First off, a big congratulations to Esther Wells for becoming the next President of the Montgomery County Taxpayers League. A very deserving position for a CPA, a finance professional, and someone actually invested in trying to improve Montgomery County for everyone, not just a few special interests or connected unions.
In 2022, Esther was involved in a race for the Montgomery County Board of Education. Because she did not toe a particular “line” with special interests or bend the knee to rank political ideology and political correctness, the usual suspects came out to try and derail the very promising campaign as November 2022 neared.
A pure smear piece, full of falsehoods and literally non-existent claims, entitled “ESTHER WELLS IS ANTI-UNION, ANTI-VACCINE, ANTI-LGBTQ+ AND WRONG FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION” appeared on a website called progressivemaryland.org, which appears to be the radical communications arm for the 501c4 organization of the same name. The article was pushed on October 12, 2022. The organization appears to have a registered mailing address in Largo, MD.
Progressive Maryland says that this word salad is its “Mission”.
“Structural oppression” – does that include the predatory gambling interests and MD State Lottery MoCo and Maryland Democrat politicians have routinely supported in recent years?
Progressive Maryland is participating in something called the “People’s Action Convention” in June 2023 at a building near Blair High School in Silver Spring. No doubt a place of sound economics, ideas, and private-property supporting intelligence. The group appears to have mis-spelled “Headquarters” in its infographic:
I won’t even link to the smear piece because it is full of really rank, ridiculous claims and strange innuendo — and it doesn’t even source its “claims” about Esther or others, including this very site. But I’ll include a few brief (and hilarious) screen captures below:
The piece then links to this as proof of the “endorsement” and CleanSlate’s “divisive, dog-whistling rhetoric”. And here is another claim:
The poster of this, one Janay Fenner, then uses a hatchet job, smear-attempt Twitter “exchange” between other accounts and Esther to justify writing this blatantly one-sided junk about Ms. Wells. Janay Fenner, a “Communications Coordinator” with Progressive Maryland, doesn’t even appear to live or work in Montgomery County, MD as of right now or last year. Per her LinkedIn:
Here is the ultimate kicker to this propaganda “posting” by a front group for special interests. It claims to be “authorized” by Progressive Maryland Liberation Alliance PAC. Screen capture from 4/24/2023 is below:
What is “Progressive Maryland Liberation Alliance PAC” and who is Christianne Bharath?
Near I can research, “Progressive Maryland Liberation Alliance PAC” is a PAC doing work for special interests like the Baltimore-Washington Construction and Public Employees Laborers PAC. The following is lifted direct from the TransparencyUSA.org link (prior):
And who is Christianne Bharath? That appears to be one Christianne Marguerite. She has a lengthy “bio” and her own website, detailing her many world travels. America / Maryland and our semi-capitalist system (the one Prog Maryland wants to “change”) can’t be all that bad for one Christianne – she claims to have visited/vacationed in 5 continents and 35 states! Not a bad life – courtesy of “the system”. Did she purchase offsetting carbon credits for the air travel to Europe?
She also appears to have just set-up an LLC: CHRISTIANNE MARGUERITE CONSULTING, LLC is a Maryland Domestic LLC filed on January 7, 2023 [simple Google Search]. Is political consulting in her future? It sure can be lucrative for a select few progressive org “insiders” as we’ve showcased before.
Christianne, like Janay, appears to live in… Baltimore City! Notice: Not Montgomery County, MD.
So, in summary, we see a “Progressive” Political Action Committee that receives funding from outside MoCo, authorizing a post on a non-profit website that is also not based in Montgomery County, and seemingly coordinated/authored by individuals who live in Baltimore City.
All to push ridiculous smears and un-truths about Esther Wells, a stand-up woman who really was running for an important School Board position in Montgomery County – and who actually lives in the community.
Wake up to the outside influences MoCo!
More to come.
