These are two famous Bettys I have written about–Betty Rubble and Big Betty Halverson–I’d hate to have to start calling Elizabeth Crum, ‘Betty’ Crum now too!

I guess she’s mad at me calling what I wrote about her a ‘smear’ though we’ve gotten along and enjoy a beer together whenever we see each other.

I should have been clearer; our friend Chuck Muth handed off his former Nevada News Bureau project to its former Managing Editor, now Editor and publisher, Elizabeth ‘E’ Crum, on September 1, 2010.

He and Citizen Outreach have no ties at all to the Nevada News Bureau anymore.

This is from ‘E’s email complaint to me:  ‘…although *I* do not run around calling myself a journalist…’

That’s a good thing because she’s not a ‘journalist’, but ‘claims’ a journalism ‘minor’ educational ‘equivalent’—her words, not mine (I know, I laughed too!) credential from UNLV having edited her former school’s paper at one time!

My lifelong dream of becoming an internationally famous foot model was crushed when I broke an ankle, so I took up Square Dancing with the Stars as my new dream!

That would be like me calling myself a ‘cuer’ because I ‘minored’ in Square Dancing…allemande right and allemande left and do-si-do!

Doh!

Elizabeth Crum: Mall Cop!

To group herself with persons who have actually earned a Journalism degree-which can run in excess of $200,000 these days at Northwestern and Columbia—calling herself a journalist or a publisher, or even a managing editor, would also be like calling a security guard a real cop just because he has a gun and a badge!

There is an enormous value in professional credentialing and ‘E’ has none to speak of in this arena; Elizabeth Crum is simply a 501(c)3 writer; nothing more, nothing less.

I don’t know why she’s mad at me; other persons are the ones who filed IRS complaints seeking the revocation of her group’s 501(c)3 status since her taking over the NNB—I just blurbed it—and after reading the full text of the complaints, I believe that the complainants have legitimate points of contention and that the Nevada News Bureau’s tax-exempt status should be immediately revoked.

Chuck Muth–seen here in his dress plaid shirt worn only for weddings, funerals, and bowling banquets–does all that he can do to discourage Erin Neff’s intense sexual attraction to him!

Longtime readers know that I detest the secrecy within 501(c)3’s in the political realm; I told Chuck that I liked his concept when he launched it but that it was a shark infested arena in which to swim given the IRS’s rules governing these groups.  To use the US Tax Code to advance a political point of view while shielding donors is/was too risky to his broader agenda with his Citizen Outreach and is an affront to the ‘full, bright sunshine’ I advocate for all things within the political world.

It’s very difficult not to appear ‘political’ when you include your personal blog, your Tweets, blogrolls, and an editorial page as Elizabeth Crum does on an entity that is supposed to be ‘An Independent News Service’ according to its current web homepage.

It’s All About ‘E’ according to the complaints, and I’d have to agree with that view too!

If it’s a ‘news’ service, do we really care what Ms Crum thinks about anything and does it deserve tax-exempt status when she veers off of straight news to do her voracious daily career enhancement shtick courtesy of US taxpayers?

All of this said, Chuck Muth is/was very credible in establishing NNB under his Citizen Outreach because he is an ‘institution’—who should probably be in an institution along with me!—and Chuck Muth has a longtime standing, stature, and gravitas within his right/Libertarian-oriented communities and fan base, so the original granting of tax-exempt status to the NNB was legit even if I strongly disagree with the IRS rules governing same.

Elizabeth Crum simply has no standing, no stature, or any gravitas to continue on with the Nevada News Bureau as a 501(c)3 group and the IRS should have insisted its tax-exemption sunset out when the NNB changed hands; on this, I am also in 100% agreement with the complainants.

Former LVRJer and current NNB staffer Sean Whaley is a credible and a real journalist that I’ve always enjoyed reading for his adherence to the 5 W’s of Journalism!

You can’t just transfer over a 501(c)3 to a now former staffer and call it a day either.

In the first place, 501(c)3’s are supposed to be about ‘charities’ and there’s absolutely nothing charitable—or even altruistic—about the current Nevada News Bureau which today is just a classic tax dodge operation today.

So again, I’m in agreement with the complainants.

Elizabeth Crum stars as The Mother Teresa of Charitable News in her tax dodge scheme and scam according to complaints filed with the IRS!

With the change of ownership to Elizabeth Crum owning and running NNB now, it is nothing more than a career enhancement vehicle for Crum to fraudulently use the US Tax Code for a venture that only benefits Elizabeth Crum according to the complaints!

She took umbrage in my saying that she ‘co-opted’ Chuck Muth’s brand to create one for herself where none had existed before.

Sorry cupcake, you most definitely did ‘co-opt’ as well as trade on Chuck and you used him to further your own ambitions inasmuch as Chuck Muth could ever be used.

You most certainly derived and inured a substantial benefit from your previous association with him Ms Crum and it looks  like you deliberately changed the NNB project’s mission in defiance of the grant donors’ original intent just to take it over for yourself…

… and with US taxpayers footing the bills for you!

I was very surprised at my not noticing before the ‘Eve Harrington’ in Elizabeth Crum and the ‘Margo Channing’ in Chuck Muth until I read all that she has done to solely benefit herself–having no credible experience/background of  her own–while she was co-opting a well-known political/media person, until I read through all of this stuff.

Now some say the new post-Muth ’Elizabeth Crum is now paying herself taxpayer-paid Jon Ralston mega-wages while only possessing Jon Ralston’s daughter’s background!’

Very funny stuff…and an insult to that poor kid!

Plus, there’s the Henderson office, the staff, the travel expenses…!

Though Darcy Spears is KTNV’s very best and woefully under-appreciated reporter who I’ve long been a huge fan of, former 13er Tiffani Sargent (left) had my heart!

How KTNV’s Jim Prather justifies apparently not renewing Emmy winner Tiffani Sargent, but hiring non-jounalist media blogger Elizabeth Crum, is a  mystery about how oddly he runs the Journal Broadcast Group’s operations here…while losing boatloads of money in many of their other markets.

If it weren’t for Mr Muth, you’d be teaching English or blogging somewhere Ms Crum; no legitimate media would have ever hired you without your attachment to him and Channel 13’s infatuation with blondes notwithstanding, you’d have never ended up there either without being under Chuck Muth’s tutelage first.

The gripes about your shameless self-promotion come from journalism’s pros and are legitimate too! How you’ve gotten away with this scheme and scam for so long is testament to how stupid people are in Nevada too!

Plus, your complainants’ view your misconduct as a major violation of the IRS’s Rules and Regs regarding 501(c)3’s which prohibit limited beneficiaries of the tax-exemption and forbid a limited pool of a group’s donors too.

So on April 2, 2011, I asked ‘E’ the following via email:

Why did you set up as a 501(c)3?

Who are your donors?

What is your group’s total annual take from donors?  

How many employees does your new group employ?

Elizabeth Crum refused to respond after having demanded a clarification, if not retraction, the evening prior—from me. Chuck and Dan said the spin-off was amicable and I’ll take them at their word.

Her stone silence in response to query is clear indication, if not empirical proof-positive, that Elizabeth Crum knows full well that she is doing something very wrong while defrauding US taxpayers too!

Neither Chuck, Dan, nor Citizen Outreach are named in the IRS complaint efforts except as being Crum’s launching pad to exploit the US Tax Code to solely benefit herself.

What is especially galling is that NNB’s donors are hidden from public purview and scrutiny while they’re allowed to deduct their contributions to Elizabeth Crum!—which are essentially political contributions—at the same time; that’s outrageous and just like the leftie extremist group Media Matters’ 501(c)3—it was founded by Hillary Clinton but became solely an anti-FoxNews platform since—is now being challenged legitimately, so is the current Nevada News Bureau’s which should not in any way, shape, or form be a tax-exempt group allowing for its donors to lurk hidden from public scrutiny.

Ms Crum appears to have done this so that no one would know her take from it and that no one would know who her donors are when this should have been set up as a Nevada LLC when Chuck Muth’s legitimate group relinquished control over NNB.

I also can’t find any 2010 notice or press release about her taking of the NNB either; also indicating that Ms Crum  knew full well that that would have brought scrutiny to her.

The Right rails against PBS and NPR and its public funding when tax-deductible contributions to Elizabeth Crum’s NNB are the exact same thing and on that too, I totally agree with her complainants.

Sidebar: In a delicious bit of ‘Only in Nevada’ irony, Elizabeth Crum also enjoys access as a regular guest on VegasPBS’s Nevada Week in Review and KNPR’s programming too!

This broad’s got some major stones, huh?

Given that Crum, her donors, and others all hate anything and everything PBS/NPR—you’d think that Florence Rogers over at KNPR and PBS national president Paula Kerger and Nevada’s Mitch Fox would rethink their peculiar–if not masochistic and counter-intuative!–arrangement with alleged tax-dodger Elizabeth Crum!

Elizabeth Crum does not belong on PBS/NPR unless she discloses her donors or dumps her tax-exemption…and then maybe gets herself a Journalism degree too!

The IRS has huge teams of investigators in California who do nothing but work on tax-exempt organizations like hers and there are elements of the complaints that are no less than clever if not also very creative; one particular point stunningly illustrates Elizabeth Crum’s ineptitude on business matters.

Frankly, I’m impressed with the complaints!

The courts have weighed in on 527’s but no 501(c)3 issues have gotten past the bureaucrat level to my knowledge…however, the IRS routinely revokes fraudulent 501(c)3 groups when they discover they benefit only an individual(s) in violation of the law as appears to be the case with Elizabeth Crum Worldwide.

…a concerned ‘group’ of one Ms Elizabeth Crum!

She now faces IRS scrutiny–perhaps criminal–for her blind and blond ambitions because her detractors are many and locally prominent too.

That’s quite something for someone like Elizabeth Crum who doesn’t even have a Journalism degree or any background at all in the running of a tax-exempt ‘charity’…or anything else either!

Elizabeth Crum’s new ‘charity’ isn’t listed on any of the nation’s reputable charity watch sites either.

Only in Nevada would such a scheme, scam, and defrauding of the US Tax Code blossom to singularly benefit only one individual—it is perhaps the most audacious tax dodge scheme here in recent memory—without anyone asking any questions!

These several persons have complained about Ms Crum exposing what she’s doing while she’s preaching personal responsibility, no taxes, ‘pay-go’, free-markets et al Republican philosophies…to everyone else—and while practicing her own version of tax-dodge Kabuki with her Nevada News Bureau scheme and scam post-Muth.

Your Nevada News Bureau  should be able to stand alone in a free media market without taxpayer support in the form of tax deductible contributions and tax-payer paid tax-exemptions Ms Crum, and I fully agree that you have no business being a super secretive tax-exempt entity just to further your own career on the backs of US taxpayers.

…and so it appears that everyone else agrees too!

Chuck Muth and Citizen Outreach were credible with their former Nevada News Bureau; new owner Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Crum simply is not and her tax-exempt status should be immediately revoked.

 

Michael Zahara
4/8/2011
www.WatchdogWag.com