Right-click the "Unsubscribe" "link" on the opening line, no option to open it in another tab. Curious. As with other suspect stuff, next curiosity-inspired step: right click the email, view source. Intentional gobbledygook, not ordered readable code. More - much more movement of the bullshit meter into the red zone.
At the start of the unsolicited email,"If you are having trouble viewing this message or would like to share it on a social network, you can view the message online." The italicized part was a link:
votedem.org/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100147632.2883448.157&gen=1
Similarly at the email end, a "If you are having trouble, click here." That includes the same link with the same tracking information:
votedem.org/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=2100147632.2883448.157&gen=1
So now it again is the pairing, "Democrats.com" and "votedem.org," so wtf is getting my email from somebody's list, somewhere?
Privacy matters.
Next, do a whois:
Showing results for: VOTEDEM.ORG
Original Query: votedem.org
Contact Information
Registrant Contact
Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Organization:
Mailing Address: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West, Jacksonville FL 32258 US
Phone: +1.5707088780
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:
Email:yx3h29zh3zv@nameprivacy.com
Admin Contact
Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Organization:
Mailing Address: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West, Jacksonville FL 32258 US
Phone: +1.5707088780
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:
Email:yx3h29zh3zv@nameprivacy.com
Tech Contact
Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Organization:
Mailing Address: ATTN:, Herndon VA 20171-430 US
Phone: +1.5707088782
Ext:
Fax: +1.8886429675
Fax Ext:
Email:b645f3g64n7@nameprivacy.com
Registrar
WHOIS Server: whois.web.com
URL: www.namesecure.com
Registrar: NameSecure L.L.C.
IANA ID: 30
Abuse Contact Email:abuse@web.com
Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8003337680
[...]
Raw WHOIS Record
Domain Name: VOTEDEM.ORG
Registry Domain ID: D160085439-LROR
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.web.com
Registrar URL: www.namesecure.com
Updated Date: 2018-03-08T20:04:38Z
Creation Date: 2010-09-07T14:23:35Z
Registry Expiry Date: 2018-09-07T14:23:35Z
Registrar Registration Expiration Date:
Registrar: NameSecure L.L.C.
Registrar IANA ID: 30
Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@web.com
Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8003337680
So, hiding identity. Bullshit meter full pinned, red zone. Who are these people? That question is worth a whois of the other name, expectation fully met:
Showing results for: DEMOCRATS.COM
Original Query: democrats.com
Contact Information
Registrant Contact
Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Organization:
Mailing Address: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West, Jacksonville FL 32258 US
Phone: +1.5707088780
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:
Email:ps9268yr6ju@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
Admin Contact
Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Organization:
Mailing Address: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West, Jacksonville FL 32258 US
Phone: +1.5707088780
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:
Email:ps9268yr6ju@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
Tech Contact
Name: PERFECT PRIVACY, LLC
Organization:
Mailing Address: 12808 Gran Bay Parkway West, Jacksonville FL 32258 US
Phone: +1.5707088780
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:
Email:e994y4t7862@networksolutionsprivateregistration.com
NEXT STEP:
The email has a link, "please join our Facebook community," linking:
http://votedem.org/mail/util.cfm?mailaction=clickthru&gpiv=2100147632.2883448.157&gen=1&mailing_linkid=1304
NOTE: THE SAME TRACKING CODE SUFFIX; SUPPLEMENTED.
Typing only "votedem.org" into the websearch URL browser box, rotors to:
http://democrats.com/pledge-2018/ -- again the paired link, and an info solicitation.
NEXT STEP:
With script blocking on, look at: https://www.democrats.com/ --- not by that above link with the tracking code, but by typing the clean "democrats.com" into the browser's URL box.
There is a lead item, with a "read more" link, the item titled:
"Elizabeth Warren’s Health Care Fix - March 23 - By Krista Carothers."
There is a footer:
About Democrats.com
Democrats.com is the oldest and largest online community of Democratic Party and progressive activists, with over 2 million subscribers.
We are funded entirely by progressive partners like CREDO Mobile, the only progressive phone company. We proudly support the Democratic Party and its candidates, but they do not control us in any way. (1)
Democrats.com was launched at the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles by two veteran Democratic consultants Bob Fertik and David Lytel. Our vision was to create the leading news and community Web site for the progressive base of the Democratic Party, in order to lead the fight against the radical right and the Republican Party led by George Bush and Dick Cheney. We called ourselves the “Aggressive Progressives.”
[links as in original] Dead links, key founders, wtf again. Sloppy. Two faceless beltway consultants, still there? Moved on?
And that "Democratic Party" link, guess, it is: http://democrats.org/
Hey, something there looks familiar.
Doing a whois:
Showing results for: DEMOCRATS.ORG
Original Query: democrats.org
Contact Information
Registrant Contact
Name: Democratic Committee
Organization: Democratic National Committee
Mailing Address: 430 South Capitol Street, S.E., Washington DC 20003 US
Phone: +1.2028638000
Ext:
Fax: +1.2024885017
Fax Ext:
Email:webmaster@DEMOCRATS.ORG
Admin Contact
Name: DNC Hostmaster
Organization: Democratic National Committee
Mailing Address: 430 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington DC 20003 US
Phone: +1.2028638000
Ext:
Fax: +1.2024885017
Fax Ext:
Email:hostmaster@democrats.org
Tech Contact
Name: DNC Hostmaster
Organization: Democratic National Committee
Mailing Address: 430 S. Capitol St. SE, Washington DC 20003 US
Phone: +1.2028638000
Ext:
Fax: +1.2024885017
Fax Ext:
Email:hostmaster@democrats.org
Real whois info, Organization: DNC (hello, Tom Perez), but not hiding behind an anonymity provider/registrar. For one of the Democratic Party's actual websites.
Now back to that "Elizabeth Warren" item, written by a Krista Carothers, whoever she is, no bio link info provided; http://democrats.com/elizabeth-warrens-health-care-fix/
It is clear the item touts patching Obamacare and not moving directly and immediately to single payer:
This week, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren returned focus to the issue that continues to differentiate the parties in the minds of voters by introducing a new bill to update and protect the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
[...] A similar bill was introduced in the House a couple of weeks ago by Democrats Frank Pallone (NJ-6), Bobby Scott (VA-3), and Richard Neal (MA-1), called the Undo Sabotage and Expand Affordability of Health Insurance Act of 2018. That version would expand eligibility for premium tax credits to consumers who earn above the current cutoff of 400 percent of the federal poverty level, and it would increase the size of the tax credits.
Although the bills have almost no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Congress this year, they do give Democrats running in 2018 races some solid, realistic health care proposals to latch onto that don’t require them to commit to the politically risky idea of moving to single-payer coverage just yet. American voters definitely seem ready to shore up the current system, and liberal Democrats appear to think that once consumers get a taste of an even better health insurance marketplace they’ll want to make the move to single-payer.
[link in original]
Fuck 'em. Apologists for that bogus "improve Romneycare/Obamacare" approach, the Pelosi position, incrementalism that keeps limping on with the insurance privateers fat and happy through endless delay in "upgrading, redux." Those appeasers can go suck eggs.
If you follow that House bill link in the quote it leads to a *.pdf document with URL:
https://democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/[...] indicating the bill text is on a legit government site, Democrats side. Then at least scan read the thing -
The text says nothing whatsoever about single payer, not anywhere in the damned thing.
These are appeasers and will, if you get "subscribed," solicit your money away from true supporters of single payer; whereas if you find a candidate you like who is for single payer, and contribute to that candidacy directly, you are bypassing the insurance company appeasers and doing good.
Pay attention to who really has your back and to who's helping the insurance privateers pile up money on a continuing strung-out never-ending basis, coming at you from your back.
And if you got a similar or the same email, mark it as spam. DO NOT check the gmail option mark it as spam and unsubscribe, as I incorrectly did. If you do that the spam email is deleted, so you no longer have the evidence it was sent you. I screwed up. Deleted my proof, where the belief was that the gmail check boxes would not do so. If you have the thing in your inbox, please forward it to me via the email address given in the sidebar, for archive purposes.
___________UPDATE__________
Bob Fertik is affiliated with Credo Action; the petition house, see, e.g. here:
One group, Credo Action, said Monday that it had garnered more than 160,000 signatures since Thursday night opposing the plans of Mr. Schumer, one of the most influential Jewish lawmakers in Congress.
“Tell Sen. Schumer: Don’t lead Senate Democrats into war with Iran,” spokesman Bob Fertik urged activists in an email.
A whois for credoaction.com:
Showing results for: CREDOACTION.COM
Original Query: credoaction.com
Contact Information
Registrant Contact
Name: WORKING ASSETS
Organization: WORKING ASSETS
Mailing Address: 101 MARKET ST STE 700 STE 700, SAN FRANCISCO CA 94105-1530 US
Phone: +1.4153692000
Ext:
Fax: +1.4153711047
Fax Ext:
Email:credodomains@credomobile.com
Admin Contact
Name: Team, IT Operations
Organization: Working Assets
Mailing Address: 101 MARKET ST STE 700 STE 700, San Francisco CA 94105-1530 US
Phone: +1.4153692000
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:
Email:credodomains@credomobile.com
Tech Contact
Name: Team, IT Operations
Organization: Working Assets
Mailing Address: 101 MARKET ST STE 700 STE 700, San Francisco CA 94105-1530 US
Phone: +1.4153692000
Ext:
Fax:
Fax Ext:
Email:credodomains@credomobile.com
Registrar
WHOIS Server: whois.networksolutions.com
URL: http://networksolutions.com
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
IANA ID: 2
Abuse Contact Email:abuse@web.com
Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8003337680
Status
Domain Status:clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
Important Dates
Updated Date: 2017-12-30
Created Date: 2007-09-07
Registrar Expiration Date: 2018-09-07
Name Servers
ALEC.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
ZOE.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
That street address, phone, and email credodomains.credomobile.com relate to a web access bay area services provider; see critique, here.
In fairness to Fertik, that latter cited critique's author, Spandan Chakrabarti, also posted pro-Clinton, and pro-Howard Dean stuff while also being anti-Bernie and anti-Jill Stein; e.g., here, here, and a hitpiece, here. What we know apart from direct personal contacts in our lives is what we read; and the effort to link Bernie to Manafort via the person, Tad Devine, seems unique to the writing of that one Clinton-Dean advocate:
Already, we know that Jill Stein was present and accounted for at the same table as Michael Flynn and Vladimir Putin in an event honoring Russian propaganda network RT. We also know that RT lavished praise on and served as essentially a campaign mouthpiece for Jill Stein, and to a lesser degree, for Bernie Sanders in their zeal to take down Hillary Clinton. As if the dots weren't already connecting themselves, in the middle of that very campaign - about seven months after the propaganda dinner - Stein openly offered to step aside if Sanders would agree to take the top spot on the Green Party ticket.
Last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee became interested in communications between Stein and Donald Trump Jr., the Trump spawn who met with a Russian lawyer salivating over promised Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. If the Senate Judiciary Committee is looking into this, chances are Mueller is a few steps ahead already.
Bernie Sanders is hardly even one step removed from Stein, given the aforementioned political love affair and Trump's own crocodile tears for Bernie during the campaign. Bernie bears his own gifts for Putin, though, being one of a lone pair of Senators to have voted against sanctions on Russia. Sanders also hired as his chief strategist during the campaign Tad Devine, a close associate of Paul Manafort's. Among Manafort's numerous connections to the Kremlin is his work for corrupt and pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Victor Yanukovych in the immediate aftermath of Barack Obama's election to the US presidency. None other than one Tad Devine was Manafort's close confidant in that effort. Evidently the two pro-Kremlin American political consultants grew so close that Devine made direct contacts with Manafort during the 2016 campaign in an attempt to set up a Trump-Sanders debate. Yanukovych is currently exiled in Russia and wanted in Ukraine for high treason.
It is entirely possible that both Stein and Sanders received positive Russian press and in one way or another worked to benefit completely coincidentally. [...]
[links omitted - go to the original for that]. However, policies Bernie and Stein advocated, judged as articulated by them and as supported by the nurses among others, are patently fair and proper, and stand on their own as aims worth having. The critical author, Chakrabarti, offers no defense of money changers, insurance companies and hospital and HMO administrators, standing between people and doctors.
The thought that Bernie's motivation is never above challenge, that's fine, but the evidence known publicly seems scant. Read the stuff, noting the scant mention of Tad Devine in linked "evidence" offered by this Spandan Chakrabarti person, and decide. What would be helpful is a date on this item, (likely 2009 from sidebar dates), stating a less than favorable picture of beltway consultant greed vs loyalties (Tad Devine mentioned):
In Kiev and Kharkiv and other cities in Ukraine, American political consultants who worked against one another in Iowa and New Hampshire and then in the general election are facing off again in a somewhat surreal Eastern European replay of the 2008 campaign.
The firm headed by Hillary Clinton’s former chief strategist, Mark Penn, is helping run incumbent President Victor Yushchenko’s campaign. Meanwhile Paul Manafort, whose firm worked on Republican John McCain’s losing effort, and Tad Devine, a top strategist on the Democratic presidential campaigns of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, are consulting for Victor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian frontrunner in the polls.
For Penn, Manafort and Devine, foreign elections have been a lucrative source of business for years. But for the Chicago-based media consulting firm AKPD, the contract to help guide Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s campaign is part of a new, growth area of business that presented itself after the firm helped Barack Obama win the White House last fall.
Also assisting Tymoshenko is John Anzalone, a pollster who worked on the Obama campaign. And Obama's lead pollster in the campaign, Joel Benenson, also worked briefly in Ukraine this year, helping supporters of a rival presidential candidate, former Parliament speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who courted comparisons with Obama (and whose billboards bear a faint resemblance to the iconic posters of Obama by Shepard Fairey).
The Ukraine race is hardly the only international opportunity available for consultants who had a hand in the Obama campaign. Since Obama's historic election in November, AKPD and Benenson Strategy Group alone have advised candidates or parties in Argentina, Bulgaria, Romania, Israel and Britain and have turned down offers to work in many more countries around the globe.
The attraction is easy to understand. Foreign campaigns typically pay more than domestic ones do, and they are lower risks for consultants coming off the image-enhancing boost of a presidential campaign, according to James Carville, the former Clinton strategist and talking head, who has worked for candidates in more than 20 countries, including Afghanistan (where he worked this year on Ashraf Ghani’s second-tier presidential campaign along with Devine’s firm).
“If you help elect a president and then you get involved in a governor’s race and you lose, it’s going to be a little bit damaging to your reputation,” he said. “But if you go to Peru and you run a presidential race and you lose, no one knows or cares. So why go to New Jersey and lose for 100 grand when you [can] go to Peru and lose for a million?”
If there is money on the table the pattern is they take it, and if the Russians put money on the table, who is to say what is a best guess?
One thing worth noting, the site at which Spandan Chakrabarti posts is, itself, registered via a leading anonymity provider - per a whois:
Showing results for: THEPEOPLESVIEW.NET
Original Query: thepeoplesview.net
Contact Information
Registrant Contact
Name: Registration Private
Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Mailing Address: DomainsByProxy.com, Scottsdale Arizona 85260 US
Phone: +1.4806242599
Ext:
Fax: +1.4806242598
Fax Ext:
Email:THEPEOPLESVIEW.NET@domainsbyproxy.com
Admin Contact
Name: Registration Private
Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Mailing Address: DomainsByProxy.com, Scottsdale Arizona 85260 US
Phone: +1.4806242599
Ext:
Fax: +1.4806242598
Fax Ext:
Email:THEPEOPLESVIEW.NET@domainsbyproxy.com
Tech Contact
Name: Registration Private
Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Mailing Address: DomainsByProxy.com, Scottsdale Arizona 85260 US
Phone: +1.4806242599
Ext:
Fax: +1.4806242598
Fax Ext:
Email:THEPEOPLESVIEW.NET@domainsbyproxy.com
BOTTOM LINE: If the Mueller investigators were to look at Tad Devine, fine, if not, fine too. But back to the start of this post; I got an email from some beltway insider's tied-in operation, working whatever levers showed up on inquiry, and his consultancy business plan and prospects are unknown to me. But the investigation of who emails me political stuff might interest readers and was posted. Why I should place one iota of trust in Bob Fertik is not apparent to me. His operation's Warren related "news" furthering the effort to push "improving" Obamacare over single payer now seems in bed with bad policy to me, and how exactly he got my email is unclear.
The message, again, find individual candidates you believe legit and well motivated, with a chance to win, and contribute directly, not via DNC, DCCC, Emily's List, nor Credo this, nor Credo that. It's smarter doing that. But your money, spend it as you want.