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decolonize-the-left · 1 year

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This is Red Scare propaganda in 2023.

Did you know that a few days ago Democrats and Republicans voted to join sides against socialism and "socialist policies"(good welfare programs)?

According to Axios:

More than half of House Democrats sided with Republicans on Thursday in voting for a GOP resolution denouncing socialism. [...]

• The resolution denounces “socialism in all its forms” and opposes “the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.”

• A total of 106 Democrats voted for the resolution, while 86 voted against it and another 14 voted "present. "

What they're saying:

• “This [was] very much about politics and political messaging, and you saw that with some of the people voting present,” said Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), the chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, which supported the resolution.

• Kuster said leadership was attentive to swing-district members' needs: "It was very much open-door conversations this week ... just conversations about where our members were coming from and how they felt about this. They had strong feelings about this."

What we're hearing:

• House Republican campaign operatives are already sharpening their knives against Democrats who voted against the resolution.

• "It’s certainly a potent hit we’re excited about," Jack Pandol, a spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Axios. "If you can’t vote to denounce the horrors of socialism, yes, we will be letting your constituents know about it."

The other side:

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Progressive Caucus, told Axios that her faction recommended its members vote against the resolution and she advised colleagues “however you vote on this bill, they’re going to use it against you, so it doesn’t really matter.”

• Jayapal also argued the bill's sweeping rebuke of socialism conflates historical despots with modern entitlement programs and Nordic social democracies: "They're trying to tie those successful [welfare] programs ... to [former ruler of Cambodia] Pol Pot."

So Democrats and Republicans can unite over what's important to them: Capitalism.

More than half of Democrats in office right now would side with Republicans against your well being. Over half of them.

What we're witnessing is an abuse of power that Only serves to keep Democrats and Republicans as power players in politics.

Coincidentally this comes after a historic rise in union membership, calls for higher wages, protests, and it's also right before presidential candidates have started campaigning!

They didn't sign a resolution like this over Trump supporters literally attacking capitol hill. They haven't made Any reform or agreement that could stop another Trump from winning an election again either. They literally expose people to right-wing candidates on purpose just to help themselves win elections.

But this? Good welfare programs and left-wing ideas being spread before an election? That was a priority. That needed to be stopped. That's dangerous.

Let me ask y'all something: if you feel comfortable showing regular people a bunch of far-right ideas on primetime tv but you wouldn't show them any left-wing ideas at all... Wouldn't that make you right-wing? At the very least you've chosen a side, haven't you?

Democrats don't want to challenge the status quo. Apparently that's the ONE thing they can agree on with Republicans about. That's it's staying here and not going anywhere. That's what this tells me.

If you caught yourself thinking I'll vote for a democrat,at least they won't make things worse please consider that keeping things awful on purpose absolutely counts as making things worse. And also being comfortable with far-right ideology but not far-left ideology means Democrats are closer to being fascists than fighting fascism.

This year spend some time researching candidates that are listed as independent, green party, socialists, or communists. The only people worth entertaining are people who actually care and actually want to change things for the better.

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kp777 · 3 months

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By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

Jan. 6, 2024

"Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

Legislation introduced Tuesday by a pair of Democratic lawmakers would close a loophole that lets billionaires donate assets to dark money organizations without paying any taxes.

The U.S. tax code allows write-offs when appreciated assets such as shares of stock are donated to a charity, but the tax break doesn't apply when the assets are given to political groups.

However, donations to 501(c)(4) organizations—which are allowed to engage in some political activity as long as it's not their primary purpose—are exempt from capital gains taxes, a loophole that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) are looking to shutter with their End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act.

Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has focused extensively on the corrupting effects of dark money, said the need for the bill was made clear by what ProPublica and The Lever described as "the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in U.S. history."

The investigative outlets reported in 2022 that billionaire manufacturing magnate Barre Seid donated his 100% ownership stake in Tripp Lite, a maker of electrical equipment, to Marble Freedom Trust, a group controlled by Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo.

The donation, completed in 2021, was worth $1.6 billion. According to ProPublica and The Lever, the structure of the gift allowed Seid to avoid up to $400 million in taxes.

"It's a clear sign of a broken tax code when a single donor can transfer assets worth $1.6 billion to a dark money political group without paying a penny in taxes," Whitehouse said in a statement Tuesday. "Billionaires attempting to influence politics from the shadows should not be rewarded with taxpayer subsidies."

"We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."

If passed, the End Tax Breaks for Dark Money Act would ensure that donations of appreciated assets to 501(c)(4) organizations are subjected to the same rules as gifts to political action committees (PACs) and parties.

"Thanks to the far-right Supreme Court, billionaires already have outsized influence to decide our nation's politics; through a loophole in the tax code, they can even secure massive public subsidies for lobbying and campaigning when they secretly donate their wealth to certain nonprofits instead of traditional political organizations," said Chu. "We can decrease the impact the wealthy have on our politics by applying capital gains taxes to donations of appreciated property to nonprofits that engage in lobbying and political activity—the same way they are already treated when made to traditional political organizations like PACs."

The new bill comes amid an election season that is already flooded with outside spending.

The watchdog OpenSecrets reported last month that super PACs and other groups "have already poured nearly $318 million into spending on presidential and congressional races as of January 14—more than six times as much as had been spent at this point in 2020."

Thanks to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums on federal elections—often without being fully transparent about their donors.

Morris Pearl, chairman of the Patriotic Millionaires, said Tuesday that "there is no justifiable reason why wealthy people like me should be allowed to dominate our political system by donating an entire $1.6 billion company to a dark money political group."

"But perhaps more egregious is the $400 million tax break that comes from doing so," said Pearl. "It's a perfect example of how this provision in the tax code is used by the ultrawealthy to manipulate the levers of government while simultaneously dodging their obligation to pay taxes. We cannot allow millionaires and billionaires to run roughshod over our democracy and then reward them for it with a tax break."

#dark money #super pac #citizens united #corruption #taxation #judy chu #sheldon whitehouse

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eretzyisrael · 4 days

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By Benyamin Cohen and Mira Fox

Robert Kraft, the Jewish billionaire donor who Columbia University’s Jewish student center is named after, said Monday that he “no longer” recognized the school and would stop supporting it “until corrective action is taken,” after a weekend of anti-Israel protests on campus led Columbia’s president to take the extraordinary step of moving all classes online out of concern for students’ safety.

Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, graduated from Columbia in 1963 and has been a major philanthropic backer of both Jewish life and athletics on campus. His $11.5 million gift led the campaign to create the Kraft Center, which opened in 2000 and serves as headquarters for the campus Hillel.

Tensions remained high Monday near Columbia’s gates at Broadway and 116th Street, where around 100 pro-Palestinian activists gathered. Two yelled “Free Palestine” as they were handcuffed. Many more congregated on the campus inside the gate, which was locked to outsiders.

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.Terms(Required)I agree to the Forward'sTerms of Service and Privacy PolicyEmail(Required)

“The recent harassment and rhetoric is vile and abhorrent,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who visited the school Monday morning. Four Democratic representatives, all of whom are Jewish, held a press conference outside the school Monday afternoon to voice their support. There are roughly 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia, comprising roughly 17% of its student population, according to Hillel International.

The turmoil at Columbia, which has seen ongoing demonstrations against the war in Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, intensified in recent days. Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, testified before a congressional committee on Wednesday, where some House members grilled her on the college’s response to antisemitism, while others questioned her commitment to protecting pro-Palestinian speech.

#robert kraft #columbia university

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rthko · 6 months

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I posted that Barney Frank removed the trans component of ENDA and people are calling me stupid and accusing me of hating gay men. "Stupid" is subjective and "hating gay men" would make me a hypocrite to say the least, but I will simply copy and paste the excerpt from Susan Stryker's book Transgender History that I was attempting to paraphrase:

When Democrats took control of both houses of Congress after the midterm elections in 2006, ENDA was poised for passage for the first time since 1994. In the spring of 2007, even the HRC—long a holdout on a transgender-inclusive legislative strategy—finally got on board and lobbied in support of a version of ENDA that protected gender identity and expression as well as sexual orientation. All seemed to be going well until September 2007, when the bill’s longtime sponsor, the openly gay Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, decided, on the basis of an informal poll of his colleagues, that a sexual-orientation-only version of ENDA could pass, but that a transgender-inclusive version would fail. Rather than wait to gather additional support or conduct more extensive education and lobbying efforts, Frank took it upon himself to split ENDA into two separate bills—one for sexual orientation and the other for gender identity.

The reaction in the LGBT community was swift and unprecedented—more than three hundred national, state, and local organizations formed an ad hoc campaign, United ENDA, to demand that transgender-inclusive language be restored to the bill. LGBT activists all across the country felt that more than a decade’s worth of work to build a more expansive movement had been betrayed at the last minute by the movement’s congressional leadership. At the same time, many lesbian and gay people who had never felt entirely comfortable being linked to transgender issues since the mid-1990s gave voice to long-suppressed antitransgender attitudes that they’d formerly considered too “politically incorrect” to express publicly—and supported splitting ENDA into two bills. HRC, which had only recently come to support transgender-inclusive language in ENDA, lost what little credibility it had with the transgender community when it made an abrupt about-face and endorsed the sexual-orientation-only version of the bill. In the end, the trans-inclusive version of ENDA died in committee, while the sexual-orientation-only version passed the House of Representatives—a Pyrrhic victory, given that President Bush promised to veto any version of ENDA that made it to his desk.

Granted, if this is my first exposure to the story then yes, perhaps I was overeager to post this and subsequently link it to that "nipples protruding" Trump tweet meme. But is it needlessly antagonistic to point out Frank's sexual orientation? No. I have previously lamented the excessive antagonism I see of gay men online, especially when "critique" amounts to simple mockery of gay stereotypes and non-normative behavior. I am, when all is said and done, a gay man myself. That does not mean critique is never warranted. Perhaps I was in a mood when reading this book as it detailed intra-community rifts caused by transphobia. And perhaps you would be in the same mood if you read the same material. But I disabled reblogs on that post because, less than 200 notes in, there are already people spreading it as proof of the eeeevil homophobia of trans people and their allies. And I don't want to be used to make such a ridiculous argument.

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tomorrowusa · 6 months

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Gym Jordan's attempt to become House Speaker ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

The Republican conference on Friday voted to no longer back House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as its Speaker nominee. The secret ballot vote came hours after Jordan’s third failed ballot on the House floor. He had lost GOP support with each successive vote. Friday marks the latest drama in the more than two-week saga since eight House Republicans joined with Democrats to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Oct. 3. Jordan was the GOP’s second shot at Speaker replacement. It had first narrowly nominated House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) for the post, but resistance to his candidacy — mostly from Jordan supporters — forced him to withdraw a day later.

Scalise said after the Jordan vote on Friday he would not mount another bid for Speaker.

Don't expect a Speaker until Tuesday at the very earliest. Republicans only hurry when they're trying to regulate women's bodies, suppress voter turnout, or persecute the LGBTQ+ community.

If you hear anybody shooting off their mouth and spewing bothsiderism about the House fiasco, remind them that House Democrats have offered to work with those Republicans who are more interested in governing than conducting a freak show on Capitol Hill. So far there have been no takers.

There isn't much we can do right now regarding the House. But there's an election next year and we can help elect a Democratic majority

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

If you live in a US House district carried by Joe Biden in 2020 but currently represented by a Republican, contact your state or county Democratic Party to see what you can do about replacing that Republican with a Democrat next year. Here's a list of those 18 districts.

If all 18 of those Republicans lose in 2024 then Dems would have 230 seats – 12 above the number needed for a majority in the 119th Congress.

#gym jordan #oh-04 #speaker of the house #us house of representatives #republicans #republicans in disarray #republicans can't govern #democratic congressional campaign committee #election 2024

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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• A new poll shows that 70% of voters still support banning members of Congress from trading stocks.

• One pro-democracy group says it's their "most popular campaign of the year," generating nearly 100,000 emails.

• But lawmakers are still working out the details for a potential ban, leading to frustration on Capitol Hill.

More than 7 in 10 likely voters believe members of Congress should not be allowed to buy or sell individual stocks while in office, according to new poll shared with Insider.

The Data for Progress poll indicates that 70% of respondents want new federal legislation to ban the practice, while 68% said such a ban should extend to lawmakers' spouses.

And 49% of respondents said they were more likely to support a candidate who backs a stock trading ban, including 50% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats.

"It's not just about level of support, but it's about an enthusiasm that people have for this issue," said Brett Edkins, the managing director for policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, a left-of-center governmental reform nonprofit that commissioned the poll. "Very little unifies the American public these days, but widespread national outrage at public corruption ... comes close."

Insider has found that 64 members of Congress have violated the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which requires timely disclosure of stock transactions. Insider's "Conflicted Congress" project also shed light on a number of conflicts of interest that lawmakers face by virtue of their financial holdings.

When Insider asked Pelosi whether she supported banning the practice, she initially rejected the idea. That led to a wave of new legislation from lawmakers eager to tackle the issue. She has since offered muted support for legislative changes.

Stand Up America has helped rally grassroots support for a potential stock trading ban alongside the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, MoveOn, and Public Citizen, among other political groups and reform organizations.

"It's an issue of democracy and fairness, and whether our representatives are working for us, or for their bank accounts," Edkins said. "Stand Up America has been working on democracy issues for years now, and we consistently find that corruption resonates with people"

Since January, Edkins says Stand Up America has directly nearly 100,000 emails and more than 1,400 calls to members of Congress, as well as nearly 2,000 letters to the editor in local papers. That makes the group's campaign in support of a stock trading ban their "most popular campaign of the year," even surpassing other campaigns in support of voting rights and removing the Senate filibuster.

The new poll, while similar to results found from previous polling on both the left and right, underscores the enduring enthusiasm for the issue among the general public.

"I think a lot of those issues of structural democracy are more difficult to understand," said Edkins. "You know, the filibuster is very procedural. But this is a very cut-and-dry issue."

The poll, conducted from June 8 to 13, included 1,198 likely voters and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Meanwhile, efforts to enact a stock trading ban on Capitol Hill remain stalled, leading to frustration among those most enthusiastic about a ban.

In the House, stock-ban proponents are waiting to see whether the Committee on House Administration will release a framework they consider strong enough to address the problem. A group of senators, meanwhile, continue to work among themselves to reach consensus on a bill that can garner the entire Democratic caucus's support.

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reportwire · 2 years

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Five Paths to a Democratic Comeback in 2022

Every Democratic activist, strategist, and lawmaker in America has spent at least a brief moment this fall staring at the ceiling in desperation, probably thinking to him- or herself: Something’s gotta give. Democrats were already facing an inconvenient truth going into next year’s elections: The incumbent president’s party usually gets smoked in the midterms. But they keep getting more bad news.…

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mariacallous · 7 months

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oh hey you're a bitch who cares about Michigan,

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/29/michigan-republican-party-faces-financial-turmoil-bank-records-show/71003017007/

the Michigan GOP is broke as hell and is robbing their federal election account to pay the light bill and shit.

Lansing — The Michigan Republican Party had about $35,000 in its bank accounts in August, according to internal records that flash new warning signs about the dire state of the GOP's finances and raise questions about whether the organization is complying with campaign finance laws.

The documents, obtained by The Detroit News, cover from February when party Chairwoman Kristina Karamo took office through Aug. 10, about six weeks before the party's Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference and about five months into Karamo's term.

The party has regularly transferred money from an account that's usually focused on federal elections to other accounts to afford expenses, according to the records. And earlier this year, Karamo's 2022 secretary of state campaign loaned the party's federal account $15,000 after that account's balance turned negative. The transaction wasn't reported in disclosures from the campaign or the party's federal committee.

A listing of Michigan Republican Party account balances from West Michigan Community Bank showed $35,051 across seven accounts, with expenses for many of the scheduled speakers at the Sept. 22-24 conference on Mackinac Island not yet paid, including author Dinesh D'Souza and unsuccessful former Arizona candidate for governor Kari Lake.

At this point, 13 months before a presidential election, the Michigan Republican Party should have about $10 million in its accounts, said Tom Leonard, a former Michigan House speaker and former finance chairman for the state GOP.

The party had less than 1% of the $10 million target.

"These numbers demonstrate that the party isn't just broke, but broken," Leonard said. "Given (Democratic President) Joe Biden's unpopularity, Republicans can still have a successful cycle, but it's clear they won't be able to rely on the Michigan Republican Party."

Karamo and a Michigan Republican Party spokesman didn't respond to requests for comment for this story.

But the severe financial problems and Karamo's handling of them helped prompt Warren Carpenter, a businessman and former chairman of the 9th Congressional District's Republican committee, to issue a statement, emphasizing that he had no "formal involvement" in the Mackinac conference.

With only two weeks before the conference, Karamo's team had asked Carpenter, a former Karamo supporter and donor from Oakland County, to help with the event, which traditionally costs about $700,000 to put on.

At that time, Carpenter said he was told the party had $30,000 in its accounts but still had to pay Lake $20,000 for speaking, pay D'Souza $28,000 and repay a loan of $110,000 for actor Jim Caviezel's speaking fee. Carpenter said he advised party leaders to cut D'Souza from the lineup to save money.

Carpenter said his principles eventually inspired him to not want to be involved in the conference.

"After consulting extensively with my attorney, I have been strongly advised to cease all communications and interactions with the team leading the Mackinac Leadership Conference," Carpenter wrote in a statement to GOP leaders. "This decision stems from the unsettling possibility of how the Mackinac Leadership Conference is being administered could result in both personal and legal repercussions."

Carpenter resigned as chairman of the 9th District committee on Tuesday.

'Significant challenges'

D'Souza ultimately didn't appear at the conference after the party sent out an email promoting him as a speaker as recently as Sept. 17, five days before the gathering on Mackinac Island began.

Also, D'Souza was still listed as one of the speakers on the party's website on Friday, five days after the conference ended and he didn't participate. Regular attendees had to pay $125 to $275 to register for the event, a price that didn't include the cost of a hotel on Mackinac Island.

During the conference, Dan Hartman, the Michigan Republican Party's general counsel, said he couldn't say why D'Souza didn't show up at the event.

As for the party's finances, the Michigan GOP had previously been primarily funded by 17 people or organizations, Hartman said. The party is in a state of transition, and the past leaders had thrown up "significant challenges" for the new grassroots-driven team, he added.

"Now, what's happened is it's rank-and-file and volunteers," Hartman said of the party's new leadership.

Michigan GOP delegates elected Karamo, a favorite among the grassroots wing of the party, chairwoman in February. While past chairs have been former elected officials and business leaders, Karamo is a former educator from Oak Park who lost a race for secretary of state by 14 percentage points to Democratic incumbent Jocelyn Benson in November. Plus, Karamo has been openly critical of some of the state's largest GOP donors.

Asked about the party's finances on Sept. 23, Hartman referred a Detroit News reporter to the state GOP's budget committee, but he said the party had the money it needed to get by. Dan Bonamie, chairman of the budget committee, refused to answer questions that same day when approached by the reporter inside the Grand Hotel.

During a closed-door state committee meeting on Sunday, the final day of the Mackinac conference, Karamo spoke about the health of the Michigan Republican Party's finances, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The News.

"The party is not going bankrupt," Karamo told state committee members.

Murky finances

In July, Bonamie informed other Republicans at a meeting in Clare the party had about $93,000 in its bank accounts and was working on paying outstanding debt, according to a recording previously obtained by The News.

It's not clear in the bank records, which cover accounts launched by Karamo's team, how much debt remains. But the records do show about $90,000 in the accounts in early July when Bonamie gave his report.

In March, just after she became chairman in February, Karamo told a group the party had $460,000 in debt from the past leadership team.

Having debt is not unusual for the state GOP after a competitive election. But what is unusual, according to longtime Michigan Republicans, is the struggle the party in a key battleground state is having collecting money.

The bank documents show that multiple Michigan Republican Party accounts have fallen into the red at points this year, and Karamo's leadership team has frequently transferred money from one account to another to meet obligations.

In the past, the party has used its "administrative" account, which can raise money from corporate donors in secret, to fund the Mackinac conference, according to campaign finance disclosures. But this year, the party used its federal campaign account, which is usually focused on races for federal offices, such as Congress and president, and has to disclose its donors, according to campaign finance disclosures.

The biggest deposit in the "administrative" account this year was $10,007 on July 8, according to the bank records, which don't show where the money came from. The account's balance hasn't reached above $16,000, according to the records.

Ahead of the 2021 Mackinac conference, there were significant six-figure corporate sponsorships, former Michigan Republican Party Executive Director Jason Roe previously told The News.

Across April and May, the party's federal account paid the Grand Hotel $109,496 for the conference. The party disclosed the payments in federal campaign finance reports.

By Aug. 9, the party's federal account had a balance of $44,329, according to the bank records. But on Aug. 10, the party's federal account paid the Grand Hotel another $65,854, temporarily putting the account's balance at -$21,524, according to the records.

The party received $31,980 that same day from an unlisted source, pushing the account balance back up to about $11,000 on Aug. 10, according to bank records.

Moving money

The party's state bank account, which is usually focused on state-level races, had about $5,256 remaining as of Aug. 10, according to the bank records.

The account would be the one the party uses next year to get involved in campaigns for control of the state House. Currently, Democrats hold a narrow 56-54 seat majority in the chamber. Every seat will be on the ballot in 2024.

The Michigan GOP's state account had a negative balance as recently as June 14, according to the records. But the party quickly transferred $7,400 from the federal account to the state account, giving it a positive balance of $6,683.

Overall, the Michigan Republican Party transferred $31,400 from the federal account to the state account from April 12 through Aug. 10, the records show. Other than the transfers, the largest deposit in the account over the period was $250, the records show, indicating the party's fundraising is primarily happening through the federal account and then money is being moved elsewhere.

Karamo's "chair" account has received $11,400 in transfers from the federal account, according to the records.

The transfers from the federal account to other state party accounts don't appear to be detailed in the Michigan Republican Party's federal campaign finance disclosures.

As of June 30, the Michigan Republican Party reported its federal fundraising committee had $146,931 cash on hand. The bank records showed the federal bank account had about $66,278 at that point.

Using money in a federal party account for expenditures that wouldn't require reporting under federal law because they weren't related to federal politics would be an accounting "nightmare," said Mark Brewer, an elections lawyer and former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

"You just risk breaking the law every time you do something like that," Brewer said of having to track financial totals while moving money in and out of the account.

In July, the Federal Election Commission asked the Michigan Republican Party why its financial tallies for the federal committee appeared to be incorrect. On Sept. 11, the party said it was working to address the question.

The Michigan Republican Party told the commission it "has gone through a series of administration transitions this year."

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contemplatingoutlander · 10 months

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House Republicans censuring Adam Schiff says more about them than him

The Editorial Board of The Washington Post rightly calls out the House Republicans for weaponizing the House to punish one of Trump's enemies, after Trump threatened to primary the 20 Republicans who initially voted against censuring him.

Here are some excerpts from the editorial:

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) became on Wednesday just the third member of Congress to be censured in the past 40 years. The party-line vote reflected worse on the House Republicans who pushed it through than it did on Mr. Schiff. The resolution accuses the former House Intelligence Committee chairman of falsely claiming that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government. Mr. Schiff responded that Paul Manafort, as chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, provided internal campaign polling data to a Russian intelligence operative amid widespread Kremlin efforts to assist Mr. Trump. Experts can debate whether that technically constitutes collusion. But this semantic question is hardly the basis for a censure motion. Contrary to what many Trump supporters claim, the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III never exonerated Mr. Trump. Indeed, the special counsel’s report laid out significant evidence of obstruction of justice. It’s indisputable that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf. [...] After 20 Republicans voted last week with Democrats to table the censure resolution, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that he’d support primary challengers against them. (Mr. Schiff had spearheaded Mr. Trump’s first impeachment and played a leading role on the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.) When the resolution came up again Wednesday, this time without a threat to fine Mr. Schiff $16 million, most of those Republicans capitulated. In so doing, they weakened the power of congressional censure as an official rebuke reserved for egregious conduct — and, in the process, made themselves appear to be the wrongdoers. [color emphasis added]

#house republicans #adam schiff #republicans weaponizing congress #trump #house republicans are corrupt #editorial board #the washington post

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posttexasstressdisorder · 2 months

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Bitcoin may be surging to new heights this week, but some Democrats are likely cursing cryptocurrency.

The Democratic National Committee and an associated joint fundraising committee surrendered $765,000 from a convicted crypto executive to a federal agency best known for hunting suspected criminals, according to a Raw Story review of federal campaign finance records.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why big-time politicians are surrendering gobs of campaign cash to an unlikely source

The DNC and the joint fundraising committee, the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, sent $365,000 and $400,000, respectively, to the U.S. Marshals Service on Jan. 8, becoming the latest political committees to cough up contributions from executives of now-defunct cryptocurrency company, FTX.

The original contributions came in 2022 from Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO and founder of FTX. A federal jury in October convicted Bankman-Fried of stealing $8 billion from customers — which he in part used to finance political contributions, The New York Times reported.

The DNC did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Raw Story first reported in April that the U.S. Marshals began collecting money donated by Bankman-Fried and other former FTX executives — an all-but-unprecedented occurrence for the federal agency.

By September, the Marshals had collected upwards of $1.35 million from more than 150 political campaigns and committees, Raw Story reported.

Now, the Marshals have collected more than $2.3 million in FTX donations, according to Raw Story’s latest review of Federal Election Commission records.

RELATED ARTICLE: Feds expand their quest to claw back crypto-bro cash from big-time politicians

The “disgorgements” from the DNC and Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund are the largest single divestments of FTX-related campaign cash behind $500,000 returned by Priorities USA Action, a Democratic super PAC, according to FEC records.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee previously forwarded a $250,000 contribution to the U.S. Marshals, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent back $36,500.

Republican committees forfeited five and six-figure donations, too, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee ($109,500) and the Republican National Committee ($25,000).

Campaigns for prominent politicians ranging from House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) also sent the Marshals money from FTX-related executives.

The DNC raised nearly $137.4 million between Jan. 1, 2023 and Jan. 31, 2024, and the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund raised more than $12.3 million in that same time period, according to FEC records.

The Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund helps fund the DNC as well as state-level Democratic party committees across the nation.

Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which prosecuted Bankman-Fried’s case, referred questions to the U.S. Marshals.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Bankman-Fried donated more than $40 million to political causes during the 2022 election cycle, according to a CBS News analysis.

Bankman-Fried, who turns 32 today, is awaiting sentencing within the next two weeks and could face more than 100 years in prison; however, his lawyers are arguing that he serve no more than six-and-a-half years.

------

How to get around RawStory's sub wall:

Command R, but as SOON as the text falls in, hit Command period.

Voila. The text of the article.

Fight Moloch!

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