Hannity and Colmes cover the Mike "Snuffy" Pfleger brouhaha. By the way, the above is just a graphic--you need to click on the title link to get to the actual video player.
As expected, Alan dives right in to misdirection and apologia. The difference between this and an Ann Coulter column, Alan, aside from her well-known employment of satire as a literary tool, is she's not hysterically egging on a frenzied mob with street language right in front of anyone's doorstep. And as for your cynically referencing "the great Christian tradition of forgiveness," that sure doesn't sound like what the commie priest is doing.
The double standard is palpable. If I used the same terminology and applied it to our elected Chief Executive or one of the campaigning hopefuls for that job, I'd fully expect a visit from the Secret Service. If I said it in relation to the director of an abortion clinic, or, Allah forbid, a leader in our Guest Mufti Program, I'd expect the "terrorist threat" card to be played. Still, we can expect the wayward Snuffy will get away with this, and to tell you the truth, I'd rather we played more loosely with the First Amendment than tighter.
I believe everybody is missing the point. I believe all this noise will result in nothing. Is that what we want the outcome to be?
We've already seen a jury of his peers nullify charges where his committing the deed was never in question. And we've seen the Church hierarchy abdicating any authority to rein in their maverick.
I believe the key to shutting him down, the way to truly hurt his subversive operations, is through the tax issue I raised a few days ago (and incidentally, over a year before that). And that's why, it's with no small amount of frustration that I see this issue totally ignored not only by all "authorized" media, and not only by any "pro gun" organizations, but also by any other gun blogs save a few allies.
I just got the following from an EA ("Enrolled Agent"--a tax specialist) that convinces me I'm on the right track with this:
Mike Pfleger's 990 or 990EZ would have been due May 15 if The Beloved Community, Inc. is a calendar year filer and if it received total revenues in excess of $25,000 in 2006. (I suspect you will never see the 2006 returns if the organization has gone mostly inactive, there would not be enough revenue to force filing)I wouldn't mind seeing that, but as I indicated previously, it looks like everything is being done under the auspices of St. Sabina, which files no return because it's a church. I think it would need to be their books examined for donations and expenditures related to affecting legislative outcomes--including use of their assets for same, such as work product and correspondence stored on computers, telephone bills, vehicle use, etc.
I would suggest that our friends in Chicagoland pay a visit to the location where the books are kept (per the 990 you have) and demand to see the organization's public records and be furnished with photocopies of same. See IRS instructions for form 990, page 11, for details: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i990-ez.pdf
If you're interested in kicking Snuffy in the nuts, this is the tack to use. Focusing on his hate speech, while useful for gaining some temporary attention, does little more than visibly divide people into their respective camps.
[Video link via 45superman]