Is EndCitizensUnited.org A Scam?

Getting unlimited, barely regulated Big Money out of electoral politics-- overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United corporate-personhood decision-- has become a holy grail of progressive politics. And rightfully, fundamentally so. Bernie Sanders, the only actual progressive running for president, said in May that "if elected I will have a litmus test of my nominee to be a Supreme Court justice. And that nominee will say, we are going to overturn this disastrous decision on Citizens United because that decision is undermining American democracy." In January he filed a constitutional amendment that would overturn the decision. Even the corporate Democrat running for president, Hillary Clinton, says she opposes Citizens United.

On March 1 an organization dedicated to overturning the decision was launched with claims of being a grassroots effort, EndCitizensUnited.org. They define their tactical mission as making

a big splash in 2016 election. We plan to support Democrats in key races who are in favor of meaningful reform to our campaign finance system and who will stand up against Citizens United. We also will stand up for candidates who are under attack by the Koch Brothers and related dark money groups. Why Democrats? Democrats are leading the fight against Citizens United, and we believe meaningful change can happen with their leadership. Even though many Republican and Independent voters agree that undisclosed political spending is out of control, Republican leadership in Congress is standing squarely in the way of overturning this disastrous Supreme Court decision. It has to stop. So we will do what we can to support candidates who are champions for meaningful campaign finance reform.

They list both the DCCC and the DSCC as institutional supporters, and the organization is run by a former Obama operative from Texas, Jessica Adair. Over the 4th of July weekend, Adair sent out a fundraising e-mail to progressives, including people who had never signed up to get e-mails from the organization. The e-mail read suspiciously like the kind of garbage e-mails the DCCC and DSCC flood everyone's inboxes with. "Did you miss this, Howard?," it began. "On Thursday, we announced End Citizen United PAC's FIRST round of endorsements. Can you chip in $12 or more right now directly to their campaigns?" And then she thanked me for my supposed past support-- an assumption at best, but more likely a manipulative tactic.

THANK YOU HOWARD!

It’s hard to believe how big this organization has grown-- more than 8OO,OOO people dedicated to ending Citizens United.

Thanks to your incredible support, we’re now in a position to start making waves by supporting candidates who are champions of campaign finance reform. I’m proud to announce our first endorsements:

...Please consider a donation of $36 directly to these champions of campaign finance reform... Thank you for everything you’ve done to help this organization grow and thrive.

The e-mail smelled to high heaven, and the more I looked into the group, the less grassroots or progressive credibility I found. Its website looks like a phishing operation to collect e-mail addresses for partisan Democratic Party operations like the aforementioned DCCC and DSCC. The website's domain registration is hidden from the public-- very suspicious for a "grassroots organization." It smells like a scam, a New Dem/Blue Dog/DCCC scam using Russ Feingold as bait to lure naive, uninformed progressives into sending unaccountable cash.

I hit reply and sent them an e-mail about their list of endorsees, 9 out of 11 of whom are grotesque DINOs who have spent their time in Congress crossing the aisle and voting with the Republicans-- Blue Dog shitheads like Kyrsten Sinema and Cheri Bustos and utterly worthless New Dems like Pete Aguilar, Scott Peters, Ann Kuster and Ami Bera. And the only senator on the list is DSCC chair Michael Bennet, one of the worst Democrats in that body. Stinky!

The reply was an automated plea for money, typical of what one would expect from grifters. Beware.


[Note: the only candidates this outfit has endorsed who deserve progressive support are Russ Feingold, running to regain his old Wisconsin Senate seat, and Minnesota 8th District Congressman Rick Nolan, two of the only progressives supported by the DCCC and DSCC.] And now, predictably, these scammers have also endorsed "ex"-Republican-- and no friend of reform-- Patrick Murphy, a right-of-center and über-corrupt Florida New Dem.