Fundraising, fraud, and other such wonderful things that have been happening through the
telephone. So let's delve in as we go and try and get some of
this to go. So let's have a good ring on here. Who's going
to answer me that this is going to ring ring, ring ring. Hello?
Well, I have to say thank you, Phoebe. I just wanted
to say that. In this latest investigation, Pro public uncovered a network of
political nonprofits that exploit donors by redirecting over ninety percent of contributions to fundraisers rather
than the promise causes. These groups include the American Breast Cancer Coalition, manipulating
compassionate donors who believe in donations day cancer patients, veterans, and firefighters.
To evade penalties that have these people have been banned from charitable fundraising, these
operators have switched to political fundraising. This loophole allows them to continue their deceptive
practices under the guise of political adnolacy, underscoring significant regulatory and oversight deficiencies.
This story is from Pro publica by Elis Somani on June eighteenth, twenty twenty
four. So I can tell you why they haven't been banned from political fund
raising, and that's because the First Amendment makes it very difficult to ban people
from political speech and money. As far as Citizens United Versus Federal Election Commissions
concerned, is a form of speech, and it's for political speech, and
therefore under Citizens United Versus Federal Election Commission you can't restrict political speech in the
way that was being done. So the First Amendment says that political speech is
the most difficult and highest bar too restrict, and it is now and impossible
to restrict political speech. So political speech under the First Amendment allows the First
Amendment to be cannibalized by the First Amendment because the First Amendment allows political speech
to advocate that political speech can destroy the First Amendment by advocating for the policies
or destroy the First Amendment. Well, I say is this is a dense
article and there's a lot to go. Thank you for illustrating that, Phoebe.
Look, here's the issue that I'm saying with all this. So you've
got these people who know how to play these games, they know these loopholes.
The reason they can play these games and know these loopholes is because of
how they've been educated. The access to understanding this stuff, you know,
and then the people around them know this type of stuff. Blah blah blah.
You know, it's crazy because before I'm just a working class welding guy.
You know, I'm a welding inspector. I'm just I supervise other welders.
I wouldn't know shit about this. This is like so not part of
like the daily American working class experience loopholes, and I rs shit and blah
blah blah. It's insane. This is my bread and butcher. This is
my bread and butcher, this kind of stuff. Being in the legal field,
this is my bread and butter. I know just where and when people
will start sailing the America's cup, how far they'll get through before the mast
catches, and I will know exactly when they need to turn around and you
know, head for home. This is this is unfortunately, my bread and
butter. It's not saying that I endorse or encourage or have clients where I
do this for. I am no Saul Goodman in this world or Jimmy McGill
or you know, Gene Tacific, whatever you want to call that character.
But as somebody who is legally trained this is one of the problems of having
the law as it currently stands. The tax code as it was current as
it currently stands, is volumes. Somebody said that once an appropriations bill was
passed by Congress that weighed thirty seven pounds when it was printed off. That's
that's not British pounds, that's US pounds. So for you those of you
using the metric system, that's about fourteen kiloas this damn thing weighed. We
are talking and absolutely inordinate or waste that he's created by the regulations that you
can sail. You can race the Monaco Grolm pre through it and have the
entire Formula One World Championship race quite happily through all of these loopholes, and
I'm sure Infidel wants to do that. Well, I'll spare the loopholes because
I think that they probably already know what they're doing well enough that I'm not
even going to try to explain it. But i will say that one in
particular, I noticed Thomas burk and Bush. They mentioned him, and it
seemed that almost immediately after being convicted or actually was settled, it was a
settlement that when they got these bands and these fines immediately, he just rolled
right over to an office edge LLC and under him they found ten different groups
that are connected to him that have raised collectively over thirty three million dollars.
And then this is just so odd because they are taking advantage of this same
people. It's like they're mining from the same farm of people who have good
intentions. And you know, it's almost like a church. You know,
you find the people with the good intentions and the people who have a bleeding
heart, a heart that they want to be in the world to be a
better place. And they hear who wouldn't want to help cancer patients, who
wouldn't want to help veterans, And so they take these causes that reach in
and grab people by the heart, and what do they do. They take
advantage of them. And that's where I have an issue with this whole thing
of well, it's First Amendment, so we really can't touch it. I
get what they're saying, but the bottom line is is that I don't think
Thomas Burkinbush's First Amendment rights a freedom of speech would be inhibited if he wasn't
allowed to be in political fundraising. He may have to go find a real
job but they're IRS is saying they're not. They can't do anything about it.
This blows my fucking mind again. I know, construction workers, welders,
all the guys, everybody, and then the trades in the industries.
IRS will go after each one of these guys for ten thousand dollars, fifteen
thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars. They have plenty of time to go after
the fucking low hanging fruit, which is the poor in the working class,
just like we see in the fucking legal system and every other system. They
target the poorer working class. But somehow, some way, this it's easy,
it's easy eat. But somehow this thirty three million dollars all we don't
know what to do with it. It's disgusting to me. It is so
fucking discussing because the tax code is written to allow these scurits to operate.
I mean, these five twenty sevens they operate quite openly. These five twenty
sevens, they spread lies when they are given the chance. I mean,
does anybody remember Bush v. Carry two thousand and four? Do why the
review to remember that election? Yes? Unfortunately, why the review to remember
a five to twenty seven that was called swift Veterans for Truth, so that
organization spread lies about drown Kerry getting his purple still rubbish. But you can't
touch them because it's political speech. You can't touch them because it's an advert
through A five twenty seven. You can't touch them because the Supreme Court has
codified that you can't touch that kind of speech in a fair and open,
democratic society. Whether I agree with that is absolutely relevant, But that's what
the current state of the war is. What you have here, though,
is you have scam PACs. I mean, the people that donated the Swift
Boat Veterans of Truth knew that they were a George W. Bush leaning organization
that was going to attack John Kerry somehow. The fact that they used a
broad version of the truth, which is probably you know, truth calling it
that is probably not an accurate statement by me. But these scam pacts,
they are not actually doing what they're saying. You actually have to have some
kind of political output to actually be a political action committee. There's no political
output in these action committees because what's going on is nepotism, hoovering up of
funds on other things that are unrelated to the politics that is being advocated in
advanced here. So what's going on. It's the lining of the pockets and
aunts of themselves, are the companies of sisters, of wives, you name
it. Everyone's in on the game on this because it's millions of dollars and
it's really difficult to get out because of Supreme Court, in its infinite wisdom,
has said, political speech is money. Political speed is not just what
you see here. It's the almighty dollar bill, it's the almighty fifty cents,
it's these coins are political speech. Apparently this is a form of political
speech, which is absolutely absurd, that's fuscinating. I don't even consider this
political speech. So then, and that's the problem where the code clearly needs
to be rewritten, because essentially what you have is you have a group of
people who are in the business of raising for a political cause under the guise
of charity. And if you're going to use a charity as your front of
saying this is to help charities, then at some point I think that you
need to be able to legally demonstrate that some charitable organization is reaping those rewards.
And because at this you just have fundraising for the act of fundraising to
give it to other groups who are supposedly fundraising for the same thing. It's
really just a rents and repeat onraising. What they're doing here. What they're
doing here is they have the same thing as a peer review circle. Here.
So for those of you who have seen episodes on creationism and evolution and
intelligent design, where you have these groups of so called scientific researched things that
have been peer reviewed, where they haven't actually been independently peer review by group
of peers, They've just been peer reviewed by group of people who would agree
with the same or what you have here is you have the same circle the
okay, we all raise the money, will pay you to do the appmin
who will then pay you to do the appmen who will then pay you to
do the appening, who will then pay you to do the appening, who
will then pay you to you to you, And the output of this is
so minimal that it is absolutely mind bending. The layers of shell that you
have to go through to get to the core that then shows that there is
absolutely nothing in the middle of this at all, apart from a few hundred
dollars here and there going on an advert here and there for breast cancer,
as was listed in the article. This lawsuit, which is now on class
action by the individuals in California who have been targeted by these scamp acts,
is going to be very interesting because if a judge entertains this class action,
you could be looking at not just millions, but you could be looking at
Alex Jones style settlement here or Alex Jones style judgment in the billions. Because
this undermines the democracy that this nation is built on. The republic that the
United States is built on, has to have these kinds of safeguard rails to
stop the First Amendment from being used to cannibalize the First Amendment. No,
I agree, And what this reminds me of these are the same people who
you know, they don't want to tax churches, and churches don't have to
open books, churches have we I live down the street from Joel Ostein's church,
Lakewood, literally down the street. I passed by that fucking monstrosity every
day. And the guy has billboards in all the If you drive around Houston,
Texas, in the poorest areas, you have Ostein billboards. It's ridiculous.
He's doing a billboard campaign he has logos. It's a fucking business that
takes in money that is not taxed, and it's under the guise of a
nonprofit. They can, they can see elections, they can they can endure.
I mean, it's insane what these people can get away with in plain
sight. And but if we mentioned on our shows any type of leaning towards
it, we can all of our ship could be taken from us. It's
insane. All of our see books, they're open, you can look through
them. But somehow, the same motherfuckers who push for this religious exemption,
You're gonna see these guys in the same churches doing the same things with the
same causes, with political motivations. It's all the same shit. But they,
like you said, Phoebe in much better way than I could. These
motherfuckers wrote the laws for themselves so that way they can do this shit and
then continue to vote other people in to continue to add more amendments to these
fucking laws so that way they can keep bolstering their fucking bullshit while the working
class just suffers. And then the I R S which I mean paying taxes
when we have billionaires not paying it to it to me is just as evil
as it gets. But you got people coming after the fucking working class while
these other motherfuckers are raking in the benefits of the working class people trying to
donate to a good to a good fucking cause. It's it's so evil to
me. You absolutely, I've ether of you two sent the TV each other
way a little bit. Yes, yes I have. I'm not so.
In one of the final series, one of the candidates for presidents goes and
gives a speech out of black Church, and that is seen as normal.
Goes and gives a political campaign speech from the pulpit, and that's seen as
normal. Yes it is, which just unfortunately is mind bending. The fire
on three's and five twenty seven's they're supposed to be completely different in how they
are operated, But these scampacts and these churches that you mentioned, Jason,
they seem to be operating in identical manners, taking money and endorsing things they
shouldn't be endorsing, or doing things they shouldn't be doing. Infidel, are
you doing that? Oh? I like to sleep at night as little as
I do, so no, I could live with myself doing this, because
what is so insidious about it is they are taking advantage like the same group
of people that Joel Austein that Jason mentioned is taking advantage of. They're taking
advantage of working class people who want to make the world a better place,
who want to improve things, who are looking for things to be better,
and they're taking the people who are least capable of providing money in resources for
others, and they're enriching themselves with it and ignoring the people who they're claiming
are going to be the benefits of it. And that's what makes it so
unforgivable. It's not just that they're benefiting from something and they're scamming here and
there. It is the very basis and the fundamental principle of the organizations that
they exist within to do this. It's not a it's not a bug,
as I said earlier, it's a feature. It's one of the things that
they want. And really, groups like this are almost indistinguishable from churches.
They they're they're doing the same thing under a different guys, and they're they're
getting away with it and they're going to continue to get away with it unless
somebody cause a stop to it. And that's problem because those in power have
no incentive to do that because I can be sure that some of the money
that these people are raising is going into political action committees for people who have
no interest at all in cancer patients, are veterans, or firefighters, or
all the other causes that they purport their support. They don't give a shit
about them either. They've shown that so they're more concerned about these groups have
called them out. The Firefighters Union has said stop giving money to this pact.
They are nothing to do with supporting firefighters. When you have those groups
that are purportedly the beneficiaries of these actions saying stop, these people are frauds.
These people do not help us. That should raise serious alarm bells about
the regulations that are in place here, because what is going on here it's
not regulation. It's not even turn a blind eye. It's opening the doors
why as you can, and saying please carry on as you were before,
but sign this piece of paper so that it looks like we're actually doing something
to see the problem is is the people who are giving to these groups.
They don't get a phone call from the from the fire department saying, hey,
there's a bunch of scam people calling. They get a phone call from
someone who gives them a sob story or tells them something that pulls at their
heartstrings, and they go, oh, that's terrible. Yeah, I can
try to give a little bit to that. And so the problem is is
that the ones who are doing the outreach are the ones that are perpetrating the
problem. Because firefighters actually have a real job to do. They can't go
around in forming the public. They got things that they actually need to do.
Whereas these people, all they need to do and all they want to
do is capitalize on people who want to help other people. And that's what's
so disgusting. They're capitalizing on the working class. And if you look at
the now, our wages are lowest they've ever been compared to inflation. Our
hours are higher than they've ever been. So by the time I'm working sixty
eight hours a week every week, by the time i'm home, I'm fucking
exhausted. My brain is done. How am I going to take in more
information and educate myself? Phoebe does this shit for a living. I'm supervising
guys burning metal together. I mean, it's it's such a niche thing that
when somebody calls and you're tired, and you're like, I want to help
out this working class firefighter. I want to help out these working class i
want help out these cancer patients. I'm gonna do the little bit that I
can. The fact that that money isn't going to them, it blows my
mind that this isn't fucking criminal. It blows I mean, you know,
it blows my fucking moment. As far as the morles consider, this is
a supermans exactly, but it's it's you're you're literally extorting and using and lying
and then lining your pockets and you're taking advantage. Traitorous criminal. There are
elements that this could be criminal. Yeah, but by and large this is
a civil matter. You've given money to an organization. You sue that person
to get your money back. That's where the law stands, by and large,
unless you can show a fraud or a blackmail or some other criminal problem,
which the lawsuit that is going forwards is trying to show. It is
trying to show criminal violations of the California Data Protection Act that could actually get
somewhere in the criminal code. But to try to say that the law will
prosecute this as a fraud or prosecue this as a scam. She might as
well to start laughing. And I work in this field for a living.
The law does not do what you would expect him to do in this area,
because the law is written in such a way to be so broad that
it allows these loop holes to go unchecked. You could fight American gladiators through
these loopholes and not even touch the sides. And if you don't like that,
tell us what you really think about that in the comments below. Email us