We Love The New Jersey Teachers Union-- And Why Corrupt Beltway Democrats Should Try To Understand Them... Pronto!

Trump Soho, Cyrus Vance & Marc Kasowitz

If you're as old as I am, when you hear "Cyrus Vance," you think of an elite Democrat originally from West Virginia who served as JFK's Secretary of the Army, LBJ's Deputy Secretary of Defense and then Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State. He died 15 years ago but today "Cyrus Vance" refers to Cyrus Vance, Jr., his less distinguished son, a corrupt elite sleaze bag District Attorney from Manhattan (Buckley, Groton, Yale, Georgetown), chosen by outgoing D.A. Robert Morgenthau, though the whole NYC liberal/neo-liberal establishment endorsed him, as did The Times, the Daily News and The Post. He won that election (2009) with 91% of the vote. Now that he's been exposed for taking a series of heavy bribes to drop cases against various Trumps, and as a defender of Harvey Weinstein, he probably won't get quite as big a margin. He took $25,000 from one Trump lieutenant, gave it back to make the dropped case look kosher, only to take $50,000 from the same Trumpist, shady attorney Marc Kasowitz, after the heat died down. Now David Sirota is reporting another $10,000 payoff.

The principal of a law firm involved in fending off a criminal investigation into a Trump Organization project gave $10,000 to Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance amid the probe, according to campaign finance records reviewed by International Business Times. The money from Elkan Abramowitz, which had not previously been reported, was in addition to a separate campaign donation to Vance from Trump attorney Mark Kasowitz. After the money flowed to Vance, the Democratic DA overruled his prosecutors and declined to file charges against Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr. and others involved in the controversial Trump SoHo project.

The disclosures are the fourth in a week showing that Vance received campaign donations from law firms whose clients had potential cases before his office. IBT previously reported that Vance declined to prosecute Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and received $182,000 from partners at the law firm of Weinstein’s long-time attorney. IBT also reported that Vance received more than $42,000 from lawyers at a criminal defense firm whose clients received plea deals from Vance’s office that let them avoid prison, including another high profile sexual assault case.

Polling consistently shows voters absolutely hate the Republican Party. But, understandably, they're not crazy about the Democratic Party either. How could they be? The Democrats have one thing going for the, which they summed up institutionally all on their own with this telling meme:

They are the ultimate lesser of two evils party-- though usually lesser enough for Democratic voters to hold their noses and vote for them against the more existentially dangerous Republicans. Usually. The latest PPP survey shows only 9% of voters approve of the job Congress is doing, only 14% approve of the job Mitch McConnell is doing in the Senate and only 25% approve of the job Ryan is doing in the House. When asked "if there was an election for Congress today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate from your district," 48% say the Democrat and just 37% say the Republican. Although the GOP is somewhat insulated from that kind of margin by gerrymandered districts in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, an 11 point margin would still sweep them out of power. And that margin has been growing, not shrinking. So how could the Democrats lose? By sucking as bad as they do and being disgusting enough so that people who care about good governance just refuse to get out for the lesser evil.

I'm not predicting that; Trump is just too horrific for the electorate at this point-- and worse is yet to come from that psychopath. But the Democratic Party should put some real effort into aspiring to be more than just the lesser evil. Rachel Cohen pointed to an object lesson from New Jersey, a state that knows the Lord of Bedminster well but where he was defeated last year 2,148,278 (55.45%) to 1,601,933 (41.35%). He won 9 of the state's 21 counties, primarily the ones with small populations, like Salem, Hunterdon, Cape May, Sussex and Warren. But as Cohen pointed out, the big New Jersey teachers union just backed a pro-Trump imbecile because they wanted to take a stand against grotesque and dysfunctional corruption in the Democratic Party. It was the right move too; state Senate president Steve Sweeney is the face of what's wrong with politics in New Jersey-- and one of the faces of what's wrong with the Democratic Party nationally.


The New Jersey Education Association, which is New Jersey’s top political spender, is backing Republican Fran Grenier against Steve Sweeney, the Democratic state Senate president and New Jersey’s second most-powerful elected official. The controversial endorsement has angered liberal allies, but the union remains unapologetic in its message: Democrats cannot take teachers for granted.

It’s a contentious move, but one that is unlikely to change the ultimate outcome of the election. Democrats are expected to control all three branches of government after November, a major turning point for the Garden State. After seven years under Republican Gov. Chris Christie-- a man boasting an impressively low 15 percent approval rating-- a majority of voters are expected to cast their ballot for Phil Murphy, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate running against the GOP’s Kim Guadagno. And with a state legislature that’s also expected to remain blue, progressives have been eagerly anticipating their chance to start reversing the policies of Christie’s tenure.

That explains why the NJEA has decided to spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in what’s shaping up to be the most expensive legislative race in state history to try to unseat Sweeney: The union feels the top Democrat has betrayed it one too many times.

In late September, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear Janus v. AFSCME, a case that could strike a mortal blow to the NJEA and other public sector unions across the country. Through the case, which mirrors a similar suit that reached the high court in 2016 but ended in a 4-4 deadlock following Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death, union opponents hope to outlaw “agency fees”-- mandatory dues all union members must pay for collective bargaining. The NJEA’s controversial endorsement has jeopardized Democratic support at such a precarious moment for unions, especially for someone who appears so at odds with labor’s goals, and has left many liberals squirming. The move has also baffled others in the labor movement-- Sweeney is backed by the AFT (the state’s smaller teachers union), the AFL-CIO, the UCFW, UNITE Here, SEIU, AFSCME, among others.

At the same time, many progressives have also long wanted unions to take a more aggressive stance against Democrats who happily court labor’s campaign contributions, yet fail to push for a strong pro-worker agenda once in office. The NJEA’s leadership, which has defended its endorsement by saying it is “not an arm of the Democratic Party”-- echoes some of the rhetoric of more left-leaning activists who urge unions to actively challenge more corporate, Wall Street-aligned Democrats. Yet it’s one thing to primary an establishment candidate from the left, and another to campaign hard for a Republican during the general.

Sweeney, who first joined the state Senate in 2002, became majority leader in 2007 and Senate president in 2010. His relationship with the NJEA began to sour in 2011 when he pushed forward a deal with Christie that limited pension and health benefits for public sector workers. The union says Sweeney has continued to cozy up with Christie and has failed to forcefully criticize the governor’s underfunding of public education. The relationship deteriorated even further last year when Sweeney walked back on a promise to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to fully fund pensions, and then accused the NJEA of bribery and extortion.

This past March, the NJEA declared it would try to unseat Sweeney, but there were no Democrats willing to primary him. The union could have chosen to give no endorsement and still run negative ads against Sweeney, but the NJEA instead decided to endorse his Republican challenger along with running attack ads.

...Political analysts suspect the NJEA is pursuing this strategy largely to send a message to other Democratic legislators that if you cross unions one too many times, they’ll come after you, too.

“Sweeney is extremely well-connected, has the resources to combat a barrage of negative attacks, but not every legislator can say that,” said Dworkin. “The fact that the NJEA is not likely to knock off the legislative leader doesn’t mean their strategy isn’t working on some level.”

Others wonder if the NJEA’s hardball approach will come back to bite it, especially if Sweeney is elected and holds a grudge. Yet Dworkin notes that the powerful teachers union tried to oust the former Democratic Senate president in 1991, so this sort of politicking has some precedent in the NJEA’s playbook. With 200,000 members across every district in New Jersey, the union has some latitude. Plus, though the NJEA may take some heat if Democrats lose their races elsewhere in New Jersey, if Murphy (who the NJEA endorsed) is elected, then a veto-proof majority is less important.

Donna Chiera, president of the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, declined to comment on the NJEA’s endorsement, but said she does worry it has diverted too much attention away from the fact that New Jersey has the opportunity to elect a Democratic governor with a Democratic legislature. “My concern is that members are hearing mixed messages, and sometimes when people get mixed messages they don’t vote at all,” she told The Intercept.

Murphy has so far refused to criticize the NJEA for endorsing Grenier. In Politico he was quoted as saying he’s “incredibly honored” to be backed by the teachers union, and yet “at the same time, I’m also on the line with and I’m campaigning with Steve Sweeney.” One Star-Ledger columnist argued that Murphy’s silence will weaken him, as other legislators “will see that he refused to throw a fellow Democrat a life-preserver in his hour of need.”

Alex Law ran for Congress last year as a reformer and progressive against the younger brother of Boss Norcross. The full weight of the Democratic Party's South Jersey Machine was brought down on his head. He's still fighting for New Jersey, though. Today he told us "As someone raised in a Democratic household that actively supports Democratic policies and ran for public office as a Democrat, I would have thought that in any match up of a Democrat versus a Republican that the choice would be obvious. However, Senate President Sweeney and the rest of the political machine he is intimately associated with are not Democrats in my mind. At every turn, they have put their own interest before the people they serve and have consistently worked against the interests of unions, especially the NJEA. Steve Sweeney is a quintessential example of the kind of people that are plaguing our party, so I wouldn't shed a tear if his past misdeeds cost him his office and sent him into the political underworld of lobbyists where he'd be amongst those with similar miniscule levels of integrity."

Ugly face of NJ corruption: Christie, So. Jersey boss George Norcross & Sweeney

Don't Fall For The Hype: John Wisniewski Is Not Bernie Sanders And Is Not A Real Progressive

Want Wisniewski to be more pro-Choice? He says he's not a "vicious ideologue."

I wish there was a great and plausible candidate for the New Jersey governorship this year. I would love to be endorsing Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka or former Congressman Rush Holt. But they're not running and the whole weight of the Democratic Party seems to be coming down on the side of Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs billionaire/bankster endorsed by the whole establishment, from Machine hacks like Joseph DiVincenzo and Stephen Sweeney (as well as the Bergen and Monmouth county Democratic organizations) to Senators Cory Booker and Robert Menendez, Congressman Frank Pallone and... Jon Bon Jovi, always the weather vane for pathetic establishment politicians. Not on board with Murphy-- quite predictably, the Bernie crew.

State Senator Ray Lesniak and Assemblymen John Wisniewski are the more progressive options in the race, though neither seems to be making any progress against the bankster. Lesniak is the better progressive but Wisniewski has something else going for him: he was the chairman of Bernie's New Jersey campaign. It doesn't seem to matter to many people, though, that he was the worst Bernie state chairman ever and harmed the campaign far more than doing anything to help it. Thanks in part to Wisniewski's jaw-droopingly bad performance, Hillary killed Bernie in the Jersey primary-- 542,927 (63.3%) to 315,327 (36.7%). She won all the machine counties where the party bosses count the votes and all Bernie won were two small counties Warren and Sussex. All the most corrupt counties-- Essex, Union, Bergen, Camden, Atlantic, Hudson saw Bernie come in with ridiculously low numbers, under 40% in every one of them. When people talk about how party bosses stole the primary for Hillary, they're talking about DiVincenzo, for example, delivering Essex County for her 75,071 (73.2%) to 27,449 (26.8%). I bet that even Wisniewski would have complained if DiVincenzo announced that the vote was 99% for Clinton and 1% for Bernie.

This week, The Observer reported that Wisniewski was doing for himself what he never did for Bernie: fighting. He "took his gubernatorial campaign to South Jersey today, criticizing fellow Democrat Cory Booker for joining Senate Republicans to vote down an amendment sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders that would have allowed Americans to purchase cheaper prescription drugs from Canada."

“That vote against it was about protecting the pharmaceutical industry,” said Wisniewski, who served as chairman of Sanders’ presidential campaign in New Jersey campaign chairman, told a forum in Evesham sponsored by Our Revolution New Jersey, a grass roots group whose genesis was Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.

Wisniewski pledged to put pressure on New Jersey-based drug manufacturers “on day one,” if he is elected Governor.

But when challenged about bad votes he had taken in the Assembly-- supporting two Republican anti-Choice measures-- he responded with extraordinary lamesness, attacking, in effect, the progressive base he was trying to reach out to: "You would hope that in your elected leaders that they are able to go through an evolution of thought and grow with the times and not be vicious ideologues at every turn." Gee-- "vicious ideologues" is a pretty strong term for people who care about Choice, Wiz; and very revealing.

The thing is, for many Bernie supporters, especially the more naive ones, crap Democrats who glommed onto Bernie's campaign for their own agendas-- Tulsi Gabbard (HI) and Shawn O'Conner (NH) were easily the worst, but Wisniewski is right up there as well-- they don't look beyond someone's backing for their hero. "Wisniewski," explained PoliticalNJ writers, "took a considerable political risk in becoming the sole elected official to back Sanders against an establishment that was otherwise unanimous in its support of eventual nominee Hillary Clinton. But the gamble seems to have paid off; when Clinton lost the presidency to Donald Trump, the shock and dismay felt by Democrats coalesced around the Sanders wing of the party. One would expect Wisniewski to benefit from that energy, especially in a Democratic primary. Unfortunately for Wiz, despite saying Wisniewski would make an 'excellent governor for New Jersey,' Sanders has chosen to remain neutral in the race. And just yesterday, Sanders’ son Levi campaigned with Phil Murphy." Jeff Weaver, who many grassroots Bernie supporters mistrust, endorsed Wisniewski.

The most dedicated of the Berniecrats in New Jersey was Alex Law, who took on the most corrupt machine in America, the powerful South Jersey Norcross Organization. He ran for Congress against slimy conservative Little Brother Norcross and directed all the energy of his grassroots campaign to fight for Bernie as well as for himself. And then along comes Wiz-- sees an opportunity to suck up the Bernie grassroots energy-- and endorses Bernie and becomes chairman of his state committee. He also immediately endorsed Norcross and did absolutely nothing to help any of the Bernie candidates running anywhere in the state. In fact, he undermined them at every opportunity. But don't just take my word for it. This is what Alex Law had to say about Wiz 3 weeks after the election:

Last week, Bernie's NJ Chair John Wisniewski announced he would be running for Governor. As the first person running for office in New Jersey to endorse Bernie Sanders, I was closely involved with the progressive movement in New Jersey. I met personally with nearly every progressive organizer in the state, John included. In my opinion, John Wisniewski appeared only to take part in the Bernie Sanders movement for his own gain. In my estimation, he did not seem concerned about Bernie Sanders winning, or even doing well in New Jersey, unless any action he took towards that would give him more state-wide name recognition or access to email lists.

During my race, he endorsed the Democrat from New Jersey that voted against Bernie and President Obama more than anyone else from our state, Donald Norcross. To any real progressive, endorsing someone like Donald Norcross would be impossible. John seemed to encourage Norcross to then say that Bernie Sanders had endorsed him, even though nothing could be further from the truth. Until we publicly called him out for this shady move, likely spurred because of lucrative contracts his law firm receives as a result of the South Jersey machine's largesse, he didn't make it clear that it was only his [Wisniewski's] personal endorsement that he was offered, not the Bernie Sanders for President campaign's.


Back to his efforts as Bernie Sanders' state chair: John only participated in Bernie Sanders events that allowed him to speak and build his own name recognition, giving no time to what should have been the backbone: volunteer driven organizing. I met with volunteer groups across the state that had absolutely no direction and no access to data. When they called John for help, they always got the same response: we are working on it. The problem is, very few solutions ever came forward. The organization in New Jersey was so bad that it ultimately failed to be a competitive state in the Presidential Primary.




I met with John to make him aware of a odd quirk in New Jersey election law, a quirk that was immensely important to the Sanders campaign but that they had no idea about. I only found out through looking at historical ballots and ultimately suing my county clerk to get the transparency they refused to give us. In New Jersey, ballot position is determined by county candidates. So, Bernie, running for President, would have been out in column 6 or 7, while Hillary would have been in column 1, because the establishment Democrats are typically the only group to run candidates at every level of office. I had put together a slate in multiple counties of committed progressives that actually had a chance to win. Because John's first loyalty was to himself rather than progressives actually winning and supporting Bernie Sanders, he refused to give my candidates the "line" with Bernie Sanders (aka put everyone in the same column) instead finding inexperienced volunteers that had no idea what the real situation was to run. We reached out to these folks and some reached out to John after hearing the full story, imploring him to work with us because otherwise the progressive vote would be split and it would guarantee the corrupt, establishment county officials an easy win. What did John do? He refused to take any of these calls. Why? His relationship to Donald Norcross and their disgusting empire was more important to him than seeing progressives win in New Jersey. 
Does this sound like a man that is a "true progressive?" Does this sound like someone who is really cut from the same cloth as Bernie Sanders?


Nonetheless, now John Wisniewski cries foul about party politics even though he has consistently bent over backwards to ingratiate himself to any machine boss that would take his call. He has used the emails he took from the Bernie Sanders campaign to pump the real progressives in the state for money, despite the fact that very few of us ever signed up to get such emails from him. John Wisniewski is not Bernie Sanders and is not a real progressive. 
For those of you considering who to support for Governor, you may be tempted to think John is your guy because he says he supported Bernie. I would encourage you to reconsider that belief and find another candidate to support.

So... what to do? Unless Rush Holt jumps in-- it's still a possibility-- I'd probably vote for Lesniak. There's no way I'd ever vote for anyone like Phil Murphy or John Wisniewski.

What's Next For Progressive Politics In New Jersey? John Wisniewski?

Before Bernie gave any indication he would run for president, Blue America started a Draft Bernie ActBlue page. The day he announced he was running, Blue America endorsed him-- our first-ever presidential endorsement-- and started collecting money for his campaign. Later we started the first ActBlue page to collect money for Berniecrat candidates. We raised 10,529 contributions for federal candidates who endorsed Bernie-- from incumbents like Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Alan Grayson, Peter Welch and Marcy Kaptur and for high profile Bernie-backing candidates like Pramila Jayapal, Zephyr Teachout, Tim Canova and John Fetterman to lesser known candidates like Dave McTeague in Oregon, Bao Nguyen, Lou Vince, Wendy Reed and Bill Ostrander in California, Eloy Delgado, Alex Law and Peter Jacob in New Jersey and Mike Manypenny in West Virginia.

Even though Blue America had endorsed Ruben Kihuen for Nevada's 4th congressional district, we added his primary opponent, Lucy Flores, to our Berniecrat page... because, even if we thought Ruben was a better candidate and would be better positioned to beat right-wing fanatic Cresent Hardy-- which he did-- we admired and respected Lucy and appreciated the issues she was running on and the backing she was giving Bernie and our revolution. But we never did seriously consider any of the fakers and frauds who tried to capitalize on Bernie's movement and momentum for their own gain. We laughed at Wall Street twerp Shawn O'Conner in New Hampshire (our candidate, Carol Shea-Porter won that seat) even when Bernie got taken in by this phony conservative. We laughed even harder when the most right-wing nut Democrat in Congress, Collin Peterson, the Minnesota Blue Dog who votes against virtually every single thing Bernie is for, endorsed Bernie. Of course we didn't endorse him. Nor did we endorse Fox News Dem and homophobic lunatic Tulsi Gabbard, a run-of-the-mill conservaDem from Hawaii with an "F" score from ProgressivePunch who was canonized by naive Bernie fans who were trying out politics for the first time.

People have records that go back before they endorsed Bernie (for whatever reason) or, again for whatever reason, they endorsed Hillary. Blue America has a bullshit detector. We know the difference between a Zephyr Teachout and a Tulsi Gabbard or between a Tim Canova, who battled against unfair trade deals for years before Bernie decided to run, and a Shawn O'Connor who was advocating cutting Social Security and Medicare as part of a Grand Bargain two weeks before he changed his electoral strategy and decided to hop on the Bernie bandwagon.

Last week Jeffrey Trachtenberg reported in the Wall Street Journal that Bernie's new book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, is flying off the book shelves. (You can buy a copy at the DownWithTyranny Book Shoppe.) Six days after release, Bernie's book had already sold 45,000 copies and was #12 on the Amazon best seller list.

Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, printed 300,000 hardcover copies of “Our Revolution” by Nov. 15 and has since gone back to print, said veteran publisher Thomas Dunne.

“He’s been working like a dog,” said Mr. Dunne, referring to Sen. Sanders. “He wants it to be successful.”

Mr. Dunne expects media interest in Sen. Sanders to remain strong through the New Year, driving book sales through the holidays. “He’s been waiting nearly his entire life to give this message to huge audiences,” said Mr. Dunne. “Happily, they’re buying books.”

I'm thrilled that Bernie's message is getting out-- in great depth-- to a wide audience. And I hope that message and the issues his long career has been based on help nominate a better Democratic candidate for president in 2020 than the one who beat him and I hope that message and those issues inspire a new generation of candidates to run and help us elect a more progressive Congress in 2018.

That said, it's important to be vigilant about frauds running on Bernie's name who have little or nothing to do with him politically. Until she fell under Donald Trump's spell last week, it was widely thought that Tulsi Gabbard would surely primary Hawaiian senator Mazie Hirono in 2018. Mazie, like Bernie, has a lifetime crucial vote score of "A" from ProgressivePunch. In fact, Bernie's lifetime crucial vote score is 94.97. Mazie's is 96.32, almost identical to Elizabeth Warren's 96.91. Senators like Bernie, Liz Warren and Mazie Hirono define what it means to be a progressive in the U.S. Senate. What about Bernie-endorser Tulsi? Her lifetime crucial vote score is a perfect reflection of her miserable record in politics, a big fat "F." Not an "A" like Bernie (and Mazie), an "F." Her lifetime score is a dismal 73.61, especially bad when you consider she's in one of the bluest and most progressive districts in the entire country. Time to wake up!

That said, I want to introduce you to one of the candidates-- the Berniecrat candidates-- Blue America is most proud to have worked with this past cycle, Alex Law from South Jersey. Alex took on the grotesquely corrupt Norcross political machine with an impressive and inspiring grassroots campaign. He didn't win... but he established himself as one of the voices of the progressive movement in his state. He wrote a letter to his own supporters and to Bernie supporters in New Jersey that we want to share with you now:


For New Jerseyans Who Supported Bernie Sanders For President
-by Alex Law

Last week, Bernie's NJ Chair John Wisniewski announced he would be running for Governor. As the first person running for office in New Jersey to endorse Bernie Sanders, I was closely involved with the progressive movement in New Jersey. I met personally with nearly every progressive organizer in the state, John included. In my opinion, John Wisniewski appeared only to take part in the Bernie Sanders movement for his own gain. In my estimation, he did not seem concerned about Bernie Sanders winning, or even doing well in New Jersey, unless any action he took towards that would give him more state-wide name recognition or access to email lists.

During my race, he endorsed the Democrat from New Jersey that voted against Bernie and President Obama more than anyone else from our state, Donald Norcross. To any real progressive, endorsing someone like Donald Norcross would be impossible. John seemed to encourage Norcross to then say that Bernie Sanders had endorsed him, even though nothing could be further from the truth. Until we publicly called him out for this shady move, likely spurred because of lucrative contracts his law firm receives as a result of the South Jersey machine's largesse, he didn't make it clear that it was only his [Wisniewski's] personal endorsement that he was offered, not the Bernie Sanders for President campaign's.

Back to his efforts as Bernie Sanders' state chair: John only participated in Bernie Sanders events that allowed him to speak and build his own name recognition, giving no time to what should have been the backbone: volunteer driven organizing. I met with volunteer groups across the state that had absolutely no direction and no access to data. When they called John for help, they always got the same response: we are working on it. The problem is, very few solutions ever came forward. The organization in New Jersey was so bad that it ultimately failed to be a competitive state in the Presidential Primary.

I met with John to make him aware of a odd quirk in New Jersey election law, a quirk that was immensely important to the Sanders campaign but that they had no idea about. I only found out through looking at historical ballots and ultimately suing my county clerk to get the transparency they refused to give us. In New Jersey, ballot position is determined by county candidates. So, Bernie, running for President, would have been out in column 6 or 7, while Hillary would have been in column 1, because the establishment Democrats are typically the only group to run candidates at every level of office. I had put together a slate in multiple counties of committed progressives that actually had a chance to win. Because John's first loyalty was to himself rather than progressives actually winning and supporting Bernie Sanders, he refused to give my candidates the "line" with Bernie Sanders (aka put everyone in the same column) instead finding inexperienced volunteers that had no idea what the real situation was to run. We reached out to these folks and some reached out to John after hearing the full story, imploring him to work with us because otherwise the progressive vote would be split and it would guarantee the corrupt, establishment county officials an easy win. What did John do? He refused to take any of these calls. Why? His relationship to Donald Norcross and their disgusting empire was more important to him than seeing progressives win in New Jersey.

Does this sound like a man that is a "true progressive?" Does this sound like someone who is really cut from the same cloth as Bernie Sanders?

Nonetheless, now John Wisniewski cries foul about party politics even though he has consistently bent over backwards to ingratiate himself to any machine boss that would take his call. He has used the emails he took from the Bernie Sanders campaign to pump the real progressives in the state for money, despite the fact that very few of us ever signed up to get such emails from him. John Wisniewski is not Bernie Sanders and is not a real progressive.

For those of you considering who to support for Governor, you may be tempted to think John is your guy because he says he supported Bernie. I would encourage you to reconsider that belief and find another candidate to support.

An Advance In Grassroots Campaign Phone Banking

Phone banking is one crucial way for grassroots candidates to reach out to voters but I've been hearing from savvy candidates for several years that the commonly available phone banking software for small grassroots campaigns is subpar. One of the sharpest and most agile of the 2016 Blue America primary candidates, Alex Law, worked on creating a phone banking application called Partic, which is extremely simple on the front end for unpaid volunteers. Candidates can have their volunteers make calls from anywhere in a simple system with the best scripting function out there. It has all the features any campaign needs and none it doesn't. Blue America would like to contribute the system to some of the campaigns we felt would make the best use of it.

Can you let us know which campaigns you would like us to donate the system to? We'll pick 2 campaigns this weekend based on the number of contributions our candidates get on this ActBlue page, not the amount of money, just the number of contributions. So if you want to help a candidate, please contribute any amount you can afford to his or her campaign. Meanwhile, I asked Alex to explain the system in a guest post.

Why Partic? Why Now?
-by Alex Law

Many of you may remember my race in New Jersey's 1st Congressional District against corrupt Donald Norcross. I appreciate everything the Blue America family has done for me. This was the first organization to believe it me. While we ultimately didn't win the race, we did run one of the most efficient campaigns in 25 years and become the first campaign ever to be endorsed by a major East Coast newspaper against an incumbent in a primary without any major scandal. I know this is just the beginning for me, and I will certainly keep the Blue America family posted with what I do next in politics.

With that said, I know our work isn't done now. You may have read my letter fundraising for my friends Tim Canova, Alan Grayson, and Zephyr Teachout. That was successful, but I want to do more for the progressive community. Even though I am not in a position to be able to significantly contribute financially , I do have a lot of knowledge about campaigns. To this end, my partner and I built a phone banking application called Partic.

When I looked for a phone banking application during my campaign, I really didn't like the options. Everything was geared towards robo-dialing. The user experience for actual live callers (our volunteers) was terrible on most applications. This is because the major phone banking services are primarily geared to larger volume enterprises that pay their phone callers. When you pay your callers, you can instruct them to deal with what ever the system is. To those of us who have volunteered on progressive campaigns, we know that just isn't how it works. If the program isn't simple and easy to use, volunteers simply won't use it. This is why so many campaigns, especially small progressive campaigns are forced to rely on incredibly inefficient and expensive solutions to phone banking (usually paper, pen, and landlines).

Partic changes that. We built our application with the volunteers in mind. Everything on the front end is incredibly simple. There is no syncing with your cell phone-- volunteers can make calls with a push of a button on the computer. The scripting function allows campaigns to create incredibly detailed scripts, but the volunteers will only see one piece at a time to make communication as easy as possible. All of the data is automatically tracked and available in analyzed reports at any time. Soon, pre-recorded voicemails will be able to be dropped in by the volunteer if no one picks up. This application drives efficiency with great tools but also with great simplicity.

I want progressive campaigns to use this tool. Not to make money, but because better organizing is key to our progress as a movement. As such, I told the leadership at Blue America that I would make our system available at cost to any Blue America campaigns. The better organized we all are, the more seats we can win together.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Finally Resigned Today-- She Is NOT America And She Is NOT The Democratic Party-- Both Of Which Are Worth Fighting For

Many people are celebrating that Wasserman Schultz was finally given the heave-ho as DNC chair a few minutes ago, but that doesn't mean the job is done. She was causing great harm to Democratic Party values long before she was elevated to that post and unless she's thrown out of Congress by Broward and Miami-Dade Democratic voters on August 30, she will continue doing exactly that into the foreseeable future. That said, it probably wasn't hard to figure out that among all of our wonderful congressional candidates upholding the ideals and values that make up Bernie's political revolution, Alex Law from South Jersey was one of the ones who most impressed us. His energy, his devotion and his strategic way of thinking reminded me of the first Velvet Underground album-- which didn't sell millions but launched the careers of scores of the most important rock bands in the world. The good news is that Alex is just 25 and will have other opportunities for public service moving forward. He contacted me this week and offered to help raise money for three of the Blue America candidates he was most impressed with this cycle: Alan Grayson (FL), Zephyr Teachout (NY) and Tim Canova (FL). This is the letter he asked me to send out to our members:

When I needed help in my campaign against political corruption in New Jersey, Blue America was there for me. This organization of committed progressives is an inspiring example of what we can accomplish when we work together. Because of your help, my campaign was able to fight back in a truly meaningful way and lay the foundation that will eventually win against establishment, machine politics.

I thank you for your support of my campaign, but our work this campaign season is not done. Three incredible individuals need your help more than ever: Alan Grayson, Tim Canova, and Zephyr Teachout.

I know all three of these wonderful candidates, and I personally urge you to support them as well.

Alan Grayson has been one of the most active, intelligent Congressman of the last decade. He is locked in a primary battle against an establishment, conservative politician in his run for US Senate in Florida. We need to help Alan win his primary because not only is he the best man for the job, he is also the only person that can make sure Marco Rubio does not return to Washington DC.

Tim Canova is one of the bravest politicians in America. We all know how awful Debbie Wasserman Shultz has been, but he actually stepped forward to run against her. Tim has put together one of the best campaigns in the country by tapping into the progressive revolution Bernie began. Not only will Tim make an excellent Congressman, we need Tim to win his primary so that we can shake up the DNC to make it clear that we will not accept the kind of leadership we have seen for too long.

Zephyr Teachout is someone I personally admire; she wrote a book called Corruption in America that was part of my inspiration to get into politics. She has been a champion to get big money out of politics working with Professor Lessig at MayDay PAC. Zephyr ran a principled campaign for Governor of New York where she shocked everyone, giving the machine there a real scare. Now, she is mounting one of the most important Congressional campaigns in the country as she has a real chance to flip a red district.

Bernie brought progressive politics to the forefront of America’s cultural attention more than any politician in my lifetime. We must continue the good work that he started by making sure leaders like Alan, Tim, and Zephyr are in Washington to fight for us. Join me in supporting them by contributing to their campaigns today.

Thank you!

-Alex Law

This letter went out to all Blue America members a couple of hours ago. Please share it with your friends and family and if you know people who live in Florida or in New York's Hudson Valley, please make sure they're aware of Alan Grayson, Tim Canova and Zephyr Teachout. If you'd like to contribute to their campaigns, you can do it quickly and seamlessly by clicking on the thermometer below.

UPDATE: Grayson Responds To DNC Sabotage

Yesterday, before Wasserman Schultz became a persona non-grata at the Democrat National Convention and was forced to resign as DNC chair, Alan Grayson, whose own Senate campaign is being aggressively sabotaged by the DSCC-- even to the point of Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell working against him in tandem-- talked to his supporters about the outrageousness of the DNC plot against Bernie. He referred to it as the party devoting "enormous effort to sandbagging, crippling, undercutting and subverting progressive candidates." He quoted CNN's report blaming DNC employees, from Wasserman Schultz right down the food chain, for plotting to "undercut and undermine Senator Senders during the primary." Grayson posed 3 important questions:

• Whatever happened to the principle of "may the best candidate win?"
• What gives party bosses the right to determine who our candidates are?
• And why is it always the progressive candidates who get screwed?

Try to answer them yourself if you're a regular DWT reader. And think about fighting back against the Wasserman Schultzes, Rahm Emanuels, Chuck Schumers, Harry Reids and their Wall Street bankster puppeteers by tapping on the thermometer above.

Why Does Obama Always Endorse The Worst Candidates In Democratic Primaries?

When notorious drama queen #DebtTrapDebbie Wasserman Schultz set her hair on fire and went screeching to the White House that Bernie's political revolution was coming for her, Obama shut her up with a cynical endorsement of her reelection. It's no secret he wishes she would just disappear off the face of the earth already. In fact, I was on a top secret call recently (ssshhhhh...), discussing a major Beltway group's congressional endorsements, when I decided to throw the Wasserman Schultz/Canova race into the discussion. Everyone on the call-- no one more than myself-- was shocked when the White House representative backed my proposal for a Canova endorsement. They hate her; but Obama endorsed her anyway. She is, after all, his DNC chair. She's become the symbol of Democratic Party disunity but she's his symbol of Democratic Party disunity. Besides, party hacks stick together. And, no matter if you think Obama is the greatest president since FDR or the worst president since Ronald Reagan, no one can accuse him of not being a party loyalist (whether you want to think of that as a "hack" or not).

So, yes, Obama endorsed one of the most reviled and detested Democrats in the country, one even he reviles and detests. And he's been on a roll of truly terrible primary endorsements. He allowed Schumer and Reid to dictate endorsements for the weak Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania and the incredibly corrupt and incredibly Republican Florida candidate, Patrick Murphy, presumably to help him with funding for his overly costly presidential library. I mean, Murphy, who not only voted for the Keystone XL Pipeline every time it came up but who was one of the only "Democrats"-- and I use the term lightly-- to back a Republican scheme to remove Obama from the Keystone XL decision-making process!?!?! Murphy, the so-called Democrat to back the Republican witch-hunt against Hillary Clinton by voting for the Benghazi Committee? That Murphy?!?!? Oh, yes-- the Murphy who has been gung-ho on rolling back the Wall Street regulations Obama beats the GOP up over and the Murphy who came into Congress braying like an idiot that cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits had to be on the table. That Murphy.

And the latest inferior candidate to go running to Obama for a rescue endorsement is the little brother of South Jersey machine boss, George Norcross-- dirty li'l Donald, a Democrat literally financed by the Trump family!! Alex Law and candidates like him are the future of a vibrant, progressive Democratic Party. But Obama went for the gutter garbage. Thanks, Barack. In fact, his endorsement statement was a laughably ironic lie. "Donald has been there with me on critical issues before Congress in the last two years-- and has always stood up for what's right." Donald's very first vote in Congress was for the Keystone XL Pipeline-- and that was just the beginning. Norcross opposed Obama on 39 key votes in the short time he's been in Congress. He has the most Republican voting record of any New Jersey Democrat. He also opposed-- and voted against-- Obama's nuclear treaty with Iran, which Obama said at the time was a big deal. And when Obama opposed the GOP's SAFE Act to reject Obama's plans to take in a small number of Syrian refugees, Norcross voted with the Republicans and against Obama. I wonder how much brother George is getting Obama for his library fund.

I know Patrick Murphy's biggest and sleaziest fundraiser, Saudi billionaire Ibrahim Al-Rashid, has a pappy back in Riyadh, ole Nasser Al-Rashid, who gave between one and five million dollars to the Clinton presidential library. That was nice of one of the top 3 advisors to the Saudi royal family, a family that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to make sure dumbbell Patrick Murphy was on the House Intelligence Committee. Now why would they want their guy on the House Intelligence Committee? (And today Obama will be helping Privileged Patrick raise money in Miami and then golfing up in Murphy's congressional district tomorrow.) If you don't have $5 million to help Obama with his library, contribute what you can to help him accomplish his new goal of expanding Social Security by electing Alex Law, Alan Grayson and Tim Canova (at the thermometer):

The Political Revolution Is Not A Personality Cult And It Isn't Only About Bernie, As He Keeps Explaining

Click on the image to read our message about Alex Law

This evening at 6pm progressive reform candidate Alex Law will be debating the candidate of the pernicious Norcross political machine, corrupt conservative Democrat Donald Norcross. The debate will take place at Rowan College in Sewell (Gloucester County, New Jersey) and Alex has been battling the Norcross forces to allow media coverage. When Norcross grudgingly agreed to do 2 debates, he was clear that he would not participate if they were broadcast. Tuesday's debate was in front of a room full of his cronies-- all of the crooked South Jersey elected officials, union bosses and campaign contributors who owe their livelihoods to Boss George Norcross. Needless to say, the public was not allowed in, specially after the hearty endorsement Law received from the most-read newspaper in the district. Alex gave a blistering speech that called most of the people out in the room, some by name, for their obvious, often blatant, corruption. It was an inspiring speech but at the end, the room was uncomfortably silent while Alex's dad applauded proudly. Over the course of the rest of the "debate" Norcross stuck to his hollow talking points, insisting that Alex wants terrorists to get guns and bombs. Alex laughed in his face but Norcross soldiered on in a course not even his allies take seriously. The handful of undecided voters in the room gathered around Alex afterwards and told him he had earned their votes.

Tuesday, author Will Bunch, in a column for the Philadelphia Daily News put young Law's race against The Machine in a national context, explaining how the Revolution can start in South Jersey. "[I]n Our Dumb Century of reality-show politics," he groused, "it has proven all but impossible to get voters to focus on the so-called down-ballot elections, or to get innovative outsiders to run for political office in that broad band between Congress and your local school board. This is not just a Trump (oops, I said it) thing. In Wisconsin earlier this year, an analysis showed that thousands of Bernie Sanders voters didn't bother to vote in a state Supreme Court race that was narrowly won by a conservative who opposes just about everything that Sanders stands for. That's just stupid-- but it's the People Magazine political culture that we've made for ourselves."

Bunch, like Alex Law, is a Bernie supporter, but writes that the math doesn't add up for Bernie and that he's not going to make it to the White House, something many Bernie supporters dispute. He's as disappointed as I am that "the number of serious candidates in 2016 promising to chase out the money changers is far less than... [what it would take to usher in] a real political revolution... If a real progressive movement is to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the Sanders insurgency, that won't come until 2018, and it's going to take a ton of work at the grassroots level." The same thing happened in Oregon's 5th congressional district, where Bernie trounced Hillary but where the Berniecrat running against the head of the congressional Blue Dogs-- a sleazy character who introduced an amendment to cut Social Security benefits-- was defeated 67,124 (72.6%) to 25,289 (27.4%). Bernie voters were... what? Not paying attention? Splitting their ticket betweent someone who wants to expand Social Security and end unfair trade agreements with someone who wants to cut Social Security and who aggressively backs unfair trade agreements? Bunch has hope this trend isn't going to carry over among Bernie voters in South Jersey.

[T]here are still a handful of real election plays left in 2016. And if you're serious about starting a second American Revolution, I can't think of a better place to launch your cannonballs than South Jersey. On June 7 in the Garden State's 1st Congressional District, Democratic primary voters can toss one of the worst machine hacks in all of Congress-- the anointed Rep. Donald Norcross-- for an idealistic reformer named Alex Law seeking to be the youngest member of the U.S. House.

Talk about a slam dunk.

Norcross is exactly the kind of Democrat who makes you want to burn your voter registration card-- a tool of special interests and big donors. Since a clear path for his ascendancy to Congress was carved with the resignation of another machine pol-- Rep. Rob Andrews-- in 2014, Norcross has used his safe seat to spit on both the environment (siding with Republicans on the destructive Keystone XL pipeline) and world peace (opposing the Iran nuclear deal). He's sided with the reactionary GOP on 39 key votes, more than any other Jersey Democrat.

But his lousy votes aren't even the best argument for dumping the incumbent. He's also the Washington branch office for arguably the most arrogant political machine in America, run by his brother George Norcross. As a state lawmaker, Donald Norcross's crowning achievement has been corporate welfare for campaign donors and other big companies who move a few miles and create a handful of jobs in return for huge state tax breaks-- a tool that's been exploited by the likes of George Norcross and their GOP pal Chris Christie. The program has done little to lift citizens of poverty-plagued cities like Camden from poverty, its alleged purpose.

Replacing Norcross with 25-year-old Alex Law, a former IBM consultant, would be the political equivalent of an earthquake. Law would oppose the Keystone XL pipeline and other projects that contribute to climate change, raise the minimum wage to $15, work toward changing the campaign finance system that makes the Norcross political machine possible, overhaul student debt, and push for legalized marijuana.

Recently, Law said in a video that the Norcross gang is "is a machine made up of the worst kind of politicians, ones loyal to machine first and constituent second. It is a machine with parts oiled by money plundered from the state and our hometowns. It is a machine people are afraid of." He's fighting back by spurning big-money politics just like Sanders-- whom he supports-- and using his computer savvy to target likely voters, especially millennials.

So, yeah, it's an uphill climb. Norcross has money, trade-union support, name recognition. But he's also a poster child for everything that rank-and-file voters say is what's wrong with American politics. One week from today, South Jersey Democrats have a chance to show that American revolution is more than just a Molly Pitcher rest stop on the Turnpike-- that it's a living, breathing thing.

If you go to the debate at Rowan College this evening, please say hello to John, the Blue America mobile billboard truck-driver, who's helping us get our message out about Alex... and about Norcross. And, if you can, please contribute to Alex Law's get-out-the-vote efforts by tapping on the thermometer below:

UPDATE: Scratch That Debate Thing Tonight

Looks like Tuesday's closed mini-debate was too much for Norcross to handle. Late last night, he had his crony, Loretta Winters (a kind of junior Wasserman Schultz creature), cancel today's, after finding out it was going to be live-streamed by NJ Pen. Alex explained what happened in a Facebook posting but the short version is that Winters has allowed her personal friendship with and allegiance to Norcross to get in the way of the rights of the Democratic Party voters in the first district to see a debate. She's been a saboteur very much the way Wasserman Schultz was a saboteur on behalf of Hillary. And Norcross has some kind of a gun rally already scheduled for tonight.

An Impossible Dream Coming True In South Jersey?

Grassroots candidates CAN smash the corrupt machine

When I met Alex Law for the first time last year he seemed like a smart kid with a big dream and a lot of idealism and no money. He kind of reminded me of New Hampshire progressive activist Carol Shea-Porter, circa 2006-- a full decade ago. Carol had an impossible dream. She wanted to defeat a powerful entrenched incumbent, Jeb Bradley, who had a load of money-- and Carol had none. Worse, yet, the head of the DCCC, Rahm Emanuel, decided Carol was "too progressive" and "too anti-war" for New Hampshire and he was backing House Majority Leader Jim Craig, a consummate establishment insider. With Emanuel's help, Craig spent $381,290 on the primary, more than Carol spent on the primary and the race against Bradley combined! Carol beat Jim Craig 54-34% and the DCCC abandoned the district, Emanuel declaring it was unwinable. Bradley barely broke a sweat raising $1,111,590 and Carol had almost no money and was smothered in unanswered ads from the GOP while the DCCC and DNC sat on their hands and sneered. But Carol had a magic weapon: genuine, values-driven grassroots activism-- and in November she beat Bradley 100,899 (51%) to 94,869 (49%). Emanuel was furious-- although he and other DCCC saboteurs ran to the media and tried taking credit for Carol's win!

Today Carol-- still as independent-minded and grassroots oriented as ever-- is running for Congress again, against Tea Party extremist Frank Guinta. She's on the same Blue America ActBlue page as Alex Law, which you can access by tapping on the thermometer on the right. As of the May 18 FEC filing deadline, Alex had raised $67,331 to entrenched incumbent Donald Norcross' $1,404,335 (thousands of dollars of which have come from the Trump family-- although Norcross masquerades as a Democrat). The shady Patriot Majority PAC has spent another $174,083 bolstering Norcross, whose brother George controls the corrupt South Jersey Democratic political machine. But Alex's little-campaign-that-could has done so well that a panic-stricken Norcross just left his campaign another $85,000, bringing the total in self-funding to over $100,000.

Norcross' brother George also brought the widest-read newspaper in the district, the Philadelphia Enquirer and then lost control of it. No one thought there was any chance that they would ever endorse against Alex, a leader of the Bernie for President movement in South Jersey. In fact, Sunday, the Inquirer endorsed Hillary-- and Alex, sending shockwaves through New Jersey politics. The congressional primary is June 7, a week from tomorrow. After claiming Clinton "is better prepared for the office," the editorial board, which had done extensive interviews with Norcross and Law, wrote that Law would make a better member of Congress.

South Jersey Democrats will also decide three congressional nominations. The most heated contest is in the Camden County-based First District, whose freshman congressman, Donald Norcross, likes to say he's just an electrician in a tie.

But Norcross harnesses a lot more power than the average working man. The son of a labor leader and brother of South Jersey's top Democratic power broker, Norcross headed the regional AFL-CIO before his path to political office was cleared by the precisely timed midterm retirement of the state Assembly speaker himself. The party organization immediately anointed Norcross the prohibitive front-runner in a safely Democratic district. A week after he was sworn in to the Assembly, he was promoted to a vacated state Senate seat. Four years after that, yet another midterm exit - by U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews amid a campaign-finance probe-- put Norcross on a short circuit to Congress, powered once again by party unanimity.

The spectacle of Andrews being confronted on 60 Minutes helped spark Alex Law's interest in politics and ultimately his challenge to the machine that choreographed Norcross' rise. Law, of Voorhees, is the epitome of an upstart, having just turned 25, the minimum age to serve in the House, and quit his IBM consulting job to seek the nomination. He has raised about $40,000 to Norcross' nearly $1 million. (The winner will run against Bob Patterson, who is unopposed on the GOP side.)

While Norcross, 57, was often in the thick of the legislative action in Trenton, his meteoric ascent hasn't helped his resumé in that respect; his achievements in Washington have been limited. The congressman notes that he introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage and has helped bring federal funds to the district.

Law, a Sanders supporter, has staked out positions largely to the left of the congressman, who sometimes sides with Republicans in favor of industry and defense. The challenger has criticized Norcross' votes against the Iran nuclear deal, consumer financial protections, and refugee resettlement. Norcross says he takes pride in sometimes straying from the party line.

Law's most persuasive critique of Norcross concerns his reliance on donors with government contracts. Pay-to-play politics have been elevated to a dark art in South Jersey, but Norcross addresses the issue by insisting he is just an electrician-turned-politician with no special connection to such machinations.

Democratic voters longing for a genuine departure from the entrenched political establishment that Norcross embodies should choose ALEX LAW.

When Norcross "strays from the party line," as the Inquirer puts it so generously, it;'s to vote with the Republicans against the environment and for pet projects of his wealthy campaign contributors like the Keystone XL Pipeline. In fact, Norcross has voted with the Republicans more than any other New Jersey Democrat in Congress. Just above is the Blue America mobile billboard we have driving up and down the streets and highways of South Jersey all month. (Gas money contributions here please.) Saturday the truck spent the day in Collingswood at the May Fair. This is the billboard on the other side of the truck:

When "Good Guys" Do Bad Things

The way they finance their campaigns, Donald Norcross and Patrick Murphy are not just dancing with the devil, they're changing costumes, doing flips and ending the routine with a dip and kiss

We've been writing for almost a year about how the righteous-sounding PAC, End Citizens United is a scam. It was set up and is run by a gaggle of DCCC and DSCC losers to primarily funnel money to their corrupt conservative candidates and campaign finance criminals like Patrick Murphy, Lacy Clay, Ami Bera, Pete Gallego, Monica Vernon, Steny Hoyer, Val Demings, Scott Peters and Lon Johnson. In fact, on Saturday, the Sacramento Bee dug into the campaign finance abuse system Steve Israel thought up that is landing Ami Bera's father in prison and should send Ami Bera, Patrick Murphy, Murphy's parents, Scott Peters and Scott Peters' parents to prison as well. That's specifically the kinds of candidates "End Citizens United" is funding.

Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, whose father is awaiting sentencing on two felony counts of election fraud, for years has engaged in a complex series of campaign donations involving his parents and the families of other congressional candidates, federal records show.

Beginning six years ago, when he unsuccessfully challenged former Republican Rep. Dan Lungren, Bera and his family wrote checks to other Democrats, almost always for the maximum amount allowed under federal law. Those candidates or their families gave similar amounts to Bera, and the contributions often occurred within days of one another.

The practice differs from the reimbursement scheme perpetrated by Babulal “Bob” Bera, 83, in which he repaid donors as a way to direct more money to his son’s campaign committee. Federal officials and Ami Bera maintain the congressman, who has represented a suburban Sacramento County district since defeating Lungren in a 2012 rematch, was unaware of his father’s illegal activities.

The pattern of giving involving other candidates, known as donor swapping, is most often seen among deep-pocketed families. Campaign finance experts said such see-saw contributions generally do not run afoul of federal law, but say they are a way to sidestep individual donation limits and help show fundraising prowess. 
...Larry Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan election reform group, said an argument can be made that coordinated exchanges between candidates’ families evade the law, which prohibits making contributions in the name of another.

Some instances in which Bera’s parents engaged in a pattern of giving with families of other congressional candidates have been reported in the past. Following his father’s guilty plea, the Sacramento Bee reviewed contribution records for four election cycles, finding such a pattern between Bera and his family and at least six other congressional candidates. Nearly $240,000 changed hands. 
Bera’s father, listed in campaign finance records as Babulal, Babulal R., or B.R. Bera, and his wife, Kanta Bera, gave the maximum allowed to their son’s campaigns, and contributed at least $75,000 to candidates whose immediate families gave to Bera.

Candidates can give unlimited amounts to themselves, but donor-swapping makes it appear that they have a larger list of supporters and do not need to rely as much on their own wealth.


...The elder Bera this month admitted to recruiting friends, family and acquaintances to contribute nearly $270,000 to Bera, and then largely reimbursed them with his own money. Prosecutors said as part of the plea bargain the government agreed not to charge Kanta Bera. Ami Bera said he has since given the money to the U.S. Treasury. Babulal Bera faces 10 years in prison, though prosecutors agreed to recommend no more than 2 1/2 years.




...Another series of contributions occurred between Bera and Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, now a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Florida.

In 2011, three days after Janine Bera gave $5,000 to the “Friends of Patrick Murphy” committee, Murphy’s father, Thomas P. Murphy, provided $5,000 to “Ami Bera for Congress.” In 2013, the younger Murphy’s mother, Leslie, gave $5,200 to Bera. Babulal and Kanta contributed a total of $10,400 to Murphy two weeks later. Three months later, Janine Bera donated $5,200 to Murphy.

Murphy’s campaign sent $1,000 to Bera in 2014, and Babulal Bera sent $5,000 to Murphy last June.

Murphy spokeswoman Galia Slayen did not respond to specific questions from The Bee, including whether the families coordinated. Instead, Slayen pointed to a recent Treasure Coast Newspapers story quoting an email from her stating Babulal Bera did not arrange an exchange.

Murphy said he recently donated $10,200 he had received from Babulal Bera to a trio of nonprofits: Common Cause Florida, Big Bend Homeless Coalition and Renewal Coalition.

Another "liberal" PAC playing with Dark Money has gone bad-- the Patriot Majority USA SuperPAC and phony 501 (c)(3), which has always targeted Republicans (usually completely ineffectively, having lost nearly every race it got involved in) but is now targeting progressive Berniecrat Alex Law in order to assist the most right-wing Democrat in New Jersey, corrupt Machine candidate Donald Norcross. Patriot Majority USA just spent $67,486 sending several illegally coordinated mailings on behalf of Norcross in South Jersey, using messaging illegally originated from Norcross' congressional staff. Although this is the first time the group involved itself in a primary, PublicIntegrity.org warned about their shady practices in 2013.

A liberal, labor union-backed nonprofit that’s not supposed to be primarily political spent $23.7 million last year in the run-up to national elections-- 46 times what it spent in 2011, a non-election year, according to its new Internal Revenue Service tax return.

And although it describes itself as a grassroots group, a single $6 million donation from an unnamed source made up one-fourth of Patriot Majority USA’s $23 million in 2012 revenue. More than half of its haul, $12 million, came from anonymous donors that gave more than $1 million each, its tax return indicates.

Patriot Majority USA states on its website that it advocates for “comprehensive campaign finance reform that increases transparency and limits the influence of greedy special interests who ... buy elections.”

Unlike super PACs and traditional political campaign committees, nonprofits such as Patriot Majority USA aren’t required to disclose their donors because they supposedly exist to primarily promote the public good and social welfare. But nebulous Internal Revenue Service rules have led these “dark money” groups to proliferate and spend millions of dollars on politics. The agency proposed tightening the rules last week.

For its part, Patriot Majority USA reported spending $9.3 million on politics-- almost 40 percent of its expenses. It reported the political spending was for “expenditures and grants for issue advocacy to educate voters on candidates’ views.” More than half of its $1.4 million in grants went to groups considered politically active such as American Working Families Action Fund and No on 3 Inc. in Florida, a group that opposed a constitutional amendment changing the way state revenue caps are set.

Patriot Majority USA also fields a super PAC-- Patriot Majority PAC-- that spent just a small fraction of what its nonprofit sister group did during 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Patriot Majority USA’s overall expenses are nearly three times that of an arguably better-known liberal nonprofit group Priorities USA, which has ties to President Barack Obama.

And although the group doesn’t disclose its donors, the Huffington Post reported labor unions contributed $2.3 million to Patriot Majority USA last year, based on calculations from Department of Labor filings. The Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, a trade association, also gave the group $750,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Patriot Majority USA was formed in 2008 and technically spun off into a separate entity in 2011. When it applied to do that, it told the IRS it didn’t plan to hire employees and would instead rely on a “large base of volunteers” to developing and disseminating the organization’s message.

This hasn’t proven true. The organization reported no volunteers last year and paid its founder and president, Craig Varoga, $144,053 last year for 25 hours of work per week, according to its 2012 tax return. Other expenses reported include $11.6 million on a “media buy,” $2.5 million for direct mail production and $1.5 million on voter registration efforts.

Varoga, who was national field director for Gen. Wesley Clark’s 2004 presidential campaign, did not respond to questions from the Center for Public Integrity.

Varoga instead emailed a statement that his group “has been recognized by the IRS and has a very well defined, multi-year, bipartisan primary purpose, which is to work on economic solutions and encourage job creation throughout the United States.”

The following year, the same author, Michael Beckel, followed up with an article for Slate called The Dark Arts that featured Patriot Majority USA's shady practices and gross hypocrisy. "Liberals," he wrote, "may blame conservatives for the ongoing surge of political 'dark money' dominating the 2014 midterm elections, but Democrats are now taking full advantage of these secretive, free-wielding political behemoths-- while bemoaning their influence. At the forefront is the nonprofit Patriot Majority USA, which is providing Democrats with a countervailing force against the political machine of conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch. This election cycle, Patriot Majority USA has spent more than $7 million on political advertisements, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. That makes it the largest Democratic-aligned dark money operation in the country."

And now they've turned their guns on one of the most effective grassroots campaign's in the country, Alex Law's, to assist the most corrupt Machine in the Northeast United State, George Norcross'. (By the way, Norcross, who's is panic-stricken over Law's headway and is sending out coordinated mailings smearing Law, had raised $912,186 to Law's $46,380 as of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline.)

Among the newly identified contributors: the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare ($500,000), the International Longshoremen’s Association PAC ($50,000), the American Health Care Association ($25,000), and the American Association for Justice PAC ($10,000).

Patriot Majority USA’s top known donor is the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, which gave $1.25 million over two years. That health industry trade group-- which last year merged with the American Health Care Association-- was first identified as a contributor to Patriot Majority USA by the Center for Responsive Politics. Greg Crist, a spokesman for the American Health Care Association, declined to comment, saying, “As a general practice, we don’t comment on our political giving strategies.”

Patriot Majority USA has also collected seven-figure sums from at least two labor unions: $1.14 million from the Service Employees International Union, including $280,000 from the SEIU’s state council in Pennsylvania, and $1 million from the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees.

I wonder if the union members know their dues are going to fund an arch conservative and to try to bury a progressive reformer. If you'd like to contribute to Law's grassroots campaign, you can get to it by tapping the thermometer: