(D) Politicians Keep Victimizing Victims for Personal Gain

Who will watch the watchdogs?

Ely Bonchie, "Wildfire ActBlue 'Donation' Scandal Explodes, Elizabeth Warren Implicated While Obama Bros Go Berzerk"

Outrage is exploding over a push by numerous Democrats to get people to donate to wildfire "relief funds" facilitated through ActBlue, the party's scandal-ridden fundraising apparatus.

As RedState reported on Saturday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom made the ill-advised move to go on "Pod Save America," a far-left show run by former Barack Obama staffers, while large parts of Los Angeles County still burned. His attempt to pass the buck and paint himself as an innocent bystander amid a laundry list of government failures was bad enough, but then came the plea for donations.

If you want to help those impacted by the California wildfires, please donate at https://t.co/QrPa8M4aRi https://t.co/fegP5tndlk

— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) January 11, 2025

Within hours, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put up a similar donation link, again directing people to ActBlue. At the top of the donation screen sits her campaign logo.

To help support the communities around L.A. being devastated by wildfires, can you split a donation between the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and United Way of Greater Los Angeles? 100% of your donation will go directly to these organizations: https://t.co/EtgMfHrEtq

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) January 11, 2025

Why exactly are Democrats trying to get people to donate relief funds through a partisan fundraising operation? Especially since that operation skims off 3.95 percent, and that's assuming every single other dime ends up passing through untouched. To put it lightly, that's hardly a benefit of the doubt ActBlue and these Democrat politicians should be receiving. 

But while many suspected these donation links, which require the entry of an email, are being used to build political contact lists, the manipulation may go much deeper than initially expected. According to the DC Reporter, one political laid out how this affects the Super PAC in question, calling it "the most evil **** I have ever seen."

Dark money groups frequently have to get creative to spend the social welfare portion of their programming budget. But money raised for these charities that passes through the (c)(4) allows for money raised elsewhere to go to electioneering ads. “This is prima facia non-political cap space that they are generating,” the veteran strategist strategist told the Reporter.

“Let’s say they raise $6 million in money for the fire that they pass on to these [501(c)(3)s]. The next $4 million that they take in from a major donor can go directly to a super PAC undisclosed without having to take a haircut. This lets a major donor give $4 million undisclosed to a Democrat super PAC. This is like the most evil [****] I have ever seen. Using a (c)(4) to generate dark money cap space on the back of the worst natural disaster in recent California history is such appalling behavior.”

Putting aside whether ActBlue is directly profiting from these fundraising efforts, using donations to wildfire victims to manipulate the Super PAC system for partisan gain is absolutely grotesque. Of course, there's no reason to believe ActBlue isn't also taking its cut, given there's been no proof offered that they aren't.

Then there's the issue of what the charities involved in this actually do. One of them is the "Latino Community Foundation," which is a "frontline immigrant rights" organization. In other words, it's a typical open-border NGO that helps facilitate the illegal immigration crisis. How much money are they going to send to wildfire victims when their mission is completely unrelated to them?

This is the group @jonfavs is bragging about routing money to through ActBlue.

The relief fund is a front for an open borders communist organization. https://t.co/WBHagNwbL6

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) January 11, 2025

Meanwhile, we've gotten hysterical posts like the one below from "Crooked Media" co-founder and "Pod Save America host Jon Lovett.

These lies by rightwing assholes are drawing much needed attention to our relief fund which directs ALL THE MONEY DIRECTLY TO RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS

Please see for yourself and donate now at https://t.co/Y3dv8JrNR2 https://t.co/Xi9KG85zyJ

— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) January 11, 2025

For one, Lovett doesn't seem to know what the word "directly" means. If the money is going through ActBlue, then it is, by definition, not going directly to relief organizations, and that brings us to the million-dollar question: Why not just provide links directly to these various charities instead of sending people to ActBlue?

I attempted to get an answer from Jon Favreau, another "Pod Save America" bro.

Who are you to be “vetting” organizations for relief funds? Is that a skill of yours?

Why do you need to use ActBlue to collect donations? What’s the processing fee? What proof are you giving for where the money went?

You getting defensive isn’t changing how sketchy this is. https://t.co/VfuaogtYkn

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) January 11, 2025

Are we supposed to believe that former Obama staffers have a special skill for "vetting" relief organizations? And even if that were the case (it's not), it would make far more sense to send people directly to those charities to donate than to run a shell game through ActBlue. Nothing about this scheme makes sense unless you assume the worst, and right now, I see zero reason not to assume the worst.