Tag Archives: Election 2020

“Bipartisan” Washington Insiders Reveal Their Plan for Chaos if Trump Wins the Election

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A group of “bipartisan” neoconservative Republicans and establishment Democrats have been “simulating” multiple catastrophic scenarios for the 2020 election, including a simulation where a clear victory by the incumbent provokes “unprecedented” measures, which the Biden campaign could take to foil a new Trump inauguration.

By Whitney Webb

Source: Unlimited Hangout

A group of Democratic Party insiders and former Obama and Clinton era officials as well as a cadre of “Never Trump” neoconservative Republicans have spent the past few months conducting simulations and “war games” regarding different 2020 election “doomsday” scenarios.

Per several media reports on the group, called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), they justify these exercises as specifically preparing for a scenario where President Trump loses the 2020 election and refuses to leave office, potentially resulting in a constitutional crisis. However, according to TIP’s own documents, even their simulations involving a “clear win” for Trump in the upcoming election resulted in a constitutional crisis, as they predicted that the Biden campaign would make bold moves aimed at securing the presidency, regardless of the election result.

This is particularly troubling given that TIP has considerable ties to the Obama administration, where Biden served as Vice President, as well as several groups that are adamantly pro-Biden in addition to the Biden campaign itself. Indeed, the fact that a group of openly pro-Biden Washington insiders and former government officials have gamed out scenarios for possible election outcomes and their aftermath, all of which either ended with Biden becoming president or a constitutional crisis, suggest that powerful forces influencing the Biden campaign are pushing the former Vice President to refuse to concede the election even if he loses.

This, of course, gravely undercuts the TIP’s claim to be ensuring “integrity” in the presidential transition process and instead suggests that the group is openly planning on how to ensure that Trump leaves office regardless of the result or to manufacture the very constitutional crisis they claim to be preventing through their simulations.

Such concerns are only magnified by the recent claims made by the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State under Obama, Hillary Clinton, that Biden “should not concede under any circumstances.” “I think this is going to drag out, and eventually I do believe he will win if we don’t give an inch, and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is,” Clinton continued during an interview with Showtime a little over a week ago. The results of the TIP’s simulations notably echo Clinton’s claims that Biden will “eventually” win if the process to determine the election outcome is “dragged out.”

The Uniparty’s “war games”

Members of the TIP met in June to conduct four “war games” that simulated “a dark 11 weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day” in which “Trump and his Republican allies used every apparatus of government — the Postal Service, state lawmakers, the Justice Department, federal agents, and the military — to hold onto power, and Democrats took to the courts and the streets to try to stop it,” according to a report from The Boston Globe. However, one of those simulations, which examined what would transpire between Election Day and Inauguration Day in the event of a “clear Trump win,” shows that the TIP simulated not only how Republicans could use every option at their disposal to “hold onto power”, but also how Democrats could do so if the 2020 election result is not in their favor.

While some, mostly right-leaning media outlets, such as this article from The National Pulse, did note that the TIP’s simulations involved the Biden campaign refusing to concede, the actual document from TIP on the exercises revealed the specific moves the Biden campaign would take following a “clear win” for the Trump campaign. Unsurprisingly, these moves would greatly exacerbate current political tensions in the United States, an end result that the TIP claims they were created to avoid, gravely undercutting the official justification for their simulations as well as the group’s official reason for existing.

In the TIP’s “clear Trump win” scenario (see page 17), Joe Biden – played in the war game by John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager and chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton – retracted his election night concession and subsequently convinced “three states with Democratic governors – North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan – to ask for recounts.” Then, the governors of Wisconsin and Michigan “sent separate slates of electors to counter those sent by the state legislature” to the Electoral College, which Trump had won, in an attempt to undermine, if not prevent, that win.

Next, “the Biden campaign encouraged Western states, particularly California but also Oregon and Washington, and collectively known as “Cascadia,” to secede from the Union unless Congressional Republications agreed to a set of structural reforms. (emphasis added)” Subsequently, “with advice from [former] President Obama,” the Biden campaign laid out those “reforms” as the following:

  1. Give statehood to Washington, DC and Puerto Rico
  2. Divide California into five states “to more accurately represent its population in the Senate”
  3. Require Supreme Court justices to retire at 70
  4. Eliminate the Electoral College

In other words, these “structural reforms” involve the creation of what essentially amounts to having the U.S. by composed 56 states, with the new states set to ensure a perpetual majority for Democrats, as only Democrat-majority areas (DC, Puerto Rico and California) are given statehood. Notably, in other scenarios where Biden won the Electoral College, Democrats did not support its elimination.

Also notable is the fact that, in this simulation, the TIP blamed the Trump campaign for the Democrats’ decision to take the “provocative, unprecedented actions” laid out above, asserting that Trump’s campaign had “created the conditions to force the Biden campaign” into taking these actions by doing things like giving “an interview to The Intercept in which he [Trump] stated that he would have lost the election if Bernie Sanders had been nominated” instead of Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate.

The TIP also claimed that the Trump campaign would seek to paint these “provocative, unpredecented actions” as “the Democrats attempting to orchestrate an illegal coup,” despite the fact that that is essentially what those actions entail. Indeed, in other simulations where the Trump campaign behaved along these lines, the TIP’s rhetoric about this category of extreme actions is decidedly different.

Yet, the simulated actions of the Biden campaign in this scenario did not end there, as the Biden campaign subsequently “provoked a breakdown in the joint session of Congress [on January 6th] by getting the House of Representatives to agree to award the presidency to Biden,” adding that this was “based on the alternative pro-Biden submissions sent by pro-Biden governors.” The Republican party obviously did not consent, noting that Trump had won the election through his Electoral College victory. The “clear Trump win” election simulation ended with no president-elect being inaugurated on January 20, with the TIP noting “it was unclear what the military would do in this situation.”

Of course, some TIP members, including its co-founder Rosa Brooks – a former advisor to the Obama era Pentagon and currently a fellow at the “New America” think tank, have their preference for “what the military would do in this situation.” For instance, Brooks, writing less than 2 weeks after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, argued in Foreign Policy that “a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders” was one of four possibilities for removing Trump from office prior to the 2020 election.

Who is behind the TIP?

The TIP was created in late 2019, allegedly “out of concern that the Trump Administration may seek to manipulate, ignore, undermine or disrupt the 2020 presidential election and transition process.” It was co-founded by Rosa Brooks and Nils Gilman and its current director is Zoe Hudson. Brooks, as previously mentioned, was an advisor to the Pentagon and the Hillary Clinton-led State Department during the Obama administration. She was also previously the general counsel to the President of the Open Society Institute, part of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a controversial organization funded by billionaire George Soros. Zoe Hudson, who is TIP’s director, is also a former top figure at OSF, serving assenior policy analyst and liaison between the foundations and the U.S. government for 11 years.

OSF ties to the TIP are a red flag for a number of reasons, namely due to the fact that OSF and other Soros-funded organizations played a critical role in fomenting so-called “color revolutions” to overthrow non-aligned governments, particularly during the Obama administration. Examples of OSF’s ties to these manufactured “revolutions” include Ukraine in 2014 and the “Arab Spring,” which began in 2011 and saw several governments in the Middle East and North Africa that were troublesome to Western interests conveniently removed from power.

Subsequent leaked emails revealed the cozy ties between Soros and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including one email where Soros directed Clinton’s policy with respect to unrest in Albania, telling her that “two things need to be done urgently,” which were to “bring the full weight of the international community to bear on Prime Minister Berisha” and “appoint a senior European official as mediator.” Both “urgent” tasks were subsequently performed by Clinton, presumably at Soros’ behest.

In addition to her ties to the Obama administration and OSF, Brooks is currently a scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute, where she focuses on “the relationship between the military and domestic policing” and also Georgetown’s Innovative Policing Program. She is a currently a key player in the documented OSF-led push to “capitalize” off of legitimate calls for police reform to justify the creation of a federalized police force under the guise of defunding and/or eliminating local police departments. Brooks’ interest in the “blurring line” between military and police is notable given her past advocacy of a military coup to remove Trump from office and the TIP’s subsequent conclusion that the military “may” have to step in if Trump manages to win the 2020 election, per the group’s “war games” described above.

Brooks is also a senior fellow at the think tank New America. New America’s mission statement notes that the organization is focused on “honestly confronting the challenges caused by rapid technological and social change, and seizing the opportunities those changes create.” It is largely funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, including Bill Gates (Microsoft), Eric Schmidt (Google), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Jeffrey Skoll and Pierre Omidyar (eBay). In addition, it has received millions directly from the U.S. State Department to research “ranking digital rights.” Notably, of these funders, Reid Hoffman was caught “meddling” in the most recent Democratic primary to undercut Bernie Sanders’ candidacy during the Iowa caucus and while others, such as Eric Schmidt and Pierre Omidyar, are known for their cozy ties to the Clinton family and even ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

The Never Trumpers

Aside from Brooks, the other co-founder of TIP is Nils Gilman, the current Vice President of Programs at the Berggruen Institute and, prior to that, worked for Salesforce, a major tech company and government contractor. Gilman is particularly focused on artificial intelligence and transhumanism, recently telling the New York Times that his work at the Berggruen Institute is focused on “building [a] transnational networks of philosophers + technologists + policy-makers + artists who are thinking about how A.I. and gene-editing are transfiguring what it means to be human.” Nicholas Berggruen, for whom the Berggruen Institute is named, is part of the billionaire-led faction, alongside Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman and Eric Schmidt, who seek to develop A.I. and the so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in conjunction with the political leaders and economic elite of China.

They are critics and rivals of those in the “nationalist” camp with respect to A.I. and China, who instead prefer to aggressively “leapfrog” China’s A.I. capabilities in order to maintain U.S. global hegemony as opposed to a “new order” promoted by Berggreun, Schmidt, Schwarzman and Henry Kissinger, another key member of the “cooperation” faction. The battle over the U.S.’ future A.I. policy with respect to China appears to be a major yet widely overlooked reason for some of the antipathy towards Trump by those in the “cooperation” faction, including those who employ TIP’s founders, given Trump’s tendency to, at least publicly, support “America First” policies and increased tensions with China. In contrast, the Biden family is invested in Chinese A.I. companies, suggesting that Biden would be more willing to pursue the interests of the “cooperation” faction than Trump.

While the identities of the TIP’s founders and current director have been made public, the full member list of the TIP has not. However, the TIP’s “sister” organization, called The National Task Force on Election Crises (NTFEC), does have a public membership list and several of its members are also known to be part of the TIP. Some of these overlapping members include Michael Chertoff, former head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Michael Steele, former chairman of the RNC and Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Chertoff, Steele and Wilkerson, though Republicans, are part of the so-called “Never Trump” Republican faction, as are the TIP’s other known Republican members. Thus, while the “bipartisan” nature of TIP may be accurate in terms of party affiliation, all of known TIP’s members – regardless of party – are united in their opposition to another term for the current president.

Other known members of the TIP include David Frum (the Atlantic), William Kristol (Project for a New American Century, The Bulwark), Max Boot (the Washington Post), Donna Brazile (ex-DNC), John Podesta (former campaign manager – Clinton 2016), Chuck Hagel (former Secretary of Defense), Reed Galen (co-founder of the Lincoln Project) and Norm Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute).

Of their known members, the most outspoken is Lawrence Wilkerson, who has fashioned himself the group’s “unofficial” spokesperson, having done the majority of media interviews promoting the group and its “war games.” In an interview in late June with journalist Paul Jay, Wilkerson notes that the TIP lacks transparency and that, aside from their “war games,” their other activities are largely confidential.

He specifically stated that:

“There is some confidentiality about what we agreed to, and what we’ve put out publicly, and who’s responsible for that, and other aspects of our doing that. The Transition Integrity Project is to this point very, very close, whole, and confidential.”

In that same interview, Wilkerson also noted that the current “combination of events” involving the recent unrest in several U.S. cities, the coronavirus crisis, the national debate over the future of policing, the economic recession and the 2020 election was the foundation for a revolution in the U.S. He told Jay that:

“I want to say this is how things like 1917 and Russia, like 1979 and Tehran, and like 1789 in France. This is how these sorts of things get started. So we’ve got to be very careful about how we deal with these things. And that worries me because we don’t have a very careful individual in the White House.”

Pre-planned chaos – who benefits?

While it certainly is possible that, in the event of a clear Biden win, President Trump could refuse to leave the White House or take other actions that would challenge the faith of many Americans in the national election system. However, while the TIP claims to be specifically concerned about this eventuality and about “safe guarding” democracy without favoring either candidate, that is clearly not the case, as their simulation of a clear Trump win shows that extreme, “undemocratic” behavior, in their view, is permissible if it prevents another four years of Trump. Yet, this clear double standard reveals that an influential group of “bipartisan” insiders are intent on creating a “constitutional crisis” if Trump wins and are planning for such a crisis regardless of the 2020 election’s results.

Well before the TIP or any of their affiliated groups emerged to conduct these doomsday election simulations, other groups were similarly engaged in “war games” that predicted complete chaos in the U.S. on election day as well as the imposition of martial law in the U.S. following the emergence of unprecedented unrest and disarray in the country.

Several of these I detailed in a series earlier this year, which mainly focused on the “Operation Blackout” simulations conducted by the U.S.-Israeli company, Cybereason. That company has considerable ties to the U.S. and Israeli intelligence and its largest investor is Softbank. Notably, Softbank is named by the Eric Schmidt-led National Security Commission on AI (NSCAI) as forming the “backbone” of a global framework of A.I.-driven companies favored by the “cooperation” faction as a means of enacting the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” in cooperation with China’s economic and political elite.

In addition to Cybereason, several mainstream media reports and a series of suspect “predictions” from U.S. intelligence and other federal agencies released last year had seeded the narrative that the 2020 election would not only fail spectacularly, but that U.S. democracy “would never recover.” Now, with the TIP’s simulations added to the mix and the advent of the previously predicted chaos throughout the country with the 2020 election just two months away, it is clear that the November 3rd election will not only be a complete disaster, but a pre-planned one.

The question then becomes, who benefits from complete chaos on and following the 2020 election? As the TIP suggested in several of their simulations, the post-election role of the military in terms of domestic policing, incidentally the exact expertise of the TIP’s co-founder Rosa Brooks, looms large, as most of the aforementioned doomsday election simulations ended with the imposition of martial law or the military “stepping in” to resolve order and oversee the transition.

The domestic framework for imposing martial law in the U.S., via “continuity of government” protocols, was activated earlier this year under the guise of the coronavirus crisis and it remains in effect. Now, a series of groups deeply tied to the Washington establishment and domestic and foreign intelligence agencies have predicted the exact ways in which to engineer a failed election and manipulate its aftermath.

Who would stand to benefit the most from the imposition of martial law in the United States? I would argue that one need look no further than the battle within Washington power factions over the future of AI, which has been deemed of critical importance to national security by the public sector, the private sector and prominent think tanks. The Schmidt-led NSCAI and other bodies determining the country’s AI policy plan to implement a series of policies that will be deeply resisted by most Americans – from the elimination of individual car ownership to the elimination of cash as well as the imposition of an Orwellian surveillance system, among other things.

All of these agendas have advanced under the guise of combatting coronavirus, but their advance can only continue to use that justification for so long. For groups like the NSCAI, Americans must welcome these AI-driven advances or else, even if it means Americans face losing their jobs or their civil liberties. Otherwise, these groups and their billionaire backers argue, the U.S. will be “left out” and “left behind” when it comes time to set the new global standards for AI technology, as the U.S. will then be left in the dust by China’s growing AI industry, which is fed by its own implementation of these technologies.

By keeping Americans angry and distracted by the partisan divide through pre-planned election chaos, a “New America” waits in the wings – one that is coming regardless of what happens on election day. That is, of course, unless Americans quickly wake up to the ruse.

A Bigger Picture

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Baluchitherium. Gone but not forgotten.

By James Howard Kunstler

Source: Kunstler.com

The Covid-19 virus itself didn’t run the United States into a ditch but it exposed the weakness and rot in the nation’s drive-train, and now all of us passengers on that disabled bus must decide whether to stay helplessly inside the smoldering wreckage arguing over who’s to blame, or begin a long, uncertain march down the road on our own two feet to a place of new arrangements.

In 1918, the country was lashed by a far deadlier pandemic disease at the same time it was fighting a world war, and daily life barely missed a step. The economy then was emphatically one of production, not the mere consumption of things made elsewhere in the world (exchanged for US IOUs), nor of tanning parlors, nail salons, streaming services, and Pilates studios. The economy was a mix of large, medium, and small enterprises, not just floundering giants, especially in the retail commerce of goods. We lived distributed in towns, cities not-yet-overgrown, and a distinctly rural landscape devoted to rural activities — not the vast demolition derby of entropic suburbia that has no future as a human habitat. Banking was only five percent of the economy, not the bloated matrix of rackets now swollen to more than forty percent of so-called GDP. Government at the federal and state levels was miniscule compared to the suffocating, parasitic leviathan it is now.

What happened? Like Hemingway’s old quip about a man going broke slowly and then all-at-once, we allowed everything in American life to creep into hapless giantism too cumbersome to adapt to new conditions, and suddenly conditions have changed. And now it’s all coming apart: the dying chain stores, the giant zombie companies that can only exist by borrowing money to buy back their own stocks, the auto-makers who have run out of lending schemes for non-creditworthy customers, the shale oil fracking companies that could never make a red cent, the agri-biz farmers grown morbidly obese on a diet of credit and government subsidies (just like their end-customers grew obese on engineered snack-foods), the Wall Street lords of financialization hypothecating fortunes by leveraging the stripped assets of everything not nailed down from sea to shining sea, the swelling underclass conditioned to helplessness, addiction, and vice, the inescapable ambient tyranny of media hype, propaganda, and disinformation, and, of course, the catastrophe that government has become.

Get this: none of these things now wobbling and staggering will be resurrected. They’re all going extinct, like the Baluchitherium of the Oligocene. To keep propping them up — as the Federal Reserve sedulously props up financial markets — will only promote the illusion that we don’t have to move on and conduct daily human life differently. A worldwide contraction was already underway before Covid-19 stepped onstage. The contraction was sending a very loud and clear message: gigantism went as far as it could go and now it’s up to the smaller and nimbler to carry on. Beware the promises of the sclerotic authorities asking you to remain in thrall to them — and dependent on them.

Expect these authorities to screw up even the next big exercise in their own franchise: the 2020 election. It will be the climax to a season of political hysteria and will complete the chapter of our history that left us on that smoldering big bus in the ditch. The scramble away from that disaster scene will be frightful and desperate. No matter who ends up in control of the government — or pretends to be — the same forces of contraction and decomplexifying will actually rule and you will have to act accordingly.

Many people will seek to escape the places they live now to find new homes and livelihoods elsewhere. These demographic movements are already underway. New York City is hemorrhaging much of its tax base as the wealthy flee, Chicago too, and the whole state of California. These places will be overwhelmed by functional bankruptcy, even if legal legerdemain allows them to avoid declaring it. Other states, counties and municipalities — including many suburban blobs — will also founder, meaning all the usual support systems and safety nets vanish. Many supply chains will break. Money may either be scarce or worthless, which are two ways of going broke.

Right now, start planning where you might go and what you can do. The turmoil will be filled with opportunity to find ways to be useful to other people, to devise work-arounds for ruptured systems and relationships, in getting food to people, making things they need, distributing them, fixing things that are broken where possible, and moving people and stuff from point A to point B. There will be plenty of work for people who are willing to do it. Keep in mind that it’s entirely up to you to make good choices.

Don’t despair, and if you find yourself veering toward it, get over yourself. It’s just part of becoming stronger than you thought you could be,  and the times will require it of you anyway. The offices that gave out brownie points for avouched victimhood will also be shutting down. Won’t that be a relief? Welcome to the joyful illumination that life is difficult for everybody. Who is ready for this epic journey?

What Are You Gonna Do About It?

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By Michael Krieger

Source: Liberty Blitzkrieg

Tucked into the recent recovery bill was a provision granting the Federal Reserve the right to set up a $450 billion bailout plan without following key provisions of the federal open meetings law, including announcing its meetings or keeping most records about them, according to a POLITICO review of the legislation.

The provision further calls into question the transparency and oversight for the biggest bailout law ever passed by Congress. President Donald Trump has indicated he does not plan to comply with another part of the new law intended to boost Congress’ oversight powers of the bailout funds. And earlier this week, Trump dismissed the government official chosen as the chief watchdog for the stimulus package.

The changes at the central bank – which appear to have been inserted into the 880-page bill by sympathetic senators during the scramble to get it approved — would address a complaint that the Fed faced during the 2008 financial crisis, when board members couldn’t easily hold group conversations to address the fast-moving economic turmoil.

The provision dispenses with a longstanding accountability rule that the board has to give at least one day’s notice before holding a meeting. Experts say the change could lead to key information about the $450 billion bailout fund, such as which firms might benefit from the program, remaining inaccessible long after the bailout is over.

The new law would absolve the board of the requirement to keep minutes to closed-door meetings as it deliberates on how to set up the $450 billion loan program. That would severely limit the amount of information potentially available to the public on what influenced the board’s decision-making. The board would only have to keep a record of its votes, though they wouldn’t have to be made public during the coronavirus crisis.

A Fed spokesperson did not comment on the changes in the law or whether the Fed would continue keeping records of its meetings.

– Politico: Recovery Law Allows Fed to Rope off Public as It Spends Billions

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

– Arthur Miller

Before going any further, I want to share a graphic that accurately summarizes my position on the current pandemic affecting the world.

Unfortunately, it’s quite common for many to latch on to one of these conclusions and singularly obsess about it to the detriment of the others, when we need to be thinking about all three simultaneously.

It’s absolutely critical we understand governments throughout the world are rapidly mobilizing to use the crisis as an excuse to extract more wealth from society and condition the public to relinquish more precious civil liberties. The response in my own imperial oligarchy masquerading as a country has been particularly grotesque. A government that told us masks don’t work and couldn’t roll out testing for weeks, is now responding with the worst of both post-9/11 and post-financial crisis responses. The idea of representative government or democracy in America is a complete myth. The interests and desires of the people are irrelevant, and our economic system can be best described as financial feudalism.

We’ve seen this movie before. The U.S. government and Federal Reserve used major crises to consolidate wealth and power twice before this century, and it’s happening again. They got away with it before — and they’re getting away with it now — because the public accepts it. I hate to write that, but it’s true. People will tell me the public has no way to fight back, but that’s not accurate. The public hasn’t even tried historical methods like mass strikes and boycotts, instead they’ve been successfully neutered by phony red/blue team mainstream politics, through bickering about marginal issues like pronouns and bathrooms, and by endless entertainment and debt-based consumption. This is why the oligarchy keeps winning. Americans aren’t a serious people yet.

Witnessing the massive theft and power consolidation during the financial crisis a decade ago shook me to my core. I learned so much about how the world really works I simply couldn’t go on in the same way, so I quit my finance job and moved out of NYC. I was convinced such in your face theft would lead to effective popular movements and that the people would discover their power and take direct action, but I was wrong. Rather than economic populism transcending other differences to become ascendant and potent, most Americans were successfully shoved back into convenient political boxes easily managed by oligarchy. The rest is history.

Is the above wishful thinking? It might be. I had similar thoughts a decade ago and nothing truly meaningful happened. That said, I’ve learned some valuable life lessons over the past decade and will share some of them today.

The title of today’s piece is “what are you gonna do about it?”, but let me start by telling you what I’m not going to do. I am not going to vote in the 2020 presidential election. In previous cycles, I went out and voted third party as a protest, but I won’t even do that this time. I refuse to give such a farcical system the satisfaction of even a protest vote. I’m over it. Done. 

Choosing to refrain from participation in a clearly rigged and sham presidential election process may feel like giving up, but it’s the exact opposite. It’s actually quite liberating to give up on the fantasy that voting for one of two sociopaths will materially improve your life or the direction of the country. Once you stop believing in the lazy fairytale version of politics you can get down to real action. If you accept that voting is largely a charade, you can either sit back and take it while playing video games, or you can get motivated. I see two avenues for action that can actually change things.

The first consists of mass organized movements that unite as many disparate factions as possible to focus on a single issue. This can take the form of a workers strike, a targeted boycott or something similar. The key thing that’s prevented this from happening is Americans have been so successfully divided and conquered. “Activist leaders” often demand those who constitute a movement see eye to eye on virtually everything, yet oligarchy knows to unite whenever their core interests are even slightly threatened. A hopelessly splintered public is one reason the people always lose.

Although I’m confident in the success of such a strategy if implemented by enough people, this doesn’t mean it will materialize. I was hopeful it could happen last decade, but it never did. Americans proved to be as divided, conquered and distracted as ever, and it’s possible things will continue along this path in the years ahead. As such, waiting for mass movements that may never occur to materialize is not a sufficient strategy. You need a primary strategy, and that strategy starts with you. 

The only thing you truly have control over is your mindset and your actions. Think about what angers you most about the system as it stands and turn that anger into something productive. What can you do as an individual to protest or reject that system? What can you do to become more resilient? Can you repurpose your skillset or profession in a way where you become more of a solution than part of the problem? Some of us can do more than others, but virtually everyone can take some action. If you can’t think of anything, think harder.

Reflecting on the past decade, every moment I spent taking control of my life and improving as an individual was worthwhile and rewarding, while every moment I spent hoping others around me would change was a gigantic disappointment.

This doesn’t mean we should give up on mass movements, it means you cannot rely on other people to get to the point you’re at as quickly as you’d like. Think about what’s actually in your control and go for it. And good luck.

‘What More Do You Need to Know?’ Health Insurance Stocks Drive Wall Street Rebound on Biden Super Tuesday Wins

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“Biden is the preferred candidate for the financial markets.”

By Eoin Higgins

Source: CommonDreams

Health insurance industry stocks surged Wednesday morning in the wake of former Vice President Joe Biden’s strong showing in the Democratic presidential primary’s Super Tuesday contests, opening up 600 points after traders appeared to bet the candidate’s resurgence would box out any chance of single-payer universal healthcare.

“What more do you need to know,” tweeted journalist Jack Mirkinson of the market’s spike.

Sanders has made Medicare for All a centerpiece of his campaign. The healthcare industry has poured millions in ad buys against Sanders after the Vermont senator won primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

“The industry has long seen Biden as their white knight,” said Dr. Adam Gaffney, the president of Physicians for a National Health Program and an outspoken Medicare for All advocate.

Biden on Tuesday won at least nine of the 14 states up for grabs to Sanders’ four. At press time, Maine was yet to be called, with Sanders and Biden locked in a razor-thin contest.

The market surge came after a rough week for the stock market, which at the end of February saw its biggest decline since the 2008 financial crisis after fears of the economic cost of a worldwide coronvirus pandemic increased.

Business commentators also made the connection between Sanders’ victories in the early primary states, particularly in Nevada, and the market’s poor performance last week.

On Fox Business February 28, billionaire Steve Forbes remarked that the weeklong drop was not only about fears of the coronavirus.

“There’s the political side,” Forbes said of the reason for the poor performance. “In the last week, week-and-a-half, the possibility of Bernie Sanders becoming president of the United States has increased, exponentially.”

According to the Washington Post:

Stocks of healthcare companies roared in response to Biden’s performance. Cigna was up more than 10 percent in morning trading, while UnitedHealth Group rose nearly 12 percent. Humana jumped 1.25 percent and Anthem soared nearly 14 percent.

Investor Ed Yardeni told the Post that Wednesday’s spike was a correction to earlier fears of what he called “Bernie Sanders’ socialist program.”

“The market’s sell-off last week on Sanders’ primary victories and rebound on Monday after Biden’s big win in South Carolina and this morning after Super Tuesday suggest that domestic U.S. politics may matter as much as the global health crisis on investors,” said Yardeni.

As Common Dreams reported, the results—which saw billionaire Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) coming in far behind the two frontrunners—transformed a once-crowded primary into a two-man race. Though Biden put up a good showing, exit polls from the contests showed a majority of Democratic voters backing the elimination of private insurance in favor of a government-run system guaranteeing healthcare for all.

The Dem Establishment Successfully Cinched a Biden Super Tuesday Victory

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Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a primary election night campaign rally Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Super Tuesday has raised the stakes and set the stage for a battle for the Democratic Party’s soul; one that will decide if it stays the course with neoliberalism with Biden or moves towards a progressive social-democratic model with Sanders.

By Alan Macleod

Source: Mint Press News

Former Vice-President Joe Biden built on his victory in South Carolina last week to emerge as the only credible “stop Bernie” candidate after Super Tuesday – where voters in 14 states decided on their nominations for president. While results are still not official, it is clear that the former Delaware senator won the popular vote in at least nine states yesterday, including in Texas, Massachusetts and North Carolina, amassing at least 433 delegates. Sanders has currently secured 388, although that number is likely to rise after all of California is counted.

In one of the most remarkable and drastic political turnarounds in American history, Biden – thought of by many as a yesterday’s man – secured a stunning upset victory after a series of key endorsements. His campaign had been flagging, virtually out of money and without organization or many activists on the ground. As of Monday, he had spent just $1.5 million on TV ads in Super Tuesday states, with aides admitting to CNN their goal was merely to “remain competitive;” a remarkable admission for a presidential campaign.

But facing a Sanders nomination, the establishment wing of the party went into overdrive to find a viable alternative to the Vermont senator. Both Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out and immediately endorsed him, as did other figures like former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke. In a matter of mere hours, the Democratic Party higher-ups managed to coalesce around him in a way the Republicans were unable to in 2016 to stop Trump, proving to the world that the party is certainly not incompetent and can organize and carry out operations with military precision when they perceive it is in their interest to do so.

While the establishment pooled its resources (and delegates) in favor of Biden, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren has refrained from dropping out, let alone endorsing Sanders, thus splitting the progressive vote. Warren finished a distant third in her home state and secured only 28 delegates yesterday. In a defeatist message, her campaign managers said they would hold a meeting to “assess the path forward.”

Biden declared victory in Los Angeles last night, presenting himself as an opponent of the wealthy and a champion of the people: “Let’s get something straight. Wall Street didn’t build this country. You built this country. The middle class built this country. And unions built the middle class,” he told the crowd. But his speech was upstaged by anti-dairy industry protestors who stormed the stage. Earlier in the speech he also confused his wife for his sister.

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1235044512918941698

While it is clear that he will now be the establishment’s candidate for better or worse, the former vice-president has a long history of making egregious errors in speaking. Earlier this week at a rally he tried and failed to recite the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self evident. All men and women created by the…you know, the thing” he stuttered. And while he promises the working-class “cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes” under his presidency, he also told his billionaire backers that he believes they are being “demonized” and that “nothing would change” about America if he were chosen. “I need you very badly,” he told a group of extremely wealthy donors last year.

His policy history and positions, too, might be cause for concern for many voters in the presidential election. These include advocating for cuts to social services, fighting against abortion rights, and supporting NAFTA, the PATRIOT Act and the attacks on Iraq and Libya. And while he retains strong support among Southern black voters, he helped write the 1994 Crime Bill and the Anti-Drug Abuse Bill that exploded the prison population, and fought for segregation and against integration. President Trump has already nicknamed him “Handsy Joe” in reference to his inappropriate touching of women and girls.

While Sanders supporters will be disappointed with the results, other candidates had even worse nights. Chief among them was Michael Bloomberg, who spent more than half a billion dollars on his campaign, picking up just 12 delegates, a third of them in American Samoa. Given his poor performance, that works out to nearly $50 million per delegate. The former Mayor of New York dropped out today, endorsing Biden for the nomination. If he is willing to financially aid Biden anything like how he lavishly spent on himself, Sanders will be fighting a seriously uphill battle.

“It really is a class war we’re up against,” said author and progressive journalist Naomi Klein, who has been traveling with the Sanders team.

The vast majority of this campaign are working class people who are daring to hope for the barest decent things in life. It is this amazing process of raising people’s expectations…What we’re seeing with this establishment pushback, this is not against Bernie Sanders, it is against them. It is against people saying ‘I have a right to healthcare. I have a right to a living wage,’ and it is really sad to see.”

Biden has strong support among the wealthy, the elderly and among Southern black voters. But if he is to win outright and beat Trump in November, he will need to address the age gap in voting. Even in Alabama, where he fared worst, Sanders still comfortably won the vote of those under 30. While there is much work to be done, yesterday was a good day for the establishment wing of the Democratic Party.

Next week will see six more states as well as the Democrats Abroad primaries decided. But Super Tuesday has raised the stakes and set the stage for a battle for the Democratic Party’s soul; one that will decide if it stays the course with neoliberalism with Biden or moves towards a progressive social-democratic model with Sanders.

Anonymous sources and the guys and gals who made the Iraq war a reality are now claiming that the Kremlin is at it again!

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By Philip Giraldi

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Those hapless individuals who run the United States are again slipping into a fantasy world where Americans are besieged by imaginary threats coming from both inside and outside the country. Of course, it is particularly convenient to warn of foreign threats, as it makes the people in government seem relevant and needed, but one might recommend that the tune be changed as it is getting a bit boring. After all, there are only so many hours in the day and Russian President Vladimir Putin must pause occasionally to eat or sleep, so the plotting to destroy American democracy must be on hold at least some of the time.

Yes, anonymous sources and the guys and gals who made the Iraq war a reality are now claiming that the Kremlin is at it again! Hints over the past year that Putin might try to replay 2016 in 2020 only do it better this time have now been confirmed! Per one news report the enemy is already at the gates: “U.S. intelligence officials told lawmakers last week that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election campaign by aiming to cast doubt on the integrity of the vote and boost President Donald Trump’s re-election.”

And there’s more! In a New York Times article headlined “Same Goal, Different Playbook: Why Russia Would Support Trump and Sanders: Vladimir Putin is eager both to take the sheen off U.S. democracy and for a counterpart who is less likely to challenge his territorial and nuclear ambitions,” it was revealed that the Kremlin is intending to also help Bernie Sanders, so whichever way the election goes they win.

According to the Times Bernie has been “warn[ed]… of evidence that he is the Russian president’s favorite Democrat.” The article then goes on to explain, relying on its anonymous sources, that “…to the intelligence analysts and outside experts who have spent the past three years dissecting Russian motives in the 2016 election, and who tried to limit the effect of Moscow’s meddling in the 2018 midterms, what is unfolding in 2020 makes perfect sense. Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders represent the most divergent ends of their respective parties, and both are backed by supporters known more for their passion than their policy rigor, which makes them ripe for exploitation by Russian trolls, disinformation specialists and hackers for hire seeking to widen divisions in American society.”

The Times article was written by David Sanger, the paper’s venerable national security correspondent. He is reliably wedded to Establishment views of the Russian threat, as is his newspaper, and strikes rock bottom in his assessment when he cites none other than “Victoria Nuland, who in a long diplomatic career had served both Republican and Democratic administrations, and had her phone calls intercepted and broadcast by Russian intelligence services.” Nuland, clearly the victim of a nefarious Russian intelligence operation that recorded her saying “fuck the EU,” opined that “Any figures that radicalize politics and do harm to center views and unity in the United States are good for Putin’s Russia.” Nuland is perhaps best known for her role in spending $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer money to overthrow the legitimate government of Ukraine. She is married to leading neoconservative Robert Kagan, which Sanger fails to mention, and is currently a nonresident fellow at the liberal interventionist Brookings Institution. She also works at former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s consultancy, presumably for the Benjamins. Albright, one might recall, thought that killing 500,000 Iraqi children through U.S. sanctions was “worth it.”

Given the fact that Russia will have very limited resources in their effort to corrupt American democracy, which is, by the way, doing a very good job of self-destruction without any outside help, how exactly will they do it? Sanger explains “As they focus on evading more vigilant government agencies and technology companies trying to identify and counter malicious online activity, the Russians are boring into Iranian cyberoffense units, apparently so that they can initiate attacks that look as if they originate in Iran — which itself has shown interest in messing with the American electoral process… And, in one of the most effective twists, they are feeding disinformation to unsuspecting Americans on Facebook and other social media. By seeding conspiracy theories and baseless claims on the platforms, Russians hope everyday Americans will retransmit those falsehoods from their own accounts. That is an attempt to elude Facebook’s efforts to remove disinformation, which it can do more easily when it flags ‘inauthentic activity,’ like Russians posing as Americans. It is much harder to ban the words of real Americans, who may be parroting a Russian story line, even unintentionally.”

So those wily Russians are making themselves look like Iranians and they are planning on “feeding disinformation” to “unsuspecting Americans” consisting of “conspiracy theories” and “baseless claims.” Sounds like a plan to me as the various occupants of the White House and Congress have been doing exactly that for the past twenty years. That we had a national election in 2016 in which a reality television personality ran against an unindicted criminal would seem to indicate that the effort to brainwash the American people has already been successful.

The usual bottom feeders are also piling on to the Russian interference story. Jane Harman, former congresswoman who once colluded with Israeli intelligence to lobby the Department of Justice to drop criminal charges against two employees of AIPAC in exchange for Israel’s support to make her chair of the House Intelligence Committee, warns “How dangerous it would be if we lose the tip of the spear against those who would destroy us.”

Former CIA Director John Brennan also has something to say. He is “very disturbed” by his conviction that Russia is actively meddling in the 2020 campaign in support of President Trump. He said “We are now in a full-blown national security crisis. By trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to Congress, Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow’s interests, not America’s.” Brennan is best known for having orchestrated the illegal campaign to vilify Trump and his associates prior to, during and after the 2016 election. He also participated in a weekly meeting with Barack Obama where he and the president would add and remove names from a “kill list” of U.S. citizens residing overseas. He and his boss should both be in prison, but they are instead fêted as American patriots. Go figure.

Time to take a step back from the developing panic. As usual, the U.S. government intelligence agencies have produced no actual evidence that Moscow is up to anything, and there are already reports that the Office of National Intelligence briefer “overstated” her case against the Kremlin in her briefing of the House Intelligence Committee. Sure, the Russians have an interest in an American election and will favor candidates like Trump and Sanders that are not outright hostile to them, but to claim as the NY Times does that Russia has incompatible “territorial and nuclear interests” is a stretch. And yes, Moscow will definitely use its available intelligence resources to monitor the nomination and election process while also clandestinely doing what it can to improve the chances of those individuals they approve of. That is what intelligence agencies do.

In American Establishment groupthink there is one standard for what Washington does and quite a different standard for everyone else. Does it shock any American to know that the United States has interfered in scores of elections all over the world ever since the Second World War, to include those in places like France and Italy well into the 1980s? And in somewhat more kinetic covert actions, actually removing Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran, Salvador Allende in Chile, Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Mohamed Morsi in Egypt just for starters, not even considering the multiple plots to kill Fidel Castro. And it continues to do so today openly in places like Iran and Venezuela while also claiming hypocritically that the U.S. is “exceptional” and also a “force for good.” That anyone should be genuinely worrying about Russian proxies buying and distributing a couple of hundred thousands of dollars’ worth of ads in an election in which many billions of dollars’ worth of propaganda will be on the table is ridiculous. It is time to stop blaming Russia for the failure of America’s ruling class to provide an honest and accountable government and one that does not go around the world looking for trouble. That is what the 2020 election should really be all about.

Subcomandante Bloomberg

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By CJ Hopkins

Source: Consent Factory, Inc.

Break out the pussyhats and vuvuzelas, folks, because the neoliberal Resistance is back, and this time they’re not playing around. No more impeachments and investigations. It’s time to go mano-a-mano with Trump, and they’ve finally got just the bad hombre to do it. No, not Bernie Sanders, you commies. A battle-hardened Resistance fighter. El Caballo Pequeño! El Jefe Mínimo! Subcomandante Michael Bloomberg!

Yes, that’s right, Michael Bloomberg, multi-billionaire Republicrat oligarch, has mobilized a guerilla army of overpaid PR professionals, Wall Street sociopaths, liberal racists, and anti-outdoor-smoking fanatics, and is steamrolling toward the Democratic convention to buy a brokered nomination and save America from “Putinism.” He’s had it with you sugary-soft-drink-drinking, chain-smoking, gun-toting, Oxy-gobbling, Hitler-loving, Putinist peasants and your infatuation with Donald Trump. So he’s decided to transform the entire country into a sterile, upscale, fascist themepark where you can rent a studio for $3,000 a month and the cops keep “the darkies” in their place, like he successfully did to New York City.

Although his campaign seemed to come out of nowhere (and sort of resembles a desperate attempt to prevent a Bernie Sanders nomination), the Resistance have been planning this corporatist Tet Offensive for quite some time. Apparently, Subcomandante Bloomberg and his inner circle of sub-subcomandantes have been hiding out deep in the mountainous jungles of Manhattan’s affluent Upper East Side (or in the Hamptons, or London, or in one of El Jefe’s other multi-million-dollar homes) since Trump and the Russians invaded the country, waiting for the perfect moment to start inundating the American people with television commercials and social media posts informing them of his “electability.”

Clearly, that moment has now arrived.

Bloomberg has spent over $400 million on TV, radio, and digital ads, and it isn’t even Super Tuesday yet. He bought the Democratic National Committee and had them change the rules so he could join the debates (which, based on his poor performance in Las Vegas, might not have been the most brilliant strategy). He has been buying politicians, community organizers, journalists, pundits, his opponents’ campaign staff, Instagram and Facebook influencers, and everyone else he can possibly buy to support his campaign to buy the presidency … which is totally legal, and the American way, and is our only hope of overthrowing the Putin-Nazi Occupation Government and regaining our God-given capitalist freedom!

Sure, to some folks, it looks … well, unseemly (not to mention decidedly undemocratic), this Wall Street oligarch attempting to bribe and bully his way into the White House, but, given the stakes, what choice do we have? As the corporate media and intelligence agencies have been telling us for the last three years, the country is under occupation by an evil conspiracy of Russian-backed Nazis personally controlled by Vladimir Putin! More or less any moment now, Putin is going to order Trump to nullify the U.S. Constitution, declare martial law, appoint himself Führer, and start rounding up and murdering the Jews … or investigating Hunter Biden, or the spooks who have been trying to force him out of office.

This Putin-Nazism cannot continue! Trump must be deposed, no matter the cost. As Robert Reich put it in this piece in The Guardian:

“If the only way we can get rid of the sociopathic tyrant named Trump is with an oligarch named Bloomberg, we will have to choose the oligarch.”

There you have it, folks. We’ll have to choose Bloomberg, or else his golf buddy, Literal Hitler, will destroy the fabric of democracy, or whatever.

Another op-ed in The Washington Post, It Might Be Time to Take Bloomberg Seriously, wondered, if it comes down to Bloomberg versus Bernie:

“Do you choose socialism or capitalism? An ideologue or an executive? Are you really going to ask Americans to trade one extreme for the other, or do you want to offer them a certified, electable moderate?”

Vox, in its “Case for Michael Bloomberg — Mike Bloomberg and His Billions Are What Democrats Need to Beat Trump,” observes that, sure, Bloomberg has drawbacks, like his history of racist remarks and policies, abusing women, oppressing the poor, and just generally being an arrogant little authoritarian corporatist creep, but hey, he’s apologized for all that stuff, and he’ll probably never do it again.

Plus, according to this piece in …uh, Bloomberg Opinion (which “does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Bloomberg LP and its owners”), The 2020 Election Is a Choice Between Democracy and Putinism! At the end of the day, once the dust has settled:

“It will come down to rule of law. In November, Americans will decide whether they will fight for the foundation of liberal democracy and democratic capitalism or whether they will accede to Putinism.”

You’ll be hearing variations of this message over and over, and over again, as we approach election day in November … that is, assuming Bloomberg and the rest of the Resistance can buy, bribe, badger, and bamboozle enough Democratic voters into nominating him. First, they need to deal with Bernie Sanders and his swarm of kill-crazy commie terrorists (who rumor has it are also being remotely controlled by Vladimir Putin). To do this, all they will need to do is deny Sanders a first ballot win in Milwaukee, which shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish. Sure, a brokered convention will be ugly, but, as Robert Reich said, they’ll have to do it, or else … well, you know, end of democracy.

Yes, I’m aware that Subcomandante Bloomberg blew his first debate (prompting Twitter pundits to pronounce him DOA) and that millions of “progressive” Democrats hate him, and that the corporate media are running a lot of “Bloomberg’s Nasty Past” pieces now (in order to maintain the appearance of journalism), but, make no mistake, if he secures the nomination, they’ll be lining up to “reluctantly” endorse him, because the alternative will be Russian Hitler!

Look, it’s easy to get distracted by the day-to-day ups and downs of the horse race (which is the primary purpose of the horse race, after all) and forget that we are in the middle of a global capitalist War on Populism … a war that GloboCap intends to win. Sure, they will survive another four years of Trump (or even four years of Sanders if they have to), but, at some point, in order to restore “normality,” or “democratic capitalism,” or whatever, they are probably going to need to stop dicking around and install a bona fide global capitalist oligarch in the Oval Office. They are going to need to do this in order to crush the hopes of the populist insurgency that erupted in the Spring of 2016, and led to the rise of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, the Brexit, the ongoing protests in France, the downfall of Angela Merkel, etc.

Another Obama is not going to cut it … people aren’t buying that con anymore. No, if the empire is going to reestablish control, it is going to need to take its liberal mask off, and shove a blatant corporatist oligarch like Bloomberg down the public’s throat in order to remind everyone who’s boss. It may not be Michael Bloomberg this time, but it is going to be someone like Bloomberg eventually. Someone powerful, and extremely unpleasant, who will be sold to us as the only one who can save the world from the “Nazis” and the “Russians” … which will necessitate taking some very extreme measures, like the ones we took during the War on Terror. You remember the measures we took back then, don’t you?

Or what, you think that GloboCap has been manufacturing all this mass hysteria over “Russian election interference” and “Nazi terrorism” for their own amusement? Yeah, that’s probably all it is. It’s probably not a prelude to anything.

Bloomberg Was Stopped, Frisked and Bruised at Debate

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Democratic Debate February 19, 2020 (Left to Right: Michael Bloomberg, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Senator Amy Klobuchar.)

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens

Source: Wall Street on Parade

Michael Bloomberg reaffirmed for those who have turned off the news since January 20, 2017 that no one, not even his own mock debate team, dares to tell a powerful billionaire what he doesn’t want to hear. And that’s one of the key reasons that billionaires are so dangerous to high public office – they hear only their own voice.

Bloomberg’s performance on the Democratic Debate stage last night was painfully embarrassing. It was like watching an overly-hyped downhill skier, in his first appearance at the U.S. Olympics, trip on his skies getting off the chair lift and slide down the mountain on his belly – making a few awkward groans on the way down.

Voters across the country who had been inundated with Bloomberg’s $409 million in advertisements (ten times what Senator Bernie Sanders has spent) were likely shaking their heads in amazement that such an amateur had made it onto the debate stage with three U.S. Senators and a former Vice President.

To give you a broader assessment of just how lacking in charisma and oratory skills the former Mayor of New York City was last night, Politico Magazine asked 14 political experts for their views on the debate. This is a sampling of what they had to say about Bloomberg:

Alan Schroeder, Professor, School of Journalism at Northeastern University in Boston: “In his ubiquitous TV ads, Bloomberg depicts himself as an Obama-like progressive with the passion and know-how to set the country on a correction course. But in his first debate, Bloomberg came off as something quite different: a bland, clueless billionaire with feet of clay. Despite extensive preparation, Bloomberg was totally unready for the rough-and-tumble of a presidential primary debate, unready even for issues he must certainly have known would come up. Democratic voters hoping that Bloomberg might swoop in and grab the nomination on the basis of charisma and superior performance skills instead ended up with one more name to cross off their list.”

Michelle Bernard, political analyst, lawyer, author, president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy: “After 10 weeks of hype, millions of dollars spent on ads, endorsements from highly respected members of the African American community and a double-digit surge in the polls, we learned that Bloomberg does not deserve any of the African American support he has received to date. From stop and frisk to overt and unapologetic sexism, the former mayor appears to be nothing more than Trump bathed in blue.”

Larry J. Sabato, founder and Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and contributing editor at Politico Magazine. “Bloomberg was the foremost loser. To be blunt, he was terrible. It’s been about a dozen years since his last debate, so I didn’t suppose he’d shine. But I never expected him to look timid and act nervous….”

John Neffinger, speaker coach, lecturer on political communication at Georgetown University and Columbia Business School, and former communications director of the Democratic National Committee: “Bloomberg, who had a case to make but was not prepared to take incoming fire, didn’t make a strong case for his progressive credentials and showed no charisma or spark—suggesting that it might be a dreary four years with him on our screens and radios every day.”

Jennifer Lawless, Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia: “To say that Bloomberg underperformed is to understate how poor the former mayor’s performance really was. He was disengaged, ill-prepared to respond to questions he was sure to be asked—from allegations of sexism to racism to classism—and seemingly unaware that he needed to convince Democrats that he could defeat Trump. He exhibited neither the fiery energy embodied in his recent tweets nor the acumen of a politician who needs to seal a deal.”

Read the full analysis at Politico here.

The worst moment of the night for Bloomberg came from Senator Elizabeth Warren who stunned the audience with this:

“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against: a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians.’ And, no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg. Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist policies like redlining and stop and frisk. Look, I’ll support whoever the Democratic nominee is, but understand this, Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another. This country has worked for the rich for a long time and left everyone else in the dirt. It is time to have a President who will be on the side of working families and be willing to get out there and fight for them. That is why I am in this race and that is how I will beat Donald Trump.”

Bloomberg has, without exaggeration, been attempting to buy his seat in the Oval Office by funding his own campaign out of his $61.5 billion net worth – the bulk of which came from leasing data terminals to Wall Street banks’ trading floors around the globe. (Curiously, the chat rooms on those Bloomberg terminals were the venue of choice for Wall Street traders engaged in rigging markets.) On Monday we reported on the questionable ways that Bloomberg is using his cash to tip the scales in his favor. (See Bloomberg Has Built a Star Wars Machine to Try to Steal the Democratic Nomination.) On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bloomberg was paying hundreds of social-media influencers $2500 per month to “post regularly on their personal social-media accounts in support of the candidate and send text messages to their friends about him.”

After last’s night performance, it has become quite clear why Bloomberg needs to pay people to “like” him and call him cool.