Another "really scary thing," and "an invitation" to harassment, is the personal attacks that TBB/NEXT and their allies trade in. I have read and witnessed them myself -- very damaging and against the spirit of progressiveness. A form of political hostage-taking. Protecting donors, especially academics -- this begs the question of why they need protection -- free speech is open to all and those with nothing to hide don't usually need protecting.
Hi Terri. Two things. First, I encourage you to take another look at the CHALT-PAC report. The fund balance is correct but they raised $8,170 in the reporting period, with one $3,000 contributions, two $1,000 contributions, a $650 contribution, an $640 contribution, and several $500 contributions. Don’t know if links to specific NCSBE documents work, but I’ll try anyway: https://cf.ncsbe.gov/CFOrgLkup/ViewDocumentImage/?DID=298213
Second, here’s what we (Triangle Blog Blog) recently said in a post about our 501c4 status: “We’re a 501c4, like the AARP, the ACLU, and March for Our Lives. Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club both have 501c4s. It’s really common.
“We formed as a 501c4 because we felt that structure was best aligned with the work we were already doing – we have clear progressive policy positions and wanted to be able to advocate for abundant housing and walkable neighborhoods and a government that listens to those who have historically been left out of local decision-making. (This is all on our about page.)
“We also wanted to protect our donors. In 2023, our board was doxxed on NextDoor by a leader in CHALT, the group backing Adam Searing — our addresses were posted, along with our names. You can read more about the incident here. It was an invitation to harass us and it was really scary.
“We maintain a strict firewall between our finances and our writers so that donations do not influence what we write about. But we know from our treasurer that many of our donors are graduate students and faculty at the earliest stages of their career. Doing this work in a college town where many people work at the same institution is hard, particularly when it may affect career trajectories. We keep our donors private to protect them and to ensure that they are not harassed.
“What we can tell you is this: the vast majority of our donors give in the $20-50 range. All but two of our donors live in Chapel Hill or Carrboro – the other two live in Durham and Raleigh (places we occasionally write about). A lot of people seem to really like what we are doing, which is amazing. We hope they continue to do so, but if they are trying to buy influence they will be sorely disappointed: we A) don’t know who they are, and B) write what we want.”
Geoff, The letter you claim that doxxed you linked to publicly filed documents in which you and others voluntarily listed your addresses on official documents. Those documents were not private and if you didn't want the information known or shared, you shouldn't have used it on public documents. From a privacy perspective, addresses are neither private or personally identifying information. All I have to do is Google your name and I get your address, phone number, the value of your home, etc. False claims such as this, directed at a political candidate you oppose, are the primary reason I decided to learning more about dark money and share what I've learned.
Terri, it is obviously not difficult to find someone’s address. It’s something altogether different to post it free and clear on a social media site. Also, do you plan on correcting your report about CHALT’s fundraising this cycle?
Geoff, what social media site was it shared to? I'm not planning to make any changes to this post. I checked and double checked my facts against the 9/26/23 reports.
Nextdoor. I think maybe Facebook as well but I don’t recall. (The person who posted it on Nextdoor has blocked me on Facebook so it’s hard for me to see what is posted there.)
And I’m sort of amazed you won’t make changes. The link I provided shows clearly that there are errors. Your $553.97 figure is the beginning value of the bank account, not the amount they raised.
The report is clear that CHALT-PAC started out with $553.97 at the start of the reporting period, brought in $8,170.00 of contributions, spent $1,241.24, and ended up with $7,482.73.
haha, ok, so you’ll consider correcting the mistakes about CHALT-PAC’s filing if I give you unrelated information about Shameful Nuisance’s donors. Noted.
From WCHL comment made by Redacted to Avoid TBB Dogpiling
Kramer and NEXT/TBB’s numbers don’t add up.
First, it’s clear that TBB and NEXT are the same organization with two 501c4s. Both 501c4s refuse to disclose their source of funding or their expenditures.
We do know Kramer and the NEXT media outlet TBB said they were going to send $4,000 worth of postcards. These postcards are already appearing around town. They previously said they had 60 supporters which they’ve now softened to “a lot” of supporters presumably for NEXT 501c4 and their puppet organization TBB.
Each supporter supposedly contributing somewhere in the $20-$50 range.
A 501c4 cannot spend more than 50% of its funds on political activities.
If NEXT dark money organization and its public media dark money arm TBB split the cost of that $4,000 mailing, they collectively had to raise at least $8,000 this year.
Sixty donations at $50 is only $3,000 of which only $1,500 could be used for political purposes.
Either the NEXT/TBB dark money nexus has broken the 50% rule or they are being dishonest, again, about their funding and operations.
Did these “two” joined-at-the-hip, organizations run by the same out-of-towners raise $8,000? Did they only raise $3,000? Did they raise $4,000 and break the 50% rule?
Who is paying for their targeted mailing? Do their slate of candidates, tainted by dark money support, repudiate the overall tenor and the specific operations of what we now know to be a developer supported group?
Unlike the mythical PAC they manufactured from one email exchange, these are the cold hard numbers.
Looking forward to WCHL, The Daily Tarheel, The Herald Sun and IndyWeek digging into the obvious problems with NEXT/TBB, their opaque operations and, maybe even, the fundamentally disinformative way they operate.
Another "really scary thing," and "an invitation" to harassment, is the personal attacks that TBB/NEXT and their allies trade in. I have read and witnessed them myself -- very damaging and against the spirit of progressiveness. A form of political hostage-taking. Protecting donors, especially academics -- this begs the question of why they need protection -- free speech is open to all and those with nothing to hide don't usually need protecting.
Hi Terri. Two things. First, I encourage you to take another look at the CHALT-PAC report. The fund balance is correct but they raised $8,170 in the reporting period, with one $3,000 contributions, two $1,000 contributions, a $650 contribution, an $640 contribution, and several $500 contributions. Don’t know if links to specific NCSBE documents work, but I’ll try anyway: https://cf.ncsbe.gov/CFOrgLkup/ViewDocumentImage/?DID=298213
Second, here’s what we (Triangle Blog Blog) recently said in a post about our 501c4 status: “We’re a 501c4, like the AARP, the ACLU, and March for Our Lives. Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club both have 501c4s. It’s really common.
“We formed as a 501c4 because we felt that structure was best aligned with the work we were already doing – we have clear progressive policy positions and wanted to be able to advocate for abundant housing and walkable neighborhoods and a government that listens to those who have historically been left out of local decision-making. (This is all on our about page.)
“We also wanted to protect our donors. In 2023, our board was doxxed on NextDoor by a leader in CHALT, the group backing Adam Searing — our addresses were posted, along with our names. You can read more about the incident here. It was an invitation to harass us and it was really scary.
“We maintain a strict firewall between our finances and our writers so that donations do not influence what we write about. But we know from our treasurer that many of our donors are graduate students and faculty at the earliest stages of their career. Doing this work in a college town where many people work at the same institution is hard, particularly when it may affect career trajectories. We keep our donors private to protect them and to ensure that they are not harassed.
“What we can tell you is this: the vast majority of our donors give in the $20-50 range. All but two of our donors live in Chapel Hill or Carrboro – the other two live in Durham and Raleigh (places we occasionally write about). A lot of people seem to really like what we are doing, which is amazing. We hope they continue to do so, but if they are trying to buy influence they will be sorely disappointed: we A) don’t know who they are, and B) write what we want.”
Geoff, The letter you claim that doxxed you linked to publicly filed documents in which you and others voluntarily listed your addresses on official documents. Those documents were not private and if you didn't want the information known or shared, you shouldn't have used it on public documents. From a privacy perspective, addresses are neither private or personally identifying information. All I have to do is Google your name and I get your address, phone number, the value of your home, etc. False claims such as this, directed at a political candidate you oppose, are the primary reason I decided to learning more about dark money and share what I've learned.
Terri, it is obviously not difficult to find someone’s address. It’s something altogether different to post it free and clear on a social media site. Also, do you plan on correcting your report about CHALT’s fundraising this cycle?
Geoff, what social media site was it shared to? I'm not planning to make any changes to this post. I checked and double checked my facts against the 9/26/23 reports.
Nextdoor. I think maybe Facebook as well but I don’t recall. (The person who posted it on Nextdoor has blocked me on Facebook so it’s hard for me to see what is posted there.)
And I’m sort of amazed you won’t make changes. The link I provided shows clearly that there are errors. Your $553.97 figure is the beginning value of the bank account, not the amount they raised.
The report is clear that CHALT-PAC started out with $553.97 at the start of the reporting period, brought in $8,170.00 of contributions, spent $1,241.24, and ended up with $7,482.73.
If you want to provide me with the names of SN contributors and the amounts they contributed, I'll look into your request for the edit.
haha, ok, so you’ll consider correcting the mistakes about CHALT-PAC’s filing if I give you unrelated information about Shameful Nuisance’s donors. Noted.
From WCHL comment made by Redacted to Avoid TBB Dogpiling
Kramer and NEXT/TBB’s numbers don’t add up.
First, it’s clear that TBB and NEXT are the same organization with two 501c4s. Both 501c4s refuse to disclose their source of funding or their expenditures.
We do know Kramer and the NEXT media outlet TBB said they were going to send $4,000 worth of postcards. These postcards are already appearing around town. They previously said they had 60 supporters which they’ve now softened to “a lot” of supporters presumably for NEXT 501c4 and their puppet organization TBB.
Each supporter supposedly contributing somewhere in the $20-$50 range.
A 501c4 cannot spend more than 50% of its funds on political activities.
If NEXT dark money organization and its public media dark money arm TBB split the cost of that $4,000 mailing, they collectively had to raise at least $8,000 this year.
Sixty donations at $50 is only $3,000 of which only $1,500 could be used for political purposes.
Either the NEXT/TBB dark money nexus has broken the 50% rule or they are being dishonest, again, about their funding and operations.
Did these “two” joined-at-the-hip, organizations run by the same out-of-towners raise $8,000? Did they only raise $3,000? Did they raise $4,000 and break the 50% rule?
Who is paying for their targeted mailing? Do their slate of candidates, tainted by dark money support, repudiate the overall tenor and the specific operations of what we now know to be a developer supported group?
Unlike the mythical PAC they manufactured from one email exchange, these are the cold hard numbers.
Looking forward to WCHL, The Daily Tarheel, The Herald Sun and IndyWeek digging into the obvious problems with NEXT/TBB, their opaque operations and, maybe even, the fundamentally disinformative way they operate.
Dead silence from all the local media. Says something really sad.