The Big Debate: Neoliberal vs. Progressive!
On Facebook, I wrote the following:
This Reuters reporting is a perfect example about what could have/should have been investigated and reported about Trump before, during and shortly after Trump’s prez announcement. Indeed, HRC wanting him as her opponent (see Wikileaks) thwarted a proper and true vetting of Trump at the outset of campaigning.
Clinton’s 2016 loss of the presidency had nothing to do with the Russians. Neither did Democrats losing the US House, US Senate (while defending only 10 seats to 25 for GOPwingers), 33 governor seats and 32 state legislatures.
The electorate wanted to elect an outsider. Once the only viable outsider Bernie Sanders was victimized by Clinton operatives rigging the 2016 primary, Trump, masquerading as an outsider, played the outsider card and won.
In round numbers, early campaign media coverage showed Trump getting two thirds of the coverage, Clinton getting a third and Sanders hardly any. The media, rather than boosting Trump could have been investigating Trump. A proper media investigation of the Democratic Primary would have been in order also!
In the olden days, for the media, every now and then a slant would show up. These days they are all too common! The truth is more likely to become found from Wikileaks reporting!
My friend responded — comments are in boldface. Below is my response to his comments. Yet another big debate on the failed Hillary Clinton who, like Trump, should retire from politics so America can gain a fresh start!
>>>The parts of your story that just don’t make any sense aren’t true, Mike. (1) “HRC wanting him as her opponent thwarted a proper and true vetting” HRC is not an assignment editor. She cannot and does not control the media. By Election Day, enough about his background was known to all to have a pretty good idea who he is. The notion he went “unvetted” because Hillary Clinton kept that from happening with her control over the media is ridiculous, conspiratorial, absurd on its face and tin-foil-hat level crackpottery. You know better.<<<
Ken, I admire your determination but I do not admire your willingness to look the other way. I guess when I wrote the following in November of 2015 I was just pulling things out of thin air and making up what I was writing about:
Or … did I have a very good reason to write what I wrote. What’s your guess? Compare your guess to the reality of what actually happened compared to my November 2015 prediction.
Moreover, is it a mere coincidence that Hillary’s campaign manager went on to a cush position at The Washington Post after her campaign? Is it a coincidence that Wikileaks exposed an internal DNC memo outlining the Dem strategy to create “pied piper” candidates on the GOPside, to use Dem media connections to encourage this?
Wikileaks also exposed the following reporters (not opinion journalists) at John Podesta’s Washington DC media party — do you think they attended only to complement Podesta on his shrimp and bacon-draped scallops?
Hey, Big Media Party at Johnny Podesta’s!
Liz Kreutz (ABC), Julie Pace (AP), Ken Thomas (AP), Lisa Lerer (AP), April Ryan (AURN) Jennifer Epstein (Bloomberg), Ruby Cramer (Buzzfeed), Steve Chagaris (CBS), John Harwood (CNBC), Dan Merica (CNN), Amanda Terkel (Huffington Post), Mike Memoli (The Los Angeles Times), Anita Kumar (McClatchy), Alex Seitz-Wald (MSNBC), Emily Schultheis (National Journal), Mark Murray (NBC), Tamara Keith (NPR), Amy Chozik and Maggie Haberman (The New York Times), Annie Karni and Gabe Debenedetti (Politico), Amanda Becker (Reuters), Amie Parnes (The Hill), Anne Gearan (The Washington Post), and Laura Meckler, Peter Nicholas, and Colleen McCain Nelson (The Wall Street Journal).
And, hey, whatta ya know! Also a big media Party at Clinton chief strategist Joel Benenson’s house in New York:
Politico’s Glenn Thrush presents his article to Podesta to review asking if he got it right while proclaiming himself a “hack” and “don’t tell anybody.” Thrush, after this embarrassing public outing was then rewarded and hired by the NYT. John Harwood, of CNBC and NYT, wanted to become an informal advisor to the Clinton Campaign; Donna Brazile of CNN passing Hillary the debate questions before the debate; Maggie Haberman (Politico/NYT) was described in a Wikileaks release as a “friendly journalist” who has “teed up” stories for them in the past and “never disappointed.”
I don’t know, Ken, this takes up a lot of time … but do you want me to keep going on how Clinton held a lock on the media?
>>>(2) “Clinton’s loss had nothing to do with Russians” No serious person even disputes this anymore. Election outcomes are always multicausal. Among those affecting this one were Comey’s late-October statement (the direct effects of which were very well established in the polling), and as you say, a hugely disproportionate amount of free coverage afforded to a ridiculous mentally ill carnival barker.<<<
Clearly, Ken, you’ve become a main media lapdog. You eat up everything it reports, especially with respect to RussiaGate and somehow only manage to see the pro-Hillary Clinton side of things.
I’m sorry you do not find anything serious or credible that’s been reported by well-respected journalists (call them thinkers!) like: Glenn Greenwald, Mark Blumenthal, Ben Norton, Aaron Maté, Gareth Porter, Chris Hedges, Steve Cohen, the late-Robert Parry among others.
Ken, I guess you’ve become a CIA-DOJ-FBI Democrat, one who likes Rachel Maddow (I once liked her!) and for some strange reason have no thoughts of memory concerning what McCarthyism was once like. Have you gotten into the new fab censorship also? This is what neoliberals are doing!
>>>You and I could argue whether Hillary ran a bad campaign or was a poor choice for nominee; we might not agree but you could make a case for those views.<<<
Ken, there is no argument! It’s a clearcut fact!
>>> Also, though: a very substantial targeted social media disinformation campaign undertaken by Russian intelligence, the theft and release at critical moments of emails (and I’d argue, the creation of widespread confusion about what they actually said or meant), and lots of really terrible media malpractice (e.g. NYT partnering with anti-Clinton operatives to “develop” stories)<<<
To this, I’ll simply reply: Huh? NYT “partnering with anti-Clinton operatives” … again, Huh? You’ve got me confused on this one — don’t quite know how to respond.
>>>(3) “Sanders was victimized by Clinton operatives rigging the primary” Every story needs a hero and a villain. How you “rig” a primary by outpolling your rival by three and three quarter million votes, I dunno. If you had some ham you’d have a ham sandwich, if you just had some bread, I guess. When you have a story you refuse to surrender even when the facts just can’t support it, you are delusional or a Republican, but I repeat myself!<<<
All right, let’s put your Hillary total vote margin Democratic victory in a different perspective. To do this, we must play What-If.
First, there was a media blackout — this is proven — of Bernie Sanders compared to Hillary Clinton during the early primary months. When Bernie did get mention it was usually in the context of Clinton and the wording was negative in nature.
Second, were it not for Bernie’s fine performance in NH (which main media prejudicially labeled “Homefield Advantage,”) he would have received similar media exposure as Webb, O’Malley and Chaffee got — hardly any!
But Bernie campaigned hard in both Iowa and Nevada — but for Clinton Campaign/DNC shenanigans, many people think Bernie won those two states — instead they essentially tied, Clinton formally winning Iowa due to winning six out of six coin flips (isn’t this odd?) and formally winning Nevada due to rules changes in mid-process.
Well, this is how the primaries began! Next up? Southern states!
Third, Southern voters who do not live in major media markets like New York and Washington (see media above), were significantly unaware who Bernie Sanders was. These voters could not learn about him without national media exposure. Indeed, that exposure was fully assigned to Trump and Clinton as all other candidates were tag-alongs.
All — repeat all! — of the southern primaries (except for Kentucky) were front-loaded into the Democratic Primary process, so this became a clearcut Clinton advantage. Sort of like free Clinton votes! Let’s add up what she got — I guess we could call it a Southern Strategy of A Different Kind.
South Carolina (February 27th) = Clinton +175,537
Alabama = (March 1st) Clinton +233,529
Arkansas = (March 1st) Clinton +79,712
Georgia = (March 1st) Clinton +328,676
Tennessee = (March 1st) Clinton +124,971
Texas = (March 1st) Clinton +459,519
Virginia = (March 1st) Clinton +227,851
Louisiana = (March 5th) Clinton +149,375
Mississippi = (March 8th) Clinton +146,099
Florida = (March 15th) Clinton +530,797
Missouri = (March 15th) Clinton +1,531
North Carolina = (March 15th) Clinton +156,067
The Democratic primaries and caucuses ended June 14th. So you can see how closely aligned those southern states were to the beginning of the primary voting process. This is noteworthy. How can a candidate possibly win those southern states without any media exposure?
When finally getting media exposure — which Sanders earned the hard way — Bernie pretty much defeated or tied Clinton everywhere else in the nation, this with accusations of Clinton/DNC-rigging in Arizona, Missouri, Kentucky, New York and California!
Anyway, using rounded numbers those southern states showed Clinton winning the south by 2.5 million votes. Again, call ’em free votes for Clinton since she had no name-worthy opponent thanks to the media’s blackout on Bernie! Ken, you do know what a one-sided political race looks like, do you not?
So let’s presume it actually had been a fair race in the South, with Sanders rightfully gaining 73% of the black vote (see chart below). The results could have seen Sanders, instead of Clinton, winning the south by 2.5 million votes.
So, for analytical purposes, let’s deduct 2.5 million from Clinton’s supposed national margin of victory of 3.8 and you end up with 1.7 left over for Clinton. Sanders gain’s her 2.5 million free southern vote. Clinton is left standing with 1.7 againsts 2.5 for Sanders, meaning Bernie would have won by 800,000.
And then, of course, there’s that pesky matter of superdelegates and using Clinton Foundation/DCCC largesse to sweeten the political pie! But this is a whole ‘nother matter!
It’s a fact that minority voters are an extremely strong representation of voting Democrats in those southern states. As the end of March and April, May and June rolled around Sanders was on his way to earning support from 73 percent of Black Americans. Problem was, due to Clinton’s iron grip on the DNC, they had no clue who he was during the early southern Democratic primaries. In a fair race, Bernie would have won those states.
As an aside, it’s not like the DNC didn’t also minimize the national debates to Clinton’s advantage. Ken, you probably remember this but have conveniently factored it out from any reasonable consideration.
The Democratic Underground, on July 26, 2015, reported the following poll of African Americans: Hillary 82%, Sanders 6%, Webb 3%
On April 18, 2016, NBC reported Clinton’s lead over Sanders among minority voters had shrunk by 30 points.
>>>”She’s also ahead of Sanders among minorities, 59 percent to 41 percent, but that’s a decline of her 30-point advantage here in past NBC/WSJ surveys.”<<<
But guess what! The South had already voted! Whoo-Whoo Clinton!
Bernie Sanders never got to enjoy the support he would have earned and could have earned from Black Americans during the 2016 Primary!
This is proven by the below graph which shows that Bernie Sanders would have enjoyed extremely strong support from minority voters (way more than Clinton!). But this never got to happen because the media blackout!
So do you agree with me, Ken, that America’s main media — five corporations controlling 90% of all US media — are part of America’s oligarchy? Do you think this oligarchy wanted a progressive like Bernie Sanders to win and thus threaten their monied interests?
In plain simple terms, Ken, had Clinton operatives not had the assistance of America’s media, were the Democratic primaries not rigged, Bernie would have won!
Like me, Ken, you should be shedding tears over what happened … not defending Hillary Clinton.
