I had considered not writing any more about Sen. Stanley Jason Rapert (R-Leviticus) and his fool’s errand of taking a second crack at putting a Ten Commandments monument on the Capitol grounds. After all, given the abject idiocy he demonstrated earlier, there did not seem to be much left to say until the inevitable lawsuit was filed.
But a line in the Arkansas Times’ story on Stanley’s showboating acceptance of a check from the producers of God’s Not Dead[footnote]Tell me again how this monument is “historical” and not at all about religion, Senator![/footnote] caught my eye:
[Wye Mountain Voldemort] also explained that the $100,000 goal on a Go Fund Me page was just a requirement of the website, not necessarily the amount he’s seeking.
“That seems odd,” I said to Roosevelt, the basset hound currently passed out on the floor of my living room. Roosevelt said nothing, so I continued. “$100,000 seems like an awfully high ‘requirement’ for a fundraising website to have. I think that Stanley might be lying about that. If only there were some way to check….” Roosevelt continued snoring, but then it hit me — I could set up a fundraiser using the same settings that Rumpleforeskin had used on his fundraiser![footnote]I’m not linking to his.[/footnote]
GoFundMe allows you to set up a fundraiser as a person or on behalf of a certified charity. I assumed that Stanley, being a former financial advisor and understanding the need to avoid any appearance of co-mingling, would go with the certified charity option. Then I checked his page:
Nope, it appears that Stan went with the personal fundraiser. What’s the difference? I’ll let GoFundMe explain:
Hmm. Considering the certified charity side requires an EIN for tax purposes, while the personal does not, that’s an interesting little twist that is probably worth exploring at some point.[footnote]That’s called foreshadowing.[/footnote]
So, anyway, I switched my test fundraiser to personal, and I put in $25,000, which was roughly what the first monument cost.
Also, like J-Rape, I selected “Non-Profits & Charities” instead of “Missions, Faith & Church,” because, for purposes of this experiment, I wanted to continue living the fiction that this monument is not religious. I see you workin’ there, StanJay!
I clicked continue, and nothing popped up telling me that the website required me to put $100,000 as the goal. “Maybe that comes later,” I said to a still-snoring Roosevelt.
GoFundMe then asked me to add a picture and to tell my story. So, I did.
I hit “Next,” fully expecting to be told, as Stanley suggested, that the website required me to change my fundraising goal to $100,000. Instead, I got this:
And this:
So…what are we to make of this? I was going to write something snarky, but, on second thought, I’m not going to. Let’s be honest with one another here: Rapert got called out on attempting to raise nearly four times what the first monument cost, and he lied about his reason for setting the total that high.
Why lie? Your guess is as good as mine. But given the fact that: (1) the incorporator and general counsel of Rapert’s “American History and Heritage Foundation, Inc.,” is Travis Story — the same lawyer who is tangled up in the Ecclesia College fiasco (see also here) and was the lead attorney in the effort to fight Fayetteville’s non-discrimination ordinance; (2) Stan is using the same PO Box[footnote]He’s using the same phone for AHHF and Holy Ghost as well.[/footnote] for this organization as well as Holy Ghost Ministries and his campaign; and (3) AHHF chose to with the personal fundraiser page rather than the one that required an EIN for the organization, Rapert’s dishonesty about “a website requirement” is highly suspect.
At the end of the day, though, this shouldn’t be too surprising. There’s a phrase for someone like Rapert. What is it, again?
Oh, yeah. That’s it.
***
Worth noting: I went in and deactivated this fundraiser because, unlike Stanley, I have some modicum of self respect.