Glenn Beck

Are the two nonprofits founded by radical activist and convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin entitled to tax-exempt status? It’s a question worth examining.

Kimberlin is a paid employee of one of the nonprofits, Justice Through Music Project, a 501c3 “educational” nonprofit. JTMP paid Kimberlin $19,500 in 2010 for his services as a director, according to the group’s most recent publicly available tax return. Both JTMP and the other group, Velvet Revolution US, a 501c4 “action” nonprofit, are headquartered in Kimberlin’s Bethesda, Maryland, residence. (JTMP expressly acknowledges in the tax return that the address given is Kimberlin’s.)

Kimberlin spends much of his time attempting to silence conservative bloggers through frivolous and vexatious litigation and by employing other nasty, unorthodox tactics. Incredibly, Kimberlin got blogger Aaron Walker (nom de blog: Aaron Worthing) jailed for daring to  write (factually accurate) articles about him. Kimberlin doesn’t like it when anyone points out his criminal history.

Despite the free speech protections of the U.S. Constitution, a Maryland judge’s so-called peace order forbidding Walker to write about Kimberlin remains in effect – for now. UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and other notable legal practitioners have volunteered to assist Walker in his defense in a case in which, according to Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the judge clearly ignored legal precedents.

The Kimberlin case has drawn attention to the cases of bloggers who have been “SWATted.” SWATting, undoubtedly a criminal act, consists of tricking 9-1-1 operators into dispatching emergency response teams to a targeted person’s home. Typically the caller masks his identity using technology and makes it appear that the call is originating from the victim’s home. The caller claims he has killed someone or that shots were fired. This precipitates a massive show of force from police. It’s a brutal prank that could easily get a victim killed.

Last year, both Mike Stack – who was involved in exposing the Anthony Weiner sex scandal – and conservative blogger Patrick “Patterico” Frey were targeted for SWATtings. More recently, Red State editor and CNN commentator Erick Erickson says he was SWATted after he wrote about the Kimberlin case.

The apparently politically motivated SWATtings have received some publicity, garnering coverage from Fox News, CNN, and ABC News. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and close to 100 congressmen are now demanding the Obama administration do something about SWATting.

Kimberlin denies having anything to do with the SWATtings. Indeed he even claims to have been the victim of a SWATting himself. No evidence of Kimberlin’s allegation has surfaced and local authorities say it didn’t happen.

Velvet Revolution raises money by routinely making farfetched, unverifiable allegations against conservatives and Republicans, demonizing them and accusing them of criminal activity. The group demanded the arrest of Karl Rove, the late Andrew Breitbart, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Thomas J. Donohue. It promotes wild-eyed conspiracy theories about stolen elections which Kimberlin business partner Brad Friedman (The Brad Blog) promotes on his website and when he guest-hosts the Mike Malloy Radio Show. Incidentally, Malloy, Friedman, and Kimberlin are a perfect fit. Malloy is the left-wing ranter who prayed for Glenn Beck to commit suicide and without any credible evidence called Rush Limbaugh a “child molester of the highest order.”

Robert Stacy McCain, a reporter and blogger who had to leave his home after Kimberlin contacted his wife’s employer, reports that a known Kimberlin associate reached out last year to the criminal computer hacking ring known as Anonymous. The same individual is also reportedly linked to the violent Occupy Wall Street movement.

In America no activist group or nonprofit corporation has the right not to pay taxes. But if the group agrees to abide by certain rules laid down by Congress the IRS may grant the organization a tax exemption. This privilege (that may be revoked for cause) allows the entity to avoid paying the various taxes that corporations normally pay.

When a tax-exempt nonprofit organization runs afoul of federal law by doing things it shouldn’t, the IRS may revoke its tax exemption (after which it publishes the group’s name on a running list).

In an article nonprofit attorney Stephen Fishman writes IRS “audits of public charities are meant to accomplish the following objectives.”

-Ensure that nonprofits are truly operated for public (not private) interests.

-Determine whether nonprofits are engaged in any substantial nonexempt (that is, taxable) activity, such as running unrelated businesses.

-Ensure that nonprofits protect and preserve their assets exclusively for tax-exempt purposes.

-Evaluate procedures for accounting for money paid to individuals or noncharitable organizations.

-Determine whether nonprofits pay any excessive compensation, fees, or benefits.

-Determine whether nonprofits engage in lobbying or participate in political campaigns.

-Determine whether nonprofits should be classified as public charities or foundations.

On IRS Form 13909, the Tax-Exempt Organization Complaint (Referral) Form, the tax collection agency lists grounds for yanking a group’s tax-exempt status.  One of those grounds is if:

Income/assets are being used to support illegal or terrorist activities [emphasis added]

Have Kimberlin’s nonprofits forfeited their tax-exempt status by engaging in prohibited activities?

Perhaps it’s time for some lawyers to ponder whether the Justice Through Music Project and Velvet Revolution US deserve to retain their tax-exempt status.

Note: This post was edited for clarity after initial posting. -MV

Capital Research Center author Trevor Loudon was interviewed this week by Glenn Beck about Loudon’s new book, Barack Obama and the Enemies Within.

(Loudon profiled the Tides Foundation in the October 2010 edition of Foundation Watch.)

Here is a video of the interview:

It never stops.

Marxist Frances Fox Piven can’t stop whining bitterly about being held to account by Glenn Beck and people like me.

Here’s an NPR story, Target Of Glenn Beck’s Ire Recounts Threats, in which Piven paints herself as a victim.

Tiresome stuff.

And so the misleadingly named Center for Constitutional Rights, friend of America’s terrorist enemies, shows its true colors. (See my previous profile of the group.)

The communist-founded, communist-dominated, anti-American public interest law firm is demanding Glenn Beck be shut up because he is enlightening the American public about the pro-violence activist Frances Fox Piven. From CCR’s press release:

Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued a written appeal to Fox News president Roger Ailes to help put a stop to the increasing threats against progressive Professor Frances Fox Piven, largely incited by Fox News host Glenn Beck.  In the letter, co-written by Legal Director Bill Quigley and Executive Director Vince Warren the CCR asks that Ailes distinguish between First Amendment rights, of which they are “vigorous defenders” and an “intentional repetition of provocative, incendiary, emotional misinformation and falsehoods [that place that person] in actual physical danger of a violent response.” 

Beginning in September of 2010, Glenn Beck started branding Piven, a distinguished professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as an “enemy of the Constitution.”  Piven, well known for advocating for the organizational rights of the poor and encouraging voter registration, has since received threatening phone calls and letters, and has become the subject of many death threats left open to the public on Glenn Beck’s website, The Blaze.”

This insincere plea comes from the totalitarian left. CCR president Michael Ratner wrote a book praising mass murderer Che Guevara. CCR defends convicted terrorist Lynne Stewart who openly advocates the use of force to overthrow the U.S. government.

In their eyes, Frances Fox Piven must be defended because she is one of them: a small-c communist. Piven and her late husband Richard Cloward developed the Cloward-Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis. They were all in favor of using violence to achieve revolutionary change.

Although Glenn Beck frequently uses inflammatory language, he does not incite violence. His commentary on the Cloward-Piven Strategy is purely educational. He provides a great public service.

Next up for CCR: A defense of Jared Loughner?

So says Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator.

Or so says David Swindle at the NewsReal blog.

Poor Media Matters for America. They’re so vewy vewy angwy that their ally in the progressive movement, ACORN, is taking such a pounding in the press.

George Soros and his friends will do anything to save ACORN. Below is a press release Media Matters sent out that reeks of desperation.

(I profiled Media Matters in Townhall magazine, and Rondi Adamson profiled Media Matters in the July 2007 Foundation Watch.)

REPORT: ACORN Obsession

Beck, Hannity devote disproportionate attention to ACORN while virtually ignoring blockbuster scandals involving Abramoff and military contractors

Washington, D.C. — Today, in light of the recent focus Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have devoted to a supposed corruption scandal involving ACORN, Media Matters for America released a report comparing the hosts’ coverage of ACORN to the attention the duo have paid to other well-established corruption scandals that have impacted Washington and wasted countless taxpayer dollars.

READ THE COMPLETE REPORT: http://mediamatters.org/research/200909230032

“Conservatives like Beck and Hannity are willing to run with any story that accuses ACORN of corruption, even if the accusations remain unproven and the details were gathered using tactics that are both ethically and legally questionable,” said Eric Burns, president of Media Matters. “But these two hosts didn’t lift a finger to report on the massive and undeniable cases of corruption involving military contractors and Republicans in Congress. This is agenda-driven journalism of the most damaging sort.”

KEY FINDINGS

Media Matters examined programs hosted by Beck and Hannity between May 8, 2006 — the start date of Beck’s television career — and September 18, 2009. The study looked at the coverage of scandals involving major military contractors Blackwater, Halliburton, and Kellogg, Brown, & Root (KBR), as well as coverage given to Republican corruption scandals involving Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney, and compared it to the two hosts’ coverage of ACORN for that same time period. The findings were as follows:

• Beck’s and Hannity’s programs were approximately 34 times more likely to discuss ACORN than any of the military contractors.

• Beck’s and Hannity’s programs were approximately 24 times more likely to discuss ACORN than either Abramoff or Ney.

• Beck’s programs were approximately 50 times more likely to discuss ACORN than any of the military contractors, and were approximately 149 times more likely to discuss ACORN than either Abramoff or Ney.

• Hannity’s programs were approximately 18 times more likely to discuss ACORN than any of the military contractors, and were approximately eight times more likely to discuss ACORN than either Abramoff or Ney.

• After leaving CNN’s Headline News and joining Fox News in January 2009, Beck’s focus on ACORN skyrocketed, but his disinterest in other major corruption scandals continued. Beck was approximately 23 times more likely to discuss ACORN on Fox News than he was on CNN Headline News.

• While reporting on ACORN, Beck and Hannity have both purported to be concerned about the use of taxpayer dollars to fund what they claim is a corrupt organization. As such, their disproportionate focus on ACORN is made all the more significant by the comparatively small amount of federal funding ACORN has received, as compared to the aformentioned military contractors. ACORN has been awarded an estimated $53 million in federal funding over the past 15 years — an average of $3.5 million per year. By contrast, Halliburton, KBR, and Blackwater have reportedly received a combined total of at least $25 billion in federal contracts since 2001.

READ THE COMPLETE REPORT: http://mediamatters.org/research/200909230032

METHODOLOGY

Media Matters conducted a Nexis search for programs hosted by Beck and Hannity between May 8, 2006, and September 18, 2009,* using the following terms:

• SHOW(Glenn Beck OR Hannity) AND (CAPS(ACORN) OR Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)
• SHOW(Glenn Beck OR Hannity) AND (Jack Abramoff OR Abramoff)
• SHOW(Glenn Beck OR Hannity) AND (Blackwater OR Black Water OR CAPS(XE))
• SHOW(Glenn Beck OR Hannity) AND (Robert Ney OR Bob Ney OR Ney)
• SHOW(Glenn Beck OR Hannity) AND (Halliburton)
• SHOW(Glenn Beck OR Hannity) AND (Kellogg Brown Root OR KBR)

For each transcript, every mention of any of the searched terms, by any person on the program, was included in the study.

* Glenn Beck was off-air between October 17, 2008, and January 18, 2009, during the program’s transition between CNN and Fox News. Included in the results were both Beck’s CNN Headline News and Fox News programs; Hannity & Colmes, Hannity, and Hannity’s America.

READ THE COMPLETE REPORT: http://mediamatters.org/research/200909230032

###

Media Matters for America is a progressive research and information center dedicated to monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the media. For more information, visit www.mediamatters.org

Glenn Beck’s fascinating interview with David Horowitz Friday on the “Glenn Beck Program” would take too long to summarize so I’ll just link to it here.

The headline is ”Reformed Radical on Militant Movement.”

Wow, did Howard Kurtz of CNN (and the Washington Post) ever screw up the Van Jones/Glenn Beck story.

As Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters reported, in a segment of his CNN show, “Reliable Sources,” Kurtz accuses Beck of targeting Jones, a self-described “communist” who is now President Obama’s green jobs czar, because a group Jones founded called Color of Change is attacking Beck.

Here is a transcript of the brief segment that Sheppard prepared:

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Glenn Beck devoted some time this week to trashing a man named Van Jones, a special adviser at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLENN BECK: Let’s start at Yale Law School. Van Jones showed up wearing combat boots and holding a Black Panther book bag. A major turning point came in 1993 when he was arrested during the Rodney King riots. He spent the next ten years as a full-fledged radical. Among other things, founding a group called STORM, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement which held study groups in the Marxist and Lenin teachings. And why is it that such a committed revolutionary has made it so high into the Obama administration as one of his chief advisers?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: And why is it that the Fox News host would target this relatively obscure administration official along with that scary music? Van Jones was a co-founder of Color of Change, an advocacy group that has been promoting an advertising boycott of Beck’s show over his denunciation of President Obama as a racist. Some three dozen advertisers have pulled their spots from the Beck program, a detail that Beck somehow neglected to mention.

Had he bothered to prepare properly for his TV show instead of concentrating on Beck hunting, Kurtz would have realized that Beck has been attacking Jones for weeks on the “Glenn Beck Program.”

Long after Beck started pursuing the Jones story, Color of Change seized on Beck’s controversial characterization of President Obama as “racist” to urge an advertiser boycott of Beck’s show. After Color of Change began its anti-Beck boycott campaign, I broke the story that Jones was a co-founder of Color of Change and that the group had tried to cover up its ties to him by scrubbing its website.

Of course, the group’s outrage is probably fake. Color of Change was just waiting for an opportunity to lash out at Beck and Beck’s “racist” comment gave it to the group.

All in all, very sloppy work by Kurtz who seemed more interested in a “gotcha” than in getting to the bottom of the story. He should correct his embarrassing mistake.

Not surprisingly the mendacious, malicious idiots at Media Matters for America, anxious to destroy anyone on the right, fell for Kurtz’s misleading story. Media Matters ought to know better. At the initiative of high-profile fabulist Eric Boehlert, it has already opined at length about the Beck versus Jones story.

It’s worth noting that in the item linked above, Boehlert refers to the American Spectator, which has published my ongoing coverage of Color of Change and related stories, as a “fringe pub.”

of course, Boelhert failed to disclose in his rant that his boss, David Brock, used to be an investigative reporter for the American Spectator. Could this be because Boehlert, like his Media Matters colleagues, is deeply unethical?

My article “Obama’s Plan to Desecrate 9/11″ that ran in the Monday edition of American Spectator, was discussed on “The O’Reilly Factor” Thursday night.

Here is the video:

On his radio show Wednesday, Glenn Beck also discussed the article: