Mayor Rainbow and the Pot of Gold

On February 4th Max Blumenthal reported on the neoconservative billionaires funding Shadow Inc and its suspect voting app:

This firm was staffed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaign veterans and created by a Democratic dark money nonprofit backed by hedge-fund billionaires including Seth Klarman. A prolific funder of pro-settler Israel lobby organizations, Klarman has also contributed directly to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign.

The delay in the vote reporting denied a victory speech to Senator Bernie Sanders, the presumptive winner of the opening contest in the Democratic presidential primary. Though not one exit poll indicated that Buttigieg would have won, the South Bend, Indiana mayor took to Twitter to confidently proclaim himself the victor.

He reminds us of a New York Times article from January 31:

[Iowa]’s role as the first in the nation to vote may be much debated inside the Democratic Party, but its system of caucuses is a blessing for security. The caucuses are far more transparent than typical elections, with groups of people gathering in rooms and openly choosing candidates. Any attempt to fiddle with results after the fact — a serious concern among officials and experts who are working to secure the 2020 election — would most likely be spotted by caucusgoers who know the outcome of an event in which they took part. And, of course, there are not voting machines to hack...

So naturally you'd want to take the process online! 

Additionally, while the caucuses have relied on mobile apps to record and tabulate results in the past, the Iowa Democratic Party is using a new app this year that has been included in tests and exercises of the reporting system by cybersecurity consultants. Described as a “fancy calculator,” the app will help precinct chairs tabulate results during each phase of the caucus, and then send results to the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters. (For those chairs who don’t feel comfortable with an app, the traditional phone hotline will still be operating.)

And, just as obviously, you'd want to entrust that process to someone from a political camp known for its integrity:

In November, Iowa’s Democratic and Republican Parties teamed up with the Defending Digital Democracy Project at Harvard to run a drill of worst-case scenarios. The event, led by Robby Mook, the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Eric Rosenbach, a former chief of staff at the Pentagon, featured a fire drill of sorts, designed by future Defense Department officers.

Mook is denying his ties to Shadow Inc, naturally, but it all looks like someone is manipulating residual Russian hacking hysteria to...hack elections. Returning to hedge fund billionaire and pro-settler neocon Seth Klaman, I find more relevant the longtime commitment of this Republican donor to open borders and pro-LGBTQ issues.

When the Rhode Island State Senate tallied up the votes against a same-sex marriage bill passed there on Wednesday, something was missing: Republicans.

All five of the chamber’s Republican lawmakers had voted for the bill, stunning opponents and sending the measure to the governor’s desk and almost-certain victory next week.

The vote reflected not only the rapidly shifting tides of public opinion on same-sex marriage, but also the influence of a new Republican advocacy group called the American Unity Fund, which spent weeks helping the state’s gay rights organization cultivate Republican senators.

Now the group is preparing a major push in Washington and in state capitals intended to reshape the Republican Party, by building support for same-sex marriage and bolstering its acceptance among candidates and party activists around the country. 

Klaman and others are committed to buying Republican lawmakers away from popular will--something little noted, so the illusion the popular will is behind the advance of LGBTQ privilege is retained in the trappings of democracy, as elected representatives enact the will of the elite in defiance of the people.