WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Rahm Emanuel In L.A. Raising Money For His Illinois Senate Race

Hide The Children!

Next Wednesday Rahm’s SuperPAC, Let’s Win Again, will have a fundraising kickoff in the Arts District with the expectation of raising $8 million of the $100 million they hope to bring in to win the Illinois Senate seat Dick Durbin is leaving. Since Rahm isn’t an officially declared candidate, he is allowed to be there to help raise cash. His brother Ari will be there too, as will Paul Begala. How am I able to break this hideous news? A friend involved with Rep. Brad Sherman— currently being challenged in a hot primary by Jake Rakov— gave me the scoop. Sherman’s a dick and of course he’ll be at the Rahm event. I begged off even though I’ll be right down the street that night. By friend in Sherman’s office ask why wouldn’t go and I sent him this post from 2008 about the first time— also the last time— I met Rahm in person.

Anyway… just a warning: Rahm Emanuel will wait for Durbin to announce he’s retiring and then will announce his own intention to win the seat. Meanwhile, he’s raising money from the corrupt, right-of-center Democratic establishment for the race. Others contemplating a run include Congresswomen Lauren Underwood and Robin Kelly, as well at Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton and Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias. And Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi hs been raking in the big bucks for something. He has over $17 million cash on hand. MAGAts Mary Miller and Darin LaHood are considering running for the GOP nomination.

There’s a Republican version of Rahm who’s run into some trouble himself, former right-wing wacko congressman, current right-wing wack governor, Ron DeSantis of Florida. Ex-Floridian Rick Wilson covered his fall yesterday— “how corrupt, seemingly untouchable, and impervious autocrats are brought low by their greed and arrogance. Ron DeSantis (R-Boulevard of Broken Dreams) and his wife, Casey McBeth DeSantis were, just two years ago, the all-powerful political enterprise of Florida. For the Florida Legislature, he was the power center of all power centers: Florida’s enormous (and enormously wealthy) lobbying class, elected officials at every level. He was the kingmaker, the all-powerful political colossus bestride the state’s every issue. Billionaires flooded him with money. Reporters gushed over his soaring intellect… They used their campaign and the Republican Party of Florida as their piggy bank… Further, the DeSantii were surrounded by an online amen chorus of trolls, bots, and freakshow screechers who, for a time, made the most red-in-tooth-and-claw Very Online MAGA types look tame by comparison. Even Tucker Carlson called them ‘…the nastiest, the stupidest, and the most zero-sum people I’ve ever seen.’ DeSantis, we were confidently and constantly reminded, was DeFuture.” 

Florida's corruption is less campaign donations of the usual transactional sort, and more layers upon layers of interlocking hand-washing, cash-and-property trades, jobs for wives and girlfriends, private jet rides, yachts, favors, sexual indulgences, and so much damn money.

The Florida GOP long ago declared war on transparency, accountability, and basic decency and instead opted for a system of governance that's equal parts Byzantine backroom deal, Ottoman harem intrigue, and Banana Republic coupon redemption scheme. At the center of it all, Ron DeSantis sat like a latter-day Sultan, dispensing favors and cash to his loyal janissaries while the rest of the state burned like a latter-day Constantinople.

And what's the source of this drama? None other than his wife's little vanity project, Hope Florida. Casey wanted to use it as her opening act in a 2026 run for Governor. It was to fill out her paper-thin resume with something meaningful.But it turns out that Casey DeSantis's feel-good initiative somehow turned out all wrong.Somehow, a mysterious chain of events demanded by persons unknown led to $10 million being stuffed in a metaphorical gym bag and thrown over the transom at Hope Florida.

Hope Florida took that $10 million slice of money from a settlement from Centene, a company forced to pay a $67 million Medicare fraud settlement to the state of Florida. (As Medicare fraud settlements in Florida go, that one is just mid-range.)Odd, isn’t it? How one charity organization that just happens to be controlled Casey DeSantis somehow gets almost exactly 15% of a settlement meant to compensate the state of Florida for corporate Medicaid fraud.

Weird. It’s almost like someone established a pay-to-play percentage.

Well, given this is Florida, the story didn’t get less dirty. Hope Florida took that $10 million and flipped it to two political committees allied with Ron DeSantis in his effort to kill off a marijuana reform ballot initiative. Hope Florida barely kept the money long enough to earn interest on it. Pumping into political committees tied to the DeSantis/GOP operation was…unsubtle, but they just didn’t care. The Florida Legislature, bless their hearts, has finally grown a spine and is taking DeSantis to task for this mess. They're asking questions, and not the “Is it true you’re the smartest and most handsome Governor in Florida history?” type DeSantis was accustomed to for the last 6 years.No, they're going for the jugular, demanding to know how this whole thing went down and who knew what when. Read this from AP:

House Speaker Daniel Perez on Wednesday defended lawmakers’ questions about the donation, saying they mostly want to know how the money was received, where it went, how it was used and why.

“So far it looks as though it could be illegal,” Perez said.

“That $10 million was state money,” Republican Rep. Alex Andrade said Wednesday during a tense hearing with a state agency head who oversaw Hope Florida. “I still have no idea why this was justified. I have very strong beliefs that this was not legal.”

I cannot express how unusual and dangerous this is for DeSantis. It's not looking good for the Governor, the wanna-be future Governor, or their loyal attack dog, James Uthmeier.

The words being whispered in town are “FBI,” “jail,” and “RICO.”

…Theirs was a political empire for the ages.

Until it wasn’t.

Now, it’s all teetering on the edge of political isolation and destruction.

It won’t be tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, but it’s almost always these men's arrogance and corruption that bring about their downfall. Once one ally runs away, the herd follows.

Oddly, DeSantis was a perfect exemplar of end-stage Trumpism. Bullying, arrogant, corrupt, and worst of all, overconfident. His time is running out.

And let this be a lesson to all the Trumpists out there: evil men always carry the seeds of their own destruction. It may not be tomorrow, or the next day, but it's coming.

And when it does, it'll be a beautiful thing to watch.

What’s this got to do with Rahm Emanuel? A question hangs in the air: why does this man keep failing upward? It demands an answer far sharper than polite political analysis can offer. Rahm is the avatar of everything corroded and cynical in Democratic politics: ruthless, transactional, contemptuous of the grassroots, and hostile to any policy or movement not pre-approved by corporate donors or AIPAC. The fact that this ghoulish figure is re-emerging to claw his way into the Senate, cheered on by Beltway fossils like Paul Begala and financed by oligarchs who want nothing more than to slam the door on the left, is not just infuriating— it’s an indictment.

What does it say about a political system when someone with Rahm’s record is still considered viable— not despite his record, but because of it? This is the man who covered up the police murder of Laquan McDonald to win re-election. Who told Obama not to “waste capital” on healthcare reform. Who sneered at progressives, dismissed Black activists, and made the White House a hostile place for anyone left of Joe Lieberman. And now, instead of being shunned from public life, he’s being rewarded with a SuperPAC and $100 million in oligarch money to cement a Senate seat as a firewall against anything remotely resembling change.

This isn’t just about Rahm. It’s about a sick, entrenched party establishment that would rather lose to Republicans than share power with its own base. It’s about a political class that views the left not as a coalition partner but as a threat to be neutralized. And it's about the grotesque resilience of machine politics in a time when people are demanding justice, transparency, and dignity— not another grinning hitman for the donor class.

Let’s just keep in mind that ole Rahm's reappearance isn’t a comeback— it’s a very dire warning.