Remember Duncan Hunter-- The Crooked Son, Not The Crooked Father?

Yesterday Morgan Cook and Jeff McDonald, San Diego Union-Tribune reporters, took their readers out of COVID-19 head and back to political corruption for a few moments. Duncan Hunter, then the only Republican congressman left in the San Diego area-- snagging the seat when his just-as-corrupt father suddenly announced his retirement-- was caught by the FEC using large amounts of campaign funds for personal expenses. That resulted in a 2017 FBI raid on Hunters offices. A year later he and his wife were indicted on 60 counts of wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy, having stolen upwards of a quarter million dollars from campaign funds and from a charity for wounded warriors. After it came out that Hunter was using some of the money on hookers-- and then tried showing his wife under the bus-- she turned against him and told the Justice Department all the dope on him-- and there was tons!

Although he was kicked off his committees by the GOP and urged to resign, he refused and never stopped claiming it was all a political witch hunt. He finally cut a really sweet deal with the prosecutors and entered a guilty plea in December of 2019, although he still claims he was innocent. He's scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday (March 17).

Cook and McDonald reported that all the time he was trying to mislead the voters about his criminal activities, he was also working hard to cover them up.

At the same time Hunter told national television audiences and local supporters that he did nothing wrong, claiming he was the victim of a witch hunt cooked up by his political enemies, hundreds of pages of evidence made public Tuesday show the congressman was actively obfuscating his role in the campaign finance scandal.

“Rather than admit his guilt and resign his seat in April 2016, when originally questioned, or even in August 2018, when originally charged, Hunter chose to mislead the more than 700,000 people who reside in the 50th congressional district,” the filing states.

“As we now know, Hunter lied to the people about his guilt. Not once but countless times,” the filing adds. “As a result of his duplicity, the voters were duped of their right to representation in Congress-- representation they are denied to this day.”

The assertions were included in a lengthy sentencing memo to Judge Thomas J. Whelan, who is scheduled to decide next Tuesday what penalty Hunter will receive in the wake of his guilty plea to a single count of conspiracy late last year.

Prosecutors agreed to a sentencing range of between eight and 14 months in federal prison, and argued in the court filing that the former lawmaker should spend 14 months in custody.

That's what I meant by a sweet plea bargain. The prosecutors should have asked for 5 years prison and a $250,000 fine, but they went shockingly easy on him and it's unlikely that he'll even spend a year in prison. That's part of white privilege crossed with elite privilege.

The government’s 87-page filing was accompanied by hundreds of pages of exhibits and other attachments that spell out a years-long pattern of relying on political contributions to pay routine household bills and to finance resort stays and other extravagant spending.

The 300-plus pages from prosecutors came as Hunter’s defense lawyers are trying for a second time to convince Whelan to dismiss the case against the congressman, or at least recuse two prosecutors in the case who had attended a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2015.

Defense attorney Paul Pfingst argued in a motion filed last week that Hunter was renewing his request for recusal or dismissal, which Whelan denied in July.

In that filing, Pfingst argued that newly obtained emails about the fundraiser deepened concerns that prosecutors were politically biased against Hunter, who was one of the earliest members of Congress to endorse Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

U.S. Government lawyers filed a second document Tuesday urging Whelan to again reject the notion that prosecutors were biased against Hunter, noting they were assigned to the event.

“The (prosecutors’) attendance was spurred and initiated entirely by the Secret Service,” the rebuttal stated. “The federal prosecutors were not there as supporters of Candidate Clinton.”

The same document notes that former U.S. Attorney Gregory Vega, who later defended Hunter in the criminal case, attended the Clinton fundraiser as a paying contributor.

Hunter, 43, and his wife and former campaign manager, Margaret, were named in a 60-count indictment in August 2018, accusing the once-powerful couple of misusing more than $250,000 in campaign contributions.

The 47-page indictment accused the husband and wife of beginning the illegal spending less than a year after they arrived in Washington D.C. in January 2009, when Duncan Hunter succeeded his father, also named Duncan Hunter, in Congress.

Margaret Hunter, 44, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in June and agreed to testify against her husband. She is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Both Hunters are expected to receive significantly less than the five-year maximum sentence.

The newly published records show that Hunter and his wife were all but broke for most of the time Duncan Hunter served in Congress.

Despite the congressman’s privileged upbringing and a congressional salary of approximately $175,000 a year, the family overdrew their checking account more than 1,000 times in a span of just seven years, the sentencing memo states.

“There was in fact not a single month between 2009 and 2017 when the Hunter family bank account had a positive balance throughout the month,” the filing states.

One witness told prosecutors Hunter had to check his bank balance to buy a bottle of water. The same witness said Hunter’s father regularly supplemented his son’s income with frequent $1,000 payments, private-school tuition, extra funds for basic needs such as car repairs and even money for clothes.

“Hunter embodied the very definition of living paycheck to paycheck,” prosecutors wrote. “... It is also easy to see why Hunter would know that the only way he could afford to pay for basic family living expenses, lavish meals and luxury vacations was to use campaign funds.”

The sentencing memo also notes that as soon as Duncan Hunter arrived in Washington D.C. he became part of the capital city elite. He was invited to parties almost every night Congress was in session, the document notes.

Hunter met a woman at one such gathering in April 2009, and quickly moved in with the unidentified woman, prosecutors said. Later, the Alpine congressman used campaign funds to pay for a romantic weekend in Lake Tahoe, according to prosecutors.

Other court records show Hunter engaged in at least four other extramarital affairs, often subsidizing getaways with political donations to his congressional campaigns.

The sentencing memo also recounts Hunter’s frequent use of campaign funds to pay restaurant and bar tabs in Washington D.C. and in San Diego.

“Hunter rarely used his personal debit card to pay for meals or nights out,” prosecutors said.

The spending increasingly worried some members of Hunter’s congressional staff, but neither the congressman nor his wife tempered their spending practices despite warnings from the staff, the memo notes.

All the while, Hunter cast blame on others, including his wife and child, the memo says.

In 2016, after the San Diego Union-Tribune began asking questions about Hunter’s campaign reports, Hunter texted his chief of staff to say the questionable spending was not his fault.

“Dude, I’m not even sure hot (sic) to respond to this (expletive). I have no answer. My family (expletive) me,” Hunter texted chief of staff Joe Kasper. “...I have no idea what to say. And my marriage...”

The Union-Tribune report was picked up by national media, the memo notes, and Hunter and his staff quickly realized that their future campaign filings would be heavily scrutinized. Even so, the excess spending did not stop-- at least until the FBI raided Hunter’s home and offices in 2017.

Ironically, local Republicans have chosen another notorious crook, Darrell Issa, to run for Hunter's old seat in November. CA-50 hasn't had a Representative since Hunter resigned in January.

Duncan Hunter Isn't Even Going To Be The Republican Candidate In CA-50

Last year's campaign was fiery-- and so will this cycle's be


Duncan Hunter, a far right congressman from the reddest southern congressional district was one of the first two Republicans in Congress to have endorsed Trump. Like the other one, Chris Collins of New York, Hunter was indicted and arrested on dozens of financial fraud charges, including wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy. The crux though is that he stole at least $200,000 from his campaign funds and used them for personal expenses including a series of prostitutes and extranmarital affairs. His wife has already plead guilty and has been cooperating with Hunter, who is out on bail. He was hoping to be reelected so that he could use his status as a congressman in a plea deal for a lighter sentence. It doesn't look like he's going get beyond the primary though.

Carl DeMaio had a convincing FEC quarter-- $1,569,929, of which he spent $204,059, leaving $1,205,456. That's a lot more than Duncan Hunter's entire haul for the cycle-- $588,297.97-- and a lot more than Hunter has in his campaign account-- $289,487. State Sen Brian Jones has filed and neither has Darrell Issa, who is independently wealthy and can put as much as he needs into his campaign. When Issa ended his 2018 run he still had an enormous $3,750,024 in his campaign coffers. On the Democratic side, Ammar Campa-Najjar raised another $580,543 in the third quarter and has $852,762 in his war-chest.

Tuesday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the San Diego Republican Party had decided not to endorse Hunter for another term. An endorsement takes a two-thirds majority and none of the candidates came close:

• Carl DeMaio- 21
• Brian Jones- 14
• Hunter- 14
• Darrell Issa- 0

It's the first time in his political career that Duncan Hunter, Jr. didn't get the Republican Party's nomination.

Hunter faces three, high-profile Republican opponents and is preparing for a federal trial on charges of campaign finance violations.

The bi-monthly Republican meeting featured a town hall forum, providing a rare occasion where all four candidates appeared at the same event.

Republican Party Chairman Tony Krvaric moderated the debate, which included opening and closing statements, and he posed five questions to each of the four candidates.

Much of the night centered around Republican unity, with Krvaric reminding candidates several times to “stay positive” and focus on the issues.

“I will not tolerate any beating up of a Republican candidate,” Krvaric said. “To the candidates, we want to hear what makes you different... Do not throw mud at your fellow Republicans in the room.”

The 50th District covers a swath of the county east and north of San Diego, a region previously considered one of California’s most reliably red seats that has shown a strong loyalty to the Hunter name for decades. Hunter is in his sixth two-year term and his father, Duncan L. Hunter Sr., served from 1981 to 2009.

“I’ve been fighting for you for 11 years,” Hunter said to the crowd. “You know where I stand on the issues.”

But Hunter now is considered a vulnerable incumbent. He was victorious against his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, by fewer than 9,000 votes last year-- about 10 weeks after a federal indictment accused him and his wife of illegally spending more than $250,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a trial scheduled for January, weeks before the March primary.

Hunter said he’s ready for the battle.

Even when federal prosecutors “indicted me months before my election and tried to steal my seat, I still won,” he said. “I’m not going to move somewhere and fight for the easy seat... As a United State Marine, what we do is we stand and we fight.”

According to a recent poll, Hunter trails his Republican opponents, with 11 percent of the vote. All four candidates face an uphill climb against Campa-Najjar, who leads the poll with 31 percent.

DeMaio used questions from the forum to highlight many of his five-step plans for the country. He received applause and cheers for his ideas on immigration and supporting President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“We had 39 Republicans cut and run last year,” DeMaio said. “The president needs an entire team who will stand with him and fight, and that is exactly what I plan to do.”

As the host of a daily news and politics radio show, DeMaio already had a platform to advertise his candidacy and a built-in fan base, though it’s unclear how much of that fan base is based in the 50th District. The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for the Union-Tribune and 10News, shows him leading the GOP candidates with 20 percent.

A crowd of DeMaio supporters lined the parking lot entrance of the hotel, donning “Make America Great Again” hats and waving DeMaio signs at passing cars.

“The energy and enthusiasm of the grass roots movement behind my campaign is undeniable,” DeMaio said.

Issa, a nine-term congressman who represented northern San Diego County for nearly two decades, announced in September his bid for the seat, just after his confirmation to a Trump Administration trade position was stalled by Senate Democrats.

The former congressman does not live in the district, which his opponents were quick to point out, but experts say he has the experience and network to target Hunter’s district.

“I’m not running because this is an easy seat. I’m running because I’m concerned about it,” Issa said. “If Duncan Hunter is able to, quite frankly, survive what he’s facing, then we can have a whole different discussion. But if not, you need a conservative on day one that will do the job.”

Issa was the wealthiest member of Congress during his tenure, with an estimated net worth of $283 million, according to financial disclosure forms he filed while in office. The poll shows him holding 16 percent of the vote.

He appealed directly to the delegates in his closing statement, cautioning them to weigh their endorsement choice carefully.

“You have a seated U.S. congressman who has a stellar voting record. You have a state senator who hasn’t done anything wrong... If the delegates tonight endorse any one of us, they endorse against three of us,” Issa said. “Do you want to really say that Duncan Hunter needs to go?”

It’s unclear if Issa’s plea had an effect on the final vote. The former congressman left before giving his final 10-minute statement to committee members.

...Besides Hunter, Jones is the only GOP candidate who lives within the 50th District, a point he stressed several times during the debate. He served on Santee City Council before moving on to the Assembly and then State Senate this year.

He received the most support from the crowd when speaking about gun rights and abortion.

Ending the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade is “one of the most important issues to save America and make it great again,” Jones said.

Last cycle, the race was incredibly close, especially for a district where Trump had beaten Hillary 54.6% to 39.6%.

Wealthy Car Thief Darrell Issa Vows To Eat Duncan Hunter Alive And Spit Out His Bones

Issa (left) and Hunter (right)

We all love a good dirty brawl-- especially when the two dirty brawlers are so patently repulsive that you can literally hope they both rip each other's heads off. Welcome to California's 50th congressional district, First a little background on the district itself. It's an overwhelmingly suburban district, mostly (90%) in inland San Diego County, with a slice in Riverside County. It goes from Temecula in the northeast, skirts San Diego itself down thru Escondido to eastern El Cajon and then heads out into the desert where there's nothing but meth-manufacturers and a string of national wildernesses, state parks and a national forest. Its population is mostly white with a growing number of Latinos, almost a third now. The PVI is R+11 and Trump beat Hillary there 54.6% to 39.6%. Last year, though, something special happened that resulted in a near win for an unlikely Democrat.

Considering that in 2016, Hunter beat his Democratic opponent 148,880 (63.9%) to 84,142 (36.1%), you can imagine just how special what happened was. Short version: Hunter, a drunken, womanizing crook was caught stealing campaign money to use on living expenses, hookers and God-knows-what-else. He was arrested, indicted and kicked off his congressional committees but is still  refusing to resign in the hopes of using his membership in Congress as a bargaining chip when he makes his plea deal with the prosecutor.

His opponent from last cycle, Ammar Campa-Najjar, is running again-- as are at least seven 3 Republicans, Carl DeMaio, a hate talk radio host who was a member of the San Diego city council, state Senator Brian Jones and-- according to the San Diego Union-Tribune-- a whale among candidates, and someone who might even be more crooked than Hunter: former Congressman Darrell Issa. Issa retired from an almost-neighboring district last year rather than face certain defeat by a Democrat. And now the former richest and crookedest man in Congress wants back in.

This morning he announced at a press gaggle that he's not waiting for Hunter to retire voluntarily or to go to prison and that he's in it to win it. Candidates until this week, former Escondido Mayor Sam Abed, Temecula Mayor Matt Rahn, El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells and retired Navy SEAL Larry Wilske, were all paid off by Issa to end their own campaigns and endorse him. Both Hunter and Issa are solidly allied with Trump.

Will A Court Allow Duncan Hunter To Avoid Prison Time In Return For Resigning From Congress? Darrell Issa Is Waiting

Drunkin' Hunter & DJ Trumpanzee

Duncan Hunter and his wife misappropriated at least a quarter million dollars from campaign funds to use for their lavish lifestyle. Hunter has decided his best defense was to blame his wife for stealing the money without his knowledge. The problem with that strategy is that he was using some of the money to pay hookers/lobbyists and carry on affairs with various women. But his lawyers have come up with a way around that damning evidence of malfeasance. They’re asking the court to exclude the evidence that he was using the stolen funds during extramarital affairs because the relationships with at least five women "often served an overtly political purpose."

The lawyers said the evidence would embarrass Hunter since it “reflects poorly on his character” and would prejudice a jury against him. I’ve never heard anything so judicially insane in my life. It’s like saying that evidence of the murder can’t be used because it would prejudice the jury against the defendant and reflect badly on his character and would embarrass him. Hunter is obviously at the end of his rope and is probably negotiating behind the scenes too resign from Congress in return for leniency.

Most of the facts about Hunter were widely know during the 2018 campaign. But Hunter still managed to win in a deep red (PVI is R+11, where Trump beat Hillary 54.6% to 39.6%) San Diego area district. It was a lot closer than anyone thought it would be— 134,362 (51.7%) to 125,448 (48.3%), largely because Hunter ran a smear campaign against Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, accusing him of being a Muslim terrorist, even though he is a church-going former Obama administration aide. This false ad was run over and over and over throughout the district, despite being denounced in the national and local media:




Hunter, an untreated alcoholic, is a racist and a rabid Trumpist, who claims he was the first member of Congress to have endorsed Trump. Before being kicked out of the Marine Corps reserves in 2017 Hunter asserted that the American intelligence community was filled with "seditious Obama folks" who "hate Donald Trump" and are trying to undermine the Trump administration. He also described the American government as "Orwellian.” After being indicted on 60 federal charges he was kicked off 3 committees by the House Republican leadership, particularly the Armed Services Committee where his presence was considered a national security risk.

Hunter’s wife has already pleaded guilty and is likely to testify against him if his case ever goes to trial. Meanwhile Campa-Najjar is running for the seat again. But he may never get to take on Hunter. The local and national GOP establishment is encouraging Hunter to resign and there are as many as half a dozen Republicans primarying him, including the mayors of Temecula and El Cajon. Lurking in the background is former congressman Darrell Issa, who was too scared to run last cycle in his own district but would like to get back into Congress to represent a much safer red district. Trump nominated Issa to head the U.S. Trade and Development Agency but he hasn’t been confirmed. Ironically, like Campa-Najjar, Issa is also of Arabic heritage.

Nor does he like in the district

House GOP Throws 2 Crooks And A Nazi Overboard

Recently, J.D. Scholten, who's still considering another run against Steven King in northwest Iowa, told me that "In the last decade, King has missed 82% of the Small Business Committee hearings and nearly 40% of the Agriculture Committee hearings. He continues to abdicate leadership for his own personal agenda as the 4th district continues to fall behind." Now he misses 100% of the meetings on those two key committees, since the Republican leadership kicked him off both and many Republicans are hoping one of the 3 Republicans challenging King in a 2020 primary beats him. McCarthy is well aware that without a seat on the House Agriculture Committee, King is even more useless to his constituents than he usually is. (And he usually is.)

But King isn't the only Republican who finds himself in this predicament. Tuesday Splinter published a really funny piece of reporting by Samantha Grasso, The GOP's Lonely Heartless Club. She wrote that "Duncan Hunter of California, Chris Collins of New York, and Steve King of Iowa have a whole lot of time to do nothing in the House of Representatives, where nobody wants to sit next to them during lunch or play tag with them at recess. The three Republicans were basically excommunicated from the House GOP when they were pulled off their committee assignments, forcing them to watch the 116th Congress from the sidelines."

Hunter, the vaping congressman, and Collins were both stripped of their committee assignments last summer after being federally charged with misusing campaign funds for personal use with his wife and insider trading, respectively. Both pleaded not guilty, ran for reelection in their districts, and (somehow??) still won. However, under a new House GOP conference rule adopted shortly after the elections, any representative under indictment for a felony must be removed from committees and leadership posts “until the legal matter gets resolved,” according to Politico.

Ammar Campa-Najjar nearly beat Hunter last year and is running against him again. Today he asked, "Can someone please tell me why taxpayers have to continue paying Duncan Hunter’s salary? Given that Hunter is now simply watching from the sidelines and unable to perform the basic duties of his job as a Congressman, he should do the right thing and immediately return his entire salary to the taxpayers or donate it to a local charity. It’s one thing to put taxpayers through the embarrassment of watching their Congressman get indicted on 60 charges, but to also make them pay your salary while you sit around and await your criminal trial-- now that’s just adding insult to injury."

Meanwhile, King is spending his time kicking rocks over by the edge of the playground as punishment for defending white nationalism and white supremacy in an interview with the New York Times last month.

Without their committees, Hunter, Collins, and King have been left to twiddle their thumbs or desperately vie for some C-SPAN time with short House floor speeches at odd hours of the day. And while they might have some luck with congressional caucuses, that venue is all but pointless without the help of other representatives. From Politico:

The members could also put more energy into congressional caucuses or lobby their colleagues to move their bills, though there is little guarantee for success. It’s much more difficult for a single lawmaker to wield influence in the House, whereas in the Senate, any lone member can hold up floor proceedings...

Yet caucuses are hardly a substitute for congressional committees, where lawmakers hone their policymaking skills and climb the party ranks... That means the castaways would likely need the cooperation of their colleagues to be effective-- and there is little appetite, especially among Democrats, to work closely with the trio of lawmakers who are under indictment or condemned for racist remarks...

“Zero” is how Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) described the level of interest among his colleagues in working with Collins, Hunter or King.

Hunter and King, clearly upset that no one wants to come over to their houses after school for Xbox and Totino’s Pizza Rolls, did not return Politico’s requests for comment. But Collins told the site he plans on using his newfound free time to focus on constituent services, attend more district events, get underutilized congressional caucuses running again, and possibly co-sponsoring bills that lost their GOP backers in the midterms.

“I’m disappointed, but I’m making the best of it,” Collins told Politico.

Inspiring!

It's widely believed that the House GOP leadership is encouraging local Republicans to primary Collins so that progressive Democrat Nate McMurray doesn't take the R+11 seat away from them, something he nearly did-- by a fraction of 1%-- in 2018. I spoke to Nate today-- who is almost definitely running for the NY-27 seat again-- and he told me "The people of our region were lied to. They were told their vote was essential, that a vote for the party was more important than a vote for integrity. We can never trust these men or the people who helped them stay in office."

Who Remembers Steve Stockman (R-TX)?

GOP congressional crooks Hunter and Stockman

We were sorry to see our pal Dayna Steele lose her race in TX-36 on Tuesday but proud of how strongly she and her team fought in her R+26 district where few Democrats would even try. She won just over a quarter of the votes there-- 60,486 (27.4%)-- her efforts turning out voters for Beto and other Democrats as well. In 2016 no one had run against Brian Babin at all and Hillary only took 25.2% to Trump's 72.0%. In 2014, the last time a Democrat did run there, Michael Cole got 22.0% of the vote and in 2012, Democrat Max Martin took 26.6%. Martin, though, wasn't running against Babin, but his predecessor, Steve Stockman. Remember Stockman at all? He was first elected to Congress in 1994, beating the dean of the Texas delegation, conservative Democrat Jack Brooks in a district that stretched from Galveston to Beaumont, including much of the southern part of what today is TX-36. He was defeated for re-election in 1996 having distinguished himself as Congress' foremost conspiracy theorist. He had claimed, for example, that the Waco siege had been orchestrated by the Clinton administration in order to prove the need for a ban on "so-called assault weapons."

After he left Congress, he ran for any electoral job he could find-- losing-- and finally got back into Congress again in 2012 in the brand new 36th district. Even though he had been driven into bankruptcy by caring for his father while he had Alzheimer's (and abandoning his father to die in a veteran's home) he still voted against the Affordable Care Act. After the Sandy Hook massacre he introduced a bill to repeal gun-free school zones, a subject so dear to him that he threatened to introduce articles impeachment against Obama over it. You get the picture, right?

Last year, he was arrested for the same old GOP trick that has Duncan Hunter in trouble now-- raising money-- in this case $350,000-- for a charity and then stealing it for himself. A couple of Stockman's staffers pleaded guilty to funneling even more money from from charitable foundations into Stockman's campaigns and personal bank account (at his direction).

On March 28, 2017, a federal grand jury issued an indictment that included 24 counts against Stockman, accusing him of obtaining $1.25 million under false pretenses and using the funds for his political campaigns-- 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of mail and wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to make "conduit contributions" and false statements (conspiracy to conceal the real source of the contributions by false attribution), 2 counts of making false statements to the FEC, one count of making excessive contributions, and one count of willfully filing a false 2013 Federal income tax return by not reporting some of his income. Broke by then, he was assigned a court-appointed attorney for a trial that began last January.

In April, he was convicted on 23 of the 24 felony counts against him, judged to be a flight risk, and remanded into custody pending sentencing, which happened yesterday, the day after the election. Congressman Stockman was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $1,014,718.51 in restitution, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

According to the Department of Justice, Stockman "used a series of sham nonprofit organizations and dozens of bank accounts" to launder the money. The government proved to the jury that Stockman ran his campaign and fraudulent charities to simply enrich himself. U.S. Attorney Ryan Patrick of the Southern District of Texas wrote in a press release that "this type of corruption by public officials gives our entire democratic system a black eye."

The day before, Republicans in CA-50 re-elected Duncan Hunter, Jr., a severe untreated alcoholic, indicted for almost the identical crimes Stockman is now in prison for. Hunter, the same kind of right-wing conspiracy theorist crackpot as Stockman, won reelection with 82,379 votes (54.3%), having smeared his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, as a Muslim terrorist-- he is neither a Muslim nor a terrorist-- who was trying to "infiltrate Congress" as part of a terrorist plot. The GOP plan was to keep Campa-Najjar out of the seat and then replace Hunter when he is forced to resign from Congress, with Darrell Issa, another crooked Republican thief. What a party!

Other Than The Blow Voters Are Delivering Trump Today, Will We Defeat Any Of The Worst, Most Vile GOP?

You know who I'm thinking about, not the run-of-the-mill Republican garbage who "just" want to take away peoples' healthcare and see them starving in the streets; I'm mean the real neo-Nazi's inside the pup tent. Many of them are in blood red districts that are infested with brain-washed Fox zombies, like, for example, Matt Gaetz in Florida. But there are a handful up for reelection today who could go down, as long a shot as each case is. The defeat of Chris Collins (NY-27) and Steve King (IA-04) would be immense wins for political decency. So would an abrupt end to the political career of Devin Nunes (CA-22).

No one likes being lumped into the same category as Steve King, but there is another Republican incumbent-- a substance abuser currently out on bail and kicked off his committee by Paul Ryan as a national security risk-- who has earned the company: suburban and exurban San Diego County's Druncan Hunter (CA-50). And there are still hours and hours of voting left in California. Yesterday The Atlantic allowed McKay Coppins to lay the whole ugly Trump Era mess out: Duncan Hunter Is Running the Most Anti-Muslim Campaign in the Country. Before we start down this road though, it's important to know four facts about his progressive Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar. (Yeah, I know, tough name, but otherwise as all American a kid as anyone you'll ever meet; besides, did you pick your name?)

• Ammar was born and raised a Christian and has been active in his church for his whole life
• Ammar was born 16 years after his grandfather in question had died. (For any Trump fan who might be reading this: that means he never met his grandfather.)
• Ammar worked in the Department of Labor and was thoroughly vetted for the Secret Service, passing a test that Druncan Hunter couldn't pass if his life depended on it
• Ammar, when asked, told me his favorite band is Metallica.

Hunter's problem isn't that his R+11 district has changed, it's that he was indicted of various and sundry corruption charges, arrested by the FBI and is hoping to be reelected despite being out on bail. Coppins is a gentleman and steers clear from some of the tawdry details of Hunter's lifestyle-- the hookers, untreated alcoholism, bribery, etc-- but even the polite stuff is eye-popping enough. He explained that "on August 22, federal prosecutors charged the lawmaker and his wife with stealing $250,000 in campaign funds. In a 47-page indictment littered with galling details, the Hunters were accused of using campaign cash to fund lavish family vacations; to pay for groceries, golf outings, and tequila shots; and even to fly a pet rabbit across the country. To cover their tracks, the indictment alleged, the Hunters often claimed that their purchases were for charitable organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project. The political backlash was swift and severe. Hunter was stripped of his committee assignments in the House. His fund-raising dried up, and Democratic money flooded into the district. When he tried to defend himself on Fox News, he exacerbated the crisis by appearing to pin the blame for the scandal on his wife." You want that for a congressman?

Publicly disgraced, out of money, and facing both jail time and a suddenly surging challenger-- what was an indicted congressman to do?

Eventually, Hunter seemed to arrive at his answer: Try to eke out a win by waging one of the most brazenly anti-Muslim smear campaigns in recent history.

In the final weeks of the election, Hunter has aired ominous ads warning that his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, is “working to infiltrate Congress” with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has circulated campaign literature claiming the Democrat is a “national security threat” who might reveal secret U.S. troop movements to enemies abroad if elected. While Hunter himself floats conspiracy theories from the stump about a wave of “radical Muslims” running for office in America, his campaign is working overtime to cast Campa-Najjar as a nefarious figure reared and raised by terrorists.

As multiple fact-checkers in the press have noted, these smears have no basis in reality. Campa-Najjar-- a 29-year-old former Barack Obama aide who is half-Latino, half-Arab-- is a devout Christian who received security clearance when he worked in the White House. His grandfather was involved in the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics, but he died 16 years before Campa-Najjar was born, and the candidate has repeatedly denounced him. (Growing up, Campa-Najjar became estranged from his father, a former Palestinian Authority official, and was raised primarily by his Mexican American mother.)

But facts do not appear to be Hunter’s chief concern. The political strategy here is self-evident: Feed on anti-Muslim prejudice to scare enough conservative voters into pulling the lever for the incumbent-- indictment be damned.

California’s Fiftieth District hasn’t drawn much attention from horse-race obsessives this year. There are other races with tighter polls, other House seats more likely to flip. But what’s unfolding here in the suburbs of San Diego represents an unnerving microcosm of this campaign season: white Republicans frightened by cynical conspiracy-mongers; religious minorities frightened by the fallout; a community poisoned by Trumpian politics-- and a bitter question hovering over the whole ugly affair: Will it ever get better?

Duncan Hunter is not an easy man to find these days. He rarely holds campaign rallies, and doesn’t attend town halls or debates. When I emailed his office asking for an interview, I was politely told my request would be added to the “list”-- and then ignored when I tried to follow up.

...On the whole, Campa-Najjar said he was surprised by how ham-fisted Hunter’s strategy had been. “I thought there would be more finesse to it,” he told me.

Now, though, he was more confident than ever that victory was at hand. With Obama-esque audacity, he began ticking off all the reasons to be optimistic. The district was more diverse than many realized. “McCain Republicans” were repelled by the Muslim-bashing. While his own campaign was infused with idealism and “youth,” Hunter’s was cloaked in the stench of “desperation.”

Very soon, he assured me, the good voters of the California Fiftieth would reject the ugly politics that had permeated their community this year and send him to Congress.

Perhaps detecting my skepticism, Campa-Najjar tried to conjure an alternative happy ending. “And if we fall short,” he tried, “we proved that we exceeded expectations and that...” but then he stopped himself. He couldn’t do it.

“I think we’re going to win.”

3 more hours to vote

Come to think of it, one of the House's most horrible creatures, Marsha Blackburn is running for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee. That's a very red state-- PVI is R+14 and Trump beat Hillary there 1,522,925 (60.7%) to 870,695 (34.7%). The results between Blackburn and Bredesen won't look like that tonight. Here's why:

• Early voting in Tennessee is at 95% of the total turnout for 2014.
• Early vote turnout among 18 and 29 year olds is up 317% compared to 2014.
• Early vote turnout among first time voters increased by 973% from 2014 (57,253). New voters represented 8% of the total early vote.
• 566,666 Tennesseans who did not vote in 2014 voted early this year. In other words, 40.81% of this year’s early voters did not vote in 2014.
• 105,487 Tennesseans (8% of the early voting electorate) did not vote in August 2018, 2016, or 2014. Half of these voters are under 50 years old.
• Women 40 years and younger increased their early vote participation by 266% from 2014.
• African American midterm early vote increased by 169% compared to 2014, largely due to increased participation among young African American voters.
• African American women vote increased by 172% compared to 2014.

Compared to all other states, Tennessee is now:

• #1 in overall increase of early votes cast compared to 2014
• #1 in the increase of 18-29 year olds voting

Still... it is Tennessee, so don't get your hopes up too high.

Meanwhile, NBC News reported this morning that top Republicans are shitting a brick over Trump's racist, xenophobic closing message. He's costing them independents and he's costing them the suburbs. Most of them believe "that his campaign rhetoric has gone too far and will cost some GOP candidates their races and jobs. Trump has spent the final stretch of this election season in some of the most conservative areas in the country, rallying his base of supporters by warning that Democrats will usher in an age of 'socialism' and 'open borders' if voters put them in charge of either chamber of Congress... [A]s voters head to the polls, some Republicans worry that message could backfire and cost some of the most vulnerable GOP House incumbents and candidates in suburban districts or in districts with larger minority populations." Because the fools looking for red meat and cheap entertainment who come to his rallies cheer all his lies, Trump has lost the ability to understand that 65% of the country doesn't believe a thing he says.

One Republican strategist said that Rep. John Culberson, who is in a tough re-election bid in a solidly Republican district in the Houston area, was polling four points ahead of his opponent, Democrat Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, in the days after the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

After Trump escalated his anti-immigrant rhetoric and visited Houston, internal polling showed Culberson down three points.

In some races, including Culberson's, “the certain tone and the certain issues he’s chosen to focus on is not helpful” the Republican strategist said.

...Other vulnerable Republicans are trying to counter Trump by focusing their campaign on local issues. Rep. Jeff Denham, who represents an agriculture district with a large Hispanic population in central California, has ignored Trump's national messaging on immigration and instead focused largely on water, a crucial issue there.

But if Republicans lose a large number of seats, someone will be blamed. And some Republicans are already pointing the finger at Trump.

Food fight coming tomorrow!

Gambling And Prostitution Czar Sheldon Adelson Is Underwriting The Republican Party's Overtly Racist Advertising

Macau/Vegas Mob-affiliated right-wing billionaire Sheldon Adelson continues to fund McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund and Ryan's Congressional Leadership Fund to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. He is, by far, the biggest contributor to right-wing politics in America, around $60 million so far this year... with plenty more coming. Among House races, the biggest Adelson cash dump has been in Wisconsin, against Randy Bryce, where hundreds of hours of vicious smear attacks have seriously changed the complexion of the race. An old friend of mine in Kenosha told me, "You can't escape the barrage of really ugly ads against Randy. Ryan is really doing a job on this guy. If there's a TV ad next week saying the Randy looked over someone's should in the 3rd grade to get a test answer, it wouldn't surprise me one bit. They don't want to talk about issues; they just want to attack, attack, attack on all this made-up personal crap... I hope it backfires on that little slimeball Ryan is pushing."

On Wednesday, one of the right-wing slime-buckets, Republican Nancy Douglass, who's been slanting the news on WLKG, her Lake Geneva radio station against Bryce for months, was forced to resign as chair of the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association. She appeared in an ad sponsored by Ryan's PAC, referring to Bryce as a deadbeat. Remember, Bryce is union iron worker who's been slaving away his whole life supporting a family. Brian Steil, a shady corporate attorney, has been busy working for a firm that specializes in sending Wisconsin jobs to low-wage hell-holes overseas.

Widely considered one of the most vicious broadcasters in the Midwest, Douglass is a frequent contributor to the Republican Party of Walworth County and has spent lavishly to support Paul Ryan and other right-wingers in southeast Wisconsin. An anti-union zealot and repulsive racist, Douglass represents everything that's wrong with the Trumpist party today. The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association is fortunate to be rid of her and her unAmerican propaganda.

Bryce may be getting the largest amount of Adelson sewer money thrown at him, but he's hardly the only one. Republican Party racism is on display big time as the party and its affiliated SuperPACS descend into a frenzy of white nationalism around the country. Jamiles Lartey has been watching for The Guardian as the GOP takes aim at non-white congressional candidates. Trumpism has given racism a seal of approval. He wrote that "as the 2018 midterm election campaign pulls into its homestretch, Republican attacks in two congressional races happening 3,000 miles apart have triggered alarm bells for targeting non-white candidates in an apparent effort to highlight their 'otherness.' The first comes from California’s 50th district, where Ammar Campa-Najjar is running as a Democrat for a seat currently occupied by the Republican Duncan Hunter. NBC’s Chuck Todd, a veteran political reporter and commentator called the spot 'maybe the most shocking and outrageous political ad I’ve ever seen,' in a Meet The Press Daily segment."

The ad zeroes in on Campa-Najjar’s heritage-- his mother is Mexican American and his father is Palestinian-- calling him a “Palestinian, Mexican, millennial Democrat” who is “working to infiltrate Congress” and a “security risk.”

“At best it’s desperate. That’s putting it mildly,” said Campa-Najjar, who also called the effort “blatantly ignorant” and “unhinged from reality.”

Last Wednesday a bipartisan group of dozens of national security veterans decried the spot as a “racist and bigoted” attack. “The baseless allegation that he is somehow a ‘security threat’ is an affront to our professionalism as national security experts, our American values, and our collective national dignity,” the group said in an open letter.

The ad accuses Campa-Najjar of being supported by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood with no evidence, and despite the fact that Campa-Najjar is a Christian. “It’s just so interesting that we live in a world where Islamophobia even extends to non-Muslims,” Campa-Najjar told The Guardian.

...In a email statement to The Guardian, Hunter’s spokesman, Michael Harrison, declined to provide a source for the claims about the Muslim Brotherhood or the quote from Campa-Najjar’s father, but insisted that “the facts … raise national security concerns.”

Ironically, when Drunken Hunter was arrested and arraigned on a wide range of corruption, fraud and theft charges recently, Paul Ryan kicked him off the House Armed Services Committee since he really is a security threat. (And to make it worse, one of the groups he stole from was Wounded Warriors.) Hunter, a far right extrenmist, is a well-known philanderer and substance-abuser, who stole money to buy drugs and companionship from sex workers. First the San Diego area saw Duke Cunningham get thrown in prison-- a close "associate" of Duncan Hunter, Sr.-- and now it looks like Duncan Hunter will be the next San Diego member of Congress headed there.

“The fact is, there’s me, who was cleared by the FBI to work at White House, and there’s Hunter who was indicted by the FBI,” said Campa-Najjar. “So the law’s on my side and not his side as of late.”

David Schweidel, a professor of marketing at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University said ads like this may increasingly be more en vogue in the post-2016 election climate largely because Trump’s well-documented reliance on personal attacks proved effective enough to win the White House.

“We saw pundit after pundit kind of commenting on the fact that these personal attacks weren’t coming across as presidential and how ‘it’s the wrong temperament.’ Well, guess what, people responded to it,” Schweidel said.

He added that spots like Hunter’s are generally not intended to sway undecided voters, but to inspire the base to show up at the polls. As US politics continues its long slog towards ever-increased partisanship, elections become more about turning out the base and less about converting undecideds: which could mean negative and personal attacks only become more prevalent.

On the other side of the country, attack ads on a black congressional candidate’s former career as a rapper have taken on racist undertones in a district that, like California’s 50th, is predominantly white. Antonio Delgado, a Harvard Law graduate and Rhodes Scholar is running as a Democrat for a seat in New York’s 19th district currently held by Republican John Faso.

As a young man, Delgado released a socially conscious and political hip-hop album under the name AD the Voice in 2006.

Since the album came to light, a number of Republican groups have seized on it to paint Delgado’s flirtation with hip-hop as out of step with the values of the district. The Congressional Leadership Fund released an advert spot referring to Delgado as a “New York City liberal” and “[Nancy] Pelosi’s candidate” before clipping a handful of Delgado’s song lyrics, overlaying dramatically loud “bleep” sounds over words like “fuck,” “sex” and “porno.”

The ad also accused Delgado of “lacing his raps with extremist attacks on American values”, playing a clip where Delgado states, factually, that more civilian lives were lost during the Iraq war than the 9/11 attacks.

Faso didn’t place the ads, but has not condemned them either, saying in a statement this summer that “Mr Delgado’s lyrics paint an ugly and false picture of America.”

The subtext of the ads was seemingly illuminated in a New York Times article from July when Gerald Benjamin, a friend of Faso’s and director of the Benjamin Center at State University of New York at New Paltz, posed the question: “Is a guy who makes a rap album the kind of guy who lives here in rural New York and reflects our lifestyle and values?”

He continued: “People like us, people in rural New York, we are not people who respond to this part of American culture,” eventually sparking protests from students at his home campus in New Paltz. Benjamin later apologized for his remarks.

Delgado has said the ads are an effort to “otherize” him in the eyes of the white voters he needs to win.

“It’s insulting to people in the district that Faso believes they will buy into this sort of deception and dishonesty,” said Delgado’s campaign manager, Allyson Marcus, noting that a similarly themed Super Pac radio ad was even pulled by the local radio station WDST, which called the ad “highly offensive” and “factually distorted” in a statement.

“The truth is Antonio grew up in a working-class family in Schenectady, right here in upstate New York, where he learned the values of hard work and accountability. The real question is, why won’t Faso condemn these divisive and deceptive ads,” Marcus asked.

Faso did not respond to a request for comment.

Two Long-shot House Races Worth Betting On

Nate and Ammar are running against 2 indicted crooks

The DCCC still refuses to back progressive Democrats Nate McMurry and Ammar Campa-Najjar despite the fact that both their opponents, extreme Trumpists Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter, have been indicted on multiple counts of fraud and related financial crimes. The DCCC claims the districts are too red for them to compete in. Yet, polls for both Nate and Ammar show the two races locked in dead heat ties.

Yesterday, McMurray's campaign revealed results of internal polling showing that the NY-27 is tied, 42-42%, despite the fact that Collins has been spending heavily on a smear campaign to discourage voters and McMurry hasn't aired a single TV ad yet.

"This proves what we’ve been seeing on the ground for months: We. Can. Win," said McMurray. "Voters are tired of corruption and care about protecting healthcare, fighting for farms and supporting small businesses. Voters feel taken advantage of by a wealthy man who used his power to enrich himself instead of representing people like us. They are angry that he’s running for re-election because his defense attorneys told him to. They are sick of politics as usual that puts the desires of the powerful above the needs of working people. They know that we are better than this in Western New York, and they’re right."

The poll also shows that nine in ten voters (90%) report that they have heard, read, or seen information about Collins’ indictment, with a majority (57%) stating they have heard "a lot" about the indictment. Collins and his son were arrested in Collins' swanky NYC penthouse-- where he lives, far from the district, by FBI agents on multiple charges including insider trading. He said he wouldn't run for another term but changed his mind after his lawyers told him being a member of Congress is an ace bargaining chip to use to get a reduced sentence (in return for resigning).

McMurray's campaign does not accept any corporate PAC money but has raised close to half a million dollars in the third quarter. The influx money is helping him compete in the final leg of the campaign and will guarantee that Collins can no longer outspend him ten to one, as he had been doing.

Collins has been a complete Trump enabler and rubber-stamp, one of the worst anywhere in the country, as you can see on the 538 graphic above. The one below is for the record Duncan Hunter has accrued-- when he wasn't busy accruing money from his campaign fund and the booze and sex-workers he used it for:

Hunter and Collins were the first two members of Congress to endorse Trump. So you can imagine that both are enthusiastic and dedicated Trump puppets. Collins is so bad he almost makes Hunter look better-- almost. Hunter does what Trump wants 94.5% of the time. Both these dreadful, corrupt congressmen should be replaced and McMurray and Campa-Najjar will both make outstanding congressman. Please consider clicking on the Blue America 2018 congressional calendar of progressives who have won their primaries but who the DCCC refuses to assist. The DCCC always prefers to help Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican Wing of the Democratic Party. McMurray and Campa-Najjar are both from the FDR wing of the party and both supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary. Both can really use some help for this final sprint to election day, less than a month away. These are the kind of long shot races in anti-red wave cycles that always shock pundits, journalists and the DCCC on election day. Nate Silver foolishly gives Nate a 1 in 20 chance to win and gives Ammar a 1 in 8 chance. Help prove him-- and the imbeciles at the DCCC-- wrong again.

Duncan Hunter Went Right For The Obvious Racist Smear-- The DCCC Is Far More Subtle About It

In its fulsome endorsement of Ammar Campa-Najjar last week, the San Diego Union Tribune emphasized the contrast between him and the indicted (60 counts) incumbent Drunken Hunter. They pointed out that Ammar "meets the test of being a credible candidate" and that "he is far superior to the troubled incumbent. This fact is underlined by the despicable ad that Hunter has begun to air in recent days suggesting that his “Palestinian Mexican millennial” opponent was linked to terrorist groups and was 'working to infiltrate Congress.'" One of Ammar's grandfathers was a Muslim terrorist. He died 16 years before Ammar, a Christian, was born. When Ammar worked at the White House, he was "given a security clearance by the Secret Service after a thorough background check." The Union Tribune concluded their endorsement by noting that "With this smear, Hunter continues to demolish his own reputation." Here's the repulsive, bigoted ad that has been berated everywhere:



Ammar is trying to infiltrate Congress? President Obama endorsed him yesterday. As the Washington Post noted yesterday "Campa-Najjar said in an interview that he never knew his grandfather, who died 16 years before Campa-Najjar was born. He condemned the Munich attacks. 'I denounce those actions,' he said."

He was in a 7-person top 2 primary and beat the other 2 Democrats handily. He took 25,799 votes compared to the ex-Republican the DCCC was pushing, Josh Butner, who got 18,944. The Islamophobic ad strongly insinuates Ammar is Muslim, which he isn't. He's a practicing Catholic. You can help that all-American Catholic guy "infiltrate Congress" by clicking on the 2018 Blue America congressional thermometer on the right.

The funny thing is that Drunken Hunter would never be able to get the kind of security clearance from the Secret Service that Ammar got. Hunter is charged with defrauding the Wounded Warriors, using money that was supposed to go to them for luxury items for himself. He'll do or so anything to get the voters' focus off that and off the fact that Ryan kicked him off theHouse Armed Services Committee because of the seriousness of the 43-page indictment. This creep is going to prison and wants to be able to use his congressional seat as a bargaining chip to get his sentence reduced. So who's actually trying to infiltrate Congress?

So what did I mean about the DCCC being more subtle? I was told by a very reliable source inside the DCCC that the reason they haven't put Ammar on their Red-to-Blue List, despite all the endorsements from members of Congress and even from Obama-- and the reason why they refuse to defend him from Drunken Hunter's vicious, vile attack ad-- is because there's a racist piggy with the power to block it. Think about that next time they ask for a contribution. (And, of course, as soon as I get a confirmation of his name, I'll blurt it right out.)