"From a distance, unions salute essential workers at Labor Day celebrations" by Jeremy C. Fox and Felicia Gans Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff, September 7, 2020
Union leaders reflected on an unprecedented year that has thrust the economy’s “essential workers” into the COVID-19 spotlight, as they gathered outdoors around Massachusetts Monday for drive-in movie screenings and other unconventional Labor Day celebrations.
“This year is certainly going to go in the history books, and not just as the year of the pandemic. It will be the year of the essential worker,” Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh told the crowd at a Greater Boston Labor Council rally in the parking lot behind the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
And what of us non-essentials, as that a$$hole promotes a two-tiered society complete with profe$$ional politburo.
For years, the council has hosted a Labor Day breakfast at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, organizers instead opted for a socially distanced outdoor gathering billed as a “workers’ rally for a just recovery.”
Organizers provided face masks and encouraged attendees to stay in their cars or to space out across the large lot. Many stood several feet apart or clustered in small groups.
“We feel like it’s important for community and grass-roots organizations to really celebrate what Labor Day is, what the labor movement is,” said Maria Belen Power, associate executive director of the Chelsea environmental justice group GreenRoots, who sat on a My Little Pony blanket with her husband and their two young daughters. “Labor Day is really about the workers — and the essential workers that have been putting their lives on the line, especially during COVID.”
If it is about workers, why are they separating us into two cla$$es?
Our lives were never on the line, yet were destroyed anyway by politicians and the pre$$ and they continue to do so.
As for the misanthropic enviros the Globe is promoting, that is not only part and parcel to the Great Re$et, it requires a Great Cull that those blind fools can't see.
It's going to be a world for BG and the boys.
Walsh and union leaders addressed the crowd from a flatbed truck provided by Teamsters Local 25. The speaking program was followed by a drive-in screening of the animated film “Chicken Run,” in which hens organize to oppose a farmer planning to automate his farm to increase profits.
Did you see who was in the projection room?
The mayor, a former head of the Boston Building Trades, received a warm welcome from the crowd.
Well, not all of them.
The workers who kept the country going during the worst weeks of the pandemic are the heroes of 2020 “because it was working women and men — truly essential people — who stepped forward to keep us safe, keep us fed, keep us going, keep … giving us hope,” he said.
Walsh then shifted from praise for working people to criticism of the federal response to the pandemic, joining several speakers in slamming President Trump. “The president said the coronavirus would magically disappear,” Walsh said. “He undermined the public health experts all along, and he still does it today.”
Just waiting for that so he can shift the disaster that is now Bo$ton on to a president who is correct. The case counts are skewed, and if believed they mean the death toll is down to infinitesimal percentages. We have herd immunity, but the pre$$ won't tell us that because they are in on this evil.
The economic fallout from the pandemic has been especially hard on workers furloughed or laid off in the restaurant and retail sectors, which have had to adjust to strict COVID-19 health and safety measures.
I'm sick of feigned concern in the Globe after the horse out the barn.
Massachusetts recorded the highest unemployment rate in the country in June and July, falling from 17.7 percent in June to 16.1 percent in July, according to data released last month by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Yet King Baker is somehow still adored.
Al Vega, president of United Steel Workers Local 9358 Unit 1, said the “pandemic has created an unprecedented worker health and safety crisis and devastated our communities.”
Steven A. Tolman, president of the Massachusetts AFL–CIO, called on state legislators to pass an “essential workers’ Bill of Rights.”
“They need hazard pay, paid sick time, and the presumption that if an essential worker contracts COVID, they did so in the line of duty,” he said of essential workers. “They need whistle-blower protection and a reliable place to turn when our workplaces are unsafe.”
Tolman also saluted other Labor Day events around the state, including a gathering on the State House steps that was shown on the 27-foot-wide video screen outside the convention center.
At the State House rally hosted by Raise Up Massachusetts, Beth Huang, a member of the organization’s steering committee, said this is an important time to make workers’ voices heard.
In New Bedford, an estimated 50 cars gathered in the high school parking lot for a rally and “Chicken Run” screening. Organizers from the Greater Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council gave out five scholarships to recent high school graduates.
“This was our way of engaging the general public,” said Lisa Lemieux, the council’s president. “People are not learning about unions and the history of unions in schools, so … we said, ‘We need to get out there and talk about the labor movement.’ "
Lemieux said the event was a celebration, both for the labor movement’s past achievements and for “the workers that persevered through the pandemic.”
In Springfield, a few dozen people rallied in front of City Hall. Speakers discussed the work needed to help people recover from the pandemic and to protect essential workers, said Jeff Jones, president of the Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation, which coordinated the event.
“The overall message is that the labor movement’s very much alive, very much well, and very much fighting going forward,” Jones said. “At this particular moment, we have to be dealing with a pandemic but that, even if we weren’t, we would be dealing with issues to try and raise the quality of life for working people in this state and around the country.”
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The article came with these photographs:
Khalida Smalls, a Boston Teacher's Union member (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)
Fidel Maltez of Chelsea and his 3-year-old daughter Ana Power-Maltez listened to speakers in the parking lot of the convention center (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff).
The Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, of New Roots AME Church (third from left) danced along with New England United for Justice members Sandra Teixeira (center) and Mary Garcia (right) at the Greater Boston Labor Council's celebration (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff)
Without unions we will all end up panhandling (if you are lucky enough after the Great Re$et, that's why they are making it easier) and at least it looked like a nice day out there:
"Labor Day relatively quiet on the region’s roads" by Caroline Enos Globe Correspondent, September 7, 2020
Labor Day, traditionally the busiest traffic day of the holiday weekend, appeared to be safe on the roads for most of the day.
While Labor Day events were scaled back this year due to COVID-19, Massachusetts residents enjoyed a warm, sunny, day off to mark the traditional end of summer.
Throughout the day people flocked to state parks, including Walden Pond and Nahant Beach, where lots were closed after reaching capacity, according to tweets from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
As of 4 p.m., the Massachusetts Turnpike was still clear of traffic, according to an online Massachusetts traffic map run by the state.
Elsewhere, motorists were also traveling smoothly on most major roadways around the state, though parts of Interstate-95 in Dedham and Needham, along with Route 145 in Boston and Route 1 in Chelsea, experienced some backups.
Traffic was slow-moving in some areas of Cape Cod. Motorists saw delays on Route 6 in Sandwich and on Route 28 in Bourne, though earlier traffic on Route 6 in Barnstable, Dennis, and Harwich cleared up, according to the map.
The Globe traced the Maine Turnpike and the New Hampshire state line.
Temperatures were expected to reach the high 70s and lower 80s in Boston Monday as “plenty of sunshine and comfortable humidity” settled over Boston, the National Weather Service tweeted.
The pleasant day followed a relatively mild summer. While Boston experienced three heat waves over July and August, this summer had an average temperature of 72.9 degrees, about 1.8 degrees above normal, weather service spokesman Bill Simpson said.
“This summer was the 11th warmest on record [in Boston], but it’s been pretty normal,” Simpson said.
(Blog author can do nothing but shake his head. I would have given them the benefit of the doubt since it has been a hotter than average summer lately, yet in spite of everything around us the weather is now normal!)
Boston saw 14 days where temperatures reached more than 90 degrees, he said. Simpson said the city likely won’t see any heat waves or especially hot days through at least the middle of September.
“We are in near-normal temperatures for the next eight to 14 days,” Simpson said.
Oh, now it's "near-normal," which isn't "normal."
Labor Day’s warm, dry weather is expected to last through Wednesday, according to a tweet from the weather service. Boston could see a chance of showers and thunderstorms from Wednesday through Thursday night, but the city is expected to end the week with cooler temperatures and dry weather.....
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Related:
California wildfires have burned a record 2 million acres
On the bright side, the fires eradicated the emerald ash borer from the trees and officials are already reseeding hillsides and meadows.
Meanwhile, COVID has helped clean up the rivers and trails so that certain people can enjoy boating.
Let us not forget the police and their union, as justice delayed is justice denied:
"The psychological toll inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic is finally becoming clear, as new evidence shows symptoms of depression and anxiety have surged since the outbreak disrupted American life this spring, but Black Americans, who have disproportionately suffered from COVID-19 and its economic fallout, are also shouldering an ever heavier mental health burden as a racial justice movement has ripped open centuries-old wounds of systemic oppression....."
The endless, wedge-driving, agenda-pushing is enough to drive you crazy.
Also see:
"The Lost Summer of 2020 drew to a close Monday with many big Labor Day gatherings canceled across the U.S. and health authorities pleading with people to keep their distance from others so as not to cause another coronavirus surge like the one that followed Memorial Day. Downtown Atlanta was quiet as the 85,000 or so people who come dressed as their favorite superheroes or sci-fi characters for the annual Dragon Con convention met online instead. Huge football stadiums at places like Ohio State and the University of Texas sat empty. Many Labor Day parades marking the unofficial end of summer were called off, and masks were usually required at the few that went on....."
"Hundreds of people gathered on Labor Day in a small town south of Portland for a pro-President Donald Trump vehicle rally – just over a week after member of a far-right group was fatally shot after a Trump caravan went through Oregon's largest city. Later, pro-Trump supporters and counter-protesters clashed at Oregon's Capitol. Vehicles waving flags for Trump, the QAnon conspiracy theory and in support of police gathered about noon at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City. At one point Monday afternoon, the right-wing crowd rushed a smaller group of Black Lives Matters counter-demonstrators, firing paint-gun pellets at them. There were skirmishes, and the Black Lives Matter group dispersed shortly after local police arrived on the scene. On Aug. 29 Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a supporter of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer, was killed in Portland after a pro-Trump caravan went downtown. Danielson’s suspected killer, Michael Forest Reinoehl, was fatally shot by police Thursday. Reinoehl was a supporter of antifa — shorthand for anti-fascists and an umbrella description for far-left-leaning militant groups. Demonstrations in Portland started in late May after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and have continued for more than 100 days. The rally’s organizers said they would drive to toward the state capital, Salem, and most left the caravan before that. A smaller group of members of the right-wing group the Proud Boys went on to Salem, where a crowd of several dozen pro-Trump supporters had gathered. Organizers of the earlier vehicle rally said they did not plan to enter Multnomah County, where Portland is located. Oregon City is about 20 miles south of Portland. Trump supporters fired paint ball canisters at counter-demonstrators, who tried to block their way....."
As for other racial hotspots, "a priest recently tapped by Pope Francis to become a bishop for a northern Minnesota diocese has resigned after an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor in the 1980s surfaced before he could take up his post," while "city officials in Rochester, N.Y., are praising a group of volunteer church “elders” who on Sunday night stood as human buffers between police and protesters outside the city’s public safety building after days of protests that have periodically turned violent."
Related:
"Maria Kolesnikova, the last prominent protest leader in Belarus still at large, vanished on Monday and local news media outlets reported she was grabbed off the street by masked kidnappers in the center of the East European capital, bundled into a dark minivan and driven away. The abduction of Kolesnikova, the latest in a series of disappearances apparently engineered by Belarus's security agencies, followed large protests Sunday in Minsk, the capital, and towns across the country. It seemed to reflect a shift in strategy from the initial frenzy of police violence against protesters to picking off opposition leaders one by one. Linas Linkevicius, the Lithuanian minister of foreign affairs, said Kolesnikova had been the victim of a “kidnapping,” deploring in a Twitter post that “Stalinist NKVD methods are being applied in 21st century Europe.” The N.K.V.D. was the precursor of the K.G.B., a name still proudly embraced by the main security agency in Belarus, a former Soviet republic that has often been described as Europe's last dictatorship...."
That was last month's news, and such things have surreptitiously been happening in the U.S.
"Israeli demonstrators have placed more than 1,000 empty chairs in a central Tel Aviv square in an eerie display symbolizing the local lives claimed by the coronavirus. A red rose was laid on each empty chair Monday with black and white signs representing those killed by the virus. Israel has recorded nearly 130,000 cases of the virus, with more than 26,000 still active. It recently has been reporting some 3,000 new cases each day. The surge in cases has raised concerns that the country could be forced to declare a nationwide lockdown during the upcoming holiday period, a time of widespread travel and large family gatherings. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced overnight curfews in some 40 cities and towns hit hard by the coronavirus....."
What strange bedfellows COVID has made, huh?
Also see:
"At the height of the coronavirus lockdown, President Donald Trump and his top health advisers trumpeted a new test that would help Americans reclaim their lives — one that would tell them if they already had the virus and were protected from getting it again. Their arrival would help “get Americans back to work” by showing those who might have “the wonderful, beautiful immunity,” said Trump, a point repeated at the daily briefings last April. Months later, the U.S. is awash in the tests but the bold predictions about their usefulness have yet to materialize. “There was definitely a lot of wishful thinking that there was going to be a magical test that was going to save us all, but we’re not there yet,” said Dr. Jennifer Rakeman of New York City’s Public Health Laboratory. The tests check the blood for antibodies the body makes to fight off an infection. Scientists are still working to figure out how well antibodies for the coronavirus may shield someone from another infection, or how long that protection might last. Some early studies suggested any immunity fades fast; research published last week was more promising, suggesting that antibodies last at least four months after diagnosis and do not fade quickly. For now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association explicitly warn that antibody tests should not be used to make decisions about returning workers to the office or students to school, though some labs still promote them for those uses. The CDC recommends everyone — even those who were sick and recovered — take precautions to prevent getting and spreading the virus. Antibody tests are different from the standard nasal swab tests that diagnose active infections. Instead, they use a blood sample or finger-prick of blood to look for signs of a past infection, whether the person was sick or had no symptoms at all. Based on other viruses, experts expect those with coronavirus antibodies to be at least partly immune for several months, if not longer. Dr. Anthony Fauci and other members of the White House task force said early on it was a “reasonable assumption” that if “you have the antibody, you’re protected” but added that there wasn’t proof. In the meantime, experts say antibody tests are useful for two things: Large studies in the general population to see how widely the coronavirus has spread, and screening people who may be able to donate their antibody-rich blood plasma, which is used as an experimental treatment for COVID-19....."
Is there anyone left who takes the fraud Fauci seriously anymore, and we have since been told plasma -- along with H#Q -- is ineffective since it undercuts the rational for va¢¢ines.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"While the return of college students and a slowly reopening economy may slightly boost ridership, much of the transit system will probably still have that empty feel of a summer Sunday. Most office workers remain in work-from-home mode, schools start late, the Red Sox play without fans, and thousands displaced by the pandemic do not have a job to commute to; nevertheless, it’s been a busy six months at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. What we learned in the interim is that trains and buses aren’t necessarily rolling virus factories, the T can indeed move quickly to adjust service, and that it’s easier to upgrade century-old infrastructure when barely anyone is using it....."
Almost as if they reset things to build on the foundations of a transformational project as they Zoom along.
Time for a meal break:
Based on Fresh Food Generation's workload, the owners are considering opening a storefront retail location (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff).
"Meals at work: Once a perk, they’re now pitched as a safety measure; Employees wandering out for lunch may be too risky in the COVID era, caterers say" by Janelle Nanos Globe Staff, September 7, 2020
Like so many service industries, corporate catering was decimated by the pandemic shutdown, laying off hundreds as customers closed up shop and dispatched workers to home offices far and wide.
Now, with lockdowns easing and employers coaxing workers back to the office, the providers are betting their own recovery on convincing companies that a simple catered boxed lunch is not just a frill, but a necessary safety measure. Their pitch: The traditional lunch hour, when employees queue in crowded lines at cramped eateries, or innumerable delivery drivers drop off takeout orders, has too many risks of exposure to the coronavirus.
I hope it is better than what the kids at school are getting.
“The culture of food safety has changed, much like traveling changed in the wake of 9/11,” said Diane Swint, the head of marketplace at ezCater the Boston-based office catering site, which laid off nearly half its workforce in the early weeks of the pandemic. “Now, I think lunch is going to be one of those things you have to think about. It’s not a perk; it’s something you have to provide.”
ALARM BELLS JUST WENT OFF!
Another way-of-life changing event as we approach the 19th anniversary (!!) of that awful event.
EzCater is among the so-called food-at-work providers that are pursuing new strategies to feed the first wave of returning workers. The company expanded a service called Relish that lets employees of its corporate clients pick out meals from area restaurants in advance, as long as a week ahead.
They had emptied out in April as the Globe got us ready for 5G, and now they have resurfaced with a script to follow in building the new mosaic of office work.
The Boston-based fast-casual chain B.Good has been receiving a much needed stream of orders through ezCaterer’s Relish service, allowing the restaurant to slowly reopen its downtown Boston locations.
“The industry has been decimated,” said B.Good’s chief marketing officer, Hadrien Delande. He said that while the catering orders overall have been smaller, he’s finding companies see the value in offering boxed meals to keep their staffers safe. “We’ve been trying to capitalize on that,” he said.
One client using the Relish service is Evelo, a biotech company in Cambridge where a communal lunch was a big part of workplace culture prior to the pandemic, with fully-catered meals once a week for all employees and bins of bulk snacks scattered around the workspace.
Now, with only about 40 employees working at Evelo labs these days, the company is subsidizing meals five days a week through the Relish service.
“I think it’s incredibly appreciated,” said Evelo spokeswoman Jessica Cotrone. “In this COVID world we all have a million things happening all at once. One less thing to worry about is helpful.”
Fooda, another food-at-work provider, has seen its sales creep back up as clients become more willing to increase spending on catered lunches.
“Now that food-at-work is more of a safety concern, the budget for it is sort of a different conversation than it was before,” said Stafford McKay, Fooda’s vice president of marketing. “Companies no longer have to worry about travel per diems and expensed meals when folks are on the road. It’s just a little bit of moving funds to a different direction.”
The Great Re$et, and can you really trust what's in the box?
It could have been prepared by someone with COVID!
In some cases, Fooda is bringing in restaurant workers to serve meals in office cafeterias that once had their own servers, since there are still not yet enough employees at work to justify bringing back a full kitchen staff, and, the list of clients opting to use the service, McKay said, has expanded beyond traditional customers where free lunch was long an office perk.
“It’s expanding into manufacturing, warehouse distribution centers, areas where you have employees who may not have been within the wheelhouse offering a perk like this before,” McKay said.
LeanBox, which contracts with companies to provide refrigerators stocked with prepackaged meals and snacks, is offering touchless ordering as as a safer way for clients to manage in-office meals. Workers can order through an app that will then unlock the fridge.
I think I'll skip lunch!
“Internal unattended [food service] is going to be a big trend. How can someone get food without ever having to interact with someone?” said LeanBox chief executive Shea Coakley. “We’re getting inbound leads like we’ve never gotten before, and from larger companies.”
What a dy$topian mind$et, and it seems common at the Globe!
Another company trying to seize the touchless moment is Bevi, whose seltzer machines are ubiquitous in many of the city’s startup offices. It recently unveiled a touchless machine that also uses an app to operate, and has been promoting its service to the hotel industry as a way improve safety.
The pandemic has forced caterers to rethink their business in other ways, too. For example, the buffet-style meal, a convenience for the client and caterer alike, remains off-limits, as the communal platter just isn’t a safe way to serve food right now, but the process of boxing up individual meals comes at a high cost.
“Profit margins are already low, and when you add additional packaging and then COVID safety materials, and even hiring a translator so that they team understands what’s going on, it become a much more expensive operation,” said Cassandria Campbell, founding partner of Dorchester-based caterer Fresh Food Generation.
Where is all the extra packaging and garbage going to go in this era of exi$tential climate change?
Still, with a steady stream of orders coming in from the likes of State Street Corp. and Dimock Community Health Complex, Campbell has been able to adapt, and she’s now thinking of expanding the business beyond catering. She’s planning to offer home delivered prepackaged meals this month and is searching for new work space for a possible physical retail storefront.
Should be plenty of places for rent, and it looks like the FUTURE is being DESIGNED so that we NEVER LEAVE HOME, cui bono?
“We made a decision to start looking for retail space, which is crazy during a pandemic, but it’s our only clear shot to continue as a business,” Campbell said. “It’s really about being able to offer our product direct to customers. At the end of the day, behind the business were people who really loved our food.”
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Meanwhile, the Globe is pushing visas for low-income immigrants as a nonprofit is offering online help, and hope because they ‘believe that the solution is combining technology with lawyers,’ and did you know that "nonprofits provide new ways for corporations and individuals to influence" things -- as if they didn't have enough already and are not driving this madness$$!
So how are those contract negotiations going, Janelle?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
These guys will be picking up the check:
"How Trump’s billion-dollar campaign lost its cash advantage" by Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman New York Times, September 7, 2020
Money was supposed to have been one of the great advantages of incumbency for President Donald Trump, much as it was for President Barack Obama in 2012 and George W. Bush in 2004. After getting outspent in 2016, Trump filed for reelection on the day of his inauguration — earlier than any other modern president — betting that the head start would deliver him a decisive financial advantage this year.
It seemed to have worked. His rival, Joe Biden, was relatively broke when he emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee this spring, and Trump and the Republican National Committee had a nearly $200 million cash advantage.
Five months later, Trump’s financial supremacy has evaporated. Of the $1.1 billion his campaign and the party raised from the beginning of 2019 through July, more than $800 million has been spent. Now some people inside the campaign are forecasting what was once unthinkable: a cash crunch with less than 60 days until the election, according to Republican officials briefed on the matter.
Brad Parscale, the former campaign manager, liked to call Trump’s reelection war machine an “unstoppable juggernaut,” but interviews with more than a dozen current and former campaign aides and Trump allies, and a review of thousands of items in federal campaign filings, show that the president’s campaign and the RNC developed some profligate habits as they burned through hundreds of millions of dollars. Since Bill Stepien replaced Parscale in July, the campaign has imposed a series of belt-tightening measures that have reshaped initiatives, including hiring practices, travel, and the advertising budget.
Under Parscale, more than $350 million — almost half of the $800 million spent — went to fundraising operations, as no expense was spared in finding new donors online. The campaign assembled a big and well-paid staff and housed the team at a cavernous, well-appointed office in the Virginia suburbs; outsize legal bills were treated as campaign costs; and more than $100 million was spent on a television advertising blitz before the party convention, the point when most of the electorate historically begins to pay close attention to the race.
Among the splashiest and perhaps most questionable purchase was for Super Bowl ads that cost $11 million — more than the campaign has spent on TV in some top battleground states — a vanity splurge that allowed Trump to match billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s buy for the big game.
There was also a cascade of smaller choices that added up: The campaign hired a coterie of highly paid consultants (Trump’s former bodyguard and White House aide has been paid more than $500,000 by the RNC since late 2017); spent $156,000 for planes to pull aerial banners in recent months; and paid nearly $110,000 to Yondr, a company that makes magnetic pouches used to store cellphones during fundraisers so that donors could not secretly record Trump and leak his remarks.
Some people familiar with the expenses noted that Parscale had a car and driver, an unusual expense for a campaign manager. Trump has told people gleefully that Stepien took a pay cut when the president gave him the job.
Critics of the campaign’s management say the lavish spending was ineffective: Trump enters the fall trailing in most national and battleground state polls, and Biden has surpassed him as a fundraising powerhouse, after posting a record-setting haul of nearly $365 million in August. The Trump campaign has not revealed its August fundraising figure.
Not the way Bernie was, for it is all corporate loot.
“If you spend $800 million and you’re 10 points behind, I think you’ve got to answer the question ‘What was the game plan?’” said Ed Rollins, a veteran Republican strategist who runs a small pro-Trump super PAC, and who accused Parscale of spending “like a drunken sailor.”
“I think a lot of money was spent when voters weren’t paying attention,” he added.
Parscale, who is still a senior adviser on the campaign, said in an interview that the Trump operation invested heavily in attracting donors to erase the large advantage that Democrats had built digitally after the Obama years.
WHAT?
Just yesterday I was told "when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, she blamed Russian interference and the former F.B.I. director James Comey's eleventh-hour resurrection of her emails for her defeat, but she also lashed out at something that got far fewer headlines: the Democratic National Committee's failure to keep up with Republicans in the data arms race. Now, the party has started the Democratic Data Exchange, a legally independent entity that allows campaigns, state parties, super PACs and other independent groups that are forbidden to coordinate with each other to share information on individual voters. Democratic officials involved in the new data program say the system will help them narrow what had been a yawning gap between their party and Republicans, who started a similar independent data operation ahead of the 2016 election."
So she squandered what Obama left her, is that what they are telling us?
“I ran the campaign the same way I did in 2016, which also included all of the marketing, strategy and expenses under the very close eye of the family,” said Parscale, who was the digital director, not the campaign manager, in 2016. “No decision was made without their approval. Any spending arrangements with the RNC since 2016 were in partnership with Ronna McDaniel,” Parscale said, referring to the party chairwoman, “who I consider a strategic partner and friend.”
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has overseen the campaign from his position as a senior White House aide, had posed for a Fortune magazine cover as the person who ran the 2016 campaign soon after the election.
I wish I could believe in him.
Nicholas Everhart, a Republican strategist who owns a firm specializing in placing political ads, said the $800 million spent so far shows the “peril of starting a reelection campaign just weeks after winning. A presidential campaign costs a lot of money to run,” Everhart said. “In essence, the campaign has been spending nonstop for almost four years straight.”
At the top of the whiteboard in Stepien’s office are the latest numbers on the campaign budget, and Stepien has instituted a number of changes since he was promoted from deputy campaign manager. A proposal to spend $50 million in costs related to coalitions groups was cast aside. An idea to spend $3 million for a NASCAR car bearing Trump’s name was discarded.
The number of staff members allowed to travel to events has been pared back to avoid what one senior campaign official described as “sponsoring vacations.” Trips aboard Air Force One, popular because they enable aides to get face time with the president — but which have to be compensated by the campaign — have been slashed. “The most important thing I do every day is pay attention to the budget,” Stepien said in a brief interview. He declined to discuss budget specifics but said the campaign had enough funds to win.
He doesn't even need much of a presence, really. He won without it last time, and voters know what is up.
Most visibly, the Trump campaign slashed its television spending in August, mostly abandoning the airwaves during the party conventions. In the last two weeks of the month, Biden’s campaign spent $35.9 million on television ads, compared with $4.8 million for Trump, according to data from Advertising Analytics.
Whenever I see a political ad, I immediately change the channel.
“We held on to cash to make sure that we’ll have the firepower that we need” for the fall, said Jason Miller, a senior strategist for Trump, who contended that airing ads during the conventions would prove a waste for Biden. “We want to make sure that we’re saving it for when it really matters, when it’s going to move the needle.” Miller defended spending money on television ads earlier this spring and summer, calling it a “tough” decision necessary to keep Trump competitive as the nation suffered through a pandemic and what he described as a “temporary economic shutdown.” “We had to claw our way back,” he said.
One of the reasons Biden was able to wipe away Trump’s early cash edge was that he sharply contained costs with a minimalistic campaign during the worst months of the pandemic. Trump officials derisively dismissed it as his “basement” strategy, but from that basement Biden fully embraced Zoom fundraisers, with top donors asked to give as much as $720,000. These virtual events typically took less than 90 minutes of the candidate’s time, could raise millions of dollars and cost almost nothing. Trump has almost entirely refused to hold such fundraisers. Aides say he does not like them.
Once again, the President of the United States wins the debate with the common people, and those Biden donors aren't union folk!
There is some disagreement in the extended Trump operation about the depth of any potential cash-on-hand shortage. Some officials believe that plenty more money will come in during the last two months from online donors and that cutting back on TV advertising in August was shortsighted. The campaign announced a combined $76 million haul with the party during the four days of the Republican convention, but others said the campaign had expected the low-dollar fundraising to continue at the same pace, and were also counting on a significant number of $5,600 checks, the limit for direct campaign giving, that did not materialize; that was in part because they rely on in-person events, which was more difficult with the virus.
Some party officials defended the early spending as a prudent investment, including money devoted to the expansive ground operation and an online network of donors that was setting fundraising records. The GOP has more than 2,000 staff members across 100 offices and claims that volunteers knock on 1 million doors per week; the Biden campaign has forgone door-knocking so far during the pandemic.
The door-knocking and face-to-face contact also wins over voters.
Think of it this way: despite all of the virtual air power, you still need boots on the ground.
“The Biden campaign is hoarding money and hoping that fall TV ads help put them over the edge,” said Richard Walters, chief of staff for the RNC, “but when a state comes down to 10,700 votes like Michigan did in 2016, we think that direct voter contact — those millions of door knocks and phone calls we make each week — is going to be critical.”
The Trump campaign has undertaken its own financial review of spending under Parscale. Among the first changes implemented was shutting down an ad campaign that had used Parscale’s personal social media accounts to deliver pro-Trump ads. More than $800,000 had been poured into boosting Parscale’s Facebook and Instagram pages; those ads ceased the day after he was removed as campaign manager.
Parscale said the Facebook page was “not my idea” and the “family’s direct approval” had been sought on the program. “I built an unprecedented infrastructure with the Republican Party under this family’s leadership since 2016,” Parscale said in a statement to The Times. “I am proud of my achievements.”
Next you thing you know, the Times will report that Russia was managing it!
Some campaign spending choices appear devised, at least in part, to satisfy Trump himself, including the Super Bowl ads, which were purchased as part of an advertising arms race with Bloomberg, who soon afterward dropped out of the Democratic primary. The two ads cost more than the Trump campaign spent combined on local television through the end of July in four battleground states: Wisconsin ($3.9 million), Michigan ($3.6 million), Iowa ($2 million) and Minnesota ($1.3 million).
Hey, you gotta keep the candidate happy!
Another Trump-pleasing expense: more than $1 million in ads aired in the Washington, D.C., media market, a region that is not likely to be competitive in the fall but where the president, a famously voracious television consumer, resides. Trump, who once joked he could be the first candidate to make money running for president, has steered, along with the Republican Party, about $4 million into the Trump family businesses since 2019: hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump’s private club at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, lavish donor retreats at Trump hotels, office space in Trump Tower, and thousands of dollars at the steakhouse in Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel.
The problem is he is watching Fox.
Many of the specifics of Trump’s spending are opaque; since 2017, the campaign and the RNC have routed $227 million through a single limited liability company linked to Trump campaign officials. That firm, American Made Media Consultants, has been used to place television and digital ads and was the subject of a recent Federal Election Commission complaint arguing it was used to disguise the final destination of spending, which has included paychecks to Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the partners of Trump’s two adult sons.
That's where my printed paper quit looking into it.
Millions more followed to firms tied to RNC and Trump-linked officials, including more than $39 million to two firms, Parscale Strategy LLC and Giles-Parscale, controlled by Parscale since the beginning of 2017. Parscale said that he had “no ownership or financial interest in A.M.M.C.” and that he had “negotiated a contract with the family for 1% of digital ad spend and after becoming campaign manager took no percentage.”
The implication is Trump family members and cronies are profiting of political connections.
Not to minimize it, but what else is new in Wa$hington?
Are there any illegalities?
There is little question that Parscale helped the Trump campaign construct an unparalleled Republican operation to lure small donors online. He directed a yearslong, nine-figure investment in digital ads and list-building that appears to have largely paid for itself. Some of the president’s advisers believe it will continue to pay great dividends in the final weeks, pointing to the $165 million raised by the president and his party in July — more than any month in the 2016 race. “You have to spend money to make money,” explained Walters, the RNC chief of staff. “We have had a big increase in revenue because of early investments we made in online fundraising and direct mail.”
Still, the costs of the GOP money operation have been enormous.
Since 2019, Trump, the RNC and their shared committees have spent $145 million on costs related to direct mail, almost $42 million on digital list acquisition and rentals (to expand their list of email addresses) and tens of millions more in online advertising for new donors. Just procuring the Trump paraphernalia that supporters buy costs a lot. Two firms that make campaign swag were paid more than $30 million combined since 2019.
Melania sent me a couple of things. I never sent them back. The range of answers to the questions were very limited.
At Trump’s direction, the party has taken a spare-no-expense approach to donor maintenance, with the RNC spending more than $6 million in “donor mementos.” The spending has gone to stationary shops, the White House Historical Association ($538,000) and the Hershey Co., the chocolate-maker ($337,000), which cover costs for items such as the White House-branded M&M's given away by administrations of both parties.
Trump has also accumulated many costs that are unusual for a presidential reelection.
Republicans, for instance, have been saddled with extra legal costs, more than $21 million since 2019, resulting from the many investigations into Trump and, eventually, his impeachment trial. The RNC also paid a large legal bill of $666,667.66 to Reuters News & Media at the end of June. Both Reuters and the RNC declined to discuss the payment. It was labeled “legal proceedings — IP resolution,” suggesting it was related to a potential litigation over intellectual property.
Ooooh, so THAT i$ why Demonrats impeached!
Hurt his campaign war chest, and how about that oddly-numbered legal bill?!
There have been other squandered costs driven by Trump’s sometimes mercurial desires. He switched his convention plans twice, incurring many expenses along the way. In July, for instance, the RNC made a $325,000 payment to the Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island near Jacksonville for the convention there that never happened. The party is not expected to get that money back.
--more--"
I'm told the article originally appeared in The New York Times, and with all that loot $lo$hing around in the political campaign the candidates have the gall to addre$$ the di$tre$$ed American worker:
"Trump, Biden spar over economy, workers in Labor Day blitz" by Noreen Nasir and Alexandra Jaffe, Associated Press | September 8, 2020
While the health of the American economy and status of workers were dominant Labor Day themes, both campaigns also focused on recent protests that have roiled Wisconsin and the rest of the nation after police shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha last month.
Out on the trail, signs of the pandemic were evident. While Pence didn’t speak with a mask on, workers from the power company he toured did as they stood behind him. Harris was careful not to stray far from blue “X” marks taped on the floor to encourage social distancing as she toured an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers training facility. Harris also met with Black business owners in Milwaukee, where she said her day of campaigning was focused on “the dignity of work and the dignity of human beings.”
Nevertheless, the maskless Pence wins that debate.
Biden spoke to a small group of labor leaders in a backyard in Lancaster, where he criticized Trump for “refusing to deal with the problems that affect ordinary people” and called for strengthening unions. His campaign announced endorsements from the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the International Union of Elevator Constructors and the National Federation of Federal Employees, collectively representing hundreds of thousands of union workers nationwide.....
That is the biggest crowd he could get.
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Related:
"When Joe Biden released economic recommendations two months ago, they included a few ideas that worried some powerful bankers: allowing banking at the post office, for example, and having the Federal Reserve guarantee all Americans a bank account, but in private calls with Wall Street leaders, the Biden campaign made it clear those proposals would not be central to Biden’s agenda. “They basically said, ‘Listen, this is just an exercise to keep the Warren people happy, and don’t read too much into it,’ ” said one investment banker, referring to liberal supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The banker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks, said that message was conveyed on multiple calls. This reluctance to be pinned down on policy details is central to Biden’s campaign, which has focused on a pledge to “restore the soul of the nation” rather than any particular legislative holy grail. While Biden has issued a raft of proposals, he’s often taken an all-things-to-all-people approach, sometimes making strong public declarations while relying on aides to soothe critics behind the scenes....."
Now you know WHO are the DONORS, and WAKE UP PWOGWE$$IVES!
You are being BAMBOOZLED and TAKEN for GRANTED YET AGAIN!
Also see:
Tax the Ultrarich? Cuomo Resists, Even With a $14 Billion Budget Gap
He wants to have them over for dinner and drink!
I was told "Senate Majority leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins cited the coronavirus crisis in throwing her support behind taxing "multimillionaires and billionaires to help our state shoulder this extraordinary burden." Her statement was an encouraging sign for the left-wing activists, unions and more than 100 Democratic lawmakers who have indicated they support raising taxes on the wealthy to lessen the blow of budget cuts."
That will not only lose them the election, but is in$ane!
Their lockdowns have destroyed the tax base and now they want to take the rest of what you have left, in what sure looks like COMMUNI$M!
This crap is getting old, readers, as the New York Times says Trump is casting himself as the defender of White America while they call him a Nazi and used-car salesman.
All I can say is good luck at the polls, Mr. President:
"A major area of concern is finding younger people who are able to replace older ones most susceptible to the ravages of Covid-19 at a time when 58 percent of the nation's poll workers are 61 or older....."
It is of definite concern if you are Trump or a Republican:
"The NBA and NFL are making arenas and stadiums available for voting sites. Some teams are even paying workers to staff early-voting locations, and a newly formed group called Power the Polls -- whose backers include Microsoft, Patagonia and MTV -- is recruiting a new generation of poll workers: younger, less vulnerable to Covid-19 and more technically adept than those who have long operated democracy's basic machinery. Employees, customers, students, off-duty National Guard members and even entire professions are being corralled to staff polling places and keep them from closing. Nationally, LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, last week launched a multimillion-dollar outreach effort to recruit poll workers. Power the Polls started in June and has a $2 million social-media budget. It's been pitched by Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show” as well as online, at rallies, on campuses and by volunteer organizations. It's backed by a long list of businesses that are both funding the outreach and leveraging their own employees as poll workers. The list includes ViacomCBS Inc., Patagonia Inc., Starbucks Corp., Lyft Inc., Uber, Warby Parker Retail Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Microsoft Corp., Zillow Group Inc. and Old Navy Inc. Some are giving employees paid time off to work the polls on Nov. 3, in addition to whatever local election agencies pay....."
$crew $ports, and didn't someone once say “those who vote decide nothing, those who count the vote decide everything?”
Expect howls of protest if the correct candidate isn't awarded the office, because your health is of no concern to them.
