The Pink Flamingo :: Are the Minutemen DOA?

For a few months The Pink Flamingo has been telling anyone who wouldn't listen that the minutemen, etc. are in big trouble. Evidently things are not all sweetness and light in anti-immigration land. (H/T Sally Vee) Suppose they gave a great big 'ol anti-immigration thingie with all the usual suspects and nobody came? Well, that's what happened in Denver when the whole Tancredo show decided to co-opt the DNC.

It gets even better (or worse depending on your point of view). Dee, who has immigration blog, has some absolutely delicious information about one of the major minutemen organizers who is not very happy with the world. Dee wrote:

"...For weeks, I have been receiving emails from someone with the email id "Patriotic Minuteman." He has been sending me emails with titles including "Mountain Minutemen forced off the Border" saying "The notorious Mountain Minuteman Robert Crooks has left his position at the border, amid rumors he was removed at the request of local law enforcement. Locals have confirmed law enforcement have been looking for him and another full time member was asked to leave the immediate area by the sheriff. Another member, Leland or "bigulgyjerk" has also left the site which is reportedly vacant "most of the time."

I didn´t write an article about this right away as my email contact wanted. I was hesitant about posting more Minutemen articles since my slew of them a few months ago. I hadn´t heard too much about them in the media recently. I´ve been under the impression they have been trying to lay low or adopt a more politically correct approach. Then today, I read an article where former MM leaders have a lawsuit against Chris Simcox and are wanting to expand the lawsuit to include angry former members from across the nation. Coincidentally, Chris Simcox and the MCDC hosted a "National MM Rally" at Congress Park. Very few people showed up. (see bottom article)...."

All of this coincides with the information I've been finding about the problems that are on-going with the minutemen. From the SPLC

"..."The government demands that these [non-profit] organizations provide tax documents based on truth and here [the MCDC] is clearly not truthful," O'Connell told the Sierra Vista Herald.

O'Connell was one of 14 MCDC state directors fired in May 2007 by MCDC founder Chris Simcox after they questioned his financial accountability and demanded that he make available the organization's financial records.

That purge took place the same month that retired homebuilder and Air Force veteran Jim Campbell filed a $1.2 million lawsuit against MCDC, alleging fraud and breach of contract. The previous spring, Campbell mortgaged his home to obtain $100,000 that he donated to MCDC after receiving fundraising materials from Simcox's organization. Simcox was soliciting money for the construction of a 10-mile-long, high-tech "Israeli-style" border fence on private ranch land in Texas.

One year after accepting that money, the MCDC had constructed only a few hundred yards of five-strand barbed wire cattle fence. Campbell says Simcox refused to give him back his money or account for what happened to it.

Campbell recently dropped his lawsuit because, he said, he didn't want to continue funding the litigation. Instead, he's seeking out other past MCDC fence project donors who feel they were defrauded and having them forward their personal accounts along with the "Israeli-style fence" fundraising materials they received to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service as formal mail fraud complaints.

Among the evidence Campbell personally submitted to federal authorities is a 2006 IRS Form 990-EZ for the Minuteman Foundation, Inc., the MCDC subsidiary formed to raise money for the fence project. It lists only $87,500 in donations for 2006, the same year Campbell alone donated $100,000...."

For ages The Pink Flamingo has been telling you that the minutemen, et. al were in serious trouble. One of these days someone is going to do time, I do believe, for their actions and playing fast and loose with money.