SIGNS OF DESPERATION: As details emerge from the presidential campaigns, an increasing number of stories exposes that Kerry campaign operatives frequently broke the law in their desperation to win the White House.
For example, a Bush campaign volunteer in Ohio reported to HUMAN EVENTS that there were coordinated efforts by Kerry workers to rip down all of the Bush-Cheney lawn signs in the whole battleground state.
"One night we had spent four or five hours putting up hundreds of Bush signs in a closely contested county," the Republican activist told us. "By seven in the morning the next day, they all had been destroyed or stolen. This happened every night for weeks before Election Day-and campaign colleagues working elsewhere told me they had the same problem in their precincts."
The Democratic Party chairman of one Ohio county offered high-school students and union activists $5 for every Bush-Cheney sign they would steal and turn in to him. In many instances, houses that displayed Republican placards were vandalized.
The Democrats' illegal dirty tricks didn't pay off in Ohio. President Bush won the Buckeye state and its 20 electoral votes by 2% of the vote.
ACLU VS. BOY SCOUTS: Under assault from the ACLU, the Boys Scouts now face the prospect of being dropped from sponsorship by U. S. military bases. The Pentagon recently settled a suit brought by the ACLU that would agree to drop the sponsorship of some 400 Boy Scout troops.
The Alliance Defense Fund is calling the terms of the settlement "absurd" and "out of touch with the law and the American people."
"The Boy Scouts are a federally chartered, patriotic organization approved by Congress. The Pentagon's announcement flies in the face of the will of Congress. The Boy Scouts have a decades-old track record of helping society in exactly the sorts of ways that Americans want," said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb.
McCaleb said that ADF intends to monitor the situation. "ADF is always willing to step in on behalf of highly respected organizations that are unfairly treated by the government," he said.
TAX CAREFUL: Conservatives favor a flatter income tax (assuming we're stuck with that tax), which is fairer and promotes economic growth that benefits all, but they favor tax cuts even more. President Bush has named tax simplification as one of his top priorities for his second term, but hasn't endorsed a flat tax-perhaps because many options, including one popularized by Dick Armey, would raise taxes on many middle-class families unless they included a substantial tax cut. Economist Steve Entin "calculates that a family with four children making $50,000 a year could owe about $1,500 more under an Armey-style flat tax with a 17% rate," reported the Population Research Institute (www.pop.org).
EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION: Environmental activist groups are often portrayed as "grass roots" efforts that scrape by on meager donations from those concerned about the environment.
However, some environmental groups are rewarding their employees with hefty salaries that would rival the pay of some CEOs, says Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
According to a report by Public Interest Watch:
- The Natural Resources Defense Council paid $1,753,849 in compensation and benefits to just nine employees in 2001.
- The Environmental Defense Fund paid a total of $2,120,980 in compensation and benefits to 13 employees in 2002. When measured against the $25 million they received in donations, salaries amount to 8.5 cents of every dollar for just 13 employees.
- The Sierra Club provided a much more reasonable compensation for their staff: $411,670 for five employees in 2002 (with the president earning a gross salary of just over $140,000).
- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals paid only $294,234 in 2001 to their top five staff (PETA's president earned a gross salary of only $30,000).
Indeed, not all charitable environmental groups are paying out executive-type compensations. At issue, however, are the 501(c)3 affiliates responsible for passing along big donations to these groups. In fact, Public Interest Watch concluded that the affiliate Greenpeace Fund, Inc., acted as a "shell corporation," illegally channeling large, tax-exempt donations.
