A couple of fairly prominent Democratic politicians have been hanging out in questionable company in recent days. Nothing too serious, I don't believe, but as Political Advisor Without Portfolio Or Perceptible Influence, I feel compelled to warn them that no good can come of these associations, and that both of them should run the next time they see these people coming.

First, at a Democratic fundraiser in Miami, according to TBOTP, the president threw his full-throated support behind Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the curiously still-employed chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, and very much requited legislative love interest of the payday loan industry.

"She's had my back, I want to make sure we have her back… [DWS is] somebody who I don't know how she does it, because she's everywhere all the time, non-stop, and she's a mom and a wife and has been just incredibly supportive of my agenda."

OK, she was his pick, and he's a loyal guy, and that's admirable. But if he can point to one concrete thing she's done to build the party, he's got better eyes than I have. In a political era in which the Democratic Party is energized by populist fervor, DWS is the tool of almost every special interest in Florida. She once took a dive to protect Republican congressional incumbents from challenges by decent Democratic candidates because the Republicans were her pals.

In a political era in which the Democratic Party is energized by populist fervor, DWS is the tool of almost every special interest in Florida.

(It's also important to note that the GOP incumbents she refused to help defeat, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the two brothers Diaz-Balart, were all involved in enabling asylum for anti-Castro Cuban terrorists, including Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, a pair of murderous bombers implicated in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana Airlines jet that killed 73 people, including the entire Cuban fencing team. As we've been saying, nice company.)

But that's nothing compared to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had herself a rally over the weekend. One of the guest speakers was embattled Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and some advance guy in the HRC camp should be fired for letting this cluck within 15 miles of the candidate. Johnson will not be running for re-election. This is because his political career is buried under so much slime and corruption that you'd need a diamond-tipped drill bit just to get through the first layer.

The Baffler has a good rundown of the various scams, grifts, and rackets that old KJ used to line his pockets and those of his various cronies. It appears that Johnson found various neoliberal "public-private partnership" schemes to be a target-rich environment.

There's another striking difference between KJ's charitable network and the nonprofit funds that other mayors control. Whereas the LA mayor's fund is run by a board of prominent citizens, many with backgrounds in philanthropy, Johnson's nonprofits are run entirely by his friends and political consultants. The flagship nonprofit of KJ Inc. is, of course, St. Hope. As mayor, Johnson has been able to leverage, from real estate and other local interests, about $3 million in donations to support the family business. The biggest donors include Sacramento's biggest sprawl developer, Angelo Tsakopoulos; arena developer Mark Friedman and his family; and Kevin Nagle, part owner of the Sacramento Kings and majority owner of the Sacramento Republic soccer team. Nagle is also on the St. Hope board of directors. All these men have been big donors to Johnson's election campaigns and to his strong-mayor ballot measure. But while they are limited by strict political campaign contribution limits, they can give unlimited amounts to Johnson's nonprofits.

And that's not even to get into the various sexual harassment (and worse) charges lodged against Johnson that, among other outlets, Deadspin has been dogging for a couple of years now thanks to the indefatigable work of Dave McKenna.

The 23-minute segment opened with Mandi Koba recounting being groomed by Johnson for molestation. Koba met Johnson in Phoenix in 1995, when she was 15 years old and fatherless, and he was the star point guard for the local NBA franchise and a pious community leader. HBO showed devastating footage of a 1996 interview between Koba and a Phoenix police detective in which she detailed one of the alleged incidents in which she was sexually abused by Johnson. Deadspin's publication of a story on Koba in which she spoke out for the first time and of video of that police interview led ESPN to cancel its scheduled October broadcast of Down in the Valley—a sloppy kiss of a documentary that fawned over Johnson for funneling hundreds of millions of tax dollars to the Sacramento Kings to keep the team from leaving town—and preceded Johnson's announcement that he would not run for a third term as mayor of his hometown.

The cherry on top is the fact that Johnson is married to Michelle Rhee, the scandal-plagued Queen Grifter of the charter school movement, which was another New Democrat scam from which Johnson profited.

All of them, Wasserman-Schultz and Sacramento's fun couple, come from an era in which the Democratic Party tried to save itself by softening the edges of Republican ideas. That time is passed and, Jesus, can't the Clinton campaign do a simple Google search?

C'mon, people.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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