● David Canter (1923-2004) was the son of Harry Jacob Canter, a lifelong communist who: served as secretary of the Boston Communist Party; ran for governor of Massachusetts on the Communist Party ticket in 1930; earned a special invitation to Joseph Stalin‘s USSR in 1932; worked in Moscow as an official translator of Lenin’s writings; and later taught at the Abraham Lincoln School, an infamous Chicago-based front that indoctrinated students in the teachings of Marx and Lenin. Like his father, David Canter was also a lifelong communist. He was educated in Stalin’s Soviet Union from 1932-37, before returning with his family to the United States. He later became an attorney and developed ties to the National Lawyers Guild. In the Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications, an exhaustive Congressional analysis compiled between 1955 and 1968, Canter’s name appeared 25 times. On July 12, 1962, Canter was subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), where he was questioned about the agendas of Translation World Publishers, the pro-Soviet, Soviet-subsidized publishing house he had co-created with LeRoy Wolins, a well-known communist. Canter refused to answer any HUAC questions about his past or present membership in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

● Canter’s associate, Don Rose (who is still alive), was never proven to be a CPUSA member. He was, however, a member of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, an organization replete with communists and Sixties radicals. He also belonged to the Alliance to End Repression (a suspected Communist Party front), and he did some press work for the Students for a Democratic Society. In the 1960s, Rose and Canter collaborated to establish a far-left, pro-communist community newspaper called Hyde Park-Kenwood Voices, which echoed CPUSA propaganda.

● In the name of Axelrod’s company, AKP&D Message and Media: The “A” in the firm’s acronym was for Axelrod. The “K” was for John Kupper, a former Capitol Hill press secretary. The “P” was for David Plouffe, who would serve as campaign manager to Senator Barack Obama. And the “D” was for John Del Cecato, a longtime press secretary.

● In the name of Axelrod’s other company, ASK Public Strategies: The “A” is for Axelrod, the “S” for Eric Sedler, and the “K” is for John Kupper.

● ASK Public Strategies has mastered the use of front-groups, as political science professor Paul Kengor explains in The American Spectator:

“A well-known, somewhat notorious example of this front-group tactic is the company ComEd, which sought a palatable way to seek higher electricity prices in Illinois. ComEd sought ASK’s advice. ASK advised ComEd to form a group called Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity (CORE), which in turn described itself as a ‘coalition of individuals, businesses, and organizations.’ The group then ran ads—written by ASK—direly warning of blackouts if electricity rates were not hiked…. ComEd later acknowledged that it had bankrolled the entire $15 million effort….

“ComEd is just one example of work done by ASK. [There was also] the remarkable case of New York’s Cablevision, which owns Madison Square Garden. Cablevision hired ASK to stop the New York Jets from building a new stadium in nearby Manhattan. Again, a front-group was formed, calling itself the New York Association for Better Choices, which, in turn, ran ads and materials opposing construction. According to records, Cablevision paid ASK $1.2 million in 2004-05.”

The foregoing information about ComEd and Cablevision was derived from public records. As a rule, however, Axelrod and his ASK partners refuse to reveal the identity of any of their clients. According to Business Week magazine, the secrecy surrounding ASK masks a significant crossover of Axelrod’s political connections and his corporate business. For instance, ComEd and its parent company, Exelon, contributed $181,711 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, a sum greater than what was contributed by any other company in Illinois.

● On July 4, 2012, Axelrod posted the following four items on Twitter, for the purpose of raising suspicions about the ethics of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

• “Astonishing story about Mitt’s Bermuda tax shelter and his efforts to keep it secret, apparently skirting MA law.”
• “A Swiss bank account. A dozen funds in the Cayman Islands. And now, a Bermuda tax shelter he failed to report.”
• “How many of these revelations will it take for the media to demand a full accounting of Mitt’s tax returns and finances?”
• “Or will his campaign continue to stonewall and keep him secure within the MPP–the Mittness Protection Program?”

● Each year from 1991 to 2002, Axelrod and his wife donated money to the New Israel Fund.

● In early 2015, Axelrod objected strenuously when Republican House Speaker John Boehner—without first asking President Obama for his approval—invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress on March 3rd about the gravity of the growing Iranian nuclear threat and his “profound disagreement” with the nuclear deal that the Obama Administration was pursuing with Tehran. (For details about that agreement, click here and here,) Axelrod characterized Netanyahu’s speech as “shameful 11th-hour demagoguery.”