08 March 20
As is always the case the small donors do not give up, regardless. A few somewhat larger donations to match that effort would do wonders right about now.
Sincere thanks to all.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
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PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
08 March 20
RSN: Marc Ash | The Political Assassination of Bernie Sanders
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "Joe Biden's candidacy had the same purpose as Michael Bloomberg's: they were designed, planned, and promoted to derail the most popular and most trusted candidate in America, Bernie Sanders. No, it was not a fair fight, not even close."
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "Joe Biden's candidacy had the same purpose as Michael Bloomberg's: they were designed, planned, and promoted to derail the most popular and most trusted candidate in America, Bernie Sanders. No, it was not a fair fight, not even close."
Why would the Democrats, Bloomberg, and the cable news oracles go so far out of their way to bring down the Bernie Sanders campaign at any cost? Easy — when Sanders says he wants to “take on the special interests,” what the Democrats and their allies hear him saying is that he wants to get between them and the flow of money from those special interests. Yes, they were willing, as The New York Times put it, to “Risk Party Damage to Stop Bernie Sanders.” Party damage and a whole lot more. More on that later.
Michael Bloomberg was up front when he entered the race that he was entering the race to stop Bernie Sanders. Specifically because Joe Biden wasn’t running a good enough campaign against Sanders. No, Bloomberg’s campaign was not a flop or a waste of his five-hundred-million-dollar investment, it was money strategically spent to achieve an objective. At this point, it’s on track to be a successful investment.
Joe Biden’s reason for entering the campaign late was virtually the same. Biden was not necessarily considered a strong candidate to defeat Donald Trump. He was encouraged to run because he would have the full backing of the Democratic Party machine for the purpose of preventing Bernie Sanders from getting the Democratic nomination. That machine includes two powerful cable networks, who could be counted on to put their full weight behind Biden and against Sanders.
Cable giants MSNBC and CNN, owned by NBCUniversal Media and WarnerMedia respectively, are ostensibly broadcast arms of Comcast in the case of MSNBC, and AT&T in the case of CNN, but when it comes to political policy they also function as Democratic Party oracles. At a price.
MSNBC, CNN, Comcast and AT&T are all subject to various forms of government regulation. If the government is friendly to their needs, legislation is produced that allows them to boost profits, often at the cost of consumers.
In the days leading up to the Super Tuesday primary contests, MSNBC and CNN generated a non-stop media blitz of coverage favorable to Biden and unfavorable to Sanders. It was a massive unreported campaign contribution to the Biden campaign.
This has been a five-year coordinated effort to derail and delegitimize the most popular and trusted political candidate in America because he has the audacity to try to separate public policy from private money.
What the Democratic Party and its cable news oracles are doing by engaging in this scorched-earth campaign against Sanders’s reforms risks far more than “Democratic Party damage.” At stake are four more years of Donald Trump’s lawlessness, the effective termination of the American Republic and the rule of law, the destruction of the NATO Alliance, and the rise of the Russian Federation in the power vacuum and a whole lot more.
The argument that Biden is better suited to defeat Trump than is Sanders is a scarlet red herring. If true, Biden would not have needed such extraordinary assistance, which he absolutely did.
The Democratic Party must not be the Anti-Democratic party. What the Democratic Party is proving is that its nominating process is a show and a sham and doesn’t actually have anything to do with how the nomination is won or who wins it. This is the same old top-down Democratic Party. The voters aren’t there to make decisions, they are there to do what the party instructs them to do.
So much for free and fair elections.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Italy. (photo: EPA)
Efforts to Contain the Outbreak Show Signs of Faltering
Colby Itkowitz, Ashley Parker and Seung Min Kim, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak showed signs of faltering over the weekend, as Washington, D.C., confirmed its first case Saturday and Italian leaders announced a plan early Sunday to lock down an entire region including Venice and Milan after reporting 1,000 new cases in 24 hours."
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Colby Itkowitz, Ashley Parker and Seung Min Kim, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak showed signs of faltering over the weekend, as Washington, D.C., confirmed its first case Saturday and Italian leaders announced a plan early Sunday to lock down an entire region including Venice and Milan after reporting 1,000 new cases in 24 hours."
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People voting. (photo: Miami Herald)
Florida Group Funded by Pro-Trump Organization Tied to Voter Registration Fraud Arrest
David Smiley, Miami Herald
Smiley writes: "An organization registering Florida voters in cooperation with a pro-Trump dark money group has been tied to allegations of fraud after a Florida elections office flagged dozens of problematic forms wrongly registering or changing the party affiliations of unwitting voters."
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David Smiley, Miami Herald
Smiley writes: "An organization registering Florida voters in cooperation with a pro-Trump dark money group has been tied to allegations of fraud after a Florida elections office flagged dozens of problematic forms wrongly registering or changing the party affiliations of unwitting voters."
More than 120 voter registration forms submitted recently by Florida First Inc. were marred by forged signatures, unauthorized party registration switches and bogus personal information, according to Lake County Supervisor Alan Hays. At least 18 of the forms improperly led Hays’ office to change Democratic and independent voters to Republican.
On Thursday, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office arrested a Clermont woman and charged her with 10 felony counts of submitting false voter registration information. Detectives say they do not believe Florida First is engaged in fraud as an organization, but Hays told the Miami Herald Friday that additional Florida First workers may have falsified registration forms.
“Our investigation has led us to believe there are other operators that might be involved in this thing,” Hays said in an interview, noting that three new voters have reported unauthorized changes since he went public with the issue of falsified registration forms on Wednesday.
The allegations against Florida First come just days before the state’s March 17 presidential primary and amid an aggressive push by both Republicans and Democrats to sign up new voters ahead of the 2020 election.
Florida First, which registered with the Florida Division of Elections in August as a third-party voter registration organization, has been working with America First Policies, a social welfare organization founded by some of President Donald Trump’s top advisers. Kelly Sadler, an America First spokeswoman, said the organization is a “contributor” to Florida First but could not comment on behalf of the organization.
In August, when the Miami Herald asked if America First was registering voters in the state through Florida First, Sadler responded, “That’s us!”
Hays said Friday that he’s heard from other supervisors since the information about the fraudulent registration forms was published in local media outlets.
In Leon County, a left-leaning organization working to help former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum register or “re-engage” 1 million voters is tied to four problematic registration forms under review by the state attorney’s office, including one in which a dead woman was signed up to vote.
Leon County Supervisor Mark Earley told the Miami Herald Friday the forms are the first he’s referred to prosecutors since being elected to his position in 2016.
“It’s unusual,” Earley said.
In the Lake County case, problems began to surface late last month after Florida First submitted a batch of registration forms. Hays’ office identified 119 forms that contained false information and forged signatures. His office began receiving calls from confused voters who’d received inaccurate forms and voter ID cards sent automatically after voter information changes. More problematic forms have since been identified.
Hays said he called the state attorney’s office, the Florida Division of Elections and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. On Thursday, the sheriff’s office arrested Cheryl Hall, 63, of Clermont, and charged her with 10 felony counts of filing false voter registration information.
Hays said he spoke to Florida First on Feb. 27, and was told that Hall had been suspended. A woman who answered a number listed for Hall quickly hung up on a reporter Friday and did not respond to subsequent calls or text messages.
Detectives say they easily tracked down Hall because the forms she turned in were numbered to uniquely identify her as the worker carrying the paperwork in the field. But they have had a harder time understanding why Hall submitted false forms.
Herrell, the sheriff’s office spokesman, said Florida First, Inc., has been cooperative and is not suspected of encouraging the alleged behavior. “It definitely doesn’t look like it’s anything large-scale or nefarious on the organization’s part.”
Florida First isn’t the only voter registration organization facing allegations of fraud.
In Leon County, after the elections supervisor called prosecutors, the state attorney’s office is investigating issues related to four problematic forms submitted by New Florida Majority Education Fund, an arm of a prominent liberal grassroots organization in the state. Supervisor Earley said his office received complaints last week from two men who were confused after receiving cards notifying them that they’d changed their party affiliation.
Earley said his office also realized recently that the organization had submitted a voter registration form for a dead woman, as well as her mother.
“We got in touch with the mother. She was somewhat upset, to say the least,” Earley said. “She confirmed that her daughter had passed away. And she confirmed she had not filled out a form herself.”
Victricia Chandler, New Florida Majority’s chief of staff, said she learned of the allegations Friday for the first time from the Miami Herald.
“The supervisor of elections hasn’t contacted us regarding any problematic forms. This is news to us,” she said, stressing that the organization has a strenuous review process for registration forms. “These are serious allegations.”
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Selma, 1965. (photo: Universal Images Group/Getty Images)
55 Years After Selma, Voting Rights Are Under Threat Again
Nicolaus Mills, The Daily Beast
Mills writes: "As I joined the crowd waiting outside Brown Chapel for the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March to start on March 21, 1965, I could not stop worrying about what the coming hours would bring. So much was at stake, so much could go wrong."
Nicolaus Mills, The Daily Beast
Mills writes: "As I joined the crowd waiting outside Brown Chapel for the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March to start on March 21, 1965, I could not stop worrying about what the coming hours would bring. So much was at stake, so much could go wrong."
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UAW president Douglas Fraser (R) kicks off talks with GM's chief negotiator George B. Morris (L) on July 17, 1979. The 1970s saw the beginning of a slippery slope of UAW concessions and corruption. (photo: Bettmann/Getty)
UAW president Douglas Fraser (R) kicks off talks with GM's chief negotiator George B. Morris (L) on July 17, 1979. The 1970s saw the beginning of a slippery slope of UAW concessions and corruption. (photo: Bettmann/Getty)
How the UAW Went From a Militant, Trailblazing Union to a Corrupt, Dealmaking One
Chris Brooks, In These Times
Brooks writes: "Contract negotiations between the 400,000-strong United Auto Workers and Detroit's Big Three automakers always kick off the same way: with ritualized handshake ceremonies in front of the press pool, the UAW president grinning with each automaker's CEO."
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Chris Brooks, In These Times
Brooks writes: "Contract negotiations between the 400,000-strong United Auto Workers and Detroit's Big Three automakers always kick off the same way: with ritualized handshake ceremonies in front of the press pool, the UAW president grinning with each automaker's CEO."
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A man wearing a mask in Italy. (photo: Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)
Italy Locks Down 16 Million People to Contain Coronavirus
Barbie Latza Nadeau, The Daily Beast
Nadeau writes: "The decree applies to more than a dozen provinces in extended red zones in the north of the country. Anyone defying the order will be subject to criminal charges."
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Barbie Latza Nadeau, The Daily Beast
Nadeau writes: "The decree applies to more than a dozen provinces in extended red zones in the north of the country. Anyone defying the order will be subject to criminal charges."
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A pump jack in California. (photo: DeSmog)
Under Fire From Democratic Presidential Candidates, Oil and Gas Industry Releases Disinformation Ad Campaign
Dana Drugmand, DeSmog
Drugmand writes: "A new oil and gas industry ad pushes back against growing calls to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the climate crisis - by making the bold statement that it would be criminal not to produce oil and gas"
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Dana Drugmand, DeSmog
Drugmand writes: "A new oil and gas industry ad pushes back against growing calls to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the climate crisis - by making the bold statement that it would be criminal not to produce oil and gas"
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