Tag: fundraising email

WI Assembly candidate Mandy Wright running very transparent fundraising operation

In one of the more unorthodoxly transparent political fundraising strategies I’ve seen, former high school football player, educator, and one-term former Wisconsin State Representative Mandy Wright, who is running for a second non-consecutive term in the Wisconsin Assembly, is making at least some of her fundraising emails available to anyone who can access her campaign’s Twitter page. Normally, candidates only make fundraising emails accessible to those who are on their list of people who have registered to receive campaign emails, however, Wright has posted links to several of her fundraising emails on her Twitter page.

Wright’s most recent, publicly-available fundraising email sharply criticizes the conservative-controlled Marathon County (WI) Board for promoting “intolerance and rash, harmful decisions for our most vulnerable neighbors” and calls for rebuilding Marathon County “with a coalition of progressive champions…young voters, minority voters and our neighborhoods who have been disenfranchised by the political process”. In another recent, publicly-available fundraising email, Wright vowed not to “let this district be bought by a lobbyist again”, referring to a right-wing, anti-public education group spending a boatload of money late in the 85th Assembly District of Wisconsin race last year, in which Wright narrowly lost re-election to far-right Republican Dave Heaton. Heaton is not seeking a second term in office.

Mandy is not hiding anything in her fundraising efforts, and that’s a good thing.

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Donald Trump violates U.S. federal election laws by sending fundraising emails to foreign politicians

Current and/or former elected officials in no fewer than six foreign countries have received campaign fundraising emails from the campaign of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. The countries in which current and/or former elected officials have received fundraising solicitations from Trump include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. In at least one case, a former head of government of a foreign country received a fundraising solicitation from Trump.

Trump has only recently started using emails to solicit campaign donations, and it first became clear that the Trump campaign’s email list had serious flaws when Katherine Clark, a member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party, received a Trump email, despite the fact that Clark is a known supporter of the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. However, no laws were violated by Trump when his campaign sent an fundraising solicitation to Clark, because Clark is a United States citizen.

However, numerous current and former members of parliament in at least six foreign countries have clearly indicated that the Trump campaign has sent fundraising solicitations to individuals who are not United States citizens. Under the federal election laws of the United States, it is illegal for an American presidential candidate to solicit campaign donations from individuals who are not United States citizens.

At least two members of the Australian House of Representatives, Tim Watts and Joanne Ryan, reported via Twitter that they had received emails from the Trump campaign asking for campaign donations:

Both Watts and Ryan are members of the Australian Labour Party.

In case you are wondering who the former head of government who received a Trump campaign fundraising email is, it is former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, who was the last member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, which is now defunct, to serve as prime minister:

The fact that the Trump campaign tried to sell the Brooklyn Bridge, which is not owned by Trump, to Campbell for a big discount proves that the Trump campaign is completely incompetent.

Ida Auken, a member of the Danish Parliament, also received a fundraising email from Trump:

Auken is a member of the Danish Social Liberal Party.

Anders Adlercreutz, a member of the Parliament of Finland, confirmed to Josh Marshall of the American political website Talking Points Memo that members of the Finnish Parliament have received Trump fundraising emails:

Adlercreutz is a member of the Swedish People’s Party of Finland.

The Iceland Monitor has reported that Katrín Jakobsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament, was one of at least three members of the Icelandic Parliament to receive campaign fundraising emails from Trump. Jakobsdóttir is the leader of the Icelandic Left-Green Alliance.

However, the strongest critic of the Trump fundraising emails to foreign politicians is Natalie McGarry, a member of the British House of Commons from the Glasgow area in Scotland. After receiving a fundraising email from Donald Trump, Jr., who was acting on behalf of his dad’s presidential campaign, McGarry wrote a response to the younger Trump in which she strongly criticized the elder Trump’s hateful, bigoted rhetoric and told the younger Trump that she hoped that American voters “reject your father fundamentally at the ballot box”. McGarry is not a member of any political party, although she was a member of the Scottish National Party until 2015. An online friend of mine posted to her social media page McGarry’s letter to the younger Trump, and it has been shared online over 1,700 times:

None of the foreign elected officials donated any money to Trump, to the best of my knowledge.

Donald Trump has proven that his presidential campaign is absolutely incompetent when it comes to operating an email list, and he has broken the law by attempting to solicit campaign donations from foreign politicians.

Bernie Sanders stands up for Planned Parenthood and calls for expanding funding for women’s health care

While reducing rampant income inequality and ending the culture of big-money politics in this country are two of the main causes of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, he’s also a staunch supporter for reproductive rights. In a recent fundraising email, Bernie called for increasing funding for women’s health care, not defunding women’s health care like what the far-right Republicans who control Congress and are running for president want to do:

Let me tell you what I believe: we need to be spending a lot more money on women’s health care. We need to be investing in organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide absolutely essential health services for women, particularly in low-income communities.

And Americans need a president who knows women in this nation deserve a whole lot more than $3 a person for health care.

Regarding Bernie’s claim about spending $3/woman on women’s reproductive health care, that’s a reference to Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush complaining about spending “half a billion dollars for women’s health issues”. If the U.S. spent $500,000,000 annually on women’s reproductive health care (I’m not sure what the actual figure is, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were close to that figure), that would translate to, rounded to the nearest cent, $3.19 per woman, since there were 156,964,212 women (50.8% of total U.S. population) in the United States as of the 2010 U.S. Census. Rounded to the nearest whole dollar ($3.19 rounded to nearest whole dollar is $3), Bernie’s claim is correct.

It’s common sense to increase funding and access to reproductive health care. Reproductive health care organizations like Planned Parenthood provide a wide array of reproductive health care services designed to prevent abortions and stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. In fact, Planned Parenthood provides reproductive health services to men, in addition to reproductive health services to women.

The push by Republicans and right-wing smear artists to defund reproductive health care providers like Planned Parenthood have had disastrous consequences in Indiana, where a Republican-led push to defund Planned Parenthood resulted in an HIV outbreak in Southern Indiana. This is one of many reasons why we need more public funding, not less, for reproductive health care.

Scott Walker absolutely sucks at holiday greetings

In case you missed it, Scott Walker, the Republican Governor of Wisconsin and likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 elections, greeted Franklyn Gimbel, a Milwaukee attorney who wanted a menorah, a nine-branched candle tree that is lit during the eight-day Jewish holiday Hanukkah, displayed in the Milwaukee County Courthouse when Walker was the county executive of Wisconsin’s largest county, by saying “Molotov”, refering to improvised incendiary devices consisting of glass bottles filled with flammable material, when he meant to say “Mazel tov”, a common way of congratulating someone in the Hebrew language.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time that Walker has royally fucked up a holiday greeting.

Walker, who will use virtually anything to raise money for his perpetual political campaign, sent out a fundraising email last year that asked his far-right supporters to not give their kids Christmas gifts and to donate money to his gubernatorial campaign committee instead, as I, Chris “Capper” Liebenthal, and many others in both the blogosphere and the news media reported on last year. That email earned Walker a lot of negative press in Wisconsin, nationally, and even internationally, and deservedly so, since only a narcissistic jackass who is only concerned about his own political ambitions would send out an email like that.

Scott Walker has proven time and time again that he absolutely sucks at holiday greetings. He’s not presidential material, and neither are any of the other Republicans who are either running or considering running for president.