Burning Questions: Who Took Tainted Shkreli Money? Why Did DFA and CWA Endorse Bernie? Why Is Putin Backing Herr Trumpf?

As we've reported before, when low-life price gouger and hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli tried to contribute to Bernie's campaign, Bernie very publicly rejected his contribution and turned it over to charity. Chuck Schumer and Jon Tester on the other hand, couldn't wait to get their clammy paws on some of Shkreli's blood money. Now that America's most hated twerp has been arrested by the FBI-- and faces as much as 20 years in prison-- will the DSCC give back the $33,400 he gave them in July? In fact, when he was arrested yesterday, it was for exactly what the was looking to pay political protection money for at the time he wrote Schumer and Tester the check-- securities fraud involving the biotech firm he started in 2011, Retrophin Inc. Other recipients of Shkreli's "generosity" include Michigan New Dem Gary Peters (over $10,000), Eliot Engel (New Dem, $8,000), Mitt Romney ($2,500), Joe Lieberman, Hillary (although in 2006 and 2007), Miss McConnell, the RNC (just $2,000, nothing like what he gave Tester and Little Chucky Schmucky), Jim Himes (New Dem), Mark Kirk, who is in a very tough reelection fight in Illinois this cycle, and assorted other Members of Congress from both grotesquely corrupt Beltway parties.

Early Thursday DFA, despite a plea from the organization's founder, endorsed Bernie Sanders. Howard Dean, for whom the "D" in DFA once stood, is a Clinton supporter but his letter urging members to vote for her had, sensibly, fallen on deaf ears. As DFA Executive Director Charles Chamberlain wrote to all DFA members, "With 271,527 votes cast-- and all three presidential candidates campaigning directly for your vote-- the results are in and they are extraordinary. Bernie Sanders has earned Democracy for America's endorsement in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary with an astonishing, record-breaking 87.9% of the vote (including 77.8% of voters who were already members of DFA prior to the poll being launched on December 7)."

Like DFA members, Bernie has kept the fight against income inequality front and center in the presidential race. The 2016 presidential primary election could’ve been dominated by the same Republican-Lite rhetoric that helped Democrats lose control of the U.S. Senate in 2014. Instead, Bernie’s ideas and solutions for rebuilding the middle class have dominated the debate. His success has helped move critical issues like expanding Social Security, debt-free college, breaking up the big banks and getting big money out of politics-- all issues supported by the majority of Americans nationwide-- into the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

And Bernie is doing all of this while building a powerful, insurgent campaign that is steadily dismantling the conventional wisdom of DC skeptics who claimed he would never have a chance to win.

Bernie has held several huge events with tens of thousands of people in places like Portland, Oregon and Boston, Massachusetts-- but the political revolution hasn’t been limited just to liberal states. Over 8,000 showed up at a rally in Dallas, Texas, over 9,200 at an event in South Carolina, and over 11,000 people attended a July rally in Phoenix, Arizona, during one of the hottest days of the year. All in all, the Washington Post reports that over a four-week period this summer, more than 100,000 people attended Bernie's rallies, proving that his vision for America resonates across the country no matter where you live.

It’s not just the crowds. Bernie is polling in first place in New Hampshire and is in striking distance of a win in Iowa. The campaign broke a record just last night, as the first presidential campaign in history to bring in over 2 million individual contributions this early in the primary contest.

We're excited to be backing a bold progressive champion like Bernie, and we're going into full campaign mode to support him but-- as a grassroots progressive movement organization-- we're going to need some significant resources to make it happen.

Until yesterday, Blue America, PDA and, very recently, the Working Families Party, were the only national progressive organizations to have endorsed Bernie. We're really proud to have DFA join the fight and we hope the others do eventually as well. Many of our members are also DFA members-- as am I-- and we commend their courageous stand. You can contribute to Bernie's campaign here. It was a good day for Bernie. He also picked up the endorsement of the largest union to date to endorse him, the 700,000-member strong Communications Workers of America. Like DFA, the Communications Workers polled their members before endorsing and union president Chris Shelton said that they backed Bernie "decisively." Many of the more corrupt unions that do not give a damn what they members want-- LIUNA, the most corrupt union in America and a disgrace to the union movement, is the perfect example-- have endorsed Hillary but will be basically meaningless in the election since their members are not united around her corporatist, establishment candidacy. National Nurses United and the American Postal Workers Union, each with around 200,000 members, are also enthusiastic Bernie backers. The unions , whose leaders are in the pockets of the corrupt Democratic Party establishment politicians, like AFSCME, are for Clinton of course.

Meanwhile, Herr Trumpf received a very different kind of endorsement. Wednesday Trumpf had very publicly said, "I really don’t want Jeb’s endorsement because he is a low energy person and he does not represent strength." So Thursday a more energetic Trumpf-type fella stepped in. Maybe he was spooked by the clownish slob Christie bragging he would start World War III by shooting down Russian planes in the Tuesday night crackpot debate, but Thursday Putin had a highly irregular public comment on the U.S. presidential race. At a press conference in Moscow, Putin responded to a question about Herr Trumpf by saying "He’s a really flamboyent [or, depending on translation, "lively"] and talented person, without any doubt. It’s not our job to judge his qualities, that’s a job for American voters, but he’s the absolute leader in the presidential race. He says he wants to move on to a new, more substantial relationship, a deeper relationship with Russia; how can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome that." And Romney welcomed an opportunity to take a swing at Herr Trumpf for his silly assertions on Morning Joe about the great Putin today:

Putin, of course, wants the person he will be able to work with best in the White House. Trumpf would probably be the easiest to manipulate and, no doubt, Putin is horrified at the prospect of an aggressive neocon like Rubio or Clinton winning. Trumpf would be a walk in the park for him. Trumpf was tickled pink to get the thumbs up from Putin, who, he said, is "highly respected." Miss Herr Trumpf on Morning Joe today? Here's a little of what you missed:

Scarborough: "Well, I mean, it’s also a person who kills journalists, political opponents, and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?"

Trumpf: "He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country."

Scarborough: "But again: He kills journalists that don’t agree with him."

Trumpf: "I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, so, you know. There’s a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, Joe. A lot of killing going on. A lot of stupidity. And that’s the way it is."

Last night, John McCain referred to them as "a match made in Heaven."