In the wake of CNN contributer Dana Loesch’s latest conspiracy-mongering about LGF owner Charles Johnson, I thought this would be a good opportunity to review Dana and Chris Loesch’s long history of using movement conservatives for their own personal gain.

Roughly four years ago, Chris and Dana Loesch voted for Mitt Romney in the Missouri Republican primary against several other Republicans including Mike Huckabee and John McCain. Dana Loesch, in a live blog of a Republican debate, called Romney’s individual health insurance mandate “an exercise in conservatism.”

Since the election of Obama, however, the Loeschs have done an impressive job making money and gaining publicity by carefully constructing an image of being “hardcore conservatives.” There are several examples of how the Loeschs have directly profited off of their constructed image.

The Loeschs and John Wayne Tucker

During the 2010 elections, despite a claim of never endorsing in primaries, Dana Loesch supported a former Republican Chief of Staff for the Governor in a congressional primary against an uber conservative challenger. Loesch hosted the former Chief of Staff, Ed Martin, on her show frequently but shut out his opponent John Wayne Tucker (cool name, eh?), before ultimately going on a social media rampage against Tucker.

But what really makes this interesting is that at no point during her attacks on Tucker did Loesch reveal that her husband’s business, Shock City Studios, had actually been paid $5,000 by Ed Martin’s campaign to create a campaign commercial. Loesch was promoting Martin’s candidacy without ever letting on that her husband Chris Loesch was being compensated by the campaign. When my story about this was picked up by the local alt weekly, the Loeschs freaked out and gave an incomprehensible “explanation” for why this was not a clear conflict of interest that should have been announced.

Exploiting the St. Louis Tea Party

Of course, what really made the Loeschs some cash money was Dana Loesch’s rise as a pundit representing “the tea party.” This led to paid speaking gigs and a contract from CNN. In fact, I think it’s pretty obvious that the only reason anyone outside of St. Louis ever heard of her was the publicity she gained by calling herself a “co-founder of the St. Louis Tea Party.”

This fact, however, became awkward when the Loeschs had a bitter breakup with the St. Louis Tea Party (again over electoral politics with the Loeschs supporting the establishment candidate).

Most amazingly about this breakup, however, is the fact that the Loeschs consistently make the absurd claim that Dana Loesch’s rise in fame had absolutely nothing to do with the tea party. In fact, Loesch banned people from her Facebook page for even asking if her fame had something to do with the tea party.

In other words, they had absolutely no gratitude whatsoever to the movement that brought them whatever fame and fortune they have.

The Infamous “Twitter Gulag” Grift

And now we come to the current episode.

Chris Loesch was suspended from Twitter after triggering their spam algorithms by sending multiple unsolicited messages to other users. The Loeschs freaked out and declared that this was a “coordinated attack” on conservatives and riled up the right-wing blogosphere (based first on rampant speculation and later a chopped up email).

For two days, the right-wing bloggers were in a frenzy believing themselves to be fighting for the glory of Free Speech and the 1st Amendment. They declared this was a massive conspiracy orchestrated by Charles Johnson.

And what did they achieve with all of this frenzied activity based on misinformation? Absolutely nothing, except that Chris Loesch increased his twitter followers from a tiny number to 10,000+, thus adding to the “value” ($$$) of his account. He immediately took advantage by linking to a promotion for a music video.

Making conservatives look silly

So once again, the Loeschs were able to make the most out of a situation and further their own personal interest at the expense of wasting the time of conservatives and making them look silly. For myself and fellow liberals, this is actually reason to celebrate, because a “movement” led by people who care only about their own self-interest is destined for failure.