“The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is raising questions about the involvement of Microsoft in the Iowa Caucuses, now just days away, and has built a independent system to check the official results,” Alex Seitz-Wald reports for MSNBC. “For the first time this year, Microsoft partnered with the Iowa Democratic and Republican Parties to provide a technology platform with which the parties will run their caucuses. The software giant created separate mobile apps for each party, which officials at hundreds of caucuses across the state will use to report out results from individual precincts to party headquarters for tabulation.”
“The arrangement has aroused the suspicions of aides to Sanders, whose regularly warns that corporate power and the billionaire class are trying to hijack democracy,” Alex Seitz-Wald reports. “Pete D’Alessandro, who is running the Iowa portion of Sanders’ campaign, questioned the motives of the major multinational corporation in an interview with MSNBC: ‘You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free.'”
“The Sanders campaign has built their own reporting system to check the results from the official Microsoft-backed app,” Alex Seitz-Wald reports. “Other Sanders aides noted that Microsoft employees have donated several hundred thousand dollars to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton over her career, and questioned why the Iowa Democratic Party didn’t partner with a software company based in Iowa.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Attributing malevolence on Microsoft’s part mistakenly assumes competence.
SEE ALSO:
House Democratic Caucus resort retreat to host Microsoft CEO Ballmer to talk ‘innovation’ – February 4, 2009
Democrats name Microsoft ‘official software and HD Web content provider’ of convention – April 28, 2008
Serious security flaws found in Diebold electronic voting machines – May 15, 2006
Red vs. Blue: Companies ranked by political donations: Apple among bluest, Dell among reddest – October 26, 2006
I’m no Sanders fan, but I would put nothing past Billary in manipulating the results. There is real enthusiasm for Sanders and Trump, not for Clinton or most of the other Republicans.
“Enthusiasm” for the 2 candidates with lots of plans, and no way to pay for any of it.
Can’t speak for Trump, but Sanders has laid out a fairly detailed economic plan. You may not like his proposals, but he HAS shown how to pay for them. https://berniesanders.com/issues/how-bernie-pays-for-his-proposals/
The problem with socialism is the tendency to run out of other people’s money!
No matter what you may call it, pretty much all modern Western democracies are essentially “social”. Get over it.
You will have to “get over it” when the money runs out. It actually already did years ago, but we just run the printing presses now. Oh, wait! We don’t mess with the printing presses, we just change the money supply numbers in the computer, how modern and convenient! (sarcasm alert)
Youn are a foolish waste of time.
Reality is Constraining you: since when is a 90% tax rate and absconding other’s people gains from their own efforts, “social?’ I don’t get the impulse to call what’s in another’s back pocket yours, or free game. Where’s “freedom” in that equation?
Sigh. No one — not even Bernie — is calling for a return to the top 90% marginal tax rate.
By the way, even when we had a 90% marginal rate (back in the 1950s and 60s, when America was “still great”) only a very few people paid it and only on a relatively small portion of their income.
But the high marginal rate (that is, taxes paid on only the highest segment of the income) had lots of beneficial side effects: companies reinvested in the business instead of giving ludicrous payouts to their senior execs, which caused the rapid rise of the middle class, which created an emormous boom to the entire consumer-driven economy.
And, oh yeah, it helped cover the cost of WWII. Back when America was Great, we paid for the wars we fought instead of putting them on a perpetual charge card. Reagan and the Bush boys changed all that.
America was great with the 90% marginal tax rate? Then why did John F. Kennedy campaign to fix an economy that was struggling with rising unemployment, slumping profits and depressed stock prices by reducing that 90% tax rate? And then when elected, Kennedy cut taxes across the board – including that 90% rate – and enjoyed a nearly miraculous economic turnaround. In his own words, the tax system “exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time.” Pushing for much lower tax rates and reaping economic success was JFK’s economic legacy.
Yes, JFK lowered the top marginal tax rate after his election. All the way down to 70% — where it stayed until Ronald Regan cut it — to 50%. Which is still way higher than it is now. The country did okay with a 70% top marginal rate for an entire generation. I have no problem going back to that rate.
Yep. And they are all broke. We don’t need expand government further. Do you have any idea how much 8 trillion dollars is? And we can even stop borrowing even today. At some point it has to end. Our current system is a joke- legalized bribery and influence peddling while promising the world to voters, partisan bickering and then increasing the debt. There is no solution in sight from either party. It requires a complete paradigm shift…not sure what I need to “get over”. I am planning for a future that doesn’t involve any help from the government or return of any of the social security dollars I contribute.
Germany is not broke. The Scandinavian countries are not broke. Canada is not broke. You want a future without any help from the government? Go for it. I hear Somalia is beautiful this time of year.
Yes indeed! But be careful macgadgetfreek. The Republicans hold the record for the most budget busting, typically with money thrown at ‘Starve The Beast‘ strategies or some such incoherence, including cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy while bloating military spending.
I don’t trust either lousy party with my money.
Bernie is an Independent running within the Democratic Party. They are fighting him tooth and nail. He is taking no SuperPac money and Hillary has more sponsors than NASCAR,
I know. I’ve been keeping an eye on Bernie. As I’ve blethered on in the past, I’m no socialist and I’m wary of the negative aspects of socialism. And yet, here is Bernie Sanders wielding a sword at exactly what’s wrecking the USA while being the only honest person running for US President, IMHO of course. What would happen if he was elected could be a lot more political contention and not much getting done. But on the other hand, I like his brand of sanity. We’ll see. Just don’t let Princess Hilary get the nomination, OMG no.
[Note world that I’m deliberately not talking about Republicans in this post. So don’t infer anything please. I’m really sick of dumbass inferences.]
I agree with you- I don’t support either party. They are running this into the ground while pointing fingers at the other. I wish a third party had a chance.
Yes indeedy.
A third party would have a chance if people like yourself would actually vote for one. A majority of people are disgusted with both parties but still insist on voting for them. As long as that happens, there never will be a third. Plus any time a third starts go gain momentum, the other two miraculously work together to squash said third.
Has the federal government been working with something besides “other people’s money” all this time?
Or do they produce & sell something?
90% income Tax! NO!!!
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Unfortunately for the Democrats, their only credible, non-felon option, Jim Webb, has already dropped out.
Bernie has the potential to be the next George McGovern. Hillary could be the next Tricky Dick.
-jcr
And it would be so incredibly easy to find undesirable historical analogs for Trump and Cruz. And what is this “non-felon” stuff? Do you think that the hands of the Republican candidates are clean? Every politician is dirty to some degree. The problem is, you are wearing Eau d’ Republican and can’t smell their crap.
You’re a little twit aren’t you
What? They can’t be malevolent AND incompetent?
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes.
When times are tough, there generally is a lot of enthusiasm for those who promise change. That doesn’t always work well, though. Jimmy Carter in the US, François Mitterrand in France and Chávez in Venezuela are proof of that. That doesn’t mean change is bad, but any government needs to understand the basic laws of economics and work with them to improve the quality of life of the population. Any attempt to fight those laws will make everyone suffer.
You want to bring up Jimmy Carter? I’ll counter with Franklin Roosevelt and John F Kennedy — two leaders who brought huge change to the country.
FDR was a goddamned tyrant. He was the only president in the 20th century who locked Americans up for no reason other than their race.
-jcr
That’s only if you don’t count all the Presidents who presided over stealing the land from Native Americans.
And reducing FDR’s legacy to the internment of the Japanese is like trying to sum up Tom Brady’s career by saying he’s a loser because he’s thrown 150 interceptions.
Tell it to Korematsu. Or tell it to the people he had locked up for selling their goods or services for less than FDR dictated.
-jcr
You are severely insane. Everything that comes off of your keyboard smells like dung.
Clinton do some crooked stuff? Now that’s a stretch…
Given the biases of the DNC, Bernies’ people are right to be suspicious.
Honestly, I don’t trust ANY corporation that tabulates election results using “trade secrets” to hide their source code. Machine voting should be regulated much the same as slot machines in casinos: the source code is public, and can be tested and verified, and officials can (and do) check to make sure the software and hardware have not been tampered with.
Letting private companies like Diebold tally elections is like having “El Chapo” in charge of making keys for the prison system.
If you Dem/Lib/Progs can’t manage to nominate Bernie, ol’ lying sack of Hillary will do just fine, thanks. Either one is perfect!
And Cruz, or even Trump, are perfect candidates for the GOP, Fwhatever. Cruz is a nut bag from the standpoint of Texas politics, and that is saying something. He is unelectable on the national stage, and I will back that assertion against Bernie or Hillary.
In other words, Fwhatever, I hope that the GOP chooses a more moderate and electable candidate than Cruz. That guy is scary, and I don’t mean that in a good way. He is incredibly fortunate that Iowa comes first, because he will get more backing in that state than in most others.
I was wondering when your mouth full of crap would show up this week.
Is that still a penis on your avatar’s face?
Since you are either brain damaged, on serious drugs or just hard headed, I will explain this to you one more time:
Not all Democrats are Liberals or Progressives.
Not all Liberals are Democrats or Progressives.
Not all Progressives are Democrats or Liberals.
These terms do not equate.
Now onto factual data.
The polling shows Bernie will bring a wave election and that means America could well be delivered from the terminally incompetent Rethugnicans,
You can have Hillary- she is a Republican like Obama. Even Rupert Murdoch likes Hillary.
The most secure system is still the paper ballot X and the ink stained finger thereafter.
If you can’t be bothered to go and make a mark on a ballot paper you don’t deserve to have a say in the way you are governed.
But how do you count 100 million paper ballots in one night? (Although I do like the ink-stained finger as proof of voting.)
By using 100,000 government workers as tellers on a night of overtime payments- and it would probably be cheaper than M$
Setting aside the politics, it consistently astounds me that anyone has faith in Microsoft ANYTHING. That damned company continues to hold us all in The Dark Age of Computing. Although, I have to hand it to Google for perpetrating Android, which is in the process of knocking Windows off the pedestal as the most dangerous operating system in the world.
The bottom line is never trust a Republican.
Bill Gates was and is a Republican.Steve Jobs was and died a Progressive Democrat.
Hate to bust the bubble of the deluded NeoCons, but that is what the record shows. No money for ConservaTurds.
Point to a specific example of Steve Jobs being a progressive democrat. While your at it, point out a specific example of Bill Gates being a republican. Honestly, I don’t think Steve Jobs really gave a shit about politicians. He donated to them as needed.
And one more thing…no one takes you seriously when you have a Bernie Sanders avatar. But, I must respect the transparency.
“You’d have to ask yourself why they’d want to give something like that away for free.””
Via a friend:
Just let that sink in for a minute. The campaign built 100% on promising people free stuff is saying “Well, obviously you need to be skeptical of the motives of someone who offers you free stuff.”
Of course the Sanders campaign is worried. Wouldn’t you be worried for Hillary stealing the nomination unfairly because it’s quote-unquote her turn? The media and the party have been on Bernie’s back since he announced he was running. How dare there be an upstart that could upstage Hillary as Obama did in 2008? There are quite a lot of similarities in their campaigns and the enthusiasm they draw from younger voters. Shillary is sort of in the meh column. First female? That’s nice. What can she do for us? Will she say anything to get elected, as she was asked in the first debate? Can she give Wall Street and banks more than a slap on the wrist when they are funding her campaign as they did with Obama’s? They are bigger now than when he took office. With how unscrupulous the Clintons are, I would not want them back in the White House.