Obama seeks to ban attack AD

[Atreus21]

Originally posted by: Socio
AIP Calls Obama Campaign Efforts to Prosecute Political Opponents ?Bullying? and ?Censorship?

AIP Responds to Second DOJ Letter from Obama Campaign Demanding Donor Prosecution

Washington, DC ? August 26, 2008 ? The Barack Obama campaign has now sent a second letter to the Department of Justice calling for the prosecution of one of American Issues Project?s donors for his role in funding a political advertisement in full compliance with all election laws.

?Having failed in its attempts to get our legal, factual and fully-supported ad off the air, Barack Obama?s campaign now wants to put our donors in prison for exercising their right to free speech," said Ed Martin, American Issues Project?s president. ?These over-the-top bullying tactics are reminiscent of the kind of censorship one would see in a Stalinist dictatorship, with the only difference being that those guys generally had to wait until they were in power to throw people who disagreed with them into jail.?

The AD in question;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m89m0pC_bpY

As far as I can tell there is nothing dishonest or unfounded about the Ad it just paints Obama in a bad light. Now he is going to extraordinary means, stepping all over free speech to quash it which does not boad well for his integrity or his adherence to first amendment rights as a government official.

Also pursuing this with such fervor certainly lends itself to speculation that he has more to hide regarding this Ads content that he does not want exposed.

Isn't that the guy who used to do the Miller High Life commercials?

If this group is indeed violating its status as a 501c4, then sure. I don't care if they get silenced or not.

But I really don't think the attempt to silence them would be so zealous unless the ad hit close to home. That's why I can't help but curl my lip at Obama's campaign for doing this. Silencing the attacker is not refuting him.

Also, there's a difference between violating the 501c4 status and acting criminally. You don't go to jail for this.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Can someone explain to me what happened to free speech in this country???

We expanded taxes, which expanded the government. End of story.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Can someone explain to me what happened to free speech in this country???

We expanded taxes, which expanded the government. End of story.

Or we expanded government which expanded taxes. It's not really a case of one led to another. They both happened concurrently because we, as a people over the last 3 generations, elected officials that expanded government

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
-snip-
The group is clearly violating the law and Obama is calling them on it. What is so unreasonable about that?

I work with that area of law and I don't think it's all that clear.

Why? Because it appears the non-profit is in it's first year. Generally the IRS intitially grants non-profit status based upon an organizations statement of it's planned activites. They then follow up several years later to ensure that they are, indeed, doing what they said they would.

I don't know what the court may decide, but it would be highly unusual for a non-profit to be judged so quickly on its "primary purpose".

I'm not sure why otherwise this would be illegal?

The 501(c)4 category is a *catch-all* type thing and thus is a bit murky. Also donations to these type org are not deductible. I presume the donor could have directly paid for the ad?

I don't see exactly where McCain-Feingold would be violated either. Ads within 60 days of a general election are subject to Mc-Fei, but we're outside of that boundary. Plus looks like it only affects pol ads paid for by corporations. Here again, seems the donor could just pay for it as an individual.

And YES, 1st Amendment rights are directly connected to this. Many of us had hoped that the SCOTUS would knocked down of that campaign finance law as a violation of the 1st.

Fern

 

[fskimospy]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eskimospy
-snip-
The group is clearly violating the law and Obama is calling them on it. What is so unreasonable about that?

I work with that area of law and I don't think it's all that clear.

Why? Because it appears the non-profit is in it's first year. Generally the IRS intitially grants non-profit status based upon an organizations statement of it's planned activites. They then follow up several years later to ensure that they are, indeed, doing what they said they would.

I don't know what the court may decide, but it would be highly unusual for a non-profit to be judged so quickly on its "primary purpose".

I'm not sure why otherwise this would be illegal?

The 501(c)4 category is a *catch-all* type thing and thus is a bit murky. Also donations to these type org are not deductible. I presume the donor could have directly paid for the ad?

I don't see exactly where McCain-Feingold would be violated either. Ads within 60 days of a general election are subject to Mc-Fei, but we're outside of that boundary. Plus looks like it only affects pol ads paid for by corporations. Here again, seems the donor could just pay for it as an individual.

And YES, 1st Amendment rights are directly connected to this. Many of us had hoped that the SCOTUS would knocked down of that campaign finance law as a violation of the 1st.

Fern

Are you sure you aren't confusing standard procedures with different procedures that they follow if there is a complaint? I'm betting there is. If not, then the law is totally useless as people would just create new groups in the year before the election and then say "whoops! sorry!" when the IRS stops by to check a few years down the road.

EDIT: Have you even checked out their website? The whole thing is a political ad, and they proudly proclaim their political goals.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: Fern

Originally posted by: eskimospy
-snip-
The group is clearly violating the law and Obama is calling them on it. What is so unreasonable about that?

I work with that area of law and I don't think it's all that clear.

Why? Because it appears the non-profit is in it's first year. Generally the IRS intitially grants non-profit status based upon an organizations statement of it's planned activites. They then follow up several years later to ensure that they are, indeed, doing what they said they would.

I don't know what the court may decide, but it would be highly unusual for a non-profit to be judged so quickly on its "primary purpose".

I'm not sure why otherwise this would be illegal?

The 501(c)4 category is a *catch-all* type thing and thus is a bit murky. Also donations to these type org are not deductible. I presume the donor could have directly paid for the ad?

I don't see exactly where McCain-Feingold would be violated either. Ads within 60 days of a general election are subject to Mc-Fei, but we're outside of that boundary. Plus looks like it only affects pol ads paid for by corporations. Here again, seems the donor could just pay for it as an individual.

And YES, 1st Amendment rights are directly connected to this. Many of us had hoped that the SCOTUS would knocked down of that campaign finance law as a violation of the 1st.

Fern

What you are saying though is that anyone can start up a 501(c)4 in an election year, fund it any way they see fit, run attack ads out the wazoo against the opponent of their choice candidate and then disband the organization.

That's quite the loophole there.

Also, this isn't the IRS that is asked to investigate this. It is the DoJ being asked to see if this was a direct violation of campaign finance laws.

 

[dphantom]

This is not the only group BHL is attacking. Chicago Tribune

Looks like there is a concerted campaign to silence critics of BHL. So far, nothing has been shown as being untrue. BHLs association with Ayers is well documented. This to me seems very much an attack on one's free speech and as such is very disturbing for one who aspires to be President and the protector of our Constitution.

 

[Mursilis]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
What you are saying though is that anyone can start up a 501(c)4 in an election year, fund it any way they see fit, run attack ads out the wazoo against the opponent of their choice candidate and then disband the organization.

Sure, why not? That's the way it SHOULD BE, at least. If the 1st Amendment doesn't protect that kind of speech, what good is it? I'd only have an issue with the above if the ads were at all false. Otherwise, if they're true, fire away!

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
-snip-
Are you sure you aren't confusing standard procedures with different procedures that they follow if there is a complaint? I'm betting there is. If not, then the law is totally useless as people would just create new groups in the year before the election and then say "whoops! sorry!" when the IRS stops by to check a few years down the road.

EDIT: Have you even checked out their website? The whole thing is a political ad, and they proudly proclaim their political goals.

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
-snip-
What you are saying though is that anyone can start up a 501(c)4 in an election year, fund it any way they see fit, run attack ads out the wazoo against the opponent of their choice candidate and then disband the organization.

That's quite the loophole there.

Also, this isn't the IRS that is asked to investigate this. It is the DoJ being asked to see if this was a direct violation of campaign finance laws.

Re the IRS and/or other investigation into their purpose and their first year.

If they are still within their 1st year, I don't think the IRS could do mucg simply because the *tests* need an annual period or longer. Lots of the tests for non-profits are annual calculations resulting in ratios etc. If you ain't got a fuull year, you don't have a way to the tests. It's pretty much that simple.

The IRS might be able to do something if they went back and reviewed their app/filings and reversed the decision about the purpose. (It's basically an essay test filled out by the applicant wanting to be a non-profit, and those statements alone you are tentatively granted non-profit status).

Yeah, it is a big loophole. You get to have tentative non-profit staus for several years before they swing back around and check you out for the final approval.

Re: DoJ and campaign finance laws. I'm not to awful up on campaign laws, but before I posted I checked out Mc-Fei and like I said I don't see where it applies. I can only guess there's some rule about registering?

Political Ads? Yeah, those type orgs can actually do that from what I can see. They are in a weird *catch-all* type category. But that's back to the tax law thing and this appears to be something different. (know that tax-wise there's not any difference I can see between a political org - they are non-profit and like this one contributions to them are not deductible - and this thing.)

Fern

 

[smashp]

Lets do a little investigative reporting for Computer nerds


Domain Name:AMERICANISSUESPROJECT.ORG
Created On:05-Aug-2008 19:45:48 UTC
Last Updated On:21-Aug-2008 06:19:22 UTC
Expiration Date:05-Aug-2010 19:45:48 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc.


Notice The Domain name was registered less than a month ago, DNS records Updated on the 21st, and only a two year registration at Godaddy. The Site is also hosted on GoDaddys servers in AZ.

I personally like their office complex on Google Street view

301 W Platt St

And runa Wikto scan on their Webserver and there is no content ther at all, no links besides their crappy homepage, no nothing other than the garbage you see.


Anybody that defends these hacks is an idiot

 

[Socio]

Here is more on the story;

Barack "The Silencer" Obama's Gangland Assault on Free Speech

On Monday, Obama demanded that the Justice Department stop TV stations from airing a documented, accurate independent ad spotlighting Obama's longtime working relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama summoned his followers to bombard stations, many of them owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails to squelch the commercial.

On Tuesday, the Obama campaign sent another letter to the Justice Department demanding investigation and prosecution of American Issues Project, the group that produced the Ayers ad, as well as Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who funded it.

And on Wednesday, Obama exhorted his followers to sabotage the WGN radio show of veteran Chicago host and University of Chicago Professor Milt Rosenberg. Why? Because he invited National Review writer Stanley Kurtz to discuss his investigative findings about Obama's ties to Ayers and the underwhelming results of their collaboration on a left-wing educational project sponsored by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

It sure seems this is really an act of desperation to suppress the truth about his affiliation with Ayers and keep further perhaps far worse truths from being exposed and the " donor money" thing is just an excuse being used to try and stop it.