021

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Hazel's avatar

Wow. Just Wow. More GOP crooks that keep lying, stealing and cheating.

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Chris Woods's avatar

Bravo on doing the digging and making an impact getting these sites to go dark! Thank you!

Here's an interesting article (which I'm sure you've seen) on how effective your line of work "following the money" is! https://nyti.ms/3cldd2q

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Donald Clarke's avatar

Great reporting. I'm based in Hawley's state of Missouri. The legislature here has been in Republican hands for the last 19-years. Voters just approved Medicaid Expansion after I and 100's of volunteers canvased signatures to get it on the 2020 ballot. The Republican legislature has just refused to fund it despite a yes vote majority of over 83,000. A judge starts hearing our case next week. That and Arizona refurbishing their gas chamber to restart executions following a 7-year hiatus after botching their last lethal injection execution. They will use the same gas the Nazi's used to murder over 6M Jews. The last time they used the gas chamber (in 1999), the inmate took 18-minutes to die choking in agony and it was international news. You couldn't make this shit up. Thanks Judd for all you are doing.

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Lisa Farrar's avatar

Wow, Judd. This is incredible reporting. I hope you are mentoring young journalists!

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Chris Woods's avatar

The ultimate democracy force would be a network of student researchers mentored by Judd!

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Lisa Farrar's avatar

Exactly!!

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Joseph Mangano's avatar

Nice to see those fraudulent websites taken down, but I doubt Rudnick and his ilk are done yet with this kind of shady business. Keep up the good work, Judd.

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Jai's avatar

Wooh!

Does the GOP do anything legally?

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Charlie Cooper's avatar

Thanks, Judd. What I have been concerned about in Democratic party-related activism is that there are online advocacy groups that are formed by operatives who also operate for-profit companies. They might ostensibly focus on big money in politics or environment, say. When people contribute to those groups (might be PACs or 501(c)(4)s), the money is funneled through the companies that are owned by the principals. Have you ever investigated any of those? My worry is that these types of operations rob the unsuspecting donor of the opportunity to really be effective because of a high profit margin.

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Leslie's avatar

Dirty politicians tied to dirty websites for fundraising. No surprise there. THANKS Judd, for shedding light on the dark underbelly of Republican politics.

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Abby's avatar

And here everyone thought that pirates all died when Captain Hook walked the plank. This report is almost funny! Thanks Judd for shining light into the murky darkness...again.

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Steven Armstrong's avatar

Excellent reportage, folks. Thank you for continuing your superb work.

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Manqueman's avatar

Great piece.

Should serve as a reminder for what we olds overlook: the bullshit doesn’t get fed to the Republican base by pundits and radio personalities but also by these hide mail operations. As Judd makes clear, there’s sufficient personal profits for the mail order people to act irresponsibly.

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Lorie's avatar

Judd, I was trying to scan your article for the most important information, and to me, the fact that you simply inquired with Rudnick about republishing things from major media outlets and you got 16 different Rudnick-inspired Right Wing propaganda sites to fold! How long they will stay folded is another question...or will they emerge under new names, and start publishing Christian Nationalist and fascist ideas all over agaiin. Are you or other people going to keep watchdogging Alliance Strategy Group? Do browser sites have any liability for what people like Rudnick can throw up as webpages?

I'd like to find a way to support your actions, but nothing is suggested.

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Kim Anderson's avatar

Give a gift subscription or just donate.

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sethdmichaels's avatar

Rudnick! i went to college with this guy, he is such a perfect example of the way the right wing operates

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William Arnold's avatar

A question about my PI account: Will I be notified when my subscription expires (so I can Immediately renew it!)?

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nkrempa's avatar

Most Substack accounts renew automatically, they will send you a notice that it's renewal time and you will be given the chance to opt out. That's how it's worked for all my Substack subscriptions.

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William Arnold's avatar

Thanks, friend!!

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Tiff C.'s avatar

It’s exhausting to keep up with their many grifts & scams; thanks for doing the heavy lifting.

It’s very manipulative & the people are basically being bought & sold repeatedly in return for hearing lies they want to hear.

And they hate MSM so much, they’ll never check or discover the content they read is stolen from MSM. I don’t feel too bad for them but look what they helped thrust upon our nation… MTG, Hawley & more… Smh.

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