HollywoodturnsoutbigtorescueReid,Senate

Hollywood turns out big to rescue Reid, Senate Dems

posted at 10:41 am on August 13, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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Ashley Judd didn’t run for a Senate seat in Kentucky, but that doesn’t mean that Hollywood hasn’t propped up a candidate in the race. The Dude may not be abiding in Montana’s Senate race, but The Babs is abiding in Oregon, Colorado, New Hampshire, and even Alaska. Hollywood has provided Democrats with a ton of cash for the midterm elections in an attempt to keep control of the Senate, and Alison Lundergan Grimes has been their biggest beneficiary:

Hollywood is pouring money into the midterm elections, with A-listers such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Barbra Streisand all coughing up blockbuster bucks.

The donations are largely aimed at keeping the Senate in Democratic hands. Republicans, who have the political winds at their backs, need to pick up six seats to win control of the upper chamber. …

One of the biggest recipients of the entertainment industry’s dollars is Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, whose is in a tight battle against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R).

Her donor list reads like a who’s who of Tinseltown: producer J.J. Abrams, Ben Affleck, comedian Jack Black, “Avatar” director James Cameron, Nicolas Cage, Danny DeVito, Cameron Diaz, DiCaprio, Jennifer Garner, director Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Jerry Seinfeld, Mike Myers, and “Mad Men’s” Jon Hamm all giving $5,200 each, the maximum amount an individual can give to a single candidate in a two-year election cycle.

Other Grimes donors include DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, Woody Allen, Ted Danson, America Ferrera, Leonard Nimoy, Streisand, “West Wing” writer Aaron Sorkin, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock.

Grimes got $100,000 from her Hollywood sponsors, more than twice that given to Cory Booker ($48,300), who has an easier ride to holding his seat in November. Booker doubles up on Michelle Nunn, who faces a much more competitive race for the open seat in Georgia, and who trails by six in a poll out this week against David Perdue. Even with her family name and its tradition, Nunn doesn’t even get to 42% against the Republican novice, which bodes ill for Democratic chances in the Senate race there.

For Grimes, this might be a particularly difficult situation to explain. She has tried to make herself into a friend of the coal industry and claims she’ll push back against the Obama administration’s increased regulation and hostility toward coal operators. Hollywood, however, isn’t known for its political tolerance of fossil fuels. If the money in Hollywood is going to Grimes — and not just in small measure, but almost more than that given to the rest of the top five combined — then Kentucky voters have to ask themselves who Grimes represents more: Hollywood liberals obsessed with global warming, or Kentucky and its core coal industry? At least Ashley Judd would have been more entertaining.

Even with all of this cash, prospects for Democrats to hold the Senate look more dim than a Lars van Trier interior scene these days. The combination of playing defense on so many seats and the unpopularity of Barack Obama made the midterms difficult enough, but Josh Kraushaar at National Journal writes that Democrats have another handicap as well — the autocratic and arguably irrational Harry Reid:

For all the internal Republican Party divisions, the GOP’s party committees and allied outside groups have overcome their biggest challenge entering the year. They’ve successfully navigated incumbents and favored Senate candidates through difficult primaries, avoiding the specter of terminally weak candidates emerging in battleground races. The same can’t be said for Democrats, who frittered away opportunities in South Dakota and Montana because of internal conflicts and botched maneuvering. Meanwhile, Democratic attempts to intervene in Republican Senate primaries haven’t worked, depriving several Democrats of the chance to run against weak challengers. Reid’s fingerprints are over all those moves, with his majority on the line.

“Reid loves to meddle in other races, especially when it involves him. I dubbed him the meddler in chief many years ago, though he’s much more adept in meddling in his own races than the outside ones,” said veteran Nevada political analyst Jon Ralston. “He thinks he knows better than any political consultant, and he doesn’t trust the polls.” …

Reid is the mastermind behind the Democrats’ strategy of tying Republicans to the Koch brothers, an unconventional strategy that’s been embraced by leading campaigns across the country. Democrats are hoping their attacks against the deep-pocketed, GOP-supporting businessmen will persuade voters that GOP candidates are beholden to a policy agendacatering to the richest Americans. But attacks against secretive moneymen are usually the last refuge of a party without issues to run on. In 2006, Republicans lamely tried to make Democratic donor George Soros an issue in the midterms. They lost control of both houses of Congress that year. And in 2010, President Obama made the Supreme Court’s Citizens Unitedruling a central issue in the midterms, calling the increased flow of outside money a threat to American democracy. That year, American Crossroads founder Karl Rove was the Democrats’ boogeyman. …

While the midterm elections are emerging as a referendum on President Obama’s performance, they’re also providing a verdict on the efficacy of Reid’s tactics. Publicly, Reid is dismissive of the possibility that Republicans could regain the majority. Privately, he must know that his challenges shaping the elections to his liking are related to the problematic position his party faces this November.

Can Hollywood rescue Democrats from Harry Reid and Barack Obama? It seems doubtful, but if not, Reid and Obama shouldn’t worry too much. Hollywood will eventually produce a movie extolling their brilliance and honesty in retrospect, even after their terrible demagoguery and incompetence becomes crystal clear to everyone. Just ask Dan Rather.

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Tags: Harry Reid, Hollywood, midterms, Senate Democrats, US Senate

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NewO’Keefevideo“punks”Hollywoodenviros posted

New O’Keefe video “punks” Hollywood enviros

posted at 9:21 am on May 21, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

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For those who remember the controversy surrounding the financing of the anti-fracking Matt Damon film Promised Land, this new undercover video from James O’Keefe and Project Veritas will simply confirm suspicions. O’Keefe set himself up as an ersatz Middle Eastern oil baron in order to test the Hollywood environmental waters to see how welcome his supposed money would be in attacking American energy independence. The big names in this effort, Ed Begley Jr and Mariel Hemingway, will get the most notice but are in essence collateral damage. The real targets for this probe are Josh and Rebecca Tickell, award-winning producers who are all too keen to take Middle Eastern money to attack American natural-gas exploration:

“This latest investigation shows the dark side of Hollywood’s environmental movement. Hollywood is willing to take and conceal money from Middle Eastern oil interests in order to advance their cause of destroying American energy independence,” O’ Keefe said. He will be independently premiering “Expose: Hollywood’s War on US Energy” in Cannes, France Wednesday.

Within the video, actor Ed Begley Jr., an outspoken environmental activist and current Governor on the board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science, Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated actress Mariel Hemingway, and liberal producer and director Josh Tickell are approached by an undercover reporter posing as a member of a Middle Eastern oil dynasty named “Muhammad” and his “ad executive” Steven Sanchton in the Beverly Hills Hotel located in Los Angeles, California. The pair offer $9 million in funding to American filmmakers to fund an anti-fracking movie.

“If Washington D.C. continues fracking, America will be energy independent and then they won’t need our oil anymore,” Muhammad states within the video. The “ad executive” accompanying him to the meeting later follows up, “Knowing where the money comes from..” At this point, he is interrupted by Hemmingway, who assures him none of the information regarding where the money is coming from to produce the movie will leave the table.

The Cannes launch got the attention of The Hollywood Reporter:

Muhammad, accompanied by a man pretending to be an ad executive, seemingly has the two actors agreeing to participate in the scheme, even after he acknowledges that his goal is to keep America from becoming energy independent. The meeting, which appears to have been secretly recorded, took place a few months ago at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

But the real target of the sting operation appears to be Josh and Rebecca Tickell, a husband and wife team known for their environmental movies, such as 2008′s Fuel, which won an award at Sundance and was later screened at the White House for members of President Obama‘s administration.

Begley tells THR that if it looks like he’s agreeing with faux Muhammad about anything, it’s because the Tickells asked him to be polite so that they’d get their funding for a movie they’re making called Fracked, a film that will argue a technique for extracting natural gas called fracking is bad for the environment. Also, Begley says that he is hard of hearing and couldn’t understand everything Muhammad was saying.

The video also includes some audio from phone conversations between the fake Muhammad’s representatives and the Tickells. “We’re confident that we can keep this zip-locked. You know, tight. Tight. Air-tight forever,” Josh Tickell is heard saying. “If we don’t protect who is kind of funding this thing … if we have to disclose that or that becomes a necessary part of it, the whole enterprise will not work.”

Rebecca Tickell adds: “Because if people think the film is funded by Middle Eastern oil it will, it will not have that credibility,” and Josh Tickell says, “It’s money, so in that sense we have no moral issue.”

Yeah, I suspect that last statement won’t be much of a surprise to anyone who’s worked in Hollywood, either.

The Tickells, Begley, and Hemingway are crying foul now. In comments to THR, they claim that O’Keefe’s editing made things look worse than they are, and are demanding the release of all the video. That didn’t do much to help ACORN, or for that matter, Planned Parenthood when dealing with Live Action’s exposés. The Tickells say that no deal was actually consummated, and that they would have done “due diligence” at that point, but O’Keefe wouldn’t have had $9 million anyway. The point of O’Keefe’s sting is to expose Hollywood enviro eagerness to accept oil-baron money from the Middle East to attack American energy production, and this video certainly does that much. Not that people couldn’t figure that much out from Promised Land‘s Abu Dhabi funding, if they wanted.

The Tickells have decided to keep trying to fund Fracked anyway:

Update: Late Tuesday, the Tickells created a video response that also serves as a pitch to raise $72,000 via an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign to make Fracked. “I’m about to tell you a story of the lengths that some people will go to discourage the transition to green energy,” Josh Tickell says in the video. “If it wasn’t so serious it might even be kind of funny. Recently, my wife and I were royally punked.”

Actually, the story is about how some Hollywood enviros will sell out to the worst offenders in order to build their soapboxes. And hey, why do they need to go on IndieGoGo anyway? Doesn’t Mark Ruffalo and Woody Harrelson have $72 grand between them?

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Tags: energy, environmentalism, Hollywood, hypocrisy

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Video:ThankingGodattheOscars? posted

Video: Thanking God at the Oscars?

posted at 12:01 pm on March 3, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

We see this a lot at sporting events, but not a lot of it from the entertainment industry. When someone from Hollywood gets up and thanks God, especially at the Oscars, it makes headlines … which says volumes about Hollywood and the media.

What’s most interesting about this heartfelt gratitude towards God is the reaction it gets from the Academy audience, or more accurately, the lack thereof:

In accepting the best actor Oscar for his role as Ron Woodroof in “Dallas Buyer’s Club” on Sunday, McConaughey, 44, said he needs three things in his life to survive: God, family and someone to look up to as a hero. …

After thanking God, his wife and children, his mother and his late father, he offered up something else long-time fans have been waiting to hear this Oscar season: “All right, all right, all right.”

And that’s what “brought the house down,” as CBS reports. At least they didn’t boo God, which means that Hollywood is still a little ahead of the Democratic Party’s 2012 convention performance. Kudos to McConaughey for his speech, but I’m a little mystified at the attention it’s getting. Has no recent Oscar winner mentioned God in an acceptance speech? I haven’t watched the show in years, but I find it a little difficult to believe that it’s that rare.

Update: Via Twitchy, one MTV host even noticed the stunned reaction:

Mathew McConaughey seems like a really good man. Did you notice when he thanked God, the audience nearly took his award away? #Oscars

— Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) March 3, 2014

Tags: god, Hollywood, Matthew McConaughey, Oscars

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TheHollywoodtaxwars:It’son posted

The Hollywood tax wars: It’s on

posted at 4:01 pm on February 25, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

As Ed described last week, the House of Cards producers recently served the state of Maryland with their demands for more sweet cash monies in the form of state taxpayer subsidies — despite the almost $40 million worth of subsidies the show has already received and their rather dubious job-creation claims. Maryland is hardly the only state on the receiving end of that kind of pressure from the entertainment industry, either; Watchdog.org reports that Florida’s production industry is currently lobbying lawmakers for a whopping $1 billion in various tax perks, and the pros of all of that largesse aren’t at all clear:

The giveaways, or subsidies, allow for selected companies producing films, commercials, music videos, “high-impact” television shows and interactive websites to skip out on as much as 30 percent of their tax bills as long as they’re working in Florida.

Everyone else will pick up the difference, Matthew Mitchell, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, told Watchdog.org.

“The vast majority of evidence suggests these are not schemes that raise more revenue than they lose,” Mitchell said. “Clearly, the taxpayer loses.” …

“Even if a state economic development office can track the number of jobs it created, it’s not effective at discovering how much higher prices are that consumers will have to pay, how much higher taxes are for consumers to pay the difference or how much economic exchange didn’t take place because of those higher taxes and prices,” Mitchell said. …

From 2003 to 2010, the Florida legislature dished out about $73 million in tax credit to the entertainment industry, but between 2010 and 2013, that price tag shot up to $296 million — and industry reps are now pushing for a solid $1 billion by 2020.

This is all part of a growing pattern of states awarding generous benefits to a conspicuously glitzy industry; over the past decade and change, California has been losing entertainment industry jobs to states that can offer up the biggest tax boons — and California is looking to get back in the game, via Politico:

Tired of seeing other states pony up big cash to attract television shows, movies and jobs, California is looking to boost its own tax breaks for entertainment projects.

Democratic state Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra plans to introduce legislation in February to increase California’s $100 million-a-year budget for film and TV tax incentives and expand the type of productions able to claim tax credits to big-budget films and network shows, which are now excluded.

It may seem ironic that the home of Hollywood needs to persuade studios to shoot in the state, but budget-tightening in the past decade has led to a system where nearly all location decisions are based on how much cash states dangle before production companies. …

“California is now just trying to recover the loss that was created by this tax war,” said Paul Audley, the president of Film L.A., a firm that helps studios secure permits. “California is really just trying to restore its signature industry against an onslaught of free money from other states.”

I understand that production companies are businesses just like any other, and they are rationally responding to the incentives that more than 40 states now seem to think it’s a good idea to offer them in this escalating tax-break battle — but I must say, I find it rather irritating that these Hollywood liberals can apparently recognize the (in their case, questionable) trickle-down economic benefits of lower taxes in their industry, but they content themselves with grabbing crazy tax breaks for themselves while generally continuing to use their hefty bank accounts to campaign for the Democrats that push for higher taxes for everybody else. I thought progressives just loved taxes — levying them, paying them, increasing them in order to subsequently redistribute them — so why are these guys using their glamorous clout to avoid contributing their share of them? Weird, isn’t it?

Tags: Democrats, entertainment, Hollywood, subsidies, taxes, U.S. states

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Harold Ramis, RIP

HaroldRamis,RIP postedat2:31pm

HouseofCardstoMaryland:Coughupthe

House of Cards to Maryland: Cough up the tax breaks, or we’re leaving

posted at 9:21 am on February 21, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Unlike my esteemed colleague Allahpundit, I have yet to watch one frame of House of Cards, the Netflix original-series sensation that has captivated the US with its depiction of a ruthless Washington DC. I’m in the minority, apparently. Beltway denizens love it for its over-the-top power grabs and, er, competence, while for the rest of America it serves as a validation of everything we hate about backroom dealings and the people who live for them. If it’s not real life, then it’s better than real life.

And … it just got more real. The producers have issued an ultimatum to the state of Maryland, demanding a bigger share of taxpayer subsidies — or they’ll call in the moving vans:

A few weeks before Season 2 of “House of Cards” debuted online, the show’s production company sent Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley a letter with this warning: Give us millions more dollars in tax credits, or we will “break down our stage, sets and offices and set up in another state.”

A similar letter went to the speaker of the House of Delegates, Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel), whose wife, Cynthia, briefly appeared in an episode of the Netflix series about an unscrupulous politician — played by Kevin Spacey — who manipulates, threatens and kills to achieve revenge and power.

In recent years, Maryland has spent more than $40 million to reward movie and television production companies that choose to film in the state, and most of that largesse has gone to “House of Cards.”

“This just keeps getting bigger and bigger” Del. Eric G. Luedtke (D-Montgomery), who until now has supported film tax credits, said at a hearing on the issue last Friday. “And my question is: When does it stop?”

The city of Cleveland feels your pain, I’m sure. The last time Maryland got involved in one of these taxpayer-shakedown rackets, they were the enablers — when the Cleveland Browns packed up their team and headed to Baltimore to become the Ravens. In this case, they’ve invested $40 million in a television production, and that’s before the second season even began airing. Did they at least negotiate ownership rights? Naaaaaah.

Supposedly, this created 6,000 jobs and inflated the economy of Maryland by $250 million, according to economic data supplied by the state’s economic development office to the Post’s Jenna Johnson. I find those numbers incredible … in the most literal sense of the word. One season of a televsion show aired exclusively by Netflix created a quarter of a billion dollars in economic activity in a single year? What were the 6,000 jobs created by a television series in one season? The budget for the series is $3.8 million per episode, which includes salaries that get spent elsewhere than in Maryland. The first season ran 13 episodes, which puts the total production investment for Season 1 at $49.4 million. If even half of that got spent in Maryland, I’d be surprised, thanks to the star salaries involved — but it if did, Maryland is claiming a 10:1 multiplier factor. That’s utter nonsense.

I get the idea that introducing new production into an economy creates secondary and tertiary jobs and trade, but this claim is so ridiculous that practically qualifies for satire on House of Cards itself. As for Mr. Luedtke’s question — “When does it stop?” — the answer is that it never should have started in the first place.

Tags: Hollywood, house of cards, Maryland, subsidies

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Video:Hollywoodproducersraisingfundsthroughtelemarketingfraud?

Video: Hollywood producers raising funds through telemarketing fraud?

posted at 12:41 pm on February 18, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

How does Hollywood raise the money for its blockbuster films? Better yet, how do they raise the money for their schlockbuster films? CBS News did an undercover investigation into one method of raising funds in Hollywood, at least by smaller producers — telemarketing:

Making movies in Hollywood costs a lot of money, so film producers are often looking for investors to bankroll what they hope will be a blockbuster.

CBS News has learned some Hollywood producers are using telemarketers to cold call Americans, convincing them to make risky investments.

Law enforcement tells CBS News it’s a widespread fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars over more than a decade, and CBS News has now spoken to more than a hundred investors who never saw their money again after sending a check to a voice on the phone.

First, if you’re making investments based on cold calls over the phone, I’d direct you to the film Boiler Room, or even better yet Glengarry Glen Ross. That investment in Hollywood would cost at most $10 and perhaps put you on guard against pie-in-the-sky profit claims, especially in Hollywood, where the creative department is usually Accounting. James Garner once sued over the distribution of profits from The Rockford Files, which exposed some pretty shady practices at the time regarding the definition of “profit” by the studios.

These days, the studios themselves are publicly held and have to keep their books open, so the main players have less opportunity to operate on the margins of the law. Their investors have a lot more protection, and probably start off with a lot more sophistication. The proliferation of small production companies means that the opportunity for fraud remains, though, and the use of telemarketing for cold-call investment pitches practically guarantees it. And while CBS makes sure to headline “Hollywood” here, it’s worth noting that none of these stings involved significant production firms, even among the independents.

CBS offers this advice to those tempted by such “opportunities”:

So what should you do if you get a call from a telemarketer? Tracy said on “CBS This Morning,” “You have to ask lots of questions. You got to ask these people about their past projects. Ask to see the financials from those projects. And then, get an accountant or a financial adviser involved and bottom-line, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Better yet, hang up. You probably won’t see the movie, and it’s a near certainty that you’ll never see the money again.

Tags: CBS News, fraud, Hollywood, telemarketers

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RIP,ShirleyTempleBlack postedat8:01

RIP, Shirley Temple Black

posted at 8:01 am on February 11, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

She lifted the hearts of an entire nation when it was at one of its lowest points in history. She later went on to serve her country in diplomacy abroad. She was, really, the first woman who could claim to have been America’s Sweetheart, and she claimed that title with her singing, dancing, and acting before most children would finished the first grade. Her staying power lasted at least long enough for our family to grow up on her films, 40 years after they were made.

And now Shirley Temple Black belongs to the ages:

From 1935 through 1938, the curly-haired moppet billed as Shirley Temple was the top box-office draw in the nation. She saved what became 20th Century Fox studios from bankruptcy and made more than 40 movies before she turned 12.

Hollywood recognized the enchanting, dimpled scene-stealer’s importance to the industry with a “special award” – a miniature Oscar – at the Academy Awards for 1934, the year she sang and danced her way into America’s collective heart.

After she sang “On the Good Ship Lollipop” in “Bright Eyes,” the song became a hit and the studio set up Shirley Temple Development, a department dedicated to churning out formulaic scripts that usually featured the cheerful, poised Shirley as the accidental Little Miss Fix-It who could charm any problem away.

Her most memorable performances included four films she made with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a black dancer 50 years her senior and a favorite co-star, she later said.

They were first paired as foils for cantankerous Lionel Barrymore in 1935’s “The Little Colonel,” in which 7-year-old Shirley tap dances up and down the staircase, remarkably matching the veteran Robinson step for step.

Here she is in Bright Eyes performing her signature song:

Normally the passing of a film star of that era of natural causes would not be news, but this was no ordinary film star, either. Shirley Temple became an icon during the Depression of hope and optimism, and her cultural impact during that period and for decades afterward cannot be overestimated. She had a remarkably long career for a child star in an era when they were even more disposable than today. One of my favorite performances of hers came in The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer when Temple was nearly 20, playing the starry-eyed teen who becomes infatuated with Cary Grant — a marvelous screwball comedy that also starred Myrna Loy, and well worth the time to track it down.

Shortly afterward, Temple left acting behind for marriage and family life. The LA Times article has all of the details of her post-celebrity life, the highlight of which for her was her three years as US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1989-1992. She was there for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain across eastern Europe.

Temple never seemed at ease with her former life, but never seemed to need to reference it, either. The fortune she made as a little girl had disappeared before she got out of acting, but as the Times notes, she never seemed to resent it. She had moved on to live a full life, even while the rest of America remained in love with our national sweetheart — generation after generation.

Rest in peace, Shirley, and Godspeed. Thank you for all the lovely memories and your service to the country.

Tags: depression, Hollywood, Shirley Temple

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IRSgoingafterconservativesinHollywoodnow?

IRS going after conservatives in Hollywood now?

posted at 8:01 am on January 24, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.  A conservative group applies for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status with the IRS in full compliance of the law, but gets jerked around for a couple of years in a process that should just take a few months. The IRS tax-exempt unit then starts demanding private information that isn’t germane to the application, but which worries members about just why the IRS would want this kind of information about opponents to the current administration.

According to the Obama administration, this is old news from 2010-12, and the targeting of political opponents by the IRS stopped long ago. According to the New York Times, it’s just moved out west — and now targets the few conservatives in the entertainment industry (via Twitchy):

A collection of perhaps 1,500 right-leaning players in the entertainment industry, Friends of Abe keeps a low profile and fiercely protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist, albeit on the other side of the partisan spectrum.

Now the Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the group’s activities in connection with its application for tax-exempt status. Last week, federal tax authorities presented the group with a 10-point request for detailed information about its meetings with politicians like Paul D. Ryan, Thaddeus McCotter and Herman Cain, among other matters, according to people briefed on the inquiry. …

Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s security-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

Friends of Abe — the name refers to Abraham Lincoln — has strongly discouraged the naming of its members. That policy even prohibits the use of cameras at group events, to avoid the unwilling identification of all but a few associates — the actors Gary Sinise, Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer, or the writer-producer Lionel Chetwynd, for instance — who have spoken openly about their conservative political views.

Michael Cieply and Nicholas Confessore give a good rundown of the issue, which should be read in full, and kudos to the Times for their coverage. The group wants 501(c)(3) status so that contributor donations can be tax deductible, and that does entail some scrutiny from the IRS. A 501(c)(3) cannot conduct any partisan political activity, ie, that which supports one party or a particular candidate in an election. It can, however, conduct educational efforts and champion policies.

As Cieply and Confessore note, this is hardly a new and novel effort. Norman Lear operated People for the American Way as a 501(c)(3) for many years (although now is apparently a 501(c)(4) which donates to candidates), and that spent millions each year on “issue advocacy” in Washington DC and the states in its prior status– and by “issue advocacy,” we mean lobbying, of course. Laurie David and Leonardo di Caprio have the Natural Resources Defense Council.  The entertainment industry has numerous groups of this kind, plus their ability to frame their political messages into their art, with not terribly wonderful results either economically or artistically, but the IRS doesn’t seem terribly interested in these groups.

Why pick on Friends of Abe? The group wants to keep its membership information private, for one thing. Anyone who saw what happened to Maria Conchita Alonso can understand why. But this isn’t supposed to be an issue for 501(c)(3) organizations in the first place. There isn’t any requirement to make membership or donor information public, because they are proscribed from directly supporting political parties and candidates by that very status. Yet here is the IRS stalling the application for two years, demanding access to the internal website, and asking intrusive questions that are really none of its business. It’s not difficult to see this as an attempt to identify members and embarrass them — or to intimidate them out of the political sphere altogether.

And that sounds like business as usual for the last few years.

Tags: conservatives, exempt, Friends of Abe, Gary Sinise, Hollywood, IRS, targeting

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IRSgoingafterconservativesinHollywoodnow?

IRS going after conservatives in Hollywood now?

posted at 8:01 am on January 24, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Stop me if you’ve heard this before.  A conservative group applies for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status with the IRS in full compliance of the law, but gets jerked around for a couple of years in a process that should just take a few months. The IRS tax-exempt unit then starts demanding private information that isn’t germane to the application, but which worries members about just why the IRS would want this kind of information about opponents to the current administration.

According to the Obama administration, this is old news from 2010-12, and the targeting of political opponents by the IRS stopped long ago. According to the New York Times, it’s just moved out west — and now targets the few conservatives in the entertainment industry (via Twitchy):

A collection of perhaps 1,500 right-leaning players in the entertainment industry, Friends of Abe keeps a low profile and fiercely protects its membership list, to avoid what it presumes would result in a sort of 21st-century blacklist, albeit on the other side of the partisan spectrum.

Now the Internal Revenue Service is reviewing the group’s activities in connection with its application for tax-exempt status. Last week, federal tax authorities presented the group with a 10-point request for detailed information about its meetings with politicians like Paul D. Ryan, Thaddeus McCotter and Herman Cain, among other matters, according to people briefed on the inquiry. …

Those people said that the application had been under review for roughly two years, and had at one point included a demand — which was not met — for enhanced access to the group’s security-protected website, which would have revealed member names. Tax experts said that an organization’s membership list is information that would not typically be required. The I.R.S. already had access to the site’s basic levels, a request it considers routine for applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

Friends of Abe — the name refers to Abraham Lincoln — has strongly discouraged the naming of its members. That policy even prohibits the use of cameras at group events, to avoid the unwilling identification of all but a few associates — the actors Gary Sinise, Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer, or the writer-producer Lionel Chetwynd, for instance — who have spoken openly about their conservative political views.

Michael Cieply and Nicholas Confessore give a good rundown of the issue, which should be read in full, and kudos to the Times for their coverage. The group wants 501(c)(3) status so that contributor donations can be tax deductible, and that does entail some scrutiny from the IRS. A 501(c)(3) cannot conduct any partisan political activity, ie, that which supports one party or a particular candidate in an election. It can, however, conduct educational efforts and champion policies.

As Cieply and Confessore note, this is hardly a new and novel effort. Norman Lear operated People for the American Way as a 501(c)(3) for many years (although now is apparently a 501(c)(4) which donates to candidates), and that spent millions each year on “issue advocacy” in Washington DC and the states in its prior status– and by “issue advocacy,” we mean lobbying, of course. Laurie David and Leonardo di Caprio have the Natural Resources Defense Council.  The entertainment industry has numerous groups of this kind, plus their ability to frame their political messages into their art, with not terribly wonderful results either economically or artistically, but the IRS doesn’t seem terribly interested in these groups.

Why pick on Friends of Abe? The group wants to keep its membership information private, for one thing. Anyone who saw what happened to Maria Conchita Alonso can understand why. But this isn’t supposed to be an issue for 501(c)(3) organizations in the first place. There isn’t any requirement to make membership or donor information public, because they are proscribed from directly supporting political parties and candidates by that very status. Yet here is the IRS stalling the application for two years, demanding access to the internal website, and asking intrusive questions that are really none of its business. It’s not difficult to see this as an attempt to identify members and embarrass them — or to intimidate them out of the political sphere altogether.

And that sounds like business as usual for the last few years.

Tags: conservatives, exempt, Friends of Abe, Gary Sinise, Hollywood, IRS, targeting

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CoveredCaliforniawouldlikeyoungpeopletodropit

CoveredCalifornia would like young people to drop it like it’s hot. Wait, wha…?

posted at 6:01 pm on December 12, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

ObamaCare officials and advocates have always blithely claimed that the evident lack of young people signing up for health insurance through the exchanges at the program’s outset would be no immediate cause for panic, despite the absolute necessity of making sure that young people comprise a healthy portion of ObamaCare’s demographic mix — the better to the help pay for the costs of older, sicker participants with more expensive healthcare needs. Young people are procrastinators, after all, ObamaCare’s supporters insist, and they’ll probably wait until the last minute to sign up for new-and-improved, practically free ObamaCare plans — but they seem to be hoping that just the right PR approach will help to make damn sure that that nonchalant prediction actually comes to fruition.

The Obama administration has been trying for months now to get celebrities, actors, comedians, and athletes more involved in their outreach to young people, and a bunch of state exchanges led by Covered California in concert with healthcare advocacy group Enroll America are re-upping that approach with an extended social media campaign: “Tell a friend — get covered!” Via the LA Times:

Thursday’s launch of the “Tell a friend — Get covered” campaign marks a new phase of the effort that is being led by Covered California, the state’s thriving Obamacare exchange which enrolled more than 100,000 people through November (accounting for nearly a third of signups nationwide).

The new campaign, with its daily missives from celebrities, aims to reach 100 million people by encouraging friends to speak to friends about the benefits of health insurance. The message bearers will include actors Tatyana Ali of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” Wilmer Valderrama of “That ’70s Show” and Fran Drescher of “The Nanny.” On Thursday, the campaign released a video featuring Obama impersonator Iman Crosson (who performs as “Alphacat”) rapping about the new law.

“One of the key reasons we’re doing this campaign is that those under 30 live and breathe social media — they live Twitter, they live Facebook,” said Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California. Research has shown strong demand for health insurance within that age group, he noted: “Young people are not young and invincible, rather they’re the young convincibles. Again and again, if you look at the surveys, if you put before young people what insurance costs them, what they get — they want to buy.”

And the aforementioned video: “Drop it like it’s hot.” Hawt? Hot.

I must say, I find the usage of “drop it like it’s hot” to be a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. I know it’s just supposed to be an earwormy spoof, but the possibilities for adverse interpretation here are endless. “Drop your entire budget on expensive premiums designed to pay for the program’s redistributive nature, like it’s hot.” “Get dropped from your insurance plan, like it’s hot, because it didn’t include all of the extra ‘benefits’ we decided you needed and wasn’t expensive enough.” And so forth.

I suppose the cherry on top of this celeb-tastic PR sundae is supposed to be that the “Sexiest Man Alive” (…certainly not in the humble opinion of this twentysomething, I can assure you) is going to be in on campaign.

Pop singer Adam Levine, who won the designation from People magazine last month, is among the celebrities who’ll be promoting enrollment in online health insurance exchanges as part of a social media campaign kicking off tomorrow.

With enrollment totals behind administration projections after the botched start-up of the federal exchange, 17 state exchanges joined by an advocacy group are drawing on Obama administration allies in entertainment and sports to promote sign-ups, using social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

The effort is evidently really banking on young people being more social-media sheep than rationally-self interested individuals. We’ll see how that works out for them.

Tags: California, economy, entertainment, Hollywood, ObamaCare, youth

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LoneSurvivor:MarcusLuttrellonOperationRedwing,eight

Lone Survivor: Marcus Luttrell on Operation Redwing, eight years later

posted at 6:01 pm on December 9, 2013 by Erika Johnsen

As I mentioned back in August, I was pumped when I first learned that Hollywood was basing a film off of Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10, the mind-blowing biography by retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, but simultaneously very wary, because — well, it’s Hollywood. It’s a story that undoubtedly deserves to be retold again and again, especially to a wider movie-going audience, but the book was far too moving, intense, and worthy a play-by-play of extraordinary valor and all-American badassery to risk any political perversions. “60 Minutes” had a few of the answers to some of my reservations during their special on Luttrell’s experiences and the upcoming movie last night, and I have to say, my hopes for an all-around in-good-faith adaptation are getting stronger.

 

Here’s another trailer for the movie, which comes out this January:

Tags: entertainment, Hollywood, military, movie

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