Apparently gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell hasn't forgotten his PTL roots and their practiced art of defrauding folks of their money.
"Praise the Lord" for the little people's hard-earned donation which Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker promised would help underwrite construction of a hotel on one of their Christian compounds. And ooopsy, if that donation didn't actually end up in their pockets instead, otherwise needed to suppress news about Bakker’s adulterous affairs and underwriting their very lavish lifestyle. Thus Jim Bakker ended up with 45 years in federal prison and a $500,000 fine.
Tax laws governing non-profit organizations exist whereby if you expressly solicit donations for a restricted use that those funds raised are actually spent for that expressed purpose. Capital campaigns are good examples of restricted giving. You are asked to contribute to the building of a new church, for example. This is a different ask than the one your church continually solicits from you which generally underwrites operational expenses, such as salaries, overhead, printing, etc. These are unrestricted donations given in support of that non-profit's day-to-day operations and their overall organizational mission or cause.
The McDonnell for Governor campaign recently sent out a solicitation email asking for donations. "Terror suspects could be headed to Virginia", his campaign writes, attempting to strike fear in the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of many a potential supporter.
Bob McDonnell believes any plan to move terrorists to Virginia must come to a screeching halt, and he’s asking for your help to stop this proposal. That is why Bob has spoken out in favor of legislation, sponsored by Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Va), that would prohibit the use of federal funds to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to Virginia, or the use of federal funds to house them here.
It’s common-sense legislation that will ensure we don’t have any detainees, including some of the masterminds of 9-11, brought to Virginia. The Democratic Sheriff of Alexandria called such a move a "...high-risk situation for us" and the Democratic Mayor of Alexandria said he "would be absolutely opposed to relocating Guantanamo prisoners to Alexandria."
If you agree with Bob, please make a financial contribution to ensure Bob has the resources to continue to advance this common sense position.
This is a restricted gift solicitation primarily by virtue of this statement: "Bob McDonnell believes any plan to move terrorists to Virginia must come to a screeching halt, and he’s asking for your help to stop this proposal". Therefore contributions given as a result of this email campaign must be restricted to that endeavor and cannot be otherwise spent on Bob's campaign. He would also owe these restricted gift contributors an accounting of exactly how their donations were spent within that campaign. The campaign ends at which point "this proposal" is indeed stopped or allowed to occur.
Interesting also, is that one method proposed in this restricted giving campaign is advocacy for a particular piece of legislation. Campaign finance laws require political organizations to report time and money spent not only campaigning on behalf of a particular candidate but also on behalf of a particular piece of legislation, such as that offered by Rep. Randy Forbes. We will now need to see this restricted giving campaign shown as an in-kind contribution given and received respectively by both McDonnell's and Forbes'.
But alas, something tells me that I'll have to start sharpening my Photoshop skills as I envision a blog post pic merging photos of Taliban Bob with that of Tammy Faye. Fun!