David Sirota's Attempt To Smear Beto O'Rourke Goes Horribly Wrong

[RandySF]

In a series of tweets, Sirota implied that O'Rourke was the second-biggest recipient of oil and gas industry donations during the 2018 election cycle.

However, Sirota's claims simply don't add up when subjected to the most basic levels of scrutiny. During his campaign, O'Rourke pledged not to take any money from PACs, and for the most part, he stayed true to his word, eschewing big corporate donors like the ones he was accused of accepting. O'Rourke's commitment to taking small donations from his supporters made him the best-funded Senate candidate in 2018. According to independent, Texas-based journalist Leah McElrath, the numbers Sirota cites come from individual donors - not corporations.

Since the majority of O'Rourke's donations came from Texas residents, it's only natural that people who worked within the oil and gas industries would have given to his campaign. And while he was the number one recipient of funds from oil and gas employees, he was also number one across many other fields as well.


https://thedailybanter.com/2018/12/04/david-sirota-unfairly-smears-beto/

[dalton99a]

1. Nice try, asshole

[SunSeeker]

2. This is the same smear pulled on Hillary.

They claimed she got donations from "Wall Street" and "Big Banks," when it was from individuals who worked at banks or investment houses.

[dalton99a]

3. Yep.

[pnwmom]

6. Exactly. And many anti-Hillary progressives fell for that line, too. n/t

[SunSeeker]

7. Yep. nt

[GWC58]

51. Yeah, the anti Hillary folks fell for it because

they wanted something, anything, to justify their smug anti Hillary stance! 😡

[Eliot Rosewater]

56. Yep, and if Hillary doesnt run again, and she should, it will be used against whoever does

as a D party rep.

[Cha]

8. They need to get some new material..

that shite isn't going to fly in 2020..

Link to tweet

[mcar]

36. Ha! My favorite WKRP episode

It never gets old.

[betsuni]

11. I'm happy this bullshit is finally being called out by so many people that they can't get away

with it. Won't work anymore.

[uponit7771]

26. +1

[George II]

41. Yes, bank tellers, bookkeepers, housekeeping, security guards, maintenance, etc....

ALL work for "big banks"! Then we heard that they were coerced into contributing by management.

And now we're hearing it about Beto and of course, Booker and any other viable contender except.............

It just never ends.

[ehrnst]

54. .....

And look where that got us.

[Eliot Rosewater]

57. I will bet that soon we will see comments like this about ANY and ALL

mainstream Dems like Kamala, Beto, etc.

I guarantee it.

I also guarantee someone who ran before will run again NO MATTER WHAT.

[Tavarious Jackson]

4. The lies and smears are starting early this election

Maybe we should pick our candidate and start the smearing of others. Lol

[Cha]

9. Some just smear themselves

by smearing Awesome Dems.

[uponit7771]

27. +1, this is the second one *THIS MORNING* I'm reading about Beto. Think the insiders are sKeered

[Awsi Dooger]

5. Nothing sticks to Beto

Although there will be thousands more attempts should he enter the race

[SweetieD]

10. I already see the Bernie bros in full attack mode against Beto on twitter.

[SunSeeker]

12. Putin is loving that.

[Cha]

14. Yeah, I see them, too.. So does Charles Pierce..

Link to tweet

[Cha]

13. Beto O'Rourke seen as a top contender in 2020: poll

Beto's not even running yet..

Beto O'Rourke seen as a top contender in 2020: poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden is the most popular Democrat in the potential 2020 primary, with 28 percent of Democratic and independent voters saying they’d most likely vote for him, according to the poll released on Monday.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/419455-beto-orourke-seen-as-top-contender-in-2020-race-for-white-house-poll

Either one of them would be exponentially better than BS.

[Cha]

15. This is hilarious. Was there some kind of #GetBeto memo this week?

Link to tweet

[musicblind]

16. Yeah, they're gonna have to try a lot harder than that. n/t

[kcr]

17. Wish they'd defended Hillary like this from these same dillholes

She'd be president.

[Hortensis]

22. "Latest dirt on Hillary Clinton deepens controversy?"

[Eliot Rosewater]

58. Great observation. Maybe we learned or maybe the RELENTLESS 30 year propaganda

campaign, all lies, about Hillary was just too much to overcome.

They have only had 1 year or 2 at the most to LIE about Beto.

[KayF]

18. I'm a Beto supporter and have no problem with this

it's not a smear. This doesn't make me not support Beto anymore. I know enough about him to support him, but I don't know everything about him and I'm not afraid of any reporting on him.

Open Secrets is an excellent resource, and they list contributions from employees for a reason, because those contributions represent influence.

Read Sirota's response tweets, just click on the tweet in the Daily Banter story. His responses are on point. He includes this anti-Obama ad, which criticizes him for accepting money from employees of oil companies.

[melman]

19. Yeah

That's an interesting ad. Can't wait to hear the reasons why that's okay and totally different.

[kcr]

20. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But Open Secrets doesn't confuse corporate with employee.

Working Americans are entitled to support the candidate of their choice regardless of who they choose to work for. Lumping them in with corporate is misleading. And unless the person doing the criticizing only endorses small-time candidates no one has ever heard of running their campaign out of a basement, criticizing candidates for taking money from employees is basically admitting they're a loudmouthed hypocrite. There is no serious candidate that runs campaigns without taking donations of any kind.

[KayF]

21. OpenSecrets does report the numbers together

and they make their metodology clear. The part I have in bold, they have in red, with italics:

METHODOLOGY: The numbers on this page are based on contributions from donors (individuals as well as corporations and unions that give directly from their treasuries) to outside groups and from PACs (including super PACs) and individuals giving more than $200 to candidates and party committees. In many cases, the organizations themselves did not donate; rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Of course you have the right to support Beto. Knowing more about him doesn't mean you can't support him anymore.

[kcr]

23. Who cares if they report the numbers together? They're still two separate things.

Reporting them together doesn't make them the same.

[Cha]

24. Tweet.. I am not on the Beto bandwagon (I like Sherrod Brown followed by Harris) but

Link to tweet

It's turning a lot of people off with the result of giving Beto another look.

I wonder how Beto likes BS and his acolytes now? They're scared.. why else would they try to tear down the Democrat who ran an Awesome campaign in Texas and almost beat ted Freaking cruz?

[uponit7771]

29. +1, I've already read two attempts by Putin Ho's (aka Bernie Bros) to smear Beto

[Hermit-The-Prog]

46. "Beto likes BS"?

Waitaminit. I thought Beto ran for the Senate because he was tired of all the BS. Of course, if he's a gardener or farmer, I can understand, although HS is better if you're growing watermelons.

[Cha]

48. Right, Beto does Not like BullShit.. me, neither.

Betting he doesn't like this desperation from BS' fans, either..

Link to tweet

[Hermit-The-Prog]

50. puppets and 3rd parties

That stuff looks very familiar. Are these still the seeds planted by Putin's puppets? It's the same effect -- divide the vote -- whether by gullible puppets or 3rd parties. I suppose these could be Sarandon's puppets.

"We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

The GOP depends on a divided or discouraged Democratic party. Any candidate who encourages either is not a friend.

[NewJeffCT]

25. They did the same thing with Cory Booker as well

With the pharmaceutical industry.

Yes, Booker took some PAC money when he ran for senate the first time (11% of his donations) - but the PAC money was from the Legal industry and the Entertainment industry primarily, which are two reliably Democratic industries.

That means the pharma money was from individual donors who checked the box for pharma when donating to Booker. Between the tri-state area and eastern Pennsylvania, there are somewhere around 500,000 people employed in the pharmaceutical industry.

[Cha]

31. Thanks for clearing that up, Jeff. I know

they were tearing down Booker with the pharm association. Good to know it was the individuals' donations.

[NewJeffCT]

32. Mysteriously

the article about Booker and his pharma money came out right after Booker got rave reviews for his passionate plea to not vote for Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

[George II]

42. People who dig up those "opensecrets.org" pages to bash viable contenders conveniently neglect...

...to read the explanatory note linked at the bottom of the page:

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/include/contribmethod_pop.php

And when they see a convincing explanation presented, they fall back on the refrain "there was pressure put on the employees by upper management" or even "management contributed in their name" which is a FEDERAL CRIME!

As you point out, New Jersey and the tri-state area are the center of the pharmaceutical industry where hundreds of thousands of plain old average people work - clerical, maintenance, production line, etc.

We'll be hearing the same about Kirsten Gillibrand with respect to "big banks", no matter that the people she receives contributions from are average citizens.

My parents had six children - of the eight of us altogether five of us worked for banks at one time or another. Not a single one was in upper management. The highest level any of us reached was my father who managed a Data Processing (now IT) department.

So, five of us were in the "big bank" industry!!!

[Docreed2003]

30. And we're already seeing the term "corporatist Dem" being slung by some folks here

[NewJeffCT]

33. for O'Rourke?

the guy who swore off PAC money and set records for senate fundraising?

[Docreed2003]

34. Yes....I'll just leave it at that

It was in a post related to another individual who "may or may" be running in 2020

[NewJeffCT]

35. The person that took money from the NRA

a terrorist organization?

[Docreed2003]

37. Bingo

[boston bean]

38. Old script. They pulled this shit with Hillary too.

[Gothmog]

39. From the Hoarse Whistperer

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Yosemito]

40. Sirota saw the latest Harvard poll

Where Beto is now on third place. Sirota feels Bernie's chances are diminishing and it's only 2018.

[Garrett78]

49. Bernie's chances were already zero.

[Gothmog]

43. The latest attack by a supporter of Senator Sanders on Beto

Link to tweet

[xor]

44. The stretching and illogical conclusions meant to purposely distort the truth really annoy me.

I don't care who the target is or who is doing it, but this stuff really pisses me off. I'm reading his tweets as he tries to justify his shady tactics and it's making me want to scream. It's even more frustrating that people are agreeing/liking his pathetic attempts to rationalize his obvious disingenuous "reporting"

[Gothmog]

45. Here are some additional attacks on Beto by sanders supporters

Link to tweet

[Cha]

47. I'll take Beto over

BS every time.

[Late Knight]

52. Ain't it a shame...

when Lee Atwater-type gutter politics doesn't work?

[still_one]

53. This is the same David Sirota in 1999, CREATED A FAKE WEBSITE, and was fired while serving as

Dwight Evans' deputy mayoral campaign manager in Philadelphia after his fake website pushed damaging racial comments attributed to their opponent John White, Jr." which were untrue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sirota

He also used Hugo Chavez as his example of success:

https://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle

When in reality, this "economic" success he attributes to Chavez was due to the price of oil, and Venezuela's oil exports, not the magic of Chavez's ideology:


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/how-venezuela-went-from-the-richest-economy-in-south-america-to-the-brink-of-financial-ruin-a7740616.html

In 2017 The Young Turks hired Sirota, and with him and Cenk, that tells me everything I need to know about Sirota

He did everything to undermine the Democratic nominee in 2016 by equating Hillary with trump, and encouraging his Hillary hating fan base to vote third party.

I detest Sirota with false equivalencies and distortions.

So if he is against Beto, I am all for Beto

[Gothmog]

55. More from the Hoarse Whisperer

Link to tweet