HANNITY FREEDOM CONCERT, BEHIND THE SCENES

It’s no secret that we had an issue with Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts” over the past few years. Hell, it’s no secret we have an issue with Sean Hannity himself, but that’s beside the point. To be honest, Hannity isn’t the area of contention with this thing. It is the scumbag he choses to work with, Ex-Col. Ollie North. For a little background on our gripe with him, we ask that you check out this story where we just basically call out the guy. We say he was someone you cannot trust, and after this latest story written by Steph, our newest writer, we pretty much made that moreso. The Freedom Alliance, the group North founded to apparently help the families of wounded and deceased soldiers, and the group that is benefitted by the “Freedom Concerts”, is not being as charitable as it could – or should – be. Sadly, this is not surprising. We are dealing with a guy who pretty much sold out those same troops in the 80s by selling arms to a country we may soon fight. Now it seems he is more about exploiting them for personal gain, and his right-wing activist friends are also along for the ride. This story just might piss you off.

By Steph, One People’s Project

“Hannity Freedom Concert” 

It was early summer. I was in the lobby of a restaurant at the Jersey shore. I noticed this headline on a brochure. At first it didn’t really sink in. Then I looked at it again.                                                         

Hannity Freedom Concert?! 

This has got to be good. 

I picked up the brochure and learned all about the concert. Apparently, NJ’s Six Flags Great Adventure has been hosting the annual Hannity Freedom Concert every July. This was the concert’s fourth year. Country singers Hank Williams, Jr., Sara Evans and Lee Greenwood were to perform. Hosts from New York’s 77WABC Radio were to attend, including, of course, the beloved Sean Hannity. All the proceeds were to go to the Freedom Alliance, an organization that provides scholarships for children of fallen and wounded soldiers. For people who didn’t know any better, it was a great opportunity to support the troops and have some fun at the same time. The folks at OPP knew better. 

FREEDOM ALLIANCE 

            The Freedom Alliance promotes itself as a charitable organization dedicated to supporting military families. However, the group’s use of funds is sketchy at best. The Better Business Bureau states that a legitimate charity should spend at least 65% of its budget on program expenses. Program expenses are the stated services that the charity provides, so in this case that would be the scholarships and any other support given to military families. Charity Navigator, an independent charity evaluator, reports that 7 out of every 10 charities spend at least 75% of their budgets on programs. But when they evaluated the Freedom Alliance, they found that the group spends only 55.7% on programs. Charity Navigator gave them two out of a possible four stars, which translates to “Needs Improvement : Meets or nearly meets industry standards but underperforms most charities in its Cause.”

            If just over half of their expenses go to the scholarships, where does the rest of the money go? A whopping 39.9% goes towards fundraising expenses, which is well above the norm. When most groups spend half this amount on fundraising expenses, one might wonder why fundraising eats up so much of the Freedom Alliance’s funds. Some have speculated that it’s to provide first class accommodations when big names like Hannity and Ann Coulter agree to do fundraising events. Whatever the reason, the Freedom Alliance’s allocation of funds is bad enough to have earned the group a zero out of four stars in the category of efficiency.

            The Freedom Alliance’s abysmal track record isn’t so surprising when one takes a look at the folks who are running the show. The organization is staffed by people whose political careers are over or never really started to begin with. First, there’s the founder and honorary chairman: Oliver North. Yes, Oliver North of Iran-Contra fame. This is the man who was convicted of accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents. Not exactly someone I’d want to donate money to. In the years since the scandal, North made an unsuccessful bid for the Senate and then moved to broadcasting, hosting shows on some radio stations and, of course, Fox News. North founded the Freedom Alliance in 1990 and still serves as honorary chairman.

            While North is the group’s biggest hall-of-shame name, there are plenty of others. Jennifer Ohman, the Alliance’s Director of Media and Public Affairs, was once a publicist for a conservative news outlet. This fact isn’t discussed too much, and one can see why Ohman wouldn’t want to discuss it, because it turns out that the news outlet is Talon News. Remember them? That’s the news group that employed James D. Guckert, a.k.a. Jeff Gannon, the White House “reporter” who was planted to launch softball questions at Bush and was exposed by bloggers to have advertised his gay escort services on the web.

            On the Freedom Alliance’s Board of Directors sits Steve Symms, another politician whose career has been a joke. During the 1988 presidential election, Symms, a Republican senator from Idaho at the time, campaigned heavily for George H. W. Bush. Symms is known for having started the false rumor that Michael Dukakis’s wife, Kitty, had once burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War. Symms first made the claim in a radio interview, also stating that he had a photograph to prove it. After coming under fire from Dukakis, Symms finally admitted that he had no evidence to prove his claim.

The stories are similar for the rest of the seven Board of Directors and 17 staff members who work for the Freedom Alliance. The group is basically a mismanaged “charity” run by washed up neocons, many of whom have had a past of scandal and disgrace. Clearly, this is not a group who should be trusted to run a charitable organization. 

77 WABC 

            It is also worth noting 77 WABC’s involvement in the Hannity Freedom Concert. The New York based radio station cohosted the concert with Six Flags. WABC’s support of the concert further reveals the whole event as a promotional event for bigots and neocons.

WABC features an array of right wing personalities. Ten of their eleven talk show hosts are self-described conservatives. One such host is Monica Crowley, who was Richard Nixon’s Foreign Policy Assistant from 1990 to 1994. Crowley has worked for Fox News since 1996 and is in-laws with Alan Colmes (Colmes is married to her sister). Another host is John R Gambling, who has Mike Bloomberg on his show every Friday. Gambling’s producer is Jill Vitale, who formerly worked on the Sean Hannity show.

Folks from WABC were among the many right wing personalities at the concert. In addition to Hannity, WABC talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Mark
Levin made appearances.

NEXT YEAR

            In short, the Hannity Freedom Concert is a promotional event for some right wing clowns to get even more positive publicity than they already get. Meanwhile, they are benefiting a grossly mismanaged organization that is run by criminals and washed up politicians. After the success of the past four concerts, it’s time that we did something to bring this information to light. Radicals and antifa should organize an alternate concert that supports bringing the troops home, ending the war, and providing support to military families.