Josh Marshall, who runs the excellent Talking Points Memo, picked up the Rep. Goode/MZM story, linking back here. (Traffic is through the roof. It’s kind of like being Wonketted, and not nearly as bad as the few times I’ve been Slashdotted, but I like to think of it as a higher class of readers. ;)
Talking Points Memo has dug deeper than I, discovering that every penny of the donations of MZM’s employees and their spouses have gone to Rep. Goode, totaling a whopping $52,625. That brings MZM’s total generosity to Rep. Goode to $101,176.
TPM is, of course, the blog that launched the story about the MZM scandal, or at least made it interesting. Did Virgil Goode do anything wrong? We don’t know, and that’s where some research is needed. Here’s hoping that the area media pick this up and do what they do best: I’m looking at you, Richmond Times-Dispatch; and you Danville Register-Bee; and particularly you, Roanoke Times.
Look for the foundation listed on their wessite for more names involved. It seems this company likes to provide near-merc service, and then supports a foundation to go and turn people to God or whatever. To support their savaging treatment and in some cases provide it, yet than accept donations so they can go and ‘educate’ our neighbors in other, less fortunate countries.
I sent the link to your post to TPM; hope the bandwidth isn’t too much of a problem. :-) (Others may have sent it as well, since they didn’t credit me specifically.) Great work!
I sent the link, too, shameless self-promoter that I am. :) No doubt multiple submissions helped get it noticed by Josh. Thanks for your help!