On June 6, AP and NBC made the call that Hillary Clinton was the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party. This profoundly undemocratic move bypassed the pending primary elections in six states, and is a message to voters: “You don’t matter. We (the corporate media, and corporate lobbyists) are in charge of your elections.”

Why call the election before the voters vote? So they won’t vote, of course.

In my opinion, AP, the NBC networks, and CNN made this call in order to suppress voter turnout, particularly in California.

This would not hurt Clinton much; as the Hillarions never tire of reminding us, HRC has a lock on the nomination due to the undying allegiance of the superdelegates. She could lose every state and still win the nomination.

Suppressing voter turnout or ballot turn-in did hurt Sanders. There were hoops for his supporters to jump through in California; they had to request a Democratic ballot. We've seen in Colorado that it's easy to monkey wrench things by having a ballot shortage and requiring people to vote provisional ballots, which are counted late, if ever.

That will be the case in California; hundreds of thousands of provisional ballots were given to NPP voters by badly informed election workers. These will only be counted, probably if a lawsuit forces them to be counted.

It's worth doing. The stronger Bernie is in California, the stronger he'll be going into the convention, even if HRC is the nominee.

I speculate that the polls were showing that Sanders had a strong chance of winning California, (within 2 points or margin of error) and that's why AP made the call it did - to suppress voter turnout today.

Why do we want Bernie (and Bernistas) strong going into the convention?

We want to demand real structural changes in superdelegates, party rules, limiting the influence of lobbyists in the DNC, as reflected in the makeup of the DNC platform committee.

Sanders supporters want the DNC to

• make the platform more progressive, even though the platform is never adhered to past the election year
• limit the influence of lobbyists within the DNC
• limit the influence of corporations and corporate donations to Democratic candidates
• reform the rules so that superdelegates, if they exist at all, are bound by the expressed will of their states’ voters
• reform rules so that there is consistency among states — we’ll give up caucuses if there are open primaries everywhere, for example, and that voter-friendly policies such as same-day registration and automatic voter registration are implemented.

What does this have to do with your cable bill?

The election was called for Hillary by NBC and CNN affiliates, after Associated Press made the initial announcement.

Comcast, the parent company of NBC, is definitely in Hillary's corner; the CEO, David Cohen, has had $2700 plate fundraisers for her, as well as bundled other contributions, and Comcast lobbyists are among the telecom services who have contributed $414,000 her Presidential campaign, as well as lobbied her as a Senator. Comcast does not want policies such as net neutrality, strict FCC oversight of the industry, antitrust laws limiting its mergers, or the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CPFB) to limit its profits, and these are the policies it lobbies against. Consider that the next time you fume about your cable bill.

Comcast isn’t even the largest of HRC’s corporate contributors — the oil and gas industries are. (332 million, according to OpenSecrets). This is why, as Secretary of State, she promoted fracking in Europe.

Hillary Clinton, if she wins the Presidential election, is no friend to consumers, but she is a friend to your cable company. And she will undoubtedly remember who proclaimed her early victory, even before the first voter voted on June 7. So don’t look for any improvement on your cable bill, or for the CPFB to be able to resolve your complaints in a timely manner.

With Comcast's CEO and lobbyists clearly backing HRC, and the Associated Press consistently making errors that somehow all are in her favor, it's natural to speculate that this is a "Pay for Play" deal.

Net neutrality, strict FCC oversight of the industry, antitrust laws limiting mergers, or the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CPFB) protecting its consumers are all policies which HRC would be more inclined to see Comcast's way, given the huge donations, the early victory call for HRC, and that virtually all of the talking heads including those on "liberal" MSNBC are promoting the inevitability of Hillary and incessantly calling for Bernie to drop out.

Associated Press premature call for HRC victory

Associated Press (AP), which first made the premature call that HRC had "won", had made "mistakes" in reporting which benefited the HRC campaign in the past, notably in Colorado, where they misreported the delegate totals +8 in her favor for two days. AP still has incorrect Colorado delegate totals on its website. AP reports 77 total Colorado delegates, Clinton 36 to Sanders 41. The correct total, as reported by the Post, is a total of 66 Colorado delegates, of which Sanders got 38 and Clinton got 28. And even that is wrong, as the Democratic Party of Colorado finally admitted that they had withheld a Sanders delegate, so that Sanders actually got 39 and Hillary 27.

I've looked into AP's corporate structure, and haven't found Clinton donors, although there are certainly cozy relationships with Clinton donors, bundlers, and lobbyists. So regardless of whether this is nefarious or just incompetence on AP's part, they got it wrong, consistently got it wrong to Hillary's benefit, and still are getting it wrong. AP is not a reliable news organization.

We are set to elect the first woman, yes, and that is a symbolic victory, but only symbolic. The woman we are electing will make no significant changes to politics as usual in this country - corporations and the 1% will still make most important decisions without voter input. This latest call by the corporate media is a slap in the face for voters; it reminds us that we are really unnecessary - that they are the ones in charge.

I still hold out hope that when all votes are counted, Bernie will have a strong showing in California. Probably, Hillary will still win the nomination. .....you'll forgive me if I don't celebrate.

Sources:

Associated Press:
http://bigstory.ap.org/779b7012af24446289623a968926ec04
https://theintercept.com/2016/06/07/perfect-end-to-democratic-primary-an...
Misreporting Colorado delegates: https://interactives.ap.org/2016/delegate-tracker/
AP website still has incorrect delegate counts: https://interactives.ap.org/2016/delegate-tracker/
AP's corporate structure: http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/lee-upbeat-about-publishing-future...
AP CEO friendly w HRC bundler Buffet http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/16/warren-buffett-en...

Comcast
Comcast CEO Cohen $2700 HRC fundraiser: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Top-Comcast-Lobbyist-Hosting-Hillary-...
Cohen as bundler: http://variety.com/2015/biz/news/hillary-clinton-hollywood-barbra-streis...
Cohen, other Comcast lobbyists: https://theintercept.com/2015/10/29/media-fundraisers-presidential/
Other telecom HRC $414,000 donations: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=B09&recipdetail=A&...
No CPFB for Comcast: https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2016/04/26/dark-money-group-spends-5...
Cable costs keep rising: http://www.cutcabletoday.com/cable-tv-prices-vs-inflation/
Comcast customer complaints: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/09/comcast-customers-filed-2226-com...

HRC oil & gas contributions
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.php?ind=E01++
HRC promoted European fracking: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-...

DNC influence of lobbyists: http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/269266-dnc-ro...
DNC platform committee all lobbyists, no labor http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/2/1533693/-Democratic-Convention-Ch...

I'm not used to putting my sources at the end rather than in-text links. It makes me see how fricking meticulous and compulsive I really am
If this site ever upgrades enough for in-text links, I'll be eternally grateful. mj