Posted on 01/27/2006 9:56:49 AM PST by Sam Hill
Dear Friends,
We have some bad news to relay about the Cuba trip. We knew that this trip was a challenge to the Bush administration’s restrictions on travel to the island.
However, we had anticipated that, as in the past, the government would either let us come and go without incident, or would send us a letter after we returned. Instead, we—CODEPINK, Global Exchange, and some of the participants—have already received ominous letters from the Treasury Department, calling on us to “cease and desist” our plans for the trip, demanding the names of all the people who had signed up, and threatening us with a million dollar fine and ten years in jail.
When some individual participants received these letters, they canceled their plans—leaving us without the “safety in numbers.” And while our organizations are willing to fight the government on this (Global Exchange has been fighting the travel restrictions for 15 years!), we feel that right we are too overloaded with other efforts, such as stopping the war in Iraq, to take on a prolonged legal battle right now.
Nevertheless, it is still against the IRS guidelines to even plan such illegal activities.
BTTT
LMAO!
Additionally 501c3s can no more legally urge voting for/against a candidate/party or piece of pending legislation than a preacher can in a church.
AND that includes violations like party literature and voting guides (checklist of the "correct" candidates) inside Pacifica Radio offices.
And...this hasn't been getting much play today but I think it is BIG....notice the Iraqis involved in 1992...:
Colombia: Fake Passport Ring With Terror Ties Busted ~ links to al-Qaida and Hamas militants,..
See Post #2 for the Iraqi note.....
I know you're right. Cindy has even bragged about campaigning against Bush and lobbying congress.
I believe that 501c3s are allowed to do a little lobbying, if they report it and it is a small fraction of what they are about. But clearly they don't and it's yet another regulation they violate.
But that's almost forgiveable compared to actually breaking the law and getting tax breaks to do so.
I see it in News/Activism.
Quit complaining.
I was only moved after I complained.
But thanks for your insightful post.
I = it
I'm going from personal experience on this. I don't have any written sources I can site. Contacting National Right to Life or Operation Rescue might lead you to some documentation.
Thanks. I certainly never doubted what you said is true. It would just be nice to see it in print somewhere.
You're probably right that those groups might have something.
I hope they put a travel embargo on Venezuela soon.
This is what FR has become.
I believe that you are partially correct.
When the IRS removes the charitable/non profit status of 501c3 charities, the result can be fines and possible seizure of assets of the 501c3.
As of now the assets of the people involved are protected. So they just walk away from the wreckage, get more startup funding from George $oreA$$ and start a new 501c3.
A conservative lawyer in the DC area said the only way to stop this was to make the officers and board members of the 501c3 responsible for criminal acts. Over 6 years ago, he was for asset seizure of the execs and board members when they involved the 501c3's in illegal activities. Living in the DC area, he said that liberal criminals (his words) created 501c3's for illegal political activities on a regular basis. As soon as the need was over, they would end the 501c3 or change its name and mission. He felt that these 501c3's enabled the liberals to laundry money and create boiler rooms to defeat republican candidates. With what happened in 2004 and up to now, his warnings came true.
Code Pink members have certainly broken laws. Are they 501(c)3?
The following complicated transactions should draw scrutiny in legal and political circles. No question, these scams are duplicated nationwide.
(A) Candidates deliberately raise more corporate money from publicly-held corporations than they need, then divert some of the excess in a series of generous donations to 501c3 non-profit groups that, on the surface, benefited their mutual causes.
(B) The candidates' donations to non-profits are then illegally converted, then funneled back to candidates‘ campaign coffers through donations by the N/P officers and their co-conspirators, or subsets of them.
(C) Setting up foundations is the newest candidate financial instruments to commit fraud.
Candidates may use non-profit, ethnic, hyphenated, or faith-based groups as middlemen for campaign transactions by a pattern of candidates funneling money from family-run foundations---- to these different groups, that is laundered, then lands in candidates’ campaign accounts, in order to obscure, if not cover-up, the original source of donations to campaign coffers.
Candidates, their family, or henchmen might also direct that N/P donations be made in the names of others without their knowledge or consent.
When the financial merry-go-round stops, non-profit, ethnic, and faith-based individuals---the hyphenated groups candidates need to endorse their election efforts---end up with a lot of money, some of which was laundered, illegally converted, then funneled back into candidates’ campaign coffers.
Millions of dollars in donations to candidates might never have been disclosed to campaign regulators, because the type of groups candidates used aren’t governed by federal law.
The public-spirited N/P donors might not always have known where their tax-deductible money was headed, and don't control funds once they're donated. Money gets transferred all the time and remains disclosed only to the extent required to be disclosed by applicable state and federal law---obviously this gets complicated.
With regard to (A), as a collateral effect, state laws and campaign finance laws are violated in schemes that appear to launder corporate donations to a candidate, and should raise questions regarding whether shareholders in publicly-funded corporations were deceived, and whether the true destination of corporate money was concealed (SEC is interested in this).
Nice work. If this doesn't qualify as "activism" it's difficult to imagine what does...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.