Nancy Jacobson-- One Of DC's Many Faces Of Pure Evil Working Against America

As bad as any Republican-- and more dishonest

A couple off days ago, a fine progressive candidate for Congress was making her pitch as to why Blue America should endorse her and mentioned, proudly, that she had been endorsed by EMILY’s List. I couldn’t resist asking her to read these posts that delve into the heart and soul of EMILY’s List. We don’t hold it against anyone because they’re endorsed by EMILY’s List-- after all, they don’t force candidates to take any abhorrent policy pledges the way the New Dems do-- but an endorsement from EMILY’s List isn’t a plus either. Sam with the so-called End Citizens United PAC, which has nothing to die with ending Citizens United, only draining grassroots contributions towards DCCC and DSCC candidates. Nor do we hold it against candidates who accept the endorsement of the DCCC, although, candidates who do so in the midst of a primary, are doing something fucked up and problematic and ought to not join the DC corruption even before they’re elected. Now, No Labels, fits in as another Blue Dogs or New Dems and an endorsement from that group, would make it impossible for Blue America to raise money for a candidate.

We first became aware of their electoral work in 2016 when they attacked progressive rivals Dena Grayson and Susannah Randolph in Orlando on behalf of conservative NRA-ally Darren Soto.

Friday, writing for The Intercept, Zaid Jilani and Ryan Grim, went a long way towards explaining why, noting how they had backed Lipinski because progressive challenger, Marie Newman, is a Bernie supporter. And they found the proof.

Noting that Lipinksi is among “the most conservative Democrats in the House, with his opposition to legal abortion and hostility toward marriage equality and immigration rights,” he had gained a lot of valuable ($1 million worth of) support from No Labels, a group largely financed by a handful of wealthy conservatives-- “Jerry Reinsdorf, the chair of the Chicago White Sox and Bulls, and a longtime friend of Lipinski’s father; Daniel Tierney of Wicklow Capital; Bud Selig, the former Major League Baseball Commissioner; and New Yorker Michael Sonnenfeldt of TIGER 21.” This is one of the false, ugly, distorted attack ads that No Labels, led by right-wing troll Nancy Jacobson, one of the most vile and destructive political operatives in Washington, blanketed the district with in the weeks before the election on behalf of Lipinski:

By spending so heavily to back the anti-LGBT Lipinski, No Labels crossed the line with some Democrats who were otherwise inclined to support the group, according to emails between the group’s founder and CEO Nancy Jacobson and two separate members of the group’s email distribution list. The list members wrote in their objections to Jacobson, who explained her rationale in exchanges that were subsequently obtained by The Intercept. (Asked to comment on one of the email exchanges, Jacobson told The Intercept, “This was a private email exchange with someone who is not a no labels supporter/backer-- fortunately there are tens of millions of people across this country who are and understand the importance of our work.” A spokesperson for No Labels declined to comment on the rest of the exchanges reported on for this story.)

“Nancy,” wrote one critic to Jacobson, “I have admired what you were trying to do with NoLabels, but I think you made a big mistake in supporting Dan Lipinski.  Either you don’t fully appreciate how bad Dan is or you have decided to compromise too many Democratic values in the interest of compromise. I am fiscally responsible and socially liberal but I refuse to compromise on civil rights.”

A second No Labels list member wrote to Jacobson with a similar criticism. “Rather than pushing the Democratic party to appeal to a larger slice of America, you are in essence trying to create your own political party that includes people who don’t support [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that shielded 800,000 immigrants from deportation], don’t support [the Affordable Care Act], don’t support a woman’s right to choose and don’t value LGBTQ rights,” the No Labels critic wrote to Jacobson. “One would wonder is there any issue too offensive that you would not welcome someone in your big tent? Would you welcome Jeanne Ives to your tent? What boundary do you draw that says someone is not a ‘problem solver’?” (Ives nearly won the GOP nomination for the 2018 Illinois governor’s race on a platform of extreme opposition to legal abortion.)

Jacobson replied with her reasoning for the group’s intervention, explaining that part of the opposition to Newman was related to her endorsement by Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont. “I see a whole new crop of Democratic challengers-- like Marie Newman-- who see Bernie-- WHO IS NOT EVEN A DEMOCRAT-- as a model worthy of emulation,” Jacobson wrote, all-caps in the original, denigrating Sanders for not labeling himself a Democrat. “But I don’t think we need more people in Congress on either side who rile up their bases and then actually achieve nothing.”

…While the primary showed No Labels’s ability to raise funds, however, the scathing criticisms revealed that there was a cost to be paid for stepping on some Democrats’ third rails-- and that the arguments the group uses to gloss over its candidates’ anti-LGBT and anti-choice views might not pass muster with even centrist liberals.

In her emails, Jacobson argued that Lipinski’s “private beliefs” on social issues should be set aside in pursuit of a more important consensus around opposition to Sanders on the one side and the tea party on the other:

I am very saddened that you feel this way about No Labels’ work in this race. I understand and respect your passion on LGBT issues. And I don’t happen to have the same view as Rep. Lipinski on LGBT or other social issues. But I don’t believe the greatest threat facing America is Dan Lipinski’s private beliefs on social issues-- even if you or I might find those issues very important. I believe the greatest threat to our country is the growing intolerance in each of our parties, and the belief that our political opponents are not just wrong, but evil and treasonous. This is the brand of politics being espoused by Dan Lipinski’s opponent, Marie Newman, who was just endorsed by Bernie Sanders. I know people on the left see Bernie as a hero. But what I see is someone who has been in the House and Senate for almost 30 years and has almost no legislative record whatsoever because he has no interest at all in doing the hard work of governing.

(Between 1995 and 2007, when House Republicans controlled Congress, then-congressional representative Sanders passed more roll call amendments than any other member of Congress.)

Jacobson said she worried that a Lipinski loss could set off a domino effect that could lead to other incumbents being knocked out as well. “If Dan Lipinski loses, I am certain it will embolden the far left to try to knock out every last moderate and independent thinking Democrat left in Congress,” she wrote. “They are in effect, trying to do what the Tea Party has done to the Republicans over several elections. I think this would be a disaster.”

As former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau pointed out on Twitter, the incumbent congressional representative’s right-wing positions are not necessarily “far left,” but rather at odds with the values cherished by the modern-day Democratic Party, and he champions them in a solidly Democratic district:

Jacobson, though, sees politics through a very different lens. A creature of the centrist upsurge within the Democratic Party in the 1980s and 1990s, she was introduced by former Senator and Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh to her now-husband, Democratic pollster Mark Penn, at a Democratic Leadership Council event. The DLC effectively acted as a counterweight to the progressive wing of the party, which centrists blamed for losses in the 1980s.

In response to the critic who argued that the Democratic Party should “appeal to a larger slice of America,” Jacobson reached back 30 years to make the case for her more conservative political approach. “Those of us that launched Bill Clintons first campaign will have to eventually find another big tent dem to ultimately save the party like we did in the early 90’s,” she wrote.

But dialogue, apparently, can only go so far. Jacobson solved her own problem with her disgruntled interlocutors by booting them from the No Labels email list. “The center must survive and to do so it needs a big tent,” she wrote to one. “It must be time to remove you from our list as we must diverge at this point.”

Problem Solvers Caucus Has Never Solved A Problem; They're Paid By Conservative Billionaires To Make Problems For Progressives

Jacobson & Penn: Murdoch pays they to undermine the Democratic Party

You've heard the term "Fox Democrat," right? Mark Penn is the prototype. Politically he's another Bill and Hillary Clinton-Tony Blair fox in the henhouse shitbag always working to pull the Democratic Party rightward-- for which he gets paid-- and handsomely so-- by wealthy conservatives. If anything, his wife, Nancy Jacobson-- a professional fundraiser-- is even worse. They are the couple from hell behind the corporately-funded No Labels cabals. Their web of dark money PACs and SuperPACs finance the Republican wing of the Democratic Party with money from-- for example-- Republican billionaires like the Murdoch family. And they make their living by taking a cut from every penny that comes in. And Penn's poison has spread all over the world-- supporting center-right candidates from Menachem Begin in Israel, Carlos Andrés Pérez (El Gocho) in Venezuela and Belisario Betancur in Colombia to Tony Blair, Ed Koch and, of course, the Clintons.

In the past cycle, Penn and the Mrs. were behind the sewer money-- from charter school fanatics, hedge fund managers and GOP financiers-- that flooded into Democrat primaries against Marie Newman in Chicago, Alan Grayson in Orlando, Deb Haaland in Albuquerque, Matt Heinz in Tucson and Susan Wild in the Philly suburbs. They are behind shady conservative PACs like United for Progress, United Together, Forward Not Back, Progress Tomorrow, Patriotic Americans PAC, Citizens for a Strong America, etc, entirely funded by contributions from 5 and 6-figure right wing donors, such as Rupert Murdoch, his son James Murdoch, Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan Selig and Wheels Inc. executive Jim Frank and like-minded sleaze bags trying to turn the Democratic Party into another corporately-owned arm of Wall Street, just like the GOP.

This week, Sam Stein, writing for the Daily Beast, reported that it is the No Labels operation behind the Moulton coup plot against Pelosi. That should come as no surprise to anyone who follows DWT, even if the mainstream media hasn't caught on yet. Unfortunately, Stein's readers will all be confused because he mistakenly refers to the conservative conspiracy as "moderates," which is absolutely NOT what they are. Stein should know better.

Internal communications reviewed by the Daily Beast show that early this year the group No Labels, a centrist [he means right-of-center] advocacy organization, contemplated a plan to kneecap Pelosi’s political standing. In one exchange, a top official with the group even laid out the pros and cons of turning the California Democrat into a “bogeyman.”

That was well before Democrats took back the House of Representatives. In the weeks since they reclaimed congressional power, Pelosi has sought to earn back the Speaker’s gavel. And though the vast majority of her caucus supports her bid, moderate [he means right-of center] Democrats allied with No Labels remain some of the few party members refusing to give her their votes absent concessions from Pelosi and her team.

No Labels has publicly couched its efforts in conciliatory language, posting items on its website that subtly nudge other Democrats towards a Pelosi challenge, or that gently suggest it might be time for a leadership change. The group also wants Pelosi to commit to weakening the power of party leaders and committee chairs, among other measures that it says will empower rank and file members and reduce gridlock.

Behind the scenes, No Labels and its leader, political strategist Nancy Jacobson, have been more skeptical of Pelosi and more willing to try and marginalize her among her members.

Rupert

Emails obtained by the Daily Beast show that No Labels leadership contemplated a campaign to attack Pelosi aggressively after the primary campaign of centrist Rep. Dan Lipinski, who faced a primary challenge this year from Marie Newman, a progressive political neophyte. Lipinski’s pro-life stance had alienated a number of Democrats, but he was a proud member of the No Labels-backed House Problem-Solvers Caucus, and the group worked through a network of allied super PACs to support his reelection bid.

“Nancy, I have been thinking about our using Pelosi as the chief bogeyman in our messaging post-Lipinski,” began one email, subject line: “Pelosi as bogeyman.”

Pelosi had endorsed Lipinski. But No Labels leadership was convinced that her support was a fig leaf. Jacobson, according to a source familiar with the group’s internal deliberations, was convinced that Pelosi had secretly tried to scuttle the congressman’s reelection and proposed publicly attacking the Democratic leader in the run-up to the midterms.

“We were trying to figure out, assuming we got a positive result [in the Lipinski race], which we did, what would be the comms strategy afterwards,” said the source. “Nancy Jacobson’s immediate answer was, ‘I want to make Pelosi the bogeyman.’ She wanted to make it all about Nancy Pelosi and how she was going after incumbent Dems. None of that was true.”

According to the emails, No Labels chief strategist Ryan Clancy appears to have tried to talk Jacobson down. A direct confrontation with Pelosi would blow back on the group’s congressional allies, he explained. It would also be unprecedented; No Labels had never engaged in similar campaigns against congressional leaders of either party. Clancy instead proposed to make Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) the object of the group’s criticism. Unlike Pelosi, Sanders had actually endorsed Newman; had no procedural power to wield against members of the Problem-Solvers Caucus; and wasn’t even a Democrat.

“This is us, in effect, declaring war on Pelosi,” Clancy warned. “No Labels has never identified a party leader as ‘the enemy’ before. We didn’t do it with Obama or Trump. We haven’t done it with Schumer, Ryan, or McConnell. If we do this, we should consider some very real downsides.”

At the end of his memo, Clancy conceded that, “at some point,” No Labels “is probably going to go to war with Pelosi. And it probably should.” But “I don’t know that now is the time to do it, especially when we have a perfectly good villain to use in Bernie.”

No Labels has worked diligently alongside the Republican Party to diminish and demonize both Pelosi and Bernie. That's what they do; that's who they are-- the heart and soul of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. That's why it sickened me to see the DCCC and other Democratic groups spending tens of millions of dollars to recruiting the elect conservative shitbags like Ben McAdams (UT), Abigail Spanberger (VA), Anthony Brindisi (NY), Jeff Van Drew (NJ), Max Rose (NY), Mikie Sherrill (NJ), Xochitl Small (NM), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Chrissy Houlahan (PA), Jason Crow (CO), etc.

This year, No Labels spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from GOP contributors who wanted to make sure there was a pliable conservative represneting Orlando, not Alan Grayson. The vicious, non-stop attacks against Grayson that Jacobson orchestrated were meant to help Darren Soto, a conservative backbencher who regularly sells his votes. But, according to leaked internal communications that Edward-Isaac Dovere published at The Atlantic yesterday, Jacobson had soured on him and wanted to destroy him-- and other conservative Democrats who didn't live up to her nefarious expectations.

“So Soto is now asst whip …” Jacobson wrote in an internal email on January 17. Margaret White, a senior adviser, responded: “And he is boycotting the inauguration …”

“Not a promising early development,” Clancy chimed in.

Less than an hour later, Jacobson wrote back, posing a question: “Do we ever take on someone we helped …?”

The conversation appears to have faded after that, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Jacobson on Monday initially responded to questions from The Atlantic by saying the group had never considered challenging Soto. “We supported Darren Soto. Heavily. Both his elections. 2016 and 2018. Over 1.5 million total,” she wrote in an email.

When presented with what she had previously written to her staff about him, she responded, “As a group we support people who are willing to work across the aisle to solve problems and don’t support people who put partisanship above progress. As a consequence-- we consider lots of options and ideas and we always hold true to our central values of promoting bi-partisan solutions to our nation’s problems.”

...No Labels looked into taking out another Democrat almost a year later. In December 2017, Jacobson sent an email to advisers and people in New Hampshire with the subject line “advice asap” in search of how to respond to Annie Kuster, a Democratic congresswoman, with whom she had just had a call asking her to rejoin the Problem Solvers Caucus.

“It did NOT go well. She ended up hanging up on me … She told me our group was offensive … She told me we had accomplished nothing and that she was the true bipartisan,” Jacobson wrote, calling herself “shaken up by her aggressive and hostile actions and speech.” She then asked for help on the ground to mount a campaign against Kuster. In follow-up emails to people in New Hampshire, Jacobson asked about potential primary challengers, including Dick Swett, a former representative and ambassador, and Steve Marchand, who was running in the gubernatorial primary by talking up his 2016 support for Bernie Sanders.

Upon being told they were weak, Jacobson asked about Republicans and asked for contact information for one of the candidates running. “What are the political facts about her district?” Jacobson asked in one email in December 2017. “Why are there no republican challengers?” she asked in another. She also reached out directly to Swett to ask him about running.

On Monday, Jacobson said, “We support members of Congress who truly want to reach across the aisle to solve problems. We have a strong citizen group in New Hampshire that is very disappointed in Congresswoman Kuster and her disdain for our mission.”

At the same time Stein and Dovere were publishing their pieces, Stein's old comrade in arms, Ryan Grim, put up a related blockbuster at The Intercept: Who's The Mystery Man Behind The Latest Pelosi Putsch? It's Mark Penn. Grim's right on target: "a small group of billionaire-backed Democrats, part of the so-called Problem Solvers Caucus in Congress, has launched a last-ditch effort that threatens to derail Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s election as House speaker. They’ve framed their challenge to Pelosi, a California Democrat, in terms of good government and high-minded bipartisanship. Yet the force behind their campaign is one of the most toxic and notorious partisan warriors the Democratic Party has produced in the past three decades: political and corporate consultant Mark Penn." No bullshit about "moderates," especially not when he introduced Penn-protégé and Wall Street whore-- founder of the Problem Makers Caucus-- Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ).

The links between Gottheimer and Penn go back decades. Gottheimer was Penn’s assistant in the Bill Clinton White House in the 1990s. Then in 2006, when Penn was CEO of the consulting firm Burson-Marsteller, he hired Gottheimer as an executive vice president, with Gottheimer reporting directly to him. When Penn became chief strategist of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, he brought on Gottheimer as an adviser. In 2012, Penn set up shop at Microsoft, where he built a guerrilla PR operation to do battle in Washington with rival Google. There, too, he brought on Gottheimer.

Gottheimer had the full-throated support of both Bill and Hillary Clinton when he ran for Congress in 2016, with Hillary Clinton calling him “something of a family member.”

No Labels launched what it called “The Speaker Project” in this past June, proposing a sweeping set of rules changes that lawmakers should demand before agreeing to elect the next speaker, which by then was presumed to be a Democrat. The next month, the Problem Solvers Caucus embraced the plan. In September, Penn went on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News to talk up the project. “There’s a problem-solvers group that is looking to have some influence if the result is close, in terms of changing the rules and naming the speaker,” Penn said.

A lawsuit this summer by former No Labels contractors who alleged that they were bilked by the group claimed that Penn was was “calling the shots” at the organization. Penn, according to the Washington Post, has denied involvement with the operation of No Labels, and the group rejected the assertion that he was in charge. Neither No Labels nor Penn responded to The Intercept’s questions about Penn’s relationship with the group.

But aside from the claims of the contractors, there are also direct links between groups Penn owns and No Labels’s political activity. Penn is a minority owner of the consulting firm Targeted Victory, which the group contracted with for some of its 2018 campaigns. No Labels uses an affiliate, Victory Passport, for its online fundraising. Penn’s firm Harris Interactive does the group’s polling; SKDKnickerbocker, of which Penn is an owner, produces and places the group’s television ads, as it did in its campaign to support the re-election of Rep. Daniel Lipinski in Illinois, according to the lawsuit. Hilary Rosen, an SKDK partner, said that the firm does not produce ads for No Labels.

The New Center, a think tank launched by No Labels to house its 501c3 nonprofit operation, listed Mark Penn as a contact for inquiries about its invitation-only “ideas summit.” Penn is managing partner and president of the Stagwell Group, the holding company that owns SKDKnickerbocker. Penn regularly talks up the great work of No Labels during his appearances on Fox News.

...Penn is notorious in Washington as the metaphorical devil on the shoulder, whispering toxic advice into the ears of Democratic candidates. Penn and Jacobson were both early players in the Democratic Leadership Council, a faction that emerged within the party in the 1980s to push it to align with corporate money and to move in a more conservative direction. He’s perhaps most well known for urging his client, Hillary Clinton, to attack Barack Obama as un-American during the 2008 presidential primary.

In a now-famous 2007 memo to Clinton, Penn noted that there had been much coverage in the media of Obama’s “boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii… geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light. Save it for 2050.”

In other words, Penn argued, an appeal to diversity wouldn’t work politically for another half-century. “I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values,” he wrote.

How Penn planned to isolate Obama’s alleged otherness is a window into how he views the kind of glossy, good government rhetoric now deployed by No Labels-- its meaning is found less in what it says than in what it doesn’t. He advised Clinton that “we give some life to this contrast without turning negative” by elevating the values she grew up with as uniquely American. “Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century.”

That, Penn argued, would make an implicit contrast with Obama, who allegedly lacked those values-- “fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back”-- due to his lack of American roots. “Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. Make this the new American Century, the American Strategic Energy fund. Let’s use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let’s add flag symbols to the backgrounds,” he advised. “We are never going to say anything about his background-- we have to show the value of ours when it comes to making decisions, understanding the needs of most Americans-- the invisible Americans.”

Clinton, clumsy in her rhetoric, would occasionally make the subtext into text. In a 2008 speech in West Virginia after she beat Obama in Indiana, she said, “Senator Obama’s support among working-- hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again.” (Obama went on to win Indiana in the general election.)

A more effective dog-whistler, in the 2016 campaign, would boil the Penn approach down to just four words: “Make America Great Again.” Donald Trump was named by No Labels in 2016 as an official “Problem Solver.”

A Trump surrogate accepted the award, even though two months earlier, Trump had spoken at a No Labels conference and delivered a speech larded with Trumpisms. (Since his 2017 swearing in, Gottheimer, the Problem Solvers Caucus chair, has voted with Trump more than half the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.)

Here's a real problem that needs solving-- and urgently. Don't be surprised that not one so-called Problem Solver has signed on-- and no one supported by No Labels of course. It wouldn't surprise me if we get a Republican signed on before a "problem solver."

How Establishment/Corporate Politics Are Played Today

Career of Evil

Bill Clinton was only allotted 5 minutes to speak last night-- and not in prime time. The NY Times called it a "blink-and-you’ll-miss-him moment before a party that once revered him" and noted that that "is testimony to how his influence has faded... [and] of the baggage he carries with the re-examination of allegations of sexual assault and harassment over his years in public life in the wake of the #MeToo movement."

Even in John Harris' Politico opus yesterday-- The Bill Clinton Comeback is Coming Soon-- he immediately made sure his readers understood that Clinton's Republican-lite "centrism" isn't what he's talking about, and that it's just his way of making an argument that deserves a revival." Whew. Clinton's "brand of centrism," wrote Harris, "is seen as too compromising, and his private life and disreputable personal associations too compromised." Harris, a New Dem type centrist like Clinton, tries excusing his fear-based-- he was kicked out as Arkansas governor for being a liberal-- conservativism to make the case that he deserves a revival. He doesn't.

This morning I found a 44 page document, a complaint in the New York State Supreme Court pitting Rimylan Enterprises, LLC, Project Applecart, LLC, Tormima, LLC and Minino Productions against Clinton administration scumbags Mark Penn and Nancy Jacobson, two of the worst characters-- a husband and wife team-- in American politics. I spent a lot of time and energy in 2018 and 2019 explaining how their malignant operations against progressives were especially detrimental to Marie Newman in Illinois, Dena and Alan Grayson in Florida and Matt Heinz in Arizona. The lawsuit is against their crooked front operations: "No Labels, Inc. , Forward Not Back, Inc, United For Progress, Inc. United Together, Inc., Citizens For A Strong America, Inc., Govern or Go Home, Inc., Americans Committed For Progress, Inc., Citizens for America, Inc., Progress Together, Inc., Patriotic Americans PAC, Inc., No Labels Action, Inc., and Progress Tomorrow, Inc., as well as Nancy Jacobson personally. The suit claims Rimylan is owed $3,708,214.26 by Jacobson and her nefarious entities. Rimylan wants the $3.7 they're owed plus about a million in damages plus another $3.7 million from Jacobson personally "for fraudulent inducement on the ground that she omitted to tell Rimylan that No Labels did not intend to be bound" by the contract.

Applecart is the trade name for Rimylan, Tormima, and Minino and it is a technology company that provides political data and analytic services. You know what Brad Pascale did for Trump-- the tsunamis of micro-targeted ads? That's what Matthew Kalmans and Sacha Samotin, co-founders of Applecart, do for candidates. Last year Applecart hired a new president, Democratic operative Joe Shafer, who was the head of the Democratic Governors Association’s (DGA) independent expenditure arm, and has begun an association with Rahm Emanuel's brother Ari. The Kalmans and Samotin big idea-- the "Social Graph"-- "uses a combination of human and artificial intelligence to mine publicly available data to identify online and offline social relationships between Americans. In the time since, Applecart has since mapped over 17 billion relationships between more than 250 million Americans and has been deployed as the analytics engine behind the highest stakes advertising campaigns of major politicians, corporations, and advocacy groups." One of their most successful campaigns was Conor Lamb's first congressional run.

Applecart, which had been working for John Kasich was introduced to Jacobson by former Utah Governor and former Applecart client John Huntsman, who was also one of No Label's "Honorary Co-Chairmen."

The suit says that "In October 2015, Kalmans and Samotin proposed to Jacobson that No Labels hire Applecart to demonstrate the impact of their strategy for supporting moderate [meaning conservative] candidates in congressional primaries in two such races, one Republican and one Democrat. In May 2016 Jacobson agreed to this proposal and selected two of several races proposed by Applecart. One, to support moderate Roger Marshall against three-term incumbent Freedom Caucus leader Tim Huelskamp in the Republican primary election in the First Congressional District of Kansas. The other, to support moderate Darren Soto to succeed far-left incumbent Alan Grayson in the Democratic primary in the Ninth Congressional District in Florida. No Labels formed two super PACs to support the elections of Marshall and Soto: Strong Leadership for America ('SLA') and Concerned Citizens for America’s Future ('CCAF'). No Labels established the super PACs because it, as a 501(c)(4) organization, is subject to limits on how much of its budget can be spent on political activities. No Labels also established the super PACs so that their work on behalf of Marshall and Soto would not be tied to No Labels, a bipartisan organization, because such an association was thought likely to be unhelpful in a partisan primary election. No Labels established separate super PACs for Marshall and Soto so that the work of one, on behalf of a Republican, would not be tied to the work of the other, on behalf of a Democrat."

The 44 pages are fascinating-- at least to me-- but what I really want to talk about how how a significant portion how U.S. politics has now come down to laundering money from vain billionaires-- Penn and Jacobson's specialty-- and laundering it into campaigns against progressives through an aggressive campaign of libel and slander while pocketing as much as the vain billionaires are unaware of. In this particular case, the vain billionaire/patsy was Nelson Peltz (chairman of Wendy's), who gives humongous amounts of money to conservative operations-- both the GOP's and Penn's and Jacobson's.

So basically it comes down to a small gaggle of manipulative vultures like Jacobson and Penn enriching themselves by sucking up to virulently anti-progressive billionaires like Peltz so that they can destroy the champions of the working class-- only and always-- in order to do well for themselves while... well, how else to say it: doing evil. This is the dark corruption that pervades American politics.

In 2018 Jacobson failed in her efforts to defeat now-Congresswoman Deb Haaland (D-NM) and this year all those millions she spent against Marie Newman went up in smoke as Newman beat reactionary Blue Dog Dan Lipinski. And, like I said... Bill Clinton was not allowed to address the Democratic convention in prime time.

A member of Congress who I asked about No Labels unethical and probably criminal activities turned me on to some Ryan Grim and Rachel Cohen work looking into No Labels funny business back in December, pointing out the built in conflicts of interest that should have long ago landed Penn, Jacobson and their board members in prison. For example, in late March of 2018, the reporters found an email in which "a representative for a No Labels donor expressed concern over the organization having 'perceived or potential' conflicts of interest. They urged Jacobson to disclose potential conflicts to the No Labels governing board. 'We believe that all Governing Board members need to be aware of the situation in order to prevent any misunderstanding and confusion going forward,' they wrote."

And all we need to do is elect reformers to change this-- not defenders of the status quo like Biden, who makes excuses for lobbyists and crooked operatives, every member of his family being one. Instead we wind up with a classic lesser of two evils "choice" between an outright fascist who is an undeniable existential threat to democracy and the integrity of our nation or a feeble, status quo nothing. Last night, AOC reminded us what could have been (if not for Obama's orchestration of the neoliberal forces against it):

Nancy Jacobson: Career Of Evil

Nancy Jacobson-- it doesn't get worse in US politics

Marie Newman was on schedule to defeat anti-Choice, anti-gay, corrupt Blue Dog Dan Lipinski in Chicago in the March 20 Democratic primary. Marie had galvanized progressives locally and nationally and raised almost $1.5 million, more than the reactionary, Machine-backed incumbent. Suddenly a Republican virulently anti-Choice 501C, the Susan B. Anthony List jumped in with over $100,000 in anti-Newman ads. No one can remember them ever spending money on behalf of a Democrat before. This cycle, they spent $1,032,404 on campaigns and the only money they spent to help a Democrat went to Lipinski. But they weren't the only group funneling Republican money into Lipinski's campaign in a deep blue (D+6) district. A network of SuperPACs funded by GOP billionaires and directed by two of the most venal characters in Democratic politics, Nancy Jacobson and her repulsive husband, Mark Penn from the Clinton/Fox wing of the Democratic Party, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars smearing Newman on behalf of Lipinski. He pulled out a last minute win:

Blue America and other progressive groups have been urging her to give it another try in 2020. There is far more awareness of who Jacobson and Penn are and what their dark money No Labels organization is up to. Last March basically no one was calling them out but DWT; today the growing awareness precludes them launching any more sneak attacks on progressive Democrats. Yesterday, Sam Stein and Lachian Markay, reporting for the Daily Beast blew their cover for the widest audience yet-- How No Labels Went From Preaching Unity to Practicing the Dark Arts. "No Labels," wrote Stein and Markay, "took the unconventional position that Democrats were to blame for not being more willing to work with Republicans in the destruction of their party’s signature piece of modern legislation (the Affordable Care Act)... The group, which was founded as a champion of political bipartisanship, has been quietly courting donations from some of the most notoriously partisan money men and women in politics." [NOTE: congratulations to Sam Stein for not referring to Jacobson and her corrupt, right-of-center candidates as "moderates."]

According to internal documents obtained by The Daily Beast, No Labels encouraged financiers known for backing hyperpartisan causes to back its own super PACs. Among those courted were individuals who’ve bankrolled massive parts of the Republican Party’s infrastructure, including David Koch, former AIG head Hank Greenberg, and billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Singer; as well as top supporters of President Donald Trump, including PayPal founder Peter Thiel, businessman Foster Friess, and Home Depot founder Ken Langone. No Labels also courted liberal-minded moneymen, including Michael Vachon, a top political adviser to George Soros (one of the biggest funders of Democratic and progressive causes) and Reid Hoffman, an investor and entrepreneur who has called Trump “worse than useless.” The group also targeted Wendi Murdoch (ex-wife of Rupert and rumored Ivanka Trump pal), uber-agent Ari Emanuel, and Dallas Mavericks owner and oft-rumored presidential aspirant Mark Cuban. Another possible 2020 candidate, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was also among dozens of high net-worth individuals approached about donating to No Labels’ super PACs.

Most of those targeted for financial support didn’t end up donating to No Labels super PACs. But some notable names did, including former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who was encouraged to donate by former Democrat-turned-independent Senator Joe Lieberman, according to internal records.

The attempt to recruit these financiers was, according to sources, part of a concerted effort by No Labels to steer emphasis away from its nonprofit arm and toward campaign operations designed to boost preferred political candidates and target those deemed too extreme or impediments to its policy agenda.

By the end of the 2018 cycle, six No Labels-affiliated super PACs-- No Labels Action, Forward Not Back, United Together, Govern or Go Home, Citizens for a Strong America, and United for Progress-- had collectively raised more than $11 million from 53 individual donors. The average contribution to the groups was about $124,000, illustrating their reliance on high-dollar donors rather than grassroots financial support.

To court those deep-pocketed donors, No Labels leaned on individuals with ties to other prominent potential givers. The group appears to have sought support from Mitt Romney, the former Republican presidential candidate who was just elected to the U.S. Senate, though it’s unclear whether it hoped that support would be financial, political, or both. In internal company notes, No Labels proposed having Lieberman contact Brad Bloom-- the leader of the private-equity firm Berkshire Partners and a high-dollar donor to a pro-Romney super PAC in 2012-- “to discuss Mitt” and arrange a meeting with other potential supporters in Boston. Internal documents also note that another super PAC donor prospect, financier David Nierenberg, is a “close friend of Mitt Romney.”

As it privately sought more money for its campaign activities, No Labels also grew more outwardly political. In early 2016, as the presidential primaries raged, No Labels hosted an event in New Hampshire, in which it applauded six candidates for taking its “Problem Solver Promise.” Individuals inside the group were rankled that Donald Trump was among those afforded the distinction. They also were disturbed by the price-tag of the event, which Jacobson confirmed was more than $1 million.

Jacobson-- like her disgusting husband-- is a money-hungry crook and rip-off artist who steals every cent she can get her grubby paws on. She is notorious for ripping off her donors. Jacobson and Penn are considered the two most personally dishonest-- and sestructive-- characters in the contemporary political landscape. Everything they do is to line their own pockets.

“The more one looks under the rock, the more one turns over that rock, it is not an attractive picture. It is a big fundraising operation run with limited results,” said one former No Labels official. “You go in first, there are donors, they’re having discussions and you think it’s healthy. And then you’re in it for a few months and you wonder, what are we doing?”

The overtly political approach has also landed No Labels in legal drama. The group is being sued by the firm Applecart, formerly one of its top political consultants, which has accused No Labels of not paying them for millions of dollars of work and of firing them in favor of consultants with personal ties to Jacobson. No Labels alleges Applecart’s performance was error-filled and ineffective and in an emailed statement, Dan Webb, counsel for No Labels’ political groups, blamed Applecart for the leaks of internal documents.

“No Labels is currently in litigation with Applecart, which limits what we can say at this time,” Webb wrote. “Having botched their work for the PACs, Applecart has chosen to sue their political clients and now, apparently, to leak emails and other confidential information in an effort to harm the PACs and No Labels.”

A spokesperson for Applecart declined to comment, but did direct The Daily Beast to a glowing testimonial that Jacobson had previously given for its website.

At the center of No Labels and its evolution is Jacobson. The group’s founder and president is one of the most plugged-in behind-the-scenes operators in all of Washington. At 56 years old, she has been in Democratic politics for decades, working for, among others, Gary Hart and Bill Clinton. Along the way, she served as the Democratic National Committee finance director, where she made a host of connections that would prove advantageous in years to come.

“As a female, it was a way to get a seat at the table,” she said of her time as a Democratic fundraiser.

' A proud, self-professed centrist, she said she felt disillusioned with the bitterness of politics when her last and closest boss, former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), chose to leave office. “This process wore him down,” she recalled. So Jacobson set out to tone down the rancor.

In December 2010, Jacobson launched No Labels. The defining purpose was to “advocate & educate for greater bipartisan cooperation throughout all levels of government.” Though the launch event featured citizens from all 50 states, the concept was also catnip for the wealthy, who tend to see two solutions to every thorny problem: stoic leadership and gobs of money.

...The group also enlisted some of its top supporters to try to court high net-worth individuals on its behalf. Lieberman and Bayh have been integral to those efforts, personally soliciting donors on phone calls and in meetings. And they’ve been remarkably successful. According to internal documents obtained by the Daily Beast, some of the most prominent executives from Fortune 500 companies and leading financial-services firms have contributed to No Labels’ 501(c)(4) dark-money group and its affiliated 501(c)(3) charitable arm. They include:

• Josh Bekenstein, CEO of Bain Capital, who gave $250,000 in 2015.
• John Douglas Arnold, head of Centaurus Advisors, LLC, who gave $200,000 in 2017.
• John Catsimatidis, president, chairman, and CEO of Gristedes Foods, who gave $100,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Douglas Durst, ‎president of the Durst Organization, who gave $10,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Carl Ferenbach, co-founder of Berkshire Partners LLC, who gave $20,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Former Rep. James Charles “Jim” Greenwood (R-PA), who gave $15,000 in 2016.
• Kerry Healey, former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, who have $25,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• George Hume, president and chief executive of Basic American Foods, who gave $25,000 in 2017.
• Ted Kellner, a Milwaukee business executive, who gave $20,000 in 2017.
• Franklin Pitch Johnson, Silicon Valley venture-capital pioneer, who gave $25,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Howard Marks, co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, who gave $125,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Nelson Peltz, founding partner of Trian Fund Management, who gave $500,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Marc J. Rowan, co-founder of the private-equity firm Apollo Global Management, who gave $150,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Andrew Tisch, co-chair of Loews Corporation, who gave $62,500 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”
• Christy Ruth Walton, a Walmart heiress, who gave $25,000 in 2017.
• Eric Zinterhofer, founding partner of Searchlight Capital Partners, who gave $50,000 in 2016 and was labeled a “reoccuring donor.”

All told, the document revealed that donors had pledged to give $4,792,000 to No Labels non-profit arm in 2017. The source who provided these documents asked that they not be published in full so as to not reveal their origins. Metadata confirms that they were company documents, as they were last edited in March 2017 by No Labels Chief of Staff Sasha Borowsky.

While Lieberman and Bayh’s association with the group, and the impression that it’s backed by some of the biggest names in finance, has given No Labels a stately reputation, behind the scenes, numerous ex-officials say the organization more closely resembles a disorganized campaign apparatus.

Ex-aides said there is incredibly high turnover. And according to one former staffer, No Labels executives would ask employees to write positive reviews on the job-posting and workplace review site Glassdoor to counteract the more numerous bad ones. Asked if that was the case, Jacobson simply shrugged and casually said, “yeah.”

There have also been internal disagreements over the organizational mission. In one March 2018 email, Ryan Clancy, the group’s top strategist, expressed fears to Jacobson that Pelosi would advise her caucus to shut out No Labels if they went after her. She could, Clancy wrote, “go all Harry Reid on us.”

The reference was to an episode that remains part of internal No Labels lore. During the 2014 cycle, the group endorsed Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO) in his challenge to Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), after the congressman embraced their “Problem Solver” label and Udall declined to do so. Then-Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was furious and, according to his former communications director Adam Jentleson, leaned on his members to dissociate themselves from the group. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) subsequently did, noting in part that Udall’s record was strong on bipartisanship.

“It seemed like they wanted to flex, to say if you’re not willing to be a ‘problem solver’ they might throw you under the bus,” said a source who previously worked for a member of the No Labels’ Problem Solver caucus. “The message was that all the bipartisanship didn’t count if you didn’t accept their branding.”

But instead of tamping down the politics after that 2014 episode, the group picked it up. And some officials say it has coincided with a larger role for Penn.

Best known for his work for both the Bill and Hillary Clinton presidential campaigns, Penn’s reputation is that of a numbers-crunching centrist who championed the concept of “micro-targeting” voters by their commercial, cultural, and political interests. His firm advised numerous clients before he left to do a stint at Microsoft. In 2015, he founded the Stagwell Group, a private equity firm. And within months, the firm had acquired SKDKnickerbocker, a powerhouse Democratic consultancy with a number of executives who worked on or with Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Though he has no formal affiliation with No Labels, Penn’s imprints are evident. He was once listed as a press contact for the group’s tax exempt arm, The New Center. And according to a source who worked with No Labels super PACs, Penn and two SKDK executives-- managing director Bill Knapp, a close friend of Jacobson and Penn, and political ad production director Andrew Shipley-- helped produce and place ads, and signed off on their substantive contents.

Internal emails sent in 2018 and obtained by the Daily Beast show Shipley editing the contents of one ad subject to Jacobson’s approval. Another shows Shipley briefing No Labels staff on the contents of another ad, and getting direct sign-off from both Jacobson and Penn to put the final product on air.

In another email thread, Penn instructed Knapp to “scope” an ad buy for a No Labels super PAC. Asked whether SKDK or another firm would make the actual buy, Penn wrote, “I’ll decide who to use based on which one I like better.”

Penn did not respond to a request for comment, though a source confirmed that he did personally see questions pertaining to the role that he has played. His presence within the No Labels orbit has caused a fair amount of consternation there, especially as he has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s 2016 election meddling-- a posture those who’ve worked with Penn assume he has adopted as a way to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump.

In statements prepared by No Labels for the Daily Beast, both Lieberman and Bayh took umbrage with any suggestion that Penn was the force behind the curtain; though, of the nearly dozen sources contacted for this piece, none made such a suggestion. Jacobson pushed back herself, calling “the fundamental premise” of such questions both “shameful and sexist.”

“If a man were running No Labels, would you be making the same suggestion-- based on little to no evidence-- that his spouse is serving as the puppet master behind the scenes?” Jacobson asked. “Eight years ago, I came up with the idea for No Labels and have led it, as a full time volunteer, ever since. I have put my life into this work with the singular goal of helping to heal our bitterly divided country and to support leaders who want to work together to solve America’s problems. I set the direction for No Labels, not my husband.”

Those who have worked with Jacobson said they weren’t surprised by her pushback. Despite running one of Washington’s higher-profile organizations, and being a fixture of the D.C. elite, she rarely does television and is incredibly protective of her reputation. Nor were they surprised when Jacobson personally emailed the Daily Beast hours later, requesting that its reporters come to her office the next day to talk in person.

“You don’t know me however you stand ready to tear down the work I have done for the past 10 years because you are being fed stories from disgruntled employees and contractors,” the email read.

Should Republican Billionaires Be Picking Democratic Candidates The Way They Already Pick GOP Candidates?

Let's start with some news: Last week, Fox News' James Rupert Murdoch, a British billionaire, put half a million dollars into one of Nancy Jacobson's shady No Labels SuperPACs that aims to fill Congress with candidates from the Republican Wing of the Democratic Party. Their current goal is a smear campaign against Alan Grayson. Most recently, Jacobson pulled off the same filth against Marie Newman in Illinois’ 3rd District House primary, spending $931,600 to spread absolute lies against Newman while bolstering anti-Choice Blue Dog Dan Lipinski.

Jacobson, widely considered one of the most vicious and destructive players in American politics, runs a dark web of 8 of the most pernicious and sleazy SuperPACs in the country, United for Progress, United Together, Forward Not Back, Progress Tomorrow, Patriotic Americans PAC, Citizens for a Strong America, etc, entirely funded by contributions from 5 and 6-figure right wing donors, such as Rupert Murdoch, his son James Murdoch, Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan Selig and Wheels Inc. executive Jim Frank.

By Friday they had spent $138,401 on mail and digital ads trying to bolster Grayson's worthless right-of-center New Dem opponent, Darren Soto, and attacking Grayson.

This cycle, Jacobson has also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars from Republican contributors trying to win Democratic nominations for far right candidates running against progressives. Recently she failed in Pennsylvania, where Susan Wild beat No Labels DINO John Morganelli and she failed in Albuquerque, where Debra Haaland beat the No Labels DINO, Damon Martinez.

Darren Soto is exactly the kind of fake Democrat Jacobson, the Murdochs and other GOP billionaires want to see beat progressives like Grayson. Soto voted to prosecute all abortions as murder and voted to force women who want an abortion to undergo a humiliating procedure called "transvaginal ultrasound." Since being primaried by Grayson he's been apologizing for those votes, saying he "made a mistake." He hasn't apologized for the votes that earned him "A" ratings from the NRA-- twice. And because of those hair-raising votes, the NRA endorsed him. He voted for Trump-sponsored laws 58 times in Congress and both times impeaching Trump came up in Congress, Soto voted NO. The reason No Labels is so enthusiastic about him is because he has said that he is "open-minded" about phasing out Social Security benefits or eliminating them altogether, No Labels' top issue.

Meanwhile, Soto is one of Congress' most corrupt Democrats, well known for partying with lobbyists, spending taxpayer money and campaign money illegally on personal items for himself and his wife. He has even accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign support from Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her charter school allies. Generally speaking he's been a big waste of a solidly blue seat in Congress, accomplishing nothing for anyone... but himself. That compares badly with Grayson's record:

During a debate with Grayson last week, Soto claimed "to be a great champion of women’s rights," a lie Grayson directly challenged, bringing up the specifics of Soto's shameful voting record. Soto had no answer... except to say he regrets those votes. He doesn't regret them enough to turn down the help he's getting now from the anti-Choice extremists who are flooding central Florida with lies against Grayson and nonsensical assertions of Soto's grandeur.

Blue America members have been helping Grayson with his election campaigns since 2006. And he's never let us down-- always one of the 2 or 3 best members of Congress and living up to his promises. He needs us again now. The primary is August 28 and he really needs to get on the air and respond to the lies Jacobson and Murdock are flooding TV and radio with. Please consider contributing what you can by clicking on the Blue America 2018 congressional elections thermometer on the right. As of yesterday another dark money PAC had bought ads on one of the big Spanish language radio stations-- one ad every hour until election day! That's called brain-washing. It's what fascists do; it's what Republicans do. Republican billionaires know their party is going to lose control of Congress in November. So they are working to defeat progressives and make certain friendly conservative DINOs become the nominees of the Democratic Party. We can't let this happen. It's our party, not theirs.

Conservative Billionaires Think They Can Buy Democratic Primaries-- Can They?

The day after the New York congressional primaries, geniuses in the mass media, including in New York City, were running around asking how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spells her name. They missed the boat on that one-- missed it entirely. Now they're missing the boat on another big story-- that Republican billionaires are spending heavily in Democratic primaries. They want to pick the Democratic nominees, just the way they pick the Republican nominees. I sent one of the smartest mainstream media guys a tip-off about it. His response was "hey man, will def take a look and give it some thought! maybe not today, buried. but this week. will be in touch." Let's see, that was on August 8 so it's no longer "this week," nor even the week after.

The money is being funneled into Democratic primaries by one of the shadiest conservative operatives in American politics, Nancy Jacobson who controls a network of SuperPACs through her No Labels/Problem Solvers outfits. I first noticed when she was up to when she dumped a ton of last minute sewer money into the IL-03 race pitting progressive Marie Newman against right-wing Blue Dog Dan Lipinski. Marie was winning the race when a tidal wave of Jacobson slime flooded the district, one smear after another. In the end all the No Labels garbage ads saved Lipinski's neck. He beat Newman 48,675 (51.1%) to 46,530 (48.9%). Who put up the millions of dollars for a Democratic primary? Republicans and conservative Democrats. One name I noticed today was in a letter from progressive candidate for Rhode Island Lt. Governor, Aaron Regunberg, running against a conservative Republican with a "D" next to his name, Dan McKee (who took $150,000 from the Walton family and from Jonathan Sackler, the big Bobby Jindal and Joe Lieberman financial backer and the pharmaceutical billionaire behind the nation’s OxyContin crisis. The name I recognized from the Wall Sreet billionaire campaign to save Lipinski was Tony Davis, a Rahm Emanuel ally who founded and is president of Linden Capital Partners. He just dumped $50,000 into the relatively low-profile Rhode Island race.

"We think," wrote Regunberg, "this is just the beginning of the corporate dark money coming into our state to support Dan McKee... I’m proud to run a campaign that doesn’t take money from Wall Street, corporate PACs, fossil fuel interests, drug manufacturers or the gun lobby. We don’t have out-of-state millionaires and billionaires, because we have something more powerful-- the people. And in a fight with Big Money, the people can win."

I hope he's right because billionaire Republicans are spending big to defeat progressive Democrats in every part of the country. And that trend is accelerating right now. James Rupert Murdoch-- yeah, the Fox guy-- gave Jacobson SuperPACs to support conservative Democrat Darren Soto against Alan Grayson in their primary. Jacobson is also spending dark money in favor of Arizona conservative Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick in her primary against Matt Heinz. Sad Horrifying that the DCCC and EMILY's List and the Republican billionaires-- including James Murdoch-- behind the Progress Tomorrow right-wing PAC, are all spending money against the progressive in the Tucson primary, Matt Heinz, and trying to bolster Kirkpatrick. So far they've spent half a million dollars to make sure the Democratic nominee is a conservative. Ironically, the ugliest and most vicious and untruthful of all the ads are from EMILY's List, a group that never used to but now absolutely hates progressive men even more than the DCCC or the GOP does.

Jacobson's web of sleazoid SuperPACs include innocuous-sounding outfits like United for Progress, United Together, Forward Not Back, Progress Tomorrow, Patriotic Americans PAC, Citizens for a Strong America, etc, but they are entirely funded by contributions from 5 and 6-figure right wing donors, such as Rupert Murdoch and his son, Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, former Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan Selig and Wheels Inc. executive Jim Frank. As of Friday they had poured almost $600,000 into the smear campaign against Grayson. Jacobson has already lost in primary races for right-wing Democrats John Morganelli (PA) against Susan Wild (PA) and against Debra Haaland for No Labels DINO, Damon Martinez in Albuquerque.

Darren Soto is exactly the kind of fake Democrat Jacobson, the Murdochs and other GOP billionaires want to see beat progressives like Grayson. Soto voted to prosecute all abortions as murder and voted to force women who want an abortion to undergo a humiliating procedure called "transvaginal ultrasound." Since being primaried by Grayson he's been apologizing for those votes, saying he "made a mistake." He hasn't apologized for the votes that earned him "A" ratings from the NRA-- twice. And because of those hair-raising votes, the NRA endorsed him. He voted for Trump-sponsored laws 58 times in Congress and both times impeaching Trump came up in Congress, Soto voted NO. The reason No Labels is so enthusiastic about him is because he has said that he is "open-minded" about phasing out Social Security benefits or eliminating them altogether, No Labels' top issue.

Meanwhile, Soto is one of Congress' most corrupt Democrats, well known for partying with lobbyists, spending taxpayer money and campaign money illegally on personal items for himself and his wife. He has even accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign support from Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her charter school allies. Generally speaking he's been a big waste of a solidly blue seat in Congress, accomplishing nothing for anyone... but himself. That compares badly with Grayson's record:

During a debate with Grayson two weeks ago, Soto claimed "to be a great champion of women’s rights," a lie Grayson directly challenged, bringing up the specifics of Soto's shameful voting record-- like voting twice to criminalize abortion so that doctors could be charged with murder for performing one. Soto had no answer... except to say he regrets those votes. He doesn't regret them enough to turn down the help he's getting now from the anti-Choice extremists who are flooding central Florida with lies against Grayson and nonsensical assertions of Soto's grandeur.

Blue America members have been helping Grayson with his election campaigns since 2006. And he's never let us down-- always one of the 2 or 3 best members of Congress and living up to his promises. He needs us again now. The primary is August 28 and he really needs to get on the air and respond to the lies Jacobson and Murdock are flooding TV and radio with. Please consider contributing what you can by clicking on the Blue America 2018 congressional elections thermometer on the right. As of yesterday another dark money PAC had bought ads on one of the big Spanish language radio stations-- one ad every hour until election day! That's called brain-washing. It's what fascists do; it's what Republicans do. Republican billionaires know their party is going to lose control of Congress in November. So they are working to defeat progressives and make certain friendly conservative DINOs become the nominees of the Democratic Party. We can't let this happen. It's our party, not theirs.