This is confusing as hell.

Moms for Seattle for Breitbart?

The shady political action group called Moms for Seattle keeps moving further to the right with each passing day.

When you hear the phrase “Moms for Seattle,” what comes to mind? The mothers I encounter in my life as a Seattleite are hard-working, compassionate women who are thinking deeply every day about what it means to build a better and more inclusive world for their children.

Here’s what I don’t think of when I hear “Moms for Seattle:” I don’t think of Breitbart News. And I sure as hell don’t think of a Republican anti-tax crusader named John.

Let me back up a bit for context: we are right now in the middle of an off-year primary here in Washington state, and the Seattle city council primaries are getting very dirty. As longtime Seattle political observer Joel Connelly observed in an amazing editorial yesterday, political action groups are sending “nasty, negative, consultant-crafted direct mail hit pieces” as “part of a multi-group effort to boost a slate of business-backed candidates for Council, and doing early damage to promising progressives.”

One of the newest, and most mysterious, groups to emerge this year is called Moms for Seattle. The group is promoting the same slate of “business-backed candidates” that Connelly warned about in his column, and it’s doing so from behind a bulletproof veil of secrecy—all in the name of Seattle mothers. My coworker Jessyn Farrell, a Seattle mom herself, wrote a great piece earlier this week digging into the mysterious consultants behind Moms for Seattle, and the huge influx of cash that has flooded its coffers since it was created last month. It’s been reported widely that the top contributor to Moms for Seattle is, in fact, a charter-school proponent who lives in Bellevue, not Seattle.

And the money trail keeps getting sketchier. Seattle political commentator Michael Maddux pointed out that someone new just dumped a truckload of cash into Moms for Seattle’s arsenal just yesterday. I think it’s safe to say that John Meisenbach, a major Republican donor who also gave tens of thousands of dollars to defeat a proposed income tax on Washington high-wage-earners, doesn’t reflect the values of the Seattle moms in my life.

Right now, Meisenbach, who local political activist Matt “Spek” Watson hilariously calls “Big Momma John,” appears to be the second-largest donor to Moms for Seattle, after the aforementioned Bellevueite:

Look—Moms for Seattle obviously does have some actual Seattle moms on its donor list. And some of those real Seattle moms, I’m sure, believe in Moms for Seattle’s mission (whatever the hell that is—I dare you to try to find an actual policy on their site.) And maybe some of them were suckered in by the friendly name and the intentionally confusing language on their materials about “real solutions.”

But we are learning a fair amount about the donors. And while there are many Seattle moms on Moms for Seattle’s donor rolls, those mothers aren’t the ones who you and I are likely to encounter in the city. Activist Robert Getch is doing some amazing work looking into the Moms for Seattle donors. He’s found that the list features an inordinate amount of wealthy and retired donors, including Sheri Schultz, the wife of Starbucks founder/anti-tax joke presidential candidate Howard Schultz. (Read the whole thread to learn the names of other big-name one-percent-of-the-one-percent donors to Moms for Seattle.)

And how many of those moms who have donated to Moms for Seattle are regular readers of Breitbart, the conservative site that became famous as the home base for far-right creeps like Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos? Because Moms for Seattle has a robust advertising presence at the top of Breitbart’s home page right now, right next to stories maligning Squad member Rashida Tlaib and some pretty noxious anti-immigrant propaganda:

This screenshot was taken just minutes ago on my computer. I am going to have to burn my browser history with fire now.

How many moms from Seattle are really okay with an organization that’s dumping money into the most loathsome conservative “news” site in their name? How many of the smaller donors to Moms for Seattle are okay with a male Republican donor hiding behind their banner to pursue his anti-tax agenda?

The thing is, if Moms for Seattle was as transparent as other local political groups, we could find answers to these questions pretty easily. But they’re actively avoiding the public eye, with a shady P.O. box for a home base and a smokescreen of obfuscation thrown up around their inner workings.

All we have to judge Moms for Seattle on is their advertisements—all promoting a slate of trickle-down candidates preferred by the Chamber of Commerce and some other shady new political organizations—and the company they keep. Based on the evidence I can see with my own two eyes, I think Moms for Seattle is an insult to Seattle mothers everywhere.