I was not aware of this ad. The PAC that is running it is a separate entity from Democratic Majority for Israel, and I have no association with the PAC. Still, to avoid confusion, I will be taking a leave of absence from the DMFI board until the primary season is over. 1/2 [_link]

— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) January 29, 2020

More to follow on DemMaj4Israel -- Democratic Majority for Israel

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For a Democratic SuperPAC to attack ⁦@BernieSanders⁩ health is beyond the pale of decency. Imagine the outrage if a Dem group had run attack ads about FDR's polio. Every Presidential candidate must denounce this & call for the ad to be taken down. [_link]

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) January 29, 2020

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Speed Round:

Co-Chair Ann Lewis [_link]

-Comms Dir. for Pres. Clinton
-Sr. Advisor to Hillary Clinton campaigns
-Co-Chair of Jewish Women for Hillary in 2016
-DNC political director pic.twitter.com/UVAwg2t7as

— Alex Kotch (@alexkotch) January 28, 2020

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The younger generation should revolt to the millions used by the conservative establishment, Wall Street and AIPAC to promote a Neocon foreign policy of perpetual war in the Middle East. The Jewish Voice of Bernie Sanders should ring loud and clear as he is a hero to Main Street USA, decent living wage, universal healthcare, equal opportunity in education for minorities in America.

○ Founding of Israel, Socialism and Kibbutzim
○ Bernie's Socialism and Kibbutz Experience of '63

Pro-Israel Clinton Democrats Unsheath Knives Against Bernie | Tikun Olam |

The so-called Democratic Majority for Israel, an unacknowledged co-conspirator of Aipac, has unsheathed the knives on Bernie Sanders [NY Times] now that he is the front-runner in both the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. Formed a year ago, to minor fanfare and a mandatory profile in the NY Times, the group appears to be the Democratic arm of Aipac, whose mission is to enforce Party discipline on straying presidential candidates. Given how closely all of them hew to the pro-Israel party line, this has in effect meant taking Sanders to the woodshed for abandoning so-called Party consensus and calling for a reduction in U.S. Aid to Israel, and accepting endorsements from the bêtes noire of the Democratic establishment: Rashid Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour, among others.

DMFI PAC, the supposed independent arm of the NGO, has raised $700,000 for a single battery of anti-Sanders ads (see video above) in Iowa. It has never revealed its donors.  The Federal Election Commission has no records of the PAC's receipts or expenditures.  I have sent the group's media contact questions and have not heard any response.  I will update if there is.  While there is a large array of possible donors among the Wall Street elite, I'd hazard a guess that Haim Saban is one of the main donors to this effort.  He is the Democratic equivalent to Sheldon Adelson.  Just as rich, just as pro-Israel.

DMFI is a 501c4 organization, whose purpose is supposed to entail promoting "social welfare."  Here is the IRS definition:

The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. However, a section 501(c)(4) social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity.

Horsey: President Sanders? Bernie would have beaten Trump  

Both Israeli far-right governments and Aipac itself have strayed far from their former bipartisan approach to U. S. Middle East policy. Most Jewish Democrats want little or nothing to do with the near-fascist government ruling Israel. As a result, Aipac has had great difficulty selling its brand to this constituency. Therefore, it created an `independent entity' which appropriated the mantle of the Democratic Party in its name order to continue having an impact inside the Party.

No one should be fooled by this trick. DMFI is Aipac in sheep's clothing. It advances Aipac's agenda. It might just as well have its headquarters in Likud Central in Tel Aviv.  In fact, Mark Mellman is [was] the major political consultant for Benny Gantz's Blue and White Party.

Mellman as well was the founder of United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI).  Not only was this group opposed to Obama administration policy on Iran, which negotiated the JCPOA nuclear agreement, it also served as a conduit between Israel and U.S. intelligence agencies.  It was the Democratic advocate for regime change.

○ Coalition of the Willing Against Iran: DOJ, Ungar, UANI and Mossad
○ Obama Turncoats: CNN Facilitates UANI Advocate Pro-Israel

Gantz Hires Hillary Clinton Aide Who Said She Shouldn't Publicly 'Call Out Israel' | Haaretz |

Benenson is the founder and CEO of the Benenson Strategy Group. His website boasts that he is "the only Democratic pollster in history to have played a leading role in three winning presidential campaigns" -- the two Obama campaigns and President Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection effort. The site features a long list of major corporations, NGOs and U.S. politicians as clients, but no previous foreign leaders.

Benenson will be replacing Mark Mellman, who announced his resignation in June. Mellman, a longtime strategic adviser to Yair Lapid, headed Kahol Lavan's campaign in the April election when the party won 35 seats -- the same number as the ruling Likud party.

Related reading ...

○ Netanyahu Confirms Holocaust As Political Tool of Zionism

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Dutch reporter was in Cresco, NE Iowa for a series of interviews ...

Rural people voted BIG for Obama in 2012, many were lifelong Democrats, didn't vote HRC, rather in 2016 Trump was a clear winner. Main points in interview: economics, business background, anti-establishment and the promise to get US Forces out of the Middle East Wars.

Won't be difficult to predict the WINNER in the Democratic Primary next week.

Some stunning results from the Presidential Election of 2016:

The One County In America That Voted In A Landslide For Both Trump And Obama | FiveThirtyEight |

In a nation increasingly composed of landslide counties -- places that voted for one side or the other by at least 20 percentage points -- Howard County, Iowa (population 9,332), stands out as the only one of America's 3,141 counties that voted by more than 20 percentage points for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. Democrats can't credibly blame Howard County's enormous 41-point swing in just four years on a last-minute letter to Congress, voter ID laws or Russia-sponsored Facebook ads.

Howard County, about 150 miles northeast of Des Moines along the state's border with Minnesota, is 98 percent white. Only 13 percent of residents age 25 and over hold at least a bachelor's degree. Median household income in the county in 2015 was $49,869. The largest employers in Cresco, the county seat, include the Donaldson Company, an air filter manufacturer whose local workers belong to the United Auto Workers union, and Featherlite, which makes aluminum livestock and utility trailers.  

What This Tiny Iowa County That Swung for Trump in 2016 Tells Us About 2020

In 2016, Democratic Chair Laura Hubka saw her county changing. While campaigning for Hillary Clinton, she noticed that the unions who normally sent people to phonebank and knock on doors were absent. Her neighbors stopped referring to themselves as Democrats, and some wouldn't answer her calls.

Then she read that the local Republican party was showing a conspiracy-laden documentary in town right before the election. Hubka says she knew that Howard County would go for Donald Trump, but didn't predict how far it would swing.

This county of less than 10,000 was the single largest pivot county in the country. It flipped 41 percentage points from supporting President Barack Obama in 2012 to backing Trump in the 2016 election.

And Howard County is one of about two dozen counties in Iowa -- and scores more around the country -- that swung from Obama to Trump. Why and how this happened is basically the central question of the Democratic primary. Naturally, we had to investigate.

So we went to Howard County for Episode 7 of our new VICE News podcast, "Uncommitted: Iowa 2020," which drops Tuesdays on Spotify, hosted by Emmy award-winning correspondent Antonia Hylton.

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The impact of these ads on the Iowa caucus will be minimal.  Young people don't give a shit about Israel and the Evangelical whackjobs who do care will be at a Republican caucus.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Trump: "Democrats stand for crime, corruption and chaos. Republicans stand for law, order and justice."

— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) January 31, 2020

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This November, we are going to defeat the Radical Socialist Democrats and win the Great State of Iowa in a Historic Landslide! #KAG2020 pic.twitter.com/jYIbSdyGjU

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2020

h/t Raw Story

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The Des Moines Register, CNN and Selzer & Co. have made the decision to not release the final installment of the CNN/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll as planned this evening. A note from our editor: [_link]

— Des Moines Register (@DMRegister) February 2, 2020

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Who Is Martin O'Malley?

'How do you fall for the Bernie Sanders scam?' Martin O'Malley on the Democrats and Iowa [_link]

— The Guardian (@guardian) February 2, 2020

When O'Malley was in the 2016 race ..,

Martin O'Malley accuses DNC of rigging' primary process in favor of Hillary Clinton | The Guardian - Aug. 2015 |

He proved to be correct as we witnessed shortly before the Democratic Convention en counting the votes. Bernie Sanders was sidelined by the DNC. So O'Malley decided to run for DNC leadership ...

O'Malley withdraws from race to lead DNC | NBC News - Nov. 2016 |

Bernie Sanders still has support from John Cusack ...

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Why Democrats share the blame for the rise of Donald Trump | Robert Reich [_link]

— The Guardian (@guardian) February 2, 2020

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This email AIPAC just sent to Senate offices contains outright falsehoods about the "Combating BDS Act." pic.twitter.com/LOcdferyD9

— J Street (@jstreetdotorg) January 10, 2019

Anti-BDS are a constitutional and PR mess | Jewish Weekly - Jan. 2019 |

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