Campaign Money Watch - Funding a Republican Candidate's Campaign

If you were to do a search on the various groups who donated their time/money in the recall effort in LD18, essentially, supporting Jerry Lewis, you would come across a group called Campaign Money Watch.  Once again, this is a group funded by ANOTHER group called the Public Campaign Action Fund.  It's a neutral enough sounding title unless you were to actually look at their finance reports.  In them, you would see first of all, the group didn't file with the Secretary of State until October 18, 2011.  Their purpose was to "advocate defeat against Patriots for Pearce".  Also, you would see that a total of over $47,000 was spent solely on "communications/mailers".   CMW claimed they contributed to the recall effort because Senator Pearce was opposed to Clean Elections.

"PCAF’s Campaign Money Watch project spent over $47,000 on a direct mail campaign that delivered 80,000 pieces of mail to nearly 16,500 people who were likely to cast a vote today, the largest independent expenditure in the campaign. The pieces focused on Pearce’s corruption, ties to lobbyists, and opposition to Clean Elections."

They issued a threat to any other politician who dares to oppose Clean Elections.  "Russell Pearce’s loss should serve as a warning to elected officials throughout Arizona,” said Donnelly. “Opposition to Clean Elections and being in bed with special interest lobbyists could earn you an early retirement."

Here are samples of the mailers that Campaign Money Watch sent out.

As well as a webad.

Notice the clever wording.  "VOTE NO ON PEARCE"
rather than "VOTE FOR JERRY LEWIS".

Remember when Lewis claimed this at the LD18 meeting? 

How can someone running for office in a small legislative district, not KNOW who was mailing over $47,000 worth of mailers on your behalf?  They used a picture of him from the campaign!  Wouldn't you care enough to want to find out?  Especially if an unknown group were sending attacking mailers which were contrary to your campaign slogan of bringing a more "Civil tone to politics"?

Perhaps people should know who FUNDS the Public Campaign Action Fund.
On the list of groups who donate more than $20,000 per year:

Common Cause The address for Common Cause is 1133 19th Street NW, 9th Floor Washington, DC 20036.  The same address used on the mailer posted above. 
Which is the same address for Public Campaign Action Fund: 1133 19th Street, NW Suite #900 Washington, DC 20036. 
Which is the same address for Campaign Money Watch: 1133 19th Street, 9th floor Washington DC 20036

The Chair of the National Governing Board for Common Cause is Robert Reich.  Reich is a former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton.

-Democracy Fund
-MoveOn.org Political Action
-National Education Association
-Service Employees International Union
-Tides Voter Action Fund
(who is Tides?)
-Working Assets  This group supports organizations such as: Democracy Now!, National Immigration Forum, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education, Planned Parenthood, Center for Justice and Accountability, Human Rights Watch, Partners in Health, Color of Change, Media Matters, Project Vote, Sierra Club etc.
-Proteus Fund
-Pat Stryker (read Gilbert Watch's excellent account of THE BLUEPRINT-How the Democrats Won Colorado)

Jerry Lewis' campaign was quick to admit that they refunded the donation received from Michelle Steinberg, the Arizona Public Policy Director for Planned Parenthood.  However, they remained silent about the organization who spent over $47k on mailers on his behalf who FUNDS Planned Parenthood.

Campaign for Community Change (CCC)

It was mentioned in a previous entry that a group called Campaign for Community Change donated an "in kind" donation of $9000 to Promise Arizona en Accion from which Jerry Lewis' campaign benefited.

Who is Campaign for Community Change?  Based on their title, you can be sure it is some kind of leftist, activist organization.  They like to use words such as "change" and "community".  The only word missing is "justice".  These groups function just like every other leftist organization.  They are intertwined amongst multiple organizations with similar names.  This is intended to make it impossible for the average person to decipher where the money came from and where it went.

The Campaign for Community Change is the action arm of the Center for Community Change. The Campaign seeks to educate and empower marginalized communities to influence the public policies that affect their lives; increase their ongoing civic participation; and help them build the political will for reform. We equip low-income people and people of color with the tools to take a more active role in advocating for public policies and pushing for change. It's time for a progressive movement that raises up the authentic voices of people most affected by social and economic injustice. The Campaign for Community Change helps build this movement.

Center for Community Change $$ -> Campaign for Community Change $$ -> PAZ

At least the acronyms are interchangeable.  CCC

Now, who are the board members of Campaign for Community Change?

Deepak Bhargava Executive Director

Prior to becoming the Executive Director of CCC, he served as the

 "director of public policy for seven years at the Center for Community Change. In that capacity, he worked on housing, budget, tax, immigration, welfare, and other issues affecting low-income people. He also directed the Center’s National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support,

 a coalition of grassroots groups established in 2000 to give low-income people a voice in the reauthorization of the federal welfare law and other areas critical to poor people. Prior to joining the center, Bhargava was the legislative director at the

  Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), where he gained broad experience in community reinvestment and housing finance issues."

Who is Deepak Bhargava?

On Obama's Poverty Agenda.

Three ingredients necessary for transformational change to happen.
(6:17) "We do need visionary leadership that's capable of building durable coalitions.  We need crisis, economic, foreign policy or otherwise, that force the breakdown of old paradigms and old ways of seeing the world.  And most importantly, we need independent social movements that create public will to generate ideas that will deliver votes."

Deepak Bhargava on immigration.  

And another on immigration.

"...a group of immigrant leaders approached me and the Center for Community Change with the idea of doing a national campaign to win legalization for the growing population of undocumented people in the US. At that time, the topic was unspeakable in polite Washington conversation discourse—no politician, no national advocacy organization would tackle it. Partly because of the extraordinary quality of the leaders that approached us, and partly because it was so clear that we couldn’t be an anti-poverty organization without tackling immigration, we decided to go all-in.

We helped to form what was the earliest pro-legalization coalition in the country,

 and we’ve been in it ever since."

He continued with 5 key lessons learned:

1.  We built a whole technological platform—a phone bank system, an online system, a text messaging operation

2.  We went to work building new organizations, new leadership, through movement building trainings   FLASHBACK: "Increase the vote (?) of civic engagement within the under represented minority Community and change the political landscape of Arizona by developing new leaders, educating through house meeting, voter registration training and movement building training."

3.  Engage a much more diverse coalition of forces. So we invested much more deeply in building relationships with African-American leadership, with Evangelicals, with local law enforcement, with business leaders

4.  We organized a massive Latino and immigrant voter mobilization effort in 2008

5.  Communications is central to our strategy.  We built up a new organization, America’s Voice, with new capacity to communicate to the broad public, as well as to targeted audiences

Unions: A Closer Look at UNITE HERE

Aside from a glowing endorsement to Randy Parraz's failed Senate campaign, UNITE HERE has been an active force on a national scale.

UNITE HERE is a labor union in the United States and Canada with more than 265,000 active members.  The union's members work predominately in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. The union was formed in 2004 by the merger of UNITE (formerly the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees) and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union).

In 2005, UNITE HERE withdrew from the AFL-CIO and joined the Change to Win Federation along with several other unions, including the Teamsters, SEIU and the UFCW.  In May 2009 union president Bruce Raynor (originally from UNITE) left UNITE HERE, taking with him numerous local unions and between 105,000 and 150,000 members, mostly garment workers. They formed a new  SEIU affiliate called Workers United.


On September 17, 2009, UNITE HERE announced that it would re-affiliate with the AFL-CIO.

Parraz was working for the AFL-CIO during the same time UNITE HERE was formed in 2004.  Parraz also has ties to the UFCW (United Food and Commerical Workers). 

New Haven, CT 2005

Phoenix 2006

Chicago 2009

San Francisco 2009

Members of UNITE HERE travelled to the state to participate in the Arizona protest of SB1070 July 29 2010 march.

Members of UNITE HERE Local 11 in Los Angeles will be among more than 550 members of Los Angeles unions, faith, and community groups, who will travel in a long caravan of 11 chartered buses bound for Phoenix on the day SB 1070 is scheduled to go into effect.

...Petra Falcon, director of Promise Arizona and one of the event's Arizona hosts, says she helped arrange the visit because "we believe it is extraordinarily important to look at the passage of SB 1070 and other similar legislation in the context of the continued struggles of all working people in Arizona, and of our state and federal lawmakers' failure to address those struggles."


As stated before, UNITE HERE contributed $20,000 to Raquel Teran and Petra Falcon's Promise Arizona en Accion (PAZ) the day that it was registered with the Arizona Secretary of State's office in September 2011.  This was after the candidate, Jerry Lewis, emerged to run against sitting Senate President, Russell Pearce.

The funds from this organization were used to "defeat Pearce" by encouraging people to vote for Jerry Lewis.

How the Left was Won

One of the organizations who helped gather signatures, canvass, and collect completed ballots for the LD 18 recall election was Promise Arizona en Accion (PAZ).  The founders of this organization include Petra Falcon and Raquel Teran.

This post will focus on Raquel Teran.

Teran's resume reads like the ideal Community Organizer.  Complete with the Center for Progressive Leadership training.

Raquel is a community organizer who helps improve the life of Arizonans through dignity and justice. Raquel currently works on a grassroots coalition which involves community base organizations, unions, leaders, and workers. As an organizer for the coalition, she helps to mobilize the community to send a message of no tolerance to disrespect and injustice to the community. Previously she served as an organizer for SEIU, where she recruited and trained employees to organize.

Through other coalitions and organizations she has greatly been involved in the fight for immigration reform. She has worked with the Latino community to promote voter participation, increase new citizenship applicants, and has organized immigration forums to keep the community informed of current immigration issues affecting the immigrant community.

She was actively involved with Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability along with Randy Parraz back in 2008.  The goal of MCSA was to hold the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff's office accountable.

Her most recent endeavor is Promise Arizona's action arm, Promise Arizona en Accion.  PAZ received a $20,000 infusion from the union UNITE HERE on the day that the group first registered with the Arizona Secretary of State's office.  UNITE HERE endorsed Randy Parraz in his failed Senate campaign in 2010. 

PAZ also received an "in kind" labor donation of $9000 from a group called Campaign for Community Change.  We'll look at these two groups in depth later.

The job of PAZ was to get out the young, Latino vote.

PAZ were active in recruiting, training and engaging their members.  They even boldly canvassed conservative LD18 wearing the matching t-shirts with the "POWER fist" emblazoned on the front which said, "Don't Let SB-1070 Happen Again". 

Speaking at the AzAN immigration Forum in 2009.  Arizona Advocacy Network

 Somos Leaders Workshops are organized to train future leaders in areas of grant writing and proposals, personal narratives and grassroots fundraising.  (Classes taught by Teran and Parraz)

  The poster reads, "Increase the vote (?) of civic engagement within the under represented minority community and change the political landscape of Arizona by developing new leaders, educating through house meetings, voter registration training and movement building training."

(3:16)  "Cuidado Joe Arpaio!  We're coming after you!"

(Any Republican who is willing to turn a blind eye from these kinds of leftist, radical groups who actively campaigned on their behalf by justifying that they never personally met them, should be ashamed of themselves. They aren't the kind of Republicans the party needs.)

Election Night November 8, 2011

It appears some people were making the rounds on election night.  Those standing in the background sure look an awful lot like Don Stapley and his son, Tom, talking to what looks like Stapley's long time friend, Merwin Grant.

 

The picture was taken at the Wright House on election night.  The Wright House was the location of the Citizens for a Better Arizona recall group party.  Notice the matching PAZ (Promise Arizona en Accion)  t-shirts.  This group of activists were key to getting out the vote for Lewis.  Other attendees included Petra Falcon, Salvador Reza, Raquel Teran, Steve Gallardo, Domingo Garcia (one of the largest contributors to CBA) and other misc. activists.  It's not every day you can get all of these people together in the same room, let alone, have someone like Mr. Stapley show up.  What are the odds?

 In this video clip, you can see what appears to be Don Stapley and Merwin Grant in the background (1:07) in a circle talking to other notable characters and wearing the same outfits.  Only this video was taken at the Jerry Lewis celebration party, also on election night. 

Don Stapley was no stranger to Randy Parraz.  Stapley knew who Parraz was from back in the day when Parraz caused a ruckus at a couple of Board of Supervisors meetings in 2008 along with his cohort, Raquel Teran from PAZ.

You can read a completely unbiased media report of the incident here.  Sure, it's an article written by Stephen Lemons in the New Times, but I'm sure it is factually accurate.

UNIDOS (United Non-discriminatory Individuals Demanding Our Studies)

Attempting to expose the faces of the radical left.

The video clip in my previous post referenced a group of youth storming the Tucson School Board meeting in May 2011.  The group who spearheaded the effort was UNIDOS (United Non-discriminatory Individuals Demanding Our Studies).

UNIDOS -a new youth coalition of students from local high schools, alumni and community members-demand that TUSD Governing Board, the State Board of Education, and the state of Arizona must act in accordance to international human rights law. UNIDOS was created in response to HB 2281 and the growing attacks on our education. UNIDOS seeks to protect and expand Ethnic Studies and promote the values of diversity, justice and equity in our education.

This is another angle of the commotion.  One of the "students" in the video can be seen on the far left.  Her name is Leilani Clarke.  It is also interesting to note that in the video (at :40), you can see Isabel Garcia, Pima County Public Defender, appear calling out "excessive force against a minor".

This is interesting because Leilani Clark was at least 22 years old when this event took place.  Hardly a "student" in the TUSD, let alone, a minor.

LEILANI CLARK

22 year old political activist from Tucson, AZ.

She began her political career after being highly influenced by the critical thinking skills and political analysis she acquired while in Tucson Unified School District’s Ethnic Studies Department and later in Tucson High Magnet School’s chapter of M.E.Ch.A. Right after she graduated from Tucson High in 2007 she became a youth intern for la Coalicion de Derechos Humanos. Last year she became recognized nationwide as one of the members of the Capital 9, the first individuals who were arrested for protesting SB 1070.

Leilani has also attended several other protests.

April 2010
(3:20)   Arrested for chaining herself to the Capitol building and later being known as one of the Capitol 9.

May 2010
"Students" walked to the State building to greet Tom Horne.
At 4:25, you can see Leilani Clarke, appearing to look like a young, hip, high school aged student, addressing the camera.

April 30, 2011  
(1 minute in, you can also see Isabel Garcia come into view)

It is no coincidence that La Coaliciaion de Derechos Humanos is a group started by Isabel Garcia.  Leilani Clarke is one of her proteges. 

Derechos Hermanos has been involved in countless marches and protests throughout Arizona. 

2002
...demanding open borders and promoting "Aztlan," the Derechos Humanos Coalition led a march through downtown Nogales, Arizona, demanding an end to the resistance to the Mexican invasion of the United States. Led by Pima County public defender, Isabel Garcia, Derechos Humanos clearly demonstrated that it is advancing Mexico's goal of the "Conquest of Aztlan."

May 2009
Along the way, I spotted notable participants such as Tucson firebrand Isabel Garcia, former state Senator Alfredo Gutierrez, Randy Parraz and Raquel Teran of Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability, former Guadalupe Mayor Rebecca Jimenez, ACORN organizer Monica Sandschafer, Respect/Repeto's Lydia Guzman, and cheeky Phoenix activist Adolfo Maldonado.

April 29, 2010
(:40)   Anti SB1070 protest in Tucson

2010
Isabel Garcia vs. Senator Russell Pearce

Ethnic "Poetry"

A concerned parent attended a TUSD Board Meeting on May 10, 2011 exposing a portion of the Ethnic Studies Curriculum used in grades 3 - 12. 

This parent pointed to several areas of the textbook with inappropriate and explicit language, including Spanish curse words. 

An Epic Poem

I shed tears of sorrow, I sow seeds of hate
The force of tyranny of men who rule by farce and hypocrisy,
In a country that has wiped out all my history, stifled all my pride….
My land is lost and stolen, My culture has been raped
Poverty and city-living under the colonial system of the Anglo

Has frustrated our people’s culture
One note, especially to those young chicanos, hard drugs and the drug culture

Is the invention of the gringo because he has no culture.
We have to destroy capitalism…The Declaration of Independence states that

We the people have the right to revolution, the right to overthrow a government

That has committed abuses and seeks complete control over the people.

This is in order to clean out the corrupted, rotten officials that developed

Out of any type of capitalistic systems.

At around 2:55 on the video, one board member stopped her and said, "I'm going to ask that the language be not mentioned during public meetings. We have young people in this room. It’s inappropriate.”

The crowd could be heard laughing at the hypocrisy in his statement.  If public school children as young as eight are being exposed to this sort of language in a text book, why wouldn't it be appropriate to read in front of the grown ups on the school board?  One parent yelled out from the audience, “They’re teaching it in your classroom!”

One of the supporters of the Ethnic Studies program is Stephen Lemons seen on the left. 

Lemons writes for the Phoenix New Times and has written glowing articles on Parraz and his exploits over the years.

In an article entitled, “Ethnic Studies Equals Politically Conscious Latino Students — Which is Exactly Why Its Enemies Want to Kill It,” Lemons wrote:

This is also the general line, BTW, that the Arizona Republic's official crotchety old white man, Doug MacEachern, who — like a lot of mean, ornery, tea-bagger-esque ofays — is genuinely terrified of young, intelligent Latinos, armed with facts and logic.

God forbid these young people ever grow up, go to college, and become [Attorney General Tom] Horne and MacEachern's worst nightmares: members of a new political establishment that will condemn theirs to a timely grave.

Indeed, the Ethnic Studies courses are meant to provide a different world view.  As one girl said, "It's definately empowering in the sense of you feel better about yourself.  More confident in what you speak....when you learn how to speak more confidently, that also helps you out in the real world.  When you're in an interview, you're able to, you know, hold your head up high and say 'This is who I am.  This is what I believe in.' This is how these programs have helped me."

We certainly can see how these programs have taught confidence and empowerment.  However, I'm not exactly sure this kind of confidence and empowerment will fly in a job interview in the real world.

Radical Organizing 101

Everyone within the metro Phoenix area knows by now that an outside, leftist group successfully organized a recall effort against Arizona Senate President, Russell Pearce, earlier this month.   They did so with the help of naive "Republicans", Libertarians and Independents who justified the recall by supporting the "Republican" candidate.  The leftist group and their liaisons within District 18 knew early on that in order to defeat Senator Pearce, the challenger needed to be "well known", "LDS", and of course, "Republican". 

The group was called Citizens for a Better Arizona founded by Randy Parraz and Chad Snow. It is already well known that Parraz is no stranger to Community Organizing. He was "recruited by the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) to be a community organizer in Dallas, Texas. In Dallas, Parraz learned the fundamentals of the Saul Alinsky model of church based community organizing. After spending considerable time meeting with community and church leaders, Parraz helped establish a unique partnership with the City of Dallas whereby a Central Area Coordination Team was created to meet the diverse needs of the predominantly Latino citizens of East Dallas.

In 1996, Parraz moved to Washington, D.C., and joined the national AFL-CIO as a Community Action Coordinator and later as a national field representative. From national coalition building on behalf of 20,000 strawberry workers in the fields of California, to coordinating the mobilization of thousands of Canadians across the border from Vancouver to Seattle in protest against the WTO, to spearheading support for the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride in Arizona, Parraz has experience with many different methods of social change. He is the founder of the Student Institute for Social Change (Washington, D.C.) and Co-Founder of the Latino Youth Leadership Institute (Orange County,CA)."

His resume expanded after his work with the AFL-CIO. He organized groups like Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability (MCSA) to go after Sheriff Joe Arpaio, East Valley Patriots for American Values (EVPAV) to focus on Senator Russell Pearce which morphed into the latest Citizens for a Better Arizona (CBA). His army consists of members from Code Pink, Progressive Democrats of America, Puente, LiUNA, AFL-CIO, Promise AZ in Accion (PAZ) and numerous other feel-good acronymed names.

Just recently, Parraz and his fellow activist pal, Salvador Reza, attended a NACCS (National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies) Conference at Arizona State University to offer support for the Ethnic Studies program in Tucson.

To better understand the significance, one needs to know what exactly IS NACCS?

"The National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies is the academic organization that serves academic programs, departments and research centersthat focus on issues pertaining to Mexican Americans, Chicana/os, andLatina/os. The Association was formed in 1972, during the height of theChicana/o movement, calling for the development of a space where scholarship andChicana/o students could develop their talents in higher education. For more than 30 years, students, faculty, staff, and community members have attended the NACCS annual conference to present their scholarly papers--many of which have spun into important intellectual pillars."

Parraz attended UC Berkeley where he received an undergrad as well as a law degree.  One of his buddies from UC Berkeley acknowledged the photo above and said, "Great times en lucha studies, studies en lucha.  I was happy and PROUD to see my MEChA/Berkeley homie, Randy Parraz who, by the way, performed in the 3rd ever Chicano Secret Service skit ('88 raza day at UCB)"

Aside from an admission to Parraz having been involved with MEChA (not like this is a big shock.  We'll go more in depth on this later) but this just leads us to another question.  What exactly is a Chicano Secret Service skit?

Here's an example. 
As well as here and here.

By the way, "En la lucha" means "in the fight".

S.H.I.E.L.D.

Welcome to S.H.I.E.L.D.

We are Super Heroes Intent on Exposing Leftist Democrats.

It's no secret that the leftist Democrats love their acronyms.  So, it was only proper that we create our own.  S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to fit nicely with the goal of this blog which is to expose the leftists and their radical agendas. 

When fighting a war, you need a S.H.I.E.L.D. (Super Heroes Intent on Exposing Leftist Democrats), strong A.R.M.O.R. (Annoyed Republicans Manifesting Obnoxious Radicals) and of course, a swift S.W.O.R.D. (Stalwart Women Organizing to make a Real Difference).  When used together, these items can serve as a protection to us.

In our particular case, our enemy is the radical agenda and those who wish to destroy our Republic.  Our cause is to win the battle with truth and right. 

Sunlight is the best disinfectant