The Daily Caller sent a “special message” to its email list from sponsor Stansberry Research, a disgraced financial firm that was fined $1.5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for engaging in “deliberate fraud” and profiting from “false statements.” The Caller's paid promotion comes three years after the conservative website reported that Stansberry is led by a “fraudster” and engages in “questionable marketing tactics.”
Media Matters and others have documented how the conservative movement is infected with scams and many conservative media outlets are happy to dupe their followers for profit.
The Daily Caller, which is led by editor-in-chief Tucker Carlson, sent a February 12 email featuring Stansberry Research with the headline, “DIY: Shield yourself from Market Crash.” The email warns that people must take “precautions against a serious market crash and financial crisis” and can do so by purchasing founder Porter Stansberry's “Personal Blueprint For Surviving the Coming Currency Collapse.” The email marketing is a way to get people to sign up for a “full 1-year Stansberry's Investment Advisory subscription. We'll bill your same credit card just $99.”
The email contained the note: “Please read this special message from our sponsor, Stansberry Research. Note that the following message reflects the opinions and representations of our sponsor alone, and not necessarily the editorial positions of The Daily Caller.”
The Daily Caller published a November 8, 2011, piece headlined, “Meet Porter Stansberry, the fraudster behind ominous 'NewAmerica3′ ads.” The Caller reported that television viewers are seeing “strange, disjointed ads promoting” Stansberry's website and what “most viewers don't know is that the man behind the ad has been found liable in the past for defrauding investors.” The Caller added that the firm engages in “questionable marketing tactics” and produces videos “ominously warning of an apocalyptic future.”
Image credit: Fox News screenshot / YouTube
Stansberry's tactics haven't improved since the Caller's 2011 report. The firm has sent emails touting a “misleading” scheme to obtain purportedly “free” silver from American banks; its emails have also claimed Obama is plotting for a third term and warned that the American economy and government will collapse, and martial law will be imposed, in each case urging potential customers to purchase their products in response. Stansberry also fashions himself as a social commentator, and said last year it's “fucking bullshit” that people get upset at him for using slurs like “nigger” and “fag” when he's “not the least bit bigoted.”
The Daily Caller isn't alone in its hypocrisy in promoting Stansberry. CNN analyst Newt Gingrich has sent numerous emails from him. The emails continued years after Gingrich's team previously attempted to distance him from Stansberry after questions surfaced about the sponsored email suggesting Obama would win a third term. ABC News reported in November 2012 that “according to Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, Stansberry & Associates should have been on the blacklist. 'We do not rent to the entity in question,' Hammond said, speaking by phone Thursday. 'In fact, we go to lengths to vet where we rent.'”
Conservatives such as WND, Michael Savage, Erick Erickon's RedState.com, Newsmax, and Human Events have sent sponsored emails promoting Stansberry this year.
The Daily Caller's Stansberry email:
