Now he's back to "invasion"

I don't believe "invasion" and "humanitarian crisis" are synonyms.  At least not in the English language.





I'm willing to be even the most dense of Trumpanzees doesn't believe a wall will stop all that.

But apparently, they still think their $20 million (so far) to fund the border wall is legit.

Brian Kolfage, the decorated Iraq War veteran spearheading the massive, viral fundraising campaign to build President Trump’s border wall, who has a history of peddling right-wing misinformation on Facebook, pushed the limits of misleading content in pursuit of online traffic and profits until he was ultimately banned from the platform, according to multiple former employees and a review of internal communications.

[...]

The veteran has also spearheaded other crowdfunding ventures over the years, raising thousands of dollars on GoFundMe with the promise of helping mentor fellow vets at military hospitals, but spokespersons for the medical centers said they have no record of Kolfage working at their facilities or donating any money.

[...]

BuzzFeed News reviewed a cache of internal emails and text messages from several of Kolfage’s former employees and acquaintances that show how he pushed to sensationalize and fabricate right-wing content on Facebook to amass clicks, manipulate users, and in the process, make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in advertising revenue. In one text, he claimed to run a “multi-million business.”

[...]

Former employees told BuzzFeed News that Kolfage instructed his crew to produce Facebook content to more flagrantly convey a false narrative, in one instance photoshopping former president Obama’s head onto another body to make it appear as though he was having an affair, with the caption, “BREAKING!! OBAMA BUSTED!!! VIDEO LEAKED!!”

“You’ll love this one ;),” he texted employees during a conversation about manipulating images.

[...]

On several occasions, Kolfage discussed purchasing Facebook pages, which he acknowledged in one message is a violation of the social network’s policy and urged employees to remain quiet about. In a group text dated Sept. 22, 2017, he informed employees that “we purchased the Facebook pages belonging to Patriot Nation,” collecting its 2 million fans to “significantly increase our traffic” and generate more revenue.

[...]

“One day of big daddy running the show,” Kolfage wrote, referencing an attached chart showing a significant spike in user traffic. “Those fuckers had no clue...The page reach is actually 14 million this week. When I got it [it] was 1 mil.”

The veteran purchased the page, which frequently posted outlandish conservative "clickbait" stories, for more than $100,000, according to a former employee and a colleague.

“Brian is a genius. He knows how to manipulate people and the system,” the former employee said. “The stories were doing more harm than good. Hillary’s face would be on someone else’s body with handcuffs and the story had nothing to do with that. He would brag about how we would be even bigger and explode in 2018 because of the fake news stuff.”

[...]

A well-known Purple Heart recipient who lost three limbs in Iraq, Kolfage has garnered a loyal following online, especially on Facebook, and is a regular guest on conservative cable news channels. But after Facebook suspended several of his pages and hundreds of others during a major purge of inauthentic accounts in October, he sharpened his identity as a crusader for American values, like free speech.

He burst back into the mainstream in mid-December with the now-viral mission to crowdfund Trump’s controversial US–Mexico border wall through donations on GoFundMe, with a record-setting goal of $1 billion. In just a few weeks, the account has raised more than $20 million, with more than 300,000 people donating anywhere from $10 to $50,000 each.

  Buzzfeed

Fifty thousand? I wonder who that sucker is.

The veteran has tapped crowdfunding and his social media following to help raise money for a variety of issues and causes over the years, including his own legal fees against what he characterized as “radical left-wing extremists” who slandered him, according to 2014 court documents.

A year later, he used GoFundMe to collect $16,246 for a veteran mentorship program. The campaign closed in February 2015, and the funds went directly to Kolfage, Bobby Whithorne, a GoFundMe spokesperson, confirmed to BuzzFeed News.

[...]

In addition to his build-the-wall campaign, Kolfage is still raising money on GoFundMe for his “Fight 4 Free Speech” initiative to “take on Facebook in an unprecedented legal case that will shape our nation for future generations.” It has raised more than $73,350 of its $100,000 goal in two months.

[...]

[A former employee who declined to be identified said] “He was very smart in how he would do it. He never wanted the truth. It was all just for clicks, and the more inflammatory, the better. I felt dirty writing the stuff.”

[...]

Those who worked with Kolfage described calculated efforts to ensure that his ownership of and influence over his web of Facebook pages was untraceable. Lowery said he would also post content under pseudonyms, like Ronnie Martin, to distance himself “from all the shady stuff.”

In one email to employees, Kolfage warned to “NEVER tell anyone who operates Freedomdaily. It’s a tightly guarded secret, and our LLC has a privacy veil set up to protect it. It allows us to operate without consequence where we can’t be sued or attacked by trolls.”

The more outlandish the headlines and images, the more Facebook traffic he garnered. In August 2017, more than 28 million people viewed the Freedom Daily website, generating about $300,000, said Lowery, who tracked the company’s analytics.

Maybe that $50,000 donation came from one of his pseudonyms.

Eventually, Kolfage’s high visibility, record of harassment complaints, and manipulation of the platform got him permanently banned from the site, according to a Facebook spokesperson.

“His pages continue to be able to exist so long as they are administered by someone other than himself,” the spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, adding that several pages promoting the border wall fundraiser were also recently removed because they violated rules regarding misrepresentation.

[...]

According to Lowery and two other former employees, Kolfage allegedly threatened her and her husband after she quit.

[...]

Then one day last July, her husband called in a panic. FBI agents were at the door of their Colorado home responding to an anonymous tip that the mother of two was planning “on going on a killing rampage and talked about killing people,” Lowery said, which she insists never happened.

[...]

A month later, an anonymous tip into her husband’s workplace at Northrop Grumman, a major aerospace and defense contractor, also sparked an investigation. The family had just returned from vacation when her husband, Tyler Lowery, was approached about a report that they had been in contact with “foreign nationals,” he told BuzzFeed News.

“They came to my home and said that there was a report on the open line...about how Lindsay was working for Macedonians,” he said. “I explained the situation with Brian and showed them the same text messages.”

A source familiar with the matter confirmed the account to BuzzFeed News, saying Northrop Grumman “investigated what they understood to be the allegation, and it was not substantiated.”

Now, having extricated themselves from Kolfage’s orbit, the Lowerys hope they’ve seen the last of it.

“I had seen him go after people firsthand, but it was terrifying being on the other end of it,” Lindsay Lowery said. “I am honestly terrified of what he might do to harass or retaliate. He thinks he’s untouchable.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

GoFundMe Update