Hillary Clinton took $1,000 from one or more individuals employed by Koch Industries-affiliated organization

I managed to stumble upon a Federal Election Commission (FEC) list of campaign contributions to Hillary for America, the official Hillary Clinton presidential campaign committee, sorted by employer of the individual campaign donor (individual donor names were not listed, although donations came from individuals and not the corporations themselves). Roughly halfway down the list, I found that one or more individuals employed by an entity called Koch Companies Public Sector (KCPS) donated a total of $1,000 to the Hillary campaign. The list is based on the Hillary campaign’s July 2015 quarterly report to the FEC.

KCPS is an entity affiliated with Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by Charles and David Koch, commonly referred to as the Koch Brothers and notorious for bankrolling Republican politicians and right-wing political causes. Although I’m not 100% certain of this, KCPS appears to me to be a right-wing political organization affiliated with the Koch Brothers: they have issued press releases that are clearly political in nature and attack Democrats (example here) for opposing the Koch Brothers’ political agenda in the recent past. Additionally, KCPS has spent, if my calculation of data provided in a graph here is correct, $101,192,700, on lobbying federal legislators. I’ve not been able to find any information online regarding any non-political activity by KCPS.

Given that the $1,000 comes from one or more individuals employed by KCPS, it is possible that there is one or more individuals employed by KCPS who are not strongly supportive of the Koch Brothers’ political agenda. However, since KCPS appears to be a primarily political organization affiliated with the Koch Industries, I would be shocked if there was anybody who even remotely resembled a political moderate or liberal employed by KCPS. I could see someone working in, for example, a milling job for Georgia-Pacific being a Hillary donor, but the fact that one or more KCPS employees donated to Hillary leaves me two big questions: 1) Why exactly would one or more employees of an organization like KCPS donate money to a Democratic presidential candidate? 2) Does Hillary Clinton privately support at least part of the Koch Brothers’ right-wing political agenda?

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Wisconsin Democratic chairperson candidate Jason Rae completely misrepresents what I said about his employer’s ties to the Koch Brothers

Well, as it turns out, Jason Rae, one of five candidates for Chairperson of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, is now attacking me for exposing the ties between Thad Nation, the founder of consulting firm that he works for, Nation Consulting, and far-right political organizations, some of which are funded either directly or indirectly by the billionaire Koch Brothers.

Basically, Rae tried to claim on his personal Facebook page that I claimed that he’s a mole for the Koch Brothers, which isn’t what I actually claimed. What I actually claimed is this: First, Rae works for Nation Consulting, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based political consulting firm. Second, Nation Consulting is led by Thad Nation. Third, Thad Nation was the executive director of a group called Coalition for the New Economy (CftNE), according to a 2012 IRS 990 filing. Fourth, CftNE gave money to multiple right-wing organizations, some of which have been received funding either directly or indirectly by the Koch Brothers. Fifth, the fact that Rae works for Nation Consulting would represent at least an apparent conflict of interest if he were to be elected DPW Chair and remain employed by Nation Consulting. This is not a smear attack at all; it’s the cold hard truth about how Jason Rae’s employer, Thad Nation, has indirectly funded organizations that have run smear campaigns against Democrats and supported Republican candidates and causes.

Rae also stated that he doesn’t tolerate Democrats attacking other Democrats. I disagree with that idea, so as long as the attacks are valid, accurate, and constructive. For example, if I couldn’t attack other Democrats, I’d have little to talk about in regards to the politics of my home state of Illinois, given how morbidly corrupt the Illinois Democratic Party is, and how people like Rahm Emanuel and Mike Madigan are corporate hacks who are barely better than the Republicans and want to screw over hard-working Illinoisans at nearly every opportunity. Also, it’s quite hypocritical for someone like Rae to complain about Democrats attacking other Democrats, since Rae is a Democratic National Committee (DNC) member, and the Chairwoman of the DNC is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has openly attacked other Democrats over issues that are important to many progressives.

If there’s anyone waging a smear attack against anyone, it’s Jason Rae. In fact, he completely misrepresented what I said about his employer, Thad Nation of Nation Consulting, having indirectly given money to right-wing organizations that staunchly oppose Democratic candidates and progressive ideals. The fact that Rae can’t respond to my blog posts about his employer indirectly giving money to right-wing organizations without accusing me of smearing him and misrepresenting my blog posts proves to me that he does not have the temperament to be in a Democratic Party leadership position of any kind, let alone the state Democratic Party chair in a state that will likely decide control of both the White House and the U.S. Senate in 2016.

Are Democratic donors only interested in sabotaging political campaigns?

Niko Elmaleh, a New York City real estate developer who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats in recent years, bragged in an email to Democratic National Committee (DNC) Treasurer Andy Tobias and Democracy for America (DfA) Chairman Jim Dean about a plan to sabotage the Democratic presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton by having Elizabeth Warren run for the Democratic presidential nomination, only to later drop out of the race after Warren had upstaged Hillary’s campaign:

In his April 3, 2015, email to the small group, Mr. Elmaleh refers to his concern that a lack of a meaningful primary opponent will result in a stale and complacent candidate. He writes, “I think we should seriously consider as an excellent way to keep Hilary fresh in the public eye; Elizabeth Warren should run against her.”

Later in the email he reveals that after an appropriate “show” has been staged, Ms. Warren would be expected to bow out, having strengthened Ms. Clinton as a candidate. “If we can put on a ‘show’ featuring two of the most prominent progressives who are women, it will focus the attention of the bulk of voters on us.”

He then proceeds to land a few glancing blows on the other side’s candidates: “The Republicans’ show is a comic circus and would not compete with ours. Of course, this has to be carefully managed so that Warren can gracefully withdraw after performing this vital task. I don’t think she can win yet (although she could in the future).”

If I were running for public office, I would never take Niko Elmaleh’s money. All Elmaleh wants to do is start trouble within the Democratic Party and cost our party critical elections. While there have been numerous past instances of Democrats upstaging other Democrats who are running for public office (usually in the form of a superb and/or well-remembered speech at the Democratic National Convention or some other political gathering), this is the first time I can recall a Democratic donor being involved in a concerted scheme to sabotage someone’s political campaign by having another candidate upstage him or her. Sadly, the Democratic establishment thinks that grassroots activists are the ones who are causing trouble in the party, when, in reality, their own kind of people is causing a ton of trouble in the party.

If you want a progressive who is sick and tired of big-money political games and is interested in running a real campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, please encourage Bernie Sanders to run for president.

Martha Laning: The Corporate Candidate for Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairperson

It’s official: Martha Laning, who we last saw running unsuccessfully for a seat in the Wisconsin State Senate and running television ads claiming that far-right Republicans, who have, over the past few years, implemented a destructive agenda that has hurt Wisconsin’s economy and reputation, have “good ideas”, is running for state party chairperson of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW). Additionally, political fundraiser Mary Lang Sollinger officially dropped out of the race for DPW Chair on the same day Laning entered the race.

Since not long after current DPW Chairman Mike Tate decided not to run for re-election after leaving the DPW in shambles after six years of his failed leadership, Jason Rae, a Democratic National Committee (DNC) member, has been the insider candidate for DPW Chair. Now, Martha Laning is the corporate candidate for DPW Chair.

Laning has only recently entered the race for DPW Chair, but she’s already made a noticeable campaign blunder. Laning unveiled a campaign website that includes a “Why I’m Running” page riddled with grammar errors, such as failing to properly capitalize the first letters in the words “Democratic Party” more than once, referring to northern Wisconsin as “the north woods” instead of “the Northwoods”, and using the past tense verb “needed” to refer to elections that are scheduled to take place in the future. Additionally, the “Values” page of her campaign website also includes grammar errors, including using the grammatically incorrect phrase “equality opportunity” when either “equality and opportunity” or “equal opportunity” would be grammatically correct. I find it shocking that someone who was a business executive prior to entering politics would make repeated grammar errors on a campaign website for a state Democratic Party leadership post.

Regarding some of the promises that Laning has already made as a DPW Chair candidate, I do like a couple of ideas that Laning has, including expanding the geographical distribution of DPW staffers across the state, instead of having most or all of the party’s staffers in one city, and supporting year-round DPW offices, something that at least one other DPW Chair candidate, Jeff Smith, also supports. However, there are some terrible ideas that Laning has. One of Laning’s terrible ideas is to deepen the DPW’s relationships with partner organizations, and Laning cited Wisconsin Progress and Fair Wisconsin as two organizations that she wants the DPW to work more closely with. While I know very little about Wisconsin Progress, outside of the fact that they’re an organization that trains Democratic candidates to run for public office in Wisconsin, the fact that Laning wants the DPW to be more closely tied to Fair Wisconsin sets off alarm bells to any progressive who has followed Wisconsin politics for the past few years. While Fair Wisconsin is a pro-LGBT rights organization, and LGBT rights are supported by nearly all Wisconsin Democrats, Fair Wisconsin has received a lot of its funding from Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who has implemented a right-wing corporate agenda as the county executive of Wisconsin’s largest county. Among the things that Abele has done as Milwaukee County Executive include vetoing nearly every item of progressive legislation that the progressive-controlled Milwaukee County Board has passed, strongly opposing worker’s rights, publicly opposing efforts to put a non-binding referendum on the Milwaukee County ballot calling for a federal constitutional amendment to get rid of the undue influence of money in politics, and attempting to convince the Republicans who control the Wisconsin State Legislature to prevent counties from passing living wage ordinances. The fact that Laning wants the DPW to partner with an organization that is funded heavily by someone like Chris Abele indicates to me that Laning is not one bit serious about moving the Democratic Party of Wisconsin in a more progressive direction.

The Republican Party is a party of scammers

Media Matters for America (MMfA), a progressive media watchdog group, published this piece showing how ridiculously infected with scams and scammers the Republican Party and the conservative movement in this country are. Among the scams promoted by Republicans and conservatives include, but are not limited to, reverse mortgages, quack doctors, conspiracy theories, fraudulent financial schemes, worthless stocks, and political organizations that exist solely or primarily to pay political consultants.

MMfA cited 11 examples from the past two and a half years of Republicans and conservatives scamming fellow Republicans and conservatives:

• Mike Huckabee sold out his fans to a quack doctor, conspiracy theorists, and financial fraudsters.
• Conservative media such as Erick Erickson’s RedState, Dick Morris, Newsmax, Townhall, and Human Events have pushed paid promotions for dubious marijuana stocks.
• Tea party scammers have been aided by media outlets like CNN and Fox News, which, in the words of one of the shady groups in question, have given the tea partiers “great television news coverage” to promote their efforts.
• Subscribers to CNN analyst Newt Gingrich’s email list have received supposed insider information about cancer “cures,” the Illuminati, “Obama’s ‘Secret Mistress,'” a “weird” Social Security “trick,” and Fort Knox being “empty.”
• Five conservative outlets promoted a quack doc touting dubious Alzheimer’s disease cures.
• Conservative media sold out their followers to a disgraced financial firm, Stansberry & Associates.
• Fox News contributor Wayne Rogers acted as a “paid TV spokesperson” for a company pitching reverse mortgages to senior citizens. Fox had previously reported that “there’s a lot of evidence” that reverse mortgages are “predatory loans.”
• Tobin Smith, the dubious stock pitchman fired from Fox News.
• Fox analyst Charles Payne was paid to push now worthless stocks.
• The Dick Morris/Newsmax super PAC boondoggle.
• Right-wing media helped “scam PACs” raise money from their readers.

Click on every one of those links above, as they go into detail about how Republicans and conservatives scam their own kind of people. The Republican Party is absolutely rife with all kinds of scams and scammers, and the scary thing about that is that the corporate media in this country helps promote right-wing scams.