Using Campaign Cash Like A Personal Piggy Bank

Can you smoke cigars in prison? Duncan Hunter may soon find out

On Thursday a federal jury in Houston ruled that Steve Stockman, a far right-wing Republican, is guilty of 23 felonies, having defrauded two conservative mega-donors and funneling their $1.25 million into personal and campaign expenses as part of what prosecutors have described as a "white collar crime spree." The lunatic fringe Stockman is now at risk of having to serve decades in prison. The prosector Ryan Patrick, son of Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, described Stockman, who was taken to prison immediately after the guilty verdict was read, as a flight risk.

Another of the many ways crooked congressmembers can steal campaign funds is to retire. Once they retire they can "hire"-- at a substantial salary-- a wife or a son or a parent to "administer" the left over campaign money. On Monday, Ken Doyle, writing for Bloomberg reported that Ex-Candidates May Face Restrictions on Campaign Cash. He started with two of Illinois' finest-- Jesse Jackson, Jr, who went to prison, and Aaron Schock, who's still in a long drawn out trial-- who used campaign war chests as personal piggy banks. Duncan Hunter, Jr (R-CA) is likely to go to prison for the same thing.

The Federal Election Commission is being asked to write new rules to draw a clear, bright line so ex-candidates can easily figure out how they’re allowed to spend their backers’ campaign donations.

...The FEC has asked for public comments on a petition filed by the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, which seeks new restrictions on use of campaign money by anyone no longer running for election. There’s a “disturbing trend of lawmakers leaving office with sizeable campaign chests, and then using those leftover campaign funds in ways that appear to constitute personal use,” the group wrote.

The FEC will decide after the May 21 comment deadline whether to issue guidelines or write a new rule, spokesman Christian Hilland told Bloomberg Government in an email.

The Tampa Bay Times has found almost 100 “zombie” congressional election committees that are still spending money even though there’s been no campaign for many years. Some of the zombie committees merely contributed leftover cash to other candidates, as the law allows. Others spent money on salaries, meals, travel, rent, phone bills and other expenses not clearly related to any campaign.

In addition to campaign expenses, current lawmakers are allowed to use campaign money to cover certain costs related to carrying out duties as “a holder of federal office.”

A new class of retirees soon will have to learn to live without being able to tap campaign accounts for some expenses.

A Bloomberg Government review found that 35 current lawmakers who’ve announced they aren’t running for re-election had almost $38.6 million in their campaign accounts at the end of 2017, according to the most recent FEC disclosure reports.

The biggest war chest for a retiring lawmaker is more than $6.2 million held by the campaign of Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN). His campaign committee is still flush even after refunding more than $1.2 million in contributions last year, according to a year-end disclosure report filed with the FEC.

Here are the dozen members not running for reelection with the biggest nest eggs right now:

• Bob Corker (R-TN) $6,234,997
• Orrin Hatch (R-UT)- $4,980,936
• Ed Royce (R-CA) $3,678,625
• Pat Meehan (R-PA) $2,340,502
• Ted Poe (R-TX) $2,054313
• Elizabeth Esty (New Dem-CT) $1,437,905
• Jeff Flake (R-AZ) $1,406,775
• Trey Gowdy (R-SC) $1,364,419
• Ryan Costello (R-PA) $1,364,121
• Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ)- $1,166,676
• Gene Green (R-TX) $1,131,194
• Darrell Issa (R-CA) $1,052,398

Note that each of them is a conservative-- what a coincidence!

Corker’s congressional office didn’t respond to a request for comment on what he plans to do with his leftover campaign money. Corker could hold money in his committee account for a future campaign, give it to other candidates or donate to charities.

Ex-candidates also can give unlimited amounts to a national committee of the Democratic or Republican party, though few retiring lawmakers appear to be doing so, a Bloomberg Government review of FEC reports found.

Another option is that a retiring lawmaker’s campaign committee can be converted to political action committee. A PAC can collect additional contributions to be used to help other candidates, but personal use restrictions would still apply under a series of FEC advisory opinions, according to commission spokesman Hilland. Campaign money given to a charity also can’t be used to pay a candidate or candidate’s family.

One retiring lawmaker, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), recently converted her campaign committee to a PAC called South Florida First. That PAC then transferred more than $177,000 to a “leadership PAC” linked to Ros-Lehtenin, called IRL PAC, which was set up almost 20 years ago. The move was allowed by the FEC under a provision allowing transfers between “affiliated committees,” Hilland said, though he noted that contributions received by affiliated committees are subject to the same contribution limits.

According to its most recent disclosure report, Ros-Lehtinen’s IRL PAC had just over $8,000 in cash last October, when it received an infusion of $177,445 from South Florida First, the congresswoman’s converted campaign committee. Afterward, the leadership PAC contributed $16,000 to other Republican candidates but also spent more than $23,000 on “operating expenditures” including hotels, meals and tickets to Disney World.

Ros-Lehtenin’s congressional office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asked the FEC in 2015 whether he could use of hundreds of thousands of dollars in leftover campaign money for “substantial post-retirement obligations arising from his 34-year tenure as a federal officeholder and, in particular his twelve years as Democratic Leader.” Unlike House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who was retiring around the same time, Reid had no provision for special government funds to run an office and hire staff, the request noted.

The FEC effectively rejected the request. Two commissioners holding Democratic FEC seats-- Steven Walther and Ellen Weintraub-- recused themselves from voting, and a third FEC Democrat, Ann Ravel, said she would support Reid’s request. Republican commissioners Lee Goodman and Caroline Hunter repeatedly questioned whether granting the request would set a precedent giving all former members of Congress wide latitude to ignore legal restrictions on personal use of campaign money in retirement.

The request was withdrawn prior to a final commission vote.

Campaign Legal Center attorney Brendan Fischer said he expects this petition to result in action because Republican and Democratic FEC commissioners generally have taken a strict view of permissible uses of campaign money, especially for retiring lawmakers.

The Jackson and Schock cases stand out because there have been so few criminal prosecutions for campaign finance violations.

After 17 years in Congress, Jackson spent most of the following two years in prison and a halfway house. He pleaded guilty to skimming $750,000 from his campaign committee to pay for such items as a memorabilia collection.

Schock was a rising Republican star until he drew attention by decorating his congressional office like the PBS television show Downton Abbey. The charges he’s fighting involve the personal use of campaign and official accounts.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) last year repaid tens of thousands of dollars to his campaign committee for family vacation and other expenses. Hunter is the subject of Ethics Committee and Justice Department investigations.

Last year, a civil enforcement case pursued for years by the FEC resulted in a court-ordered $30,000 in penalties levied against Christine O’Donnell, a former Republican Senate candidate from Delaware, for using campaign funds to pay her apartment rent. U.S. District Judge Leonard P. Stark rejected arguments that restrictions on personal use of campaign funds are unconstitutional because campaign spending is equivalent to free speech and protected by the First Amendment.

The Campaign Legal Center has filed an FEC complaint against the campaign committee of Mark Takai (D-HI), which reported that it continued to pay almost $6,000 per month to a consulting firm headed by campaign treasurer Dylan Beesley for 18 months after Takai died of cancer.

The group also has filed a complaint against the campaign committee of former Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), which reported expenditures for cell phone bills, lobbying-related expenses, and payments to his wife for five years after leaving office.

The new FEC rulemaking petition proposes strict limits on what people who are no longer running for office can do with excess campaign cash. “It is very difficult to see how cell phone bills, office rent, travel expenses, or club dues are expenditures 'in connection with the campaign for Federal office' if a person is no longer a candidate,” according to the petition.

A Culture Of Corruption At The FEC? You Bet!

Last week, I tried catching everyone up on the complaint DWT filed with the FEC last year against a cook of crooks, Nicholas Mastroianni and then-Congressman Patrick Murphy. Murphy, Upchuck Schumer's pick to run for the Florida Senate seat, was taking massive bribes from Mastroianni for help in getting wealthy Chinese "investors" into America on EB-5 visas-- same trick the Kushner-in-law family has been using to make some cash. Florida is a swingy purple state and the presidential election was very close last year. Trump edged Hillary 4,617,886 (49%) to 4,504,975 (84%). But Upchuck Schumer's Senate candidate fell flat on his ass, despite all the money Mastroianni poured into Murphy's pockets. Rubio outpolled Trump and Murphy underperformed Hillary. Rubio beat Murphy 4,835,191 (52%) to 4,122,088 (44.3%). Sorry for the tangent.

To reiterate what transpired last week with the FEC... they dismissed the case, which centered on how Mastroianni was paying Murphy off for his help in corruptly using the EB-5 visa program that Murphy has pushing in Congress. Basically, we were quite certain that Mastroianni had orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which were coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies were already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races. We complain about the help the Russians gave Republican Donald Trump... but what about this Chinese cash being funneled into Democrat (barely) Patrick Murphy?

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 go-to boy.

So, as I said, last week we finally heard back from the FEC-- 36 pages of legalese claptrap. I finally got an attorney to help me put it into English. Remember, Mastroianni had been taking in foreign partners in the EB-5 program, and buying real estate. In one case, the real estate partnership made the contribution to Murphy’s campaign, not Mastroianni. Foreigners can’t contribute to political campaigns in America, though they have been doing it very regularly. When Mastroianni was challenged on it, he said, in essence, "you haven’t proved that my partner was foreign." The FEC didn’t bother to ask him whether his partner was, in fact, foreign. Instead, they just said, in sum, "the papers before us don’t prove that Mastroianni’s partner is foreign, we are not going to bother to ask, and therefore, we are dismissing the complaint."

Oddly enough, this happened right around the time that Mastroianni (or maybe his foreign friends) contributed $150,000 to Señor Trumpanzee’s Super PAC. Love that bipartisanship! You too?

Two of the three Democratic FEC Commissioners dissented, and basically said, “this is BS." I mean, this was an incredibly blatant case of corruption. This was the dissent:

But Thursday it got stranger. One of the dissenting commissioners, Ellen Weintraub, complained about the decision on Twitter, something I’ve never seen before:

Weintraub went right to the heart of the problem. In the Trumpian kakistocracy there is no such thing as Justice or even right and wrong-- just what works for the kakistocrats. I was surprised to see Bloomberg cover the story a couple days ago. They were also perplexed that the FEC dropped the case without investigating it. "Two Democratic FEC commissioners, Ellen Weintraub and Ann Ravel, said the allegations raised 'serious questions of misconduct' that should have been investigated," wrote Kenneth Doyle.

The case was among the first involving allegations of illegal foreign campaign money released by the FEC following the 2016 election cycle. Pending cases are kept secret until they’re resolved; FEC officials have indicated more than a dozen matters involving foreign money allegations still are pending.

A complaint filed with the FEC alleged that a $50,000 contribution to the pro-Murphy super PAC, called Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, came from money raised by real estate developer Nicholas Mastroianni. The money was collected from Chinese nationals seeking to participate in an immigration program known as EB-5, the complaint said, citing news reports.

The EB-5 visa program, which facilitates immigration by foreigners investing in U.S. projects, has been derided by critics as “cash for citizenship.”

The FEC complaint said foreign money from aspiring Chinese immigrants was funneled by Mastroianni into a limited liability company called 230 East 63rd -6 Trust LLC, which in turn contributed to the pro-Murphy super PAC.

The complaint also alleged two other LLC contributions to the super PAC, worth an additional $25,000, were made illegally with money that actually came from Mastroianni.

Floridians for a Strong Middle Class spent a total of nearly $2.5 million on ads supporting Murphy and opposing his opponent, Sen. Marco Rubio (R), who won the Florida Senate race. Overall, more than $90 million was spent on the 2016 Senate race in Florida, according to FEC reports analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics.

A “statement of reasons” was filed in February by Weintraub and Ravel, following a preliminary vote on the case-- designated Matter Under Review (MUR) 7081.

“For our democracy to work, the American public must have confidence that they-- and not some unknown foreign actors-- are financing our candidates for office,” their statement said.

UPDATE: The FEC Dropped My Complaint

You may remember that last year DWT formally complained to the FEC and the Office of Congressional Ethics about a crooked Patrick Murphy contributor named Nicholas Mastroianni II. In June of 2016 I wrote about the complaint and published the official complaint here. As I wrote at the time, our complaints centered on how Mastroianni was paying Murphy off for his help in corruptly using the EB-5 visa program that Murphy has pushing in Congress. Basically, we were quite certain that Mastroianni had orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which appears to be coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies were already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races. We complain about the help the Russians gave Republican Donald Trump... but what about this Chinese cash being funneled into Democrat (barely) Patrick Murphy?

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 go-to boy.

This week we finally heard back from the FEC-- like 36 pages of legalese claptrap. I finally got an attorney to help me put it in English. So again, Mastroianni had been taking in foreign partners in the EB-5 program, and buying real estate. In one case, the real estate partnership made the contribution to Murphy’s campaign, not him. Foreigners can’t contribute. When Mastroianni was challenged on it, he said, in essence, "you haven’t proved that my partner was foreign." The FEC didn’t bother to ask him whether his partner was, in fact, foreign. Instead, they just said, in sum, "the papers before us don’t prove that Mastroianni’s partner is foreign, we are not going to bother to ask, and therefore, we are dismissing the complaint."

Oddly enough, this happened right around the time that Mastroianni (or maybe his foreign friends) contributed $150,000 to Señor Trumpanzee’s Super PAC. Love that bipartisanship! You too?

UPDATE

A member of Congress sent me a note about this post the day after I wrote it. It included these painfully honest lines: "That’s accurate. The last thing that either party wants right now is to focus attention on the illegal contributions that both take... with a smile."

Guess Who Wants To See Even More Unregulated Dark Money Pouring Into Elections

When I talk with candidates for Congress about why they want to run, about whether motivations are, one constant I hear from virtually every single candidate is about campaign finance reform. And if the number one issue for them is, say, healthcare or national security, the number 2 or 3 issue will always be repairing a broken system that allows Big Money to buy our democracy. This is also an issue that polls well among the voting public. When Bloomberg polled the issue a couple of years ago they found that 78% of Americans-- so not just normal people but even Republicans-- want to see the Citizens United decision overturned. In June of 2016 Ipsos found that "reducing the influence of money in politics is one of the top five most important issues facing the country."

The results suggest there is a disconnect between the public’s priorities and their elected officials’ agenda. Of the top five issues facing the country identified by respondents-- the economy, health care, terrorism, education and money in politics-- money in politics is the only issue elected leaders have not addressed with major legislation in more than a decade. As a result, more than 80 percent of respondents said the influence of money in politics is worse than at any other point in their lifetime, and 70 percent believe our democracy is at risk if we do not take immediate steps to fix the problem... This is one of the top five most important issues for Democrats and independents, and top six for Republicans, ahead of November... An overwhelming majority-- 78 percent of respondents-- say we need sweeping new laws to reduce the influence of money in politics. Eighty-five percent of individuals age 55 and older, who witnessed passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, believe sweeping changes are necessary."

Señor Trumpanzee doesn't agree. According to a report from this morning's Washington Examiner, he intends to replace the entire Federal Election Commission-- one of Washington's most dysfunctional entities-- with the intention of further deregulating campaign finance. Trump is likely to pick corrupted fake-Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- a New Dem or Blue Dog type-- to fill the 3 Democratic seats.

All the commissioners but Democrat Ann Ravel, who recently announced she's resigning "are serving on expired six-year terms and can be replaced at any time by Trump. Typically, commissioner names are suggested by the sitting president and Senate leader on the other political side. By law, the commission is split, three Democrats and three Republicans. But experts said Trump could shake up the process, especially since his top White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, was a commissioner. McGahn pushed several issues that irked Democrats, including, of course, deregulating campaign finance. Trump can't pick a Republican for the Democratic seats, but he can go with an independent or moderate and is sure to look for a change from liberals like Ravel and fellow Commissioner Ellen Weintraub... "It is expected that Don McGahn will have significant input into who the Republican nominees are, and Chuck Schumer will likely have a leading role in picking the Democratic nominees. But because Republican leader Mitch McConnell cares about FEC issues, too, I wouldn't rule his input out," said one election law expert. Trump is expected to focus on potential commissioners with views more in tune with McGahn.

Another Trump Fraud Case Dismissed-- Though Not Because He Wasn't Guilty

The horrible campaign to install a grossly incompetent and severely narcissistic Putin puppet in the White House-- and replacing American democracy with a form of kakistocracy-cum-kleptocracy-- by animating the stupidest and most ignorant people in the country, all began back on June 16, 2015. Señor Trumpanzee, with his mail order bride from Slovenia or Slovakia at his side, came riding down the escalator of Trumpanzee Tower to puke out his hateful demagoguery to an audience of paid actors. The day before his inauguration, the FEC dismissed the complaint and law suit, noting that the amount of money was too small for them to pursue. Yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter, which was the originator of the exposé about how Trump paid out-of-work actors to pretend to be Trump fans, explained the FEC's action. "At the time, Trump's then campaign manager Corey Lewandowski denied paying anyone to attend the event and said that he had never heard of Extra Mile or Gotham Government Relations, the two companies that THR reported were involved in putting out a casting call for people to attend the event."

A few months later, with no disclosures related to this, the American Democracy Legal Fund filed a complaint, alleging that Trump's campaign violated the reporting provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., then admitted paying Gotham $12,000 on Oct. 8, 2015. Gotham reported to the FCC it hired Extra Mile as a subcontractor to provide support at Trump's announcement. Still, this doesn't settle the issue because of the allegation that Trump may have accepted prohibited or excessive contributions from the two companies involved with hiring the actors.

According to a FEC general counsel's report in March 2016, made public on Thursday, it was "clear" that Trump's campaign "did not pay Gotham for its services for almost four months after the event, and did not report the transaction for more than seven months after the event. Thus, Gotham's apparent extension of credit to the Committee for the services rendered at the June candidacy announcement may constitute an excessive or prohibited contribution, and the Committee failed to report the amount it owed Gotham as a debt."

"However," the report continued, "because of the seemingly modest amount at issue, we recommend that the Commission exercise its prosecutorial discretion and dismiss the allegation..." 

That's just what the FEC has done, quietly announcing its decision to close the file on the complaint on the eve of Trump's inauguration.

It started badly; it will likely end far worse.

Foreigners Buying Crooked U.S. Politicians-- Like Patrick Murphy And His Business Associate Donald Trump

For a Saudi billionaire it isn't hard to buy a crooked sieve a seat in Congress

When I travel I'm still living under the delusion that I have a secretary who will take care of any emergencies that come up, even though I don't. But I'm so used to cutting myself off when I'm away on vacation that the only communication channel I leave open is e-mail. The FEC, it turns out, doesn't do e-mail.

When I got back from nearly a month in Russia, Azerbaijan and Finland a couple days ago, there were dozens of phone messages to pick up. I still haven't gone through them all. But one-- actually two-- that I attended to immediately was from an FEC agent to me in my capacity as treasurer of Blue America. The FEC wanted an explanation of some significant contributions that flowed to our PAC and our candidates from a donor in China. It was easy to handle because the donor is an American citizen living abroad, just as I used to be myself. But once we got that out of the way-- including a promise from me to send an amended quarterly report attesting to his U.S. citizenship-- I started badgering the agent about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the powerful Saudi billionaire (and top advisor to that country's royal family) Nasser Ibrahim Al-Rashid, has funneled into Patrick Murphy's career through his sons, Ibrahim, Salman, Ramzi, and Mohammed (AKA- "Moose"). Nasser, by the way, contributed between 1 and 10 million dollars to the Clinton Presidential Library and has made it known that the Saudi would give the Obama Presidential Library a similar amount-- as long as Patrick Murphy was endorsed by the president (and vice-president, the clownish Biden, who actually endorsed Privileged Patrick thinking he was endorsing the former congressman from Pennsylvania, a current U.S. Army Under Secretary, who isn't running for anything.) How useful has it been for the Saudis to have a weak-minded sieve like Murphy sitting on the House Intelligence Committee?

Anyway, I didn't get much of a response, barely a grunt. Oh well... I wonder if the FEC is asking Trump's crooked eldest son, Donald, Jr., why he's soliciting money from citizens of foreign countries, which actually isn't just an infringement of FEC regulations but actual law breaking. A Member of Parliament from Glasgow sent this letter to Donald, Jr. in response to the illegal solicitation:

It turns out Trump is trying to get foreigners to give him campaign cash. I haven't read much about the FEC doing anything about that. Have you? Chris Hayes did a story about this on his show last night. And TalkingPointsMemo caught it too, reporting that the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, filed a complaint with the FEC, arguing that Trump's campaign broke federal law by sending fundraising emails to foreign elected officials. Trump isn't just spamming Scottish parliamentarians for cash; he's also been asking for money from elected officials in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, England and Finland. I hope Hillary's campaign files an official complaint... or does she do the same kind of crooked campaign funding?

3 grifters: Eric, The Donald, Donald, Jr.

OMG, you can go to prison for illegal campaign coordination! Who knew?

Hmm, back in February 2011 (the same month that "Hosni Mubarak stepped down from power") Fox Noise couldn't seem to figure out whether Tyler Harber was "President, Wilson Research Strategies" or -- as he was identified in a graphic seconds later -- "VP AND DIRECTOR OF POLITICAL AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIVISION AT WRS." The following year Elections and Campaigns magazine would name the Republican consultant a "Rising Star."


"It was something I had seen other people do."

-- Republican political operative Tyler Harber, at his sentencing
hearing yesterday in Federal District Court in Richmond (VA)

by Ken

To be sure, with regard to the charges to which he was pleading guilty yesterday, Tyler did admit to Judge Liam O'Grady: "I did it, it was wrong when I did it, and I knew it was wrong when I did it." But then, clearly the federal prosecutors with whom he had arranged his guilty plea had made it clear that he wasn't going to be allowed to use the ever-popular "Everybody Does It" Defense. Nevertheless, he was apparently allowed to point out that he had seen other people do what he did: breaching the legally mandated firewall between a supposedly independent-of-campaigns super PAC and a political campaign (channeling some of the booty to his sister) and fibbing to the FBI about it. (As we all know, the FBI is free to lie to you in an investigation or interrogation, but you can't lie to the FBI.)

One wonders what Supreme Court Justice "Slow Anthony" Kennedy would make of our Tyler, the latest celebrity warrior in the Republican Campaign to Free America of the Menace of Free and Fair Elections (though for reasons we'll go into not acclaimed as a hero by the official Republicans leading the Campaign to Free America of the Menace of Free and Fair Elections), who was sentenced yesterday to two years in the pokey by Judge O'Grady, Slow Anthony's colleague on the federal bench.

It was, as I recall, that esteemed jurist Slow Anthony who disposed of the challenge to the sanctified form of speech known as "money" by declaring that we have no evidence that it causes corruption of our political system. That was, after all, the only reason a jurist of Slow Anthony's esteemed caliber could imagine for even considering interfering with such a divinely ordained right.

The clincher, as I recall the judicial "reasoning," was that elections are not always won by the candidate who spends the most money. This is a conclusion so stupid that you would have thought it landed him on the "tilt" side of the "Too Stupid to Be Entitled to an Opinion" Rule, except that our judicial system doesn't have such a rule.

For that matter, one wonders what our Tyler would think of Justice Slow Anthony if he was told that the justice doesn't believe in the power of money to corrupt our political system. Surely Tyler would wonder why the mean justice was denying the very basis of his life's work. And I don't think it would help to assure Tyler that not only Justice Slow Anthony but his thug-justice colleagues Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito have staked not just their careers but their lives as surely, not to mention a lot more successfully, on their faith in the politically corrupting power of money.


ALAS, POOR TYLER, YOU USED TO BE A "RISING STAR"

Once upon a time, way back in 2012, Tyler Harber was an official "Rising Star" in the campaign world:

TYLER HARBER, 29, REPUBLICAN

V.P. and Director of Political Division, Wilson Research Strategies

Tyler Harber seeks to practice politics with military precision. A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Harber originally wanted to join the armed services. “I was too short and too slow to go into the military,” he jokes. “So I went into politics.”

He studied military tactics in college and believes that the principles of Sun Tzu and Napoleon are well suited for politics. “I see campaigns as being very based in military strategy,” he says. “Successful campaigns are organized similarly.” Harber grew up in a politically active family in Knoxville. His first race was a city council campaign that lost by about 100 votes. He was then hired by an opponent for the run off. That candidate lost by 34 votes.

“Fortunately,” Harber says, “my results have gotten significantly better since then.” When Harber left Tennessee, he landed at Public Opinion Strategies where he worked for Neil Newhouse, one of the best in the business. Harber says he learned at lot there through his work on high profile races like Sen. Lamar Alexander’s 2002 campaign and other races in the South.

Harber left Public Opinion Strategies in 2007 to lead the political division at Wilson Research Strategies. In that role, he has overseen a rapid expansion of the firm. He expects to have between 350 and 400 political clients by the end of the year. Harber has also begun working overseas, most recently providing counsel to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

Whatta guy! Alas, immediately following the above on the website now there's this boldface addendum:

Editorial note: Campaigns and Elections magazine revoked Harber's Rising Star award after he pleaded guilty to coordination of federal campaign contributions in February of 2015.

Oops! "Rising Star" comes crashing back to earth. And apparently he was just too flagrant about it to earn him the solidarity of fellow Republicans working to ensure the corruption of our elections, and the power of money to promote that corruption.


FEBRUARY 2015 WAS NOT A GOOD MONTH FOR TYLER

In the wake of his guilty plea to illegal campaign coordination, fellow Republicans couldn't run away from him fast enough. Virginia local political journalist Betty Bean wrote a piece called "The Rise and Fall of Tyler Harber," in which she told this story:

The last time I heard from Tyler was Nov. 12, 2014, when he sent me an email asking me to come up to D.C. to interview him. He said the Department of Justice was focusing on Republican consultants who were running super PACs:

“I’ve trusted you to write the truth before. Can I pay for you to come up here to meet me once more? One more interview,” he wrote.

“I need an impartial, reasonable, no BS-telling of why I’m going to federal prison for calling Obama a criminal repeatedly on national television. Are you up for a story with as much complexity as the series you wrote about me previously?

“Sooner rather than later. DoJ is pushing hard and I can’t hold them off too much longer. You’ve been the journalist I’ve trusted. Plus this is going to be a national story. I wanted to give you first dibs.

“Let me know. I know this is a very f’d-up request. But in the end of my political career, I’d much prefer that you write my ‘epitaph’ than the Times, Post or any other rag inside the beltway.

“Let me know.

“Best regards, Tyler”

Flabbergasted, I e-mailed him back, asking him to call me. He never responded.

Betty added:

Harber’s situation became brutally clear last week when the news broke that he’d pleaded guilty to illegally coordinating a political campaign with a super PAC he’d created, directing more than $300,000 to the campaign and diverting $138,000 of that to a company run by his mother.

The news brought back a flood of memories. . . .

It may be hard for Tyler to believe, but "calling Obama a criminal repeatedly on national television" doesn't get you indicted. The confusion may be understandable, though, because before Tyler's entanglement with the feds, you would have thought that "illegally coordinating a political campaign with a super PAC" didn't get you indicted either.

Eventually, as we've seen, Tyler seems to have admitted for the record that his legal problems weren't caused by repeatedly calling the president a criminal on national television -- although it's possible that the feds who decided to indict him smiled at the thought that he's that guy. As a matter of fact, as we're going to find out in a moment, Tyler was ratted out to the feds by a fellow Republican.


HOLD ON, ISN'T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE THE FEC'S JOB?

What has generated so much attention ever since Tyler's guilty plea was made known in February is that the Department of Justice was actually indicting someone for playing fast and loose with that mandated separation between super PAC and campaign, especially at a time when Jeb Bush, for one, has been betting that you can be pretty darned flagrant about it and nobody will say "Boo" to  you.

Certainly not the FEC. As the deck on Russ Choma's Mother Jones report on yesterday's sentencing argues: "The Justice Department is stepping in where Federal Election Commission has fallen down on the job." Russ reported:

The Department of Justice scored a victory Friday morning in the fight to rein in the campaign finance Wild West that has come with the rise of super-PACs: A GOP operative in Virginia was sentenced to two years in federal prison for breaking a small, but crucial, campaign finance law in the 2012 election. It's unclear whether this signals a sustained effort by the Justice Department to crack down on campaign finance law violators. But one thing's for sure: it's more than the grid-locked Federal Election Commission has done to enforce the law in this area.

There isn't much that a super PAC can't do under the 2010 Citizens United ruling. These outfits can raise and spend unlimited cash, soliciting funds from individuals and corporations alike. The one thing that can't happen is coordination between a super-PAC and a candidate for elected office. And that's the issue that was at the heart of the Justice Department's case against GOP operative Tyler Harber, once named a "rising star" by Campaigns and Elections magazine (since revoked), who was sentenced to two years in prison for illegal coordination and lying to the FBI.

Since Citizens United, it's been fairly clear that rules against coordination were being short-circuited, if not broken outright. Candidates' political aides have resigned from their campaigns only to resurface at the helm of super PACs supporting that very same candidate; parents and spouses of candidates have created super PACs and pour money in; most significantly, in the run up to 2016, Jeb Bush has merged his campaign with his super PAC, allowing him to raise unlimited amounts of money and hobnob with mega-donors, while hiding behind the excuse that he is not formally a candidate. Campaign finance reformers have cried foul over Bush's use of this loophole, but the reality is no one is likely to do anything about it. The FEC is, for all intents and purposes, putting itself on the bench this election cycle.

But, in lieu of FEC action to curb coordination, the Department of Justice may have sent a powerful message to political operatives across the country with Harber's sentencing today.

In federal court in Richmond, Virginia, Prosecutor Richard Pilger requested that the judge make an example of Harber to send a message to the rest of super PAC world. "The ideal that's really at issue here today is we have a fair campaign finance system," he told the judge, according to the Washington Post.

Harber admitted he was wrong, but the Post reported that he told the judge he didn't break the rules because of greed or power. He said he just got swept away in the post-Citizens United maelstrom of money and boundary-pushing. "I got caught up in what politics has become," he told the judge.

Despite being an up-and-coming operative, Harber was not a particularly powerful one. And he committed his crime while working on behalf of a no-chance congressional candidate who was routed by Democrat Rep. Gerry Connelly. He was no Karl Rove, and he didn't have the backing of a powerful politician or a deep-pocketed donor. In the world of super PACs, Harber was relatively low-hanging fruit.

Harber pleaded guilty to illegal coordination and lying to federal investigators about it, admitting to working as a campaign manager for the candidate and simultaneously playing a secret role in setting up a super PAC that raised $325,000 to run ads on the candidate's behalf. The money came mostly from a New York City real estate developer who had already donated the maximum to the campaign; Harber convinced him to give more to the super PAC, completely erasing any boundary between the campaign and the outside group. On top of that, he diverted more than a third of the super PAC's funds to a firm set up in his mother's name and spent most of that money for personal expenses. Then he threatened someone who confronted him over it and lied to FBI agents who interviewed him about the super PAC's creation.

In other words, he was very easy to prosecute. Even his own party had no love for him (a fellow Republican turned him in). Whether or not the Justice Department can or will take such a hard stance with other super PAC law-breakers—whose infractions may be more subtle—remains to be seen. But, if nothing else, today's sentencing shows that, post-Citizens United, there is still some campaign finance accountability.

Sound the message throughout the land: "There is still some campaign finance accountability." Hey, it's not much, but it's not nothing either, while the FEC slumbers.

#

FCC Forces Blue America To Endorse New Jersey Progressive Dave Cole-- Here's Why

Hopefully you've been following Dave's inspiring campaign for the south Jersey seat currently occupied by conservative Congressman Frank LoBiondo. We were going to endorse him anyway but the move the FCC made against net neutrality, one of Dave's signature issues, pushed out schedule up to… immediately. If you believe in net neutrality, as so few Republicans and corporate Dems do, please help Dave win this seat by contributing what you can on the Blue America ActBlue page. And let's let Dave explain why the FCC is totally off-base… and why their decision is much more of a danger than most people understand.


We need to protect the open Internet
Tell FCC: Don’t let “pay to play” break the Internet
by Dave Cole

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is about to create an Internet “pay to play” scheme to give major corporations and big business unprecedented control of the Internet.

That means that giants like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon and others--  the same corporations who have a near monopoly over our digital lives and businesses--  will be able to buy their way to an even larger share of market control, snuffing out competition and holding back innovative new business models and creative content producers.

Chairman Wheeler wants to allow big Internet providers to charge websites for faster content delivery, setting up a pay-to-play fast lane. We don’t allow pay to play anywhere else in society--  the Internet, the backbone of our current and future economy is no place to start.

This undermines a key tenet of net neutrality, the principle that “Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.”

Net neutrality is the reason you can watch a citizen journalist reporting on a small blog with the same quality and accessibility as mainstream reporting on a popular news website--  or stream an Independent film as easily as a Hollywood blockbuster. Think of this in contrast to premium cable services, which are completely rigid and all content channels are determined by the cable companies, based on what content producers are able to pay.

The FCC’s pay-to-play fast lane threatens to make the Internet a lot more like what you get from an old cable box.

This means content providers like Netflix have to pay ransom to Internet providers to make their videos available at the fastest speeds. Meanwhile, content from other innovative websites and small businesses who can’t afford to pay will be drowned out. Once websites begin paying fast lane fees to the Internet providers, the extra cost will likely get passed on to consumers as higher subscription fees.

By making money off of access as well as premiums on content, the big Internet providers will make the Internet feel a lot more like a fancy cable subscription, and a lot less like an equal playing field where everyone has a voice.

We’re number… 30ish

Americans already pay way too much for way too slow Internet service. In many rural and suburban areas, Internet access looks the same as it did in the ‘90s, while profits for these giant companies have never been higher.

We are leaving the crucial investments we need in infrastructure to deliver the fastest Internet connections in the hands of profit-maximizing corporations. Consequently, these companies have an economic interest in building out fiber networks where it’s most profitable --  affluent, dense urban areas, leaving out poor and rural areas where the opportunities of a robust digital connection could have an even greater social benefit. Think about it --  where do you live and how many affordable high speed Internet options do you really have?

Across the world, other countries are investing in true high speed Internet by building fiber optic networks. Faster than copper cable or phone lines, fiber provides a true broadband connection. In the United States, fiber networks are a virtual monopoly owned by Verizon through its FIOS service, with some experimental services like Google Fiber in the mix. US cities rank somewhere around number 30 in value for broadband Internet, and a true high speed fiber connection in New York City will cost you nearly 10 times what it costs in Seoul, South Korea, for half the speed ($299.99 vs $31.47)! Of course, this kind of connection is not even available in most of our country.

Bad for Business

In addition to squeezing more money out of consumers for less speed and unequal delivery of content, abandoning net neutrality is just plain bad for business. All those smaller websites are going to have to compete against Netflix, Youtube, Amazon, and the other well-funded giants of Internet media. Even those giants are going to need to pay more to distribute their content. Everyone except the Internet service providers are losing out in this deal.

It doesn’t stop at video. Once net neutrality is out the window, we could see the auctioning off of all types of content. Like Google search over Bing? Well (hypothetically) Microsoft paid more to Comcast, so Bing’s going to load a lot faster. Prefer the fast and beautiful, ad-free Mapbox maps to Google’s? Better hope Verizon doesn’t start bidding for a preferred mapping platform.

Buying the Internet

The Internet is under attack, because the government, specifically, the FCC commissioners and Congress, are allowing the big Internet service providers to buy it from the people.

As the Center for Public Integrity reports, “Three Internet service providers were among the top 20 lobbying spenders in the first nine months of 2013. Combined they hired more than 350 lobbyists, 14 of whom were former members of Congress.” Moreover, “the total from these broadband providers and their association surpassed $55 million in the first nine months of 2013.” Here are those who are buying our free and open Internet:

• Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable operator, spent almost $14 million during the period, the fifth-largest amount of all corporate lobbying spending, and hired 98 lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
• AT&T Inc. hired 89 lobbyists and spent $12.3 million, ranking it 11th among the top spenders.
• Verizon Communications Inc., the plaintiff in the suit against the FCC, came in at No. 17 with $10.1 million in spending, hiring 96 lobbyists.
• Also among the top lobbying spenders is the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which includes Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. as members. NCTA spent $13.3 million in the first nine months of 2013, ranking it ninth among the top spending lobbyists, according to CRP

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is a former President and CEO of the National Cable Telecommunications Association.

Fighting for an open Internet

I’ve spent my career in technology, working at the White House as a senior advisor for technology and joining early on at a new tech start up company. Now I’m running for Congress. We need to elect people who understand how technology works and what’s at stake for our personal lives and economy, and who will fight to protect an open Internet.

Districts like mine in South Jersey, with large suburban and rural populations stand to lose the most in these deals. Internet access is often controlled by a single provider. Lack of competition leaves families, schools, and small businesses lagging behind without the tools to compete.

I will be the leading voice in Congress for Internet users, content providers small and large, the makers and creators--  all of us--  against an urgent and growing threat from big Internet providers who seek to consolidate power and lobby us out of one of the most democratic innovations of all time.

Please fight with me, and sign on to my petition:

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, stand up for consumers against big corporations like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon, by rejecting a pay to play “fast lane.” The FCC should take immediate action to classify broadband Internet as a public utility, not a luxury, preserving a free and open Internet for everyone.


Watch Susan Crawford explain net neutrality and the solutions for protecting the open Internet, via Vox.com.

Follow us on Twitter: @DaveColeNJ

Like us on Facebook: Dave Cole for Congress

Sign up for email updates: ColeForCongress.com

And please contribute to Dave's campaign here.

Has Boehner Been Running A Money Laundering Operation For House Republicans?

Last week the Cleveland Plain Dealer broke the story that Boehner's PAC is under investigation by the FEC. Basically, every kind of shady special interest-- from the coal and oil barons to organized crime and gambling operations, not just donated to Friends of John Boehner but gave more than legally allowed. There are supposed limited to the size of bribes politicians are allowed to accept. They're insisting Boehner refund the money.

Among the groups that were allegedly overgenerous to Boehner were Coalpac and Minepac, which represent the mining industry, as well as political committees representing the Exelon, Constellation and Luminant power companies, and the Ceasars and Penn National gambling enterprises.

"Although the commission may take further legal action concerning the acceptance of excessive contributions, your prompt action to refund the excessive amount will be taken into consideration," the letters say.

Friends of John Boehner is one of several political organizations that Boehner uses to raise money for GOP candidates and solidify his party's control over the U.S. House of Representatives. Records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics list him as the top fundraiser in the House of Representatives during the 2012 election cycle, raising more than $22 million.

Boehner spokesman Cory Fritz said large committees like Boehner's that process quarterly contributions from "thousands of grassroots supporters each quarter routinely handle these questions."

"We take compliance with FEC rules and regulations seriously, and will take all corrective action necessary," said Fritz.

Last year Friends of John Boehner sucked up $348,000 and Boehner used the money to buy loyalty from incumbents and Republican candidates with $4,000 checks. Last year he gave out 54 of those $4,000 checks (+ $6,000 to failed neo-fascist Jesse Kelly in Arizona). Like Kelly, dozens of the contributions Boehner made with the sleazy money were given to losing candidates, most of whom were judged too extreme by the voters. Boehner's losers included Adam Hasner (FL), Mia Love (UT), Robert Dold (IL), David Rouzer (NC), Charlie Bass (NH), Randy Altshuler (NY), Joe Coors (CO), Matt Doheny (NY), Joe Walsh (IL), Bobby Schilling (IL), Jonathan Paton (AZ), Lee Ivey Anderson (GA), Nan Hayworth (NY), Chip Cravaack (MN), Tony Strickland (CA), Richard Tisei (MA), Brian Bilbray (CA), Ann Marie Buerkle (NY), Allen West (FL), Ricky Gill (CA), Brendan Doherty (RI), Martha McSally (AZ), Steve Obsitnik (CT), Dick Snuffer* (WV), and Frank Guinta (NH). But many who accepted the tainted checks are still in Congress-- and still upholding Boehner's shaky hold on the Speakership. Among the current Members of Congress who have not returned their $4,000 checks are a dozen crooked congressmen who are fighting uphill battles to stay in Congress:

• Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-Mafia)
• Jeff Denham (R-CA)
• David Valadao (R-CA)
• Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
• Joe Heck (R-NV)
• Lou Barletta (R-PA)
• Sean Duffy (R-WI)
• John Kline (R-MN)
• Patrick Meehan (R-PA)
• Tom Latham (R-IA)
• Mike Coffman (R-CO)
• Gary Miller (R-CA)

The National Memo has reported that "this isn’t the first time the PAC has run into legal trouble. As Boehner’s campaign treasurer, Russell Roberts embezzled $617,563 from the Speaker’s multiple political organizations, including 'Friends of John Boehner.' Small hiccups like embezzlement haven’t slowed Boehner down in the slightest. His efforts in the 2012 election cycle made him the top campaign fundraiser that year. No word yet if an FEC investigation will slow down his fundraising blitz."





* real name

Tea Party Crackpots Shouldn't Be Investigated?

I'm not a tax accountable and I'm not an election attorney. But I do run a PAC and we have an accountant and an attorney on retainer to keep us from running afoul of the FEC's and IRS' myriad arcane rules and regulations. A few years ago, a notorious GOP shill complained that we were coordinating our campaign efforts with Nancy Pelosi. We sent in so much paperwork showing that we were working at cross-purposes to Pelosi by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars against Blue Dog Democrats she was helping to defend that the "case" was immediately thrown out. This was while Bush was president but the FEC staffer told me that the complaint came from someone does that all the time.

There was also an instance of an FEC staffer who is a conservative and who was constantly harassing Blue America. We knew she wasn't acting on Bush's orders and that she was just a nasty zealot. But she was just a pest and because of her we had to retain our attorney.

I don't want to get into this whole Republican attempt to smear Obama with this IRS mess. They're on a roll, appealing to their base. But I'm not so certain that these Tea Party groups looking for tax exempt status shouldn't be thoroughly investigated. I'm in the middle of reading investigative journalist Lee Fang's stupendous new book, The Machine: A Field Guide To The Resurgent Right. These two pages make the case very clearly who these people absolutely should be investigated.

Colin Hanna, the silver-haired chairman of the Republican front group Let Freedom Ring, approached the podium and announced that his group had covertly provided training and resources to the Tea Party Patriots throughout the election. Young men working for Hanna handed out pamphlets to the reporters in the room detailing their efforts, which included providing the Tea Party Patriots with a small army of election lawyers, training for over 1,748 Tea Party Patriot “poll watchers,” and state-of-the-art technology from the Republican consulting firm Edge Targeting. Hanna’s group paid for the Tea Party Patriots’ automated phone calls, which reached over 1.6 million households focusing on twenty-three swing congressional districts. Hanna said his Let Freedom Ring group, which had aired a series of million-dollar ads supporting establishment Republican John McCain in 2008, was itself part of the Tea Party revolution.

Let Freedom Ring was not the only group propping up the Tea Party Patriots. Staffers from FreedomWorks, the front group led by Dick Armey, had managed the Tea Party Patriots’ listserv. Corporate front groups like Americans for Prosperity and the Heartland Institute provided many of the talking points and speakers used by the Tea Party Patriots Free training seminars and online tutorials for grassroots organizing were provided to the Tea Party and its affiliates.

Patriots by the Leadership Institute, which is funded by the billionaire Koch family as well as by other corporate interests, including Amway. Even the Tea Party Patriots’ website was sponsored by a who’s who of Republican front groups, including Regular Folks United, FreedomWorks, and Americans for Tax Reform. A mysterious donor granted Tea Party Patriots an additional $1 million for increased electionseason outreach.

Shortly before the election, a memo from the Tea Party Patriots leaked. The Tea Party Patriots had attended a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of conservative donors, and presented a wish list with dollar amounts attached. The Tea Party Patriots asked the donors to underwrite their campaign efforts. To fund the Tea Party Patriots’ “traditional” get-out-the-vote walk and phone lists, they asked for $150,000, as well as $250,000 for “GPSenabled smart-phone walk lists and technology,” $125,000 for help setting up house parties, and finally $250,000 for “collateral material.” It didn’t end there. For efforts after the election, the memo demanded $110,000 for help protesting possible legislation during the lame-duck session of Congress, $175,000 for a summit to entertain newly elected Tea Party politicians, $300,000 for “Younger Generation Outreach,” at least $500,000 for a renewed advertising budget, $200,000 for help organizing tax-day Tea Parties in 2011, and a litany of other high-priced requests.

Aside from their somewhat casual attire, Mark Meckler, Jenny Beth Martin, and the Tea Party Patriots leadership were indistinguishable from any ordinary Republican consultants with high-priced demands and orthodox supplysider beliefs. With donors from the Reagan-era Council for National Policy and allies like Koch Industries and Let Freedom Ring, the Tea Party Patriots were like any other Republican group. However, to the media and to millions of Americans, they were still rag tag protesters fighting against the grain of the establishment.

Update On The GOP Nuisance Suit Against Blue America-- And More GOP Hypocrisy

Short version: the FEC dismissed the suit this week. Here's the letter they sent us:


And here's the story of the nuisance suit from deranged right wing hack Cleta Mitchell of Republican Party front group Let Freedom Ring, a fascist-oriented "think tank." Their spurious suit claimed we "engaged in the deliberate, willful and intentional violation of the [Federal Election Campaign] Act by specifically requesting that outside organizations make public communications in support of Democratic candidates for Congress." As best as I can tell, the only basis for their claim was that a couple of Inside the Beltway newspapers published a story that Pelosi was concerned that the Democrats were concerned that they were being crushed by outside spending and that they needed liberal groups "to do more-- and quickly." The suit claims Blue America Independent Expenditure Committee made its first buy on October 18, right around the time of the newspaper stories. Our Independent Expenditure Committee spent exactly $83,776.85 this year, on three races, one of which was in the Arizona Democratic primary in support of Randy Parraz ($20,315.00), a race Pelosi couldn't have been remotely interested in. Another was in the race in Alabama's Second Congressional District between Blue Dog Bobby Bright and Republican Martha Roby. We spent $48,364.15 opposing Bobby Bright, the candidate Pelosi was backing. And the third race was in support of Justin Coussoule, the progressive Democrat opposing John Boehner, to the tune of $15,097.70. The DCCC and the DNC made it clear that they had no interest in this race whatsoever. If Pelosi did, it would have taken a mind-reader to have known.

You might ask, "how can the Republicans be so hypocritical?" After all, they are the masters of mudslinging and dirty campaign tactics. And these types of suits against grassroots progressives groups is something they do on purpose, not because they think they can win, but just to help drain away resources that could be used opposing anti-democratic, fascist-oriented politicians. But if you wonder about GOP hypocrisy, I hope you watched Rachel Maddow Tuesday night-- IOKIYAR-- when she looked at the Republican response to the great Weiner weiner outrage. I hope you'll click on IOKIYAR and watch the clip. And watch this one as well:



Cowardly Democrats have demanded Weiner resign. He shouldn't-- and most people in his congressional district, where I was raised-- agree. But what does it prove to Virginia voters who heard conservative Democrat Tim Kaine demanding Weiner resign? That Kaine will be almost as bad as your garden variety Republican? The GOP is all over this today-- and adamantly refusing to talk about David Vitter's criminal case, since the still-serving right-wing senator paid prostitutes to spank him and change his diapers... for decades.

In any case, if you can help Blue America cover the legal costs for the suit just dismissed... we'd really appreciate it. Put the contribution in the PAC slot. Thanks.