Did The GOP Convention Lose Trump More Voters? Don't Ask The Facebook Propaganda Machine

On Friday night, Trump hosted another super-spreader event, this one in a crowded airport hanger in New Hampshire. In 2016, New Hampshire was essentially a 47-47% tie, although Hillary had a couple thousand more votes and won the states 4 electoral votes. Trump has always maintained he was ripped off and would win New Hampshire back in 2020. Polling doesn't indicate the race is even close in New Hampshire this year. Trump favorability is way underwater and the latest RealClearPolitics polling average shows Biden beating him by nearly ten points. The most recent poll from the University of New Hampshire shows Trump losing with 40% of the vote to Biden's 53%-- and with a 10% lead among independents. On Friday night in the hangar, while his supporters were giving each other COVID-- Trump blustered and projected ("If Biden wins, which I honestly can’t believe would happen, I will have lost to a low IQ individual") and threatened and raged, blasting "Democrat-run cities" ("We’re going to have an unbelievable year unless somebody stupid gets elected and raises your taxes").

Is it possible that the polls are all wrong-- again? I think it's more possible that the media is trying to make the election an exciting horserace but... there was that study by Cloud Research on who lies to pollsters. It shows that Republicans and independents are more likely to lie than Democrats. And they are twice as likely as Democrats to say they would not give their true opinion in a telephone poll question about their preference for president. What does that mean? Well, it raises the possibility that polls understate support for Señor Trumpanzee. Cloud Research reported that 11.7% of Republicans and 10.5% independents said they would not give their true opinion, as opposed to 5.4% of Democrats. "Shy voters" had 6 concerns:

• A lack of trust in phone polls as truly being anonymous.
• An apprehension to associate their phone numbers with recorded responses.
• Fear that their responses will become public in some manner.
• Fear of reprisal and related detrimental impact to their financial, social, and family lives should their political opinions become publicly known.
• A general dislike of phone polls.
• Malicious intent to mislead polls due to general distrust of media and political pundits (though a sentiment expressed only by a few “shy voters”). 

Slimeball by Nancy Ohanian

And then there's the Kevin Rouse OpEd in the New York Times that has gone viral, What If Facebook Is The Real Silent Majority? Nearly a dozen people sent it to me before noon on Saturday. I never got into Facebook. DWT posts get put up there and I'll occasionally answer requests I notice but I've never once, for example, looked to Facebook for news (or even opinion). I'm the opposite of Rouse, who wrote that since the 2016 election, he's "been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on Facebook. I guess he takes Facebook a lot more seriously than I do. No offense, but I tend to think of people who use Facebook as a news source as being just slightly above brain-dead. But what do I know? I still blog all day. To me Facebook has always been a game I never played. To Rouse-- and I suspect, most people, Facebook is, as he wrote, "the world’s largest and arguably most influential media platform. Every morning, one of the first browser tabs I open is CrowdTangle-- a handy Facebook-owned data tool that offers a bird’s-eye view of what’s popular on the platform. I check which politicians and pundits are going viral. I geek out on trending topics. I browse the previous day’s stories to see which got the most reactions, shares and comments. Most days, the leader board looks roughly the same: conservative post after conservative post, with the occasional liberal interloper... It’s no secret that, despite Mr. Trump’s claims of Silicon Valley censorship, Facebook has been a boon to him and his allies, and hyperpartisan Facebook pages are nothing new. (In fact, my colleague John Herrman wrote about them four years ago this month.)

But what sticks out, when you dig in to the data, is just how dominant the Facebook right truly is. Pro-Trump political influencers have spent years building a well-oiled media machine that swarms around every major news story, creating a torrent of viral commentary that reliably drowns out both the mainstream media and the liberal opposition.

The result is a kind of parallel media universe that left-of-center Facebook users may never encounter, but that has been stunningly effective in shaping its own version of reality. Inside the right-wing Facebook bubble, President Trump’s response to Covid-19 has been strong and effective, Joe Biden is barely capable of forming sentences, and Black Lives Matter is a dangerous group of violent looters.

Mr. Trump and his supporters are betting that, despite being behind Mr. Biden in the polls, a “silent majority” will carry him to re-election. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest and most online son, made that argument himself at the Republican National Convention this week. And while I’m not a political analyst, I know enough about the modern media landscape to know that looking at people’s revealed preferences-- what they actually read, watch, and click on when nobody’s looking-- is often a better indicator of how they’ll act than interviewing them at diners, or listening to what they’re willing to say out loud to a pollster.

Maybe Mr. Trump’s “silent majority,” in other words, only seems silent because we’re not looking at their Facebook feeds.

“We live in two different countries right now,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist and digital director of Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign. Facebook’s media ecosystem, he said, is “a huge blind spot for people who are up to speed on what’s on the front page of The New York Times and what’s leading the hour on CNN.”

To be sure, Facebook is not the only medium where right-wing content thrives. Millions of Americans still get their news from cable news and talk radio, where conservative voices have dominated for years. Many pro-Trump Facebook influencers also have sizable presences on Twitter, YouTube and other social networks.

But the right’s dominance on Facebook, specifically, is something to behold. Here are just a few data points I pulled from CrowdTangle this week:

The conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has gotten 56 million total interactions on his Facebook page in the last 30 days. That’s more than the main pages of ABC News, NBC News, the New York Times, the Washington Post and NPR combined. (Data from a different firm, NewsWhip, showed that Mr. Shapiro’s news outlet, the Daily Wire, was the No. 1 publisher on Facebook in July.)

Facebook posts by Breitbart, the far-right news outlet, have been shared four million times in the past 30 days, roughly three times as many as posts from the official pages of every Democratic member of the U.S. Senate combined.

The most-shared Facebook post containing the term “Black Lives Matter” over the past six months is a June video by the right-wing commentators The Hodgetwins, which calls the racial justice movement a “damn lie.” The second most-shared Black Lives Matter post? A different viral video from The Hodgetwins, this one calling the movement a “leftist lie.” (The Hodgetwins also have the 4th, 6th, and 12th most shared posts.)

Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian and Trump supporter, has averaged 86,500 interactions per Facebook post in August, more than twice as many as Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, who has averaged 39,000 interactions per post. (Mr. Trump outdoes them both, naturally, with an average of 92,000 interactions per post.)

A few caveats, before my Democratic readers jump off the nearest pier.

These figures include only posts on public pages, in public groups, and by verified accounts, and they don’t include Facebook ads, where the Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign in recent weeks. Counting Facebook interactions doesn’t tell you how someone felt about a post, so it’s possible some conservative posts are being hate-shared by liberals. And Facebook has argued that engagement isn’t the same thing as popularity.

“These points look mostly at how people engage with content, which should not be confused with how many people actually see it on Facebook,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. Mr. Osborne added that “when you look at the content that gets the most reach across Facebook, it’s not at all as partisan as this reporting suggests.” (Facebook does not disclose this type of data publicly, except once in a while in response to my tweets.)

Democrats aren’t totally absent from Facebook’s upper echelon. Ridin’ With Biden, a pro-Biden page started in April by the founders of the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats, has quadrupled its following over the past three months, and routinely gets more engagement than Breitbart and other right-wing heavy-hitters. Individual posts by Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats have broken through in recent weeks.

And political campaigners have pointed out, correctly, that being popular on the internet isn’t a guarantee of electoral success. (“Retweets don’t vote,” as an experienced Democratic operative once told me.) In addition, Facebook’s older, more conservative user base may not reflect what’s happening on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which draw a younger crowd.

Still, the platform’s sheer scale makes it vital to understand. As of 2019, 70 percent of American adults used Facebook, and 43 percent of Americans got news on the platform, according to the Pew Research Center. (Those numbers may have increased because of the pandemic.) We know that the company’s product decisions can make or break political movements, move fringe ideas into the mainstream, or amplify partisan polarization. Registering four million voters before the November election, as Facebook has said it would do, could be a decisive force all on its own. (Typically, higher turnout benefits Democrats, but given what we know about the media diets of hyperactive Facebook users, who knows?)

The reason right-wing content performs so well on Facebook is no mystery. The platform is designed to amplify emotionally resonant posts, and conservative commentators are skilled at turning passionate grievances into powerful algorithm fodder. The company also appears willing to bend its rules for popular conservative influencers. Recent reports by BuzzFeed News and NBC News, based on leaked documents, found that Facebook executives had removed “strikes” from the accounts of several high-profile conservative pages that had shared viral misinformation in violation of the company’s rules.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to view my daily Facebook data-dive as a kind of early-warning system-- a rough gauge of what’s grabbing America’s attention on any given day, and which stories and perspectives will likely break through in the days to come.

And looking at Facebook’s lopsided political media ecosystem might be a useful reality check for Democrats who think Mr. Biden will coast to victory in November.

And on his own Facebook page, Michael Moore couldn't agree more: "Sorry to have to provide the reality check again, but when CNN polled registered voters in August in just the swing states, Biden and Trump were in a virtual tie. In Minnesota, it’s 47-47. In Michigan, where Biden had a big lead, Trump has closed the gap to 4 points. Are you ready for a Trump victory? Are you mentally prepared to be outsmarted by Trump again? Do you find comfort in your certainty that there is no way Trump can win? Are you content with the trust you’ve placed in the DNC to pull this off? The Biden campaign just announced he’ll be visiting a number of states-- but not Michigan. Sound familiar? I’m warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump’s base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much. Don’t leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump. WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote. ACT NOW!"

I thought Moore was the voice of doom in 2016. His prediction that Hillary would lose turned out to be correct, even if she did actually get 2,868,686 more votes than Trump did (48.2% to 26.1%). Yesterday Jonathan Lemire reported for AP that "The GOP convention’s target audience, according to campaign officials, was mostly former Trump supporters, those Republicans or independents who may have backed him in 2016 but grew unhappy with his rhetoric or handling of the pandemic. The goal, by trying to humanize Trump and demonize Biden, was to set up a permission structure to make those voters feel comfortable enough to vote for Trump again, even if they cared for his policies far more than his personality. Officials believe they accomplished that over the four-day convention and are encouraged by internal numbers that show Trump had begun closing the gap on Biden even before the events of this week in Washington. The campaign’s theory of the election has long been to turn out Trump’s base-- a smaller set of the electorate than which backs Biden, but more enthusiastic-- while also trying to win over nonvoters and drive up negative impressions of Biden so that some of his possible backers stay home.

The president’s advisers privately acknowledge minefields lay ahead in the final nine weeks before Election Day.

Trump aides are warily watching the calendar as Labor Day approaches, concerned that the three-day weekend, traditionally marked by parties and sizable gatherings, could trigger a spike in infections just like they believe Memorial Day did at the other bookend of summer.

In Case You Haven't Noticed Yet, Trump Is Now Directly And Viciously Attacking Dr. Fauci; It Was Inevitable

USA Today reported that the news that the creepy Orange Menace will hold a rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, this Saturday "has raised concerns among some local medical experts about what his visit will do to the relatively low COVID-19 numbers in the area. Compared to other states, like Florida and Texas, the Northeast seems to be managing the pandemic fairly well. Some fear a large, crowded rally will reverse that positive trend. New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu urged residents to wear masks and practice social distancing at the outdoor rally. 'It is imperative that folks attending the rally wear masks,' he said." Sununu also told the media that though he's "going to go and greet the President as the governor, I will not be in the crowd of thousands of people, I'm not going to put myself in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people, if that's your question specifically. I try to-- unfortunately, you know, I have to be extra cautious as the governor, I try to be extra cautious for myself, my family." Sununu may well lose his reelection bid because of his strange refusal to mandate masks.

The progressive Democrat challenging Sununu this cycle, Andru Volinsky, was terse and to the point regarding the rally he obviously isn't attending. "I am calling on Gov. Sununu to publicly state that Donald Trump is not welcome in New Hampshire. The public health risks are far too great to use New Hampshire for a photo op."

In his NY Times column published around the same time Sununu was making an ass out of himself, David Leonhardt noted that "There is no country in the world where confirmed coronavirus cases are growing as rapidly as they are in Arizona, Florida or South Carolina. The Sun Belt has become the global virus capital. The only countries with outbreaks as severe as those across the Sunbelt are Bahrain, Oman and Qatar-- three Middle Eastern countries with large numbers of low-wage migrant workers who are not citizens. These workers often live in cramped quarters, with subpar social services, and many have contracted the virus."

These are Tuesday's and Wednesday's numbers conparing Sun Belt states' two one day increases of confirmed cases with the the 10 European countries experiencing the most severe spikes right now.

• Texas +9,414 ---> 10,199
• California +8,631 ---> 8,561
• Florida +7,347 ---> 9,989
• Arizona +3,653 ---> 3,520
• Georgia +3,406 ---> 3,420
• Louisiana +1,936 ---> 1,888
• North Carolina +1,748 ---> 1,028
• Tennessee +1,359 ---> 2,472
• Missouri +1,135 ---> 755
• South Carolina +972 ---> 1,557
• Mississippi +957 ---> 674
• Alabama +907 ---> 1,177
• Nevada +876 ---> 516
• Oklahoma +858 ---> 673
• U.K. +581 ---> 630
• Ukraine +564 ---> 807
• France +475 ---> 663
• Romania +397 ---> 555
• Spain +341 ---> 383
• Serbia +299 ---> 357
• Germany +298 ---> 410
• Portugal +287 ---> 443
• Poland +257 ---> 277
• Moldova +235 ---> 330

Trump lied (again) on Twitter, claiming, absurdly, that coronavirus deaths are "down tenfold." Someone in the White House forced the ignorant pig to delete the tweet. Trump also went on the attack against Dr. Fauci, belittling him and his assessment of the battle against the pandemic. Señor Trumpanzee to Greta Van Susteren: "Well, I think we are in a good place. I disagree with him. Dr. Fauci said don't wear masks and now he says wear them. And he said numerous things. Don't close off China. Don't ban China. I did it anyway. I didn't listen to my experts and I banned China. We would have been in much worse shape. We've done a good job. I think we are going to be in two, three, four weeks, by the time we next speak, I think we're going to be in very good shape."

Fauci on Monday had specifically pointed to "a series of circumstances associated with various states and cities trying to open up" too early as a key factor in the virus's surge and emphasized the US "should use the public health effort as a vehicle and a pathway to get to safe reopening."

"So we've got to make sure that we don't create this binary type thing of 'it's us against them,' " he said of public health efforts and the US economy.

"It's not. We're all in it together."

Trump conceded Tuesday that there are spikes in the virus in "some areas that looked like we were going to escape, that they were going to escape, and all of a sudden it became hot."

"But I think you're going to see with all of the things that we're doing, and with all of the therapeutics that are coming out, and then ultimately the vaccine, we're going to be in very good shape very soon," he claimed.

Fauci's assessment built on the stark warning he had issued to lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week, telling them he wouldn't be surprised if the US sees new cases of coronavirus rising to a level of 100,000 a day.

"We are now having 40-plus-thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around, and so I am very concerned," Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

He specifically expressed dismay over people congregating in crowds and not wearing masks and inadequate attention being paid to guidelines on reopening.

"We're going to continue to be in a lot of trouble," he said. "And there's going to be a lot of hurt if that does not stop."

Endorsement Alert: New Hampshire's Democratic Bench

New Hampshire's state legislature in probably the most democratic in the country. In a state with 1,359,711 people, the state House has 400 members, each one representing about, on average, 3,300 residents. Right now there are 233 Democrats and 165 Republicans and 1 independent. The members serve for 2 years-- and they get $200 for their term.

The 25th district (Rockingham County) is in northern Portsmouth. In both 2016 and 2020 the district was Bernie country in the primary and then voted for Hillary in the general. It's half commercial and half residential, is a hub for regional tourism and is less than a mile from the border with Maine. Conservative Democrat Laura Pantelakos has been in office since 1978, and has, for example, consistently voted No on cannabis legalization bills, both in the House and as a member of the criminal justice committee, even though her constituents voted Yes. She has also missed key votes at the State House on issues such as prohibiting firearms on school property and the establishment of a student debt relief program for the state. That last point appears to be what drew her an opponent, Robin Vogt this cycle.

Vogt, a special ed teacher is a reformist and progressive. He is an outspoken supporter of Medicare For All, a Green New Deal to fight against climate change and create sustainable jobs, and to increase funding for New Hampshire's public education system. Blue America endorsed him today. "If we are to move the Granite State forward towards true progress," he told us in a written statement, "then it must start at the grassroots level. The people of my District and this county are looking for something that can give them hope, and a representative who is not afraid to sit at the kitchen table to develop real solutions for those who call Portsmouth home. This campaign is built on the foundation that there are diverse voices who have been trying to call out, but have been met quickly by the status-quo practices of the past that silence them. We cannot continue to fight for the things we need unless our local legislators begin to speak up for those who have gone silent, and wish to see progressive action at the state level. My dedication is to the people of my community, and this campaign is ready to march in the streets and bring this fight to the State House in Concord." Below is a guest post he wrote about one of the issues that motivates him most, public education. If you like what he has to say, please consider clicking on the Blue America state legislative thermometer above and contributing what you can.


Ready To Fight For Progressive Public Education
-by Robin Vogt

Every year, uncertainties about making a living wage or being able to afford health insurance become a reality for our families and educators. Every year, not knowing whether a backpack or basic school supplies can be bought for the first day of school. Education has always taken the backseat in New Hampshire when it comes to the development of our next generation. Outdated classrooms and a curriculum that fails to teach or show the realities of the world surrounds young minds of all abilities. Teachers who question the reliability of the education being provided one quarter, are shown the door the next because of the current system. Our educators and support staff work hard every single day for the simple cause of teaching our young learners. Low wages, those poor insurance options and vast uncertainties about their jobs future drives the public education system across this country, and here in New Hampshire, it is no different. Consistently put to the table on the State and local level; cuts to our special education departments and programs, while pushing investments into company-built curriculum that fail to hit the major life skills that learners need to be successful. These are the consistent decisions being made that are only setting our public education system back, not pushing it forward.

Our current education system creates stresses for educators and families across the state, and for many in the small port city that I call home. As a special education paraeducator for 10 years, I have worked 1:1 with students who require IEP and/or 504 accommodations. Students who are passionate about being at school, and working with their peers every single day. Even with that driving force inside our learners to work hard and be the best individual they can be, the public education system continues to be the face of continual cuts and lack of respect by our legislature. The students 100% sometimes only seem to account for 10% when it comes down to hitting standards, learning the life skills necessary to be independently successful, and accurately showcasing how amazing of human beings they truly are. As I sat in the classroom during my 4th year as a special education paraeducator, and I saw a student struggle to hit the standards being presented. I saw students who were independently making strides beyond their IEPs, but consistently falling short when it came to meeting the standards outlined by the State of New Hampshire. I was once that student too, trying to figure out why things were not adding up, and now today I realize why.

It was not until I left the public school system as a student that I began to see and understand what was truly happening behind the scenes. Curriculum standards that were driven by company-built programs, some who have never worked in the classroom before or understand how an educator teaches his or her students the skills necessary to graduate. The way school boards, local governments and our state legislature under-funded public education and our classrooms. For the last 4 years, I have been Co President of my schools union under the National Education Association - New Hampshire, and have fought for the very things that were consistently put on the chopping block. The funding to provide our educators and all students the quality of education that they deserve. That is the same fight that I am ready to bring for Rockingham District 25, Ward 1 to the State House in Concord. All the experiences working with families, educators and administrators to find the best pathway to a well-funded, high quality public education for all students in New Hampshire. I will work alongside our next Governor and state legislators to develop true education reform that properly funds our public schools not just in Portsmouth, but across the state. Continue to fight for our critical special education programs and advocate for a teacher-built curriculum that provides necessary federally protected services to our students who need it most, and ensures that the inclusive classroom moves forward with purpose and pride. Our diverse families who send their children to our schools to learn need to be heard, and the education system that will teach our students the life skills necessary to be successful must take priority in the halls of the New Hampshire State House.

It is the combined voices of my neighborhood, city and state that will continue to educate and create progress, not the select few and the status-quo practices of the past. It’s time that Portsmouth has a State Representative that will take on these challenges in public education that lie ahead, and fight for their solutions every single day.

I am ready to continue the fight for a progressive public education for all students. I am that candidate to help bring true change here in the Granite State.

End Citizens United-- Still A DSCC/DCCC Scam For The Corrupt DC Establishment

End Citizen United's very ironic logo

What does it signify when a candidate is endorsed by a scammy campaign group called "End Citizens United?" Nothing whatsoever to do with the crucial goal of actually ending Citizens United. The campaign organization that uses that name really just has one over-arching goal: raising grassroots money for DSCC and DCCC establishment candidates. Once grassroots/netroots small dollar donors started understanding that the DCCC and DSCC are rotten and corrupt organizations, pushing establishment, status quo candidates and never candidates representing fundamental change, the two organizations cooked up End Citizens United as a way to keep the small dollar contributions flowing in their direction. DSCC and DCCC staffers started End Citizens United-- a super PAC-- not to end anything, just to direct grassroots money towards ConservaDem candidates who would not normally get it-- even if that meant occasionally throwing in a few progressive names to make it look legit.

If you look at their endorsement pages, you will always see a few bright shining progressive stars-- among the piles of shit-- to mislead people. They've been doing this since inception and it works for them. The first time I wrote about them was in 2015 when they started up-- and when they used Russ Feingold as a front to raise money for a slate of vile New Dems and Blue Dogs who are generally hated by progressives: Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Julia Brownley (New Dem-CA), Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Annie Kuster (New Dem-NH), Raul Ruiz (New Dem-CA), hen-DSCC chair Michael Bennet (CO), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ)...

At the time, I wrote that the more I looked into their initial e-mail, the more I smelled a rat and the more I looked into the group itself, "the less grassroots or progressive credibility I found. Its website looks like a phishing operation to collect e-mail addresses for partisan Democratic Party operations like the aforementioned DCCC and DSCC. The website's domain registration is hidden from the public-- very suspicious for a 'grassroots organization.' It smells like a scam, a New Dem/Blue Dog/DCCC scam using Russ Feingold as bait to lure naive, uninformed progressives into sending unaccountable cash. I hit reply and sent them an e-mail about their list of endorsees, 9 out of 11 of whom are grotesque DINOs who have spent their time in Congress crossing the aisle and voting with the Republicans-- Blue Dog shitheads like Kyrsten Sinema and Cheri Bustos and utterly worthless New Dems like Pete Aguilar, Scott Peters, Ann Kuster and Ami Bera. And the only senator on the list is DSCC chair Michael Bennet, one of the worst Democrats in that body. Stinky! The reply was an automated plea for money, typical of what one would expect from grifters. Beware."


The next candidate the grifters endorsed was "ex"-Republican-- and no friend of reform-- Patrick Murphy, a right-of-center and über-corrupt Florida New Dem. Have they changed since then? Nope-- although instead of Bennet dictating which Senate candidates to endorse, it's Schumer. What "progressive" or "reform" or "grassroots" group would pick Hickenlooper over Romanoff in Colorado? Or Sara Gideon over Betsy Sweet in Maine? Schumer's handpicked candidates in Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Mexico and Texas are also on the list. What about Charles Booker in Kentucky? Don't make me laugh. They never endorse progressives fighting for fundamental change against establishment shills.

Among their House candidates, they think "ex"-Republican Blue Dog Tom O'Halleran is a better pick than Eva Putzova, whose entire career has been about reform! How about their endorsement of New Dem Eliot Engel instead of Jamaal Bowman? That should tell you how grassroots and legit they are! Another worthless Blue Dog-- Kendra Horn (OK City)-- got their nod instead of reformer Tom Guild. By the way, Guild and Putzova have been fighting for DC statehood while Horn and O'Halleran are among the tiny handful of House Democrats who refuse to co-sponsor the pending statehood bill.

The scam operation has also jumped into the New Hampshire gubernatorial primary that pits the kind of establishment hack "End Citizens United" loves against the kind of reformer they fear. They endorsed a pro-corporate money-- at least for himself-- Democrat, Dan Feltes instead of the guy who actually wants to end Citizens United, Andru Volinsky. It's worth noting that the "End Citizens United operation in New Hampshire is headed by Jeff Taylor, whose brother, Nick Taylor, is Feltes' campaign manager. But, more important is a look at how sleazy Feltes has been about campaign finance reform. He's exactly as crooked as "End Citizens United" itself!

Gubernatorial candidate Dan Feltes is running ads on Facebook that claim “he isn't taking corporate PAC or LLC contributions, so the public can be sure their governor is working for them-- not himself.”

That message is consistent with Feltes’ record in the state Senate, where he’s sponsored bills to outlaw corporate campaign donations and to limit political activities of limited liability corporations.

But a review of Feltes’ campaign filings show that in his run for governor, he’s collected thousands of dollars from political action committees tied to industries like banking, real estate, car dealers, trial attorneys, doctors, and dentists. Gambling interests, several Concord lobbying firms, and corporate entities like Federal Express and Liberty Utilities also show up as campaign donors in his filings.

Feltes’s campaign has also taken advantage of what he’s derided as “the LLC loophole” by banking cash from three LLCs controlled by Ben Kelley, his own campaign treasurer. Kelley used the LLC loophole to donate $11,200 to Feltes’ campaign over the course of the past year. The per-person legal limit is $7,000, though wealthy donors can skirt that limit by donating additional money through LLCs. Three of those contributions, from three separate Kelley-linked LLCs-- Jarbel Realty LLC, 21 Perley Street LLC and JP Irving LLC-- came into the campaign on the same day last November.

The source of the money could only be pieced together by cross-checking LLC registration filings with campaign finance reports. And the donations to Feltes’s campaign-- by his campaign's own treasurer-- are the precise sort of arrangement Feltes himself has decried as undercutting “transparency and accountability” in how campaigns are funded.

Feltes, a Democrat, has made ending the loophole a centerpiece of his criticism of Gov. Chris Sununu, the incumbent he’s seeking to replace in November. In July, when Sununu vetoed Feltes’ most recent attempt (and his third in three years) to limit the ability of individuals to use multiple LLCs to funnel money to candidates, on the grounds it would limit speech, Feltes was quick to chastise.

“The people of New Hampshire should know who is funding elections,” Feltes, the Senate majority leader, said at the time. “Unfortunately today Governor Sununu sided with corporate special interests rather than Granite State voters.”

This week, the Feltes campaign offered varying explanations for the discrepancy between his campaign finance records, his advertising claims and his apparent change of heart on the role of corporate and LLC money in New Hampshire politics. In response to inquiries from NHPR Thursday, his campaign said it was returning up to $11,000 in LLC and other corporate contributions received after his official campaign announcement-- Sept. 3, 2019-- but would keep those collected before that date.

“People are increasingly concerned about corporate money in politics,” Feltes said in a statement to NHPR Thursday. “Which is why in this campaign we are not accepting corporate contributions, we’ve returned any and all such contributions received to date.”

Later in the day, Feltes campaign manager Nick Taylor said the collection of corporate and LLC donations was, in fact, intentional: “The reality is, we made a decision at the start of this campaign to not unilaterally disarm and tie one hand behind our back,” he said. Taylor did not explain how that view squared with Feltes’ multiple efforts to outlaw LLC loophole contributions over the years.

The video of Andru Volinsky tearing up an unsolicited corporate PAC check (directly above) wasn't good enough or compelling enough for the End Citizens United grifters. But I guess this was just fine for them:

Blue America's First June Endorsement-- Andru Volinsky For Governor

Blue America hasn't endorsed many candidates for governor this year. Governors, like senators, tend to be a little too establishment, a little too conservative-- and not leaders so much as managers. We just added a third-- Andru Volinsky of New Hampshire-- to our short list. This is for a late primary, September 8, in which Andru is being opposed by a establishment conservative Dan Feltes, a weak, tepid, dishonest and utterly useless minority leader of the state Senate. The winner will face off against GOP incumbent Chris Sununu. Bernie hasn't endorsed many candidates for governor either, but Volinksky was a sure bet for him too.

“Real change comes from the bottom up, not the top down,” Sanders said in the news release announcing the endorsement. “This is why we need candidates who champion the people and the issues at every level, in every state.”

Calling Volinsky a “progressive beacon in New Hampshire,” the news release cites his work as an attorney advocating for more equitable school funding and efforts on public-sector pensions and health care premiums.

"It is my honor and privilege to be endorsed by the next president of the United States, Bernie Sanders," Volinsky said in a statement emailed Thursday morning. "I endorsed Bernie Sanders for president twice because he’s been fighting for decades against the corrupting influence of money in politics, for robust public education funding, commuter rail, climate action, healthcare access, and addressing income inequality."

I was impressed at the way Volinsky has been taking on Sununu already, by, for example, calling for masks to be required by businesses for customers and employees, something Sununu refuses to do. Unlike the weak-knee-ed and complacent Feltes, Volinsky has been fearless when it comes to taking on Sununu, who he referred to as a "fake" and a "coward" for his power grab in spending COVID federal funds.

Governor Veto has blocked 57 bills passed by the legislature, many of them bipartisan, 4 times as many as any other governor, including renewable energy/net metering, campaign finance reform, independent redistricting, raising the minimum wage, paid family leave... Feltes is still too scared to take him on directly. Volinsky can beat this guy; Feitis doesn't have any chance at all in November.

New Hampshire has towns now with no science teachers, even no elementary schools, because of their wack ass tax system that relies exclusively on property taxes. There is no income tax and there are no sales taxes. If you ask me, Andru is running for governor primarily because he sued the state in 1997 in what was known  as the landmark "Claremont decision" which said the state has a broken taxation and funding system that shortchanges children who live in property-poor towns. Since that time,  governors of both parties have refused to reform the taxation system, agreeing with what's known in New Hampshire as "The Pledge" meaning you will NEVER consider a broadbased tax-- neither income nor sales. Any Democrat who doesn't take "The Pledge" scares the hell out of the establishment which assumes it's a political loser. Feltes, of course, eagerly took The Pledge. Andru Volinsky is even prouder to have not and it is a quality Blue America ultimately judges progressive candidates on: political courageousness. I asked André to address it when introducing himself. Please read on and then consider contributing to his campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 gubernatorial thermometer above.


I'll Bring Progressive, Principled Leadership to NH
-by Andru Volinsky





The COVID-19 pandemic has created waves of fear and uncertainty across New Hampshire. It’s also exposed just how important governors are. Too often, progressives have overlooked the importance of State Houses. With redistricting just around the corner, New Hampshire offers the best opportunity for Democrats to win back a state house. Governors make life or death decisions and they are the best bulwark to stand up against President Trump. The current governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, is part of a political dynasty. His father was governor and President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, a position he used to single-handedly stall progress on climate change. His brother was a senator while another brother works at a climate denial think tank. And Sununu has his sights set on a U.S. Senate seat in 2022 challenging Senator Maggie Hassan. Progressives must do everything we can to stop him now.

As the only candidate for governor endorsed by Bernie Sanders so far in 2020, I believe the only way we win this race is by having the courage to lead. I went to a struggling high school in Levittown, Pennsylvania, a town where the mill failed. I watched my father work as a mechanic and maintenance man. I am still the only person in my family to attend college, which I did on scholarship and by working as a carpenter. I became a lawyer and worked against the death penalty because I wanted to make a difference and fight for justice.

I became the lead lawyer in the Claremont School Funding Case, which in 1997 established a constitutional right to an adequate state-funded public education for every child in New Hampshire. Because our state has no sales or income tax, we rely solely on ever crushing property taxes to fund education. Because too many state leaders live in fear of reforming our broken revenue system, the state isn’t living up to its responsibilities. And we’re passing down more fear to the next generation, which already has the deck stacked against them. In Berlin, a struggling town in the North Country, I met a 4th grader named Aurora who wants to be a doctor. She’s already behind her peers who live in districts funded by property-rich ski hill mansions because Berlin has no chemistry teachers. I won’t take what’s known in New Hampshire as “The Pledge” to never change our revenue system, because we need an honest conversation about our tax structure, which will never change as long as we lack the courage to challenge the conventional wisdom both parties adhere to.

Here’s another place we need more courage: the corrupting influence of money in politics. Too many politicians, Republican and Democratic alike, fear losing re-election if they don’t sell out to the highest bidder. They exploit the LLC loophole that here in New Hampshire, allows wealthy individuals to contribute more than the individual limit through multiple limited liability companies. I’m running my campaign in a different way: tearing up corporate checks from companies trying to buy my vote. I’ve never had to return corporate or LLC checks from this campaign, because I’ve refused them in the first place. I’m the only candidate to specifically take the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge and sadly the only candidate who opposes dangerous fracked-gas pipelines like the controversial Granite Bridge pipeline. For my stance against pipelines, I earned the Sierra Club’s endorsement.

Governor Sununu has halted all progress in the state on important issues such as raising our woeful $7.25 minimum wage, on campaign finance reform, independent redistricting, and renewable energy. His 57 vetoes this past term were a record for a governor. I’ve worked tirelessly to hold him accountable in my role on the Executive Council, which serves as a New Hampshire board of directors. We approve state contracts over $10,000, approve or deny nominees to state department heads and judges, and start the state’s 10-year transportation plan. I’ve vetoed Sununu’s unqualified nominees to environmental posts who had no plan for addressing climate change (Peter Kujawski), and who claimed fracking was environmentally safe (Michael Vose). I’ve kept Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, who had no experience as a judge and a 30-year documented history of antagonism toward reproductive rights, from being New Hampshire’s Chief Justice for our Supreme Court. And where I’ve been unable to veto Frank Edelblut, our equivalent of Betsy DeVos who is in charge of education, I’ve been able to deny him a raise and keep him from using grants to open new charter schools at the expense of our already-struggling public schools.

Here’s the truth: New Hampshire can raise its embarrassingly low $7.25 minimum wage to at least $15 an hour. New Hampshire can be a leader in ushering in new jobs in solar and wind, and retraining fossil fuel workers- i.e. the Green New Deal. New Hampshire can make healthcare more affordable, make voting by mail accessible to all, and become a place that retains young people. It’s time for political courage: it’s the only way we’ll beat Sununu and stop his rise. Bernie won New Hampshire twice by sticking to his vision and I know with your help and support, we can elect a progressive governor here.

When Will Biden Put Aside His Ego And Withdraw For The Sake Of The Country?

One of the Manchester, New Hampshire state legislative districts has 3 seats in the state House. All the candidates, regardless of party, run on one ballot. It's a blue area and the three top vote-getters were all Democrats. In 2018, Democrats Chris Herbert and Ben Baroody came in first and second with over 5,000 votes each. Richard Komi, after polling last in the Democratic primary, came in third with 4,517 votes, beating out top GOP vote-getter Ross Terrio's 3,868 votes. The conservative Komi, a Nigerian refugee, had supported Biden all through the primaries. Bernie came in first in New Hampshire with 76,324 votes. Biden came in a distant 5th with just 24,921 votes, too few votes to qualify for any delegates. And in Hillsborough County, which Komi represents, Bernie also came in first with 25.7% with Biden again, a distant 4th and just 8.8%. Komi didn't mind that his constituents are more progressive than he is. And they probably don't care anymore either since he resigned Friday. Why? Look at this tweet for his boy Status Quo Joe, now deleted:

House Speaker Steve Shurtleff was mortified and told Komi to resign: "I am appalled by Representative Komi’s comments. They were dismissive and hurtful to survivors of sexual assault across the Granite State and across the country. The comments are not fitting for the New Hampshire House of Representatives and immediately upon learning of them I called him and asked Representative Komi to resign his seat."

The Tara Reade scandal has been building slowly. Biden and his handlers had hoped it would go away if they just ignored it-- and, indeed, pre-primary no one from the corporate media would touch it. Now the corporate media is all over it and Biden has finally been forced to respond. His allies are smearing Reade viciously and are basically one tiny baby step away from asserting she paid men to let her blow them. One of them has already said Putin paid her to accuse poor ole Joe, who everyone knows never puts his hands in any women, just all over them. Non-corporate media has been covering this already, of course.

Saturday, Caroline Kitchener asked and tried to answer a question for Washington Post readers-- could Biden really step aside because he has been exposed? "No presidential candidate," wrote Kitchener, "wants to be on the wrong end of an 'October surprise': Major news breaks at the last minute-- maybe the media unearths an old videotape, or the FBI resuscitates a closed investigation into a particular collection of emails. The campaign has to do damage control with limited time before Election Day. October is still a long way away. It was March 25 when Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer, publicly accused former vice president Joe Biden-- the presumptive Democratic nominee for president-- of digitally penetrating her with his fingers while she worked in his office in 1993. On Monday, Reade’s former neighbor corroborated Reade’s account in an interview with Business Insider, saying Reade told her about the assault in the mid-90s, soon after Reade says it occurred. Biden spoke about the allegation for the first time Friday morning, saying unequivocally: 'This never happened.'" Biden, like Trump, is an inveterate compulsive liar. There's no reason on earth to believe him now, not anymore than there would be to believe Trump.

Some Democrats are asking for Bernie and some of the minor candidates to unsuspend their campaigns and take Biden on. So far no one is biting, some using the shitty excuse that it could cause chaos in the shitty party that demanded such a shitty candidate as their nominee. All the corporate Dems are setting their hair on fire claiming any show of disunity would be playing into Trump's hands. Umm... wouldn't keeping a fatally flawed candidate like Biden on the ticket be playing into Trump's hands? Trump's campaign has many millions of dollars to make sure every voter hears all about this filthy little secret that Biden has endeavored to not address. Kitchener seems eager to present the establishment perspective-- or maybe she's just a gullible fool.

This kind of division within the Democratic Party is exactly what Trump wants, said Democratic strategist Adrienne Elrod, a former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The calls for Biden to step down are coming from people who didn’t want him to be the nominee in the first place, she said.

“It’s silly talk. I think maybe it gives the far left or people who were not supportive of Joe Biden something to hang their hat on. But it’s not realistic.”

Reade’s allegations might dissuade some voters from turning out for Biden, but a new nominee would likely be far more harmful to the Democrats’ chances of defeating Trump, said Jennifer Lawless, a professor of women and politics at the University of Virginia.

“It would make the Democratic Party look utterly incompetent,” she said.

Groper

More evidence in support of Reade’s claims could potentially change the Democratic Party’s calculus. But that evidence would likely need to be extremely conclusive and damaging, said Lawless — not just more corroborating accounts, like the statements from Reade’s former neighbor-- but a “smoking gun” more in line with Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape, where Trump admitted to sexually assaulting women.

While that kind of evidence did not derail Trump’s presidential campaign, Lawless says, the Democrats have “held themselves to a higher bar” by harshly condemning Trump and Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh for the allegations wagered against them. When former Congressman Al Franken (D-MN) was accused of sexual assault, several high profile Democrats publicly called for his resignation, which led him to eventually step down.

The situation could also shift with public opinion, said Lawless.

“If public opinion polls start to change in the next few weeks, and Biden looks like he is faring less well in some of these battleground states, all bets are off.”

Unless new information emerges, Lawless doesn’t expect the Reade allegations to have a major impact on Democratic voter behavior. That might be different if Biden was not going up against Trump, she says. But evaluated against Trump’s long history of sexual assault allegations-- and the hard evidence of the “Access Hollywood” tape-- Democratic voters concerned with these issues will likely still side with Biden, said Lawless.

“As awful as this is, the worst case for Biden is that he’s now on a level playing field with Trump on this dimension [of sexual assault allegations].”

If “smoking gun” evidence did surface, and pressures mounted for Biden to step aside, he would probably have to do so voluntarily, said Jewitt. Biden has already won too many delegates to lose the nomination in any other way. If that happened, a host of other Democratic candidates would rush to reinstate their campaigns. After the first round of votes at the convention, there would likely be no clear winner, said Jewitt, at which point any other person would be free to jump into the race. (Jewitt has fielded many questions in the past month from people eager to know if New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo could run for president. In this scenario, the answer is yes.)

Based on his age-- 77-- Biden’s vice presidential pick was always going to be particularly important, said Lawless. It’s even more important now. Going forward, the vice presidential nominee-- who Biden has promised will be a woman-- will be called on to defend Biden with regards to these allegations, probably more frequently than Biden is called on to defend himself.

It’s a “tough spot” to be in, Lawless says. But that surely won’t deter prospective nominees. If Biden wins, the vice president will be better positioned for the presidency than any woman in history. Years from now, she could be the one deciding how her party responds to a woman who comes forward to share her story of sexual assault.

The anybody-but-Bernie crowd that owns the corrupt corporate Democratic Party apparatus wants just one thing, for Biden to hang on until they can replace him in a proverbial smoke-filled room with another one of any number of neoliberals, someone putrid who would never win the 2020 primary, a Hillary, Cuomo, Bloomberg, Klobuchar, Newsom... someone who would put voters into the position of having to eat the DNC's shit or be stuck with 4 more years of Trump. The Democratic Party is now a greatly diminished, sad to behold, one-trick pony: heads you lose, tails you lose even worse.

Who Will Save The Grotesquely Corrupt Democratic Party Establishment From Bernie's Zeal For Reform And Fair Play?

Votes have finally still dribbling in from the New Hampshire primary when I was finishing up on this post. 100% of the votes have now been counted and all the candidates-- except Status Quo Joe, who was in South Carolina-- were already off to Nevada. The New Hampshire numbers were catastrophic for Biden but didn't cause him to drop out the way they did for Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet and Deval Patrick. These were the numbers available (with all 100% in):

• Bernie- 76,324 (25.7%)
• Mayo Pete- 72,457 (24.4%)
• Klobuchar- 58,796 (19.8%)
• Elizabeth- 27,387 (9.2%)
• Status Quo Joe- 24,921 (8.4%)
• Steyer- 10,7727 (3.6%)
• Tulsi- 9,655 (3.3%)
• Yang- 8,315 (2.8%)
• Deval- 1,266 (0.4%)
• Bennet- 963 (0.3%)

Wednesday morning, the media spin was how Bernie didn't do well, how well conservative candidates Mayo Pete and Amy Klobuchar did, how badly Biden had done and, most of all... who will stop Bernie?

Do you remember how Harry Reid and his Las Vegas thugs fixed the Nevada primary for Hillary in 2016? Reid, a shady status quo establishment character, is, naturally enough, a big Bloomberg booster. He told Vice that Bloomberg "has a plan, that’s for sure. You have to recognize, the man-- he really was a good mayor of a huge, huge, city, the largest city in America. I like him, I’ve always liked him. Nobody’s done more on guns and climate than he has. No one." What's Mini-Mike's plan beyond spending a million dollars a day on Facebook ads? And what's he done for Climate? And what does Reid know about Climate? It sure looks like the remnants of Reid's greasy political machine is up to its old tricks. The Nevada Independent got its hands on a flyer the Culinary Union sent out to its members. Imagine for a moment that someone wants to give you a dollar, but that that entails you giving up your dime pr even half-dollar. That's how the Nevada Democratic establishment is framing Bernie's Medicare-for-All plan-- giving up your half dollar and neglecting to mention the dollar. [It's also the way the Republican Party explains Medicare-for-All.] The establishment warned Culinary Union members-- in both English and Spanish-- that Bernie is trying to "end Culinary Healthcare."

The Culinary Union, which provides health insurance to 130,000 workers and their family members through a special trust fund, strongly opposes Medicare for all on the basis that it would eliminate the health insurance they have negotiated for over several decades. Health insurance provided by the Culinary Health Fund is considered to be some of the best in the state, and the union even opened a 60,000-square-foot state-of-the-art health clinic a couple of years ago for its members.

The union, considered an organizing behemoth in the Silver State, has been known to tip the scales in elections in the past. Though the 60,000-member union has not yet decided whether it will endorse in the Democratic presidential primary, the flyer appears to be part of a coordinated campaign ahead of Nevada’s Feb. 22 Democratic presidential primary and shows the union will not be sitting idly by, with or without an endorsement.

A spokeswoman for the Culinary Union said the flyer is also going out to members Tuesday night via text and email.

Another handout that the Nevada Independent reported on last week obliquely accuses Sanders and Warren of wanting to take away union members’ hard-fought health plans and warns that electing a candidate who supports Medicare for all would lead to four more years of a Donald Trump presidency.

The new flyer makes more clear the distinction the union is drawing between Sanders’ and Warren’s plans. The flyer also lauds the four other presidential hopefuls-- former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and California billionaire Tom Steyer-- for backing more modest plans to establish a government-run public health care option that would “protect Culinary Health care.”

The only other difference the flyer draws between the six candidates is on the issue of “good jobs.” The flyer says that all of the candidates all would work to “strengthen organizing, collective bargaining, and right to strike,” but only Klobuchar would “work with unions on regulations about technology at work,” which has been a major concern for the Culinary Union given the rise of automation in the service industry.

The Intercept noted that "the DNC is acting shady in managing the Democratic primaries... [and] As Michael Bloomberg buys his way into the Democratic primary, he is plastering the airwaves with hagiographic advertisements that ignore his awful record on race, labor unions and how he escalated the Stop-and-Frisk program as mayor of New York."

Lee Fang, also writing for The Intercept yesterday went after Mini-Mike's barrages lies, a barrage that is starting to define his campaign, The most obvious place to start is the Stop-and-Frisk policy that most New Yorkers viewed as an outgrowth of Bloomberg's low-key racism but that he is trying to bullshit his way away from, just the way Mayo Pete has tried too do about his own mayorial racism. Let's start by watch this clip from Ari Melber's Tuesday show:





Fang wrote that "In response, the Bloomberg campaign released a misleading statement on Tuesday claiming that he simply inherited the policy and later reduced the practice. 'I inherited the police practice of stop-and-frisk, and as part of our effort to stop gun violence it was overused... 'By the time I left office. I cut it back by 95%, but I should’ve done it faster and sooner. I regret that and I have apologized-- and I have taken responsibility for taking too long to understand the impact it had on Black and Latino communities.'"

The statement drew immediate backlash over its twisting of history. In 2001, New York City maintained an aggressive program of stopping and searching people throughout the city, with an overwhelming focus on young African American and Latino men. But, under the Bloomberg administration, the program vastly expanded, from around 97,296 stops in 2002 to a height of 685,724 in 2011-- a more than sevenfold increase during the former mayor’s tenure.

Far from changing course over the mayor’s focus on “racial equity,” as he has since claimed, the practice was clawed back by several lawsuits, which charged that the law enforcement program violated the basic constitutional rights of residents. U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, in a scathing decision, noted that over the course of 2.3 million frisks, weapons were found only 1.5 percent of the time. The decision pointed out that over half of the stops included African Americans and about third Latino, with less than 10 percent targeting white people.

The Bloomberg administration fought alongside New York’s notoriously aggressive police union to continue the program, arguing that the stop-and-frisk effort was focused on suspects with “furtive movements,” in “high-crime areas” and those with a “suspicious bulge.” But the judge knocked down those assertions, noting that such claims are vague and subjective.

In the comments that circulated online this week, Bloomberg can be heard speaking at an Aspen Institute conference in 2015 defending the program’s racial slant as justifiable given the proportion of crime in African American and Latino communities. “You can just take the description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops,” said the billionaire former mayor. “They are male, minorities, 16 to 25. That’s true in New York; that’s true in virtually every city.”

While data does reflect that violent crime tends to cluster in particular neighborhoods and among young men, the Bloomberg administration’s stop-and-frisk program went well beyond targeting based solely on objective evidence. Expert testimony in federal court found that the New York Police Department carried out far more stop-and-frisks on African American and Latino residents even when controlling for precinct-level crime statistics and socioeconomic characteristics. In other words, the evidence showed that minorities were targeted for stops based on a lesser degree of suspicion than white people.

The charge of racial bias was also backed up by multiple investigations and media scandals. In one case, a low-level police officer recorded his superior instructing him on how to target residents for stop-and-frisk in a particular neighborhood. “I have no problem telling you this: male blacks, 14 to 20, 21,” the officer said in the recording. In another case, a young Harlem teenager surreptitiously recorded officers stopping and frisking him. Asked why they had targeted him, the officer replied, “For being a fucking mutt.”

What’s more, the true extent of the program may never be known. Every time a New York police officer engages in stop-and-frisk, they are expected to fill out a form for the action to be recorded by the city. Court monitors have noted that there is evidence that many stops go unrecorded or are improperly documented. Current New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who succeeded Bloomberg in 2014, dramatically curtailed the police program, prompting backlash from the police union. Last year, the New York Police Department reported 11,008 stops, a small fraction of the amount of stops during the Bloomberg era.

Bloomberg has attempted to use his vast fortune to rebrand his image. The Bloomberg Philanthropy has given grants to various civil rights groups and worked to build schools, libraries, and community centers in low-income and minority neighborhoods, a fact often cited during Bloomberg’s campaign for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

The billionaire executive’s largesse, however, can’t conceal Bloomberg’s own words defending the racial bias in his approach to law enforcement. The Aspen Institute comments in 2015 were among many instances in which he defended the program. In 2013, during a radio program, Bloomberg declared, “I think we disproportionately stop whites too much and minorities too little. It’s exactly the reverse of what they say.”

And by the way, you've heard about the two billionaires-- one relatively benign and one possibly as bad as Trump-- trying to buy the election, right? This chart from Kantar's Campaign Media Analysis Group shows spending on TV (just TV) advertising through January 29. It is absolutely jaw-dropping! I've never seen anything like it.

What is the Democratic Party establishment so scared about-- and why are they right to be scared? No more feathering of nests at the expense of them working class, for one thing. Chris Maisano: "Forty years of neoliberalism have beaten down and disorganized the US working class. The Bernie Sanders campaign is showing how electoral politics can be used to re-politicize working people-- and organize collectively for their class interests... In an environment of profound social fragmentation, it should not be surprising that popular discontent has found expression through the Sanders campaign and the 'political revolution' it spearheads. The decline of organized labor and the social disintegration of many working-class communities means that only a relatively small fraction of workers are positioned to pursue effective forms of collective action in their workplaces or communities. Election campaigns are therefore one of the few channels currently available to engage and politicize a mass working-class audience, reconstitute the working class as a political subject, and create a more favorable environment for workers to organize both inside and outside the electoral arena. The Sanders campaign is priming working people to think of themselves as members of a class with an interest in political revolution. How could this be anything but a boon to the Left and the prospects for labor movement revitalization?"