Hillary Clinton's End Run Around Democracy-- Follow The Money

Presiding over a horrifying culture of corruption she must have learned when she was still a Republican

Cory Doctorow's BoingBoing post about Hillary campaign state-level money laundering shenanigans pointed me to an investigative piece by Margot Kidder that I had missed at Counterpunch, How Hillary Clinton Bought The Loyalty Of 33 State Democratic Parties. Doctorow:

The Supreme Court's 2014 McCutcheon v FEC ruling eliminated aggregate caps on individual campaign donations, and this paved the way for the DNC and the Hillary Victory Fund to collaborate with 33 state-level Democratic parties to accept $10,000 donations from the millionaires and billionaires who back Clinton, kicking them back up to Hillary, allowing each couple to donate up to $1.32M to the Clinton campaign.

$26 million was transferred from these state-level warchests to the Hillary Victory Fund. These funds were dispersed to the Hillary Clinton super PACs, like Hillary for America and Forward Hillary. The Hillary Victory Fund is administered by the Clinton Campaign's treasurer, Elizabeth Jones, who has the sole right to direct the funds.

In addition to laundering donations for the super-wealthy in service to the Clinton campaign, the state Democratic parties also appear to be peddling the loyalty of their super-delegates to the campaign, in a quid-pro-quo that directs a portion of Hillary's establishment backer's millions to the cash-strapped state organizations.

What do billionaires like Esprit Founder Susie Buell of California, and Sri Lankan lobbyist Imaad Zuberi of California, and media mogul Fred Eychaner of Chicago, and Donald Sussman hedgefund manager from New York and Chicago real estate mogul J.B Pritzker, and gay activist Jon Stryker of NY, and NRA and Viacom lobbyist Jeffrey Forbes and entertainment mogul Haim Saban all have in common?

They all appear to be brilliant business people who have all given millions to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and to her various PACS. And they all gave the Montana State Democratic Party $10,000 each in 2015. It is doubtful that many of them have any interest in Montana politics, or that they have even bothered to visit.

None of these are awful people; they are simply awfully rich. And they like their friend Hillary and want her to be the president. And if some of their millions will buy her way into the White House then so be it. None of this is illegal. But it makes a mockery of Ms. Clinton’s pledge to further the cause of campaign finance reform.

Every now and then you'll read about a Hillary super-delegate in Idaho or a Hillary super-delegate in Minnesota announcing that they will vote for Bernie at the convention because he won their state and district. What you don't see as often are the elected officials saying "screw the voters; I'm the super-delegate and I'm voting for Hillary no matter how many voters in my state are for Bernie's damn political revolution." But that overwhelming arrogance is the predominant feeling among members of the Democratic Establishment, particularly among senators and congressmembers. New Hampshire New Dem congresswoman Ann Kuster's constituents voted overwhelmingly-- over 60%-- for Bernie but Kuster doesn't care; she has no primary opponent and she as much as told her own constituents who want her to reflect the will of New Hampshire Democrats to go suck an egg. Another right-of-center New Dem, Washington state's Adam Smith, who's district east and south of Seattle gave Bernie an even more massive landslide, was even more dismissive of what his own constituents want. Margot Kidder's article helps explain why:

Collusion between the Clinton Campaign and the DNC allowed Hillary Clinton to buy the loyalty of 33 state Democratic parties last summer. Montana was one of those states. It sold itself for $64,100.

The Super Delegates now defying democracy with their insistent refusal to change their votes to Sanders in spite of a handful of overwhelming Clinton primary losses in their own states, were arguably part of that deal.

In August 2015, at the Democratic Party convention in Minneapolis, 33 democratic state parties made deals with the Hillary Clinton campaign and a joint fundraising entity called The Hillary Victory Fund. The deal allowed many of her core billionaire and inner circle individual donors to run the maximum amounts of money allowed through those state parties to the Hillary Victory Fund in New York and the DNC in Washington.

The idea was to increase how much one could personally donate to Hillary by taking advantage of the Supreme Court ruling 2014, McCutcheon v FEC, that knocked down a cap on aggregate limits as to how much a donor could give to a federal campaign in a year. It thus eliminated the ceiling on amounts spent by a single donor to a presidential candidate.

In other words, a single donor, by giving 10,000 dollars a year to each signatory state could legally give an extra $330,000 a year for two years to the Hillary Victory Fund.  For each donor, this raised their individual legal cap on the Presidential campaign to $660,000 if given in both 2015 and 2016. And to one million, three hundred and 20 thousand dollars if an equal amount were also donated in their spouse’s name.

From these large amounts of money being transferred from state coffers to the Hillary Victory Fund in Washington, the Clinton campaign got the first $2,700, the DNC was to get the next $33,400, and the remainder was to be split among the 33 signatory states. With this scheme, the Hillary Victory Fund raised over $26 million for the Clinton Campaign by the end of 2015.

The money was either transferred to the Hillary for America or Forward Hillary PACs and spent directly on the Hillary Clinton Campaign, often paying the salaries and expenses within those groups, or it was moved into the DNC or another Clinton PAC.  Some of it was spent towards managing the Hillary merchandize store, where you can buy Hillary T shirts and hats and buttons.

...One could reasonably infer that the tacit agreement between the signatories was that the state parties and the Hillary Clinton Campaign would act in unity and mutual support. And that the super-delegates of these various partner states would either pledge loyalty to Clinton, or, at the least, not endorse Senator Sanders. Not only did Hillary’s multi-millionaire and billionaire supporters get to bypass individual campaign donation limits to state parties by using several state parties apparatus, but the Clinton campaign got the added bonus of buying that state’s super-delegates with the promise of contributions to that Democratic organization’s re-election fund.

If a presidential campaign from either party can convince various state parties to partner with it in such a way as to route around any existing rules on personal donor limits and at the same time promise money to that state’s potential candidates, then the deal can be sold as a way of making large monetary promises to candidates and Super-delegates respectable.

The leadership of a very broke Montana Democratic Party decided in August of 2015 that this was a seductive deal they were willing to make. And by the end of that year scores of 10,000 donations came in from out of state.

Montana’s list of out of state donors to the state campaign reads like a Who’s Who of the Democratic financial elites. The names vary little from the list of high donors to the other 32 states that signed on to the Hillary Victory Fund.

...[T]he Hillary Victory Fund’s marriage of convenience with the Montana party negates Governor Steve Bullock’s eloquent insistence that he will do anything necessary to overturn Citizen’s United.  And the coldness of the deal’s intention of doing anything it can to further Hillary Clinton’s chances for becoming President brings Senator Jon Tester’s stated neutrality in the Democratic primary into a sharp and unflatteringly hypocritical focus.

One doubts that most of these one percenters adore fly fishing. Or care much about mountain climbing, or skiing, or collecting morel mushrooms along the edges of the Yellowstone river in the fall. We can safely assume that they will not be raising buffalo for meat in the near future, or buying an organic farm next to Senator Jon Tester’s.  In fact we can probably assume that most of them have never been to Montana.

And one doubts if many of them care or not if Governor Steve Bullock will get re-elected or will be replaced with a creationist businessman named Greg Gianforte whose family gave $1.5 million to a creationist museum in Glendive, Montana that proudly displays a man riding a dinosaur as if it were a rodeo horse.

That outsiders could make their votes count for more than our own in our Presidential primary by supporting a system that is rigged in favour of the wishes of lobbyists and billionaires running their money through our state democratic party coffers is a concept that most Montanans would be repulsed by.

Yet it is inconceivable that not only did the state’s chairperson, Nancy Keenan, approve the deal, but that both Governor Steve Bullock and Democratic senator Jon Tester approved it as well. It directly affects the funding of both of their campaigns, now and in 2018.

...In Montana, a state where one third of voters identify as independents, and where it is imperative that Democratic candidates for public office win some votes from both Republicans and Independents in order to get elected, it seems peculiar that the Montana State Democratic Party would make a deal with the Hillary Clinton campaign months before the national primaries were underway, given that there is a very real and proud tradition of political independence in Montana. Being told who to vote for in a primary by your party’s big wigs is not part of that tradition. Any collusion by a Montana national candidate with the Hillary Clinton campaign before a primary was held, and the votes counted, could potentially be politically suicidal.

The agreement with the Hillary Victory Fund and the DNC could solve some of the Montana State Democratic Party’s financial problems while simultaneously funding several state and federal candidates. But the scheme would only make sense as a benefit to the parties involved if the money raised actually stayed in the states that received the initial checks. This did not happen.

The Alaska Democratic party, in its end of the year filing with the FEC, said it raised $43,500 from the Hillary Victory Fund with 10,000.00 dollar donations from Clinton friends and billionaires, including hedge fund manage S Donald Sussman, and Hyatt Hotel heir JB Pritzker. ( two of the several $10,000  donors to the Montana State Democratic Party) . But in the same report it said it transferred the same amount of money, $43,500 back to the DNC...  a technically legal move that effectively obliterates federal limits on donations to the national committee.

“It just becomes a way to funnel more to the DNC to support the Clinton Campaign”, said Paul S. Ryan, deputy executive director of the Campaign Legal Centre, which advocates for campaign finance reform. “It’s effectively Hillary Clinton’s team soliciting Hillary Clinton’s supporters for much bigger checks than they can give to the campaign.”

The same thing happened with the Maine State Democratic Party with many of the same billionaire donors. Maine attracted many of Clinton’s biggest donors. But the contributions didn’t stay in Maine either, or in any of the other state democratic parties to which Hillary Victory Fund donations have been funneled.  In October and November two transfers totaling 39,000 from the Hillary Victory Fund to the Maine Democratic party sat for less than 48 hours before the same amounts were transferred to the DNC in Washington.

The Montana State Democratic party received $43,500 dollars from the Hillary Victory Fund on November 2, 2015.  Yet on that same day it transferred $43,500 back to the Democratic National Committee in Washington. And on December 1, 2015 it received another $20,600 from the Hillary Victory fund.  And on the same day the Montana State Democratic Party sent that exact same amount, $20,600, back to the DNC in Washington as well, an entity that has not bothered to disguise its preference for a Hillary Clinton candidacy over that of a Bernie Sanders one.

By November 2015, 22 of the state parties linked to the Hillary Victory Fund have received $938,500 from the fund and sent the same amount back to the DNC. There is no limit to amounts of money transferred between state and national parties and PACS or Funds.

The Democratic spokespeople for the 17 states that refused to go along with the Clinton campaign’s plan, even though many of them were as broke as the Montana State Democratic Party was  (Nebraska springs to mind), were clear that it seemed less than democratic to be choosing sides in a primary that hadn’t happened yet.  That the very purpose of a primary was to let the people choose which candidate they wanted to represent them and to not let the party establishment load the dice in their own favour. They made it obvious that they were choosing democracy over kick-backs.

“A joint fundraising committee linking Hillary Clinton to the national Democratic Party and 33 state parties is routing money through those state parties and back into the coffers of the Clinton campaign and all its PACS and Funds”  “It is a highly unusual arraignment if only because presidential candidates do not normally enter into fundraising agreements with their party’s committees until after they actually win the nomination. And second, Clinton’s fundraising committee is the first since the Supreme Court’s 2014 McCutcheon v FEC decision eliminated aggregate contribution limits and congress increased party contribution limits in the 2014 omnibus budget bill” said Paul Blumenthal, a writer for the Huffington Post.

A loud article in the NYT in March proclaiming that elected officials in 22 states would not support Bernie Sanders conveniently left out that those 22 states had signed agreements with the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Hillary Victory Fund.

What it really does is seriously handicap the Democratic Primary Race. Every one of the states charging electoral interference by the Clinton campaign is a state that made a deal with the Hillary Victory Fund. Insinuations of conspiracies are  unprovable in these cases.  But the perception of fraud and corruption is glaring and damaging.

What the Clinton campaign appears to be in stunning denial about is that most of us “regular folks” (a revolting term used with growing frequency these days) are not burdened with an inability to confuse morality with legality. Corruption is corruption is corruption no matter how many laws there are allowing it.  Very few brilliant business people give presidential candidates upwards of six million dollars without expecting something in return. There is a reason they are brilliant business people. Throwing away millions of dollars for nothing is not one of them.

Most state democratic parties don’t want Campaign Finance Reform. They feel they can’t afford it. Many local politicians become terrified of voicing support for alternative candidates out of fear of being cut off the Democratic Party gravy train.

The psychological damage of the Hillary Victory Fund, the inference by its very existence that every vote is not equal, has had a dampening effect on older Democrats. The perception that most Democrats support Hillary, and that she is the most reliable candidate to defeat a Trump or a Cruz in the fall is felt by every journalist, every newspaper opinion writer and every television current affairs show, and is absorbed by the consumers of that news. When you have lobbyists for the big media giants, such as Fyeed Eychancer of Newsweb, or Viacom lawyer and lobbyist Steve Forbes,  giving money to the Hillary Victory Fund through the state of Montana, the rot in the system is laid bare.

It still isn't too late to wipe away the stench of corruption from the Democratic Party, a stench Democrats have long persuaded themselves emanates solely from Republicans-- but have more recently learned otherwise. Still... it wasn't Bernie who told NPR that "I feel like my political beliefs are rooted in the conservatism that I was raised with... I'm very proud that I was a Goldwater Girl." That's what you want for a nominee? If not, please consider tapping the thermometer and helping Bernie win this thing.

See, It's Not All Banksters Financing Her: LIUNA-- The Laborers Union-- Gave $4 Million To The Clinton Campaign

Hillary's single top campaign donor is George Soros, in so far for $7,039,800. I have nothing negative to say about him and I suspect he honestly believes in the status quo centrism she represents and isn't actually trying to bribe her or even guarantee any more access into the halls of power than he already commands. Still, I sometimes point to this gigantic contribution as evidence of why Hillary is the wrong candidate for a Democratic Party collectively sick to its stomach of the corrosive effect of big money on the political system and of rigged elections and a rigged economic system.

A reasonable response is "But look at her second biggest contribution, the Laborers Union, millions of low wage workers sending in their $27 contributions." But that wouldn't be accurate. The only non-billionaire among her top 5 donors, LIUNA (the Laborers Union) is a corrupt right-wing union run as a dictatorship by a corrupt, right-wing sleazebag, Terry O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan gave the Clinton operation $4,000,000, not individual laborers. I wouldn't attribute the same motivations to him that I'd attribute to George Soros. Last cycle O'Sullivan's #1 recipient of his union's cash in Congress was grotesquely corrupt New Jersey Machine candidate Donald Norcross ($20,000).

Predictably, O'Sullivan's biggest congressional chunk of change so far this year went to the same Senate candidate most handsomely supported by the Wall Street banksters: Patrick Murphy. Other major recipients of LIUNA largesse include Pennsylvania racist Lou Barletta ($5,000), vulnerable right-wing Florida Republican Carlos Curbelo ($5,000), Sacramento's most corrupt Democrat, Isadore Hall ($5,000), Long Island GOP freakshow Peter King ($5,000), Norcross again, of course ($5,000), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair, Fred Upton ($5,000). So far this cycle, O'Sullivan has thrown $179,000 to over 40 House Democrats, including nearly every one that the Democrats are targeting in their bid to win back the House. The bulk of the money he gives to Democrats go to corrupt conservative New Dems and Blue Dogs like John Delaney, Jim Cooper, Scott Peters, Dan Lipinski, Terri Sewell, Kurt Schrader, Gwen Graham, Jim Costa, and Sean Patrick Maloney.

But my favorite LIUNA contribution of 2016 wasn't the money O'Sullivan gave Paul Ryan or any of his anti-union thuggish colleagues but the contribution to Nevada Assemblywoman and tea party congressional candidate Michele Fiore, best known for rhetoric so violent that she makes Trump seem like a hippie in comparison. Best known for her gun nut calendar and Christmas cards and for a bill to allow concealed firearms on school campuses (and day care facilities), she has also been telling her constituents that cancer is a fungus and can be flushed out with salt water. She owes the IRA over a million dollars in back taxes, took in over $6 million in her very fishy home health care service (whose license was eventually revoked) and has called for shooting Syrian refugees in the head. Terry O'Sullivan's gal (not Hillary, Michele): "I am not OK with Syrian refugees. I’m not OK with terrorists. I’m OK with putting them down, blacking them out. Just put a piece of brass in their ocular cavity and end their miserable life. I’m good with that." That's LIUNA-- and the $4 million they gave Hillary.

After Chemo

I get up at 4 am and slave away at the computer all day. I consider myself lucky that I can take some time out to swim and hike and do some errands. I still haven't found the time to do my taxes. But when a neighbor told me one of her dearest childhood friends was doing badly with a lung disease and couldn't eat or sleep I took them both to an above board medical marijuana dispensary. It was strange because here I was driving to a marijuana place with a frail little lady with an oxygen tank, telling me she's a Republican and wanting to debate me about Choice. She's vehemently anti-Choice.

I asked her if Medicare is crucial in her treatment and, of course, she said it is. It's crucial for everyone who gets a catastrophic illness. I mentioned that Ryan-- her favorite current Republican-- wants to wreck it. She said he just wants to make it better and save it. One thing we did agree on though, is that Hillary would be terrible for America and that Trump would be worse but that Bernie would be a great president. It shocked me that a Paul Ryan fan is feeling' the Bern... even a little. She'd vote for him over Trump. She wouldn't vote at all if it was Trump vs Hillary.

Things have really changed a lot for me since I was down and out with cancer and I thought I'd go through some the changes. In the course of the chemo and stem cell replacement operation-- all in about a year and a half-- my weight went from 185 to 130 and has now climbed back to 180. That's pretty noticeable to anyone who sees me. Other things are less apparent. The one good side effect from chemo is that I didn't have to shave in over a year. Then my beard started growing back weirdly and in fits and starts. Now it's pretty much back to normal (like 95%).

Other side effects were all bad and are mostly all gone. My balance was so bad that I couldn't even lift my foot high enough to slip into a flip-flop from a standing position without a battle to keep from falling over. The staircase in my house was so daunting that it would take me the better part of 10 minutes to walk up or down. One time I had to curl up and take a nap on the landing after 5 steps. Now it takes me 10 seconds to go up or down the stairs without even thinking about it.

Stuff like an inability to taste anything have largely gone away. I can twist off a bottle cap now; which I didn't have the strength to do a few months ago. I'm driving again. I can swim laps again and I can sort of run. I was unable to for months, which made jaywalking scary. I'm afraid to go back and look at the posts I wrote while I was on chemo but most of my cognitive functions have been gradually returning. My eyesight is mostly back most of the time and that's a relief although every now and then I still get badly blurred vision-- less so all the time. And the susceptibility to any random infectious diseases is much less-- enough so that my doctor said it's OK to get on a plane again without wearing a mask. (New York, here I come.) Since all my immunizations built up over a lifetime were wiped out with the stem cell transplant I could have gotten anything from anyone near me. I did, in fact, manage to come down with double pneumonia but that seems to have run it's course. This week I had 5 more shots for stuff from polio to diphtheria and all kinds of poxes. Those immunization shots will go on into 2017.

After the stem cell replacement operation I never had any kind of bleeding gums when I brush my teeth. That's a good thing and I hope that stays. I still have neuropathy in my feet and hands, a pretty bothersome nerve disease which may or may not go away. I remember when a friend of mine told me I would learn to live with it and I said I'd rather die. I've now learned to live with it. And, I'm happy to say that although I have plenty of marijuana around from when I needed it to eat and sleep, I haven't been in the least bit tempted in 8 months.

Did The Paul Ryan For President Campaign Leak The Information About Cruz And The DC Madam?

Everyone's going to think it was Trump, right? I mean, it was certainly Trump who got his pal Pecker to run the National Enquirer piece Rubio had been unsuccessfully shopping around for months that claimed Cruz had had affairs with at least 6 women (nearly as many as Rubio's had). But the sudden revelation that of the old DC Madam phone numbers include Ted Cruz's phone number did not-- we've been told confidentially-- come from anyone connected to Trump. My source, who I don't know well enough to vouch for, would only say it rhymes with Cruz's first name. I started guessing. Fred? "No." Jed? "No." Red... someone with red hair... ADAM PUTNAM! "No." Hillary? No. Dead... someone connected to the Grateful Dead? "No, Mr. Klein, you're barking up the wrong tree." Eventually I figured out I had Cruz's wrong first name. Not "Ted" but "Lyin" is what he was referencing. Ah ha! Lying', lyin'... RYAN! And he smiled and drove off.

Ryan is going to be able to dispose of Trump easily-- relatively easily-- at the Republican convention in Cleveland. That's been all gamed out already and the fix is in, totally in. But what to do about Cruz? Montgomery Blair Sibley, the DC Madam's attorney, who seems to be certifiably insane, says he's releasing the records as soon as Monday. And he has a "dead man switch," explained by Maddow in the video up top, that indicates that if Cruz has him murdered, the records automatically come out. The records, in other words, are already online. Looks like Anonymous may have found them buried online already though. A website called Superstation95.com published a picture of the phone numbers yesterday and identified several numbers as belonging to Ted Cruz. It certainly looks like Cruz, whose campaign is predicated on him being "Gods candidate," is-- at the very least-- in for a bumpy ride. Of course, that's what Ryan would have wanted. Ryan and just about every other establishment Republican inside the Beltway. I kept trying to figure out if McConnell rhymed with anything. Or Mitch.

The question now becomes, how many times did Ted Cruz's name and number appear in the DC Madam's records? With Ted Cruz playing the part of the devout Christian to woo Evangelical voters to his Presidential Campaign, his use of whores becomes particularly relevant to today's election campaign.

 

On The California Campaign Trail With Bill Ostrander-- Getting Special Interest Money Out Of Elections

Bill Ostrander's e-mail sign-off is "Elections must depend upon the Voters, not the Funders." You get an idea where he stands right away. And lot of independent-minded voters are starting to question the Establishment case for the "inevitability" of Salud Carbajal, the anointed candidate of the DCCC. When I started talking to Bill in March I thought the race had been neatly wrapped up and it was too late to do anything to help the real progressive in the contest for a blue California seat that Obama won in 2008 57-41% and in 2012 54-43%.

Generally speaking, in a presidential year CA-24 will see about 110,000 voters in San Luis Obispo County and 140,000 voters in Santa Barbara County vote in the congressional race (as well as about 3,000 voters in a tiny sliver of Ventura County included in the district). Some folks rate it a swing district because, by registration, there are almost an equal number of Democrats (37%) and Republicans (33.5%) with independents at 27%, although the district has been voting regularly for Democrats and the last Republican elected to Congress from the area was Andrea Seastrand, a far right one-term nut, who succeeded Michael Huffington, a vaguely closeted mainstream Republican billionaire, when he got pushed into running for the U.S. Senate. That was 1994. In 1996 Walter Capps defeated Seastrand and died 9 months later. His wife, Lois Capps, who claimed-- untruthfully as it turned out-- that she would abide by a term limits pledge, has been the Representative ever since. She's been a fairly mediocre centrist backbencher with no particular accomplishments other than being voted "nicest House member" a few times.

This year, with the drama being played out in the presidential race suggesting that America’s political gag reflex is at work, people would be more than justified in wondering how much complicity do voters share for hiring Representatives that, collectively as Congress, have a 14% approval rating?

CA-24 on California's central coast is one of the 41 districts nationally without an incumbent running for re-election. So far 25 Republicans have announced they won't be seeking reelection, though only 9 of those districts isn't so gerrymandered that there is no shot for an upset. Of the 16 Democrats who have announced they're not running again, Republicans might hope to have a reasonable chance to compete in 4 of them (if you include CA-24).

The district has a relatively low-cost media market that makes it attractive to "ideology investors" who can buy another seat/vote much more cheaply than a congressional seat in a large city with high TV and newspaper ads. These conditions create ugly aspirations for party competition and the community interest becomes a red-headed step-child. In a situation like this, more than ever, the tools of our political system have become: money, cronyism, orchestrated efforts of cliques to influence voters' choices of real candidates, and confidence in the fact that too many voters are apathetic to the process, feeling-- sometimes rightly-- that their votes don’t matter at all anyway.

Complaints about Capps tend to be that, other than her vote against the Iraq war, she hasn’t distinguished herself and lacks gravitas. She's focused her legislative career largely on health issues and the environment-- particularly the issues of oil and fracking along California’s coast. Her daughter, Laura, was a speech writer for Bill Clinton and briefly flirted with the idea of running for her mother’s seat. One thing Americans seem to agree on this cycle is that we are tired of family dynasties and the thought of the third member of the Capps family representing the district in succession turned just about everyone off other than DCCC staffers. The ease with which her temporary candidacy elicited sheer joy from the party regulars is a testament to how thoroughly cronysim is embedded into our politics. Laura is married to Bill Burton, a political consultant and a co-founder and senior strategist with Hillary's Priorities USA Action superPAC. Circle the wagons, the cronyism starts here.

Last June, Capps endorsed Salud Carbajal, a fellow Santa Barbaran she has known for 20 years. Salud is a County Supervisor and former Chief of Staff to his predecessor, the late Santa Barbara County Supervisor Naomi Schwartz. He's known as a gregarious handshaker but not particularly charismatic or possessing of a unique perspective. Without any democratic process of vetting he was promptly anointed by Capps and then her congressional cronies. As a nine term veteran she knows how the game is played and she stacked the deck. She enlisted the Democratic establishment’s leadership, including Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to put the full faith and credit of the party establishment behind him. Not sure what the value of that is in 2016 but the baton was passed with no vetting and and no interviews of any of the other candidates. It’s not illegal but it’s ethically gross and pretty anti-democratic. These endorsements are "gifted" between political allies and cronies. Most of the public is unaware of such cronyism. The uninitiated simply assume that there is some type of audition, where the candidates present their accomplishments and abilities before a group of wise party members who then endorse the candidate who stood above and beyond all the others. Nothing could be further from the truth. The cronyism was so blatant that even as hackish a Beltway outfit as The Hill ran a story on Pelosi’s uncharacteristic endorsement in a primary of someone she barely knew.

One of the sad distortions of money in politics is that it is assumed that whoever has raised the most money is the most popular choice. What money affords are massive media campaigns that make the required six to eight 'touches'-- the emails, mailers and radio and television ads meant to wear down voters and and penetrate their consciousness-- to convince them that the product advertised (AKA, the candidate) is the right choice. Do you assume that McDonalds is the best dining choice because it has the most commercials? Money also allows you to make "investments" in the party. Salud has donated to the local Democratic Party infrastructure in both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties and to the establishment candidates. This makes a politician like him popular among the political insiders who opine on the electability of said candidate, which is then erroneously presumed to be a general popularity among constituents.

The public is mostly unaware of the concerted effort by the few insiders, mostly in DC, who thrust Carbajal’s candidacy on CA-24. This same dynamic is being played out openly with the Republican Party in their efforts to squash Donald Trump. Nearly 30 PACs and other special interests scattered throughout the country have already be directed to spend more than a million dollars on Carbajal’s campaign. Moreover, there is another geographic advantage: Carbajal’s supporters come from one of the wealthiest communities in the world-- think Oprah Winfrey and her $50 million estate, where, in fact, Carbajal held a fundraiser. His average contribution was approximately $1,300 in 2015. Out of the $1.4 million he raised through the last reporting period, only $48,000 came from small donations of under $200. Given that less than one half of one percent of the U.S. population gives over $200 to a campaign, Carbajal’s donor list-- Capps’ own donor list was bequeathed to Salud for a mere $396 "in kind" donation-- is unique.

Upon closer inspection of Carbajal’s FEC filings, you find that he has spent $140,000 on fundraising consultants and about $400,000 on his campaign from April 1, 2015 until December 31, 2015. No other candidate in the race has come anywhere close to that amount of spending. And, although Carbajal has spent a huge sum in the early months of the campaign, first hand report indicate that he has performed poorly in debates and on the stump, leaving many voters unimpressed-- and for good reason.

While the media has focused attention on how impressed they are with Carbajal’s million-dollar campaign war chest, the same media outlets seem to have overlooked his tens of thousands of dollars of personal debt. He has significant debt on three credit cards, one with as much as $50,000. He is in debt for as much as $15,000 on two other credit cards. He has reported student loan debt in the range between $15,000 and $50,000. This is a huge vulnerability for a Democrat and one can easily imagine the attack ads that Republicans will no doubt exploit at every opportunity should he make it to the general election. You can visualize the ads now: "How can voters trust Mr. Carbajal with our country’s multi-billion-dollar budgets when can’t even manage his own personal finances?!" He sounds almost as bad as Marco Rubio! Add to that that Carbajal is a career politician who has very little experience in the private sector and it’s likely that his candidacy would fall apart without the considerable butressing from Capps and the huge sums of money he gets through DCCC patronage.

Carbajal’s Democratic rivals are Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider and re-genrative farmer Bill Ostrander of adjacent San Luis Obispo County.

Mayor Schneider is rated a polished performer and an earnest politician. She's smart and does her homework. She is the only female in the crowded jungle primary field, which will be motivating for some voters. Unfortunately, she was passed over by many of the party insiders and has mixed to derogatory reviews for her opposition to the widening of the 101 highway through the exclusive Monetcito neighborhood, which was viewed as a nod to her wealthy backers. In fact, her objection was with a faulty environmental impact report that later, in court, proved to be true. But, the damage was done. Like Carbajal, she also has the advantage of geography in fundraising and has publicly said that her contributions average $500. She raised close to half a million dollars in 2015, which is considerable without the luxury of party cronyism. Also like Carbajal, she's neither charismatic nor does she instill confidence of leadership.

The 24th District is comprised of approximately 37 percent Democrats, 33.5 percent Republicans and 27 percent independent. Santa Barbara holds the greatest concentration of progressive voters in the 24th district and Salud and Schneider will no doubt split the majority of vote.



The non-Santa Barbara candidate in the race is Bill Ostrander, who is looked at as the "dark horse" in the race and the Bernie-like candidate.

Bill is a regenerative farmer (he told me that means he works to improve the soil and sequester carbon) from San Luis Obispo. He founded and runs a non-profit called Citizens Congress, an organizations committed to removing the corruptive influence of money in politics, especially in elections.

Much like Bernie, with whom he shares campaign volunteers galore, Bill was dismissed by party insiders for a while. However, like Sanders, Ostrander is articulating the frustration of most Americans and the insiders are having to take note. Many who hear him pull back the curtain on money in politics, cronyism, and offer unique perspectives on things like publicly financed elections, agriculture’s role in climate change and a national civil service program for 18-25 year olds, become enthusiastic supporters. He's a persuasive speaker and every report indicates he wins the debates, especially when measured by crowd response. He has not succumbed to the dull, safe scripts coached to most candidates by their handlers. Predictably, he is gaining a lot of traction and volunteers from students who attend several colleges in the district, including Cal Poly and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Raising money in San Luis Obispo County (which the locals term SLO County or just "SLO") is vastly different from the gilded city of Santa Barbara. Forty percent of the population of SLO County works in Tier 3 jobs that pay on average $12.43 an hour. Despite the economic challenges of his home turf, without hiring a big Washington D.C.-based fundraising team, from out of 141 Congressional candidates in California, Ostrander ranks in the middle of the money tree. It was a risky but deliberate move to run the type of campaign that placed the first priority on ideas rather than money. Ostrander, like Bernie, is investing in people and upending cliché politics that favor vague platitudes of "new beginnings" and "cleaning house in Washington" while playing by the same rules of money and cronyism that created the dysfunction in the first place.

Ostrander told me-- and the evidence supports his assertions-- that "the influence of money in politics manipulates our legislative outcomes. It’s inarguably the single most important problem facing our nation today. Our elected officials spend up to 70% of their time asking for campaign contributions. Since only wealthy donors, lobbyists and special interests can afford sizable donations, politicians tend to favor individual donors’ interests over community interests. Studies show that ideological voters are twice as likely to donate to campaigns. A politicians' dependence on donors is a principal reason Congress is dysfunctional."

Republican Justin Fareed, a 27 year-old Santa Barbara resident who works for his parents, has amassed a small fortune in donations. Of the $754,000 Fareed had raised through 2015, 87.5% of his contributions were from out of the district and more than $300,000 from out of state. Money being spent on Fareed’s faux Tea Party candidacy appears to be coming largely from conservative ideological investors. Justin has little real-world experience, and this campaign message is porn from the pages of the garden variety Republican playbook of "less regulation, lower taxes, clean up Washington" drivel that he doesn’t seem to understand. This is his second attempt at Capp’s congressional seat. He was edged out in the 2014 primary by Chris Mitchum. By virtue of his fundraising and ideology, Justin will also pull votes from the Santa Barbara pool.

"Katcho" Achadjian, a Republican from Arroyo Grande, is a state Assemblyman from SLO county. Katcho is an immigrant from Armenia who owns four gas stations and receives money from a Koch brother subsidiary. One doesn't have to wonder how Achadjian, will vote on the issues of fossil fuels and global warming. He is not well liked by the Sierra Club or any serious Californians concerned about the environment or Global Warming.

While Katcho is well-liked by his conservative constituents for his personal handling of grievances with governmental bureaucracy, he likes to claim that California’s financial turnaround was under his watchful eye-- despite being in the legislative minority and on the wrong side of many of the votes that contributed to the turnaround.

Fareed is raising more money than Katcho, but that may have more to do with Justins’ family wealth and connections than support. So far, Republicans are staying out of the endorsement business of their candidates.

There are other candidates, but they’ve raised little to no money and have no apparent organization or structure to suggest much credibility.

Ostrander is looking at this race as an opportunity that offers important lessons for people in the district regarding what ability or interest America has in "trying to make our grand experiment of democracy whole again. Has our disgust with the system left us blind to cronyism? Has money over taken even our recognition of good ideas? Does it matter if 'investors' from out of the district help a candidate succeed? Can average citizens have a place in our government, or must they all be schooled in the system as lifetime public servants? Or the reverse: Should career politicians be disqualified if they’ve never spent time in the private sector? Is America rewarding innovation in our governance the way we might expect our technology to out compete the rest of the world? Or have we all become so fatigued through this process that we just want it all to stop?"

The race for California’s 24th Congressional District is a microcosm of the presidential race: a career politician propped up by cronyism, ideological investors, a competent administrator, and a dark horse who is channeling visceral disgust with the rigged system. Young, innovative but idealistic millennials against cynical seniors with financial resources who are not comfortable with risk. "Both sides," Ostrander reminds us, "are turned off by an institutional hierarchy that leaves everyone behind and unheard."

The Santa Barbara County Supervisor, a career politician, is the anointed candidate of the establishment and falls squarely in the Hillary Clinton mold. Bill Ostrander, in addition to sustainable farming, directs a non-profit that seeks to severely limit the influence of money in politics, especially the money spent on campaigns. Salud has never really worked in the private sector or owned a business. Ostrander has worked on four continents, owns and operates a small business, but always worked outside of government.

Carbajal has a stump speech and it sounds like it. Ostrander has a consistent message but speaks extemporaneously.



As Bill explained at the candidates forum at UCSB last month (on the video above), Robert Reich blogged that Hillary is a good candidate for the government we have. But for the government that we want to have, we need Bernie Sanders. The same could be said for Carbajal vs. Bill Ostrander. Is America’s political gag reflex working? Will we accept our complicity when the next approval poor rating of Congress comes out? You can contribute to Bill's campaign by clicking on the thermometer:

Demands For Wasserman Schultz To Step Down As DNC Chief Are Growing On A Grassroots Level

John Fetterman, the Bernie supporter and progressive mayor in the Pennsylvania Senate race, called on Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as DNC chair in an interview on Pittsburgh TV station, WTAE. He then sent out a tweet (above) endorsing her South Florida primary opponent, Tim Canova. The Huffington Post reported that when he was asked by WTAE anchor Jackie Cain if his opposition to Wasserman Schultz was "a bold move," he said it was more a matter of common decency.

“I wouldn’t call it a bold move. I would call it an appropriate one given her collusion with the sub-prime, payday loan, lending machine,” Fetterman said. “I can’t imagine-- the average interest rate they charge is 309 percent-- as a Democrat, how could you get in bed with those kind of people?”

He also pointed to her campaign’s donors.

“The fact that she would take tens of thousands of dollars from that industry, and the fact that she would try to pass legislation that benefits that industry-- it’s deeply disappointing particularly for the head of the DNC,” Fetterman said.

In a letter to his supporters he wrote that "It’s ridiculous that the leader of the Democratic Party would turn her back on some of the most vulnerable members of society-- the very people that her candidates are pledging to fight for. That’s why today, I’m calling on the Chair to resign. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has made it clear that her values are no longer our values." He asked them to consider signing a petition asking her to resign from the DNC.

Payday lenders lure desperate, mostly poor customers with the promise of quick money-- but the reality is filled with hidden fees and sky-high interest rates.

So why is the leader of the Democratic Party trying to protect this industry by supporting a bill in Congress that seeks to delay the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau's pending rules on the issue?

Tell Congresswoman and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "You have abandoned the values of the Democratic Party and betrayed the most vulnerable members of society who depend on our party to fight for them. I urge you to resign from your position as DNC Chair immediately."

The only other candidates that I know of who explicitly called on Wasserman Schultz to resign are Alex Law, the South Jersey progressive Bernie supporter running for the NJ-01 congressional seat against the Norcross Machine and Syracuse Social Security expert Eric Kingson, who's running against Republican John Katko is a very blue district; also a Bernie supporter. This morning Alex told us that he'd like to see her leave the DNC chair. "I am calling for Debbie Wasserman Shultz to resign as DNC Chair. She has repeatedly shown that her loyalty is to party insiders rather than the party itself. To me, the Democratic Party is not those in the back rooms, it is all of us, the rank-in-file. We are the party of inclusion, and Debbie Wasserman Shultz has actively worked against that foundational principle. Whether it was the scheduling of debates, data access, registration controversies, or the myriad other legitimate complaints against her, there has been enough evidence for me to truly believe we need new leadership as a party. She may be a great fundraiser, but she has not been a great Democrat, and because of that, we as a party must move on. If I lived in her district, I would enthusiastically vote for her primary opponent, Tim Canova."

This morning Eric Kingson told us he agreed with Fetterman and Law that Wasserman Schultz had worn out her welcome among Democrats. "A corporate Democrat, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is no friend of Labor; no friend of Social Security; no friend of the progressive values and policies that made the Democratic Party great. Time for a change at the DNC. Democrats need to be led by a real Democrat, not a 'third way' clone."

You can find Fetterman, Canova, Kingson and Law together on this ActBlue page of congressional candidates who have endorsed Bernie and are running on his issues:

What Will Obama's Presidential Library Cost The Progressive Movement?

When Obama stabbed Joe Sestak in the back during the 2010 Pennsylvania primary in the ill-conceived establishment rush to support Republican-turned-faux-Democrat Arlen Specter, Specter was up by 30 points. The earliest polls all showed Spector crushing Sestak. Three months after Specter switched parties, the July 19, 2009 Quinnipiac poll, for example, had Specter running away with it, 55-23%. The whole corruption-ridden Democratic Establishment, especially corporate Democrats Ed Rendell, Harry Reid and Joe Biden put pressure of Sestak to drop out. Obama offered Sestak a cushy job if he would withdrawn from the race; he refused. Then Obama cut the ad. Specter spent $17,486,421 during the primary. But the more Obama, Biden, Rendell and the other establishment bosses campaigned for him, the more Specter's polling numbers dropped and Sestak's rose. By late April, 2010 Quinnipiac reported a poll showing Specter still ahead with 47% but Sestak was gaining and had risen 16 points to 39%. By May 12, Quinnipiac was showing it essentially tied, Specter 44%, Sestak 42%. The primary was May 18 and Quinnipiac released one last poll 2 days before. After an onslaught of Obama ads targeted hard at African-American audiences, Specter had fallen behind with 41% to Sestak's 42%. Two days later the news was much bleaker for the Establishment and their conservative candidate. Sestak beat Specter 568,563 (53.9%) to 487,217 (46.1%).

The Democratic establishment never really got behind Sestak during the general election battle with Toomey. Specter's chief of staff, David Urban, went to work for Toomey's campaign rounding up conservative Democratic support. The DSCC spent $1.4 million on Specter during the primary but only $200,000 on Sestak during the general. The race was extremely close in a cycle very favorable to Republicans, in which the GOP beat the Democrats in Massachusetts, Illinois, Arkansas, Indiana and Wisconsin. Democrats failed to pick up any Republican Senate seats at all. Sestak came closer to victory-- only about 1% separated him and Toomey-- than any other Democrat including incumbents Russ Feingold and Blanche Lincoln who the DSCC spent millions on. Had the DSCC spent on Sestak, he would have won the seat.

Now he's trying again and, once again, the DSCC, Reid, Rendell, Biden and Obama are campaigning against him. This time they have an even more ridiculous candidate than Specter, Katie McGinty, who polls indicate that Pennsylvania's Democratic voters are utterly turned off to. New York political boss, the heir to Tammany Hall, Chuck Schumer, is orchestrating the campaign against Sestak and, nationally, against any Democrat who is independent enough to stand up against Schumer's allies (and financiers) on Wall Street. Obama endorsed the female version of Schumer last week, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the single most hated Democrat by the Democratic grassroots anywhere in the country. (You can contribute to her opponent in the FL-23 congressional race, Tim Canova here).

On that same page, you will also find Alan Grayson, the progressive icon in the Florida Senate race who Schumer and Wall Street have declared war on in favor of pathetic "ex"-Republican Schumercrat Patrick Murphy, known in the halls of Congress as "Wall Street's errand boy." Obama, eager for the Schumer-engineered contributions for his presidential library from Wall Street banksters and from Murphy's Republican parents, endorsed Murphy despite Murphy's shockingly anti-Obama voting record. Murphy, for example, didn't just vote for the Keystone XL Pipeline every time the Republicans brought it up in the House, he was one of just a tiny handful of extreme right-wing Democrats who voted for the Republican bill to take Obama out of the decision-making process on Keystone, a proposal Grayson countered at the time with a constitutional challenge.

Murphy was also one of just a tiny bunch of right-wing Democrats to vote for the Republican plan to derail Hillary Clinton's presidential bid with the creation of a special committee to use the Benghazi tragedy to smear her. Murphy has worked with the Republicans to repeal Obamacare, to deal a death blow to Wall Street reform in return for legalistic bribes, and to compromise away Social Security benefits for the elderly using the Republican longtime trope about "saving it."

I'm thinking this worthless endorsement of McGinty by Obama can just be filed away under the growing list of shameful Obama endorsements. It worked to kill Regina Thomas' campaign, although ultimately led to the loss of a Georgia seat to the Republicans but Sestak won despite Obama last time and I bet he can again. It will be interesting see if Canova can overcome Wasserman Schultz and if Grayson can beat back the Murphy money onslaught. A new poll from PPP of the Florida Senate race yesterday showed Grayson still beating Murphy despite Schumer and Biden and Obama-- or maybe that establishment garbage is working against Murphy in this very unique political year. This, from the PPP survey of likely Florida Democratic primary voters is ominous for Murphy and his establishment backers:

If you'd like to help Grayson's and Canova's grassroots campaigns, they're both on this page of progressive candidates running for the Senate and the House this year.

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Will Alex Law Actually Hoist The Norcross Machine On Its Own Petard?

Team Alex

It's been a long hard climb for Alex Law in his campaign for South Jersey's first congressional district, currently controlled by the blatantly corrupt Norcross Machine, which installed Donald Norcross last year when their last puppet, Rob Andrews, was told my federal investigators to either resign immediately or face prison. Two more months to go and Law continues gaining momentum in the district across the river from Philly, a district where the media doesn't even pretend that they can't cover the race in any way that would offend the Norcross Machine.

In fact, the Norcross Machine controls everything in the district, even the office of the county clerk, which runs elections. Last week we reported on how Norcross' Machine systematically rigs the ballots so that casual voters never even see the names of establishment opponents. Alex explained what they do-- bracketing-- in this video:



This week Alex decided to beat them at their own game and put together a bracketed ticket with two outstanding candidates who could really damage the power of Norcross' venal machine at the level it would hurt most-- the freehold level, that controls much of the money flow that keeps Norcross' regime of corruption viable. Yesterday, Alex introduced his two freeholder candidates, police union president Steve Kelly and public schools advocate Mo'Neke Ragsdale, to his supporters in Camden, Cherry Hill, Berlin, Glassboro and all along the Delaware riverfront from Palmyra down to the state of Delaware. "I wanted to take a second," he wrote, "to tell you why having Steve and Mo'Neke bravely step forward with me is so important. This election isn't about 'Alex Law,' this election is about making sure that the people of South Jersey have leaders that put them first. For too long, our leaders in this corner of the world have put their own financial interests ahead of everything else and this must end. Having such wonderful Freeholder Candidates like Steve and Mo'Neke running with me means that when we win, not only do we take the Congressional Seat, but we also bring balance and much needed new perspective to the Freeholder board which governs the county."

JT Aregood covered the development for PolitickerNJ yesterday. He wrote that "The addition of the two freeholder candidates could be a shrewd maneuver for Law, who will need to attract city residents to an outspent campaign that has mostly resonated with suburban progressive voters."

Singleton-Ragsdale ran for city council in Camden’s first ward in 2015, where she lost to sitting councilwoman Dana Burley. She works with Save Our Schools New Jersey and serves as Vice President of Save Camden Public Schools. Kelly heads the NJ State PBA Local 328 of Audobon, Barrington, Haddonfield and Haddon Heights.

“I could not be more excited to have them on my ticket,” Law said. “Mo’Neke is an amazing community organizer and education leader in Camden. Steve is a police union President, 16 year veteran of law enforcement, and a tireless advocate for local, community based education from Barrington.”

Law has made hay of opposing the powerful Camden County political machine headed by Norcross’ brother George Norcross III, and of criticizing its signature accomplishments in Camden city. Law published a stinging critique of Norcross’ tax-incentive-based approach to luring businesses and developers to the city earlier this month, and opposes the proliferation of Norcross “Renaissance” charter schools in the Camden school district. He has also argued that Camden’s 2013 integration of its police force with the county’s has not led to a significant reduction in crime. Norcross has a commanding lead in fundraising, with $319,195 cash on hand to Law’s $10,336.

Blue America has raised $12,739.93 of the $29,948 he had raised as of December 31. We'll need to at least double that in the next two months for him to accomplish the on-the-ground goals he's laid out that will lead to him winning the race. (Donald Norcross has raised $770,393, has already spent $343,056 and is hoping to set the stage for being able to grab Senator Robert Melendez's seat when Menendez goes off to prison or makes a deal to resign instead of going to prison. Hasn't New Jersey suffered enough with the corrupt politics? We have 4 ActBlue pages collecting contributions for Alex. The thermometer on the right will take you to Blue America's main congressional page. If you think there's even a glimmer of hope that the Democratic Party can once again become a vehicle for the legitimate aspirations of working families, please consider making as generous a contribution as you can to Alex Law's campaign. This is one of the most grassroots-oriented congressional campaigns I have ever seen in my entire life and Alex and his team have earned whatever support we can give him.

click to read

UPDATE: Norcross Is Scared To Debate

The Gloucester, Camden and So. Burlington chapters of the NAACP joined with the Jewish Federation of South Jersey, the League of Women Voters, and the Islamic Center of South Jersey to host a NJ-01 congressional debate. Alex Law immediately accepted. Donald Norcross immediately hid under his bed.

Hillary Caught On Tape Lying About Bernie Again-- In A Big Way

Donald Trump may be the biggest liar in the 2016 field but without that freak of nature in the campaign, it would certainly be Hillary Clinton in the #1 spot. She lies in a more standard politician fashion, like Cruz and Kasich. Her campaign is built on lies by professional liars (lobbyists). Her political career is built on lies. But all over the media ythis morning was her statement from yesterday: "I am so sick of the Sanders campaign lying about me." Despite her bout of well-rehearsed anger, the problem is that she's, once again, full of crap. The Sanders campaign isn't lying about her. And the question she was responding to had nothing to do with the Sanders campaign. Greenpeace-- a non-partisan organization that doesn't endorse candidates-- has given each candidate from both parties a pledge asking them to reject future fossil fuel contributions, champion campaign finance reform and defend the right to vote for all. Bernie signed it. The 4 conservative candidates-- Trump, Cruz, Clinton and Kasich-- have not. Eva Resnick-Day, the young woman on the repelling in Purchase, New York who Hillary exploded at (in the video above) wrote an explanation of what happened and how the Clinton campaign has twisted it into an attack on Sanders. "I am an individual who deeply cares about tackling climate change and I’m deeply concerned about the state of our democracy," she wrote.  "I work for Greenpeace USA as a Democracy Organizer. I do not work for and am in no way affiliated with the Sanders campaign, as Clinton seemed to suggest in her response."

Greenpeace USA along with 20 organizations launched the pledge to #FixDemocracy, asking ALL presidential candidates to reject future fossil fuel contributions, champion campaign finance reform and defend the right to vote for all.

When we launched the campaign, Sanders signed the pledge immediately. Hillary’s campaign responded, but did not sign. Unsurprisingly, the Republican presidential candidates who won’t even admit that climate change is real, while real communities on the frontlines are already impacted, did not respond to our request.

While Greenpeace appreciated Hillary’s response, the first step a candidate can take to stop fossil fuels is to stop taking fossil fuel money. That money matters when we hear great things about climate in Clinton’s speeches, but want to be sure she’ll truly listen to the people when she is in office. For instance, she supports a Department of Justice investigation of ExxonMobil and yet she takes money from an Exxon lobbyist. That level of coziness makes voters like me who prioritize climate change uncomfortable.

To prove to people that she’s really serious about keeping fossil fuels in the ground, she needs to stop taking that money today.

Today, I said to Hillary, “Thank you for tackling climate change. Will you act on your words and reject future fossil fuel money in your campaign?” I was genuinely shocked by her response. But I want to make sure we are focused on the issue at hand: asking our candidates to take a stand to Fix our Democracy.  Rejecting  fossil fuel money sends a strong signal.

Greenpeace, 350 Action, and dozens of concerned activists have been attending events, rallies, debates, and fundraisers for many months asking Hillary Clinton to reject fossil fuel money in her campaign. This is by no means the first time that we asked Hillary Clinton the question. In fact, last night, over 40 activists gathered outside of a Hillary Clinton Fundraiser at the Dakota, asking Senator Clinton to come out and talk to the people she is fighting for. She did not cross the street to talk to us.

To be clear, we are talking about more than just individual contributions from oil and gas employees. According to data compiled by Greenpeace’s research department, Secretary Clinton’s campaign and the Super PAC supporting her have received more than $4.5 million from the fossil fuel industry during the 2016 election cycle. Eleven registered oil and gas industry lobbyists have bundled over 1 million dollars to her campaign. If she takes the pledge, she’ll be sending a strong signal to our country and fossil fuel companies that it’s time to #Keepitintheground, not for the future of our planet, but for people that are living on it.

Cruz is certainly worse, but Hillary is connected to Big Oil and Gas in an unsavory way that bodes badly for America-- and the planet-- if she wins the presidency. Independent groups have shown that her wretched campaign has taken millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry. Big Oil gives almost all it's campaign money to Republicans. Of the 20 senators and ex-senators who have taken the most in cash contributions-- legalistic bribes-- directly from Big Oil, 17 are Republicans and 3 are Democrats. One of those 3 Democrats was one term senator Hillary Clinton, who took $868,048 from Big Oil. Greenpeace, however, cast a broader net in looking to see how Hillary hopped into bed with the corrosive agents of Big Oil and Gas.

First there are the direct contributions from people working for fossil fuel companies to Hillary Clinton’s campaign committee. According to the most recent filings, the committee has received $309,107 (as of 3/21/16; source: Center for Responsive Politics) from such donors.

Next are the fossil fuel lobbyists, many of whom have also bundled contributions. These donations also flow to Hillary Clinton’s campaign committee. Greenpeace has tracked $1,259,280 in bundled and direct donations from lobbyists currently registered as lobbying for the fossil fuel industry. This number excludes donations from lobbyists who are employed directly by a fossil fuel companies, as those donations would have been included in the previous number.

Last are contributions from fossil fuel interests to Super PACs supporting Hillary Clinton. Greenpeace has found $3,250,000 in donations from large donors connected to the fossil fuel industry to Priorities Action USA, a Super PAC supporting Secretary Clinton’s campaign.

All told, the campaign to elect Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 has received more than $4.5 million from lobbyists, bundlers, and large donors connected the fossil fuel industry.

In response to the widely-publicized Clinton lie in the video up top, Greenpeace Director Molly Dorozenski issued a statement that says "Secretary Clinton is conflating Greenpeace with the Sanders campaign, but we are an independent organization, and our research team has assessed the contributions to all Presidential candidates. We have not and will not endorse candidates... Secretary Clinton cannot ignore the voices of activists asking her to reject fossil fuel money, or explain away the more than one million dollars she takes from fossil fuel lobbyists. We would welcome a statement from Clinton saying that she plans to stop taking this money going forward to prove to young people like Eva that she;'s listening to them, not her biggest donors."

Greenpeace doesn't endorse in presidential races. Normally neither does Blue America. This is the first presidential election in which we have ever endorsed a candidate or raised money for a presidential candidate. That's because the differences are so immense and so clear and the gaggle of status quo candidates doesn't come anywhere near the once-in-a-lifetime progressive in this race. Please, for the sake our our country and our children, dig deep for Bernie: