Wikileaks Proves Primary Was Rigged: DNC Undermined Democracy
20,000 freshly leaked emails reveal resentful disdain toward Sanders, as party favored Clinton long before any votes were cast.


On July 25, the Democratic National Convention will begin in Philadelphia, Pa. To commemorate the event and its embrace of corrupt politician Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, Wikileaks is releasing thousands of DNC/Clinton emails.

Are you ready for Hillary? We begin our series today with 20 thousand emails from the top of the DNC. #Hillary2016 pic.twitter.com/YZbGhjTy2h

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 22, 2016

In its recent leak of 20,000 DNC emails from January 2015 to May 2016, DNC staff discuss how to deal with Bernie Sanders’ popularity as a challenge to Clinton’s candidacy. Instead of treating Sanders as a viable candidate for the Democratic ticket, the DNC worked against him and his campaign to ensure Clinton received the nomination.
One email from DNC Deputy Communications Director Eric Walker to several DNC staffers cites two news articles showing Sanders leading in Rhode Island and the limited number of polling locations in the state: “If she outperforms this polling, the Bernie camp will go nuts and allege misconduct. They’ll probably complain regardless, actually.”
Instead of treating Sanders with impartiality, the DNC exhibits resentful disdain toward him and the thousands of disenfranchised voters he could have brought into the party.
“Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess,” wrote DNC Deputy Communications Director Mark Paustenbach to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda, in response to backlash over DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz shutting off the Sanders campaign’s access to voter database files.
Another chain reveals MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and DNC staff members discussing how to discredit MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski’s call for Wasserman Schultz to resign.
Most of the emails released come from seven prominent DNC staff members: senior adviser Andrew Wright, national finance director Jordon Kaplan, finance chief of staff Scott Comer, Northern California finance director Robert Stowe, finance director of data and strategic initiatives Daniel Parrish, finance director Allen Zachary and Miranda.
The release provides further evidence the DNC broke its own charter violations by favoring Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee, long before any votes were cast.

Wikileaks Proves Primary Was Rigged: DNC Undermined Democracy

10 ways the Democratic primary has been rigged from the start | Alternet

It’s not over. Far from it. The economic and political establishment, which includes the Democratic National Committee, its Wall Street and corporate backers and the major media—most of it now owned by a half dozen big corporations—have worked feverishly to turn the Democratic primary process into a coronation for Hillary Clinton.
Bottom line: they wanted to declare it over before actual voters could vote, but their carefully crafted strategy began to #FeelTheBern.
Here are 10 ways the establishment has sought to orchestrate the results, and why the race has a long ways to go.
1. Major Media Blackout
When Sanders began his campaign, as he often recounts, he had virtually no national name recognition and trailed Clinton by 60 to 70 points in national polls. The major media barely breathed his name, even when he began drawing crowds of 20,000 or more to summer rallies. This was partly the result of the obsession with Trump, but also because the conglomerates controlling the media hardly wanted to promote such a fierce critic of Wall Street and the 1 percent.
In December, the nightly news networks had allotted Trump 23 times more coverage than Sanders; on ABC alone 81 minutes to Trump for the year, compared to only 20 seconds for Sanders. While Sanders was holding extensive campaign events and press availabilities for months, Clinton was mostly avoiding public events and media avails, with the media largely ignoring its rebuff. (Even today, Clinton often passes on press conferences.)
2. They’re Debating When?
Ironically, unlike the Republican National Committee, the DNC manipulated its debate schedule to have the fewest number of debates at the worst times, intended to minimize voter viewing, including setting them on holiday weekends and the Saturday night before Christmas.
The goal was to restrict voter exposure and side-by-side comparison with other candidates who offered a significant alternative to Clinton, which served to keep name recognition off Sanders and his prescription for change artificially low. Additional debates were only added much later after widespread condemnation of the DNC.
3. Sanders Booms, Media Works to Marginalize
As the votes began coming in for Bernie, especially with his big win in New Hampshire, Clinton surrogates were given extra time as TV analysts to downplay the results, and the media narrative shifted.
The media paradigm typically is crafted inside the Washington Beltway and New York boardrooms, with other reporters compelled by their own editors or self-censorship to follow along, a practice also known as pack journalism.
A parade of big-name liberal columnists, editorial writers and TV analysts vilified Sanders’ visionary program, especially Medicare-for-all and free college tuition, while promoting Clinton’s “pragmatic” (lower your expectations) message that minimized the ongoing crisis felt by the millions left behind without health care, unemployed or stuck in low-paying jobs, facing mountains of student debt and all the other pervasive disparities Sanders described.
The next storyline depicted Sanders as a narrow candidate because the majority of his support came from students, working-class white voters, independents, and low- to moderate-income voters, largely ignoring that Clinton’s own base failed to include any of those groups who would be critical to winning a general election in November. Or that Clinton continues to fail to move support among those constituencies.
4. Vote Rigging
After Sanders’ sweeping win in New Hampshire, the DNC went into hyper drive to break his momentum, starting in the next voting state Nevada.
Concerned Sanders would win Nevada, Sen. Harry Reid, the former Senate Majority Leader and most powerful elected official in Nevada, as it later emerged, arranged a plan with owners of Las Vegas casinos, where many caucuses were being held, and other employers, to ensure Clinton would win. The Nevada caucuses were then rigged with massive voting irregularities such as casino owners orchestrating which workers would be allowed to vote and, in clear intimidation, openly monitoring how they voted.
Vote tampering also occurred in other states, most recently in Arizona where on election day, polling locations were sharply cut forcing many voters to stand in line for up to five hours in the heat, with some leaving before casting a vote.
Voter suppression laws, rampant now across the country, disproportionately disenfranchise students and young voters, a group that has voted for Sanders by margins of up to 80 percent. The laws, passed by right-wing legislatures and governors, also target African Americans and Latinos, which will ultimately harm any Democratic nominee in November.
5. The Sexism Canard
Desperate for attack lines against Sanders, the Clinton camp and her adherents have tried to paint him as a sexist, employing the same tactic of exaggerated small slights they used against Barack Obama in 2008 (remember “you’re likeable enough”). Add in the clumsy effort of Clinton surrogates Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright to criticize young women who vote for Sanders.
Memo to Clinton and company: Bernie Sanders is not Donald Trump. He has a near perfect voting record on such issues as women’s reproductive rights and pay equity, and most of his proposals, especially Medicare-for-all, free college tuition, and expanding Social Security would disproportionately help women.
As the 90 percent female organization of nurses NNU has stated, we would love to break the glass ceiling, but this election is unprecedented in its opportunity to shatter the class ceiling.
6. Undemocratic Primaries
Sanders has won the overwhelming majority of independent voters in “open” primaries or caucuses that allow them to vote.
Many Clinton surrogates have fulminated that any independent voters are allowed to participate in the Democratic Party nominating process. As if only the two major parties should be allowed to decide who can run for office while a record 43 percent of U.S. voters are now independents in a corrupted system. Winning the independents’ votes is decisive in general elections, suggesting they should have a voice in determining who are the strongest candidates.