by Sally Jo Sorensen
The 2012 990 IRS filing for You Can Run But You Cannot Hide has been posted by Guidestar. The document reveals that two prominent figures from America's extreme right-wing joined the board in 2012 and the ministry's 2012 revenues increased from 2011.
Two national heavy-hitters in the right-wing lineup replace Nicole Bengtson and Steve Farrell, who served on the board in 2011. Gun Owners of American executive director Larry Pratt joined the board, as did Judith Reisman, best known for her crusade against the work of Alfred Kinsey, along with Genesis Communications Network President and CEO Ted Anderson, which produces the Sons Of Liberty (Anderson also runs parent company Midas Resources, a precious metals investment firm) and musician Scott Weber.
Pratt falls to YCR board
Pratt is nearly a cottage industry at Right Wing Watch. Recent headlines include Pratt Suggests Defunding VA in Retaliation For Imaginary Nazi/Soviet Gun Confiscation and Pratt: 'Obama Is Consistently Helping Al Qaeda' Because He 'Hates This Country.'
Bluestem noted in December 2012 that It's not just firearms GOA's Larry Pratt wants in classrooms, but toxic rocker Bradlee Dean, too.
In March 2013, we reported in Like butter on bread: Gun Owners of America was You Can Run's Virginia registered agent:
How close are Gun Owners of America executive director Larry Pratt and toxic metal Christian drummer, preacher and radio show host Bradlee Dean?Pretty close
They've shared "staged shooting" conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook and Aurora, attributing the spree shootings to evil designs by the Obama administration timed with the United Nations small arms treaty.
Pratt recommended Dean's controversial high school presentations, as Bluestem noted in It's not just firearms GOA's Larry Pratt wants in classrooms, but toxic rocker Bradlee Dean, too.
Pratt shared a "biblical perspective" on gun control with Bradlee Dean's co-host after Sandy Hook.
And until the registration was revoked (likely for nonpayment of an annual renewal fee by Dean's ministry), from July 15, 2010 one, Gun Owners of America served as registered agent for YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE INTERNATIONAL,INC. in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Who would have suspected that Pratt was on the Board of Directors of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, International? Like many Dean watchers, we're wondering if there's still a ministry, much less a board.
Gruenhagen's favorite anti-Kinsey "expert" joins Dean
There's much to be admired in Daniel Radosh's 2004 New Yorker profile of Judith Reisman, Why Know?. Some choice tidbits:
. . . Judith Reisman is the founder of the modern anti-Kinsey movement. She spent a week in Washington, D.C., recently, talking to people on Capitol Hill about opening a congressional investigation into Kinsey’s work. The new film, she said, is “deceptive and malevolently misleading, to say the least.” A sixty-nine-year-old independent researcher with a Ph.D. in communications and a former songwriter for Captain Kangaroo, Reisman is the president of the Institute for Media Education and the lead author of “Kinsey, Sex and Fraud” and “Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences.” In one article, Reisman describes Kinsey as “a scientific and moral fraud, a certifiable sexual psychopath as well as a sadomasochistic pornography addict and a sexually harassing bully.” Though largely unknown outside social-conservative circles, Reisman has been influential within them. . . .
. . . To a reader of Reisman’s scholarly papers, it sometimes appears that there is little for which she does not hold Kinsey responsible. In her research on gays, for instance, she has written that the “recruitment techniques” of homosexuals rival those of the Marine Corps. The Kinsey paradigm, she holds, created the moral framework that makes such recruitment possible. Reisman also endorses a book called “The Pink Swastika,” which challenges the “myths” that gays were victimized in Nazi Germany. The Nazi Party and the Holocaust itself, she writes, were largely the creation of “the German homosexual movement.” Thanks to Alfred Kinsey, she warns, the American homosexual movement is poised to repeat those crimes. “Idealistic ‘gay youth’ groups are being formed and staffed in classrooms nationwide by recruiters too similar to those who formed the original ‘Hitler youth.’ ” . . .
Reisman's name may ring a bell for those who recall reading Minnesota state Rep. says Alfred Kinsey’s ‘filthy, perverted’ research should be destroyed. Glenn Gruenhagen said in a committee hearing:
And that is Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s work, okay? He published the Male and Female Report in 1948 and 1956. That research is filled with fraud and lies. That research provided a so-called justification for sex with children down under the age of five years old. It is fraudulent, it is a lie, and yet the Kinsey Institute out of Bloomington, Indiana, continues to publish and promote their filth into our government and into our sex education programs in our public schools. Do the research, ok? We need to destroy his research. It is filled with lies and fraud. The person who has done tremendous research on this is Dr. Judith Reisman. All of this can be found on the Internet. So, what I’m saying is, I would appreciate it if organizations like yourselves who see the consequence of what’s being done to our young people, women and children in this society, would expose this lie that is out there that is providing the basis and justification for. . . .
The Kinsey Institute has responded to Reisman repeatedly since she began publishing screeds against the group in 1981. According to the Institute’s website:
When The Kinsey Institute responded, Reisman filed suit in 1991 against The Kinsey Institute, then director June Reinisch, and Indiana University, alleging defamation of character and slander. In September 1993, Reisman’s lawyer withdrew from the case, and in June 1994 the court dismissed Reisman’s case with prejudice (which means that Reisman is prohibited from refiling the suit).
Mac Hammond musician on board
Todd Bergren, who is "currently the Music Director for Club Three Degrees in Minneapolis and can be seen playing each weekend on the live broadcast of Living Word Christian Center at 10:00 Sunday mornings on KARE 11," according to his Riff Factory profile, remains on the board. LWCC is the ministries of Prosperity Gospel pastor, Mac Hammond. Blogging at City Pages, Mike Mullen reported in 2011 that Mac Hammond joined Michele Bachmann campaign for president.
While the Minnesota House Republican leadership might have redacted support for Dean in 2011 after his opening prayer questioning President Obama's faith, it doesn't appear that all of the rest of the conservative movement followed that lead.
Bengtson out
Nicole Bengtson, former Vice President, whose husband Daniel Bengtson served as Director of YCR's Street Teams until 2012, is gone. Their absence suggests that this detail in the City Pages' blog post about the alleged end of the ministry may be correct; another source reports a falling out. (Dean broadcast solo on Saturday, October 12, 2013, suggesting that sidekick Jake has sought other pastures).
Steve Farrell of Andover, Minnesota, has also left the board. Farrell owns PTL Detail, a "full-Service auto detail cleaning company that provides jobs primarily to men with difficult pasts such as felonies or drug alcohol treatment" and serves as the owner and president of Scenic Hills Holdings, which runs Scenic Hills shopping center in the Battle Creek area of St Paul. He serves as the Deputy Chair of the SD 35 Republican BPOU.
Farrell most recently made news in Rachel Stassen-Bergers' report in the Star Tribune, Gay marriage support costs Republican Sen. Branden Petersen:
State Sen. Branden Petersen’s support of same-sex marriage continues to reverberate in his district.
Last week, his Senate district’s Republican executive committee announced it voted to admonish the first-term senator, who voted last month to legalize same-sex marriage.
“It isn’t about the marriage issue. It is about a politician changing what they do from the campaign trail to when they get office,” Farrell said. “We need to hold our politicians accountable.”
Farrell said he fully expects that Petersen will have a problem winning Republican endorsement when he runs for re-election in 2016.
“We are going to make sure that we are going to find a candidate that will keep his or her word for the next election,” Farrell said.
Given Petersen's conservative voting record, Bluestem suspects it is, in reality, about the marriage vote.
Fewer people, more money
The number of people employed by the ministry declined from 31 in 2011 (page 5 of filing) to 22 in 2012. Despite this decline, revenue increased. In 2011, YCR took in $871,094; revenues climbed to $953, 432 in 2012.
Here's the 2012 report:
You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International/Sons of Liberty
Screenshot: Bradlee Dean serving as Minnesota House chaplain in 2011.
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