Alternet published an expose of documents from Hillary’s 2016 campaign that reveal the names of the billionaires who shaped her education agenda. The documents were leaked by Wikileaks.
The education portion of the document runs 66 pages, mostly concentrated on K-12 policy, and captures specific input from billionaire donors looking to overhaul and privatize public education.
You will recognize the names: one is Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Steve.
One of the most connected “thought leaders” discussed is Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, and the head of the Emerson Collective, a prominent education reform advocacy group. Powell Jobs who has been close with the Clintons since the late ’90s, also sat with Betsy DeVos on the board of Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. She set up billionaire “roundtables” with Clinton’s campaign advisors through 2015 while donating millions to Priorities USA, Clinton’s main PAC.
Another is Bruce Reed, who had been Biden’s chief of staff but was then president of the Broad Foundation. Reed pointed to New Orleans as an amazing success story, where the public schools were replaced by charter schools, the union was crushed, and the teachers were fired and replaced mostly by TFA.
Notes taken by Clinton aide Ann O’Leary were made in interviews with Powell Jobs and Bruce Reed, President of The Broad Foundation (and former chief of staff to Joe Biden). According to the notes, the “experts” were calling for new federal controls, more for-profit companies and more technology in public schools — but first on the menu was a bold remake of the teaching “profession.”
(Ann O’Leary is now Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff in California.)
Imagine: The billionaires and policy wonks had prescriptions for remaking the teaching profession, even though none had ever been a teacher.
But they did more than talk. On June 20, 2015, O’Leary sent Podesta an email revealing the campaign adopted two of Powell Jobs’ suggestions, including “infusing best ideas from charter schools into our traditional public schools.” When Clinton announced this policy in a speech to teachers, however, it was the one line that drew boos.
“Donors want to hear where she stands” John Petry, a founder of both Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) and Success Academy, New York’s largest network of charter schools, told the New York Times. Petry was explicit, declaring that he and his billionaire associates would instead put money into congressional, state and local races, behind candidates who favored a “more businesslike approach” to education, and tying teacher tenure to standardized test scores.
Clinton’s advisors warned her that wealthy donors like Petry, Whitney Tilson, or Eli Broad could walk if she didn’t support charter schools. Broad would indeed threaten to withhold funding from Clinton when she criticized charter schools for excluding difficult students. John Podesta and Ann O’Leary would publicly correct Clinton, reaffirming her commitment to charters.
This is an article you must read in full. You might even want to read the underlying document to understand how fully the Democratic Party sold out to the billionaires who oppose public schools.
Never trust a billionaire.
HOLY COW! Thanks for this article, Diane.
Politics ala lawyer/politicians, marketers, techno-pr**** (like Gates, Pearson, Zuckie, and the rest of them), and generally the parasitic economy … have “Made America DUMB.”
The people of this country should: “PRAY for BRAINS.”
Remember Apollo 11…”We came in peace for all mankind.” https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/07/1042921
“Building on the theme of the power of collective effort, exemplified by the UN Charter, the Secretary-General said it was “particularly gratifying to me, that the plaque which the astronauts placed on the moon is inscribed: ‘we came in peace for all mankind’. The words are few, but they spell out the common identity of all the inhabitants on this planet and our never-ending search for peace”.
How far we have fallen.
I remember sitting in Minneapolis at the AFT convention hearing Hillary say we could learn from “public charter schools.” I always wondered why she felt she needed to tell us that. In retrospect, even given what you’ve written here, it still seems stupid. I voted for her against Trump, but I didn’t feel great about it. I felt a lot worse when she managed to lose.
We can learn how to lie, cheat and steal from charters. I held my nose and voted for her too. I will do the same for Status quo Joe or any other corporate Democrats to block the craven kleptocrat. If a corporate Democrat wins, we should then massively protest any anti-public school policies and make him/her miserable until we are heard.
Good thoughts. Cory Booker has crossed too many lines for me, but in NY my vote doesn’t mean much anyway due to our unique system of voting. Is it just me, or does it seem like when Jimmy Carter travels abroad to insure free elections he never, ever sets up an Electoral College?
Hillary did not push all of the policies the billionaires asked for, but it was important for her to include support for charters in the AFT speech because Eli Broad was specific – she needed to show support for charter schools in order to get his money (wasn’t this once illegal?).
So give credit to America’s teachers, who were there to coronate Hillary and cheered almost everything she said, but when they heard her try to slip in praise for “public” charter schools, they reacted immediately. The following day, the WaPo and multiple other outlets headlined the incident, but not too many people know what it sounded like from the crowd. There was a teacher who filmed the boos and gasps from the floor, where it was substantial:
https://vimeo.com/manage/173691853/general
Compare this to the official AFT feed which most people, including the nation’s reporters saw, in which the boos are quieter: https://vimeo.com/manage/173540580/general
Jake Jacobs: Opps. This is the message I got on both videos:
Unauthorized
You are unauthorized for this action.
I got the same message as carolmalaysia. I would love to watch and compare both.
There are working video links below.
If you can tell me what the secret sauce is for charters then we could all know. To be level with the public schools you must not include selective enrollment, no excuses behavior programs, high pressure test prep.
This post outlines the unsavory plot between corporate Democrats and billionaires to undermine public education. At this point we all have deduced as much, but this article fills in the blanks on the specifics. These same billionaires still work behind the scenes pulling the strings of education policy in the Democratic party. Billionaires get access and opportunity that the rest of us do not have. How can any public school teachers get excited by any of the corporate Democrats in the race?
So-called reform is a hostile takeover with the objective of transferring a public service and asset into the private pockets of the already wealthy. It is a territorial war. If we cannot stop them, they will continue to conquer and destroy our public schools. The corporate Democrats work for billionaires, not us. Democrats have inflicted their devious duplicity on public teachers long enough.
SHOCKING!!!!….NOT. Tell us something we didn’t already know. I held my nose and voted for HRC, but I sure wasn’t happy about it. The country is dog tired of having to vote for the lesser of 2 evils. It’s no wonder that we have Trump in the White House and if we aren’t careful, it could happen again. The “common people” want real Hope and Change…not another lie of a campaign slogan. People voted for Trump because he “seemed” different and willing to take on the big issues, but little did they know that what they elected was a con man. One “good” thing that has come out of Trump’s reign is that everyone is now aware that both sides of the aisle are in the pockets of the Billionaires. Everyone now knows that our elected officials represent big business, but NOT the people that keep big business running.
“One “good” thing that has come out of Trump’s reign is that everyone is now aware that both sides of the aisle are in the pockets of the Billionaires.”
HUH? Not so fast. There is nothing that his loyal followers would ever believe except that he is the greatest president ever.
……………………………………………….
Reasons Why Donald Trump Will Make the Best President, Ever.
Think Donald Trump wouldn’t do well in office? Think again. Yes, he has a tendency to speak without thinking and he’s embarrassed himself on more than a couple of occasions. Plus, we all thought this was just a publicity stunt. However, what we may not realize is that Trump may bring some needed change to the country. Find out the top reasons why Trump would make the best president of all time.
He’s an American first
Trump’s loyalty will only be to America and Americans—not any political party, special interest group or foreign entity. Like his slogan reads, “Make America great again!”
He has his priorities straight
He has emphasized beliefs in free enterprise and a strong military. He repeatedly highlights his acumen for success, his ability to get things done, and understanding of finances
He literally wrote the book on making deals
Trump is undeniably a great negotiator, and despite his outrageous public statements in the recent past, he knows how to navigate complex deals and convince a wide variety of industries, businesses, and investors to do what he wants and to work with him to achieve his goals.
He’ll bring people together
He loves all races–well, maybe not Mexicans as he referenced them as “criminals, drug dealers, rapists” but we digress; As a president who respects most races, he will hopefully alleviate the recent tensions between police officials and the African American community.
He speaks the truth
Trump isn’t politically correct. He isn’t afraid to say what he thinks, and he can certainly voice an opinion. If he has an issue with you, he will say it to your face. It’d be nice to have a politician in office with that level of transparency.
He’ll keep nuclear weapons out of the wrong hands
Trump said it himself–he will single-handedly stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. We aren’t entirely sure how, but he’s Trump; Anything is possible.
He won’t have to focus on his reality TV show
With more time and focus in the White House, there would be less time to star in his own show, “The Apprentice,” hopefully bringing the ongoing series to a halt. It was good for a season or two, but now it’s just obnoxious.
Because he said so
Why would Trump make the best president of all time?Because he said so.
“I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created, I tell you that. I’ll bring back our jobs from China, from Japan, from Mexico and from so many places. I’ll bring back our money. … Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again.“
He’ll Investigate Hillary
Donald Trump promised during a presidential debate that, should he win the election, he will instruct a Special Prosecutor to look into Hillary Clinton’s past, and investigate the FBI investigation that concluded it will not press charges against Clinton. This is despite the fact that Hillary deleted 33,000 emails after receiving a subpoena from the United States government.
Democrat or Republican, government corruption is something we should all be working against, and wouldn’t it be great to see Trump start prosecuting politicians who have gotten rich from politics, and broken the law on multiple occasions? Love Trump or hate him, he’s going to lock up people who truly deserve it
He’ll Impose Term Limits on Members of Congress
Another one for people who don’t like government! Trump announced just weeks before the general election that he has new ways to ‘drain the swamp’.
It seems like the businessman is going all libertarian on us, and he has announced that should he be elected president, he will impose term limits on Members of Congress. This means that people like Senator John McCain and others, who have spent a lifetime working in politics and getting rich in the process, will have to leave politics after a certain number of years and get a normal job, like the rest of America.
He’ll Impose a Hiring Freeze on the Federal Workforce
Trump also has beef with how the government just seems to be constantly expanding and employing more people. So, instead of hiring new people to work in government offices, Trump is proposing that nobody is able to get a job in the federal workforce for at least the next four years.
This will of course not include people being employed in the US Armed Forces or similarly necessary services, but it will mean that government offices that spend half their time rubber stamping offices won’t be getting any new members of staff any time soon.
He’ll Save Billions on UN Climate Change Programs
The United States currently pays the United Nations billions of dollars every year to assist with their climate change programs.
If you’re concerned about global warming then this probably isn’t the policy for you, but if you’re concerned about the fact that the United States now owes almost 20 trillion dollars – and almost 10 of which have been added in the last eight years under President Obama – then this is definitely a policy for you.
He’ll Ban Foreign Lobbyists Fundraising for US Elections
Hillary and the Democratic campaign team are implying lately that Trump is involved with Putin, and that Russia is having an influence on the election. However, Trump seems to be the only candidate talking about how important it is that foreign governments and lobbyists don’t have any power over US elections. Hillary, for instance, has been taking millions from corrupt governments for years – and even raking in millions from Saudi Arabia, a country which doesn’t hold women in high regard at all.
One of Trump’s newest policies is to ban foreign lobbyists from fundraising for United States governments, meaning that it will be only American people and companies who will be able to have a major influence on the result of an election. Sorry, Saudis!
He’ll Ban White House Officials Lobbying for Foreign Governments
This is another policy based on Trump’s fundamental mistrust of government officials. Another one of his ‘Drain the Swamp’ policies is that he will ban all White House officials from lobbying for foreign governments, meaning it will be harder than ever to work with foreign governments and bend the rules to benefit them.
Remember when Trump said that America comes first? This policy shows he really means it, and hell, if a Democratic Party nominee was saying this, it would be just as important. Party politics aside, this policy will ensure that government officials are bound to work in the interests of the United States, and not the rest of the world.
Trump might say America comes first, but that was just another lie. The only thing that comes first for Trump, is Trump. Nothing else counts. No one else counts. Only Trump counts for Trump.
Lloyd Lofthouse: I made a comment yesterday on U-tube about Rep. Omar.
“Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a Somali refugee, has been in the US longer than Melania. Trump thinks only white people are worthy of being US citizens. I’m ashamed of our president.”
I received this reply today.
“Trump is the best president we have ever had.”
Anyone that thinks Trump is the best president this country has ever had is a total, rotting, ignorant, brain dead idiot and a hardcore racist and hater of everything good.
Lloyd Lofthouse: There were 338 people who liked my comment. Here is one of my replies back to the looney who said Trump was the best president we have ever had. I’d say that Newman spoke very clearly about our Orange Swamp Monster.
“Let me be clear: Donald Trump is a disgusting, filthy, petty racist and he is trying to start a race war in this country and what we saw this week is just the beginning,” said Ms. Manigault Newman, a former “Apprentice” star fired after a stint in the White House.
Only another racist like Trump would think he is a great president.
338 comments that liked/agreed with your comment vs one deplorable comment.
Not bad, when you think about it. I hope the 2020 election turns out about the same.
There have been studies that show we tend to take negative comments, even 1 vs
338 positive ones, too seriously. It has happened to me a few times and once with devastating results. It is often hard to ignore them. Trump has supporters so they are out there crawling around like the Ebola virus looking for an opportunity to start an epidemic.
Don’t let that virus into your head, and I’ll try to follow my own advice.
Lloyd Lofthouse I’ll settle for brain dead. CBK
Hi carolmalaysia;
Your sarcasm seems work really well for the current #IQ45.
I should emphasize that the majority of uneducated = naive Americans citizens from 18 up to old age will blindly agree with you.
I am sorry that this post or many similar others like this are very chaos to the world. May
Hillary courted the billionaires
And pushed their privatizing wares.
And if, perchance, you’d like some mo’,
Of that, just cast your vote for Joe.
I totally agree!
Bob and Lisa: I could not agree with you more. There is, however, a rub. Any democratic leaning voter would vote for Darth Vader if he ran as a Democrat against Trump. Kknowing this, the Clintons and others who share their political and personal desires can effectively ignore those who are their potential opponents in the primaries. Jumping ship and starting a third party splits the opposition and assures the divide and rule philosophy of the increasingly distant right.
So what is the motivation for a political leader who must have massive amounts of money to listen to anybody but those with massive amounts of money? Has Citizens United caused the end of representative government?
Do not forget, in the end, Darth Vader turned against the Evil Emperor.
The DNC wants Joe and no one else. I know that there will be some who think that the DNC doesn’t “choose” the Democratic candidate, but all of the leaks and exceptional investigative journalism lately just points to the fact that the DNC most definitely plays a large part in crafting the image and massaging the media to direct voters towards a desired candidate. Why? Greed….plain and simple. We all like to condemn the Republicans for abandoning the “Party of Abe” but the Democrats have abandoned the “Party of the People” for the billionaires who can’t be satisfied with their massive wealth and power.
Maya Harris, Kamala Harris’ sister, was one of 3 senior policy advisors who led Hillary’s policy development agenda for the 2016 campaign.
Establishment Dems have the same playbook- identity politics.
“Establishment Dems have the same playbook- identity politics.”
Correct but the Republicans also have the same playbook written by Trump every time he tweets and the choice will be between Trump and the Democratic candidate that runs against him.
Anyone that does not vote for the Democratic candidate no matter who that is will be helping Trump win even if they do not vote.
Diane A relevant aside about PRIVATIZATION. Yesterday on C-SPAN “Facebook’s David Marcus Testifies Before House Financial Services.” They were talking about the recent Big Corporate moves to develop their own currency. When it was Ocasio-Cortez’s turn, she asked Marcus at least three times:
“Do you think currency is a public good?” He hedged, again, and again. His contempt for her and/or for the question was difficult to miss. She finally said she would take that as a no. He did say that the privately owned currency was meant only to “augment” sovereign currency. This rings of the old public-private partnership which is really code for “let’s get in the door first, and then we can take over the whole thing. After all, business people are smarter.”
Cortez asked about who would control the currency and drew out that control was from a group of un-democratically elected members.
Not to be mean, but that sounded to me (like for education and every other public good under the sun), just another bunch of rich corporate good-ol-boys trying to wrest control away from democracy into the hands of oligarchs. One other question was: why should we TRUST Facebook or the other long list of corporations to do what they promise after Facebook just drew a multi-billion dollar fine for breaking laws about using data? Blah, blah, blah. CBK
Most money, ofc, exists not as currency but as electronic records of debt obligations. This is a consequence of the fractional reserve system, which allows a bank to lend 10x its deposits. So, having 30K on hand in deposits, a bank can give you a 300K mortgage. Poof! 270K is created in the form of a debt you owe to the bank (with compounded interest on top of that)–a promise of the value of your labor tomorrow in exchange for magic currency today. And so, the average person is pwned for a lifetime. But such a system isn’t, in the minds of the oligarchs, rigged enough, it seems, because there are SOME controls on it. LMAO.
OK, I’ll take a half gallon of soy milk.
That will be twelve zucks.
Zucks?
Zuckerbergs. We also accept pearly gateses, or we can charge your walton wallet.
Bob Shepherd The hedging, shifting, and non-answers from an executive at Facebook was quite enough to show that nothing has changed for Facebook. CBK
Well said, Catherine! And thank you for raising this important issue!!! Lord, if only a majority of Americans had your insight and knowledge of current affairs.
Bob Cortez compared it with script. CBK
Yup. The interesting thing about scrip is that a) you trade something of value for it, but then there are significant limitations on where and how and on what it can be spent OR b) it is a loan that is ALL debt-creating magic money, with no reserve requirement.
We’ll all “owe our souls to the company store,” if FB gets its way. Just like scrip.
Terrifying.
I watched the Facebook presentation on Libre, the new project of Facebook–a global blockchain banking/currency/wallet system. The Facebook guy kept dodging answers to questions hoping time would be on his side.
The amazing thing was how flummoxed the Facebook “new currency marketer” was when he was confronted by a Republican with banking experience who held up a $20 dollar bill and asked what advantages Facebook’s proposed “Libre” currency had over current methods. There were no satisfactory answers to any questions about money laundering and other matters. Facebook hopes to proceed with minimal regulations, adding together all of the financial information from Libre transactions to its deep reservoir of data about users of Facebook. One person raised the specter of Facebook’s freedom to develop a social credit score for each person with perks for profitable conformists and demerits for those who are not. Zuckerberg was noticeably absent from the hearing.
Could all this result ultimately in proving Marx prescient?
Insurance premium payment costs already reflect a measure of social credit.
Superb point, Linda. One of many, many, many nefarious aspects of the mode of operation of the healthcare RICOs in the United States.
Laura H. Chapman The interview had double-speak and SCAM written all over it. CBK
“Cortez asked about who would control the currency and drew out that control was from a group of un-democratically elected members.”
There already is an un-democratically elected member group that controls the currency. It’s call the Federal Reserve.
This is just such a stupid self-inflicted mess. It’s like they have no common sense. You’d think after Cambridge Analytica and all that happened in 2016 that they’d be aware that their credibility was damaged; and that maybe they should shore up the business they
have and make it more secure. What could be worse than FaceBook going into financial services? Or any of those Silicon Valley leviathans starting a competing currency with the dollar
I think the press was in the past charmed by their boyish exuberance. But now the “boyish” part is just annoying. And regardless of what the press does, their communities have had enough. Seattleites are sick of them; Bay Area folks are sick of them; etc etc.
Trump’s election should be a wake up call to them. This government is anti-science; their future customers are being impoverished. Some of these guys have been big bundlers for Dems and the bubbas who elected Trump see people like them as the enemy. They should be worried on all fronts.
jcgrim Reflecting the early part of your note, while I was watching the program, I couldn’t help but think that these guys must think Congresspeople are bunch of idiots. Later in the hearing, one Congressman came close to saying what I was thinking. He said something like (paraphrasing): We are politicians–we know what it means when we choose our voters ourselves. CBK
“Broad would indeed threaten to withhold funding from Clinton when she criticized charter schools for excluding difficult students.”
You mean when she told the truth?
Hillary’s brief moment of truth was likely payback for the AFT endorsement. Then, she had to walk it back because the corporate overseers were cracking the whip.
One indicator of Hillary’s unwillingness to deceive was what she wouldn’t say, “there will be no cuts to Social Security.” Wall Street knew Trump was lying when he made the declaration but, the bankers wouldn’t let Hillary get away with the same pandering.
When challenged by Bernie on SS she admitted she would not raise the cap on income for contributions but that other means would be needed to fund the Social Security Fund!!! To me that meant a 401K style contribution system and a dead ringer for the ultimate destruction of the social seurity program, a never ending goal of Republicans.
Neither the Russians nor Comey cost Hillary the election. Her campaign which anointed her the Democratic candidate, gave America to Trump.
The economic deprivations caused by concentrated wealth robbed some Americans of their hearts and souls. They are a portion of Trump’s voters.
I disagree with your opinion. If you are a Hillary hater and Sanders lover, these facts might not change your thinking but they are the facts and cannot be ignored.
Russia did cost Hillary Clinton the election and proof is the three battleground states that Trump took with 77,744 votes.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/john-mccormack/the-election-came-down-to-77-744-votes-in-pennsylvania-wisconsin-and-michigan-updated
The Russian war-like propaganda campaign focused on black voters to get them to stay home and NOT vote and it worked.
“Russian Trolls and the Trump Campaign Both Tried to Depress Black Turnout
“Two new reports released by the Senate Intelligence Committee underscore how much the Internet Research Agency targeted African Americans—echoing efforts by the campaign.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/shared-russia-trump-focus-depressing-black-votes/578302/
“Black voter turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots”
The black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling to 59.6% in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6% in 2012. The 7-percentage-point decline from the previous presidential election is the largest on record for blacks. (It’s also the largest percentage-point decline among any racial or ethnic group since white voter turnout dropped from 70.2% in 1992 to 60.7% in 1996.
“The number of black voters also declined, falling by about 765,000 to 16.4 million in 2016, representing a sharp reversal from 2012. With Barack Obama on the ballot that year, the black voter turnout rate surpassed that of whites for the first time. Among whites, the 65.3% turnout rate in 2016 represented a slight increase from 64.1% in 2012.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/12/black-voter-turnout-fell-in-2016-even-as-a-record-number-of-americans-cast-ballots/
Lloyd, while I agree that other factors are relevant, it is hard to believe that she lost to the most unpopular candidate ever to run, and win no less, for office. Again, President Obama blames HRC, not the other factors. As Obama stated, HRC ran a “soulless, scripted campaign”.
I never said Hillary didn’t run a lousy campaign and if Trump was the most unpopular candidate to ever run, Hillary Clinton was the second most unpopular candidate thanks to decades of attacks on the Clintons casting doubts among the kind of voters that now support Trump.
However, it is arguable that during the 2016 campaign Hillary Clinton was the most unpopular candidate — not Trump. His unpopularity exploded soon after he lied while taking the Oath of Office and then kept lying repeatedly while holding his hate rallies around the country.
Gallup November 8, 2016
Trump and Clinton Finish With Historically Poor Images
But Trump had the Russians helping him out while Clinton was fighting the manufactured e-mail scandal (did you know that Trump still uses his private mobile phone today and refuses to use the one the government provided) and she was struggling to deal with the damage from the leak about the DNC stacking the deck in her favor over Sanders.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/197231/trump-clinton-finish-historically-poor-images.aspx
Expect the Russians to return and Trump to run a similar misinformation divide-and-conquer campaign in 2020.
And that is the biggest weakness of the Democratic Party. Because there are different factions that do not agree on many issues, it is easy to divide and conquer them.
The GOP, on the other hand, operates like the Chinese Communist Party and reveals few of any divisions. No matter what Trump says or does, the GOP supports and defends him. And when a Republican can’t stomach what Trump says and does, they stay quiet. At least most of them do.
I’m not denying these factors. I’m merely stating that if HRC, and Democrats in general, were less beholden to the monied interests I believe HRC or any Democrat could have easily beaten Trump. In the national polls leading up to the nomination of Hillary, HRC always polled around 1 – 3 % higher that Trump as I recall. Sanders always polled double digits ahead of Trump. After Trump’s election the DNC conducted a poll in W. VA., I believe it was there, where Trump won by a margin of 42% over HRC. In that poll, about one month after the election, people were asked to pick between Trump & Sanders, incredibly Sanders was picked over Trump by a margin of 4%.
How many votes did Hillary lose when her campaign denied Nina Turner her promised speaking time at the convention? When Trump told people of color, “What do you have to lose?”, what was the effective talking point Hillary’s campaign used to counter it?
Russians used the internet to convince some Dem. voters in Mich. to vote for Jill Stein. Some threw their votes away on Stein because Hillary’s campaign said she was the guaranteed winner. (And, some in the building trades will be voting for Trump in 2020 because the hot economy has kept them in jobs.)
Saturday Night Live’s McKinnon, after Trump’s nomination, in character as Hillary, thanked the GOP for giving her an opponent so easy to beat. How many votes does a candidate get to lose to an abysmal opponent and still claim, her campaign had no responsibility?
Did the leaked tapes cost Hillary votes? How did Assange get the password? Were the Democrats warned in advance by their sitting President (with the intent for caution) about Russian hacks?
Young voters are a wild card in terms of turnout. What did Hillary’s campaign do to get them to the polls?
Why did 53% of white women, many of them family values, vote Republican when the GOP candidate had kids from 3 different women?
If we accept the view that Hillary’s vote loss was all attributable to external forces, and similar campaign errors are made in 2020, why will Dems win?
HRC lost because she ran a terrible, scripted, disingenuous campaign. Some people can’t seem to get over that fact. Recall her flip flop on the “gold standard” (her description) of trade: the TPP? Ugh!
If voters stayed home because they thought Hillary would fill her cabinet with folks from Goldman, Sachs, they were, of course, acting on a reasonable assumption. Same if Uncle Joe is elected. But that said, Trump or the pile of dog excrement on my lawn? Definitely the latter.
Trump is a pile of dog turds and he comes into our houses every day and smears his turds all over our floors, walls, and ceilings.
And, he has filled his cabinet with more dog turds that were fermented in swamp water infected with Ebola viruses.
American voters are tired of the cliches. Hillary Clinton’s campaign was more cliche-ridden than an Ayn Rand comic book of a novel or a nineteenth-century popular song addressed to “Mother,” and NO ONE was buying it. If Status Quo Joe becomes the Democratic candidate–well, we’ve seen all sixteen sequels of that movie, haven’t we?
Trump is doing his part to energize stay-at-home Democrats. What a gift! Now, we need a candidate who will do the same. Sorry, candidates, but this isn’t going to cut it anymore: hope and change, giving hard-working Americans a shot at honoring blah our troops blah with thoughts and prayers blah blah for a better tomorrow blah that we might face the real challenges that lie ahead blah and restore blah blah the dream and blah provide a bright future for all Americans blah from one end of this great nation to the other blah for united we stand blah and when have we not risen to the challenge blah for we are Americans first and united we stand blah and in our hearts we keep that dream alive blah blah with liberty and justice for all.
Bob Shepherd: I think you sound like Biden. Lots of nothing.
I’m not making this up. The following is the content of the first two pages of the Biden for President website. It’s a compendium of clichés:
Our country is being put to the test.
optimistic about America
Bravery resides in every heart.
We get knocked, down—and then we get right back up.
learn from . . . experience
a lot more than a paycheck
Fight . . . abuse whenever he sees it
follow his heart
service his community, his state, and his country
This is his story.
Back to our founding fathers
All men are created equal
Stronger than any army
Bigger than any ocean
Give hope to the most desperate
No matter where they start in life, there’s nothing they can’t achieve
If they work at it.
We’re in a battle for the soul of America.
It’s time to remember who we are.
We’re Americans: tough, resilient, but always full of hope.
It’s time to treat each other with dignity.
Build a middle class that works for everybody
Fight back
Dig deep
Our best days still lie ahead.
That’s it. That’s what’s there. I wish I were making this up.
I’m feeling so inspired after reading Joe Biden’s website that I think I’ll check the messages on my phone and make a sandwich.
OK. Here’s how you play Drunken Joe Beer Pong. You listen to a debate with Status Quo Joe Biden. Then, every time he utters a cliche, you take a shot.
Seriously, don’t try this. Extremely dangerous.
Bob Shepherd: You must take the Joe Biden Legacy survey.
https://go.traindemocrats.org/Joe-Biden-Legacy
I think I’ll pass, Carol.
Bob Shepherd: I took the survey but didn’t give the answers that they wanted.
First Question: How favorably do you view Joe Biden?
Very favorably
Somewhat favorably
Neutral
Unfavorably
Unsure
I see nothing wrong in stating it like it is. Why shouldn’t the survey people realize that some of us don’t think he’d do a great job? There is also a place to write in what you thought were his greatest accomplishments. ….I spoke out. Should have written that he was a corporate shill. I did say that there were no accomplishments.
I would vote for him over Trump but I do not think he’d do much. We need some progressives who stand for definite change. The population needs to realize that the US is in major trouble if things aren’t changed. How this would be paid for must be stated.
Will this happen? I have a friend who says we must get out the vote because a majority of people do not like Trump. How good are the Dems in doing that when people like Pelosi work to spread that the Dems are not united.
Totally agree!. Listening to HRC’s speeches during the campaign in primaries and in the general election left me wondering what she was actually saying!!!
Two Monks and a Woman – a Zen Lesson
I am going to call this woman Hillary Clinton so there will be a few slight revisions to this Zen lesson.
“A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross the river, they saw Hillary Clinton also attempting to cross. Hillary asked if they could help her cross to the other side.
The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to touch a woman.
Then, without a word, the older monk picked up Hillary, carried her across the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his journey.
The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between them.
Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could not contain himself any longer, and blurted out ‘As monks, we are not permitted a woman, how could you then carry Hillary on your shoulders?’
The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”
When Hillary lost the election in 2016, we all crossed a toxic river and should have set her down. I think it is time to stop carrying Hillary Clinton around. Even if she died tomorrow, there are some here that would continue to carry her around until she broke their backs.
CAP’s “Distinguished Senior Fellow” (and, Epstein friend) Larry Summers is on the Broad Foundation Board and TFA Board. Truthout posted an article years ago, “Corporate Media and Larry Summers Team Up to Gut Public Education”. Sheryl Sandberg is Summers’ protege.
Also a friend of Summers, is Harvard’s Andrei Shleifer, the primary engineer of Russia’s privatization who is married to a hedge fund manager. The wife allegedly speculated in Russian bonds. Harvard paid more than $25 mil. to settle a related lawsuit with the principals admitting no wrong doing.
The same hedge fund manager now manages the investments of two Ivy League universities.
Yes, and Sandberg also sought for Zuckerberg to be part of the billionaire club in secret contact with the Hillary campaign. In Aug 2015, Sandberg sent this to Podesta:
“John,
I hope you are well – thinking of all of you often and following every move!
I can’t imagine you have any free time at all, but in case you do on this trip to the Bay area or another, wondering if you would be willing to spend some time with Mark Zuckerberg.
Mark is meeting with people to learn more about next steps for his philanthropy and social action and it’s hard to imagine someone better placed or more experienced than you to help him. As you may know, he’s young and hungry to learn — always in learning mode — and is early in his career when it comes to his philanthropic efforts. He’s begun to think about whether/how he might want to shape advocacy efforts to support his philanthropic priorities and is particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about. He wants to meet folks who can inform his understanding about effective political operations to advance public policy goals on social oriented objectives (like immigration, education or basic scientific research).
In case you have time on any trip, Andrea can schedule. And if it has to wait until after the campaign, we will all understand.
Sheryl”
Jezebel described Sheryl Sandberg as one of a type “who only view feminist progress in terms of their individual success climbing the corporate ladder and making bank”.
Who would have thought the richest 0.01% would be successful in turning the U.S. into an oligarchy modeled after Russia in the span of less than 70 years? If the Russian people disparage Americans for caring only amount money, as is reported, in Sheryl Sandberg, Zuck, Reed Hastings, Bill Gates,…the description hits the mark.
History will tell us if the Koch’s sought to reduce America to a Stalin-like banana republic. Currently, the U.S. has the most incarcerated population in the world (a result of ALEC law). One in 5 children live in poverty and, families are one illness away from bankruptcy.
While the Koch brothers are not innocent, they are not responsible for most if not all of the current prison population. Richard Nixon’s war on drugs did that and Reagan doubled down on Nixon’s policies regarding illegal drug use.
Richard Nixon was president from January 20, 1969, to August 9, 1974.
The Koch brothers did not launch ALEC until 1973 and it took years for that subversive organization to gather enough influence to start to have an impact.
“The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a nonprofit organization of conservative … ALEC was founded in 1973 in Chicago as the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators a project initiated by Mark Rhoads …. corporations such as ExxonMobil, Pfizer, AT&T, SAP SE, State Farm Insurance, and Koch Industries.”
It is possible that the Koch brothers and ALEC influenced President Reagon to increase the harsher prison penalties imposed by Richard Nixon and throw more Americans in prison, but that is unlikely since Charles Koch was the 1980 candidate for Vice President of the United States from the United States Libertarian Party and helped finance the campaign. That was the election Reagan won.
The Koch’s claim they’ve had more political success in the past 5 years than at any time in their history.
More drugs and more guns correlate with more incarcerations.
ALEC could write law that decriminalizes drug use and reduces guns. It doesn’t. ALEC could do what Kim Kardashian does, create a project to get sentences reduced and innocent people released. It doesn’t.
ALEC does increase violence with its stand your ground law and it increases incarceration with its 3 strikes law. ALEC’s membership includes private prisons (e.g. immigrant imprisonment) and the bail industry. Both have incentive to lock up people.
Shifting to causal factor- poverty increases interaction with law enforcement. The Koch’s politicians concentrate wealth.
How many of the sex offender laws are ALEC? Huffpo has an article today about how Epstein avoided the the rules that send the poor to jail.
Ugh. They really go out of their way to be completely dismissive of anyone they consider “lesser”.
It’s incredibly patronizing, this idea they have that ANY opposition is due to stupidity and what they feel is a kind of quaint, parochial “attachment” to public schools as opposed to their super-savvy brilliance.
They never learn, either. They’re incapable of learning, which is amusing in people who supposedly value “education”. The new orgs they’re all plugging are exactly the same as the old ones, down to the set of people they hire, and they really believe different branding is enough.
People who don’t value public schools won’t improve public schools. We should stop hiring them. They don’t return value to our students, bottom line, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone, because our students are IN the public schools they don’t value and don’t support.
They all support charter schools! Which is nice for charter school students, because that’s where those students go to school. Our students? They attend public schools. The schools these people don’t support or work on or have any interest in and in many instances have absolute contempt for.
Bernie won R.I. in the primaries which was a setback for the hedge fund-loving and Hillary ally, Gov. Gina Raimondo.
CAP’s Larry Summers gave Hillary’s campaign the advice to own her closeness with the bankers and to reject calls for her to distance herself.
The Clintons’ circle have been and are bad for the Democratic Party in every way except the deep pockets they reserve for the campaigns of DINO politicians.
I looked at the sponsors of one of the new supposedly “agnostic” ed reform groups.
The three largest charter chains. Not a single public school.
They’ve learned nothing. They offer absolutely nothing positive and of value to 90% of students. Our students don’t exist in this “movement” other than being posed as a problem they will solve with privatization.
John Podesta can be seen in a video on a dais with Chester Finn and Jeb Bush, calling on donors to support privatizing candidates.
We knew from the moment the Democrats selected Tom Perez over Keith Ellison to lead the DNC, they were going down the same corporate path that progressives reject.
it really is so transparent
Linda is referring to this video which I implore everyone to share. It’s a snapshot in time just after the 2012 election when Podesta and Jeb Bush succeeded in negating differences between Democrats and Republicans on education and were asking billionaires to continue funding the candidates, think tanks and media to keep ed reform going, and to reward and amplify any teachers, parents, administrators or advocates who stick their neck out for “student centered” reforms which included high stakes tests, charters, teacher evaluations and was at the time poised to start the transition to Common Core.
The two minute excerpt of Podesta + Jeb laughing over PAC money:
https://vimeo.com/zennyp
The full 42 minute presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWafXFPZWJQ
Podesta founded CAP. Tom Daschle is CAP’s board chair. (CAP and Fordham are funded by Gates.)
Podesta created a bi-partisan PR firm and Daschle founded a bi-partisan lobby shop. Daschle’s Bipartisan Policy Center has a new initiative in higher education. Gates sponsored one of the sessions.
To position a think tank as the voice of the left and then to steer policy to bi-partisanship enacting laws that serve deep-pocketed clients could be quite an effective anti-democracy scheme.
Sadly, the worst Democrat is still better than the best Republican.
After climate change the most pressing problem we face is the extraordinary concentration of income and wealth in our society.
Boy watching this Video of HRC talking about education at the NEA makes me cringe. What a phony. Is it any wonder she lost to an utter buffoon? Obama was right when he stated that HRC lost because she ran a “soulless, scripted campaign”. (Hint: wake up Bernie haters!)
Because HRC is a soulless person. HRC cares only about her own power, ego and money. Feel the Bern!!!
FYI, the person you are claiming ran a “soulless, scripted campaign” defeated Bernie Sanders. In fact, HRC inspired a lot of voters – mostly women and African-Americans – in the primary. Just because she did not inspire you did not mean that she didn’t inspire other people.
Just like Bernie did not inspire a very large swath of Democratic voters to vote for him. How is Bernie losing to a buffoon like Biden? Oh yes, the DNC has forced every Democratic voter to say they support Biden. And reject Bernie. It’s all the DNC’s fault that Bernie couldn’t handily defeat this woman who ran the most scripted soulless campaign in history.
The irony in these posts is truly remarkable and the fact that you don’t even see this astonishes me.
HRC rejected the pressure by the right wing billionaires at CAP to embrace charters wholeheartedly. Instead she did what Bernie did and shut up. There were very likely very similar e-mails with her campaign discussing what the teachers’ union wanted. The far right propaganda only released the stolen e-mails that served their purpose.
I don’t know why the perfect Bernie did not defeat this “soulless” HRC handily in the primary but I know that Bernie did not get very many of the African-American votes in the south. There is a lot of racism in those who insist that they know better than those voters or that those voters are not as smart as them and vote for terrible Democrats that the DNC “forces” them or “fools” them into voting for.
But the double standard is really funny to read. Biden is getting more support than Bernie. Bernie can’t even defeat the guy who puts his hands all over women and can’t seem to make any sense. Whose fault is that except Bernie? He is running a terrible campaign, right? Because trying to blame anyone but Bernie for his own loss is a sign that you are just looking for excuses, right?
How about we stop the hypocrisy and the second guessing and let’s especially stop the double standard where a guy who can’t even win enough votes in the primary somehow would magically defeat Trump if only he had won? I’ve seen people say that about Biden, too, and it is just as silly. Voters are voting for the candidate they prefer in the primary and if they really were convinced Bernie was the only candidate who could defeat Trump they would vote for him. In fact, if the Democrats stay together and stop eating their own candidates, any one of them — from Bernie to Biden to any of the very capable women candidates — can easily defeat Trump. Especially if the media, the disaffected voters whose candidate wasn’t the nominee, and the sweeping and powerful Republican movement to disenfranchise traditional voters are not helping Trump win as they did in 2016. With help from Russia.
That quote is from President Obama. Please don’t conflate Obama’s sentiments with mine even though I agree with him. As far as HRC goes I think it’s pretty obvious the DNC rigged the primaries for her. After all the debates were on dates/times calculated to limit coverage. Througout the primary season HRC usually maintained about a 1 to 3 percentage point lead in national polls over Trump. Sanders usually had double digit leads over Trump in national polls. One month after Trump’s election the DNC conducted a poll in W. Va. where Trump won by a whopping 42% margin yet when pitted against Sanders in the DNC’s own poll Sanders was picked over Trump by about 4%. Did you forget about the TPP? How about the Irag war? How about HRC’s objection to the $15 minimum wage or her objection about raising the contribution on for social security? All the Democrats running today are essentially running on Sanders’ proposals, not Hillary’s. Oh, let’s not even talk about medicare for all.
“HRC rejected the pressure by the right wing billionaires at CAP to embrace charters wholeheartedly. Instead she did what Bernie did and shut up.”
Hillary did bring up that charters cherrypick students, likely advised by Randi, but was excoriated for it as Broad publicly threatened to withhold money. Hillary then went silent as O’Leary published an article dispelling any doubts and stating her full support for charters. Then Hillary got booed for mentioning charters in her endorsement speech.
There were campaign discussions of what Randi asked for, but it was largely ignored. For example she called for wraparound services and Neera Tanden backed her up on it, but it was dropped or de-emphasized by the campaign.
We don’t know if the Russians and WikiLeaks selectively released damaging emails, a lot of the comms are exculpatory, suggesting it was dumped wholesale, and I’ve not heard any victims claimed to have emails that were excised.
In my view, Bernie lost because he was massively unprepared. So criticisms against “rigging” are not necessarily excuses for Bernie’s loss, rather they are seeking to prevent future rigging because they are illegal or anti-democratic.
The DraftBernie movement that finally got him to run was originally a DraftWarren movement, started by former OWS organizers that spent an awful lot of crucial time trying to convince her to run in vain.
When they realized she would not, they pivoted to Bernie, who I think only wanted originally to run a “messaging” campaign to make Hillary more progressive.
When Bernie agreed, the campaign caught on quickly, particularly with young people. But they had insufficient infrastructure to grow enough by SuperTuesday. They could not hire staff fast enough, open offices fast enough, respond to questions fast enough (like our questions for example) or grow name recognition fast enough.
When Bernie started winning states, he got serious about running to win, but was far behind on the ground game, fundraising, endorsements and publicity, which is all his fault, aka getting in the race too late.
What’s not his fault is media bias. We just learned recently that Ed Schultz wanted to cover Bernie’s campaign on MSNBC TV from day one, but was forced by CEO Phil Griffin to blackout Bernie coverage. Schultz admitted before his death that he kept quiet about this, having signed non disclosure agreements, but the network had rigged election coverage.
And the leaks showed the DNC secretly colluded with media figures such as Alex Seitz-Wald, Alex Wagner, Andrea Mitchell, Beth Fouhy, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Phil Griffin, Rachel Maddow (say it isn’t so!), Rachel Racusen and Tom Roberts.
Also tilted against Bernie was the superdelegate system, which allowed Hillary to win delegate counts in states that she actually lost as superdelegates defied the will of the voter.
It was also unfair that almost all the large unions were secretly coordinating with the Hillary campaign to ensure she won endorsements, including the AFT and NEA.
It was also unfair that David Brock and other paid Democratic operatives (not necessary coordinating with the DNC or the campaign) posted on social media posing as Bernie supporters who were sexist, racist, or “realized Bernie was no good and they had to switch to Hillary”.
Parallel to these fake “Bernie Bros” were “Bernie bots”, aka Russians posing as Bernie supporters, attacking Hillary or trying to suppress turnout in the general election after Bernie had endorsed Hillary.
Today, Bernie is facing the same media bias we saw in 2016, including examples Diane posted about. This week we saw the Mimi Rocah statement, for example.
There are also social media accounts still astroturfing against Bernie, Warren and AOC, including paid ops, bots, and sock puppet accounts sponsored from the right, centrist Dems, or foreign actors trying to sow discord. This chaos will certainly only grow.
But it’s misleading to compare this election to 2016 because there are over 20 candidates splitting the polling, because Trump is an incumbent now, the DNC has reformed its practices, the AFT has vowed to be more inclusive and first-round superdelegates have been banned.
Bernie has pros and cons, like all candidates, but he has consistently beat Trump in head-to-head polls from 2016 till today, and also outperformed Hillary in the crucial states Michigan and Wisconsin. Perhaps most telling was a stat I saw that 1 in 10 Bernie voters voted for Trump. So if the “electability” or “likeability” argument really is valid, we should note that the DNC ignored their own internal focus group testing going back to 2008 that consistently showed Hillary was widely viewed as “untrustworthy”.
I think we all do the next president a disservice by discussing the election as a horse race instead of debating their platforms and the issues that impact the middle class.
We should also, I believe, invest less in the people and personalities, than the issues. To get to the best candidate versus Trump, we all may end up making a lot of compromises, but should advocate right now for ISSUES and let candidates show whether they are responsive to everyday people, and importantly, reject corporate cash. My two cents.
I’m totally baffled why anyone is still talking about Hillary Clinton. Is this a sign of dementia? is this a sign of mental illness? She already crossed the river and is gone. Why are you still carrying her around?
Frankly, I find Andrew Yang one of the most interesting and appealing Dem candidates.
Let’s not leave the complicit role the AFT and NEA played in making it OK for Dem candidates to play this game. They say one thing and do another. That is their game to deflect internal and external criticism. If the unions took a stand this may not have happened. The assumption the unions will support the Dems no matter what puts us in a bind. The game is to try to get a sliver of influence but all it is is a sliver. A line has to be put down.
FYI,
The Republicans have in many past elections also convinced independent voters that Democrats do only the union’s bidding. That’s why the Democrats lose so many elections — not just for President but for state and local elections, too.
If it was not Bernie voters who the far right wanted to fool with their propaganda, but instead they wanted to target conservative Democrats to stay home in 2016, you would have seen the hacked snippets of e-mail correspondence with the teachers’ union and other unions, and moderate Democrat voters would have been convinced HRC was the most radical socialist candidate ever and she planned to single handedly make the US a Communist state.
After all, as long as selected bits of e-mails showed only the discussion about what the AFT or NEA wanted, it would be absolutely clear that HRC was entirely controlled by the unions.
In 2016 it was about turning the woman who used to be one of the most liberal Democrats in this country into some far right wing corporate shill. In 2020 it will be something else. And as long as Democratic voters help push the propaganda that the far right fools them into pushing, the Dem will lose to a real far right proto-fascist.
In 2008 the far right tried to make Obama look like a proto-terrorist sympathizer who worshipped at the church of an anti-American terrorist sympathizing pastor. It didn’t work because the disaffected HRC voters did not help push that lie. Not one time. The Democrats joined together to call out for the lie it was, making no concessions that “well, maybe Obama is a little sympathetic to terrorists and he does adore his terrorist-sympathizer pastor but that’s okay, we will still hold our nose and vote for him.” Instead they called it out for the total lie that it was. But in 2004, when Kerry was the fake soldier who lied about his medals and did nothing but cower, Democrats didn’t defend him properly and allowed that lie to stand. That’s what also happened in 2000 when the Dems had so much fun with Al Gore the exaggerator, and whether that characterization was a lie was never called out by the Democrats. Instead, their joining in and the Dems conceding that Gore was a blatant liar gave it credibility and made people believe that the dishonest George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were the “straight talkers”.
I sure hope that doesn’t happen again because it is only when the Democrats come together to defend their nominee against these outrageous attacks that Dems win. When Dems instead publicly concede that of course their candidate is just as horrible as the right wing propaganda about him says he is, but they will hold their nose and vote for this candidate anyway, the Dems lose.
Can you imagine if Bernie won the nomination and a large swath of Democratic voters started repeating the right wing propaganda that Bernie is a Communist loving terrorist sympathizer who used his office to make his wife rich, but they would hold their nose and vote for him anyway? Would that be acceptable? Of course not. That isn’t coming together — it is helping the fascist propaganda take hold and letting the right wing win.
It’s also not real criticism. It is mischaracterizing a candidate’s position on one or two issues that you disagree with into some kind of wholesale corruption where voters are convinced the Dem will sell out every idea because they believe in nothing but money for themselves and their billionaire donors. Or, when it is convenient, for their corrupt and lazy union leaders who call the shots and tell the candidates what to do to give them more money.
Exactly why I voted for Bernie Sanders!
Oh, what a horrible choice it will be if it comes down to the corporate neo-liberal slave Biden vs Trump the autocratic, dictator loving, failed businessman, fraud, con-man, money laundering crook, serial liar, troll, bully, braggart, wife cheater, mistress cheater, alleged child molester, alleged child murderer, hate-filled, racist, malignant narcissist, … and on and on and on.
Gee,… suddenly I find it will be easier to vote for Biden even if he is a corporate neo-liberal.
The “squad” is the beginning of the end for the corporate democrats even if the corporate Dems stay in control for now. Otherwise we may prove Marx…..prescient?
Is anyone in the Squad old enough to run for president?
LOL. Will take some time!!!
They are old enough for precedent, even if not for president.
I think they should be called the Maud Squad.
Maude is an Old German feminine given name meaning “powerful battler”.
A lamentable, yes of agreement.
But, then, if Biden loses because he lets Trump be the populist showman while Joe panders to the elite, having Bloomberg speak at the convention and denying Nina Turner her promised time, where will the nation be?
If Trump wins, we will not have a civilized nation.
Thanks for Diane for recognizing the importance of these secret pay-for-play relationships in light of what is happening now in CA and in the 2020 presidential race. I know it is an awkward issue for Democrats knowing these leaks came from Russian hacks intending to help Trump get elected. When this article was first published, it was believed Russia was behind the hacks, but it was only confirmed later in the Mueller Report.
I did not publish the article to hurt Hillary, who I voted for, I published it to push Democrats to end pay-for-play relationships with ed reformers, which some are doing and others are not. I actually sat on the article until long after the election, and even then found that some media outlets would not touch it with a ten foot pole.
It is important because the players are still in positions of power, and they are retooling to continue their work.
Not only is O’Leary now in the catbird seat with great control over education policy in California, but Beto O’Rourke just hired Carmel Martin as his senior campaign advisor, another CAP alum with a long career in the revolving door between US DOE and the billionaire funded think tanks.
What is even more scary is the TFA Capitol Fellows Program which pay the salaries of TFA alums to become House + Senate interns and get them “in the door” to become career staff. They have done so for all these Congress members so far, and as I contact legislators, I find even more not on the list.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA)
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)
Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA)
Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK)
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE)
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA)
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX)
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH)
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA)
Rep. John Kline (R-MN), Chairman, House Education + the Workforce Committee
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA)
Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA)
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Ranking Member, Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA)
Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL)
Rep. Phil Roe, M.D. (R-TN)
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA)
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI)
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), Ranking Member, House Education + the Workforce Committee
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC)
Rep. GT Thompson (R-PA)
Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-MA)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Thanks for the list- an appallingly high number.
Sherrod Brown’s dilettante graduated from a private college in D.C. which costs $70,000 a year. That’s substantially more than the median family income in Ohio.
A couple of years ago, Sherrod asked Betsy for $71 mil. to expand charter schools in Ohio. At the same time taxpayers were being fleeced in the hundreds of millions of dollars by charters.
Susan Davis is DFER listed. And oddly, at the request of CTA, the AFT became her 2nd largest contributor. Davis won by 30 points which begs the question why teachers’ dues funded her campaign.
BTW, Davis is a privatizer who participated in the Gates sponsored session on higher ed at Daschle’s Bipartisan Policy Center. Only one current politician was at the session and it was her.
Your list is old. Orrin Hatch is no longer a Senator,, thank heaven.
I’m not sure whom to thank, but Heaven is not high on the list.
If Heaven were indeed responsible, it would have happened much earlier.
So-called “moderate” Democrats are ruled by Wall Street: and Gomer Pyle says, “Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
This article nails it: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/20/trump-ilhan-omar-politics-culture-war-class-war
LeftCoastTeacher: “Liberals who only weeks ago were calling Omar antisemitic for her criticisms of the Israel lobby were now rushing to her defense.”
This annoyed me. Omar spoke out about the strong influence that AIPAC has over Congress’s decisions. This doesn’t happen? Congress is totally influenced by money, either through lobbyists or campaign contributions.
This is a case of moderate corporate Democrats derailing a good person.
………………………………………………….
AIPAC is not a political action committee and does not donate directly to political candidates, but it requires its members to donate to the campaigns of certain members of Congress in order to receive exclusive membership benefits. Doug Rossinow, an academic and author of a forthcoming book on American Zionism, wrote in the Washington Post that since the late 1970s, AIPAC “has informally directed substantial campaign contributions toward chosen candidates for Congress.”
AIPAC, which has generally been allied with the Republican Party, reportedly recruited individual bundlers, who would collect AIPAC members’ donations to direct them to the campaigns of senators and representatives. “The goal was to develop people who could get a member of Congress on the phone at a moment’s notice,” wrote the New Yorker’s Connie Bruck.
On its website, AIPAC details its “Congressional Club,” a group of members who commit to donate at least $5,000 per election cycle “in a clearly pro-Israel context” to “pro-Israel politics.” “The Congressional Club is designed to recognize politically active members of AIPAC who support pro-Israel candidates for the House and Senate,” the group says.
Progressive activist Ady Barkin wrote a Twitter thread on Monday, describing an instance in which AIPAC’s political spending “was definitely about the Benjamins.”
Netanyahu is not very different from the Republicans.
CAP invited Netanyahu to speak.
Sure praise, sure praise sure praise!
“The Democrats lost their voice”
They lost their voice on Wall Street
In talks with Jamie Dimon
It made them hoarse to oft repeat
“We so adore your diamond!”
‘The Sanders Campaign Is Fighting Back Against Biased Media Coverage’
…While his staffers say Sanders is getting more coverage than he did in 2016, their current complaints center on the type of coverage, which, as Politico writer Michael Calderone explains, they see as “excessively negative.”…
David Sirota
Verified account
@davidsirota
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David Sirota Retweeted POLITICO
It’s weird — in this poll, there’s a candidate in a strong second place position, and yet once again, this particular candidate’s name is apparently not allowed to even be mentioned by media organizations promoting the poll.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-sanders-campaign-is-fighting-back-against-biased-media-coverage/
Sanders is THE most favorably viewed politician in America — actually ahead of Biden — and the mainstream media (especially NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC and NPR) will do everything they can to make sure that Americans are not given the opportunity to vote for him in the general election.
Totally agree. What they fear most is higher taxation of the wealthy and corporations and will do anything to stop that.
Sorry, carolmalaysia here are better links to the booing videos:
Jake Jacobs,
I think your reporting is brilliant and important and I thank you for covering this. That being said, I think that there seems to be a lot of comments here that suggest that readers are missing some of the larger context.
First of all, Bernie Sanders also supported “public charter schools” in 2016. It certainly was not because Sanders was controlled by CAP. It was because the billionaires who also funded CAP had managed to convince both Democrats who were moderate and Democrats who were progressive to support “public charters” by funding a massive propaganda effort. Elizabeth Warren is not “controlled” by CAP, but she still supports charters. Moderate Dems Tim Kaine and Ralph Northam do not. support charters even though CAP probably likes some of their other views. The DFER Democrat Tom Perriello — who is always identified as “progressive” — that Bernie recently campaigned for against Northam was funded by the pro-charter anti-public school reform billionaires.
CAP has an agenda. They have the funding to push it but so does the Teachers Union. I am very pro-union, but I hate when the Republicans smear politicians who support public education by claiming those politicians are supporting public education for the sole reason of getting union donations. And I hate when the left smear politicians the same way. It is dishonest and the intention is to pretend that politician is a bought and paid shill of the union or CAP with no independent thinking. It is only done to politicians to destroy them and applied with a double standard.
In 2016 I supported Bernie in the primary, but if I was voting solely on public education issues I would have voted for HRC because she was the only candidate who showed any willingness to stand up to the reformers in her statement in South Carolina. That showed me she was not “afraid” and I had a lot more trust in the politician who supported “public charters” and also was willing to flat out state the issues with them, than the other candidate who simply supported “public charters” period. (Which was Bernie’s position at the time). But one thing I never did was try to smear Bernie and claim he was unwilling to even try to criticize charters the way HRC did because CAP or someone else controlled him. I didn’t say that the reason Bernie chose to spend 2017 campaigning for a DFER Democrat to “reform” public education as Virginia Governor was because he was controlled by CAP.
Just like I know that Elizabeth Warren is not controlled by CAP even though her position on charters is not particularly good.
Right now, Bernie (and de Blasio) have the best position on public education. But when I supported Bernie in 2016 it was not because of his public education position but because of other positions. And I may decide to support Elizabeth Warren not because of her public education position but because of other positions.
But I do hope this election does not become about smearing whoever wins the primary as some “tool” of one group or another.
Biden is too conservative for me on many issues. That’s all I need to know. I am voting for the candidate that reflects the issues that are most important to me, and whether someone wants to smear them as total tools of the union or total tools of CAP is irrelevant. And if it comes down to Biden and Trump, I will happily support Biden because despite my differences with some of his positions, his views are still clearly 100000x more aligned with mine on many issues than Trump.
Anyone who doesn’t support the Democratic candidate — whether Biden, Bernie, Warren or someone else — over Trump is making their views very clear. They are saying that the ways that the candidate does different from Trump don’t matter to them because those issues are of little importance. Racism and xenophobia don’t affect them and the fact that the Democratic candidate is much better than Trump on those issues is of no concern. Or they don’t agree with one of Bernie’s economic positions so they have decided that having a racist proto-fascist is no big deal to them. It’s what it is but they make that choice willingly and the outcome — Trump in power — is on them. Not on the people who voted for a much better candidate. They own Trump.
I also see a lot of irony to read that HRC was entirely responsible for her own loss by the same people who blame CAP or the DNC when Bernie loses.
CAP and the DNC did not run a propaganda campaign like Russia did. They did not target voters using illegally obtained Facebook data helped by Cambridge Analytica using stolen e-mails from Bernie’s campaign that were taken out of context.
Fact: Trump ran a primary campaign that defeated a large field of the very strongest Republican candidates. HRC won a relatively large popular vote victory over Trump while narrowly losing enough states to give Trump an electoral college victory.
And it is revealing that most of those narrow electoral losses came in states that were at that time controlled by Republicans who had documented dealings with right wing organizations specializing in suppressing the vote of traditional Democratic voters. Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Michigan (Rick Snyder), Ohio (Kasich).
The fact that HRC won Minnesota, a state with a Democratic Governor who wasn’t in bed with those who tried to suppress Democratic votes, is likely not a coincidence.
Your articles are excellent, but I find they are sometimes wrongly interpreted by others to give succor to the far right that loves it when progressives repeat their favorite talking point that Dems do the bidding of the rich. It’s all in service to getting Dems not to support any candidate who is running against a Republican. So tragic that it leads to the election of politicians in the Republican party who really do serve only the rich. Republican politicians whose power and policies make it harder, not easier, for democracy to lead to a more progressive America.
Many progressive voters turned away from the “neocon” Jimmy Carter and the election of Reagan did not “show” Democrats that they should have run a more progressive candidate instead of the privatizing, conservative Carter. It led to decades of destruction of the progressive policies that had been achieved. It empowered the far right and led to a Republican Party that is now to the right of the John Birch Society of old. And that turned politicians offering what would have been mainstream Democratic views into “left wing Socialists”.
NYC PSP, thanks for the compliments. Of course people have different takeaways. These articles have to be very short and thus only show a portion of what was really going on. So it’s my job, with an editor, to decide what is most important and give it some form of organization or theme. There is much more revealed in that 2014 policy book about education, foreign policy, trade and much more. Because no one else is covering it, I might try to revisit the education related stuff.
Its also noteworthy that bigger media outlets passed on the story.
I think politicians (like Bernie) might come around quicker if the media was covering what is really happening in education. But the media hates education because it is too complicated to explain in 800-1200 words.
In response to your thoughts, I’ll just say briefly that the Podesta emails show a lot of inside, embarrassing, damaging comms. They show the campaign was pushing campaign finance rules to the limit, was secretly coordinating with donors on education policy, and with all the big union leaders on strategy. We already knew this was going on because we could see the results but here were names and dates and specifics.
And for comparison, Trump’s campaign was coordinating with foreign billionaires to rewrite RNC policy on Ukraine, lift sanctions, datamine Americans and foment civil unrest and racial animosity. So it was ironic that Trump was helped by these leaks because his side was doing much worse.
CAP was not just influencing the Hillary campaign, they were the campaign, including Podesta, Tanden, O’Leary and Chris Edley. Hillary was at odds with her team at times – you could see the debate prep docs, and compare them to her actual speeches where Hillary just avoided talking about K-12 at all. You could see the tension where they walked back her criticism of charters.
But the campaign did have allies funding anti-Bernie propaganda, most notably led by David Brock. This is normal, but it crosses a line when they lie, hiring people to post as Bernie supporters, or secretly coordinating with the media like MSNBC and the NYT.
The DNC violated their own neutrality rules, and that was addressed when DWS and other officials were removed, but some, like chief counsel Marc Elias, stayed on.
As for the media, they are owned by billionaires, and have free speech to rig against progressives, but this was used against Hillary in a close race, and hurt America. The Mueller Report says they had their thumb on the scale for Hillary. We saw them censor coverage of Bernie and lie about things like the “thrown chairs”.
Some “Bernie Bro” posts were found to be Russian, while other were actually posts by David Brock or other paid ops like Sally Albright, who continues today.
But worst of all, the networks could not stop covering Trump, unable to resist the incredible ratings, they gave billions in free air time to him, covering entire one hour speeches, even as they railed against him.
The DNC also datamined delegates, scouring social media to determine which Philly delegates were Bernie-or-bust and which may be flippable. This was not criminal, but did violate DNC bylaws.
I agree that Republicans today serve the rich, but so do some Dems. It hurts our side to have them taking Wall Street money and making bad policy, in secret. I think the big lesson of 2016 is not to persuade Dems to accept corporate candidates, its to persuade corporate candidates to give up the payola and run honest small donor campaigns to avoid even the appearance of corruption.
After the primaries, we all come together and make sure turnout is so high it’s not a close race.
I think there are great debates to have over purity and litmus tests – this is democracy and how it’s supposed to work. But most of our problems stem from money-in-politics and it’s clear from these emails that education reformers have been among the worst offenders.
Remember that Arne Duncan was a Broadie and that in 2012 Eli Broad gave New Jersey 430K if they increased charter schools by 50%. NJ already had a Broadie Ed commissioner Chris Cerf
To whom it may concern:
After reading this post, I found that the majority of intellectual people only discuss about the influence of money.
After I had been in twice shipwrecks, I witnessed many dead people: a bundle tiny baby; a really fragile voice by my side at first then disappeared body in the wave; many others were slowly sinking with deflated floater.
In communist society, the authority keeps changing currency, within a month, you cannot buy a loaf of bread with their new currency.
In short, the bottom line is to get back to the basic of body – mind – spirit. If we can not support ourselves by our own strength, our intelligence and our kindness; then what would we really appraise our lives on Earth? Sigh!
People love to hear the lies from a liar and a cheater. So who are these people?
People keep repeating whatever that is nonsensical from a liar and a cheater. So who are these people?
We must point out the reasonable system of Public Education for American Citizens from K-12. We highlight all successful Americans from Public Education who have done excellent for their America. Also, we need to criticize all organizations and media outlets that destroy humanity and American Democrat and Republicans alike. Back2basic
Betsy DeVos is part of the corruption that has infiltrated the government under the Orange Swamp Monster’s watch. He is pure evil and the people he picks are wealthy and work to destroy their departments. Trump has no problem wasting taxpayer money as long as it brings more to the wealthy.
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Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges
A House committee has a trove of documents that show top Education Department officials trying to prop up a for-profit chain as it careened toward collapse.
WASHINGTON — Dream Center Education Holdings, a subsidiary of a Los Angeles-based megachurch, had no experience in higher education when it petitioned the federal Education Department to let it take over a troubled chain of for-profit trade schools.
But the organization’s chairman, Randall K. Barton, told the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, that the foundation wanted to “help people live better lives.”
The purchase was blessed despite Dream Center’s lack of experience and questionable finances by an administration favorable to for-profit education. But barely a year later, the company tumbled into insolvency, dozens of its colleges closed abruptly and thousands of students were left with no degree after paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.
Making matters worse, the college is accused of enrolling new students and taking their taxpayer-supported financial aid dollars even after some of its campuses had lost their accreditation, which rendered their credits worthless.
Company emails, documents and recordings show that part of why Dream Center kept going is that it thought the Education Department, which under Ms. DeVos has rolled back regulations on for-profit education, would try to keep it from failing…
Instead of requiring Dream Center to take action, “the department informed Dream Center executives that it would work to retroactively accredit the institutions during the periods they had lied to students — rewriting history to erase Dream Center’s deceptive marketing practices,” Mr. Scott wrote…
But Ms. DeVos’s efforts to get the government off the backs of for-profit colleges have come under particular scrutiny, in part because of the spectacular implosions of for-profit college chains only a few years ago, in part because people who once worked in the sector have led the DeVos deregulatory push…