[Dan from Michigan]

I do think there's a little defensiveness going on here.

I've treasured several organizations over the years. I haven't researched all the laws since I haven't dealt with that recently(I never dealt with feds, only state and county.)

1. FR is a LLC. As far as I know, it's not a 501C organization (non-profit), and it doesn't have tax-exempt status.

2. Being a private org, that means the books are private. Whether that's good business practice or not is open to debate.

3. Outside of the committee I answer to, I don't have to show one of the political accounts I treasure. That said, if a potential donor asks, I show them my records to gain trust. I won't show an adversary that account, since it's none of their business. By adversary, I'm refer to a George Soros type. They won't help me anyway. That's just how I do things.
4. As for FR, I look at it for what it is. It's a website with a lot of visitors and activists. Many of them are extremely generous when it comes to helping others on political projects. Several have helped me before. If there's important news items, I can usually find it here, even when there is a ton of hype on one or two dominant issues. I can find the stories, and some good, and not so good commentary on it.

And I try to avoid the office politics like the plague.

[Miss Behave]

Thanks for all the good info, Dan. Hope all is well with you. I like your last line:

"And I try to avoid the office politics like the plague."

[general_re]

I don't think FR could ever be a 501(c)(3) or (4) - the restrictions on the sorts of political activities that 501's are subject to would pretty much kill it.

Just to reiterate, I never asked for the balance sheets, or detailed expenditures, or anything like that - just a general sense of where that money was going. Anyway, hard to disagree with anything you've said here, Dan. Thanks.