John Mashey's mission to expose 501(c)(3) fakery..

Great minds think alike..   Here is a timely and spot-on post by John Mashey, a computer scientist in California that recently filed a complaint regarding the Heartland Institute with the IRS after researching Heartland's finances in-depth.   The post is on the subject of tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations that fraudulently use their taxpayer subsidized budgets to lobby for legislation and spread misinformation.  

Fake Science, fakexperts, funny finances, free of tax.

Modern anti-science was created by the tobacco industry in the 1950s and then used against climate science, often by the same well-experienced think tanks and individuals. Tobacco anti-science is strangely entangled with climate anti-science, as the attached report shows in detail involving Fred Singer's SEPP, Joseph Bast's Heartland, and more...    

"... Under Jay Lehr and James Taylor, anti-science permeated Heartland’s Environment and Climate News sent mostly to elected officials. Heartland incessantly touted its access and influence with such officials, but its tax forms claimed no lobbying. It ran “fake science” conferences, paying for government staff attendance. It sent money to foreign non-charity advocacy groups, sent anti-science handbooks to school boards and urged parents to complain..
Free speech allows people to express opinions, even lie about facts, but tax-free operation is a revocable privilege. Spreading factual untruths and confusion about smoking or climate science is neither research nor education in the public interest.

 Mashey is all over them like white on rice in a glass of milk on a paper plate in a snowstorm.  Coupled with an IRS looking for tax cheats, I'd say Heartland and other lobbying organizations are in for a rude awakening.  I can almost hear the Right Wing outrage machine getting all fired up over this story, complaining about the left wing bias in the IRS.