March 31, 2012

Koch Brothers, Worth $50 Billion, Sue Widow Over $16.00 of Nonprofit’s Stock (Secret Owners of Cato)

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/05/koch-brothers-worth-50-billion-sue-widow-over-16-00-of-nonprofits-stock/

With the Koch brothers, it’s all about control. They reign over the largest private oil company in the U.S. with estimated revenues of $100 billion. They wield power over a sprawling network of nonprofit front groups with unbridled influence over everything from the Tea Party to economics professors at publicly funded universities. Forbes lists their personal wealth as $25 billion each. They own mansions in the toniest towns in America. And last week, in a decidedly Scrooge-esque maneuver, they filed a lawsuit against a widow who lost her husband to a stroke a mere four months ago over stock she inherited in the Cato Institute worth a measly $16.00.

The lawsuit, filed in the District Court of Johnson County, Kansas (the State where Cato was incorporated and home to Charles Koch) has opened up a nasty can of worms. Unknown to the public at large, the Cato Institute, a stronghold of free market, libertarian writers and speakers, has been privately owned by a handful of men for 35 years, notwithstanding its receipt of hundreds of millions of dollars in donations — which the wealthiest 1 percent have used as tax deductions to lower their tax tab to Uncle Sam; in itself a neat maneuver to shrink government.

The can of worms is this: the Internal Revenue Service warns that charitable organizations like the Cato Institute, organized as a 501(c)(3) http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=96099,00.html “must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.”

Unfortunately for Cato, two of their owner-shareholders, Edward (Ed) Crane, long serving President, and William Niskanen, long serving Chairman and former husband of the widow being sued, have received millions in compensation from the Institute: a total of over $1.86 million in just tax years 2008, 2009, and 2010. Crane has served at Cato for over 35 years, Niskanen for 26 years until his death in October of 2011, suggesting their cumulative compensation would be an extremely large benefit to private shareholders, an eventuality expressly disallowed for 501(c)(3)s by the IRS. This could potentially subject Cato to significant back taxes and require donors to file amended tax returns to remove the nonqualified deductions.


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March 27, 2012

Florida store owner shoots teen in self-defense, killing him

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_tampa/Store-owner-shoots-teen-in-self-defense-killing-him

TAMPA, Fla. - Taquanda Baker doesn't remember the suspect saying anything. She just remembers seeing his gun. "I was standing here," she said, pointing to a spot near her cash register. "As I saw him coming, he already had the gun up." Baker pulled her gun out of her pocket, misfiring a shot into the wall, then aimed and shot again. "He stumbled about 3 feet back, hit the floor, and I shot out the door," she recalls. Baker ran outside her convenience store to Armenia Avenue and flagged down a TPD cruiser.

"I was like, 'I just shot somebody. Help me! Help me! Help me!" While paramedics raced the suspect to the hospital, police put Baker in handcuffs and in the backseat of a patrol car. She told them she not only knew the person she shot -- she knew he was only 16. "I used to tease with him, 'Why aren't you in school today?'" Baker explained. Baker calls Quintavius Moore a regular customer, who shopped in her store several times a day. He'd buy shirts or candy, sometimes he even brought kids in.

Moore's grandmother, Delores Wesley, wouldn't comment on her grandson's death, but asked ABC Action News to relay a message to other teens. "Stay in school," Wesley said. "Put God in your life." Knowing she killed Moore, even in self-defense, makes Baker sick. "It's a feeling in the inside. I can't explain it," Baker said. "It's like my heart's broken."

Baker bought the gun when she opened her store a couple years ago. She puts it in her pocket first thing every morning. She keeps it concealed, so she's not sure more even knew she had a gun, especially since this was the first time she's ever had to use it. "With $30 in the register, so if he was lucky enough to get the money, it would've just been $30," Baker said. "That's nothing. It's not worth your life."

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video at link above
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more video

http://www.wtsp.com/news/topstories/article/247290/250/Store-owner-heartbroken-after-shooting-teen-suspect