Tony Brasunas

Throughout the spring and the summer, many supporters of Bernie Sanders were mystified and angry about the ratio of negative to positive pieces appearing in the media outlets that liberals tend to trust: NPR, the New York Times, MSNBC, the Washington Post, and others.

There was so much persistent negative press about Bernie Sanders — at one point the Washington Post ran ten negative pieces about Sanders in 24 hours — that people suggested that these supposedly left-leaning publications were actually in the tank for Hillary Clinton. That theory was vigorously denied and even ridiculed by both Clinton supporters and the media outlets themselves.

Now, with all the Wikileaks emails circulating, it appears that everything that Sanders supporters suspected — and worse — has been confirmed. Let’s go quickly through what we’ve learned in the past three weeks:

• The Clinton campaign (CC) and the Democratic Party leadership (DNC) have been essentially one entity since at least last August.
• News outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post generally alert the DNC/CC before they run pieces about Clinton.
• Journalists for the New York Times and other outlets often have to offer editorial control over pieces written in order to get access to Clinton, and do so.
• Reporters for the New York Times sometimes not only show the DNC/CC pieces they’re writing but allow them to edit the pieces.
• The DNC/CC not only spoke with Donald Trump last spring and summer before he entered the race, the DNC/CC also determined last fall to elevate Trump (as well as Ted Cruz and Ben Carson) as a candidate.
• The DNC/CC used their channels for media collusion with outlets like the New York Times and CNN to legitimize and boost Trump throughout the winter and spring.
• The DNC/CC held at least one lavish private party wining and dining 30 or so writers from major corporate media outlets. Many of these writers were the ones collaborating most closely with the DNC/CC.
• The DNC/CC hid Clinton’s remarks and speeches to big Wall Street banks in which she stated or implied her support for the TPP and lax bank regulation, and revealed holding separate “public” and “private” positions about progressive issues in general.
• The DNC/CC sees activists who work for things like climate action, black lives matter, peace, and global fair trade as obstructionists to be ridiculed and marginalized.
• The DNC/CC used their media collusion with outlets like the New York Times to repeatedly disparage Sanders, his supporters, and his rallies.
• The DNC/CC leaked damaging information about Sanders to many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, and co-wrote a hit piece on Sanders for the New York Post.
• The DNC/CC had moles inside the Sanders campaign, who communicated covertly back to the DNC/CC and weakened the Sanders campaign.
• The DNC/CC found ways to appear to appeal to Sanders supporters while actually marginalizing them.

Surprise — the corporate media isn’t really covering these leaks. They don’t seem to want you to know how dishonest and biased their reporting is, nor do they want you to consider how many of their articles should more accurately be called propaganda rather than journalism. After all, what do you call a reporter or publication that publishes articles to support a candidate without disclosing their aim?

When the corporate media does cover the leaked emails, they suggest it’s all the result of Russian hacking, which is an insult to our intelligence: There’s no more proof that it was Russians than that it was me doing the hacking, or you, or Bernie Sanders, or Barack Obama. We don’t know who managed the hacking. What matters is the authenticity of the revelations, which isn’t questioned.

Since the corporate media isn’t covering this with any fairness or thoroughness, here are four independent media stories from various sources, right and left, so you can take your pick how you’d like to learn more.

• From the left: Clinton Campaign “Elevated” Trump Months Before He Declared Candidacy
  The Free Thought Project explores in detail the DNC efforts to give us this Clinton v Trump debacle.
• From the right: WikiLeaks Reveals DNC Elevated Trump to Help Clinton
  The Observer puts together a rigorously documented story on the Clinton/DNC efforts to boost Trump.
• From the left: A Wikileak Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
  Respected lefty zine Counterpunch summarizes the latest wikileaks.
• From the right: WikiLeaks Exposes Media Collusion with New York Times
  Media project Lanterns catalogues the leaked evidence of media collusion between corporate media and the DNC and the Clintons.

Regardless whether you’re cynical or optimistic about the present state and future of our political system, it is essential to stay apprised of the state of our democracy. The fact that moles and extensive propaganda have been (successfully) used in our political system is an important lesson from this 2016 election, and it likely indicates that our democracy is significantly endangered, if not already illegitimate.

Some might call it a long shot. Some might call it blasphemy. Some might call it the most brilliant and patriotic political maneuver in a generation.

Whatever one calls it, nominating Sen. Bernie Sanders remains a possibility at the Democratic Convention that starts today here in Philadelphia. Sanders provided an endorsement of Hillary Clinton a week ago in a show of party solidarity, but he has not conceded the race nor relinquished his delegates.

Thus this convention revolves around one critical question for superdelegates and members of the DNC: Which political path do they want their party to take today and in the coming decade?

Do they want their party to sweep to a landslide victory in November and add millions of diverse, enthusiastic new members who will carry the party to Democratic wins for a generation? Or do they want their party to run against the populism sweeping (more…)

The “lesser-of-evils” argument might not work for independent voters this year.

For those who hope for swift unity in the Democratic Party, there are reasons to believe it won’t happen if Hillary Clinton is the nominee.

While there are serious policy differences between Clinton and Bernie Sanders, a deeper fault line must be acknowledged between their supporters.

Certainly the two candidates remain far apart on issues that matter to progressives and independents — fracking, the TPP, tuition-free public colleges, universal single-payer healthcare, racist policing, militarism in the Middle East — to name just a few. Indeed, based on policy and political strategy, many independents and Democrats see Clinton as more like a traditional Republican. Many even see it as indicative of privilege if one supports Clinton over Sanders, given the current state of the economy and the environment. Many intelligent progressives see the two candidates as representing different social classes.

Nevertheless, a debate about policy differences only partially explains the disconnect between Clinton (more…)

Evidence of election fraud always starts with exit polls.

Exit polls are the most important polls the media commissions. Throughout this fifty-state 2016 Democratic primary between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the exit polls have shown again and again that the way people have voted, on the one hand, and the way the computerized counting machines have recorded votes, on the other hand, have differed significantly.

If you’re unfamiliar with exit polls, they are rigorous scientific instruments used throughout the world as a primary deterrent and safeguard against election fraud. While a few media pundits have written that exit polls only provide informal data for election-day media stories, that is far from their only purpose.

In Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia, for instance, exit polls have been used to overturn elections. In Ukraine, when the recorded vote differed from the exit polls by more than 2%, people immediately knew something was amiss, there were protests in the streets, and the entire election was thrown out. The US State Department itself dubbed that Ukraine election fraudulent based largely on the variance from the exit polls. The State Department considers 2% to be the standard margin of error allowed for an election to be considered fair and authentic.

But for elections here in this country — even one involving a former head of the State Department itself — exit polls have been ignored by elections officials and the corporate media if they differ from the reported results. In state after state, (more…)

It has never been more important to ‘think global, act local.’

The movement in Britain to leave the EU and the movement to elect Bernie Sanders in the US share an underlying cause. Across the world today there is massive dissatisfaction and anger with how global capitalist rule is converging into smaller and smaller units with more and more power via elite agreements — NAFTA, WTO, TPP perhaps, and yes, the EU. These elite agreements are driving down wages for nearly everyone, destroying the environment, and starting or abetting wars.

There are several responses to this dissatisfaction and anger.

One shortsighted and simplistic response is xenophobia and isolationism. This response is manifest in the appeal of the Brexit vote and in the appeal of Donald Trump. If you can tell yourself that it’s your neighbor — rather than unregulated global corporate rule — that is making people you know lose their healthcare, their jobs, or their homes, then you can close a symbolic door to the world.

The more challenging response is manifest in the rise of Bernie Sanders — and also in the push to radically democratize the EU. People across the world (more…)

Mounting evidence indicates corruption and a stolen election.

Let us not mince words California. This has been a disgusting month for democracy here in our state. A massively important election was probably stolen via voter suppression and election fraud, and Hillary Clinton was prematurely named the winner. Are we going to stand for it?

Senator Bernie Sanders and his supporters will all fight on, to the convention in July, and beyond. Sanders has made this clear during his speeches.

But the truth is, he shouldn’t have to fight on, at least not like this.

On June 7, Sanders not only won North Dakota and Montana, he probably also won California, as well as South Dakota and New Mexico.

It appears that the media, together with someone high up in the Democratic National Committee, conspired to, first, call the entire nomination on June 6, a day no one voted, and then to take advantage of cancelled exit polls — an essential check against fraud — to steal the election.

Worse, California seems to be another state in a string of suspicious elections.

For those of us who remain patriots, who still deeply treasure democracy, who remember the millions of people all over the world who have laid down their lives for this precious thing — the right to vote — we are at a crucial moment. (more…)