As someone who is quick to call out and ridicule the legacy media’s mistakes and poor judgments, I’m compelled to come clean about my own shameful errors and lapses. Among my most egregious misjudgments was once supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders. Indeed, I registered as a Democrat when he was running in the presidential primaries against Hillary Clinton because I perceived the election as rigged in her favor and I wanted to ensure that Sanders received every possible vote.
I’m not a Democratic Socialist, whatever that means, but I’m bothered by the growing wealth disparity in America, which has steadily widened under both Democratic and Republican rule. The unaccountability of CEOs and major U.S. corporations is another concern. Sanders paid lip service to both issues, which is why I supported him. I regret and apologize for my foolishness.
Sanders sullied himself when he endorsed Clinton after losing to her in the primary. He soiled himself again when he partnered with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez promoting their misguided credit card initiative. It was a textbook example of politicians championing pro-populist initiatives that would hurt the people they were supposedly protecting. Then there is Sanders’ virulent anti-Israel positions, which made his campaign a magnet for Jew haters.
One Sanders alumnus, who I was initially suspicious of, went on to launch a publication that is doing phenomenal journalism worthy of public recognition and support. His name is David Sirota, and he served as the writer of Sanders’ fire and brimstone speeches. The publication Sirota founded is called The Lever. Given Sirota’s far-left political background, I expected The Lever would prove to be a partisan publication rife with anonymously sourced stories targeting Republicans and their allies.
To my surprise, the publication relies on old-fashioned gumshoe reporting often based heavily on publicly available regulatory and legal filings, which Sirota and his team dig up with a vengeance. The Lever is relentless exposing the hypocrisy of the Democratic party, while also calling out the corporatization of Donald Trump.
The Lever’s slogan is “Hold Them Accountable.” C’mon David, that’s boring. My proposed alternative: “Without Fear or Favor – And We Really Mean It.” Given the Lever’s focus revealing how Americans are constantly getting screwed by their political and business leaders, the publication might also consider changing its name to something more descriptive and catchier such as, “Bend Over America.”
My political cynicism typically knows no bounds, but even I was taken aback by this Lever report last week, a reprint of Substack writer Lee Fang’s analysis, highlighting some of the luminaries who would play an influential role choosing a presidential candidate if the Democratic party managed to dump Joe Biden. While no doubt many Democrats believe their party is run by selfless patriotic Americans who feel burdened by the responsibility to defeat Trump and protect truth, justice, and the American way, the Lever reported that some of the party’s leaders might have other more pressing and conflicting agendas.
The DNC chairman is Minyon Moore, a powerful Beltway lobbyist who previously served as an aide to Bill and Hillary Clinton and is now ensconced at Dewey Square Group, whose various corporate interests included advising Lyft on how to combat a California bill forcing the company to provide benefits and minimum wages to its drivers. DSG’s website boasts that its approach includes being “multifaceted, multicultural, and nimble.”
Seems reasonable to speculate that Moore knows Lisa Monaco, the number two person at Biden’s Justice Department who will play a major role deciding whether to criminally prosecute Boeing. While in private practice, Monaco also advised Lyft on combating the legislative burden of paying living wages to its workers. Lyft CEO John Risher received $78.3 million in compensation last year, so the company understandably needs to count its shekels. CEOs also have families to feed.
Moore also served as a board member with the Black Lives Matter Foundation, the “nonprofit” that spent $6 million in donations raised after George Floyd’s death to purchase a Los Angeles mansion.
Surprise, surprise! Moore’s firm, Dewey Square Group, was retained by the BLM Foundation for two years, and was paid more than $1.2 million for its efforts.
Speaking of Boeing, Dick Gephardt, the former lawmaker, is a DNC super delegate, who has a side hussle lobbying for the disgraced airplane manufacturer, as well as hedge fund Silver Point Capital. Gephardt, who previously served as House majority and minority leader, hails from the “Show Me” state of Missouri, so due diligence is part of his DNA.
James Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is co-chair of the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee. He is a registered lobbyist with the Boston-based law firm Verrill, where he guides various healthcare interests. He previously served as the chief executive of the Tufts Health Plan, a health insurance company that is now part of Point32Health.
For more about the fine corporate lobbyists influencing critical DNC decisions and perhaps the selection of America’s next president, I urge you to read the Lever’s story here or Fang’s original story here.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer continues to do Pinocchio proud.
Whitmer last week boasted that she spearheaded the passage of a “nonpartisan” bill that “will make a real difference in people’s lives.” Republicans say the bill wasn’t bipartisan, as they only had 45 minutes to review the budget, a document exceeding 1,000 pages.
Pure Michigan!
“The budget passed out of the Michigan House of Representatives on party lines,” state Rep. Ann Bollin, told the New York Post. “There was not one Republican that voted for that budget. So (Whitmer) is speaking on behalf of one chamber. It was not bipartisan in both chambers. That budget that is sent to her was partisan and politically directed, in my opinion.”
As for making a difference in people’s lives, the budget provides $17 million in funding for zoos, $2 million for a boxing gym, $5 million for a theater, more than $18 million for a few sports complexes and fieldhouses, $1 million for a public radio station in Detroit, and hundreds of millions more for a wide variety of other political pork projects.
Whitmer’s bill also drastically cut funding for a school-safety and mental-health program to $25 million from $328 million. Whitmer perhaps isn’t aware of America’s mental health crisis, particularly among America’s youth.
Whitmer repeatedly promised she was creating “good paying” automotive jobs that haven’t materialized and hasn’t made good on her promise to “fix the damn roads.”
During Whitmer’s mandated lockdowns at the height of the pandemic, she initially denied leaving Michigan and then admitted she visited Florida for a few days to visit her supposedly ill father in Florida. Not only did she violate her own pandemic rules, Whitmer hit up a company for its corporate jet to make the trip. As for her ill father, he was seen shortly after in Lansing at a shopping mall and getting into a Tesla.
Whitmer’s father, the former head of Michigan Blue Cross, apparently wasn’t smitten by GM’s Chevy Bolt or Ford’s electric Mustang, which the company proudly manufacturers in Mexico. Perhaps it’s because both companies have repeatedly played his daughter for a fool, siphoning off billions in taxpayer monies while creating high paying positions in California and moving factory jobs to Mexico.
Whenever I mention Whitmer’s habitual lying to my liberal Michigan friends, they invariably reply, “All politicians lie.” Funny, they never mention that defense when railing about Donald Trump.
A political skill testing question: What would happen if you partnered a former drama teacher to rich kids with a journalist who botched a much-ballyhooed rollout of a digital initiative and put the duo in charge of a country?
a) The country would be rife with internationally acclaimed actors.
b) The country would still be dependent on dial-up.
c) Twenty-five percent of the country’s citizens would end up living in poverty.
My question wasn’t hypothetical. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is a former drama and humanities teacher and his deputy, Chrystia Freeland, is a Harvard educated Rhodes Scholar who oversaw a failed Reuters digital initiative, maintains close ties to the Davos crowd and was so close to financier George Soros he wanted her to write his biography. Trudeau and Freeland lack finance backgrounds, so it’s hardly surprising that 25 percent of Canadians now live in poverty.
It’s one of the lessons I learned reading Chris George, among my favorite Canadian commentators whose work I frequently cite. With Trump leading in the polls, no doubt many Trump haters will again be declaring their plans to move to Canada, a country once romanticized for its civility and friendliness, but has morphed into a cesspool of Jew hatred.
No doubt, Michael Chomiak, the Nazi collaborator and former editor of a local Polish newspaper who celebrated the massacre of thousands of Jews, would be very proud of his Canadian legacy and the antisemitism spreading like wildfire throughout Canada.
Not familiar with Chomiak? Here’s some helpful background.
The Election Conspiracy Theory of the New York Times
Five years ago today, in advance of the July 4th Independence Day holiday that’s celebrated throughout most of America, except of course in Dearborn and some other places where residents prefer to chant, “Death to America,” the New York Times posted the video below reminding its viewers of America’s many faults. I have no issues with the criticisms, but the fact the Times chose to air it before the July 4th holiday struck me as a diss to those who still take great pride in America.
Let’s not debate that, but I urge you to pause at the 3:09 mark and take note of the Times’ allegation of election tampering in America. The publication was referring to the election defeat of Stacy Abrams, who charged that her opponent in the governor’s race, then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, used his position as Georgia’s chief elections officer to promote voter suppression, an allegation Kemp has vehemently denied. Abrams refused to concede her defeat.
Mmm. I always thought that election conspiracy theories were the exclusive purview of what the Times refers to as “the right-wing echo chamber.” It appears some of the noise reverberated over to the left.