Courtesy of Pam Martens
Tweet Posted at Associated Press Twitter Page
Hillary Clinton was not having a very good morning yesterday. The New York Post had devoted its full front cover to suggesting that Clinton has a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality disorder, based on an explosive new book by a former Secret Service agent who was stationed directly outside former President Bill Clinton’s Oval Office and is alleging outbursts and physical violence by the former First Lady. The book has shot to number one on the nonfiction bestseller list at Amazon.com, meaning more headwinds for the Clinton campaign. On top of that, news was swirling that Senator Bernie Sanders had a good shot of trouncing Clinton in the following day’s critical primary in California, where a massive 475 pledged delegates are at stake. (Five other states are also set to vote today in primaries: New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and New Mexico.)
And then a funny thing happened. At 8:20 p.m. last evening, the Associated Press, which syndicates its news feed to newspapers around the country, ran a story with this headline: “Clinton has delegates to win Democratic nomination.” That quickly morphed into bizarre headline pronouncements that Clinton had actually “won” the Democratic Presidential nomination. Bloomberg News’ went with the craziest headline of the lot, writing: “Clinton Wins Democratic Presidential Nomination.” Most Americans reading that would assume the Democratic Convention had just been held, votes taken, and Clinton had walked away as the winner. The actual votes won’t be taken until July 25-28 when the Democratic National Convention takes place in Philadelphia.
The Associated Press came up with its faux bombshell news story by dumping superdelegates into Hillary Clinton’s tally of pledged delegates that were won in primaries and caucuses, to declare her the “presumptive” nominee of her party. Under the stated rules of the Democratic National Committee, the votes of the superdelegates, which are made up of Democratic Party bigwigs and politicians, should not be counted in a candidate’s tally by the media until the superdelegates actually vote at the national convention. Luis Miranda, the Communications Director at the Democratic National Committee, spelled that out in no uncertain terms to CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this year. (See video clip below.) Miranda crisply explains to Tapper the reason the superdelegate votes should not be included in advance of the Convention is because “they are likely to change their minds.”
Since superdelegates are allowed to change their minds under normal circumstances, when you have an election where one of the candidates is under an active FBI investigation, as Clinton is, for transmitting classified government material over an unsecured private server in her home while Secretary of State, corporate media has an ethical responsibility to allow people to proceed to the polls and vote their conscience without a tricked up coronation. This was a serious black eye to corporate media in the United States and it provoked outrage across social media and alternative news sites.
The popular alternative media web site, Common Dreams, ran a screenshot of the NBC headline, superimposed with “Shame on You AP!” Staff writer, Jon Queally, said “The move by AP, which critics slammed as a blatant and despicable attempt to undermine the electoral process by suppressing voter turnout, came on the eve of six primaries on Tuesday, including the crucial state of California. The Sanders campaign responded by saying the reporting was not only poorly timed, but wholly inaccurate.”
…
