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Livestrong lobbyist working for Lance the doper

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Aug 13, 2009
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Digger said:

Even a long time groupie and fellow Texan Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison admits that they talked about USADA


The foundation created by seven-time Tour de France cycling champion Lance Armstrong has mounted a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill in an effort to counter accusations by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that Armstrong took performance-enhancing drugs throughout much of his career.

“substantially if not all about USADA and concerns about the process that Lance Armstrong is being put through,”
 
Apr 9, 2009
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Digger said:

From the article:

"The foundation has worked with many firms in Washington over the course of the last decade to further the fight against cancer and we're pleased to partner with Patton Boggs on the important domestic policy issues that will have such an impact on cancer survivors and their families," said McLane.


Are you frickin kidding me? LAF is using the same firm that Lance is using for his personal defense? I know, I know, I shouldn't be surprised.
 
Sep 5, 2009
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guilder said:
There is nothing in the story to pick up other than how much of USADA's budget will go into a hearsay evidence case.

So all the witnesses and documentary evidence apparently assembled by USADA is non direct and not from the horses mouth.

USADA, in your view, are using evidence from persons who were not privy to LA's conduct but heard from other persons. :rolleyes:

In relation to Armstrong allegedly calling up favors to politicians to stymie USADA's case against Armstrong.

The only threat is to cut the future budget allocation from the US government to encourage USADA to back off on Armstrong.

If USADA was seen to be backing off WADA could hold it to be in non compliance with the WADA code opening up a whole raft of sanctions that would unprecedentedly deem the US as a pariah state in relation to anti doping.

I can recall there is an interpretation that WADA could step in and fill the breech. WADA can appeal any national decision.

On the funding front WADA stepped in to assist in bankrolling the case against Floyd Landis when USADA was feeling the pinch.
 
Feb 25, 2011
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I tried to reply to Anna Zimmerman's blog post but her site isn't letting me.

http://150wattsofawesome.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/seriously-livestrong.html

I figure I'll post my response here.


Anna,

I thoroughly appreciate your effort in exposing the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) for the scam that it is. However I disagree with some of your analysis. I think you may underestimate the lengths that Mr. Armstrong has gone to, in order to protect his ability to swindle money from people, under the guise of charity. I'd love to see him face financial penalties from the IRS for his crimes as much as anyone, but I think he's covered his *** on this one.

First of all, regarding this point:
“An excess benefit transaction is a transaction in which an economic benefit is provided by an applicable tax-exempt organization, directly or indirectly, to or for, the use of a disqualified person,
AND
the value of the economic benefit provided by the organization exceeds the value of the consideration received by the organization.”

I interpret this as two parts, separated by "and," meaning both have to be true. There is no question that part 1 is true in this case. LAF is an "applicable tax-exempt organization," and at the very least they "completed a transaction that indirectly provided an economic benefit to a disqualified person." There is NO doubt about that, but that's just part one of two and both have to be true to satisfy the test.

The second part says effectively that A must be greater than B, where A = the economic benefit provided by LAF and B = the value of the consideration received by LAF. I think A could mean one of two things. One is the cost to LAF, i.e. the travel and labor expense of the lobbyist, as you suggest. The other is the economic benefit received by Armstrong. The wording suggests to me it is the latter. The first is on the order of thousands of dollars, the second is immeasurable but potentially worth millions. B, the value of the consideration received by LAF, in my opinion is also on the order of millions of dollars due to the blurred lines of Lance and the foundation, which I will discuss below. Let's assume A is the latter of the two, then in order for it to be an excess benefit transaction, the value recieved by Armstrong would have to exceed that received by LAF.

Now, as to the "benefit of the consideration received by the LAF," that relates to how much LAF stands to lose from Armstrong being found guilty of a doping violation. And that all relates to the fact that the LAF is a cancer "awareness" foundation, not a research foundation. Their sole purpose is to promote awareness of cancer, not fund research on curing it. How do they promote that awareness? They fly Armstrong to races, where he happens to have a speaking engagement, or they just directly pay a particular famous cancer survivor to speak about cancer. That promotes awareness. Given, Team Radio Shacks uniform stunt at the end of the 2010 Tour, they could have probably justified paying for the team's expenses for the race because it "raised awareness." We can argue the value of awareness of the most well-known disease on the planet, but that is the LAF's purpose. And that purpose means that they are completely tied to Armstrong himself and, more importantly his reputation. Given that in 2010, they brought in 42.3 million dollars, and their ability to do so is tied directly to Armstrong himself, they probably stand to lose a good chunk of that if he is exposed for what he really is. http://www.livestrong.org/pdfs/4-0/LAF-2010-Form-990

While the benefit received by Armstrong may be high, I doubt it's as high as the benefit received by the foundation, due to the fact that the two are basically inseperable and that the LAF probably has more to lose.

So while I don't think this instance is a violation of IRS tax-exempt rules, I do think the LAF has violated those rules before. See http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5551242. At the time of the Demand Media IPO, Armstrong had 1.06 million warrants and LAF had 1.25 million and Capital Sports and Entertainment had .19 million. Plus Armstrong was guaranteed a job as a contributor to Demand Media's Livstrong.com site. I would guess that the value of that job, combined with the benefit of Armstrong and CSE's stake in Demand Media, exceed the value of the LAFs stake. That would be a violation.

And in my opinion, the biggest violation is the assumption that raising awareness of the worlds most well-known disease is somehow an "approved purpose" for a tax-exempt organization.

They may be scum bags, but I think the IRS would be hard pressed to make a case against them strictly because of this lobbyist.
 
sittingbison said:
In that case DDs tweet would read:
Anna, I thoroughly appreciate your effort in exposing the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) for the scam that it is. However I disagree with lol;)

Alternatively he could send her a link to his post, or tell her that comments aren't working so she could enable them. ;)
 
DomesticDomestique said:
I thought that my analysis might be of interest to some people on here and figured I would share it. If you don't want to read it all, then skip it.

Tad over-defensive there. I didn't say I didn't want to read it, I simply mentioned you could contact her if her site isn't working properly. No need to get your panties in a twist.
 
May 26, 2010
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DomesticDomestique said:
I thought that my analysis might be of interest to some people on here and figured I would share it. If you don't want to read it all, then skip it.

In my opinion the 'biggest violation' is the fraud the liestrong gives a damn about cancer awareness. They simply are there to promote Amrstrong and his minions do their utmost to fulfill this convinced he is the Cancer Jesus.

I would love to meet someone who has not heard of cancer.
 
Jun 19, 2009
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Benotti69 said:
In my opinion the 'biggest violation' is the fraud the liestrong gives a damn about cancer awareness. They simply are there to promote Amrstrong and his minions do their utmost to fulfill this convinced he is the Cancer Jesus.

I would love to meet someone who has not heard of cancer.

....and his name is "a certain Mr. Lance Armstrong"
 
Nov 20, 2010
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Race Radio said:
Even a long time groupie and fellow Texan Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison admits that they talked about USADA
I'm certain that she and her staff are mis-remembering what took place at the meeting. A call to Lance or Livestrong should set matters right.
 
Nov 20, 2010
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Velodude said:
So all the witnesses and documentary evidence apparently assembled by USADA is non direct and not from the horses mouth.

USADA, in your view, are using evidence from persons who were not privy to LA's conduct but heard from other persons. :rolleyes:

In relation to Armstrong allegedly calling up favors to politicians to stymie USADA's case against Armstrong.

The only threat is to cut the future budget allocation from the US government to encourage USADA to back off on Armstrong.

If USADA was seen to be backing off WADA could hold it to be in non compliance with the WADA code opening up a whole raft of sanctions that would unprecedentedly deem the US as a pariah state in relation to anti doping.

I can recall there is an interpretation that WADA could step in and fill the breech. WADA can appeal any national decision.

On the funding front WADA stepped in to assist in bankrolling the case against Floyd Landis when USADA was feeling the pinch.
guilder is sounding more and more like another Fabiani shill trolling the discussion boards. Might I suggest ignoring him?
 
May 19, 2012
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Is this meant

thehog said:
Bill love your work but first things first.

Cancer suffers are not victims - got it? Those who have the disease never see themselves as victims. Ever. Nor should you. Period.

Such a foolish thing to say.

to be ironic?
 
Nov 20, 2010
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MarkvW said:
LA Times has a story on Lance's influence peddling with the senator and two reps. Nothing new, but very mainstream.
A good number of mainstream meadia outlets are picking up the AP story. Balanced but not good for Lance to have the world know that he isn't interested in the truth coming out in a hearing. But, what's he going to do if Judge Sam takes jurisdiction and sets out a discovery schedule?? Lance is done either way.
 
Cimacoppi49 said:
A good number of mainstream meadia outlets are picking up the AP story. Balanced but not good for Lance to have the world know that he isn't interested in the truth coming out in a hearing. But, what's he going to do if Judge Sam takes jurisdiction and sets out a discovery schedule?? Lance is done either way.

If the judge allows Lance discovery, Lance will know everything USADA knows about his case, and more. That is probably Lance's secondary goal in this case. I doubt USADA is eager to participate in discovery with the Vindictive One.
 
Jul 12, 2012
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MarkvW said:
If the judge allows Lance discovery, Lance will know everything USADA knows about his case, and more. That is probably Lance's secondary goal in this case. I doubt USADA is eager to participate in discovery with the Vindictive One.

The notion that Armstrong will not have access to evidence is misinformation. If the case moves to Arbitration, Armstrong will have access to all evidence.

Do criminal defendants have access to Grand Jury evidence prior to charges being filed? No. The USADA investigation is essentially a Grand Jury.

Now that charges have been "filed" against Armstrong, he has a choice: arbitrate or not. Plain and simple. Should he chose arbitration, he will have access to all evidence.
 
Turner29 said:
The notion that Armstrong will not have access to evidence is misinformation. If the case moves to Arbitration, Armstrong will have access to all evidence.

Do criminal defendants have access to Grand Jury evidence prior to charges being filed? No. The USADA investigation is essentially a Grand Jury.

Now that charges have been "filed" against Armstrong, he has a choice: arbitrate or not. Plain and simple. Should he chose arbitration, he will have access to all evidence.

Despite what you write, USADA is not going to want to participate in civil discovery with Mr. Armstrong. They are going to want to stay discovery. Think "exhaustive depositions of every USADA witness," and you will begin to understand why USADA does absolutely not want to go there. They have a streamlind hearing process for good reasons, and they don't want to be burdened by a very expensive civil discovery process.
 
Nov 20, 2010
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MarkvW said:
If the judge allows Lance discovery, Lance will know everything USADA knows about his case, and more. That is probably Lance's secondary goal in this case. I doubt USADA is eager to participate in discovery with the Vindictive One.
And likely the whole world will know what Lance and USADA know. That would not be a bad thing.
 
Nov 20, 2010
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Turner29 said:
The notion that Armstrong will not have access to evidence is misinformation. If the case moves to Arbitration, Armstrong will have access to all evidence.

Do criminal defendants have access to Grand Jury evidence prior to charges being filed? No. The USADA investigation is essentially a Grand Jury.

Now that charges have been "filed" against Armstrong, he has a choice: arbitrate or not. Plain and simple. Should he chose arbitration, he will have access to all evidence.

True enough when compared to criminal litigation. Discovery in an arbitration before the AAA can be more limited than in federal court, but if the parties have agreed to it, there is no due process problem to AAA arbitration. If the losing party feels aggrieved, they can go to a court to review the arbitration. But Armstrong and his lawyers know all this, as does Judge Sparks. :)
 
Cimacoppi49 said:
And likely the whole world will know what Lance and USADA know. That would not be a bad thing.

I think it likely there'd be a protective order on the depositions. I cannot believe Armstrong would want the voluminous raw testimony in the open under any circumstances.

-dB
 
Jul 12, 2012
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MarkvW said:
Despite what you write, USADA is not going to want to participate in civil discovery with Mr. Armstrong. They are going to want to stay discovery. Think "exhaustive depositions of every USADA witness," and you will begin to understand why USADA does absolutely not want to go there. They have a streamlind hearing process for good reasons, and they don't want to be burdened by a very expensive civil discovery process.

While I agree, but unless Judge Sparks rules otherwise, there is not going to be "discovery" as in the civil litigation sense. Perhaps we are also looking at this somewhat differently. Part of Armstrong's public campaign is the USADA's procedures are unfair and he has been denied due process. I simply maintain such is untrue. Hundreds of other athletes have been thru this process, which is not unlike arbitration panels in other professions. In fact, the USADA procedures seem to provide more "due process" than arbitration panels in other professions, for example FINRA, toothless as they are...

However, for a variety of reasons, and IMHO not "due process" ones, Armstrong wants his case moved to civil court. As you noted, he can drag it out but even more important, have his case tried before a jury that will be fair more easy to manipulate than a panel of arbitrators.
 

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