As reported by The Politico, last March, the far left, Soros-funded, Media Matters is preparing for what its founder, David Brock, described as an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel.
Fox Business reports in the second of a three-part series that C. Boyden Gray, former White House counsel to President George W. Bush, has filed a civilian complaint with the IRS against the nonprofit Media Matters regarding their tax exempt status, which many of us have been questioning for years.. The complaint, filed on July 27, demands that the agency yank Media Matters’ tax-exempt status.
Citing a pattern of “unlawful conduct,” Gray writes in his petition, which FOX Business has obtained, that the nonprofit has “executed a partisan strategy” in violation of U.S. tax law as it exists “no longer to educate the public but, rather, to declare ‘war on FOX,’” Gray says, quoting from an interview its founder, David Brock, gave to the website Politico.
Also unlawful, Gray says, is the nonprofit’s reported goal to “disrupt” the commercial interests of News Corp.
(News Corp. is the parent of FOX News and FOX Business.)
None of these activities are sanctioned, or even found, in nonprofit tax law, Gray says, adding in an interview with FOX Business: “I filed the complaint pro bono. I have no official ties with FOX News or News Corp., the company doesn’t pay me a dime, I’m not on its payroll, and no one there asked me to do this. I filed it on my own.”
Media Matters did not return calls or emails for comment over a month-long period.
Gray, who now runs his own law firm in Washington, D.C., says: “I have never seen any tax-exempt organization getting into the kind of partisan activity Media Matters is now engaging in.”
Gray says he has “known” the nonprofit’s founder, Brock, “favorably,” but filed the IRS complaint “because of the potential abuse of tax-exempt funds.”
He adds: “No one would begrudge what they’re [Media Matters] doing with non-exempt funds, but it’s different when they have tax-exempt status — it’s like a government stamp of approval because of this government subsidy.”
The petition arose after Gray had written an opinion piece about the Media Matters controversy in June for the Washington Times.
Gray cites as evidence in his IRS complaint Media Matters’ reported attempt to disrupt News Corp.’s purchase of BSkyB, a British satellite broadcaster, and its efforts “to turn regulators in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere against the network.’”
And Gray writes that aside from Media Matters’ “unsupportable attempt to tie FOX News to the Republican Party, the fact that Media Matters equates FOX News” with the GOP shows the nonprofit’s “own partisan intent.”
And sure to ignite further debate, Gray says the nonprofit’s activities do “not merely violate” the tax code, they also raise “grave first amendment concerns,” because the government is subsidizing “Media Matters’ attacks on FOX News’ speech, and FOX News employees’ speech,” all “antithetical to the First Amendment,” Gray says.
Schoen had personally sat down with MMFA head David Brock and confirmed that his focus was not education but political advocacyfor one party:–I had breakfast with Media Matters founder David Brock about 6 months ago to talk about his efforts to strengthen the Democratic party– efforts that I fully support and believe are necessary.Brock was compelling in arguing that he would like to see the Democratic Party develop a different, more inclusive message for the 2012 election, recognizing that the Party in large part, had failed in 2010 because they did not present a positive and affirmative case to the electorate– an argument that I could only agree with.Brock also made clear that he saw his mission to try to the best of his ability to counteract Republican fundraising efforts, that had frankly exceeded in substance and sophistication, those of the Democrats…Brock also made it clear to me that his focus was on the party, and providing and creating a level playing field for it and its advocates, rather than positioning himself as exclusively or even primarily as a media critic.–From its inception, MMFA has been a far left political operation. However, so long as they restricted themselves to media criticism they were able to skate by on the public dime. Now that MMFA is training liberal politicos for media appearances and starting a fundraising campaign (also for liberals) any fig leaf of neutrality is gone. The entire organization is as partisan as it could possibly be and should have it’s 501(c)(3) status revoked.
According to web traffic evaluator, Quantcast, Politico averages 5.6 million monthly unique visitors, Media Matters a mere 646,200. Even if you give Media Matters the benefit of the doubt and double that number, they are still doing a fraction of the traffic of sites its size (at 1.3 million, it would still be far smaller than little Mediaite, with ten times the staff). That’s something that clearly should have been pointed out in the story.
With 90 employees and a $15 million annual budget, Media Matters’ traffic is about 6x what ours is (only 3x our best month). In case you’re wondering, our annual budget here at VS is $900. Oh, and we issued zero corrections last year which makes us 24x as accurate as Media Matters.
The new Fox News Show, The Five, discussed the issue on its debut show, a couple of weeks ago. Greg Gutfeld’s take on who the “real victims” are in all this comes at 1:55.
Andrew Breitbart talks with Chris and Lori of America’s Radio News about Media Matters waging war on Fox News, and his controversy with former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod. Andrew Breitbart is a conservative blogger, activist, and founder of Breitbart.com and Breitbart.tv.
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Nice Deb 
So how do 75% of the tax-exempts keep out of trouble with the IRS? Same way Media Matters does – they grease the re-election palms of politicians, and cozy up to the socialist bureaucratic b*st*rds who are supposed to be keeping watch over them.
If you think ACORN has gone away, wait till you see the stories of all the illegal registration drives – AFTER next year’s elections. They may not call themselves ACORN anymore, but it’s still the same criminal sleazy socialists who want to steal you blind.
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