Tea Party Founder Announces: "A Huffington Post Of Our Own"

Eric Odom, founder of American Liberty Alliance (ALA), the group that launched and organized the tea party movement across the country, announced Friday what he calls a movement-minded news portal and his answer to the the Huffington Post. While the domain and branding are secret for now, Odom has given his news portal a temporary name, Project 73.

Odom aims to create an online news portal that he hopes will become the "gathering spot for all the news" for their "side" -- a "movement minded news portal."

"I mean, I despise a lot of what is written at Huffington Post. But the reality is... they're good at it. They cover very wide ranges of topics and they cover them well. On our side you need to visit a good ten sites in the morning to get the full web digest. On their side you just go to Huffington Post and you know about everything that's happening."

At the bottom of the Project 73 announcement, Odom says, "Not a single person involved with our organization, or any tea party movement related organization for that matter, is profiting off of the movement." However, it looks like Odom's site will be a for-profit model.

Most political organizing outfits are registered as a 501(c)(4), meaning they are not a profit-making enterprise but contributions are not tax deductible (only contributions to charitable organizations are tax deductible). However, according to ALA's website, the organization is registered as a for-profit enterprise.

The American Liberty Alliance is not a 501c3, 501c4 or a PAC. We are not registered as a non-profit and we do not raise funds as such. Our primary focus is on content. We publish information and sell advertising on our network of sites. We also occasionally seek contributions from our readers. These contributions are seen as 'gifts' to our network and are not tax deductible.

A few lines above ALA's not-a-single-person-makes-money statement, they lay out their plans for a revenue-sharing model for bloggers who participate in Project 73,

All bloggers/writers are required to submit two posts per week (minimum). There is a revenue sharing system in place that will help you earn revenue on the posts you get published.

Unlike the Huffington Post, where bloggers and writers are given almost complete freedom over their own content (the HuffPost editorial team ensures accuracy but does not dictate point of view), Odom is setting up a "news" site that he admits will tell only his "side" of the issues. And bloggers get paid only if the editorial team approves their posts. In other words, bloggers will get paid only when their articles are in agreement with the site's founder.

Eric Odom and Ken Marerro, the founders of the tea bagger movement and heads of ALA, have made their living by creating and managing professional, well-funded websites that appear at first glance to be grassroots. The first third of the Project 73 announcement lays out Odom's professional credentials developing and managing websites, and the post ends with, "His profession is web strategy and online community development."

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Comments

[PresidentRobertBooth]

They aren't real conservatives.

I am though.

I want to conserve logic, rationality and reason.

[mofmars333]

We need a new bill identifying free speech from hate & racist activity.

Individuals who help incite with lies should have to back them & when they can't they should be jailed & fined.

Many misinformed people following the extremists are innocent & not of ill or racist motive but ignorance (of the law) is no excuse (for breaking it) & there should be one against what could be nothing less then domestic terrorism, if allowed to go on.

Desperate times do call for desperate action!

The good news is most people will recognize truth when they hear it so many will be waking.

Whether they protest against their own interests due to ignorance of fact or they be the leaders such as many at Fox who shill for the greedy rich behind all this deception, they must all be held accountable.

Encourage friends, family, President Obama & elected officials to take action. Start grassroots campaigns! Make fliers! Use your imagination, just do something!

Thank goodness for the likes of Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, etc.

They're the Beales of our day & will be who saves "US" from this dangerous "Resistance Party" working against "US" & the change, we the majority, voted in;

Howard Beale & "Mad As Hell"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08

[1bigcat]

oooohhhh! COMPETITION FOR FOX NEWS! This might drive Beck over the edge!

[TwoSpirits]

Competition? Nah, its where Beck will be getting his talking points for his show...LOL

[PresidentRobertBooth]

Project 73?


I thought that was a top secret government black ops plan to develop anti-gravity technology reverse engineered from a UFO.

[proudloudlib]

Oh, and I just can't wait to be a tro// over on their site!!! Any bets on how long I will last? No way they will be as tolerant of us as we/HP are of them

[freethinkergirl]

You'll just confuse them with FACTS :-O

[proudloudlib]

Wow, they really just don't get it, do they?

[SueInCA]

Ok, think about all of this with your lo/gical thin/king cap on, and yes righ/ties that includes you, how do you have a news site when only articles and news output that agrees with your own viewpoint is accepted?

Sounds to me like a pure pro/pag/ga/nda site which tr0lls will use for additional ta/lking points. On the other hand, maybe they will all go there and leave this site to the grownups

[SueInCA]

Ok, think about all of this with your logical thinking cap on, and yes righties that includes you, but how do you have a news site when only articles and news output that agrees with your own viewpoint is accepted?

Sounds to me like a pure propag/ga/nda site which tr0lls will use for additional talking points. On the other hand, maybe they will all go there and leave this site to the grownups

[ThirdSection]

They'll still come over here because their leaders will continue to tell them to.

[freethinkergirl]

And pay them for doing so.

[LaurenMarie984]

Wow, what a novel plan. "Project 73" and clusterFox will be the truth tellers.

....and let me tell you how ominous "project 73" sound....ominous and douch3y

[ThirdSection]

I'd like to know what happened to projects 1-72.

[NewsCorpse]

"...a movement-minded news portal and his answer to the the Huffington Post."

What does he think the Fox Nation is? Fox News Senior VP Bill Shine even said this in the press release:
- www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=1232

"We're calling it a mix between the Huffington Post and Drudge."

Fox Nation is the most brazenly biased web site from a so-called "news" enterprise ever conceived. I'm not sure what these tea partiers think it lacks. What, it isn't racist enough? It isn't rightist enough? It doesn't do enough fear mongering? What more could they want?

[SueInCA]

look at their web name, news/co/rpse? How appropriate where news goes to d i e

[RileyMendez]

I went to Fox Nation once, I was curious. Scared the hell out of me, in about 3 minutes. How dare they call themselves Fair and Balanced?

[weatherwaxx]

Fun. Let the tighty-righties get into fistfights with each other over the fine points of hate-itude.

[bogues]

It is nice to see them give kudos to Huffington Post. I doubt they will ever be able to create anything that will come close to this site but I am hopeful that those who are so vicious in their views will simply go to their site and stay there. It is always good to get differing views and have constructive critisizm but the tea bag group is completely uninterested in having that kind of dialoge. They want to shout and scream and listen to the sound of their own voices and block out the voices of anyone who has a view that differs from their own..

[chaya]

That would be really nice, because it would attract all the haters and the brain-dead and maybe keep them off the Huffington Post. I don't even know why they post here. Do they think their "blazing intellects" (translation: brutish sarcasm, insults, and religious cult ravings) are going to persuade anyone here? Really, their only function is to clutter up the blogspace so I have to page through more comments to find an intelligent one. Oh yes please give them somewhere else to go.

[LaurenMarie984]

Sadly, there are Rethug PR consultants who offer spamming as part of their services. Most of the time, trolls (plural) are really one dude getting paid to post the same crap on every "liber@l" site. You can tell when the posts get repetitive and the users are new (registered to post that day)

[SueInCA]

they also fan each other to show how po pular they are lol

[ChiefDog]

That's easy to say and a lot of the comments here are very high minde about who "we" are vs. who "they" are, but if you look at the commentary about "them" along side the features that regularly rise to "most popular" status on the HuffPost, to me it seems that "we" are closer to "them" than "we" are generally comfortable admitting to "us".

[ninthraphael]

Inane?

[Rollingballafire]

hmmm? All the news from their side? But, once again, doesn't that just make it opinion, and not news. hmmm?
I am so grateful I will never understand these people. I'm not going anywhere near their site.
Their brand of logic, mixed with their mean spirited rantings, hurts my brain and rattles my soul.
I've had enough.