"Pro-Military" charity turns out to be scam to line the pockets of Teabaggers instead.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

In February 2013, Move America Forward announced an ambitious fundraising goal. The charity, launched in part by one of the most prominent figures in the Tea Party movement, had adopted the 800 Marines in a battalion fighting in Afghanistan and wanted to send them all care packages. 

“For some troops, these care packages are the only mail they will receive all year,” the group said in one email solicitation. 

The charity later described the fundraising drive as a rousing success: In less than five weeks, all 800 Marines in a 1st Marine Division battalion nicknamed Geronimo were sent care packages and notes in Afghanistan, it claimed. 

But that couldn’t have been true. The Marines of Geronimo weren’t even in Afghanistan during Move America Forward’s fund drive. Instead, they were deployed more than 3,000 miles away, in Okinawa, Japan. 

Move America Forward calls itself the nation’s “largest grassroots pro-troop organization,” and has recruited a bevy of Republican luminaries, including former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, to support its efforts. 

Yet an examination of its fundraising appeals, tax records and other documents shows that Move America Forward has repeatedly misled donors and inflated its charitable accomplishments, while funneling millions of dollars in revenue to the men behind the group and their political consulting firms. 

The article goes on to describe the "charity" using soldier's stories and images without their permission, funneling millions of dollars to political operatives, and even using a 2004 stock image of troops unloading supplies from a Chinook helicopter for a mission and claiming that it was donations from Move America Forward.

What kind of assholes would be behind something like this you ask?

These assholes: 

The driving force behind Move America Forward is Sal Russo, 67, the longtime political consultant who is listed on the 10-year-old charity’s tax returns as chief strategist. 

Russo is better known for helping to form the Our Country Deserves Better PAC, also known as the Tea Party Express, one of the largest Tea Party groups in the country. Consultants from his Sacramento-based firm, Russo, Marsh and Associates, also set up two other PACs, the Move America Forward Freedom PAC and the Conservative Campaign Committee, to aid conservative causes and candidates. 

Russo and his associates have previously drawn attention for lavishing funds raised through the committees on themselves, using this money on an Alaskan cruise and fancy hotels as well as paying themselves huge consulting fees.

Wait.

Huge consulting fees?

An Alaskan cruise?

You don't think?

Oh yeah.

What was I thinking? If there is a scam using the military, that funnels millions of dollars into the hands of political operatives,  who undoubtedly send a little of it into the PAC's of various politi-celebs who offer their services, how could Sarah Palin NOT be involved?