Article #30: Politics

The Iowa Caucus: The first major voting step for any Presidential candidate on a path to the nomination of their political party.

It is a grueling trek that initially had U.S. Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders an over 60-point underdog against former Secretary of State and Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton, his much more ‘publicly familiar’ opponent.

Clinton won by only .3% (yes, point-3-percent), a virtual statistical tie.

The morning after the Iowa Caucuses, a piece about current U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders was posted on a familiar website. It was entitled “Bernie Sanders Needs More Than The Tie He Got In Iowa”.

At first glance, that title was my first incline of into what I was about to run. However, I looked at the name of the site that posted it and it was FiveThirtyEight.com.

“That’s weird,” I thought, as I felt myself about to click on the link to read the piece.

You see, FiveThirtyEight.com is a website that is known for its statistical and probability analysis, especially political.

So to see a headline that seemed to be dismissing Bernie Sanders’ historic and absolutely amazing 60-to-.3 Iowa Caucus comeback performance seemed outside of that normal math-based analysis.

I dismissed my thought, clicked on the link, and began reading the piece. Unfortunately, the irony of my initial thought dismissal was immediately apparent:

“Sometimes votes have clear outcomes and sometimes they don’t. Monday’s Iowa Democratic caucuses are an example of the latter. Hillary Clinton seems to have barely beaten Bernie Sanders in the closest Iowa Democratic caucus ever after holding a small lead in most Iowa polls before the caucuses.

That means Iowa probably hasn’t reshaped the Democratic race for president and Clinton remains the favorite. But neither Clinton nor Sanders did so well as to make me think either candidate will gain momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary next week.

Sanders is likely to win in the Granite State — he has either an 89 percent chance or a 96 percent chance of winning there, depending on whether you look at FiveThirtyEight’s polls-plus forecast or polls-only forecast.

Still, the results in Iowa suggest that polls in New Hampshire may tighten. That’s because the states look similar demographically.

Even taking into account that Sanders lives next door in Vermont, Clinton probably shouldn’t be behind by 17 percentage points in the New Hampshire polling average right now.“

Did you see that? I know you saw it, right? If you didn’t, let me break down what they seemingly just blatantly did.

“Sometimes votes have clear outcomes and sometimes they don’t. Monday’s Iowa Democratic caucuses are an example of the latter. Hillary Clinton seems to have barely beaten Bernie Sanders in the closest Iowa Democratic caucus ever after holding a small lead in most Iowa polls before the caucuses…”

Again, a dismissal of the fact that Sanders was down up-to 60 points initially.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Come on, Tim. It’s FiveThirtyEight. It’s mathematical analysis. Math isn’t bias toward any particular person. You’re reading too much into this.“

You think so? Ok, let’s continue. Then they said:

“That means Iowa probably hasn’t reshaped the Democratic race for president and Clinton remains the favorite.”

Again, a dismissal of the fact that Sanders was down up-to 60 points initially and also attempting to make him coming back to tie from that far down her is insignificant.

Now you’re probably saying, “I mean, she did win, so it’s an easy argument to make that she remains the favorite, seeing as though she was the favorite before the caucuses.“

Very legitimate argument. But then, look at what they said in the next paragraph:

But neither Clinton nor Sanders did so well as to make me think either candidate will gain momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary next week. Sanders is likely to win in the Granite State — he has either an 89 percent chance or a 96 percent chance of winning there, depending on whether you look at FiveThirtyEight’s polls-plus forecast or polls-only forecast.

Still, the results in Iowa suggest that polls in New Hampshire may tighten. That’s because the states look similar demographically. Even taking into account that Sanders lives next door in Vermont, Clinton probably shouldn’t be behind by 17 percentage points in the New Hampshire polling average right now.“

I was pretty much done then. I couldn’t read much more and stopped at the beginning of the next paragraph of the piece.

Now, again, I know what you’re probably thinking: ‘Just because the piece is on the page doesn’t mean they are necessarily connected to the website. They can be a contributing writer who just does op-eds.’

For those of you who don’t know, op-eds are opinion editorials; the writings of an individual whose views don’t reflect those of the actual company…necessarily.



Ok, that’s a good point. So I looked at who actual wrote the piece. His name is Harry Enten.

So who is Harry Enten?

He’s a senior political writer and analyst for FiverThirtyEight.com. So I guess the contributing writer “op-ed” theory is out the window.

MY ASSESSMENT: The establishment and its preordained narratives have now even corrupted mathematics-based companies.

This is the current problem that people have with the establishment and mainstream media; a problem which has fueled the rise and presidential hopes of the likes of businessman Donald Trump, current Republican U.S. Senator and Tea Party darling Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Independent U.S. Senator and self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders:

People no longer believe what those establishment and mainstream entities say.

Fast-forward from Iowa caucus, to the purposely super-closed New York primary, and all the way to last night’s Pennsylvania primary, and lying, skewing information, and even manipulating outside companies like FiveThirtyEight.com to protect those in power who help make these companies massive amounts of money has become part of the daily business of these organizations.

This is what current presidential candidate and all-around political phenom Bernie Sanders is, and possibly was, up against.

Sanders has broken campaign rally attendance records that President Obama formerly held. Sanders has broken campaign fundraising records that President Obama formerly held, and did it with no corporate donations.

That’s beyond astonishing, especially in this now oligarchic-leaning country we call “The land of the free.” Yet, he’s received less mainstream media coverage than almost every major presidential candidate this election cycle, and the coverage he does get is purposely skewed toward the negative.

Here’s an example of this:

Why do you think that these news outlets do this?

It’s definitely not because of their laughable corporation taglines…or is it? It may not be just because of them, but it’s definitely partially because of them.

Fox ‘News’: “Fair and Balanced.”

One of the most laughable taglines-to-services I’ve ever seen for a company. How can you be “fair and balanced” when you distort information and contradict yourself on a daily basis?

• You don’t want the government strong-arming you…unless “you” is a group of Black people who haven’t committed any crimes.

• Police shoot an unarmed minority who “looked like” they were reaching in their clothes for “possibly” a weapon, but you’re Ok with the supporters of Cliven Bundy pointing actual, visible guns at Federal Marshals.

• You talk about “personal responsibility”; paying your dues and debts and not wanting handouts…unless you’re Cliven Bundy who owes over $1M to the federal government for his cows grazing on federal land for years.

Then all of a sudden you’re defending lack of personal responsibility, not paying your dues and debts, and taking handouts.

Makes you look rather “Unfair and Unbalanced,” doesn’t it Fox “News”?

That’s exactly the same type of skewed bias they have against Bernie Sanders, and their tagline helps people to believe that they wouldn’t skew the facts or be bias.

Then there’s CNN®: “The most trusted name in news.”

I don’t even have to use a specific example with this corporate news titan. Seemingly every time they have guests on their show, the host doesn’t tell the audience which guest, with the facts, is correct.

They just let both guests argue and then they thank them both for coming on. Almost every time the audience watches one of those segments on CNN®, they leave with more questions than answers.

Why is that?

It’s because:

1.) Telling the truth will actually inform the people, and the truth doesn’t fair well for their future profits.

2.) CNN® doesn’t want to offend any guest so that they don’t lose access to having them on again. So, the more powerful the guest, the less news you are likely to get out of an interview.

How can you be the most trusted name in news when you don’t even tell the people watching the truth on a 100% basis?

In essence, CNN® is an umpire in a professional baseball game who no longer calls “Ball” or “Striiiiiike!” They now say, “The batter said it’s a ball. The pitcher said it’s a strike. Crowd, you decide.”

No. YOU’RE supposed to decide based on the facts of your research. Isn’t that what the umpire is supposed to do? Isn’t that about 

what journalism is supposed to be?

And every time CNN® doesn’t call the game correctly, a false equivalency in information is purposely being shared through their network. And, by definition, purposeful false equivalency is actually a lie.

So when Bernie Sanders’ opponent (to whose campaign CNN’s parent company has donated over $400,000) says that her and Senator Sanders are the same, and they don’t correct her, they’re spreading false equivalency through the guise of journalism.

When they simply go on to another question, leaving the audience to think that the statement she just made was equivalent to the truth, when it wasn’t, they’re again spreading false equivalency under the guise of journalistic integrity and trust.

Makes you look rather untrustworthy, doesn’t it CNN®?

That’s exactly the same type of skewed bias through false equivalency that they use against Bernie Sanders, and, just like Fox “News,” their tagline helps people to believe that they wouldn’t skew the facts or be bias as well.

Do you understand the corporate establishment media game now?

Until a significant amount of private money, if not all private money, is removed from politics, nothing will change, at least not significantly.

Unfortunately, with the establishment and their echo-chamber repeating pro-establishment narratives-with-agendas like they’re late-night infomercials, that has become as close to ‘not likely’ as I’ve ever seen.

The power of the establishment’s echo-chamber is that they have such a big voice to where they can literally sway public opinion with lies and skewed narratives.

They simply repeat and repeat those lies and skewed narratives through the power of coded “repetitious suggestion.” Unfortunately, this is the propaganda juggernaut against which the Sanders campaign has to compete.

Until the people put legal barricades into place to help slow down and even possibly stop the lies from being spread by changing the monetary and political incentives for lying, then stories pushing pre-determined narratives from the establishment echo-chamber to benefit their political candidates will never cease to exist.