One Of These Things Is Exactly Like The Other
Remember a while back when I mentioned Alfredo’s note about Podcaster Ted Cruz? Well, it gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view).
When we left off, I mentioned how iHeartMedia sent $214,752.98 to Cruz’s SuperPAC, Truth and Courage PAC last February, and how it was the senator’s cut from advertising during their airing of his 3-per-week podcasts. Well, things got said and all of a sudden iHeartMedia has assured the complaining watchdog group, The Campaign Legal Center, that this money has absolutely nothing to do with the media group’s business relationship with Ted Cruz or with his “Verdict With Ted Cruz” podcast.
But as mentioned in this online radio news source, Inside Radio, iHeartMedia has denied that this is “digital revenue,” explaining that this was a simple contribution to the PAC.
There was no Quid, no Pro, and no frickkin’ Quo.
My question is simple: couldn’t they have rounded the donation up to $215,000? And what’s with the 98 cents?
The CLC’s question is perhaps a little more to the point: how is this contribution to the Super PAC in any way legal because iHeartMedia is a federal contractor? According to the Federal Election Act of 1971, a federal contractor is barred from making contributions to SuperPACs.
So it’s not compensation for Cruz, because Cruz donates his time. On the other hand, the donation is illegal because federal contractors cannot make them.
And this is year 2 of the arrangement. In 2023, iHeartMedia “donated” $630,850 American to Cruz’s PAC that Ted Cruz also did not solicit.
Well, that’s good. $5,000 is the contribution limit for solicited donations. Good thing he didn’t ask for it, or he’d be in REAL trouble – like iHeartMedia appears to be in now.
Haven’t you heard. No Repube will ever be held accountable for anything they do that’s not legal. Except that they are the party of “law and order” for anyone that is not them.
1Nice catch!
And Cathy has it exactly right. His supporters will probably just think that any questions about this is just nit-picking by the Libs.
2Funny how laws just never seem to get enforced against Republicans – as long as they endorse Trump.
3Ugh. The only station I listen to when driving locally is an iheart owned station. Money grubbing sleezy media with no conscience. Need to find another option. Geeze, they’re everywhere.
4What it looks like to me: there is no such thing as bad PR. And the Repubs are here to prove it!
5The 98 cents in the contribution/donation/outright bribe serves a vital purpose. It’s to avoid even numbers that might look suspicious. If challenged on the amount, they’ll be able to quickly cook up some accounting that sums to that (or any other) amount. But as others have pointed out above, they’ll never be challenged with legal consequences.
Remember how George Santos (if that’s really his name) had large numbers of dinner charges that magically came out to 1 cent under the limit which would have required pesky things like receipts and accounting? https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/25/george-santos-199-expenses-00079334
Sometimes I think the Republicans invented Santos, so they’ll have someone to point at and be able to say “Look, we clean up the stables and get rid of the crooks. While Santos’ dinner scams are not even couch change to the real crooks.
6Looks like Fled had a cow when a reporter asked him about that.
7https://www.yahoo.com/news/ted-cruz-flips-confronted-over-225520386.html