Which dollars/minutes are mine?

[Dude!]

I trust the blimp folks, but it's clear on these boards that not everyone does, and I think it would be a good confidence building step if when you buy time on the blimp there was a place to submit a pseudonym with your order.

Then have a page that says:

Total X minutes sold.

12/23/08 14:00 Alias1 bought Y minutes.
12/23/08 14:01 Alias2 bought Z minutes.
etc.

It would be better if this was a file that could be downloaded and loaded into a spreadsheet. Then everyone could verify that their order was included and also that the total minutes figure includes all the orders.

[faisal]

At first I thought you were suggesting that the buyer's name was going to be listed on the downloadable sheet. But if your using a fictitious name, it would require that someone, or some program, would have to send an email to each buyer with their fictitious name. I also don't see why it's really necessary since ever buyer's name gets displayed on the front page of the blimp website soon after a purchase.

[Dude!]

Where do the names appear? I haven't seen that for the blimp site.

What I was trying to accomplish with this is to have a way to verify that the amount of money collected is not under-reported.

I read a post about the Google Checkout information changing, and it got me thinking about what if the website got hacked, etc.. That's why I wanted the buyer to create the ID not the website.

[svillee]

Actually, I think it would be almost as effective even without pseudonyms. The published list could look like this:

Total X minutes sold.

12/23/08 14:00 order for Y minutes
12/23/08 14:01 order for Z minutes
etc.

I suspect most customers could recognize their order by the date, time and number of minutes alone.

Yet another idea: match up minutes the blimp is actually flying with purchased minutes. As minutes are "delivered", send an email like this to the customer: "The blimp completed your order for Z minutes today, between XX:XX and YY:YY." It might even be nice to add a note about location: "During this time, the blimp was flying in the vicinity of <city>, <state>."

Those customers who were so inclined could compare emails. The prospect of customers discovering emails with overlapping times should discourage the blimp team from underreporting income. But aside from all that, I think it would be a nice message to send each customer.

[Cyclone]

The problem with this is that if people ended up with minutes that were during the time the blimp was in the hangar they might get upset.

[Ilhaguru]

Let's not waste time assigning minutes and seconds to each person.

[mokkan88]

Let's not waste time assigning minutes and seconds to each person.

qft

[faisal]

The problem with this is that if people ended up with minutes that were during the time the blimp was in the hangar they might get upset.

You brought up a really good point. Are we paying for the time it's in the hangar?

Also, the RonPaulBlimp website originally posted the names of recent donors, but they suddenly stopped.

[ErikBlack]

I would think this kind of accounting would be necessary to avoid fraud. If an individual customer is buying individual minutes then it stands that they should recieve both a receipt and verification that their minutes were delivered.

I imagine the reason this is not being done is because customers are not actually paying for minutes. They are just throwing their money into a pot and when the blimp team needs money they dip into the pot, whether for blimp time, salaries, operating expensies, etc. There was talk in another thread of buying a flag and renting a cherry picker to attach it. Whose minutes will these expenses be deducted from?

If there is no direct correlation between actual minutes purchased and minutes delivered they should seriously consider re-labeling the "product" in order to avoid breaking various bait and switch laws and other regulations which prohibit fraudulent business activities.

I don't doubt the blimp team's intentions are good and genuine, but there are legal and ethical responsibilities that come along with the benefits of forming a for-profit organization to run this whole deal.

[Cyclone]

bump to bring to the attention of the blimp team.

[NewEnd]

You brought up a really good point. Are we paying for the time it's in the hangar?


160 hours in the air, guaranteed.

[Cyclone]

I would think this kind of accounting would be necessary to avoid fraud. If an individual customer is buying individual minutes then it stands that they should recieve both a receipt and verification that their minutes were delivered.

I imagine the reason this is not being done is because customers are not actually paying for minutes. They are just throwing their money into a pot and when the blimp team needs money they dip into the pot, whether for blimp time, salaries, operating expensies, etc. There was talk in another thread of buying a flag and renting a cherry picker to attach it. Whose minutes will these expenses be deducted from?

If there is no direct correlation between actual minutes purchased and minutes delivered they should seriously consider re-labeling the "product" in order to avoid breaking various bait and switch laws and other regulations which prohibit fraudulent business activities.

I don't doubt the blimp team's intentions are good and genuine, but there are legal and ethical responsibilities that come along with the benefits of forming a for-profit organization to run this whole deal.


In case you have not visited the updated site, they did just that. They have taken off the "concept" of buying minutes from a company. That is no longer their format. Now, one just donates money to "Sponsor the blimp tour" and there is no company listed. You just send it to the address in Florida listed on Google Checkout. I don't know who's address that is because Liberty Political Advertising was listed as having an address in N.C. before, and they are incorporated in Missouri, so where does Florida come in? Trevor lives in New Hampshire. I don't know who is getting the money now.

Anyway, I think this probably alleviates your concerns about bait and switch laws. What this does to the FEC regulations is anyone's guess, since the whole concept of buying minutes from a company is the reason they don't need to have a PAC - (according to the website again). So now that you are not buying minutes from a company, it seems all you are doing is sponsoring a blimp tour and paying someone to do it. Isn't that exactly the kind of thing a PAC is supposed to be set for? Right now this looks like one way you are definitely not allowed to give money.

Although I can't imagine the blimp team, with their high priced FEC lawyer would set up anything that is not 100% legal, I must not understand the FECA very well.

I don't know, it is weird, they say we are doing it this way to make sure this is all legal and then they changed the way they said was legal but didn't change the explanation page. So, in a way, as it stands now, it looks like what they are saying is that the way they are receiving money is NOT legal. But, that wouldn't make any sense.

All over my head.

We must trust the blimp team. I am sure they will come here with answers. Too bad they are taking so long, they are missing out on a lot of donations. I guess they must have a reason for that too. We must have faith.

Who lives in Florida?

[texasliberty]

Well, at one point Jerry Collette had a video faq up that addressed this, the net net being that the key issue with regards to the FEC PAC thing is coordination. According to the theory laid out there (and I am not a lawyer, but I expect the reasoning came from Bradley Smith), the Blimp fails that test because the campaign cannot exercise control over it - they can't tell it where to go, what message to show, etc. That appeared to be the basis for the Blimp project, and along those lines, it wouldn't matter which company does it, whether it's an LLC, a corporate, a sole proprietorship, etc. If, for example, you owned a billboard and we all paid together for a billboard advertising campaign, we are doing private business and none of us are coordinating with the campaign. If the campaign picks the message, it's a different story.

So while I understand the desire for transparency and leaving that aside for a moment, under what I understand to be the operating theory of the Blimp, the company details don't matter with respect to the FEC regulations; it's coordination with the campaign that determines whether the FEC has jurisdiction. [Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, don't flame me, I'm just relating my understanding of what was said in the FAQ]

The minutes thing I think is just a little silly; I personally am not concerned with which minutes exactly are mine, so if they get away from "minutes", I'm fine with that. If it were a billboard, would we care which minutes were whose? Net net is if we give them enough money, they fly the Blimp around; if we don't, they eventually stop doing it.

I understand the transparency desires, I see all y'all's point, yes they should address it, yes there is some ever-stretching delay that maybe will at some point make sense but is currently frustrating, but to me the point of the exercise is to fly the Blimp. As long as the Blimp continues to fly around, I'm just not all that concerned about the details. That's not to diminish those who are, I get their frustration, and yes, it's justified, but at the end of the day we've still spent $325k+ and generated almost $500k of media plus the blimp direct exposure, and the Blimp exists and is about to fly to Jacksonville, so, y'know, to me it's more or less ok. Maybe I'm a dummy, but... that's how I see it.

[Cyclone]

Well, at one point Jerry Collette had a video faq up that addressed this, the net net being that the key issue with regards to the FEC PAC thing is coordination. According to the theory laid out there (and I am not a lawyer, but I expect the reasoning came from Bradley Smith), the Blimp fails that test because the campaign cannot exercise control over it - they can't tell it where to go, what message to show, etc. That appeared to be the basis for the Blimp project, and along those lines, it wouldn't matter which company does it, whether it's an LLC, a corporate, a sole proprietorship, etc. If, for example, you owned a billboard and we all paid together for a billboard advertising campaign, we are doing private business and none of us are coordinating with the campaign. If the campaign picks the message, it's a different story.

So while I understand the desire for transparency and leaving that aside for a moment, under what I understand to be the operating theory of the Blimp, the company details don't matter with respect to the FEC regulations; it's coordination with the campaign that determines whether the FEC has jurisdiction. [Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, don't flame me, I'm just relating my understanding of what was said in the FAQ]

The minutes thing I think is just a little silly; I personally am not concerned with which minutes exactly are mine, so if they get away from "minutes", I'm fine with that. If it were a billboard, would we care which minutes were whose? Net net is if we give them enough money, they fly the Blimp around; if we don't, they eventually stop doing it.

I understand the transparency desires, I see all y'all's point, yes they should address it, yes there is some ever-stretching delay that maybe will at some point make sense but is currently frustrating, but to me the point of the exercise is to fly the Blimp. As long as the Blimp continues to fly around, I'm just not all that concerned about the details. That's not to diminish those who are, I get their frustration, and yes, it's justified, but at the end of the day we've still spent $325k+ and generated almost $500k of media plus the blimp direct exposure, and the Blimp exists and is about to fly to Jacksonville, so, y'know, to me it's more or less ok. Maybe I'm a dummy, but... that's how I see it.

Uh, no. You greatly misunderstand how and when the FEC comes into play. It comes into play anytime you make a donation to a thing, billboard, blimp, TV ad, newspaper ad, you name it, that supports a candidate. It has nothing to do with whether or not the company has anything to do with following the instructions of the candidate or whether the campaign has any control over the project.

For example, all these people that are getting money for newspaper ads are forced to form a PAC because what they are doing is campaigning. It is no secret that the Ron Paul blimp is not flying to support Giuliani, it is flying to support Ron Paul.

Giving legal advice is always very dangerous, but giving bad legal advice is disastrous. Sorry, TL, but you are way off here. I respect you for trying, but seriously, we should all stay away from saying something is legal. In fact, lawyers will rarely tell you something is 100% legal.

Even the blimp team has told us what they think is legal in their own website. They have explained that in order to avoid needing a PAC they are creating an advertising company from which you buy time. Now, in the Washington Post and many other papers, the rest of the world is questioning whether or not that little trick will work or whether the FEC will come down on the blimp folks' heads like they did with the Swift Boat folks last election. In fact, in one article I read it said that the Swift boat folks and two other campaign helper groups (not sure if they were PACs or not) ended up paying over $600,000 in fines because they did not follow the law properly.

In another thread I posted a link that says possibly that the FEC can throw people in jail for up to a year and/or fine them for making any illegal contribution over $2000. Back to the blimp team, they say that they needed to have an advertising company and people buying time from that company in order to make this all legal and that is what they did in the beginning, but the website has changed. Now there is no name of an advertising company and you can't buy time anymore. Now all you can do is send money to some address in Florida that belongs to who knows who to "sponsor a blimp tour." Sponsoring a tour is VERY different from buying ad time from a company.

Sponsoring anything reeks of exactly the kind of thing that you do NEED a PAC for. When we sponsor folks to run ads in NH papers, they have formed a PAC, when we sponsor folks that have run ads in Iowa, they have formed a PAC. Even the guy who is putting an ad in the paper himself is filing papers with the FEC.

So, now that the blimp website has changed its whole motus operandi, or M.O. of doing business it does not look like the thing they said it had to look like in order to stay legal. Which implies the flip side - what they are doing now is NOT legal.

At least most of the folks here are safe, I doubt anyone has donated over two thousand dollars to the blimp. But, I don't know if that is the only threshold. You could have to pay a fine for donating anything illegal. I have no idea.

Sadly, the entire FECA is not available on the Internet.

At least I haven't found it. Here is all I could find: http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.pdf

It seems to be an old version of the law and that is problematic because you cannot depend on any of the rules, they might have changed, but at least you can get the general gist of the law. The specifics might have altered, but the concepts probably are the same.

I am sure it will help you get a better understanding of the law, but again, I would love to have a link to the current version of the Act.

Anyone out there have one?

You see, TL, the problem is, that a lot of us don't want to get thrown in jail for doing something illegal, nor do we want to get hit with huge fines. So, before we do anything that can land us in jail, we want to know if that is a possibility. That is why people are not donating. They are scared. Can you blame them?

Have you ever had a government agency after you? The agency itself does the investigating and then they decide how much you owe and you have to get a lawyer to prove that you don't. Getting the lawyer is expensive. Going to court is expensive. Going to jail is terrifying. So, we can't just throw out this possibility and ignore it, the consequences are staggering.

Not to mention that people are losing faith in folks who refuse to answer any questions and just tell them to have faith and then comments come out about the blimp team staying in expensive hotels and goodness only knows what other ridiculous rumors are spread. But the lack of information leads to all of these problems.

Coming on here and saying I know you all have questions and I HOPE to be able to answer them soon, is ok, but it doesn't move the ball along. In the meantime, a lot of previous supporters are tiring of all of this and are quitting completely. That is why the faster they can provide answers the better.

But there are a lot of very real concerns that MUST be answered, you can't just say, ignore all reality and just keep donating whether or not it is legal and whether or not the blimp will really fly with the money. That is not practical. Also, it doesn't help with donations and to keep the blimp flying you have to get money.

Your post was wonderful showing all the press the blimp is getting. So you need the blimp to fly to get the press (although, it may end up that we are getting diminishing returns regarding press, but forget that for now). Without answers you don't get donations. So, rather than telling all the questioners to stop asking the questions, you would do better to bug the blimp people and tell them to run over here and answer all these questions - that is if your dream is to keep the blimp flying.

[Man from La Mancha]

They have a former FEC directer, chill out. And who the heck cares what minutes ones have. It's not a selfish individual effeort but a group for freedom.
.

[mdevour]

In case you have not visited the updated site, they did just that. They have taken off the "concept" of buying minutes from a company. That is no longer their format.

Maybe folks should check out www.ronpaulblimp.com (http://www.ronpaulblimp.com) for themselves to check on what you're saying.

The radio buttons for selecting your sponsorship amount still refer to quantities of time, and the footer at the bottom of the page still reads:



Liberty Political Advertising | 129 Bleachery Blvd #50 Asheville, NC 28805
Liberty Political Advertising is a for profit broker of political advertising time. We are not soliciting funds for the
Ron Paul campaign or any political committee or party.

So maybe some of you people who are claiming all these radical changes at the web site can explain this to us?

Thanks,

Mike D.

[pacelli]

Maybe folks should check out www.ronpaulblimp.com (http://www.ronpaulblimp.com) for themselves to check on what you're saying.

The radio buttons for selecting your sponsorship amount still refer to quantities of time, and the footer at the bottom of the page still reads:



So maybe some of you people who are claiming all these radical changes at the web site can explain this to us?

Thanks,

Mike D.

That address was recently changed over the past 24 hours. Previously it read:



RonPaulBlimpTour, 305 710-7344, 650 Pennsylvania Ave, #25, Miami Beach, FL 33139 US

So, maybe the folks responsible for making radical changes to the website can explain this to us?

[pacelli]

Uh, no. You greatly misunderstand how and when the FEC comes into play. It comes into play anytime you make a donation to a thing, billboard, blimp, TV ad, newspaper ad, you name it, that supports a candidate. It has nothing to do with whether or not the company has anything to do with following the instructions of the candidate or whether the campaign has any control over the project.

For example, all these people that are getting money for newspaper ads are forced to form a PAC because what they are doing is campaigning. It is no secret that the Ron Paul blimp is not flying to support Giuliani, it is flying to support Ron Paul.

Giving legal advice is always very dangerous, but giving bad legal advice is disastrous. Sorry, TL, but you are way off here. I respect you for trying, but seriously, we should all stay away from saying something is legal. In fact, lawyers will rarely tell you something is 100% legal.

Even the blimp team has told us what they think is legal in their own website. They have explained that in order to avoid needing a PAC they are creating an advertising company from which you buy time. Now, in the Washington Post and many other papers, the rest of the world is questioning whether or not that little trick will work or whether the FEC will come down on the blimp folks' heads like they did with the Swift Boat folks last election. In fact, in one article I read it said that the Swift boat folks and two other campaign helper groups (not sure if they were PACs or not) ended up paying over $600,000 in fines because they did not follow the law properly.

In another thread I posted a link that says possibly that the FEC can throw people in jail for up to a year and/or fine them for making any illegal contribution over $2000. Back to the blimp team, they say that they needed to have an advertising company and people buying time from that company in order to make this all legal and that is what they did in the beginning, but the website has changed. Now there is no name of an advertising company and you can't buy time anymore. Now all you can do is send money to some address in Florida that belongs to who knows who to "sponsor a blimp tour." Sponsoring a tour is VERY different from buying ad time from a company.

Sponsoring anything reeks of exactly the kind of thing that you do NEED a PAC for. When we sponsor folks to run ads in NH papers, they have formed a PAC, when we sponsor folks that have run ads in Iowa, they have formed a PAC. Even the guy who is putting an ad in the paper himself is filing papers with the FEC.

So, now that the blimp website has changed its whole motus operandi, or M.O. of doing business it does not look like the thing they said it had to look like in order to stay legal. Which implies the flip side - what they are doing now is NOT legal.

At least most of the folks here are safe, I doubt anyone has donated over two thousand dollars to the blimp. But, I don't know if that is the only threshold. You could have to pay a fine for donating anything illegal. I have no idea.

Sadly, the entire FECA is not available on the Internet.

At least I haven't found it. Here is all I could find: http://www.fec.gov/law/feca/feca.pdf

It seems to be an old version of the law and that is problematic because you cannot depend on any of the rules, they might have changed, but at least you can get the general gist of the law. The specifics might have altered, but the concepts probably are the same.

I am sure it will help you get a better understanding of the law, but again, I would love to have a link to the current version of the Act.

Anyone out there have one?

You see, TL, the problem is, that a lot of us don't want to get thrown in jail for doing something illegal, nor do we want to get hit with huge fines. So, before we do anything that can land us in jail, we want to know if that is a possibility. That is why people are not donating. They are scared. Can you blame them?

Have you ever had a government agency after you? The agency itself does the investigating and then they decide how much you owe and you have to get a lawyer to prove that you don't. Getting the lawyer is expensive. Going to court is expensive. Going to jail is terrifying. So, we can't just throw out this possibility and ignore it, the consequences are staggering.

Not to mention that people are losing faith in folks who refuse to answer any questions and just tell them to have faith and then comments come out about the blimp team staying in expensive hotels and goodness only knows what other ridiculous rumors are spread. But the lack of information leads to all of these problems.

Coming on here and saying I know you all have questions and I HOPE to be able to answer them soon, is ok, but it doesn't move the ball along. In the meantime, a lot of previous supporters are tiring of all of this and are quitting completely. That is why the faster they can provide answers the better.

But there are a lot of very real concerns that MUST be answered, you can't just say, ignore all reality and just keep donating whether or not it is legal and whether or not the blimp will really fly with the money. That is not practical. Also, it doesn't help with donations and to keep the blimp flying you have to get money.

Your post was wonderful showing all the press the blimp is getting. So you need the blimp to fly to get the press (although, it may end up that we are getting diminishing returns regarding press, but forget that for now). Without answers you don't get donations. So, rather than telling all the questioners to stop asking the questions, you would do better to bug the blimp people and tell them to run over here and answer all these questions - that is if your dream is to keep the blimp flying.

QFT

[Man from La Mancha]

answer all these questions - that is if your dream is to keep the blimp flying.
You are being now very detrimental, you can ask these questions in very simple and not so described terms. As i see it you have to be against the Ron grassroots campaign, I don't take that accusation lightly, you have to be a plant. You have single handedly thru your detailed post provided the most media reporters the ability to write a very damaging report. Your questions could of been much less specific and privately presented. Just wait for an answerand delete what hasn't been copied.:(

.

[NewEnd]

You see, TL, the problem is, that a lot of us don't want to get thrown in jail for doing something illegal, nor do we want to get hit with huge fines. So, before we do anything that can land us in jail, we want to know if that is a possibility. That is why people are not donating. They are scared. Can you blame them?

Actually cyclone, you dont have any money to donate in the first place.
You are here to spread FUD. (fear, uncertainty, and doubt)

and your constant attack against this blimp proves that is exactly all you care about. You want this blimp grounded, and you will resort to threatening people with prison, if it can achieve your aims. Bashing the blimp is your existance on these forums.

You have nothing to lose, because you have no money to donate. I read your post on Dec 16th, where you claimed to have donated very little, but it was all you could afford. There is no way in hell you would ever dream of donating to the blimp, because
1) you have no money, and
2) you hate Trevor Lyman, and think he is a scam artist.


come out about the blimp team staying in expensive hotels and goodness only knows what other ridiculous rumors are spread

Typical smear job.... "oh, I hear rumors"

[pacelli]

You are being now very detrimental, you can ask these questions in very simple and not so described terms. As i see it you have to be against the Ron grassroots campaign, I don't take that accusation lightly, you have to be a plant. You have single handedly thru your detailed post provided the most media reporters the ability to write a very damaging report. Your questions could of been much less specific and privately presented. Just wait for an answerand delete what hasn't been copied.:(

.

I'm pretty sure that anything involving the blimp which Cyclone posted is already public. Anyways, lets keep the blimp in the air since the plan is posted!