Tag: superpacs

Wary Of Backlash, Pro-Israel GOP Senate Hopeful Asks AIPAC Not To Spend On His Behalf

With Israel’s standing in the United States crumbling, America’s leading pro-Israel organization has become a focal point of anger among those who think the US government is putting Israel’s interests ahead of America’s. Political candidates have started seizing on this, attacking opponents who are backed by that group — AIPAC. So for, that’s largely been a phenomenon in the Democratic primaries, but now — in a jarring indication of AIPAC’s ballot-box toxicity — staunchly pro-Israel GOP Senate hopeful Mike Rogers has asked AIPAC not to spend money on his general election campaign.  

Rogers, a former US representative who chaired the House intelligence committee from 2011 to 2015, has been a stalwart backer of US aid to Israel, and was one of 12 federal legislators honored in 2015 by the US-Israel Security Alliance for his work to arm the Israel Defense Forces. 

Having won the Republican primary, Rogers faces Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed in the general election. El-Sayed is an outspoken critic of Israel and US support for Israel, which is why AIPAC blew through $30 million in a failed attempt to secure the Democratic nomination for the Israel-catering Haley Stevens. In that campaign, El-Sayed deftly portrayed Stevens as beholden to Israel. Stevens had given him all the ammo he needed; indeed, the El-Sayed campaign created a website that did nothing but show this cringy Stevens performance on a continuous loop.

When his primary victory was nearly in hand, El-Sayed taunted AIPAC, saying, “AIPAC, if you’re listening, come back and burn it again” in the general election. AIPAC was poised to start running an already-produced commercial for the November race when Rogers talked to AIPAC chair Michael Tuchin in Los Angeles last week, Axios reports. The next day, the commercial was put on ice. 

The extraordinary move by the Rogers campaign is a humiliation for AIPAC, which has long been nearly omnipotent in securing lopsided congressional votes on pro-Israel bills, and in installing pro-Israel legislators while ousting those who dare to offer even mild criticism of Israel. While AIPAC has hit “pause” on its effort in the Michigan Senate campaign, angry AIPAC officials want back in. 

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AOC and Bernie Sanders Are Still Taking ActBlue Money After an 88-Year-Old Said She Donated $150,000 From a Trailer With No Computer

ActBlue’s own CEO sat before Congress in June and invoked the Fifth Amendment 22 times.

The platform – the financial backbone of every major Democrat campaign in America – just got caught with a new donor who says her name was used for more than 16,000 contributions she didn’t make.

And AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Ilhan Omar are still cashing the checks from ActBlue.

An 88-Year-Old Woman Living in a Trailer Has 16,000 Donations in Her Name

Elizabeth Waffle is 88 years old.

She lives in a trailer down a dirt road in Milan, Michigan, after her house burned down two years ago.

She has no computer.

She has spotty internet service.

Federal Election Commission records say she has made more than 16,000 political contributions totaling nearly $150,000 through ActBlue since 2020.

That’s eight donations a day, every day, for five years straight – averaging $9.18 a pop.

“One hundred and fifty thousand? Hell no, I don’t have that kind of money,” Waffle told reporter Charlie LeDuff of the Michigan Enjoyer in a now-viral video.

She acknowledged making small donations through ActBlue – she disputed the $150,000.

“I don’t see $150,000,” she said. “That’s very abnormal and I think it’s wrong. I think there’s something in there that’s off.”

ActBlue responded by saying it had “zero tolerance for fraud.”

Then it kept processing donations for AOC, Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar, and the Democratic National Committee.

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ActBlue Co-Founder Pleads the Fifth During Closed-Door Meeting

The co-founder of the Democrat fundraising powerhouse ActBlue invoked his Fifth Amendment right during a deposition with three key House Committees, according to sources reported by FOX News.

Matt DeBergalis was in and out in under thirty minutes this morning during a deposition with the committees on House Administration, Oversight, and the Judiciary.  The deposition was reportedly over lax fraud prevention standards which may have allowed foreign donations to seep through their filters and into U.S. campaigns.

According to InfluenceWatch.org, DeBergalis is an MIT graduate who created ActBlue in 2004 after a failed bid for city council.

Influence Watch cited a 2007 interview where DeBergalis described ActBlue:

The whole thing is built around using existing social networks: whether they are coworkers asking each other to do things, friends, or existing communities built around e-mail lists or blogs. But we aren’t trying to direct people to give money to any particular place, we’re just trying to facilitate connections that already exist. Our feeling is that everyone has some sphere of influence and that set of people will respond to appeals from a person far more actively and frequently than they will to a top down national advertising campaign. We’re just trying to harness that.

Originally, ActBlue would list every Democrat running for office in a state where ActBlue was active. A user would select which Democrats they wanted to support. The fundraiser would use their social circles and encourage people to donate to that candidate. ActBlue would process the credit card and send the money directly to the candidate or organization. 3

DeBergalis saw ActBlue as a counter to the traditional Republican advantage in direct-mail fundraising, saying, “The other big tool however has been direct mail — it works particularly well for the Republicans, they’ve always had a large advantage in direct fundraising by mail. ActBlue is a nice counter-example: our model, where everyone can use their own language and own pitch for why they’re supporting a candidate, actually works better for the democratic party than for a republican party.” 3

Last month, The Gateway Pundit reported that ActBlue and the DNC allegedly funneled millions through payroll firm Rippling taken from unwitting employees.  The total accounted for approximately $23.3 million in payroll expenditures processed by the DNC.

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AIPAC Burns $90 Million In Michigan — And Loses Anyway As Abdul El-Sayed Crushes Establishment Senate Pick

The most expensive Senate primary in Michigan history ended in a stunning defeat for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Tuesday night, as progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated establishment-backed Rep. Haley Stevens in a race that exposed the outer limits of foreign lobby money in American elections.

NBC News projected El-Sayed the winner early Wednesday morning after an all-night count that swung dramatically through the hours. He overcame what NBC estimates at nearly $65 million in outside spending — the bulk of it funneled through AIPAC and its affiliated dark money arms including the United Democracy Project — to beat Stevens by roughly two points. Total AIPAC-aligned spending in the race, including coordinated outside advertising, reached $90 million according to multiple tallies, a record for any single Senate primary in the organization’s history.

El-Sayed, a physician and former Wayne County health director of Egyptian descent, ran an explicitly anti-AIPAC campaign, calling out the lobby by name at every stop and telling Michigan voters: “This is what democracy looks like — when the people vote and the money loses.” He was outspent 11-to-1 by Stevens, who had the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and the full weight of the Democratic establishment. None of it was enough.

AIPAC’s singular focus was keeping El-Sayed — who has called for ending unconditional U.S. military aid to Israel and said The Jewish State should not exist specifically as an ethno-state — out of the Senate. The lobby’s affiliated super PAC set a single-race spending record in this contest. And it still failed. “The Democratic establishment threw everything it had at Abdul El-Sayed,” wrote Dan Pfeiffer, a senior Obama White House aide turned political analyst. “If he wins, the reverberations will be felt far outside of Michigan.”

The broader Michigan primary results compounded the drama. The Democratic Socialists of America — not a fringe club but an organized political machine — also scored wins on the down-ballot. DSA-backed William Lawrence won Michigan’s 7th district congressional primary, territory Trump carried by just one point in 2026. Former Rep. Cori Bush, attempting a comeback in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, did lose her race to incumbent Wesley Bell — himself the beneficiary of a 27-to-1 AIPAC-funded spending advantage, one of the few bright spots for the lobby in an otherwise black night.

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DNC and ActBlue Funnel Millions Through Sketchy Payroll Firm Sued by Workers for Withholding Pay and Punishing Parental Leave

The same Democrat Party that endlessly lectures American businesses about “workers’ rights” is funneling millions of dollars in payroll expenditures through a company accused by former employees of withholding wages and retaliating against workers who took family or medical leave.

Libs of TikTok brought renewed attention to the scandal Thursday, writing:

“The DNC and ActBlue are running all their payments through a sketchy payroll company who were SUED by multiple employees for allegedly withholding pay.”

The payroll vendor is Rippling, a San Francisco-based human-resources and payroll software company operated by People Center, Inc.

According to a Washington Free Beacon investigation citing Federal Election Commission records, the Democratic National Committee and ActBlue processed approximately $23.3 million in payroll expenditures through Rippling during the 2026 election cycle.

The records reportedly show that the DNC and ActBlue began using Rippling during the second quarter of 2025.

But behind the Democrat money machine is a growing stack of disturbing employee allegations.

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Musk’s America PAC Reportedly Plans $120 Million Midterm Blitz, Setting Stage For Renewed Left-Wing War On Elon

The New York Times reports that Elon Musk’s America PAC plans to spend as much as $120 million to help Republicans in November’s midterm elections, signaling that the world’s richest man is preparing to reenter the political game with fewer than 100 days until voters head to the polls.

America PAC’s spending surge will likely spark a coordinated opposition campaign from Democratic groups and left-wing NGOs, ranging from protests and activist pressure to sustained negative press coverage of Musk, as well as attempts to damage his brands, including Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.

The Democrats’ playbook could resemble their coordinated pressure campaign against Musk when he was involved with DOGE and the dismantling of most of USAID. This sparked street demonstrations by left-wing and far-left activist networks supported by left-wing NGOs, along with an aggressive left-leaning media campaign that sought to make him the public face of the administration’s agenda.

The NYT report is based on “two people briefed on the plans,” and like many stories run by left-leaning corporate media. Musk usually denies the reports on X, but if this report is correct, it says Musk authorized America PAC to build a field operation across at least eight states, targeting Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio, while considering contests in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas.

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Elderly Michigan Widow in Trailer Shocked to Learn She’s a ‘Mega-Donor’ to Dems – ‘Gave’ $150K via ActBlue Over 5 Years While Living on Modest Pension

An 88-year-old widow living in a trailer in rural Michigan has been listed as funneling over $150,000 to Democrat causes through ActBlue.

Nearly 15,000 separate donations averaging eight per day, every single day, for five years, Michigan Enjoyer first reported.

The latest allegations come as ActBlue continues to face intense scrutiny from congressional investigators and federal authorities over its donor verification practices and allegations of potentially fraudulent contributions.

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff, 88-year-old Elizabeth Waffle was stunned after learning Federal Election Commission records attribute 14,696 separate donations totaling nearly $150,000 to her name over the past five years.

The records indicate she averaged roughly eight donations every single day during that period, including 47 donations to Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over the last two years.

She admitted making a few small, legitimate donations as a “true believer” in liberal causes, including some to El-Sayed. But 47 donations to him alone over two years? The avalanche of $150K total? Impossible. Some were tied to old addresses. Others went to candidates she’d never heard of.

Waffle told LeDuff she had no knowledge of the donations.

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The Supreme Court’s AI Collision Course

Imagine a tight House race in a swing state. In the final weeks of the campaign, a new super PAC begins spending heavily against the incumbent. It runs ads on local television and reaches individual voters with highly tailored texts. The messaging is hard-hitting and seems to be swaying the electorate. None of it traces back to the opposing campaign.

It also doesn’t trace back to any human operative. The super PAC is funded by a single LLC whose donor cannot be identified, and its spending decisions are being made by an AI agent that has been given a budget and a political objective and is now operating without any meaningful human direction. The “consultants” placing the ads are software. The text messages were crafted by the AI.

This is not a hypothetical we will face in some distant future. The technology already exists. A wealthy person, foreign government, or corporation that wants to influence an election without ever exposing themselves to scrutiny could set up such a campaign operation today. And under the Supreme Court’s current campaign finance doctrine, the states and Congress may have little power to stop it.

The AI industry has emerged as one of the largest forces in American politics. Super PACs funded by AI companies and their investors have raised well over $100 million to shape the 2026 midterms, backing candidates in both parties who share the industry’s preferred approach to regulation, and attacking those who don’t. So far, their ads rarely mention artificial intelligence at all. They talk about issues like immigration, corruption, and cost of living, and it isn’t obvious to the average viewer that these ads were funded by a multi-billion dollar industry with its own unspoken legislative wish list.

But there’s a deeper, less-obvious dynamic operating in the background. The constitutional doctrine that currently protects the right of these companies to spend millions in our elections is the same doctrine that will be asked to protect something even stranger: The “speech” of artificial intelligence itself.

Modern campaign finance doctrine has been established, affirmed, and extended by Supreme Court decisions over the last 50 years. In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), it held that raising and spending money in political campaigns is tantamount to speech itself, and, therefore, that most legislative efforts to address the influence of money in elections would be subject to strict judicial oversight. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) extended this framework to corporations, and then, most famously, Citizens United v. FEC (2010) extended it further to independent spending.

The court’s campaign finance jurisprudence was not built with artificial intelligence in mind, but its logic isn’t confined to the campaign finance context. If “speaker identity” does not matter for corporations and unions and super PACs, why should it matter when it comes to AI platforms?

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Planned Parenthood Dropping $47 Million Bomb on Midterms in Attempt to Protect Their Taxpayer Funding

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has announced a massive $47 million political spending spree through its Super PAC, Planned Parenthood Votes, aimed directly at trying to flip vulnerable Republican seats in the 2026 midterm elections.

This near-record investment, second only to the $50 million the group dumped into the 2022 cycle, represents a calculated effort to target lawmakers who supported efforts to cut off federal Medicaid funding to the organization last year.

As detailed in reporting from The Hill, the funds will fuel ads, voter outreach, and mobilization in battleground House districts across Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, while also targeting key Senate contests, including Michigan, where Democrats hope to challenge former GOP Representative Mike Rogers, and potentially Maine.

The money bomb announcement came just days after the expiration of a one-year provision in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that had temporarily barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortion services.

That measure, signed into law last year, had forced the closure or consolidation of dozens of clinics and cut off hundreds of millions in federal dollars, proving once and for all that the organization heavily relies on taxpayer dollars, despite its primary role being performing hundreds of thousands of abortions annually.

With the ban now lifted as of early July, Planned Parenthood has regained access to those funds and is channeling significant resources into ensuring pro-abortion politicians regain or maintain power to protect and expand that pipeline.

Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director Sarah Standiford framed the effort as an “existential moment” where voters must “take back our right to decide, our lives and our future state by state.”

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House Republicans Threaten Democrat Fundraising Machine ActBlue with Contempt amid Foreign Donor Probe

House Republicans are pressuring the CEO of Democrat fundraising machine ActBlue to comply with subpoenas regarding documents important to the investigation into possible foreign donations.

In a press release Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced they sent a letter to ActBlue’s CEO Regina Wallace-Jones “threatening to hold ActBlue in contempt of Congress for its inadequate compliance with the Committees’ subpoenas.”

The committees have been probing the platform’s “fundamentally unserious approach to fraud prevention, which may allow foreign nationals and bad actors to make large-scale fraudulent donations on Democrats’ top fundraising platform,” the release said, noting the fundraising behemoth was obstructing the inquiry by trying to shield documents important to the lawmakers’ efforts:

The release detailed:

On July 22, 2025, following ActBlue’s suspension of voluntary cooperation with the Committees’ oversight, the Committees issued subpoenas for all documents and communications referring or relating to misconduct at ActBlue, whistleblower retaliation, and mass departures on ActBlue’s legal team. After the Committees raised concerns that ActBlue’s response to the subpoena was insufficient, ActBlue represented on October 27, 2025, that it had produced “all non-privileged documents with responsive, relevant information.

However, on April 2, 2026, the New York Times reported on ActBlue’s alleged acceptance of foreign donations and  Ms. Wallace-Jones’s misstatements to Congress and quoted from documents that ActBlue did not produce to the Committees. The documents, which included former Interim General Counsel Aaron Ting’s resignation letter and an internal message in which former Legal Counsel Zain Ahmad alleged that he was retaliated against for blowing the whistle on internal misconduct at ActBlue, are clearly responsive to the Committees’ subpoenas and unprotected by any reasonable assertion of the attorney-client privilege.

Wallace-Jones agreed in May to testify on June 10 before the House Administration Committee, per Breitbart News.

At the time, Steil said, “Ms. Wallace-Jones allegedly misled our committee at the outset of our investigation into ActBlue’s fraud prevention standards. It’s past time we set the record straight and got answers for the American people. I look forward to hearing her testify.”

During the hearing, she dodged questions from Jordan and repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when he asked how many foreign contributions the organization accepted and why its legal team quit.

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