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UPDATE: Bought and paid for
FURTHER: Will they back Biden? Gillibrand? Or simply stand around slinging mud out of spite?
UPDATE NOTE: The DownWithTyranny site published a "Bernie confronts" follow-up report, here.
UPDATE NOTE: Below is the online letter Bernie sent to the people I disagree with and who appear to be nursing a grudge from 2016 when Bernie was the most compelling, progressive, and trustworthy candidate then running for president.
[click the thumbnails to enlarge and read]
FURTHER: Be suspicious of the Think Progress website; per the "Bernie confronts" post:
by Thomas Neuburger
[...] Well, the highly Clintonist, highly corporate establishment is at it again, in the form of the corrupt Center for American Progress (CAP) and its online publication ThinkProgress. (For more on their corruption, see also here and here.)
ThinkProgress published a video critical of Sanders, as Lee Fang (who also delves into their corruption) explains here:
The Center for American Progress, which sponsors ThinkProgress, is led by board president Tom Daschle, who is a registered lobbyist for Comcast CVS Health-Aetna, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. TP used to criticize those companies, now they carry their water.
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) April 11, 2019
In response to that video Sanders sent CAP a letter, saying in part:
Center for American Progress leader Neera Tanden repeatedly calls for unity while simultaneously maligning my staff and supporters and belittling progressive ideas. I worry that the corporate money CAP is receiving is inordinately and inappropriately influencing the role it is playing in the progressive movement. (emphasis mine)
Team Sanders then went a whole lot further than that in a public fundraising letter, parts of which are reproduced below. [...] The letter also names a few of the companies and countries that bankroll CAP — Walmart, Bank of America, Blue Cross, Blackstone, the UAE. He could have listed a great many more. There are countless stories emerging from former ThinkProgress writers about CAP leadership squelching aggressive reporting because their reports were negatively affecting CAP fundraising. Read this twitter thread by former ThinkProgress reporter Zaid Jilani to see some of those. There are others as well.
Bernie Sanders is not backing down this time. Unlike 2016, this will be a battle with the enemy named out loud and its deeds detailed. Looks like the fight, the one our country has been avoiding for years, is finally on.
[bolding and links in original] Don't let the sack of snakes thrown onto the table fool you - it is Dem Party corporatists who threw the sack there.
It will be most informative if this astroturf [phony grassroot] operation backs any one particular 2020 candidate, either by overtly naming and endorsing one, or by trashing and mud slinging at the best of the others - make that the rest of the others who may down the line have traction going into 2020 primary/caucusing. Shun their choice - the big money talking choice.