Special Operations Warrior Foundation is a good organization doing good work.
But making sure Beck gets paid should not be a priority.:(

A comment from HM's link

relay2steve
1 day ago

Bah! There were leventyteen gazillion jillion loyal patriots there.

The idea that there were only 87,000 is just based on liberal math with its biased insistance upon commonly agreed upon and understood nomenclature and correspondence between numerals and numbers.

That's a great point and I had heard something about that. It's great that the donations were $5 million more than the cost.

I'd be curious to know what the costs were.

That's good for the SOWF and the good work that they do. I've yet to see anything about the costs for this rally.
However, for some of the teaparty rallies in the past where they had Beck, Rush or Hannity, showed numbers were shocking. The speakers, and their entourages, cost the organization a fortune in fees and expenses. I hope that didn't happen to SOWF.

A quick google produces a few comments on the costs. These are not anything official though. The estimate is around $2 million.

The SOWF statement from above reads:

"With your support and help we were able to raise more than $5 million dollars for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. "

Is that gross or net? That doesn't seem clear.

As for the expenses, how much does security cost for the crowd? What about the porta johns? Who paid the travel and lodging costs for the Black Robe Regiment ( I believe there are a total about 240 plus spouses ). How much was Sarah Palin paid? Marcus Luttrell?

The issue of costs of fundraising is a good one and something that I've often had problems with myself.

Now that this awareness has been raised maybe people could make a separate donation to the SOWF. Maybe in doing so those people deserving will benefit while those not deserving will not.

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An organization I give to as well if anyone is interested:

http://www.specialops.org/

Didn't Beck and Fox claim 500k? Or 2 million? Or something like that. Something along the lines of "eat your heart out, MLK?"

I don't have access to Glenn's internal accounting records but he told his radio audience as well as the audience at the Kennedy Center that there was an unplanned fee, 500k or so, that was unpaid until about 2 weeks prior to the 8/28 Restoring Honor event.

The unplanned fee was reported to be for security for the crowd IIRC.

The largest cost of the event was said to be security for the guests and the crowd.

There was a link on the Beck site asking anyone that was taking a bus to DC to please register. The number of people attending adds to the cost of porta johns and security and the like.

At the start of the planning it may have only been 500k and then grown to 2 million.

I've not heard anything about Glenn disrespecting MLK and in fact he had positive message about MLK and his famous "I have a dream" speech. The message that I heard was that this specific speech ( as with many other speeches I'm sure ) was something that all of us should take to heart. That all men are created equal and that we are all entitled to have an equal chance at achieving our dream. We are not all entitled to equal outcomes ( that's the common interpretation that many people disagree with ) but we should all have an equal chance.

Going a step further, two of the books that I bought about MLK and the "I have a dream" speech that day of the rally reinforce to me personally that his message is not exactly the same as maybe some of those today are trying to teach us. Specifically that MLK was wanting to claim what was naturally his and everyone's right here in the US, equality, not to overthrow the government in favor of some different form of socialism or outright communism.

So overall, honestly, being there was uncomfortable. It was HOT and there were few places to sit down to be somewhat comfortable but I'll never forget attending even though the only way for me to hear most of what the speakers said was to see the video afterwards.

We did well. Raised a few bucks for a great cause, got us out of our routines to visit DC and learned or relearned a few things about some great people.

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Most I heard claimed was 180 - 200k.

I guess after the non-million man march they stopped counting. Who cares, there were a shit load of people at both events.

Maybe it matters because Beck/Bachmann/Palin and ilk don't give a fuck about facts and just make up their own all the time? Then people like the teapartiers treat their word as gospel truth and continue to believe everything they say no matter how outrageous it is? Yeah, it fucking matters. Especially when there are over 300million Americans. 87,000 is only what? Less than 0.03% of the population I believe.

Who cares. It's a non-issue. Unless you are Beck or obsessed with him. The guy is pretty much a bombast.