Long Past Time To Retire Brenda Snipes AND Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Florida is in the news— and at least it isn’t a hurricane. I think the first time we rang an alarm bell about Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s crooked crony, Broward County elections chief Brenda Snipes, we were picking up on a Politico report by Marc Caputo. In the 2016 cycle, she worked to steal the election for DWS, as sure as DWS worked to steal the presidential primary for Hillary. Snipes broke the law by destroying ballots cast in the tight primary election between Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova after Canova sued to get access to the ballots. Canova, according to Caputo "wanted to inspect the optical-scan ballots cast in his Aug. 30 primary race against Wasserman Schultz because he had concerns about the integrity of the elections office. Under longstanding federal law, ballots cast in a congressional race aren’t supposed to be destroyed until 22 months after the election. And under state law, a public record sought in a court case is not supposed to be destroyed without a judge’s order. Snipes’ office, however, destroyed the paper ballots in question in October-- in the middle of Canova’s lawsuit-- but says it’s lawful because the office made high-quality electronic copies. Canova’s legal team found out after the fact last month.”

She wasn’t fired and was never held accountable so… of course, she took that as a green light to just keep fucking up. People are more concerned that she’s made it impossible to ever know who really won the gubernatorial and senate races in Florida than they are about how she stole another race from Tim Canova on behalf of DWS. Below is an email Canova sent his followers in Broward and Miami-Dade yesterday:

Since Election Day, the eyes of the nation have been on Broward County. While all other counties in Florida completed their counting of ballots, Broward continued finding new ballots to be counted, nearly swinging the election results for U.S. Senate and Florida Governor from Republicans to Democrats. Now there’s a state-wide machine recount, and the likelihood of lawsuits and possible hand recounts.

It’s been more than a year since we discovered that Brenda Snipes, the Broward Supervisor of Elections, illegally destroyed all the ballots cast in our 2016 primary against Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The news media refused to cover the story. If not for this double-trainwreck that landed in Broward, with both Governor and Senate races hanging in the balance, the media blackout would have continued. Instead, because of her role in the middle of the contested races for Governor and Senator, the mainstream media is finally asking questions about Snipes.

I warned for months that the failure to remove Snipes and her cronies from office would undermine public trust and result in continuing election irregularities, frauds, and illegal conduct. Since Election Day, I have heard from countless Broward residents from across the political spectrum expressing the same view, that they have lost faith and confidence in Broward election results, from non-partisan city commission and judicial elections to primaries and Congressional elections. Many ran for office as outsiders fighting for clean government, and now are horrified to see the level of corruption in our elections.

Two years ago, I first sought to inspect the ballots cast in our 2016 primary in an effort to verify the vote. Instead, we discovered that Snipes and one of her directors, Dozel Spencer, conspired to obstruct justice and tamper with evidence. This is not a theory, but an actual conspiracy that was established by a mountain of evidence discovered in our public records lawsuit against Snipes. In sworn videotaped depositions, Snipes and Spencer admitted to the ballot destruction. The Florida Circuit Court then granted us summary judgment in a 10-page order finding that Snipes obstructed justice, lied to the court, illegally tampered with evidence, and violated numerous state and federal criminal statutes, some punishable as felonies.

I reached out to Florida Governor Rick Scott months ago, as well as Democratic and Republican party officials, state and federal law enforcement agencies, and every member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. None responded, no one saw fit to investigate, and Republican Rick Scott failed to remove Snipes from office, an abdication of his responsibility as Governor to uphold the rule of law and protect us from official corruption.

The journalist Chris Hedges has said that the corruption today is so bad that they don’t even try to hide it. Barely a week before the recent election, Snipes campaigned openly with Wasserman Schultz. And why not, she had already destroyed ballots with impunity. I warned for months that if her crimes went unpunished, Snipes would have every incentive to engage in future illegal conduct and rig another election against us. The burden should not be on campaigns like ours to prove fraud when someone with Snipes’ record is left in charge of elections.

Snipes and her top staff should have been prosecuted months ago. Allowing someone with her record of lawlessness to continue supervising the recent primary and general election taints all those results by creating “incurable uncertainties” about the election outcomes. That’s why a growing number of Broward residents and former candidates are now arguing that recent election results from the primary and general elections should be invalidated, and that the courts should order new elections with appropriate safeguards— namely, hand-marked paper ballots that are counted by hand in public.

Our campaign has also uncovered other disturbing irregularities in the recent election. One campaign volunteer smelled a rat on Election night, and took video on her smart phone of a line of private vehicles driving up and transferring the blue satchels containing paper ballots to a rented truck. The ballots should have been in the possession of two people at all times. They were not. In addition, the ballots should have been transferred only to a sheriff’s deputy who should have signed a receipt for the ballots. None of this happened, which destroys the “chain-of-custody” of the ballots and casts doubt on any potential paper ballot recount.

Like many other candidates who have lost under highly suspicious circumstances, we are still assessing our options moving forward. One thing is certain, whatever happens to our campaign, we will continue calling for Snipes and her staff to be removed from office and prosecuted for their crimes. The criminal justice system must be used to clean up the swamp in the Broward elections office.

I’m going to guess that U.S. District Judge Mark Walker would tend to agree with Tim. NPR reported that Walker slammed Florida yesterday for repeatedly failing to anticipate election problems, and said the state law on recounts appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that decided the presidency in 2000. “We have been the laughing stock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this.” Key word there is "chose."

Time To Finally Get Rid Of Wasserman Schultz (But Not With A Pipe Bomb)

The Joe Crowley of South Florida, Debbie Wassermann Schultz, has finally agreed to participate in a debate. She'll face Republican Joe Kaufman and progressive independent Tim Canova tonite at Broward College, conveniently after many FL-23 voters have already cast their ballots. That's Debbie! As low as they go! [NOTE: Now I'm hearing she's making excuses about not showing up tonight] On Tuesday, the Miami Herald published an OpEd by Canova, Here’s why I’m challenging Debbie Wasserman Schultz as an independent. He reminded the readers that just about 3 years ago he took a leave as a tenured law professor at Nova Southeastern University "to run for Congress and challenge an entrenched incumbent, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, then the chair of the Democratic National Committee. To me, she was the epitome of why the party was failing: a corporate funded incumbent supporting a trickle-down Wall Street agenda of corporate trade deals, payday lending, private prisons, and endless wars." Blue America had urged Tim to run and endorsed him on the day he declared. This cycle we've endured him again, even though, technically, he isn't running as a Democrat.

My agenda is full employment, a renewable energy New Deal, a national infrastructure bank, ending the drug war and mass incarceration, universal single-payer healthcare, and protecting and conserving the environment. These issues are too pressing, and that’s why I decided to run again, to build on the momentum of the last campaign and continue waking voters on these issues.

But voters often first want to know why I left the Democratic Party and decided to run this time with No Party Affiliation (NPA). My “DemExit” was an unexpected fallout from the aftermath of my 2016 primary. After falling short by a few thousand votes, I started receiving phone calls from election experts across the country questioning the accuracy of the results. Some suspected hacking or software rigging. Our own internal field numbers, based on more than 10,000 door knocks a week, also showed a far different outcome. To try to put the matter to rest, I decided to verify the vote by simply inspecting the paper ballots in some key precincts, as permitted under Florida’s public-records law and at my own expense. If the ballots matched up, the issue would be resolved.


Brenda Snipes, the Broward County Supervisor of Elections, stonewalled my ballot request for months. I filed a lawsuit in June 2017, and while the lawsuit was pending, Snipes destroyed all the ballots, violating numerous state and federal criminal statutes. She concealed the ballot destruction from the court for more than two months and admitted to all this in sworn videotaped deposition.


Snipes claimed there was no harm to the public because she says she maintained digital scanned images of the purported ballots. But no one is permitted to inspect the software that creates these digital ballot images. Instead, the software is “proprietary,” the private property of the same software vendors hired by Snipes. Under such circumstances, her illegal destruction of the ballots has undermined public faith and confidence in Broward elections.

In May, the Florida Circuit Court granted me summary judgment, finding that Snipes broke the law. We recently settled for $150,000 in lawyers’ fees and court costs.

I had been a Democrat most of my life, served as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill to a Democratic U.S. senator, volunteered my time and energy to several campaigns and was inspired in my academic work by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in banking and public finance.

But when Democratic Party officials in Florida refused to join my call for an investigation into Broward’s ballot destruction, that was finally enough. I am running as an independent to speak to a much wider part of the electorate. Although Republicans make up only 23 percent of registered voters in my district, independent voters are quickly approaching the number of registered Democrats. If there’s any district in the country where an independent can win, Florida’s Congressional District 23 is it, right here, right now.

Democratic Party politics appear petty when compared to the growing economic and environmental crises we face in Florida. For many people, this feels like year 10 of a Great Depression in jobs, incomes and savings. It’s why so many people voted for Bernie Sanders and so many others for Donald Trump. They know the system is broken, and that incremental change will change nothing.

Although Wasserman Schultz says climate change and sea-level rise are real, she then votes for billions of dollars in federal subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry and big agribusinesses, the industries contributing most to climate change. And she votes for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies for the Big Sugar industry, which along with those factory farms, are most responsible for polluting our waterways with toxic algae, endangering public health, harming tourism and threatening our oceans and aquifers.


I didn’t leave the Democratic Party as much as it left me. It’s much the same with the Republican Party. Both went so establishment and corporate that they abandoned the American people. That’s why although I’m running as an independent, I’m still the real New Deal Democrat in the race, and the candidate most in line with Teddy Roosevelt’s Republican progressive vision of trust-busting to protect workers and consumers, and to conserve our natural environment. Like during the Roosevelts’ era, our generation needs to tame capitalism without destroying it in order to liberate people while providing them with meaningful work in a dynamic economy.


 UPDATE From Tim

Tonight was to be the one and only debate in our independent campaign for Congress against Debbie Wasserman Schultz and a Republican opponent. Unfortunately, the debate has been cancelled.

First, Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not even have the good grace to respond to the invitation made by Broward College on behalf of their students. No response at all.

And here’s an indication of Wasserman Schultz’s absolute hypocrisy: Last night she attended a debate of candidates for Florida governor at Broward College! Apparently, everyone else should be expected to debate opponents and answer to voters, but not Debbie.

The debate was going to proceed without Wasserman Schultz. My Republican opponent, Joe Kaufman, had already accepted Broward College’s invitation. But Kaufman cancelled this morning, even though the replacement moderator was a Republican who has served as press secretary to a number of prominent Florida Republicans, including Florida’s Attorney General.

Broward College felt compelled to cancel the entire event, rather than letting me take the stage alone, as the only candidate in this congressional district willing to debate.

It’s absolutely revolting that candidates for Congress, including a sitting Congresswoman who proclaim their fidelity to democracy, are actually afraid of the voters and have such little respect in particular for younger voters. They believe that college students and other young voters will not turn out to vote. And by not speaking to young voters, they are hoping it has that effect.

My opponents have also rejected a Town Hall invitation from March for Our Lives, a group formed by high school students in the aftermath of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shootings in Parkland, Florida earlier this year. And once again, Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not even respond to the invitation. That’s vintage Debbie. If you have a $5000 check from a political action committee, Debbie will make time for you. If not, her staff won’t even return your calls or debate invitations.

Wasserman Schultz and Kaufman both pretend to care about school safety, the lousy conditions in our public schools, and the concerns of college students. Yet, when push comes to shove, they both avoid invitations from students to appear in public, debate the issues, and answer their questions.

As a professor, I know all too well what a difficult job market this is, even for college graduates, and the burdens they carry in student debt. That’s why I have an agenda for students, one that includes a plan to reduce interest rates on existing student debt and even to forgive much outstanding student debt-- the same way the Federal Reserve helped Wall Street banks and hedge funds following the 2008 financial collapse. I support tuition-free public colleges, and we also have a plan for voluntary national service for high school grads that would provide tuition-free higher education at any school, public or private, after three years of servic-- the same kind of deal my dad’s generation got after World War II with the G.I. Bill of Rights. A national service program would provide opportunities in civilian conservation in national forests and coastal waters, cultural production in the arts and music, and improving all kinds of infrastructure-- just like in President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. I also support Medicare For All, which would greatly help young people, many of whom presently lack any health insurance.

None of my opponents have any real agenda to address the concerns of our youth. No wonder why they run away from public forums and debates at our colleges and with young voters. The corrupt establishment is making such a mess of our world, I fear what the future will be like for our children.

This is what our campaign is fighting against: cowards who do not believe in democracy and who show such disrespect and disdain for young voters, and for people of all ages.

This is what our campaign is fighting for: a New Deal for all Americans!

Tim Canova Will Run As A Democrat But On An Independent Line To Beat Wasserman Schultz In November

In 2016 Debbie Wasserman Schultz allies in the Democratic Party managed to steal the party nomination from progressive Tim Canova. “Election integrity,” he wrote recently, “will always be top of our agenda. That’s why we’re releasing this video to inform the public about our current lawsuit against the Broward County Supervisor of Elections over their illegal destruction of the paper ballots cast in our 2016 race against Debbie Wasserman Schultz.” He asked his supporters to “spread the news about this latest election scandal involving Wasserman Schultz’s political machine, and please share our video far and wide. We cannot allow all this corruption to be swept under the rug any longer.”

Yesterday he decided to not let it happen again and he announced that he’s running as an independent candidate against Debbie Wasserman Schultz in a November general election instead of in the Democratic primary.

This was not an easy decision for me. I first registered Democrat at the age of 18. When I was out of college, I served for two years as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill for a Democrat, the late U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas. Throughout my life, I have worked hard for Democratic candidates who I believed in. In 2016, I ran as a Democrat against Wasserman Schultz. And I have worked hard to try to reform the Democratic Party from within, but the party left many of us a long time ago.

For the past two years, the Broward Democratic Party has openly supported Wasserman Schultz in violation of its own charter and promises. It regularly backs corporate funded incumbents who dodge debates against challengers like me. It actively works to prevent challengers like me from speaking at Democratic Party committee meetings, clubs and caucuses.

For months, I have been facing the intolerable prospect of running in another August closed Democratic primary administered by the same Democratic Broward Supervisor of Elections who is allied with Wasserman Schultz and who illegally destroyed all the paper ballots in our 2016 primary. To add insult to injury, the Florida Democratic Party and the Broward Democratic Party have been silent on this ballot destruction and have refused to call for an investigation.

By running as an independent, I will be on the ballot in November. Perhaps by then the Broward Supervisor of Elections will have been replaced.

More importantly, as an independent running in a general election, I will be able to court so many young voters who refuse to register Democratic and therefore cannot vote in a closed primary. Recent polls suggest that upwards of 70 percent of young voters are now independent. They are more progressive and woefully underrepresented in our political system. We aim to change that.

And by running as an independent, we will be engaging with a much wider population of voters, not just Democrats, but also independents, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, and others.

Make no mistake, even though I’ll be running as an independent, I’m still the real Democrat in the race. I’m pushing a New Deal agenda of jobs for all, Medicare for all, election integrity and campaign finance reform, environmental protection, ending the drug war and mass incarceration, and converting to 100 percent renewable energy. On all these issues, we must take power back from the corporate interests that control our government in Washington, D.C.

On issue after issue, Wasserman Schultz is pushing the corporate agenda of her wealthy donors-- from Wall Street banks and predatory payday lenders, to private prison companies, Big Pharma, and the fossil fuels industry.

In stark contrast, our campaign will not take a penny from any corporate interests. We rely entirely on small donations from ordinary folks of limited means like you and me. Please click here and contribute every last dollar you can afford (up to $2700). Last election, our average contribution size was $17, but those small donations add up when we have a grassroots peoples’ campaign catching fire.

Beyond financial contributions, there’s much else you can do to help our campaign. Please spread the word far and wide on social media and in your face to face interactions with friends and loved ones, and even with those you may not agree. We will need phone bankers from around the country and volunteers to come to South Florida and campaign with me door to door.

When I took on Wasserman Schultz two years ago, the political revolution ran through South Florida. With our decision to challenge the Democratic establishment in an open general election, South Florida is once again the epicenter of our political revolution.

At this critical hour, let us not forget what we are fighting for: to restore our democracy and Progress for All.

Thank you for all your support, and keep the faith!

A note: For years, the Democratic Party ran conservative establishment Democrats against Bernie up in Vermont. Eventually, when Howard Dean was governor, they just stopped and started endorsing him.

We Can't Let The Wasserman Schultz Machine Steal The Election Again

Last December we tried untangling the mess of how Wasserman Schultz, one of the most loathed figures in American politics, managed to steal her reelection bid in 2016. It was Politico's Marc Caputo who broke the a story about how Brenda Snipes, a crooked Wasserman Schultz crony and ally and the Broward County elections chief, broke the law by destroying ballots cast in the tight primary election between Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova after Canova sued to get access to the ballots. Canova, according to Caputo "wanted to inspect the optical-scan ballots cast in his Aug. 30 primary race against Wasserman Schultz because he had concerns about the integrity of the elections office."

This year, Canova is challenging Wasserman Schultz again, and mostly playing down his on-going lawsuit against the Broward Supervisor of Elections. He'd rather debate Wasserman Schultz on the core issues that inform his campaign-- from reversing income and wealth inequality, addressing Climate Change, regulating Wasserman Schultz's allies in the payday lending indutsry and developing "sensible, humane and comprehensive immigration reform" to curbing gun violence, Medicare-for-All, ending for-profit prisons, ending the war on drugs and campaign finance reform.

A few days ago, though, Canova did address the law suit so many of his supporters have asked about. "After our 2016 run against Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her corrupt political machine," he wrote, "a number of election integrity experts expressed serious concerns about the official results. Rather than ignoring their research, I decided to try to verify the vote by inspecting the ballots under Florida’s public records law."

All too often, election frauds are swept under the rug, especially when it’s establishment Democrats cheating progressive and grassroots Democrats. We saw this happen in state after state where Bernie Sanders and his campaign were cheated. In New York City alone, more than 200,000 citizens were purged from the voting rolls in the days prior to New York’s 2016 presidential primary. The New York City Board of Elections admitted to all this, and yet there’s been no real punishment for the massive fraud.

I was determined to shine a light on any corruption that may have rigged my own election results against Wasserman Schultz. I felt that I owed nothing less to the thousands of supporters who stepped up to make donations and volunteer their time to my campaign. So, when Dr. Brenda Snipes, the Broward Supervisor of Elections stonewalled our public records request, I filed a lawsuit last June to enforce our rights.

Incredibly, while the lawsuit was pending, the Supervisor destroyed all of our paper ballots in violation of federal law!

We must not let this scandal involving Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s own reelection be swept under the rug...

Earlier this week, we hand delivered a letter to the Florida Secretary of State, Ken Detzner, the state’s top elections official, informing him of the evidence uncovered in our lawsuit and urging him to conduct a full investigation into Dr. Snipes’ misconduct.

We also followed up with letters to hundreds of state and local elected officials and Democratic and Republican party leaders throughout Florida, urging them to join in our call for action.

  We will not be silent or complicit in the frauds and riggings of our elections. This has not been easy. We have taken a lot of heat from the establishment and we have had to divert significant campaign resources to our lawsuit and inspection efforts. Meanwhile, Wasserman Schultz has quietly been raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporate interests.

Please consider helping Tim with this crucial primary-- ultimately the only way to hold Wasserman Schultz accountable for years and years of corruption and anti-democratic operations that have dragged the Democratic Party brand through the mud and slime. Please click on the Blue America congressional thermometer on the right and contribute what you can to Tim's entirely grassroots campaign. Let's send a message to the corrupt DC establishments of both parties that politicians like Wasserman Schultz aren't going to get away with it any longer.

Legal Marijuana v Jeff Sessions

This is a list of U.S. senators: Cory Gardner (R-CO),Michael Bennet (D-CO) Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Edward Markey (D-MA). It seems unlikely that anything would put these 18 on the same list. But what did was marijuana. From someone as progressive as Elizabeth Warren to someone as far right as Rand Paul, all of them signed a letter backing the right of the states to regulation marijuana policy. What they want is that congressional leaders of both parties insert new far-reaching protections for state marijuana laws into a must-pass spending bill due next month.

“For the last several years, states have changed their regulatory regimes governing marijuana. What began with relatively isolated experiments has spread across the country as citizens have expressed their will through the democratic process,” the lawmakers, led by Colorado Sens. Cory Gardner (R) and Michael Bennet (D), wrote in a letter sent to the Senate’s top appropriations decisionmakers on Monday. “Today, the vast majority of states-- 29 in all-- have some form of reduced restrictions on marijuana. Other states have proposals to do the same. These states crafted serious, thoughtful regulatory regimes.”

An existing provision in federal spending law protects state medical cannabis laws from Justice Department interference, but it does not extend to policies allowing recreational use and sales, and its own continuance in upcoming legislation is in jeopardy after House leaders blocked a vote on it.

A current temporary spending bill-- and its policy riders like the medical marijuana protections-- is set to expire on March 23. Last month, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded Obama-era guidance that has generally allowed states to implement their own marijuana laws without federal intervention.

“Citizens who have been acting in good faith based on federal and state assurances now feel exposed,” the senators wrote. “This disruption may deny medications to the sick, push individuals back into illicit markets, and nullify the previously-effective regulations-- all while thwarting the democratically-expressed will of the states.”

The bipartisan group wants congressional leadership to join them in crating new “precise language that will preserve state laws regarding marijuana regulation until we can establish a longer-term framework.”

“It is our hope that the fiscal year 2018 appropriations will alleviate the turbulence the Attorney General’s abrupt decision has caused and that the appropriations will help preserve the strong regulatory frameworks the states have created,” the wrote. “Doing so will provide the opportunity to pursue federal legislation that both protects the legitimate federal interests at stake and respects the will of the states –- both those that have liberalized their marijuana laws and those that have not.”

Marijuana legalization, fortunately, isn't only in the hands of a barely dependable Congress. There are already cases making their way through the courts. On Valentine’s Day, federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York heard oral arguments on the motion to dismiss Washington v. Sessions, a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Schedule I classification of cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act. The federal government argued to have the case dismissed. Hellerstein didn't rule and is reserving decision.

The plaintiffs in the case include: Denver Broncos Super Bowl Champion, Marvin Washington; 12-year old girl, Alexis Bortell; seven-year old Jagger Cotte of Georgia who suffers from Leigh’s Disease; disabled military combat veteran Jose Belen; and the Cannabis Cultural Association.

The lead attorney in the case, Michael Hiller, issued the following statement (in part) regarding Hellerstein reserving the decision:

Protecting our American values, way of life and civil and constitutional rights are who we are as Americans. To many, it is obvious, we are living in an era where we must remain vigilant and ask hard questions. If we look back at our collective history, this is not the first time we have seen some in the US government shamefully argue out-dated ideologies under a legal mask that is inevitably on the wrong side of history. We saw this with slavery, segregation, women’s right to vote, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, gay marriage, and sadly, countless other times.

We’ve seen civil rights trampled on before, but we have also seen everyday Americans and leaders rise to the occasion and have our judicial branch recognize when an interpretation of the law is obviously tragically flawed and wrong.

The stated basis for the Controlled Substances Act was to help Americans’ lives. However, today, the federal government came to court to preserve the right to put Americans in jail, who use cannabis -- even when it used as an alternative medicinal treatment to addictive opioids and powerful prescription drugs. Tragically, what the federal government has done is taken the Controlled Substances Act and turned it on its head. Sadly, the government is now using the ‘Act’ to hurt and oppress US citizens, rather to liberate, deliberate and help them treat their illnesses and diseases.

We firmly believe the federal government is prostituting and perverting the Controlled Substances Act as well as blatantly criminalizing behavior that they themselves are inducing. We look forward to standing on the right side of history and ensuring that cannabis is descheduled once and for all as well as to receiving Judge Hellerstein’s decision, and moving the case forward.

Tim Canova, the progressive Democrat taking on anti-legalization fanatic Debbie Wasserman Schultz in south Florida, is eager to get to Congress to work on many issues, legalization being one of them. This morning he told us that he's "opposed the misguided drug war for many years, and I support efforts to protect state marijuana laws from any federal crackdowns. In fact, I also support legislation to delist cannabis as a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance, the most restrictive category in U.S. drug law.

"Studies now show that states which have liberalized their marijuana laws have far lower levels of opioid addiction. One major study found that opiate related deaths decreased about 33 percent in 13 states in the six years following legalization of medicinal marijuana. Yet, my opponent Debbie Wasserman Schultz calls marijuana a 'gateway drug.' She opposed a statewide referendum to approve medicinal marijuana-- a referendum that was then approved by more than 70 percent of Florida voters in 2016. Meanwhile, Wasserman Schultz has taken tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from private prisons and Big Pharma makers of opiates, and she supports the drug war, privatized prisons, and the system of mass incarceration that's been rightly referred to as the New Jim Crow.

"We should respect principles of federalism in these matters and allow the states to serve as 'laboratories of reform' for medicinal and recreational cannabis. It’s time to end the war on marijuana. We need education, jobs, and public health programs as alternatives to the drug trade and mass incarceration."

Another Florida progressive running for Congress this year, Alan Grayson, has already been in Congress, where he has written and introduced bills to further the cause of legalization. "This," he told us yesterday, "is why I wrote a bill limiting federal marijuana sentences to no more than whatever the corresponding state sentence may be. (I would go further than that, but that’s a bill that actually could win a vote in today’s Congress.) I agree that there is significant Republican support for drug reform, but it’s still only a noticeable minority. You can see this from actual votes, like the vote on the Rohrabacher amendment to allow VA doctors to prescribe marijuana in medical marijuana states."

And of course, Florida isn't the only state where the debate is raging over marijuana legalization. I asked Derrick Crowe, the progressive candidate in the Austin-San Antonio that Lamar Smith is leaving open. "Two days ago," Derrick told us, "I was canvassing a rural part of the district. I met a man with scars all over his head from a serious aggravated robbery. He was struck with a tire iron and kicked savagely. He begged me, literally begged me, to fight to make marijuana legal so that people like him could have an alternative to opiods while they dealt with chronic pain from serious injuries or diseases. I've spoken to people in jail cells who were there on minor marijuana offenses, missing children's birthdays, being cycled into and out of treatment programs and the general jail populations, who absolutely posed no threat to anyone but who entered the criminal justice system through marijuana possession offenses. This is insanity. Compassion has claims on your actions. We need to legalize marijuana and stop pulling our communities apart."

Tim Canova Barenaked Ladies "Million Dollar" Award Plaque Starts Today

Today is Day One of a week long contest on behalf of the Tim Canova congressional campaign in South Florida (FL-23 which starts up at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport and works it way south and west through Hollywood to Surfside in the south and Weston in the west). It's Debbie Wasserman Schultz's safe gerrymandered district. We've contributed a beautiful gold, RIAA-certified award plaque for the Barenaked Ladies' first U.S. album, Gordon, the album that includes, "Brian Wilson," "Be My Yoko Ono," "Hello City" and the band's smash hit, "If I Had $1,000,000." The album award, which has never been taken out of it's plastic wrapping, was originally awarded to Reprise Records president Howie Klein (Yep... me), now the treasurer of Blue America.

Tim is running on a full-bore Bernie type platform-- issues he has been working on his entire adult life, from campaign finance reform, protecting the environment and ending the war on drugs to reversing income inequality, immigration reform and Medicare-for-All.

As of December 31, the last FEC reporting deadline, Tim had raised $161,996. He's going to need a lot more to defeat a corrupt incumbent who has taken massive amounts of money from payday lenders, private prisons and Wall Street. Please consider helping him reach his first quarter goal by tapping on the Act Blue Barenaked Ladies thermometer on the right.

Tim told us he finds the Barenaked Ladies music "to be playful, offbeat and thought-provoking at the same time. On this album, 'If I Had a Million Dollars' is a strange kind of love song for a material world. The message is: 'If I had a million dollars, I’d buy you a house, furniture, a car, I’d buy your love.' Money certainly helps up to a point, but we know that money alone cannot really buy love or happiness. As I listened to this song this morning, I thought what would I do if I had a million dollars? And I realized I would spend it on exactly what I’ve been investing my limited personal savings in: our campaign to defeat Debbie Wasserman Schultz and our lawsuit to inspect the ballots from our last race. That lawsuit is what prompted local election officials to destroy our ballots in violation of state and federal law. I am not letting this election scandal be swept under the rug, because I know the best way to ensure a fair vote count in our upcoming election is to demand a real investigation and accountability for the fraud and illegal ballot destruction in the last election. With your help, we will raise another million dollars and we will use those resources to keep building our grassroots campaign. This remains the top priority in my life: to defeat a cynical and corrupt political insider who has done so much damage to our country. If I had a million dollars, I would still be fighting to restore democracy."



Primaries against incumbents of your own party are the toughest thing there is in American politics. It's a thankless task, with your own party fighting you every step of the way and moving in to protect their colleague, no matter how corrupt she is. But in this D+11 district there is no other way to hold Wasserman Schultz accountable besides a primary. A New Dem from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, she hasn't earned a lifetime job, not by a longshot. Please help us replace her with Tim Canova, a strong and dedicated progressive.

Can Pelosi and Hoyer Kill The Wave?

The most recent state legislative election was in a state House district southeast of Pittsburgh, in a blueish district where the longtime Representative Marc Gergely (D) was convicted for being part of an illegal gambling ring and forced to resign. Tuesday, voters were not enthusiastic about going to the polls and just 11% of registered voted bothered. But Republicans were more dispirited and unenthusiastic than Democrats. The results-- reflective of a building wave cycle-- were stunning. House District 35-- McKeesport and much of the Monongahela Valley, had gone for Hillary in 2016, convincingly but not overwhelmingly. She won the district 58-39%. More to the point, the state House incumbent, Gergely beat Fawn Montgomery, his Republican challenger on the same day 62.5% to 37.5%, Tuesday, Fawn gave it another try in the open seat and faced Austin Davis, an African-American first-time candidate, The wave is lapping the district strong enough already to give him a massive 74-26% victory.

Republicans didn't show up to vote. Democrats should be worrying about Democrats also not showing up to vote. Like I said, the turnout, in the same week, Schumer offered to fully fund building Truump's wall and then he and Pelosi gave the Republicans enough Democrats in both Houses of Congress to pass the Republican agenda to throw DREAMers under-- or onto-- the bus. In the House 45 Democrats, primarily Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- all the regular suspects from Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA) and Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL) to Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ), Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog-IL), Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL), Kathleen Rice (New Dem-NY) and Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog_AZ) were delighted to do it. And in the Senate the aisle crossers were Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Jones (D-AL), Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Claire McCaskill (D-Maddow).

This turns off Democrats base voters. The DC Democratic establishment thinks it excites Republicans and right-of-center independents. It does. But will it make them vote for Democrats. Probably not-- at least not in great numbers. And even if they do and the wave sweeps Republicans out of office like it did in 2006 when Rahm Emanuel recruited dozens of conservatives (again, Blue Dogs, New Dems, wealthy self-funders and "ex"-Republicans) what invariably happens is that sooner or later Democratic base voters realize they've been duped and then stay away from the polls-- generally in the next midterm-- and those fraudsters are defeated, which is exactly what happened in 2010 when all Rahm's recruits were defeated after 3+ years of voting with the GOP on crucial issues.

A few days ago we talked about how Steny Hoyer sneaks around the country's backrooms trying to rig elections for corrupt conservatives who will "play ball" with K Street lobbyists the way he does. It turns off Democrats and independent voters. And on Wednesday, Mitch Perry reported for FloridaPolitics.com that today Pelosi is teaming up with the most despised villain in the Democratic Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz against progressive reformer Tim Canova. Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz will be speaking at Florida Atlantic University campus in Boca Raton (fittingly, Mouth of the Rat). This will be Pelosi’s first visit to Florida since last May, when she also appeared with Wasserman-Schultz. Wasserman Schultz was caught rigging Democratic primaries for Hillary and was forced to resign-- in disgrace-- as chair of the DNC. By publicly supporting her, Pelosi fills many Democrats with disgust and again defines the Democratic Party-- at best-- as the lesser-of-two-evils and the anti-change party.

Fight back by supporting and helping elect the kinds of progressive candidates who Hoyer and Pelosi keep DCCC resources from. That ActBlue congressional thermometer just above is how you can do it. I asked Tim Canova what he thought about Pelosi coming into South Florida and getting together with Wasserman Schultz. His response:

Nancy Pelosi’s joint appearance with Debbie Wasserman Schultz shows much of what’s wrong with the Democratic Party. These two political insiders are tied together by moneyed interests, and certainly not united by integrity or progressive principles. This is the leadership team that has brought such abject failure to Democrats, losing a thousand legislative seats across the country since becoming party leaders. Democrats are now in their weakest position in the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, governorships, and state legislatures since 1920. They've brought us back 98 years! For the Democratic establishment, it’s been Make America Fail Again #MAFiA

Yet, the party leadership is still rewarded for all its monumental failures. They rig the system at every level, from corporate campaign contributions to a lapdog corporate media, from mass purging of voter roles and voter suppression, to safe gerrymandered districts and other rigged electoral processes. They count on the lack of integrity in our elections. After my 2016 race against Wasserman Schultz, I was forced to sue in an attempt to inspect the ballots. While the lawsuit was pending, local election officials illegally destroyed the ballots, violating federal and state law, destroying evidence in defiance of the court’s authority, and engaging in perjury and other serious offenses. We are pushing for election justice and election integrity to make sure they don’t rig the next election.

Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi embody the failed big business as usual politics that have left us with Republican majorities across the country and Donald Trump as president. They are swimming in corporate cash and pushing a predatory corporate agenda that’s dictated by Wall Street banks and the fossil fuel industry. They both stand in the way of Medicare for All, they support failed drug policies and mass incarceration, and they ignore the needs of working folks and the poor. But their days are numbered. People are fed up with the corrupt status quo. Here in South Florida, we are growing our grassroots movement to finish the job we started in our 2016 campaign against Wasserman Schultz. And Stephen Jaffee is a true progressive alternative to Nancy Pelosi.

Contest Coming-- Help Tim Canova Pick The Prize

One of the ways Blue America helps the candidates we endorse is by donating rock'n'roll memorabilia from my old days as a music business executive. We're going to do one with Tim Canova next. He's running for the Broward/Miami-Dade seat that Debbie Wasserman Schultz appears to have stolen last cycle. So gave him the choice of a bunch of platinum awards rear were given to me personally. Here's the e-mail Tim sent his supporters yesterday:

I am excited to report that Blue America-- a fearless progressive grassroots group and the first to endorse us against Debbie Wasserman Schultz-- will give away an original platinum album to help support our campaign.

The only problem is that we have not yet decided which album to raffle off to our supporters!  The choices are hit albums by Erasure, Chris Isaak, and Barenaked Ladies. But we’re leaving that decision up to all of you!

Please let us know by sometime this Friday, January 26th which is your choice of album to be raffled off:

• Barenaked Ladies - GORDON (1992)
        Debut studio album with such classic hits, "If I Had $1,000,000,"
          "Be My Yoko Ono" and "Brian Wilson"

 • Chris Issak - FOREVER BLUE (1995)
        Nominated for a Best Rock Album Grammy in 1996
        Hit songs: "Somebody's Crying" and "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing"

 • Erasure - THE INNOCENTS (1988)
        Hit songs: "A Little Respect," "Chains of Love" and "Ship of Fools"

We will follow up soon after your votes are in with another email that announces which album is selected by all of you, and allows you to enter the raffle contest by making a contribution of any size to our campaign.

If you want to vote, just click here. And whichever album gets the most votes, that's the one we'll use as the prize in the Tim Canova contest. I always loved this one... Andy and Vince are such great guys. Last time I looked, Barenaked Ladies were out ahead.

Another Step Forward On Marijuana Legalization

Today, two of California's best members of Congress, Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna will introduce the Marijuana Justice Act, the companion bill for Cory Booker’s Senate bill, S. 1689 (which so far has one co-sponsor Ron Wyden of Oregon). The idea behind the Marijuana Justice Act is to help correct decades of injustice surrounding the discriminatory enforcement of marijuana criminalization laws in the United States.

Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna will be joined by Senator Booker, on a press call to talk about the bill at 4:15 p.m. ET.

Tim Canova isn't a member of Congress yet and can't vote on the bill-- at least not this year. Next year, he hopefully will be voting for it in the House. First he has to defeat corrupt conservative Debbie Wasserman Schulz, an old school antidote fanatic. Yesterday, Canova told his south Florida supporters that "the failed 'War on Drugs' is not going away-- thanks to drug warriors like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on marijuana. Last week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions-- a marijuana prohibitionist-- announced a crackdown on the 29 states and the District of Columbia that have legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use."

Wasserman Schultz has called marijuana a 'gateway drug' and she has consistently opposed efforts to end the war on marijuana. She even opposed a statewide referendum to approve medical marijuana-- a referendum that was approved by more than 70 percent of Florida voters in 2016. All while Wasserman Schultz takes thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Big Pharma and private prisons!

This is what Wasserman Schultz and Jeff Sessions have in common. They both believe in the drug war and mass incarceration. The recent policy announced by Sessions could have a chilling effect on millions of responsible citizens, subjecting them to FBI raids of their homes and businesses, seizure of their property, arrests and prosecutions by the Justice Department for nonviolent drug offenses. And it would also cripple the ability of states to regulate the industry.

Canova's campaign does not take a cent from any corporate interests-- especially not Wasserman Schultz allies in the private prison and pharmaceutical industries. He relies solely on small donations from grassroots supporters. Please click on the ActBlue Green Wave thermometer on the right and help Tim defeat Wasserman Schultz once and for all. "We need," he said, "representatives who will fight for education, jobs, and public health programs as alternatives to the drug trade and prisons. I have opposed the misguided drug war for many years. We should recognize that cannabis has medically therapeutic value and is not harmful to individuals and communities the way that alcohol, nicotine, and opioids are. When elected, I will work to change cannabis from a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance-- the most restrictive category in U.S. drug law. The federal government has a legitimate role to play in preventing criminal enterprises from infiltrating legal markets, including the market for cannabis. But beyond this, we should respect principles of federalism and allow the states to serve as “laboratories of reform” and experiment with their own approaches to medical and recreational cannabis, consistent with the will of the voters and regulating for public health and safety."

By the way, for anyone not following this debate, this is a partial list of the known medical marijuana uses:

  • To relieve pain (and its use is being recommended to doctors in lieu of prescribing opiates)
  • As an appetite stimulant in AIDS and chemotherapy patients
  • To help treat inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis
  • To treat chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting
  • To treat muscle spasticity and pain in multiple sclerosis
  • To reduce the growth of cancers
  • To treat cancer-related pain not managed by other pain medication
  • To treat drug-resistant epilepsy, particularly in children
  • To treat psychiatric disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression, PTSD, substance use disorders, and bipolar disorder)
  • To reduce the symptoms of conditions in the autism spectrum disorder
  • To reduce the side effects of treatment for Hepatitis C (nausea, fatigue, muscle aches, and depression).
  • To reduce the symptoms of autoimmune disease (e.g. Rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, fibromyalgia, Restless Leg Syndrome, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome)
  • To help people get to sleep, get better quality sleep and awaken without a drug hangover

And remember, although marijuana can help relieve the symptoms of many medical conditions and is used as medicine in most states, its use is still prohibited at federal level.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Tops The List Of Congress' Most Corrupt Members

A few days ago, we saw how a Debbie Wasserman Schultz ally at the Broward County board of elections destroyed ballots in the middle of a court case ton determine how many votes Wasserman Schultz stole to "win" the 2016 primary that was likely won by reformer Tim Canova. But even apart from that, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), a conservative watch dog group, just named her the second most corrupt member of Congress. Actually, the list she's on is the Top 5 Worst Ethics Violators of the year.

“FACT addressed a number of ethical violations this year ranging from the misuse of government resources to egregious campaign finance violations,” said Kendra Arnold, FACT’s executive director. “While each violation is different, at the heart of each case is a public official brazenly disregarding our nation’s laws and placing their own political interests above the law and the public good.

  ...First place went to still unknown members of Congress who were helped by $17 million paid out by the Office of Compliance (OOC)’s sexual harassment settlement fund over the last 20 years.

  “While Congress is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), FACT maintains that this is even more reason why releasing this information quickly is important-- not only for the purposes of ensuring transparency in government, but to hold public officials accountable for unethical and criminal behavior,” FACT noted. 

Wasserman Schultz placed second on the list.

  “In July, FACT filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) against Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz for continuing to employ and compensate House IT aide, Imran Awan after he was barred from the House computer system and under criminal investigation. According to FACT’s complaint, Wasserman Schultz refused to remove Awan from House payroll and compensated Awan with taxpayer funds for several months-- even though he was barred from the House computer system which would prevent him from performing any reasonable IT work. In fact, Wasserman Schultz only fired Awan after he was arrested on bank fraud charges attempting to flee the country the morning of July 25, 2017. Wasserman Schultz is in clear violation of House Ethics Rules as members are directly responsible for ensuring their staff are only paid for official public work.”

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust is widely viewed as a Republican Party front group and is rarely right about anything. But they did get #1 and #2 right this year. They have no axe to grind with Wasserman Schultz. The GOP doesn't contest her congressional district, which has a D+11 PVI and which Hillary won 61.9% to 35.8%.

See how fast House Democrats and their leaders moved to railroad John Conyers and Ruben Kihuen out of Congress? A black guy and a Latino guy. Wasserman Schultz's serial corrupt activities aren't serious enough for them? Or is it just that they don't treat a white women the way they can treat men of color? How can the Democratic Party expect anyone to trust them as they cling onto garbage like Wasserman Schultz who, in fact, still harbors delusions about becoming Speaker of the House. If you'd like to help retire her, please consider contributing to Tim Canova's campaign by clicking on the Blue America primary thermometer on the right.

Illegal Ballot Destruction In The Midst Of A Law Suit Means Wasserman Schultz Stole The FL-23 Primary Election Afterall

Donna Edwards became a member of Congress-- one of the best members of Congress-- in 2008. But, truth be told, her constituents elected her in 2006... only to see the victory snatched out of her hands on election night with last minute stuffed ballot boxes from corrupt conservative Al Wynn and his Machine. Donna got to work on the 2008 campaign the next day and after Donna eviscerated him in the primary-- 59% to 37%-- he resigned to become a corporate lobbyist.

Last year Tim Canova ran a similar grassroots progressive race against the female counterpart to Wynn-- Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the same crook who, as DNC chair, was fired for fixing the primaries for Hillary Clinton. She fixed the election for Hillary; did she fix her own election against Canova? He always thought so but the media and DC establishment went bonkers when he mentioned it and nearly drove this good man out of politics with all their vitriol and venom. Polling was showing him ahead but on primary day Wasserman Schultz beat him 28,809 to 21,907 in a very low turnout election.

Friday, Marc Caputo broke the a story at Politico about how Brenda Snipes a crooked Wasserman Schultz crony and ally and the Broward County elections chief broke the law by destroying ballots cast in the tight primary election between Wasserman Schultz and Tim Canova after Canova sued to get access to the ballots. Canova, according to Caputo "wanted to inspect the optical-scan ballots cast in his Aug. 30 primary race against Wasserman Schultz because he had concerns about the integrity of the elections office."

Under longstanding federal law, ballots cast in a congressional race aren’t supposed to be destroyed until 22 months after the election. And under state law, a public record sought in a court case is not supposed to be destroyed without a judge’s order.

Snipes’ office, however, destroyed the paper ballots in question in October-- in the middle of Canova’s lawsuit-- but says it’s lawful because the office made high-quality electronic copies. Canova’s legal team found out after the fact last month.

“The documents were not destroyed because they were maintained in an electronic format,” Snipes’ attorney, Burnadette Norris-Weeks, told Politico. “They have the documents... They did a two-day inspection of the ballots.”

But Canova, a Nova Southeastern University law professor, and his attorney say they wanted originals to make sure they weren’t tampered with. Digital copies can be altered, they said.

Seven election-law lawyers interviewed by Politico do not share Snipes' attorney's interpretation of the statute. Nor does the Department of Justice’s voting division, which is in charge of enforcing the federal law.

“If it’s a federal election, i.e., there is at least one federal candidate on the ballot, the custodian must keep the ballots for 22 months,” Brett Kappel, a Washington lawyer with Akerman LLP, said in an email to Politico. “State law may require a shorter time for retention, but federal law would pre-empt any such state law with regard to ballots cast for federal candidates.”

Kappel said evidence in an active court case should never be unilaterally destroyed. He said actual paper ballots are superior to imaged copies, and he pointed to the legal wrangling over Florida’s now-discarded punch-card ballots that were banned after the disputed 2000 presidential elections in Florida.

...Hans von Spakovsky, an elections expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the ballots must be preserved in paper form for 22 months. He said there’s a simple reason that original ballots are superior to an electronic image: “These electronic systems can be hacked.”

According to Snipes’ office, however, the ballot copies are of high quality for a review. Her attorney also dismissed Canova as a sore loser who’s trying to create a name for himself as he challenges Wasserman Schultz a second time.

“Mr. Canova lost this election,” she said. “He’s been all over Washington and has been trying to do a documentary because he’s upset he lost the election.”

In one hearing, Norris-Weeks insisted that she “certainly could get [a sworn statement] from Debbie Wasserman Schultz” to say that “she knows that they're preparing a documentary, and they're running all around talking to different people trying to do that.”

But Canova said the accusation was false.

“I’m not working on a documentary,” he said. “It is unfortunate that counsel for the Supervisor of Elections has to make things up to somehow justify the office’s illegal actions.”

Wasserman Schultz’s office declined to comment, but she has said she looks forward to again facing Canova, whom she beat by 13.6 percentage points last year.

Canova didn’t want to comment about his specific motivations for the suit, but acknowledged he has concerns about the race against Wasserman Schultz. Canova’s interest in the ballots was piqued by Lulu Friesdat, a documentary filmmaker and activist with a group called the Election Integrity network, which filed the first records request to inspect or copy the ballots in March.

A month later, Snipes’ office responded to the records request by saying it would cost $71,868.87 to sort and produce the ballots for inspection. Canova soon got involved with his attorney, Leonard Collins, and eventually they negotiated a price reduction that brought the cost down to about $3,000. But relations soured, and Canova sued in June.

Snipes’ office, meanwhile, is involved in two other lawsuits and has been plagued by errors and controversies over public records and paperwork.

One of the reasons Donald Trump is in the White House is because the Democratic Party was saddled with a corrupt party head, Wasserman Schultz, whose entire career, going back to her days in the Florida state legislature, have been marked with blatant and persistent corruption. She has long been the poster child of everything plaguing the Democratic Party. She has smeared and slimed Canova non-stop from the moment he dared to challenge here reelection. And now its getting closer and closer to the day when she will be, not just fired as the worst DNC chair in history but fired from Congress itself. Please consider helping Canova's campaign by clicking on the Blue America thermometer on the right. Meanwhile, this was the statement he issued after Caputo's explosive report yesterday:

In ordering the destruction of ballots, the Supervisor not only violated federal law requiring ballots be maintained for 22 months. Snipes also certified that the ballots were not subject to a pending lawsuit, which she knew was a complete falsehood given that Snipes had been personally served as the defendant in our lawsuit nearly three months earlier and even though we had already made public records requests and pre-trial discovery demands to inspect the ballots.

The ballot destruction raises serious questions:  Why engage in this blatant lawbreaking? To cover up something worse? What has the Supervisor of Elections been hiding? We demand state and federal investigations into the ballot destruction and prosecution of illegal wrongdoing.

Destruction of ballots prevents any reliable audit of the election results. We are left dependent on scanned ballot images created and sorted by scanning software that requires inspection by software experts. But the scanning software is considered proprietary software, owned and controlled by the private vendors, and often protected from independent inspection and analysis.

This destruction of ballots undermines people's faith and confidence in the integrity of our elections and this election in particular. To restore confidence, Congress must investigate and hold public hearings on the circumstances of my primary, including inspection and analysis of the scanned ballot images and the scanning software. Congress should also investigate the relationships between the vendors that control the electronic voting machines and software, their officers and directors, the Broward Supervisor of Elections office, Democratic party officials, and candidates for public office.

The Democratic Party will never be a real alternative to the Republican Party nor a welcoming home for good government reformers, with people like Wasserman Schultz exercising leadership roles in it. This person isn't even the lesser of two evils, which is all the Democrats can claim half the time anyway. She is what makes contemporary politics disgusting and she is the embodiment of what keeps decent people from wanting to get involved with politics.

The Most Important Primary Elections Of 2018

The New Dems

If you've been with Blue America for enough years, you'll remember the excruciating battles we backed for Donna Edwards, Beto O'Rourke and Matt Cartwright when they took on corrupt old conservative Democrats in, respectively, Maryland, Texas and Pennsylvania. All three, running as reformers and progressives, prevailed. But there is nothing in politics more difficult, no task more painful-- and few as important-- as taking on an entrenched incumbent of one's own party. Each of those districts was solidly blue and the only possible accountability for bad behavior could come in the form of a primary. No Republican was ever going to beat Al Wynn in Prince George's County (D+28), Sylvestre Reyes in El Paso (D+17) or even Tim Holden in northeast Pennsylvania (D+4).

All three had become untreated cancers on the Democratic Party but the institutional party circled the wagons around each to ward off the reformers. It was very painful for each of them, especially Matt and Donna or who were screamed at and lambasted by the Democratic Party leadership. Pelosi and Hoyer raised money for the incumbents and spread malicious and malevolent lies about the challengers.

Blue America is backing progressives in a dozen primary races, but they're not primaries against incumbents; they're primaries among challengers vying for the nomination to beat a Republican. In an ideal world, every Blue Dog, every New Dem and every unaffiliated conservaDem would have to justify themselves to their voters every two years in issues-based primaries. But this year we've only found 4 so far that we've gotten involved with-- in other words, plausible races against exceptionally bad Democrats by exceptionally good Democrats. These are the four races:

• FL-23, Tim Canova taking on Debbie Wassermann Schultz
• TX-29, Hector Morales taking on Gene Green
• IL-03, Marie Newman taking on Dan Lipinski
• NY-14, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez taking on Joe Crowley

Crowley, perhaps the most overtly corrupt Democrat in Congress, was the head of the Wall Street-owned New Dems before he was tapped by increasingly feeble-minded Pelosi and Hoyer to run the party after they're gone. It's almost impossible to imagine anything worse happening to the Democratic Party. Although... Debbie Wassermann Schultz taking over the party-- once a distinct possibility (she's now more likely to take over a prison block)-- might be worse. Lipinski is just a garden variety Blue Dog: anti-Choice, homophobic, xenophobic, and a pawn of his corporate donors. He's a co-chair of the House Blue Dog caucus and votes far more against crucial progressive legislation with the Republicans than with the Democrats. Gene Green represents an impoverished 77% Hispanic district in East Houston, including some of the most polluted areas of America, polluted, we should note by Green's campaign contributors, whose interests he diligently serves.

Dislodging the Republicans from control of the House is everyone's first priority. Getting rid of corrupt Democrats who make the party less attractive to voters who hate the Republicans and who perpetrate the myth that the Democrats can never be better than the lesser of two evils, should also be a priority. Please consider contributing what you can to the special page Blue America has set up specifically to raise funds for progressive challengers to the worst of the congressional conservaDems. I hope there will be more before the cycle concludes, but this is a pretty impressive group so far. This morning, Marie Newman told us that "More than anything else my hope is for progressive Democrats to restore the Democratic party to be a party of real action and solutions. We need to laser focus on rebuilding the middle class and bring a fair deal to working class workers."

Hector Morales is a school teacher in Houston who thinks it's time to hold Green accountable for the pollution that has been making school children in his district sick year after year. "As we continue to listen to members of our community," he told us, "we have been met with much enthusiasm and encouragement. Many times, we do not physically see Gene Green at events-- but his franking flyers and campaign stickers are always there. At a recent immigration forum, a prominent immigration advocate and lawyer asked us 'what [was] Gene Green doing here? He never shows up to these [types of events].' It is comments like those that continue to drive me to actively approach people and ask for their thoughts on what they consider to be the issues we need to work on. And every single time we hear the same things: the pollution of the refineries in Pasadena, the quality of jobs and schools, and immigration advocacy. Meanwhile, Gene Green touts his Keystone Pipeline support (as one of the few Democrats who sides with Trump and Republicans) which continues to place our district amongst the most polluted in the nation, NRA backed policies which cause tragic events like the ones in Las Vegas and Sandy Hook, and 'support' of medicare for all (but only after we advocated for it and brought it up as a campaign issue). After sitting in Congress for 25 years representing special interests, it is beyond time to replace this corporate shill with someone who will always place the people first and will not make a career out of being a member of Congress. We can and will do better in March when we defeat Gene Green in the Democratic Primary for the 29th Congressional District of Texas."

Upgrading the Democratic Party is as essential as banishing the GOP from control of the House and the Senate. That kind of upgrade would finally help break the cycle in which the voters go back and forth on which party is really the lesser of two evils. [NOTE: We just added another outstanding progressive Democrat to our list of challengers to unworthy conservatives. Wonder who? Click the thermometer above.]