The Internal Revenue Service is investigating the Korrektiv.org blog for possibly violating federal restrictions on political activity for tax-exempt groups after the blog featured Sen. Barack Obama as a guest blogger during its blogaversary celebration in Moses Lake, Washington in late 2007, says the Associated Press.
During the celebration at the Holiday Inn just off I-90, Senator Obama drank heavily with blog authors Henri Young, Rufus McCain, and Quin Finnegan, and performed live blogging about faith and public life until about two o’clock in the morning. A spokesman for Obama said at the time that Sen. Obama had become a fan of the blog shortly after announcing his candidacy for president, and that the senator relied on Korrektiv.org throughout the campaign to gauge the Catholic existentialist vote.
The IRS cited anonymous comments posted on the blog stating that volunteers for Senator Obama’s campaign gave out information at tables in the Holiday Inn lobby the night of the blogaversary celebration. Nonprofit groups are prohibited from endorsing candidates or providing support for campaigns, although groups are allowed to invite candidates to address them.
C.G. Chivo, a spokesman for the blog, said the blog authors had taken careful steps to avoid any wrongdoing. Korrektiv writers McCain and Young consulted with their parole officers and lawyers before the event. Chivo said Korrektiv posted a disclaimer in a comment on an unrelated blog post stating that Sen. Obama’s guest blogging was not campaign-related, that Senator Obama’s volunteers were told they could not enter the blogaversary bash, and that the blog had invited Senator Obama to guest blog a year before he announced his candidacy.
Quin Finnegan, Korrektiv writer and author of the New York Times bestselling novel Birds Nest in Your Hair, expressed dismay and disappointment over the investigation. “When the invitation to an elected public official to guest blog during the blogaversary bash of one of his favorite nonprofit blogs is called into question, it has a chilling effect on the entire nonprofit blogging community,” he said in a statement.
IRS Investigates Korrektiv.org
April 1, 2009 by at 5:11 pm
Stalin took out Trotsky first.
You’d think the wags here would be able to come up with a better April Fool.
especially considering no one in his cabinet paid their taxes and no one in the entire country (and by default the IRS) seems to mind about that.