Does anybody know how much it costs to start a videoblog? Because I keep pondering that Valleywag story about Rielle Hunter’s best friend Fred Baron loaning his son Andrew $800,000 to start Rocketboom (and then suing to get it back). Where did all that money go? Let’s tally up Rocketboom’s expenses:
- 1 pretty girl (preferably with large talents)
- 1 video camera
- 1 microphone
- 1 small set (consisting of 1 desk, 1 chair, 1 world map, and 1 laptop)
- 1 piece of paper for the girl to hold in front of her like a real live newscaster
- 1 web server
What else? I guess they have to pay for the graphics and that type of stuff, and travel expenses for field pieces. According to Andrew, they have one writer, and according to Wikipedia, the entire staff consists of six people. Even Andrew himself has said: “The beauty of this all of course is that it can be done for so cheap.” And when you watch their videos, sorry, but they do not look like four-fifths of a million bucks.
So… where did all that money go?
Update: “What about bandwidth?” Andrew again:
“Aside from the minimal consumer equipment (laptop and camera) the only substantial cost besides salary (or lack thereof) is bandwidth. Yet bandwidth is so cheap and getting cheaper.”
And that was in 2005.
Coincidentally enough, Andrew filmed this 12/27/06 video for the John Edwards campaign, according to NewTeeVee:
Also via NewTeeVee, here’s Andrew’s description of that video (in a post that’s now missing from his Dembot blog):
Today Joanne, Chuck and I are out in New Orleans for a Rocketboom exclusive. We just filmed John Edwards’ first announcement that he is running for president. It’s actually an announcement of an announcement, so to speak. I then uploaded the video to YouTube and there ya have it folks, the rest is history.
It certainly is. And when it comes to this story, history has a tendency to disappear from the Web. Will this video be next?
Getting back to Andrew’s dad Fred, ABC News is getting all up in his face at the DNC. (Unfortunately I can’t link to ABC because they’re a bunch of lowdown research-rustlers, but do a Google News search if you’re so inclined.) They spotted him at “a private luncheon for top party donors and key senators,” and here’s the nut graf:
Baron, a longtime major contributor to Democratic candidates, would not answer questions from ABC News and walked away when he saw cameras.
Why would you go the DNC, which has the highest concentration of reporters per square inch in America this week, and then dodge those reporters? (The Dallas Morning News has more on this selfless humanitarian.)
In other J&R news:
- Some Democrats are blaming Elizabeth Edwards for standing by her man:
“I think she’s complicit,” said Brad Crone, a Raleigh-based Democratic consultant. “Obviously, she knew. While she’s the victim, she clearly didn’t stand in the way of the cover-up.”
And over at the Daily Kos, they’re even less polite. (Imagine that.) It may be cruel, considering Elizabeth is dying of cancer, but they have a point. Her public confirmation of John’s timeline — in which he told her about the affair in 2006 and the whole thing ended there — doesn’t square up with that picture of Rielle and Elizabeth working the same Edwards campaign event just before New Year’s Eve ‘06. And Rielle was quoted about her campaign videos in the Dec. 25, 2006 edition of Newsweek. If Elizabeth knew about the affair in 2006, why did she let Rielle keep hanging around?
- According to the Santa Barbara News-Press, an internal memo at Cottage Hospital, where Frances Quinn Hunter was born on Feb. 27, instructed employees not to speak to the media about “John Edwards’ child.” Whoops!
- A bit of mordant wit from Extra, of all places: When it comes to John Edwards, DNC stands for “Do Not Call.”
- The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gauges the chances of an Edwards comeback someday, and does not find it likely. Then again, Bill Clinton is speaking at the DNC tonight. You never know.
- Biden’s new press guy used to be Edwards’ press guy. Weird, huh? Well, he probably knows even less about this whole thing than Fred Baron.
- The John & Rielle story is helping out the National Enquirer’s bottom line, and even if it wasn’t, they don’t plan to let up on it. Holla!
- According to the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, Rielle’s horse-killing dad was an even bigger rascal than we knew:
James Druck was himself no stranger to controversy. He was, after all, literally run out of town [Ft. Lauderdale] in the late 1970s by his law partners, including heavyweight attorney William Scherer, after they discovered he’d cheated a wealthy client out of a substantial sum of money.
“We discovered he’d done something improper with a client and a client’s money, and we asked him to leave,” Scherer recalled last week. “He never admitted he did anything wrong, but he left town for Ocala.”
The incident, a secret in the legal community until now, seems to have helped set the stage for his daughter’s rootlessness.
- According to Hot Air, an ABC News producer was arrested today outside a downtown Denver hotel where top donors were meeting with Democratic senators. The producer was trying to interview people leaving the hotel and got treated a bit roughly by the cops. Hot Air has the same question I have: Was this the same meeting Fred Baron fled?
- Come to think of it, if he keeps running away from reporters like that, should we start calling him Fled Baron?
Hey, I was born at Cottage Hospital! I was a Santa Barbara kid before Santa Barbara was cool.
Santa Barbara is cool?
Sounds like to me that he is suing for the $800,000 knowing it won’t be returned and then he can claim a larger loss on the original ‘Loan’
I could easily piss away $800,000 starting something like Rocketboom
http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/08/where-is-john-edwards.php#more
Elizabeth kicked John out? Whoa!
You do realize there’s no actual rocket involved, right?
Dudes, your article shoots itself in the foot for want of common sense. Sure, all the things you mention can be done on the cheap, but when you get zillions of people watching, bandwidth becomes the expensive part.
That being said, $800,000 is a heck of a lot of bandwidth, so I am sure your snarkiness is fundamentally justified.
Common sense indeed…
Where did the money go? My guess is wardrobe, snacks and caffeine. Wait, that’s my old budget. What’s the budget for Deceiver?
If EE finally kicked him out I doubt seriously that he is alone at his “retreat.”
I hope she can begin to heal and find some peace. I figured that mansion was big enough that she could banish him to a few rooms on the other side and never have to see him.
Does the NE still have a bombshell left? With the DNC, the RNC and a hurricane brewing in the Gulf it may not get too much attention.
“I could easily piss away $800,000 starting something like Rocketboom.”
I’ve started businesses with less than 2.5% of that. I can’t imagine what I’d do with $800,000.
Slow horses, and fast women I guess. Yeah that sounds good.
I’m disappointed with the Enquirer. I thought for sure they had a bombshell this week while the convention was on. Now they say they won’t have anything more until Sept. 8? Phooey!!!
Five MUST READ Links for Media Players Researching Fred Baron
1.
Robber Baron? John Edwards’s sleazy friend. By Ramesh Ponnuru, July 15, 2004
http://www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru200407150806.asp
2.
John Edwards, a working man’s nightmare. By Lowell Ponte, July 28,2004
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=CA139F71-486A-493D-8769-898D1CFE79A1
3.
“Fund-Raiser May Be Achilles’ Heel for Gore” by Barry J Meier, June 4, 2000
http://www.opinionjournal.com/politicaldiary/?id=110004203
4.
The Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act of 2003,
Read pages 109-131, Fred Baron’s preparatory document for asbestos witnesses
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_reports&docid=f:sr118.108.pdf
5.
John Edwards Profile
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=631
Non Login Substitute link for 3. above:
3.
“Fund-Raiser May Be Achilles’ Heel for Gore” by Barry J Meier, June 4, 2000
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E1D61E3CF937A35755C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=4
One more time.
Non Login Substitute link for 3. above:
3.
“Fund-Raiser May Be Achilles’ Heel for Gore” by Barry J Meier, June 4, 2000
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E1D61E3CF937A35755C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
EE kicked him out? What the hell for? If she wanted to get rid of him, she should have just asked him to begin his run for prez in 2012.
“As luck would have it, John and Elizabeth are scheduled to make a joint appearance at Hofstra University on Long Island on September 8 as part of the lead-up to the campus’ October 15 presidential debate.”
Damn! I gotta wait 277 hours for this?
Pastafarian - Well you probably had a real budget and used your money.
If you bought your own grid server setup using VMWare, the technical expertise requireed to set it up and hosting services at a ATT datacenter would cost $200,000 in the first year.
Could you do it cheaper? Hell yeah but it ain’t his money…..
FortunateSon:
Thanks for the links. I’ll look forward to reading them.
You really think they’re going to show up at Hofstra? I don’t.
I just read the Dallas article. My God, the hubris and arrogance of Fred Baron is amazing. He wasn’t paying Hunter and Young off to keep quiet, oh no, he was just helping them along to a million dollar manse. And he did nothing illegal or unethical. If he reported all these gifts to the IRS, and they did too, I suppose not. And I guess there’s nothing unethical about giving money to the woman who had an affair with the guy you are supporting for President–and not telling him about. You wouldn’t talk about it, no? And since he says he didn’t believe the stories, I guess Baron had all this money laying around to give to the woman who, you know, didn’t have an affair with the guy you’re supporting for President, just, yeah, like he told Stranahan, out of the “goodness of his heart.” And he gave money to Young cos he felt bad, this young guy with a wife and three little ones who was being hounded, just hounded, by ONE LONE REPORTER.
And Baron is still giving money to Texas Democrats to this day. He was at the convention. Are we the only ones on Earth who sees this sham for what it is?
I think it might be longer than that…
A $2M investment “that highlighted the close ties between the Biden family and SimmonsCooper, an Illinois law firm that specializes in representing asbestos victims — a multimillion-dollar line of business that was under threat in Congress.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-biden28-2008aug28,0,5223324.story
That same law firm ranks number six on Edwards 2004 contributors.
Goldman Sachs
Baron & Budd
Beasley, Allen et al
Girardi & Keese
Weitz & Luxenberg
Simmons Cooper LLC
Robinson & Cole
Wilkes & McHugh
Kline & Specter
Robinson, Calcagnie & Robinson
Ness, Motley et al
Morris Haynes, & Hornsby
Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder
Cochett, Pitre et al
Milberg, Weiss et al
Corboy & Demetrio
Lieff, Cabraser et al
Morgan Stanley
Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2004&cid=N00002283
A month after Edwards reimbursed his attorney donors, Obama had received $1M from former Edwards donors.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/04/edwards-donors-get-behind-obam.html
Thanks FS. If nothing else I am getting an education on researching political candidates and their backers. Interesting stuff. The “Almost” referring to trial lawyers control of the Senate is particularly disturbing. No wonder he was so gung-ho about Edwards.
Hi,
I was an Edwards supporter and still feel his policies were the best offered by the three candidates. But US can’t separate the man from the policies, so it would have been horrific if he had won the nomination and this came out, as was sure to happen. He is stupid beyond belief to fall for this grifter.
It looks as though he needs money:
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/politicians/edwards/story/1198696.html
He sold his Washington home in January 2007:
http://www.slate.com/id/2156885/entry/0/
He also sold another home that he and Elizabeth had lived in most of their adult life. I’m looking for the link to see when that happened. Finally found it - note information in box regarding sale of his homes. This all seems to have taken place in 2007:
http://www.newsobserver.com/643/story/537175.html
$65,000 for a speech. That’s enough for one private-jet flight to St. Croix for Rielle and the baby, with enough left over for 37 haircuts!
Hi Simon,
In the link it said his fee would be increased. I think this fee was agreed pre-Rielle. Maybe he is a bigger grifter than Rielle.
With regard to selling homes - could this be Elizabeth forcing the liquidation of assets and taking her share. She would have known about Rielle by 2007?
Hi Simon,
I think a post I made got lost. In the article it stated his speaking fee would be increased! I think this fee was negotiated pre-Rielle explosion. Maybe he is a bigger grifter than she is.
Re the sale of homes: could Elizabeth be forcing the liquidation of assets to get her share and protect the three children she has?
If the post was not lost, then this becomes a duplicate and should be deleted.
I appreciate that we live in a world with checks and balances but it seems like the author of this blog is either on crack or working for Republican extremists.
It can’t be both,
AnonymousAndrew?I was right, the fee had been negotiated pre-Rielle, and would have to be paid to him whether he came or not:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-uofi-edwards_29aug29,0,2414846.story
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/1134374,CST-NWS-edwards29.article
http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2008/08/28/News/Updated.John.Edwards.To.Speak.At.Foellinger-3406842.shtml
Rielle is a high-maintenance grifter!
Your comment system may be messed up too as that was my comment above, but yea, I was going to say, the author of this blog could be both on crack AND working for republican extremists.
Checks and balances are the whole point here Anonymous.
One of the biggest checks in the entire US governmental process is the US Media and John Edwards skillfully negated it by lying, telling legal half-truths, and casting his accusers as having unclean hands.
The biggest balances in the entire US Democracy are our two opposing political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, the latter which has fallen under strong influence of a group of single minded billionaire asbestos lawyers bent on opposing tort reform.
Ever wonder why you pay so much for car insurance? Its because every driver is playing possum and filing spurious lawsuits.
Ever wonder why healthcare in every other country on earth is a fraction of the cost it is here?
Its not because physicians are making $200,000 and nurses are making $100,000, its because lawyers are making $20M a year.
Sure Republicans are mad, but most Democrats will be outraged when they find out what’s been built on their backs.
Yea, verily! Well, thanks for the substantive rebuttal to my informed questions, Andrew.
Here is more on the “affair boosting demand for Edwards as speaker”…..
http://www.wbbm780.com/Affair-Boosts-Edwards–Demand-As-Speaker/2875490
Hey Andrew, time to fit you & papa for the orange jumpsuit!
You’re gonna do time, my man. You’re busted! You & daddy & John Edwards can share the same cell and tell stories about how you ran the DNC while you slurp grade-A gruel.
Mr. Baron… I’d hoped you could have offered something a bit more substantial than a near-paranoid sounding ad hominem for your rebuttal. I’m disappointed.
You should’ve stayed anonymous. It might have made some of us retain the inkling of respect you’d built up through your other, more noteworthy contributions to the internet.