#bloomburg

[mandatoryforcefem]

Breaking news: fail candidate spends $500 million of cringe money to get publicly humiliated, quits

[makaris]

Holy fuck, the Iowa Caucus

Okay so I want to break this down, mostly as a way to help myself make sense of it all.  If this helps other folks understand the time line of events, all the better.  My ‘sources’ are scattered and random, as I’ve been absorbing most of this stuff through osmosis and it’s super hard nailing down the ‘best’ link to something, given how fast all this is moving.

I will arbitrarily start my rant here.

BUTTIGIEG BLOCKS CRITICAL DES MOINES POLL

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/iowa-poll-swiftly-spiked-after-buttigieg-campaign-issues-complaint

Shortly before the Iowa Caucus was to begin, the CNN/Des Moines poll was set to release. This is, apparently, a very important poll that a lot of the mainstream media (MSM) had already scheduled a lot of coverage for, as it would be a good indicator of the final state of things just before the election.  

Then, Buttigieg campaign blocks its release. Why?  Well, their campaign claimed that one of the pollsters may have not been giving out Buttigieg’s name while calling out.  Not for any nefarious reason, just what is basically an IT issue.  This alone isn’t really too bad.  And, in a vacuum, not really worth too much fuss over.  Like, I do think it’s a bit weird that CNN would let all that money/effort go to waste over a single campaigns minor complaint, but, still, whatever.

The fact that the poll ended up getting leaked and was very favorable to Bernie (and VERY unfavorable to Biden) is another small annoyance.  It would have probably helped get a bit of positive / surprise coverage shortly before the caucus.  But again, whatever.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/unreleased-final-iowa-poll-had-biden-in-fourth

Given what all ends up happening, it’s a just a prelude to some REAL hinky shit.

THAT FUCKING APP

So election day comes.  I and many others are tuned into various outlets.  We have the NYT and other vote trackers open, watching it all roll out.  Looks like it’s going good for Bernie.  Oh Boy!

Then, around 10PM, the numbers get pulled.  We’re told that some app that was being used to communicate the votes was messing up.  Numbers were going missing.  They aren’t adding up.  Tons of nonsense goes down.  

The company that created the app is a company called Shadow (yes, really), which is part of a larger group called Acronym.  It is staffed by ex Clinton staffers and other failures closely tied to the establishment, so the app being a POS should not be a surprise to anyone.  Oh, and the company accepted over $42k from Buttigieg’s campaign. 

https://www.truthorfiction.com/did-pete-buttigiegs-campaign-donate-42500-to-iowa-caucus-app-developer-shadow-inc/

It should be mentioned that this company and the people behind it will face no real repercussions.  Yeah ‘Shadow’ might go under, but and they might have temporarily lost a few contracts with the DNC.  But never underestimate how corrupt the democratic consultant class can be. They’ll be back to fuck some other shit up in no time.

Now, again, not trying to be conspiratorial here.  Maybe the vapid bougie fucks behind this had no ill intent.  Maybe their worst crime is being morons who did not test their software and accepted money unthinkingly.  But at the very least, their history as agents positioned against one of the front runners, and acceptance of money from one of the others, is a clear conflict of interest and should not have been allowed to happen.

Moving on.

BERNIE RELEASES INTERNAL NUMBERS, BUT BUTTIGIEG VICTORIOUS?

Sander’s campaign releases their internal numbers, showing they are leading by a solid 5 points.

https://twitter.com/reaIKevin/status/1224685920504504321/photo/2

The above is the best we had that night. 

Then, Buttigieg ended up reporting that he was ‘victorious’.  This is obviously misleading at best, as he’d have no way of really knowing that.  It was just blustering.  An attempt to get ahead of the chaos and create The Narrative.

I won’t go into it right now, as this post is going to be long.  But, in the end, the truth is not nearly as important as what people believe.  If Pete can successfully insert the idea that he is winning, enough people won’t question it that you’ll gain some converts, regardless of it being untrue.  Now, MSM would (surprisingly!) criticize him, a bit, but not nearly enough to make it a bad play, strategically.  Pete is dangerous, because he’s the kind of guy that can identify an opening like this, see how it will play out, and shameless act on it.

When he got called out on it (again, surprisingly), he would later claim that he was being just being poetic / flowery, and didn’t mean to say that they had come in 1st and won, which is what victorious means. Pete’s lying, of course, because he is a liar who lies.

We’re getting head of ourselves.  Let’s see what happens the next morning...

CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE

The party decides that they need to do a LOT of ‘quality control’, and it’s just too much to release all at once.  They need to do it small batches.  And the initial 62% they decide to first release excludes all the area’s where Bernie is doing the best.  

https://twitter.com/joules1971/status/1225057375540916226/photo/1

Hey look, Pete’s fucking winning now (if you exclude all the poorer, urban, or minority focused areas)!  The numbers aren’t in yet, but it fits The Narrative, so who cares!

From then, past initial 62% release up to the 80-something-% yesterday, we at least have some data.  We can look past the noise and see that Buttigieg’s claim to victory is NOT based on the popular vote. It turns out that, even with the releases being poised against him, Bernie is still leading in both the 1st and 2nd round of voting.  The only thing he did not take is the SDE count, so they are end up tied for Delegates.  What are SDE’s?  They’re State Delegate Equivalents.  I’m not going to claim to understand how it works, as it is extremely arcane, but an easier way to think about it is that Bernie won the popular vote, but Buttigieg won some Iowa-based electoral college. And even there, is only winning by a slim margin.

It is very important to stress that the delegates from Iowa BARELY MATTER.  They’re not why Iowa is significant.  The reason we care at all is winning Iowa means you get positive press, and a news cycle dedicated to you.  Most voters do not pay much attention, and will generally vote for whoever they perceive to be winning.  And who they perceive to be winning is generally based on what the media tells them. 

If the goal was to hurt whoever truly won the Iowa election, you would do exactly this.  You would you string along the release of info for as long as possible, so that either A) someone else gains the benefits of the election, based on misrepresenting, incomplete data OR B) folks stop paying attention.

Let’s stop and think.  A bunch of stuff has happened already.  Is it gross incompetence?  Or is there nefarious intent?  Both?  Does the DNC even deserve the benefit of the doubt, after all the shit that they are on the record pulling in 2016?  

Let’s assume incompetence for now, and see if it’s even still possible to think that later.  

The point is, Bernie was getting his (OUR) media cycle stolen, and Buttigieg is now starting to gain in the polls.

UH OH, MATH IS HARD!  

It starts coming out that the totals we were getting were incorrect. 

https://twitter.com/Harvard4Bernie/status/1225189173998411778

Bernie votes (and a few from Warren even!) were going to other candidates. Black Hawk County managed to break into the news cycle, but they were far from alone. 

https://twitter.com/MCulshawMaurer/status/1225198291140268033

https://twitter.com/crulge/status/1225185093091840002

https://twitter.com/Banalization/status/1225199174171451393

https://twitter.com/MikePrysner/status/1225229056519503872

Turns out TONS of counties were seeing major discrepancies.  And, for some reason, all these errors and miscalculations were seeming to only break against Bernie.  In some areas, all of Bernie's votes going to fucking Deval or Steyer, who otherwise had basically no support.  The only reason we found out is because of local leaders that were smart enough to keep there own numbers, were paying close attention, and caught it.  If they hadn’t, we would have never known.  Now that’s what I call ~~~QUALITY CONTROL~~~~<3

I goes without saying that the DNC’s numbers at this point are EXTREMELY SUSPECT, and Bernie’s numbers are starting to look like they might be closer to the truth.  However, even with this blatant idiocy / corruption (your pick), Bernie still has the popular vote. 

TOM PEREZ NEEDS TO RESIGN

That brings us to earlier today, 02/06.  97% of the votes are in.  Bernie is only down by 0.1 points in SDE’s, still will ahead in the popular vote, and we’re clearly going to win at this point.

https://twitter.com/micahuetricht/status/1225131303189852160

The remaining votes are coming from satellite locations, mostly minority groups.  These groups were pulled in by the Bernie campaign and with their support we would surely pull in that last 0.2 percent needed to win in EVERY metric.  There would be no way that the MSM or other campaigns could spin this.  Bernie Won!

Then, Tom Perez puts his foot down, sees Bernie Winning all these unfortunate, unforeseen issues, and decides it’s high time to pull the plug and start the whole thing over from the beginning.

https://twitter.com/TomPerez/status/1225468833458245632

Tom Perez, in case you don’t remember, has been in control of the DNC since 2017 but was an opponent of Sanders during the 2016, including him offering plans on how to best shiv Bernie that were discovered in the Podesta leaks.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4429

Notably, he helped engineer the narrative that Bernie could only connect with white liberals (ie the Bernie Bros myth), which has been something the Bernie campaign has been able to successfully push back on until it is now not only untrue, but the exact opposite of the truth.  POC are the back bone of Bernie’s campaign!

https://twitter.com/CANCEL_SAM/status/1225566817889980418

ANYWAY, Tom Perez, sleazeball he is, decided to wait until just before we had crossed the finish line to pull this stunt.  This is a pretty transparent attempt to delay the results (and the left’s victory!) as long as possible.  It also achieves the goal keeping Pete out front and able to boost his polling going into the next states.  Which is so far working for them, gaining 6-9 points just this week in NH.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/democratic_nomination_polls/

I don’t think anyone would be opposed to a recount, but there can be no reason to not release the last 3% (which they already had: (https://twitter.com/JennUWinn84/status/1225474355028746241).  It is overt, blatant corruption.

THE TAKE AWAY / WHAT DO WE DO?

- Don’t feel hopeless.  That’s what they want.

- It is super important that we not only win, but we need to win in CRUSHING numbers.  Because the DNC will pull every trick in the book to stop us, and we need to be ready.

- Paper. Fucking. Ballots.  You’re not a Luddite for wanting this.  It’s just the most practical, tamper-proof method. The app was a technocratic solution that was sold to the DNC, based on a problem they invented.

- More transparent oversight of our elections.   We invade South American countries due to electoral malfeasance with weaker pretenses then what just happened.

- Capitalists will always break fascist when confronted with the possibility of marginally higher taxes. ALWAYS.  For these reasons, If/When Bernie takes over the party, the DNC needs to be purged of EVERY LAST Reagan/Bush/Clinton era asset.  We don’t need them, they are not our allies, they will actively try to sabotage us, and for all these reasons and more unity with them is impossible.

- Do not play into the ‘VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO’ game.  It is not the time for that.  We are in the primary, and Bernie is the front runner.  The old arguments no longer apply, and no longer matter.

There are real fucking stakes here, and half/partial measures aren’t worth shit.  It doesn’t matter if YOU think you’re being principled by showing up to cast a vote for Bloomburg over Trump. Anyone other then Bernie will suppress the vote, full stop.  When people don’t vote, republicans win.  You will not be successful in holding poor / underprivileged people hostage and trying to activate them politically if all your promising them is the status quo, or wonky means tested BS.  

- We’re winning!...

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

... But pretend we’re losing!  We can’t get complacent.

Ok that’s enough.  I have idea if anyone will read all this as I have like... four...? Followers?  Sorry for my rant, but it’s time to get politically engaged!  

[mymindsmadness]

Live footage of Bloomburg

[pscottm]

Trump Says US Needs ‘Total Access’ to Post-Maduro Venezuela - Bloombe…

President Donald Trump said the US needs “total access” to Venezuela as questions mount about the country’s leadership following the capture of President Nicolás Maduro.

“We need total access. We need access to oil and to other things in their country that will allow us to rebuild their country,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Sunday as he returned to Washington from spending the holidays at his Palm Beach estate.

With Maduro facing drug, weapons and terrorism charges in New York City after his weekend capture, Trump said that US oil companies will spend billions of dollars to rebuild Venezuela’s crumbling energy infrastructure.

Trump said the US will work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez but said he hadn’t spoken to her. “We’re in charge,” he said. On elections in the short term, he said, “Well, it depends,” before adding, “We have to do one thing in Venezuela — bring it back.”

Rodriguez said in a statement late Sunday she was inviting the US to work with her “on a cooperation agenda, aimed at shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence.”

Trump’s assertion that the US was in charge in Venezuela came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on a series of Sunday television shows that the US was focusing on the oil industry and watching for signs of opposition to US policies in Rodriguez’s government.

“It’s running policy,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. “We want Venezuela to move in a certain direction because not only do we think it’s good for the people of Venezuela, it’s in our national interest.”

Trump also repeated a warning he had earlier issued to Rodriguez in an interview with The Atlantic. He told the magazine: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.” On Air Force One, he again said that “she will face a situation probably worse than Maduro.”

[harleysite]

Foto Session #bloomburg #harleydavidson #streetglide #harleys #harleysite #harleysiteontour #harleydavidsonstreetglidespecial #streetglideperformanceorange (hier: Selent) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBIg_GHh3tt/?igshid=19jfs2o4s9ijm

[kevinscrima]

The Democratic Establishment Is Corrupt | A Case For Bernie | 2020 Presidential Race Discussion

[boarjamen]

Bloomberg: “I—“

Literally everyone:

[squidwardsbastard]

i made a meme