Why Establishment Dems Don’t Like Joe Sestak: It’s Personal, Political, & Ethical

Category: AR PAC

Earlier this week, the Clinton Foundation released its IRS Form 990 for 2013, which details questionable spending practices, including $8.4 million in travel spending, that could benefit an upcoming Presidential campaign.

“The Clinton Foundation has raised hundreds of millions that it claims is for charitable causes, but clearly overlaps with Hillary Clinton’s political ambitions. The Foundation must be transparent in all spending so voters can see how it used charitable funds to subsidize expensive air travel, a lavish personal lifestyle, the courting of political donors, or other campaign related travel,” said America Rising PAC Executive Director Tim Miller.

“With 10 percent of the Clinton Foundation’s spending going toward ‘travel,’ and the Foundation’s acknowledgement that it approves chartered private jet flights for Bill and Hillary Clinton, it’s past time for the self-described ‘most transparent person in public life’ to provide a detailed accounting of how her family foundation spends the money it raises,” he added.

Check out this Politico [link] story for more details and see below for the America Rising press release that calls on the Clinton Foundation to release records on its questionable spending practices:

Even after Harry Reid FINALLY allowed a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline in an attempt to save Mary Landrieu’s Senate seat, the vote failed. Landrieu constantly brags about her “clout” she uses to help Louisiana, but she doesn’t seem to have any. Here’s a recap of 10 other times it turned out Landrieu’s clout doesn’t work.

1) Landrieu claimed, as Chair of the Energy Committee, that voters “sit at the head of the table with the gavel.”

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Well, if that were true, Keystone would have passed long ago. Despite her claims of clout, Landrieu couldn’t get a vote on Keystone from Harry Reid when Americans needed it. Reid blocked a Keystone vote in May and LAUGHED a month later at the suggestion the bill would come up again. Only now that she’s fighting for her political life is she scrambling to get the pipeline passed.

2) She touted her ability to compromise and find common ground.

But voted with Obama 97% of the time…

3) And clout doesn’t matter if you just vote with Obama 97% of the time anyway.

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4) Landrieu claimed being Chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, “gave her the clout required to fight the ‘overreach’ of federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.”

But she didn’t have the “clout” to stop Obama’s EPA regulations that required Louisiana to reduce its carbon emissions 39.7% and drove up electricity prices (note that 18% of Louisiana’s electricity comes from coal).

Meanwhile, her PAC gave nearly $300,000 to 31 Senate Democrats who voted for cap and trade.

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5) And a bill that would have helped increase revenue sharing in Louisiana passed the House earlier this year, but it failed in the Senate, despite Landrieu’s “clout.”

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6) Landrieu’s clout disappeared when she pushed through the nomination of an important anti-energy Obama nominee who could have blocked large swaths of land from energy development.

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7) After 18 years in the Senate, she has been the original sponsor of only 9 bills that were signed into law.

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8) She even admitted her power to help Louisiana is limited.

9) What Landrieu’s “clout” on the energy committee has really done for Louisiana:

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10) Tonight’s Keystone Vote

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Today, Mary Landrieu is going to grandstand and pretend to be a supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline. But a new Bloomberg report reveals Landrieu skipped nearly 70% of Energy Committee hearings during her last term.

[Read more…]

Today during House Democrat elections, Gwen Graham voted for Nancy Pelosi to stay on as Minority Leader. In fact, according to the Washington Post, “House Democrats unanimously reelected Nancy Pelosi as minority leader Tuesday morning.”

[Read more…]

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Speaking at a forum in October 2008 about the presidential candidates’ health care plans, ObamaCare adviser Jonathan Gruber, now infamous for saying ObamaCare passed because of voter stupidity and a lack of transparency, declared his “love” for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 health care plan. Gruber also linked ObamaCare and HillaryCare, saying definitively “The Hillary Clinton plan was Obama’s plan plus a mandate,” a provision which would eventually be added to ObamaCare and make Hillary the “Mother of Obamacare.”

TRANSCRIPT

QUESTION: “Would you make a comment about the Hillary Clinton plan?”

GRUBER: “I love the Hillary Clinton plan, what can I say. The Hillary Clinton plan was the Massachusetts plan. The Hillary Clinton plan was Obama’s plan plus a mandate and I think it was a better plan. I think that a mandate is really a central part of doing fundamental healthcare reform. I was surprised politically she did that. I think Obama was a lot smarter politically to not have a mandate at least in his proposal for the election. But I do hope – I think these numbers from Massachusetts, it’s gaining a lot of traction and I know the folks in the Senate who are working this are taking a mandate very seriously and I hope that’ll be part of a national debate.”

Just weeks ago, Hillary Clinton said not answering tough questions was “disqualifying.” With the Senate set to vote on approving the Keystone XL pipeline, America Rising poses an obvious question: What does Hillary Clinton, the former head of the Department tasked with approving the pipeline and her party’s frontrunner for 2016, think?

[Read more…]

Rep. Steve Israel  recently stepped down as DCCC Chairman (too bad – he did such a great job!).

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After a really rough 2014 cycle where Democrats had no discernible message outside of a phony, failed “war on women” Democrats decided they needed a Chairman with a clearer, more liberal message.  So today it was announced that Nancy Pelosi hand picked Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (NM-03) as the next DCCC Chairman.

A couple fun facts about Rep. Lujan:

The good news for Democrats?

  • There’s only one other Democrat congressman in New Mexico, so at least Lujan has far fewer home-state seats to lose than Rep. Israel did!
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With a Clinton campaign all but certain and a battle for top spots under way, it was only a matter of time until the damaging leaks and drama that plagued the 2008 Clinton presidential campaign returned.

Though prospective Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook has “been on ice,” it hasn’t stopped him, along with fellow Democratic operative and possible Clinton campaign manager Marlon Marshall, from sending emails to their private list serve, the “Mook Mafia.” And like with many things in Hillaryland, those emails were leaked.

And in true bipartisan fashion, these potential high-level Clinton aides tell their colleagues to “smite Republicans mafia-style.”

According to ABC News, the leaker is someone who “does not support the idea of Mook or Marshall holding leadership roles in a second presidential bid” and demonstrates the “ferocious intra-battle to populate the top positions of an expected Clinton campaign.” Bodes well for the upcoming campaign. So much for attempting to “squash much of the internal drama that plagued Clinton’s 2008 campaign.”

For the past five years, a prominent Democratic operative who is a leading contender to manage a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign has maintained a private email listserv for friends and associates that carries a provocative name: the “Mook Mafia.”

The listserv, which one member said reaches more than 150 fellow campaign veterans, has been a means for Robby Mook and a close friend Marlon Marshall to stay connected with many of the operatives who would likely populate a Democratic presidential campaign in 2016. Mook and Marshall have both been mentioned as possible Hillary Clinton campaign managers.

Copies of a cache of the emails obtained by ABC News, and revealed publicly for the first time, show Mook and Marshall demonstrating an aggressive tone in rallying their friends behind political causes, in exchanges that are often self-mocking and sometimes border on being profane.

They include rallying cries to, in Mook’s words, “smite Republicans mafia-style,” and, to quote Marshall, “punish those voters.” Mook sometimes calls himself “Deacon” in the emails, while Marshall, now a senior White House aide, refers to himself as “Reverend” in many of the exchanges.

The private emails were provided to ABC News by a Democrat on the listserv who has worked alongside Mook and Marshall on previous campaigns. The person who provided the emails is, like the vast majority of those on the listserv, supportive of Hillary Clinton, but does not support the idea of Mook or Marshall holding leadership roles in a second presidential bid. They were provided on the condition of anonymity.

That the emails are emerging publicly reflects the ferocious intra-battle to populate the top positions of an expected Clinton campaign.

Politico’s Manu Raju is reporting that Mary Landrieu voted against Harry Reid in the Senate Democrats’ leadership elections today.

This summer, Landrieu told MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt “well, if he runs, I will” support Reid for leader. [Read more…]

State Department WasteDuring Hillary Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, over $526 million was given to a company that had a history of fraud and abuse. Unsurprisingly, the company continued to defraud and waste taxpayer money with the funding it received during Secretary Clinton’s tenure. [Read more…]