Today, it's Business Insider. And let me just say that it's never a good sign when the news about you opens with something like this:
A Pennsylvania Republican who tried to block his state's votes from being counted in the 2020 election held a fundraiser at a church on Thursday at which he mocked the notion of "herd immunity" and falsely suggested the vaccines against COVID-19 are not really vaccines at all.
Jeepers, there's absolutely nothing about any of this good qualities! For instance, I am pretty sure he lowers the seat whenever he's done in the bathroom and I would not at all be surprised to hear that he is, at the very least, an adequate tipper (assuming the service is good).
But it just looks so so bad when the first bullet out of the barrel is about Doug's part in Trump's Big Lie and the second is about how the COVID-19 vaccines really aren't vaccines.
The brother can't catch a break at all, can he?
BI continues:
At a political fundraiser hosted by the tax-exempt, evangelical Time Ministries Church in central Pennsylvania, Mastriano appeared to gear up for a potential run for governor in 2022, having previously claimed that former President Donald Trump personally asked him to do so. His remarks, aired live on Facebook, touched on opposition to vaccine mandates — a bill he introduced prohibits requiring any immunization — and rehashing claims that the 2020 election stolen.
Wait - a political fundraiser at a tax-exempt church?
Well, the church did post this on it's FB page:
And the IRS does say:
Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.
Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.
On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.
So when it says that "Refreshments will be provided by" the church, isn't that a donation in kind? And when it suggests "donations to Friends of Doug Mastriano" isn't that participating in the political campaign?
Doesn't all that violate the IRS rules for tax-exempt status?
You can watch Doug's fundraising speech here.
Business Insider continues:
"So now the healthcare workers, you're in a bad spot there," Mastriano said, blasting "Joe Biden's edicts" that "you need to get the shot."
"I guess I shouldn't call it a 'vaccine,'" Mastriano continued, a reference to false claims and disinformation that mRNA vaccines, such as the ones from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are not true vaccines because they rely on a new medical technology to spur antibody production. The inoculation from Johnson & Johnson is a more traditional vector vaccine.
The vaccines, one of which has full FDA approval (Pfizer), and two others that have FDA emergency authorization (Moderna and J&J), are safe and effective at staving off severe cases of COVID-19, per Johns Hopkins.
Of Doug's many college degrees, none are in any way scientific so his opinion as to whether the vaccines are, in fact, vaccines is moot.
A point further proved by this:
"And who ever heard this idea that you need to get the shot to protect other people?" Mastriano asked the small audience at the church. "You know when I was deployed overseas, and then you get all of these things shoved into your body, like any veteran does, it's not there to protect the Afghans or Iraqis, it protects you. This is not even reasonable or logical," he said.
Despite Mastriano's suggestion that the benefits of mass inoculation are a novel argument for the COVID-19 vaccines, it is a basic tenet of modern immunology and a reason why, for example, schools in Pennsylvania require all students to be vaccinated against diseases such as polio, with few exemptions for medical and religious reasons.
He also lied about the 2020 election:
At Thursday's fundraiser, the state senator also pushed false claims about the 2020 election. Although Pennsylvania Republicans actually passed a ballot measure this year, limiting Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's ability to issue public health orders during a pandemic, Mastriano insisted the state's elections are fraudulent, citing a debunked story about ballots being trucked in from New York reiterating his demand for a "forensic audit" like that carried out in Maricopa County, Arizona, which he witnessed over the summer.
"They had magnifying glasses on one of the machines, they could tell — apparently photocopies are pixelated…. it's very clear that's a compromised ballot," he claimed.
But the partisan review in Arizona, commissioned by the state's Republicans, did not find any such "compromised ballots," despite being led by a group, Cyber Ninjas, that was committed to finding them. A third-party review of results in Pennsylvania's Fulton County, pushed by Mastriano, likewise found no evidence of fraud.
Isn't there a Commandment against bearing false witness?
So why is Doug Mastriano lying in church?
