A Baker's Dozen House Democrats Who Have Earned 2018 Primaries

There are a lot of very insistent voices out there clamoring for Democratic Party unity in the face of the very real dangers posed by Trump and Trumpism. I couldn't disagree more strongly-- at least now, at the time when the Democrats are looking for candidates. The DCCC-- and especially their recruitment committee heads, Rahm Emanuel protégée Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL) and Denny Heck (New Dem-WA)-- are working to replicate versions of themselves as candidates. They are looking for wealthy self-funders (like Heck), Republican-lite conservatives (like Bustos) and mediocre non-leaders who will do what they're told by leadership and not make waves. Screw that! Blue America and other progressive groups are busy recruiting stalwart, trustworthy, values-driven progressives for 2018 (like these men and women). During primary season, we should all be doing our best to find the most stellar possible candidates to run, people who are dedicated to working for ordinary Americans, not dedicated to working for special interests who will further their own careers. After the primaries there will be plenty of time to talk about party unity.

In fact, as the headline indicates, there are plenty of incumbents who have done a lousy job and are little better than Republicans. The Democratic Party can-- and should and must-- do better. The incumbents listed below are muddying up the Democratic brand and making voters, especially young voters, why its worthwhile to pick between two evils. Let's start with the worst of the worst-- Arizona Blue Dog, Kyrsten Sinema. This is the definition of an opportunistic values-free political hack. She stands for nothing at all except her own career trajectory. Sinema actually start running for office as a Socialist, then switched to Green and then to the Democrats. She then joined the Blue Dogs and has made a name for herself as the most anti-progressive Democrat in the House. Other than women's issues and gay issues-- which are both personal top her-- she's really a Republican. Her ProgressivePunch rating is an "F" and her crucial vote score for the current session is an astounding 10.53, the lowest for any Democrat I have ever seen in contemporary congressional history. There are 11 Republicans with identical 10.53 scores and 9 Republicans with better scores. Example, conservative North Carolina Republican Walter Jones votes in favor of progressive legislation 38.89%-- more than 3 times more often than Sinema. And his R+11 district gave Trump a huge 60.5% to 36.9% win over Hillary, while Sinema's district voted for Obama both times and gave Hillary a very strong 54.7% to 38.4% win over Trump.

Are the Democrats punishing her for her reprehensible, odious behavior? Of course not. Steny Hoyer has recruited her for a future leadership role and she's patted on the back for taking massive bribes from the Financial Sector while sitting on the House Financial Services Committee and supporting Wall Street against Main Street and against her own constituents ($1,003,940 alone in 2016, more than any other current House Democrat except Wall Street crook Joe Crowley, who we'll get to below). Worse yet, Chuck Schumer has tried to recruit her to run for the U.S. Senate, as though the Senate doesn't stink from too much garbage already! Not only has she merited a primary-- and Talia Fuentes is giving her one-- but she is one Democratic incumbent that doesn't even deserve a favorable vote in a general election!

The primary thermometer on the right includes Talia, as well as the other intrepid progressives who have put themselves forward to run primary campaigns against some of the worst Democrats in the House. Dan Lipinski is another Blue Dog in a safe Democratic seat. IL-03 is a D+5 Chicagoland district that Obama won both times he ran and that voted for Hillary over Trump even more strongly than it did for Obama over Romney-- 55.2% to 39.9%. And yet Lipinski persists in voting with the Republicans far more frequently even than most Blue Dogs. His "F" rating from ProgressivePunch yields a score of 21.05 this session, just absolutely abysmal.

Blue America is very excited about the high calibre progressive running against him, Marie Newman. This morning she told is that she "was first driven to run against Dan Lipinski in the primary for one simple reason: as a resident of the 3rd district I felt ignored and misrepresented, and I knew many of my neighbors felt the same. In a very blue district, our only choice as Democrats had been a man who voted against the Affordable Care Act, takes two-thirds of his campaign money from corporations, supported and sponsored legislation allowing anti-LGBT discrimination, and has had a general disregard for the working families and small businesses that make up the district. Residents, particularly Democrats, are fed up with his complete lack of results as well as the constant voting against the interests of the district."

Marie couldn't be more different. She's told us that her own "chief concern is bettering the lives of the working people who live in the 3rd, not corporate donors like congressman Lipinski. By advocating for things like health care for all, education that leads to real jobs, and advancing small business, I'm certain residents will feel like they have a true representative when I'm in Congress." (And, again, please consider tapping on that thermometer above and helping her raise the money she needs to get her message out to the voters.)

Two other atrocious House Democrats have earned primaries and have opponents this year: Queens party boss Joe Crowley and the contemptible slug from South Florida (via Queens by the way), Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Both define congressional corruption and both see themselves as future leaders of the party.

Progressive professor and activist Tim Canova gave Wasserman Schultz the scare of her career last cycle and is taking her on again in 2018. "Debbie Wasserman Schultz," he told us today, "has failed to adequately represent her district on a wide range of issues of great importance to people's everyday lives, from the crisis in the jobs market and the Main Street economy to health care and education, energy and the environment. On many issues, Wasserman Schultz tries to talk like a progressive, but because she takes so much money from big corporate interests through their PACs and SuperPACs, she does not walk the walk. DWS has spent her entire political career pushing the interests of Wall Street banks and predatory lenders, Big Sugar companies and other corporate polluters, private prison companies, and the fossil fuel industry. The Democratic Party needs a new direction, we need campaigns that are financed by the grassroots and responsive to the needs of the American people. That's why we are running to replace Wasserman Schultz and finish the job we started last year." (And we're trying to help him-- namely on the thermometer again.)

The only other Democrat on our list with a primary challenger is Stephanie Murphy from the Orlando area. Former Orlando area ACLU president Chardo Richardson declared his candidacy in this video last week. We haven't spoken with him yet so we haven't added him our endorsement page. He seems like a good candidate and we've seen enough of Murphy to know the Democrats would be way better off without her. She's another EMILY's List garbage candidate who represents special interests and votes with the Republicans on most important matters. Her ProgressivePunch rating is an "F" and her crucial vote score is 27.78. Hillary won her district handily-- 51.4% to 44.1%.

The other Democratic incumbents in our hall of shame don't have primary challengers yet-- and, unfortunately, are unlikely to get any. These are all awful legislators, all but one a Blue Dog and that one, Ami Bera is a New Dem who's even more reactionary than the average Blue Dog. Most of them reek of corruption, of course, and Bera is so corrupt that the California Democratic Party refused to endorse him for reelection last year and will probably do the same thing this year. This guy is so low that he made his poor, sick, elderly father take the fall for a corrupt scheme to launder illicit money into his campaign. His father is in prison now. He also has an F from ProgressivePunch and his score is an abysmal 26.32, the worst of any non-Blue Dog among House Dems. It speaks to the dismal shape of the Democratic Party that Bera has no primary challenger.



There are two other slime ball Democrats in the California delegation who should have, but don't, primary opponents reactionary Blue Dogs, both in heavily Democratic seats, Lou Correa and Jim Costa.

That leaves us with 5 reactionary Blue Dogs: "ex"-Republican Tom O'Halleran (AZ), tied with Wall Street whore Josh Gottheimer (NJ) for the worst voting record of any freshman Democrat-- each has a 26.32 score, the exact same as conservative Republicans Thomas Massie (KY) and Jimmy Duncan (TN)-- and 3 right-wing old timers, Collin Peterson (MN), Henry Cuellar (TX) and the aforementioned recruitment maven Cheri Bustos (IL). This pile of garbage is all part of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the members Ryan, Trumpanzee and McCarthy are talking about when they boast that some crap piece of their agenda has passed with "bipartisan" support.

Personally, I wouldn't vote for any of these candidates, not even in a general election. But I can understand the argument that some Democrats make about how every seat is crucial in winning back the House. In primaries, however, it is absolutely essential to rid the party of this garbage and replace them with real Democrats. These people do more harm to the Democratic Party than any Republican ever could.

A Future Dominated By Forced Choices-- Like Debbie Wasserman Schultz vs Paul Ryan! How Appetizing Is That?

Pick yer poison

Last night we talked about how Republicans are already looking at ways to reconstitute their party after Trump is crushed in November. That, however, is certainly easier said than done. John Harwood, writing for the NY Times quoted Avik Roy a serious conservative policy advisor first for Romney and then for Rubio as saying that "the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism." That's not going away overnight just because Trump loses, unless he loses in a landslide, which is not indicated by any current polling. The Republican Party is shattered and it's likely to remain shattered. All that keeps it afloat is the jaw-dropping incompetence of a sclerotic, bungling Democratic Party.

After Mr. Romney’s 2012 defeat exposed the limits of relying on white voters in a diversifying nation, the Republican National Committee called for outreach to Latino voters through new immigration policies. Hostility from working-class conservatives, irate over cultural change and diminished economic prospects, scuttled that effort.

In the 2016 primaries, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, two champions of Latino support, were punished, and the party was left with Mr. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, two finalists for the presidential nomination that Republican officeholders loathed but could not stop.

Mr. Trump prevailed by channeling Republican anger most skillfully-- against foes inside the party, like Mr. Cruz, and out. To the chagrin of fellow Republicans now facing general election battles, he hasn’t stopped.

Since securing the nomination, Mr. Trump has openly denigrated a Mexican-American federal judge, the Muslim parents of a fallen American soldier and a former Miss Universe. He offers sweeping condemnations of life in African-American communities.

The rise of Mr. Trump threatens fellow Republicans who must appeal to broader constituencies, now and in the future. Prominent voices within the party, including editorial writers at conservative newspapers and top officials in past Republican administrations, have strongly denounced him.

Asked in a debate this week whether Mr. Trump represented a role model for children, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, answered “absolutely.”

Within hours she found that answer such a liability that she withdrew it, explaining “I misspoke.”

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, in theory allied with his party’s nominee, tried this week to avoid that pitfall altogether.

Asked to discuss Mr. Trump, who currently draws support from more than eight in 10 Republicans, Mr. McConnell told reporters, “I choose not to.”

David Letterman has been interviewing Trump on TV since the 1980s. This week David Itzkoff interviewed Letterman about Trump, who Letterman feels needs a psychiatrist.

I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time and I always thought he was exactly what New York City needed to have: the big, blowhard billionaire. “By God, I’m Donald Trump and I date models and I put up buildings, and everything is gold.” Nobody took him seriously, and people loved him when he would come on the show. I would make fun of his hair, I would call him a slumlord, I would make fun of his ties. And he could just take a punch like nothing. He was the perfect guest.

...The thing about Trumpy was, I think people just were amused enough about him to keep him afloat in the polls, because nobody wanted the circus to pull up and leave town.

Today, the circus was supposed to move to the Walworth County fairgrounds outside of Elkhorn in Paul Ryan's congressional district, but last night Ryan disinvited Trump because of his attitude towards women. Pence is going instead. Ryan would like to spend 2017-2020 sabotaging President Hillary so he can run against her next time around. Writing for the New Republic yesterday, David Dayen explained how someone whose very toxic never-changing-agenda could even be in such a position. "The Paul Ryan budget, rolled out in 2011," he reminded his readers, "was initially synonymous with Republican cruelty and trickle-down economics. The virtual starvation of programs for the poor, the extreme tax cuts for the wealthy, the privatization of Medicare-- these all became anchors that could have, should have, weighed down Republicans forever. But somewhere along the line, Ryan wriggled off the hook. So much so, in fact, that he could announce in public on Wednesday that he intends to jam through the Ryan budget next year under a procedure that bypasses Democratic opposition in Congress-- and make that vow without fear of reprisal, right in the heat of election season."

Who’s responsible for detoxifying the Ryan agenda, for legitimizing his radical views on government? Democrats let their foot off the gas when it came to Ryan, after first tarring other Republicans successfully with supporting him. But the press also deserves blame for helping Ryan rehabilitate his discredited positions, by bestowing on him the honorary title of Serious Man of Washington.

What Ryan promised on Wednesday is that if Republicans control both Congress and the White House come January, he’ll use “budget reconciliation” to implement most of what he now calls his Better Way agenda (it used to be the Path to Prosperity). Under reconciliation, Congress can advance anything that primarily affects the budget bottom line with a simple majority vote, including in the Senate, which normally would require beating a 60-vote filibuster to proceed. “This is our game plan for 2017,” Ryan said.

Fortunately, voters appear to have other plans. Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency, and denying Ryan unified control, are growing. And Senate races are tight enough to flip either way, with Democratic control very possible.

But if Ryan, Donald Trump, and Mitch McConnell did run Congress, they could unquestionably use reconciliation to ram home the Ryan budget. And that agenda is as radical an overhaul of the federal government as anything that’s come out of Trump’s mouth.

The Better Way repeals most of Obamacare, from the individual and employer mandates to the Medicaid expansion to subsidies for consumers to purchase insurance. It would cut at least $6 trillion in federal spending, with 62 percent of that coming from programs that help low- and moderate-income families. It would “block-grant” a number of anti-poverty programs, giving fixed sums to the states to manage without any federal restrictions (and without the ability to get expanded funding based on need). It would raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67 and cripple the program by offering “premium support” for seniors to buy private insurance, fracturing the market and breaking a system that works pretty well. And Ryan’s plan would cut individual and corporate tax rates, with 99.6 percent of the benefits going to the wealthiest 1 percent.

...Why did Democrats fail to hang Ryan’s wildly unpopular plans around Republicans’ necks? Partly because, by the time he was nominated, Ryan had become somebody Democrats could work with, relative to the Tea Party conservatives who’d swept into the House in 2010. Ron Wyden had joined with Ryan in late 2011 to endorse his Medicare plan. After the election, Patty Murray engineered a “Bipartisan Budget Act” with Ryan in 2013, to avert a government shutdown. When Ryan became Speaker last October, he ushered through another Bipartisan Budget Act. The flack he took on his right for that deal, which increased discretionary spending modestly while offsetting that with other cuts, established him as the sensible alternative (again, relatively), the guy Democrats could deal with in the opposition party.

And this is where media culpability comes in. Reporters and pundits have historically gone to bat for Ryan, exalting him as a legitimate thinker trying to solve problems rather than a dangerous ideologue. Politifact helped negate Democrats’ Medicare attacks by calling them the 2011 “Lie of the Year.” Nobody in Congress gets more loving profiles, dating from before he became the Veep nominee or Speaker to the present day. That Ryan’s budgets were mainly snake oil, that his plans would have dire consequences for every American without a trust fund, usually get edited out of the story.

Even today, the media assists Ryan when he tries to distance himself from Donald Trump-- when in reality, Trump would likely be little more than an autopen as president, signing whatever noxious policy Ryan shuttled through the House and put on his desk. Despite this, the media almost affords him sympathy for his plight about dealing with Trump (he’s campaigning with Trump on Saturday, so it can’t be that wrenching), rather than recognizing his role as the author of the agenda the next Republican president will carry out.

The normalization of Ryan as a serious, honest figure allows him to put out as radical a budget as would ever be initiated in American history without anyone batting an eyelash. This may not come back to sting the country next year, if Trump falls the way his poll numbers currently suggest. But at some not-too-distant point, when conservatives capture the entire government, they’ll be able to implement this blueprint, the Ryan budget, that should have been made into nuclear waste long ago.

Is there a way to stop that? Sure, winning congressional seats. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party leadership is just not up to it. Pelosi is too old and out-of-it and all the power rests with her. She's appointed one incompetent imbecile after another to run the DCCC, starting anti-progressive fanatic Rahm Emanuel, through bumbling idiot Chris Van Hollen, crooked Blue Dog Steve Israel and now, a foolish simpleton with one qualification, a Latino last name. I hate to be a downer, but once they carry Pelosi (and Hoyer) out of there, the next level of failure-as-an-ideology leadership ready to take over is far worse than either Pelosi or Hoyer: Queens County machine boss Joe Crowley and crooked national disgrace Debbie Wasserman Schultz. If Pelosi and Hoyer would each announce their retirement today-- it would be fantastic... except that either Crowley or Wasserman Schultz would be elected leader and, there's a good chance that the two them would wind up in charge the Democratic congressional party the way Pelosi and Hoyer run it today. The Democratic Party would become an engine for creating ads-- like the Ami Bera one below-- for the Republican Party.



The candidates on the page this thermometer leads to are all winners of their primaries and all are in districts that can be won in November-- and are all that the Pelosi and her wretched DCCC are either ignoring entirely or actively sabotaging. Unless you want to see the Ryan scenario become reality-- and remember, even if the Democrats somehow manage to take the Senate back in November, they will certainly lose it again, massively, in 2018-- please stretch to help elect progressives like these to the House. We have to bethinking about a post-Pelosi/Hoyer Congress... one that isn't Crowley/Wasserman Schultz.

Crooked New Dem Ami Bera Is Allowing His 83 Year Old Father To Take The Fall For His Own Crimes

Earlier today, Ami Bera showed up on our list of the worst Democrats in Congress. The list was based on his reactionary voting record, not on his grotesque corruption, corruption for which he's going to allow his 83-year old father to act as the fall guy and possibly go to prison. The California labor unions that were instrumental in first electing and then sustaining Bera in Congress, have abandoned him and are refusing to even back him as the lesser of two evils against roly poly Republican sexual predator Scott Jones. Bera has an execrable voting recorded earned an "F" from ProgressivePunch. Only 11 Democrats in Congress have voted more frequently against progressive positions on crucial issues. He was one of only 28 Democrats, for example, to vote for Fast Track authority for the TPP.

Babulal Bera, the congressman's father, pleaded guilty to campaign fraud charges in May and is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Sacramento on Thursday. Federal prosecutors have recommended a year in prison and a $130,200 fine for his role in a multi-year scheme hatched by Steve Israel and involving half a dozen of the most corrupt 2014 New Dem candidates, particularly Bera and crooked Florida congressman Patrick Murphy and his big-spending Republican parents. In their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors wrote that Babulal crime was "broad, sustained and knowingly wrong." He admitted it as part of a deal to keep his equally guilty wife (who is 81 and very ill) out of prison and to keep the spotlight away from his son, who directed the operation at Steve Israel's instructions. Babulal, who addressed the court through a Gujarati interpreter, doesn't speak English well enough to have pulled this complex a scheme off on his own.

“The amounts he directed into the campaign were significant, and as discussed below they may have helped establish the legitimacy of the campaign,” prosecutors wrote in the filing signed by Philip A. Ferrari, assistant U.S. attorney. “Finally, this defendant knew his acts were wrong, and he took active steps to conceal them, using multiple bank accounts and sometimes writing reimbursement checks from multiple accounts on the same day.”

“However enthusiastic he may have been about the prospect that his son would be a United States Congressman, he cannot explain away his actions as the result of runaway emotions,” they added.

Babulal sponsored over 300 Gujaratis to come to the U.S. and ran a small chain of sleazy motels. Many people are shocked that the Congressman is allowing his father to take the fall and possibly go to prison to advance his own miserable political career. He claims he hasn't even discussed the case with his father.

"More corrupt than I am"

James Wedick, a retired FBI agent who worked on high-profile public corruption probes, referred to the case as “unusual” because it’s far more common to have politicians themselves orchestrate sophisticated and illicit ways to underwrite their campaigns than their aging parents.

“For a parent to get this involved in the race without including (Ami Bera), or telling others, or getting advice as to what to do? I don’t know. It defies reasoning a little bit,” Wedick said. “And most of the time when I have looked, it’s a lot a more complicated than people have suggested. Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire.”

Separate from the criminal probe, The Bee reported in May that Ami Bera and his family, including his parents, participated in a complex series of campaign donations involving the families of other Democratic congressional candidates. Campaign finance experts said the contributions, which often came within days of one another, generally do not violate federal law, but were another way to avoid individual donation limits.

Ami Bera has said the contributions often were arranged by the candidates themselves, but in some cases may also have been initiated by the candidates’ families or their campaign staffs. Bera also said he periodically asked his wife and parents to contribute to colleagues running in competitive contests, but that similar donations from those candidates and their relatives didn’t constitute “reimbursements.”

Bera, who won the suburban Sacramento seat in 2012 and defended it two years later, faces a November challenge from Republican Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. Jones’ campaign continues to insist the congressman was fully aware of the illegal fundraising scheme and now is dishonorably allowing his elderly father to take the blame.

Bera's district, CA-07, is entirely in Sacramento County and made up primarily of Sacramento's eastern suburbs from Elk Grove and Carmichael to Citrus Heights and Rancho Cordova and out to Folsom. Obama won the district twice, leading McCain by 6 points and Romney by 4 points. In his reelection bid in 2014, in which he used the illegal campaign funds, Bera was nearly defeated and squeaked by with 92,521 votes to Republican Doug Ose's 91,066 votes. Bera spent $4,317,863 to Ose's $5,114,546. The DCCC spent $4,654,796 to help Bera and Pelosi's House Majority PAC kicked in another $1,203,057-- almost $6 million for a contemptible fake Democrat who has always been there for Boehner and Ryan to vote with the GOP so they could call their anti-working family legislation "bipartisan." Bera is a perfect example of why the Democratic Party has nothing going for it any long except the ability to call itself the lesser of two evils. The reason all elections should have a "none of the above" option is because of politicians like Ami Bera.

Steve Israel's scheme to circumvent campaign finance laws

UPDATE: Bera Is Losing

An NMB Research poll shows Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones (R) beating corrupt New Dem Ami Bera 46-45%, despite Hillary trouncing the Trumpanzee by double digits in the district.

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:

Ami Bera's Father Is Going To Jail For Campaign Finance Fraud-- What About Patrick Murphy's Parents?

Mastermind of DCCC corruption: Steve Israel... with the useful idiot

I'm in the middle of an intense investigation of how sleazy Republican Justin Fareed from Santa Barbara is funding his congressional campaign from just a few wealthy families with very special interests involving the healthcare industry. The investigation is still on-going but, basically, Fareed has taken in over $180,000 from eight families representing four healthcare 
companies, particularly the Kolodny family-- all of whose adult members have declared bankruptcy in the past as a way of escaping debts-- who are first-time political donors but have maxed out to Fareed for over $40,000. They run controversial nursing homes in Maywood and Oxnard. Fareed is a Republican with a distinct penchant towards corrupt practices but Republicans have by no means cornered the market on political corruption.

Just as I was researching the Fareed case, the Sacramento Bee reported on the outcome of a 2 year old campaign finance fraud case involving a bunch of crooked conservative Democrats, each one of them just as shady as Fareed. DWT started working on that case 2 years ago this week.

Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton reported yesterday that the father of crooked Congressman Ami Bera, a right-wing Democrat cut loose by unions, progressives and reformers, "has been charged with two counts of campaign finance violations and is scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday to enter a plea in the case... as an 'arraignment and change of plea' hearing, which typically means a defendant has agreed to a guilty plea." And he did. The court in Sacramento and The Bee focused on Ami Bera, the crooked local congressman, although it appears that the Sacramento U.S. Attorney went nowhere near the case and it was handled out of the U.S. Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section, which indicates that Patrick Murphy and his parents could well be next. Bera insinuated he didn't know about how his father was gaming the system although it was a scheme hatched by Steve Israel at the DCCC and also involved the parents of several other corrupt right-wing Democrats, particularly Patrick Murphy (FL), Kevin Strauss (PA), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY) and Ann Callis (IL).

Babulal Bera, whose son faces a re-election battle against Republican Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, was charged with making excessive campaign contributions and making contributions in the name of another person.

...The charges filed Monday night allege that, beginning in 2009, Bera contributors gave at least $235,000 to a campaign committee in Elk Grove, and that Babulal Bera later caused the contributions to be illegally refunded.

Those contributors “received full or partial reimbursements for their contributions in the form of funds that originated from the defendant (Babulal Bera), either from the defendant directly or through third parties working at the defendant’s behest,” court documents state.

The charging document also alleges that Babulal Bera and his wife “directly and indirectly solicited relatives, friends and acquaintances to make the maximum allowable federal campaign contributions” to a campaign committee, “knowing that his personal money would be used to advance funds to, or reimburse these individuals for the contributions they made.”

This was designed, according to the charging document, to avoid limitations federal law imposes on the amount an individual is allowed to give a congressional candidate in a single election cycle.

The contributions came in between Jan. 31, 2011, and Dec. 5, 2011, and totaled about $43,400, the documents state.

From April 26, 2011, through June 9, 2012, “these contributors received full or partial reimbursements for their contributions in the form of funds that originated from the defendant” or from third parties working on his behalf, the documents state.

Babulal Bera faces up to five years on each of the two felony counts and fines of at least $250,000.

Ami Bera threw his dad under the bus, same way he threw his constituents under the bus

Babulal sent two checks to Patrick Murphy, totaling $5,000, dated June 27, 2015, all part of Steve Israel's ruse to have the wealthy parents of his right-wing, anti-progressive candidates avoid campaign finance laws by illegally trading contributions. Patrick's criminally-minded mother sent a check to Bera's campaign on March 5, 2013 for $5,200 while his crooked father Thomas Murphy (the Trump partner) sent two checks to Kevin Strouse on June 26, 2013 totaling $5,200-- all while Thomas and Leslie Murphy had been sending tens of thousands of dollars to Republican party organizations from Vermont and Massachusetts to Oklahoma and Idaho and to Republican candidates like George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.

The plea bargain seems to have guaranteed that Babulal would serve no more than 30 months in prison rather than the 46 to 57 months that would be normal under the Federal Sentencing Guideline for the 2 counts he plead guilty to. Israel hasn't been indicted but there have been rumors that he was forced to announce his retirement from Congress over this and other similar illegal schemes. And, so far, the Murphy family hasn't been investigated for their role in the same behavior Babulal Bera will soon be in prison for. They provided "a thing of value" (campaign contributions to Bera) in return for Babulal making a campaign contribution to Patrick Murphy. It would seem more fitting to go after the two corrupt politicians as well as their parents, but congressmen routinely get away with almost anything. Bera has no primary opponent but, fortunately, Murphy, does: Alan Grayson. You can help Grayson defeat Murphy and his family's sordid brand of corrupt politics by clicking on the thermometer:

What Ever Happened To The Party of the People... Follow The Money

Many concerned Californians felt very let down when the establishment shills inside the California Democratic Party-- the Gavin Newsom wing basically-- backed away from holding reactionary New Dem Ami Bera accountable at the recent state convention by ending the short-lived withholding on the Democratic Party endorsement. As Thomas Frank explained Friday on Thom Hartmann's program and in his new book, Listen Liberal-- What Ever Happened To The Party of the People, the DC Democratic Party establishment power structure has made the very conscious decision to kick working men and women to the curb and replace their prioritization with the professional class (AKA, the top 10%). Gavin Newsom is very much a part of that wing of the new post-working class democratic Party-- as is Ami Bera, the right-of-center New Dem congressman from a swing district in the Sacramento suburbs. Bera has no primary opponent so, when the state Democratic Party gave him a little slap on the wrist for his serial betrayals, both the Teamsters Union and the Carpenters Union endorsed Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, the Republican in the race.

In the 1970s, 100,000 Teamsters found their way to the middle class by working in California canneries.

Now, the number of union cannery workers sits at 15,000. Doug Bloch, political director of the Teamsters Joint Council 7 in Northern California and Nevada, blames much of the job loss on the North America Free Trade Agreement.

Rep. Ami Bera, the Elk Grove Democrat seeking a third term in what will be a close race, is feeling labor’s burning anger, after breaking with unions and voting to give President Barack Obama fast-track authority to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal.

Last week, Joint Council 7 took the extraordinary step of endorsing Bera’s Republican foe, Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. Bloch cannot remember the last time the Teamsters endorsed a Republican in a contested congressional race.

“We don’t have a friend in that seat,” Bloch told me. “So we’re not losing anything.”

In Christopher Cadelago’s excellent piece last week, the Sacramento Bee reported that Democratic activists, angry at Bera’s moderation, vow that they would not work to re-elect Bera.

The Teamsters have taken that a step further. Jones won the Teamsters’ endorsement because he opposes the trade deal, and is taking other pro-labor stands aligned with Teamsters’ views.

The Teamsters decision makes Bera’s re-election tougher. He won his seat in 2014 by 1,455 votes. There are 4,000 Teamsters in Bera’s district.


The Communications Workers of America and the biggest national nurses union each endorsed progressive Democrat Tim Canova against right-of-center, anti-working family shill and much-distrusted DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz in her south Florida, deep blue district. And a few days ago the Working Families Party of Oregon endorsed progressive Democrat Dave McTeague against chief Blue Dog, one of the worst Democrats practically living across the aisle with the GOP in Congress. The DCCC surprises primaries, so what choice do working families have other than to back a Republican, even if it's a worse Republican?

The way the DCCC has participated in that change from being the party of the legitimate aspirations of the working class to the party of Wall Street, multinational corporations and the Top 10%, has been to reject working class candidates for self-funding wealthy Republican-lite candidates-- sometimes actual Republicans willing to switch their party registrations, the way conservatives Tim Mahoney and Patrick Murphy have in Florida, the way conservative Filemon Vela did in Florida, the way conservative Mike Derrick did in New York and conservative Mike Parrish did in Pennsylvania... a small handful of examples.

Union members have been telling me for a decade that the DCCC has systematically been shoving them aside for wealthy conservatives looking to buy a nice House seat. (EMILY's List is very much the same way these days, abandoning their founding rationale to support wealthy women, as they did recently in the Las Vegas district that pits abortion rights avatar Lucy Flores against a multimillionaire conservative socialite, Susie Lee.)

Sunday, Bill Turque did a story on multimillionaire alcoholic beverage purveyor David Trone and his bid to buy a Maryland congressional seat. Trump has reinvigorated the spirit of rich conservatives seeking offices to buy. A few days ago we saw how Vincente Gonzalez wrote himself a million dollar check to try to do exactly that in South Texas. Trone looks to be spending 10 times what Gonzalez has spent!

He has hired top-of-the-line consultants, launched a major television and radio ad blitz, and is landing glossy multi-page mailings on the doorsteps of likely primary voters almost daily.

...Little known in the district less than two months ago, Trone now appears competitive with the two front-runners: Jamie Raskin, a liberal law professor and state senator, and Kathleen Matthews, a former television anchor and Marriott executive who says she is willing to dip into her own fortune, if necessary, to keep up.

...The willingness of candidates such as Trone to pay their own way raises questions about whether they are undermining a foundational idea in U.S. politics-- that those who want to represent the people must first earn enough of their trust to win their donations. And it is an uphill path; between 2002 and 2014, House candidates who spent at least $1 million of their own money won office only 20 percent of the time.

Trone says taking money from others makes politicians vulnerable to pressure from lobbyists, PACs and other special interests. A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he says it’s also a matter of time management, noting that members of Congress spend up to half of their time raising funds.

...That approach could resonate with voters in this unusually angry campaign season, in which Republican mogul Donald Trump has elevated the can’t-be-bought narrative into a dominant theme of his self-funded run for president.

...Raskin and Matthews have raised well over $1 million each and continue to seek donations large and small. But they are denouncing Trone’s Trump-like approach. Raskin ends virtually every candidates forum-- and there are many in a primary electorate replete with PhDs, think tankers, congressional staffers and other members of the political class-- by declaring that public office “isn’t bought, it is earned.”

In an interview, Raskin said people are “deeply disturbed about the levels of money being spent.”

Matthews, who is also very wealthy, said she might put her own money into the race if she thinks it will make a difference. “My plan is to raise the money,” Matthews said. “But I certainly believe enough in my own campaign that if it comes down to the wire I think it would be reasonable to put my own money in.”

Right now, a substantial piece of her campaign is being financed by MSNBC through her husband's TV show, Hardball where tens of thousands of dollars from guests of the show make their way into her campaign coffers. MSNBC denies they are breaking any laws.

Back to Thomas Frank's book for a moment-- apparently black voters have given the Clintons what they need and are no longer the priority they were in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, etc. This week Bill continued pivoting to the right by throwing Obama and his policies under the bus: "But if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that when we were practicing trickle-down economics and no regulation in Washington, which is what caused the crash, then you should vote for her." Imagine if Bill or Hill had used that as part of a stump speech in the Southern state primaries!

Conservatives Are Corrupt By Nature And By Ideology-- Whether Republicans OR Democrats

TPP shill Ami Bera

Corrupt conservatives-- often recruited or at least heavily supported-- by the DCCC are constantly betraying progressive values in return for campaign contributions. Few are as bad as New Dems Patrick Murphy, Sean Patrick Maloney and Gregory Meeks. But another aisle-crossing New Dem, Ami Bera, has supported job-killing trade pacts once too many times and the local Democratic Party in the suburbs east of Sacramento have denied him the Democratic Party pre-endorsement and several major labor unions have announced they will not endorse him and have cut off funding to him. Alas, though, he has no primary opponent and the DCCC has pledged to stand by him, despite a consistent record of voting with the GOP. In 2014 the DCCC spent $4,654,796 to save his worthless hide. Nancy Pelosi's House Majority PAC spent another $1,203,057. He scraped by with by a nose-- 92,521 to 91,066, one of the closest races in the nation. California has 5 conservative Democratic Members of Congress besides Bera who deserve to be primaried and retired: Julia Brownley (New Dem), Pete Aguilar (New Dem), Scott Peters (New Dem), Raul Ruiz and Jim Costa (Blue Dog). Each of them has been graded "F" by ProgressivePunch.

But California's problem with corrupt conservatives doesn't start with Congress. It starts with the den of corruption in Sacramento. In fact, many of California's worst Members of Congress learned how to see so bad while serving (or self-serving) in Sacramento. This cycle, the single most corrupt Sacramento legislator, Isadore Hall, is being heavily pushed by the Democratic Party establishment, including the same unions out to defeat Bera, for a House seat against a proven progressive woman, Nanette Barragán.

This week, Taryn Luna, writing for the Sacramento Bee explained exactly how corrupt conservatives defeat any bills the Chamber of Commerce doesn't like. "Every spring the California Chamber of Commerce introduces its so-called 'job killer' list," she wrote, "a handpicked collection of bills the group says will reduce jobs and deter companies from doing business in the state. Critics of the long-standing lobbying practice call the list little more than a marketing campaign carried out on behalf of big business. One thing is certain: You don’t want your bill to be on it."

Only 47 of 650 bills labeled job killers have become law since the list debuted in 1997, according to the chamber’s tally. The history is archived in a section labeled “The Graveyard” on a website devoted to the issue, CAJobKillers.com. Many of the bills never reach a formal vote and instead die off at the author’s discretion, lacking support.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat who boasts a rare 2-0 winning record against the chamber, considers it a badge of honor when business interests attack her bills. A self-described supporter of workers’ rights, Gonzalez said it proves that she’s doing her job.

Gonzalez introduced a bill in 2014 to provide workers with three days of paid sick leave a year. AB 1522 made the job killers list because it increased the employer mandate, according to the chamber.

The bill was one of three labeled job killers that passed in 2014, but was removed from the list 12 days before it was signed into law... Gonzalez said the chamber took the bill off the list to keep its bill-killing record intact.

In the late 1990s Pete Wilson helped destroy the California Republican Party as a real contender and the Chamber started depending more and more on easily corruptible right-wing Democrats (like Hall). Blockheads in the media label the corrupt conservatives "moderates," but it's a terrible use of the word. A trio of Bee reporters wrote relatively cogently about Sacramento's corrupt conservaDems-- with the stupidly applied "moderate" appellation-- in September. "On the final day of the session Friday, Democrats who dominate the California Assembly labored to pass a watered-down measure expanding the state’s unpaid family leave policy. They were at least eight votes short, with stiff resistance from business-friendly moderates in their party. Senate Bill 406 had been a major target for the California Chamber of Commerce, which placed the measure on its list of 'job killer' legislation. Earlier, it had been weakened in the Assembly to reduce the number of businesses to which it would apply." The lobbyist-controlled right-wing Democrats have joined with the GOP to defeat an increase in the minimum wage, as well as bills to protect consumers, a bill to protect minors from tobacco products, bills to disadvantage unions and bills to prevent pollution and ameliorate Climate Change. The corrupt rightists also introduce lobbyist-written bills into the Democratic caucus. Who needs Republicans?

Today many liberal lawmakers credit the chamber for developing an effective tactic to draw attention to its opposition, but question whether the list has any real impact on jobs.

“When you call something a job killer, my goodness, in one second you’ve got someone’s attention,” said Sen. Jackson. “You’ve hit on a chord. People don’t want their jobs being killed. They don’t want public policy to be destructive of jobs. It’s a very simple, but frankly not a very accurate, characterization.”

A year ago Jackson introduced a bill to give workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid family sick leave. SB 406 would allow employees to retain their jobs and take unpaid time off to care for their newborn, or themselves or a close relative with a serious health issue.

Jackson’s bill made the job killer list because the chamber said it increased costs, risk of litigation and created less conformity with federal law. Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed SB 406, highlighting some of the same concerns as the chamber.


One of the worst of the corrupt conservatives in Sacramento is San Bernadino County Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown. The Sierra Club has called her out for taking $18,300 from Big Oil and then backing their toxic agenda. This year they assigned her a failing grade-- 67%, tied for 3rd worst in the legislature. Clean Water Action graded her a D, normally a grade Republicans get, not Democrats. Blue America has endorsed Eloise Reyes, a progressive, against her, as have the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the Sierra Club, Congressman Xavier Becerra and the most trusted of the members of the state legislature, Sen. Tony Mendoza.

What progressives are doing with Bera-- withholding endorsements and money might defeat him, though probably not-- is sending a message. It's not really an effective way to change the corrupt conservatives' behavior, especially not while the same groups are supporting a character like Isadore Hall, who is even worse than Bera (and Brown). However, recruiting and backing Eloise Reyes and helping her beat Brown... that's the perfect vehicle for a message and I don't have any doubt that several of the worst members of the state legislature will get the point. If you'd like to contribute to Eloise's campaign, by the way, you can do so here.