David Sirota is a Liar

[crazytown]

Last edited Tue Mar 19, 2019, 10:44 PM - Edit history (1)

At the end of the year, Sirota wrote a hit piece on Beto in the Guardian. In response to allegations he was part of a ‘smear campaign that could be traced back to Bernie Sanders’, Sirota wrote a full disclosure which somehow omitted the fact he was working with the Sanders campaign:-

Full disclosure because people have made an issue of this. Even though it's right on my biography on my website. I worked for Bernie Sanders 19 years ago as a twenty three year old right out of college. I worked for him for I think it was two years, it might have been a little less than two years and then I worked for house Democrats and then I was the third employee at the Center for American Progress. And I want everybody to keep this in their mind: Yes, I work for Bernie Sanders 19 years ago for roughly two years and I worked after that and for a longer period of time for the Center for American Progress and for house Democrats.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/04/factual-reporting-david-sirota-stirred-epic-freakout

Sirota has been working with the Sanders campaign for months.

Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, confirmed in an interview on Tuesday afternoon that Sirota had been in an advisory role prior to his hiring on March 11. “He was advising beforehand,” Shakir said, explaining that Sirota’s informal work for Sanders goes back months, and was meant to be a trial period to see how the senator, who famously likes to write every word that he says.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

[dsc]

1. actually it is worse than I thought

it was bad enough that he didn't state that he was working for Sanders while writing attack pieces but for him to have literally lied about it while doing so is another level unethical.

[Gothmog]

16. Yep

Link to tweet

[RandySF]

2. Did I not call it a potential conflict of interest when he used the Guardian to jump Beto?

[dalton99a]

7. +1

[octoberlib]

14. Yes and I knew it too. I used to check his timeline and instead of one word about Trump's

corruption, every post was an attack on different candidates who'd announced. I knew he was working for Bernie. He's now deleted over 20,000 tweets. Getting rid of the evidence.

[NurseJackie]

3. Check this out. Have you seen Sirota's ELECTION EVE smears against Hillary? ELECTION EVE!!!

We're talking WAY past the primary and WAY past the convention... and Sirota was STILL working to "kneecap" Hillary.

The contest was over, and he was LITERALLY doing everything he could to HELP TRUMP to win.

I think that speaks very clearly about his moral compass and tells us a lot about him (and it's not at all flattering.) I think it's fair for anyone to question the judgement and motivation of anyone who would hire him for ANY job.

Link to tweet

[Cha]

5. Ah, Saved! Here's a couple of tweets that got Deleted..

Screenshots taken before the mass Twitter deletion preserve the role that Sirota was playing to his 125,000 followers, trying to turn the early online conversation about the 2020 primary race against other candidates, all while unofficially advising Sanders.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

A couple of tweets, Sirota Deleted..

David Sirota on Twitter: "It's interesting that the Dem establishment ...

Link to tweet

?lang=en
David Sirota on Twitter: "If you are going to blame Trump's election ...

Link to tweet

Wonder what they said?.. lol

Gus!

[NurseJackie]

9. Just like "Justice Democrats" and "Our Revolution" and Sarandon, he wants to destroy the party.

[Cha]

12. This will BACKFIRE on Sirota

and BS

[Kahuna7]

28. Yep. No doubt about it. nt

[kstewart33]

49. Not surprising.

Sirota is not a Democrat and he was hired by someone who is not a Democrat.
So neither supports Democrats.

[NurseJackie]

50. This is a tactic to undermine and weaken the Democratic party. It's well-known...

This is a tactic to undermine and weaken the Democratic party. It's well-known about the philosophy to "destroy and rebuild" the Democratic party as a Socialist party. Fact of the matter is, anything that's done to smear, diminish or tarnish the Democratic party only causes division and distrust... and that weakens the party. Anything that weakens the party only serves to BENEFIT the GOP, and Trump and Russia.

I cannot support anyone who wants to destroy the Democratic party.

[kstewart33]

51. Neither can I.

If the party embraces socialism even "Democratic socialism," we hand Trump a victory and four more years in 2020.

[Cha]

4. Of course, he Lies. those people voted

for the Liar jill stein. It's in their nature.

Screenshots taken before the mass Twitter deletion preserve the role that Sirota was playing to his 125,000 followers, trying to turn the early online conversation about the 2020 primary race against other candidates, all while unofficially advising Sanders.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

A couple of tweets, Sirota Deleted..

David Sirota on Twitter: "It's interesting that the Dem establishment ...

Link to tweet

?lang=en
David Sirota on Twitter: "If you are going to blame Trump's election ...

Link to tweet

Wonder what they said?.. lol

[dalton99a]

6. Is there a tattoo on his back?

The history of dirty tricks is impressive

[oasis]

8. Bernie better dump this guy but quick.

[Cha]

10. BS will only dig in.

[JI7]

30. why would he do that ?

[oasis]

36. Surely Bernie doesn't want to constantly apologize for one of his staff. nt

[George II]

53. He just hired a guy who is SO ashamed of his background and past policy positions...

...that Sirota spent a good part of yesterday morning cleaning out his twitter account - he deleted more that 20,000 tweets and left only about 100.

I wonder what he's ashamed of? Actually I don't wonder, I KNOW what he's ashamed of, some of his vile tweets surfaced before he had a chance to delete all of them.

[hlthe2b]

11. Wow... I remember when he took over what was left of progressive radio in Denver-Boulder

from long term host, Jay Marvin (who was suffering from poor health)... The format went belly-up in 2013...

He was well thought of at the time, but then again so was Glenn Greenwald once.

[mountain grammy]

35. He was one of the first progressive radio hosts I listened to

when his show was broadcasted out of Denver.. He was a good talk show host, knowledgeable and well informed. I liked Ed Shultz too and Thom Hartmann. Listened to Brunch with Bernie for a few years on Thom's show.. There were precious few progressive hosts and, it seemed, even fewer liberal Democrats. There were times when I thought there were no liberals left in the world until I found David Sirota and others.

[Cha]

40. Yeah well, Sirota didn't turn out so good..

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Screenshots taken before the mass Twitter deletion preserve the role that Sirota was playing to his 125,000 followers, trying to turn the early online conversation about the 2020 primary race against other candidates, all while unofficially advising Sanders.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03/sanders-promised-civility-hired-twitter-attack-dog/585259/

Link to tweet

A couple of tweets, Sirota Deleted..

David Sirota on Twitter: "It's interesting that the Dem establishment ...

Link to tweet

?lang=en
David Sirota on Twitter: "If you are going to blame Trump's election ...

Link to tweet

Wonder what they said?.. lol

[NurseJackie]

43. Oh brother!

There were times when I thought there were no liberals left in the world until I found David Sirota and others.

GMAFB!

[Cha]

41. I never thought well of Greenwald..

I was introduced to him on DU when he was calling us "Obamabots".

I always thought he was a mean-spirited gas lighter.

[hlthe2b]

42. Pre-Obama... Greenwald went hard against the Bush*-Cheney admin debacle

"wolf in sheep's clothing" it seems.

[Hortensis]

13. We often know most of what we need to about candidates

by both the character of who they hire and of who support them. Not always because all candidates attract some undesirables, but often.

Before the internet revolution in availability of information, Pat Buchanan was presented on mainstream talk shows as a distinguished conservative intellectual. Yes, I read that he was an apologist for the old male white guard, but I wasn't interested in him so just sort of accepted that as presented: Respectable, mild-mannered conservative.

Just IMAGINE my surprise when I learned that Pat-the-presidential-candidate was the enthusiastic choice of rabid white supremacists. They were an eye-opener to what they knew that I didn't.

[LisaM]

27. Yes, I think he has made some poor choices and I don't get it.

Remember back to the ill-advised trip to the Vatican with his whole family? Well, that was engineered by Sanders' so-called foreign policy advisor, the author of Shock Therapy. I pulled an article about this below (but there are many more available), read on if you're interested.


http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=29888

Jeffrey Sachs then coined the term “Shock Therapy” in the mid-1980s, when he was hired to turn these mad ideas loose on Bolivia (1985), who were unable to meet the harsh debt repayment schedules demanded by the IMF.


Buoyed by his ‘success’ in elevating unemployment rates to astronomical levels, Sachs then paraded as a paid consultant in Eastern Europe and Russia.

-snip-

His shock therapy for Russia was a disaster and led to government price controls being abandoned and state enterprises being privatised. Not only did inflation rise quickly, but unemployment soared and individuals and households lost the savings that they had worked hard the years to build up.

During the period he was consulting for the Russian government the health care and social services system collapsed, life expectancy went backwards (which was unprecedented for an advanced nation), real GDP fell by around 50 per cent and poverty rates increased by a factor of 10.

[Gothmog]

15. Sirota was working for sanders when he did Beto hit piece

Link to tweet

[denverbill]

17. I think anyone who hates Sanders or Sirota should read that whole Common Dreams article.

Thanks for posting.

[George II]

24. Perhaps you should read this:

Link to tweet

/photo/1

[Demsrule86]

25. I dont' think any article would make it right to lie about your involvement in a campaign as

Sirota did...and his election eve texts in 16 speak for themselves...

[Maru Kitteh]

18. The sudden announcement of "hiring" someone who has been working for you

for months, because your little arrangement was suddenly made public is disgustingly dishonest as well.

[dalton99a]

20. Yep.

[George II]

23. He voted for Jill Stein.

[mcar]

21. I think Team Sanders has made a big mistake

and needs to correct it, fast.

[ehrnst]

46. That would require admitting that a mistake had been made, wouldn't it? (nt)

[mcar]

48. It would

[George II]

22. Sirota certainly isn't a friend of Democrats, that's for sure.

[ehrnst]

47. I have been told that Bernie is even more "Democrat than most Democrats"

But then he goes and hires people who have a history of attacking Democratic leaders and the Democratic party itself.

[Kurt V.]

26. That's where we are

so it goes

[Awsi Dooger]

31. Obviously no purity standards for non-Ds

I have never been hostile to Bernie Sanders. I basically didn't follow the 2016 primaries because I viewed Hillary as a cinch and Sanders essentially her sparring partner. Besides, a socialist nominee seemed like such a guaranteed defeat once fall vetting attached I refused to believe our primary voters could ever be that stupid.

Bernie Sanders was more amusement than anything else. I eventually heard the stories here about Sanders' attitude and that of his followers. Until recent days I still didn't put much stock in it, or particularly care. However, hiring David Sirota on top of all the contradictions regarding his fall leads me to conclude that Bernie Sanders is a shady character and crotchety old man who knows this is his last opportunity and really doesn't care about truth or ethics in the slightest if they disfavor his goal.

We know how ridiculous the Republican pundits sound when they apologize for Trump no matter what he does. This David Sirota situation is an identical equivalent on our side. There is not 1% legitimacy in backing it or doing anything besides denouncing it. It screams of lack of character from the top.

Beyond scary how this projects, deeper into the campaign.

I don't like to change opinion so sharply in such a short period of time but I concede I was never sufficiently versed on Bernie Sanders to make an adequate assessment. I'm sure Sanders has some great supporters here. I can no longer root for their candidate or tolerate him. David Sirota is the type of lowlife snake who has to be avoided and banned from the party.

[radical noodle]

38. After the abhorrent behavior of

BS's supporters during the convention in 2016, I am surprised that Democrats here on DU are as uncritical as they are.

[Grasswire2]

55. It's against DU rules to re-litigate 2016. Be careful. nt

[radical noodle]

58. Yes, thank you

I try not to go over the line.

[MrsCoffee]

39. We're talking a pattern of lack of disclosure and transparency.

It is neither hostile nor over the top to discuss a candidate’s credibility. Bernie’s bashing of the Democratic Party on the other hand is often hostile and over the top.

Expect him to be thoroughly vetted this time around. Credibility means something. There is no fifty shades of disclosure here. Show the taxes, be transparent or get off the stage.

[dalton99a]

37. For members without Twitter:

[SidDithers]

34. Only the best people...nt

Sid

[ehrnst]

44. He was trashing HRC and Democrats on Twitter in 2016

And yesterday he deleted those tweets.

I guess he thought they would come back to bite him in the ass and discredit his qualification as senior staffer for a Democratic POTUS candidate if he didn't.

Oops.

[MineralMan]

45. Among other things, apparently, like being a Jill Stein voter.

[stonecutter357]

52. K&R

[Me.]

54. Well After All, He Doesn't Have HRC To KIck Around Anymore

[Blue_Tires]

56. Here's a classic from 1999

Link to tweet

[dalton99a]

57. +1. Philadelphia Inquirer article is archived at

http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/bogusweb.htm
Rep. Evans shakes up staff over Web-site `dirty trick'
By Cynthia Burton, Peter Nicholas and Monica Yant
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

[LongtimeAZDem]

60. OCR'd text from that site:

Sanders press aide fired from campaign over fake Web site
By WILSON RING Associated Press MONTPELIER, Vt.

An aide to Vermont's independent Rep. Bernard Sanders was fired earlier this year from the campaign of a Philadelphia mayoral candidate amid controversy over a fake Web site.

The Web site included quotations by an opponent about how black and Latino voters ought to consolidate power, the Washington political newspaper The Hill reported Wednesday.

David Sirota and the campaign manager worker were fired after the bogus Web site was discovered. Sanders' chief of staff, Jeff Weaver, said Wednesday that Sirota assured him that while he lost his job over the episode, he did not set up the Web site. "My understanding is he was not involved in this and was not aware of the Web site until the political opponent raised questions about it," Weaver said. "Based on what I know about this, it's unfortunately guilt by association." Weaver said such conduct would not be tolerated in a Sanders campaign or the congressional office. "This is not the type of tactic that would be acceptable in politics in Vermont," Weaver said. "It is unfortunate that in many places in the country these types of tactics are resorted to."

Sirota has worked for Sanders for four months as a press spokesman. Sanders' traditional political opponents in Vermont were wary Wednesday of attaching too much significance to the story. Sanders' 1996 Republican challenger Susan Sweetser, whose campaign went into free fall after it was revealed she hired a private detective to do opposition research on Sanders, said the incident should be left in the past.

"I know people do dumb things," Sweetser said. "If he did something dumb at least that's what it appears you don't want it to brand him for life." Vermont Republican Party Executive Director James Dwinell also did not want to make a big issue of the report. "I do respect Sanders' encouraging people to get involved in the (political) process," Dwinell said. "This is the sort of thing that, if it's true, turns people off to the process."

Last winter Sirota was working for Philadelphia mayoral candidate Dwight Evans. Reporters covering the primary campaign received unsolicited e-mails directing them to a Web site claiming to represent Democratic opponent John White Jr. Quotations on the Web site, attributed to White, were taken from a Spanish-language newspaper. The page displayed in large letters the quotation, "The black and the brown, if we unite, we're going to control this city."

[dalton99a]

61. +1. A distinguished career in dirty tricks and chicanery

against Democratic candidates

[Blue_Tires]

62. And he's been on Bernie's payroll for months after initially denying it

[NurseJackie]

59. Kick.

[Gothmog]

63. What it means that Bernie Sanders is hiring people who think all the non-Bernie democrats are bad

Link to tweet

[crazytown]

64. Of renewed relevance

[crazytown]

65. Of renewed relevance