We have heard quite a bit of late about Newt Gingrich’s personal billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, and Santorum’s personal millionaire, Foster Friess, but many may not be aware that Romney hasa a personal billionaire too, and like Romney, his billionaire is also a vulture capitalist.
Frank VanderSloot is an Idaho billionaire and the CEO of Melaleuca, Inc. [Rip-off delinked] , a controversial billion-dollar-a-year company which peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products; back in 2004, Forbes, echoing complaints to government agencies, described the company as “a pyramid selling organization, built along the lines of Herbalife and Amway.” VanderSloot has long used his wealth to advance numerous right-wing political causes. Currently, he is the national finance co-chair of the Mitt Romney presidential campaign, and his company has become one of the largest donors ($1 million) to the ostensibly “independent” pro-Romney SuperPAC, Restore Our Future. Melaleuca’s get-rich pitches have in the past caused Michigan regulators to take action, resulting in the company’s entering into a voluntary agreement to “not engage in the marketing and promotion of an illegal pyramid”‘; it entered into a separate voluntary agreement with the Idaho attorney general’s office, which found that “certain independent marketing executives of Melaleuca” had violated Idaho law; and the Food and Drug Administration previously accused Melaleuca of deceiving consumers about some of its supplements.
But it is VanderSloot’s chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuits against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention. In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has successfully forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices. He has been using this abusive tactic in Idaho for years: suppressing legitimate political speech by threatening or even commencing lawsuits against even the most obscure critics (he has even sued local bloggers for “copyright infringement” after they published a threatening letter sent by his lawyers). This tactic almost always succeeds in silencing its targets, because even journalists and their employers who have done nothing wrong are afraid of the potentially ruinous costs they will incur when sued by a litigious billionaire… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Salon>
For Mitt Romney, this is a perfect match, because both achieved great wealth from crushing other people with lies inspired by greed. VanderSloot defines the kind of person for whom Mitt Romney will exclusively govern if elected. He will NOT represent YOU!
10 Responses to “Romney’s Vulture Capitalist”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Fascinating story in Salon. I was approached a number of years ago to “do the Melaleuca thing” as it were. I didn’t because what I found out then was not to my liking. Looks like I was right in more than one way.
If someone is going to financially back a candidate for office, any candidate but particularly for POTUS, they should expect scrutiny, intense scrutiny, because the scope of their influence is so far reaching to be dangerous.
Rmoney is a chopshopist and that behaviour, business model, attitude is all he knows. That he is associated with VanderSloot says volumes. TC, as usual, you are correct — ” . . . because both achieved great wealth from crushing other people with lies inspired by greed. VanderSloot defines the kind of person for whom Mitt Romney will exclusively govern if elected. He will NOT represent YOU!”
You were indeed fortunate.
Excellent point.
Thank you!
Great -his funding comes from a billionaire and a crook – a twofer!
Wait till you see tomorrow’s Romney creep.
Birds of a feather…
…shit in everybody else’s nest.
Disgusting! And what are the ‘lowly commoner’ suppose to do to combat this overbearing influence?
Welcome Jayne! 🙂
Elect Democrats!
This is a very informative, well written article. I was on another site and when a petition came up, I was sent to your site to read this in full. May I also say that your story in About Me is very inspiring. You may say you have things in your past to be ashamed of, but my personal belief is that each day in our life forms a page in our biography. Everything, good and bad, that happens to us or that we cause to happen to ourselves or others is what makes us who we eventually become. You have nothing to be ashamed about. When I met my husband, I gave him a framed copy of some of the words to Jim Croce’s song. It says, “You and I complete a circle, we’re headed for the stars, after all it’s what we’ve done that makes us what we are.” I was a single mother, 8 years older than my husband to be, and we spent 5 years getting to know, love and understand each other before we finally got married. That was almost 23 years ago, and through the years we have shared our past histories as we became more comfortable in our life together. Life is beautiful, even at its worst. Think what the world would have missed if you had not been born.
Welcome Kanaka! 🙂
Thank you so much for the complement. Thank you even more for your wisdom and kindness.