click to enlarge - Dreamstime
- A still-intact Keurig machine
A group of Sean Hannity-loving diehards is taking aim at Vermont-based Keurig Green Mountain.
The Fox News host's fans are upset that the coffee machine-making company has pulled its ads from Hannity's show after he showed support for Roy Moore, the Republican Alabama U.S. Senate candidate accused of
having made sexual advances on teenaged girls as young as 14.
The company's brewing machines became blameless victims in a bizarre saga. Hannity supporters posted videos on social media of themselves bashing their Keurig machines with golf clubs, hammers and even dropping them from second-floor apartments.
The human-on-machine brutality broke out over the weekend. It began when Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters, urged Keurig on Friday to pull its ad from Hannity's show because "he defends child molester Roy Moore and attacks women who speak out against sexual harassment."
On Saturday, the Waterbury-based company tweeted back that it had done so. Several other companies also pulled ads.
Hannity fans weren't pleased. The videos began to circulate and Hannity himself expressed his approval on Twitter, thanking supporters for taking a stand against Keurig's decision. He also vowed to buy 500 coffee makers and give them away to people who post the "best videos."
Keurig did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the
Washington Post on Monday morning
obtained a memo it claims was sent to company employees by Keurig CEO Bob Gamgort. He wrote that the tweet was "done outside of company protocols."
"The decision to publicly communicate our programming decision via our Twitter account was highly unusual,"
Gamgort reportedly wrote. "This gave the appearance of 'taking sides' in an emotionally charged debate that escalated on Twitter and beyond over the weekend, which was not our intent."
Here's a sampling of the machine-smashing videos.