Pinboard (jerryking)
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recent bookmarks from jerrykingOpinion | Charles Koch’s Big Bet on Barrett2020-10-12T21:00:51+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/opinion/charles-koch-amy-coney-barrett.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
jerrykingactivism administrative_state advocacy Amy_Coney_Barrett Antonin_Scalia Charles_Koch Donald_Trump grass-roots influence_campaigns judges litigation lobbyists moguls nominations political_campaigns regulations stewardship think_tanks U.S._Supreme_Court right-of-center right-wing free_markets '70s long-term market_society political_infrastructure sophisticated market_forces political_agendas libertarians judicial_power judicial_reformhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:4cb07dcfd937/Opinion | The End of Black Politics - The New York Times2020-06-14T18:57:47+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/13/opinion/sunday/black-politicians-george-floyd-protests.html
jerryking'60s '70s African-Americans Baltimore Bernie_Sanders Black_Lives_Matter carding cities community_organizing deindustrialization Democrats fault_lines generation_gaps generational_change George_Floyd grass-roots joblessness leaders leadership low-wage mayoral millennials pandemics politicians politics political_power protests protest_movements quality_of_life representation Shirley_Chisholm social_justice status_quo uprisings urban voting working-class young_people activism community_activism digital_advocacy Congressional_Black_Caucus social_classeshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:9f78f09b2abd/Early Instagram employee Bailey Richardson talks community2020-01-11T17:52:54+00:00
https://www.fastcompany.com/90437174/an-early-instagram-employee-offers-advice-on-building-meaningful-communities
jerrykingbooks community howto Instagram grass-roots community-buildinghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:847dcf2efad8/Opinion | Philanthropists Bench Women of Color, the M.V.P.s of Social Change2019-11-19T14:42:00+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/19/opinion/philanthropy-black-women.html
jerrykingAfrican-Americans foundations grass-roots philanthropy social_change under-representation womenhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:8533904e2294/A ‘Grass Roots’ Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon’s Biggest Rivals - WSJ2019-09-21T00:17:34+00:00
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-grassroots-campaign-to-take-down-amazon-is-funded-by-amazons-biggest-rivals-11568989838?mod=hp_lead_pos5
jerryking>political operative<< who has worked as a top aide to prominent Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and on Hillary Clinton ’s 2008 presidential campaign.
In a statement, Mr. Singer defended the group. “FFMI is not obligated to disclose its donors and it does not,” Mr. Singer said.
Marathon initially asked for a fee of $250,000 per company to fund the anti-Amazon group, according to a person at one of the companies approached. Among those invited to fund the group but declined were a trade association that includes members who compete with Amazon, and International Business Machines Corp. , according to people familiar with the contacts. IBM, which declined to comment, previously was a client of Marathon.
In a statement, Amazon said, “The Free & Fair Markets Initiative appears to be little more than a well-oiled front group run by a high-priced public affairs firm and funded by self-interested parties with the sole objective of spreading misinformation about Amazon.”
Simon Property, the world’s largest mall landlord, declined to comment. Simon does not have any brick-and-mortar Amazon stores in its roughly 200 malls, outlets and open-air centers in the U.S., whereas its peers with smaller portfolios count multiple Amazon stores in theirs. The Indianapolis-based landlord recently launched its own online shopping platform, Shoppremiumoutlets.com.
Walmart funds the organization indirectly by paying an intermediary that pays for Free and Fair Markets, according to sources familiar with the arrangement. Walmart is a client of Marathon.
Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said, “We are not financial supporters of the FFMI but we share concerns about issues they have raised.” Mr. Hargrove declined to comment further.
The group’s aim is to sully Amazon’s image on competition, data-security and workplace issues, while creating a sense of grass-roots support for increased government regulatory and antitrust enforcement, according to people familiar with the campaign.
Free and Fair Markets has lobbied the government for legislation and investigations of Amazon, sent dozens of letters and reports to Congress and staff, according to congressional staffers, published scores of op-eds in local and online media and tweeted hundreds of social media posts blasting Amazon.
Over the past year, many of the actions advocated by the group have gained traction. Amazon has come under increasing antitrust scrutiny from the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, states attorneys general and the European Union. In New York, Amazon backed out of plans to open a second headquarters in Long Island City after facing political opposition. Free and Fair Markets campaigned against government subsidies to support the site and tweeted more than 300 times on the topic.
Oracle provided financial support as part of an all-out strategy to stop Amazon from getting a $10 billion mega-contract to handle cloud computing for the Defense Department. The Pentagon eliminated Oracle as a bidder in the first round. Kenneth Glueck, who runs Oracle’s office in Washington, confirmed that the computer technology firm has contributed to the effort.
A goal of the organization was achieved in July when President Trump said he wanted to conduct a review of the contract. In August, the secretary of defense said he was investigating conflict-of-interest allegations surrounding the $10 billion contract known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. At the urging of President Trump, the bid award has been put on hold during the review.
Mr. Trump, a frequent critic of Amazon, cited complaints about the project from several of Amazon’s competitors, which in addition to Oracle included IBM and Microsoft Corp. , saying he had heard the contract “wasn’t competitively bid.” The contract has not been awarded and Microsoft remains one of the two remaining bidders.
Though Free and Fair Markets has contacted members of Congress and the administration, it has not registered as a lobbying organization. Such groups are required to file with Congress if more than 20% of their work involves lobbying. Marathon said it complies with lobby disclosure rules.
None of the articles notes that Mr. Engel’s group is funded by rivals of Amazon.
A spokeswoman for The Hill said the publication was unaware of the funding sources and failure to disclose such payments violates a standard written agreement all op-ed writers are required to sign.
Sandy Shea, managing editor of opinion for the Inquirer’s parent company, the Philadelphia Media Network, said, “We aren’t equipped to investigate the makeup or structure of a nonprofit that submits a piece.”
Bill Zeiser, RealClearPolicy editor, said RealClearMedia publishes “commentary on politics and public policy from a wide array of sources. These submissions are assessed on their editorial merits.”
Representatives of the Post-Gazette and Chronicle did not respond to emails.
In an interview earlier this year, Mr. Engel said the motive of the group was not to promote the views of Amazon’s rivals. He said Amazon has been the only target because its business tactics run counter to the group’s goal of free and fair markets. “The one organization that feels it stands above that is Amazon,” Mr. Engel said.
Marathon did not make Mr. Engel available for comment a second time after the Journal determined that rivals were funding the group.
Mr. Engel and his group have been quoted in publications, including once each in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. None said who funded the group.
One article about Free and Fair Markets was commissioned by Marathon.
Last October, an Iowa writer and consultant, Jeff Patch, published an article on RealClearPolicy.com, a news website known for political coverage, about a report by Free and Fair Markets critical of Amazon’s record of hiring and firing women. “Many [women] were fired after Amazon concocted pretexts for their terminations,” Mr. Patch wrote.
Mr. Patch, who has worked as a journalist and a staffer for a Republican congressman and conservative think tanks, did not disclose in his article at the time that he was a paid contractor for Marathon.
Bank statements and invoices reviewed by the Journal show that Mr. Patch billed Marathon, and was paid thousands of dollars for promoting a variety of Marathon projects. One line item on Mr. Patch’s spreadsheet of outstanding invoices noted $1,175 for placing an article, subject: “Amazon piece.”
Mr. Patch said the documents referred to by the Journal were “unrecognizable” and said “I have been the target of an ongoing misinformation campaign.” He did not address directly the question of whether he was paid by Marathon.
Marathon said it has “engaged Mr. Patch for editorial and research services in the past.”
RealClearMedia Group executive editor Carl Cannon said the article was an unpaid guest op-ed. The editors who published the piece are no longer with RealClearPolicy and Mr. Zeiser, the current editor, said his predecessors “were unaware that the author was being paid by Amazon’s business competitors.”
Free and Fair Markets has tweeted more than 1,060 times and produced glossy videos, some of which it has circulated through thousands of dollars in paid advertising, according to Pathmatics, an independent company that tracks social-media ads. A review of the tweets shows that aside from four tweets about FoxConn Technology Group, which assembles Amazon’s smart speakers, all of the tweets are about Amazon or an Amazon-related issue. The tweets have attacked Amazon on several fronts, including antitrust, worker rights, data privacy, soliciting subsidies from local governments for its second headquarters and its bid for the Pentagon cloud contract.
Marathon officials said the group will expand to address other companies’ abuses. “The organization has started looking at FoxConn and is preparing to scrutinize other tech giants,” Marathon’s statement read. Taiwan-based FoxConn, a major supplier also to Apple Inc., got $4 billion in public support to locate some of its operations in Wisconsin.
More than two dozen tweets are particularly critical of Amazon’s bid for the cloud-computing JEDI contract.
One tweet said, “As if $1.5 billion in state and local corporate welfare wasn’t enough, @amazon wants $10 billion more from American taxpayers to host the @DeptofDefense most sensitive data,” and then linked to a list of stories that recounted the complaints of a primary opponent for the contract, Oracle—mainly that the technical specifications in the JEDI request for bids had been “rigged in favor of a single provider: Amazon.” Oracle sued in an attempt to block the Pentagon from awarding the contract, but a federal judge ruled in July that the bid could proceed.
Amazon has previously said that Oracle’s claims are “meritless and a desperate attempt to distort the facts”
None of the members listed by Free and Fair Markets on its website seemed to have an obvious issue with the cloud-computing contract or several other of the group’s issues. When the Journal began inquiring with the members about their reasons for being listed—some did not know their names were posted on the website—the group took them down.
Marathon said, “The names of the groups listed on the site were removed at their request after we heard complaints about some receiving harassing phone calls” from journalists.
One listed member, Aubrey Stone, was founder and head of the California Black Chamber of Commerce. He died in September 2018. His name remained listed as member until at least June and wasn’t removed until the Journal contacted the group.
Maria Gillette, a member of the largely inactive Carbondale Tea Party outside of Scranton, Pa., is listed as an advisory member of Free and Fair Markets. Ms. Gillette, known in her small community for appearing in national media in 1974 after seeing an unidentified flying object, said she thought the group was about free trade—not Amazon.
The New England Convenience Store & Energy Marketers Association is listed as a member, and Jonathan Shaer, executive director, said the group is aligned with its stated principles but does not share the anti-Amazon animus. Mr. Shaer said his association “hasn’t had any active involvement in any of the Initiative’s activities.”
Benyamin Lichtenstein, a business professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, said he was contacted out of the blue by a Boston corporate public relations firm last year about signing his name to an op-ed opposed to Boston’s bid for Amazon’s second headquarters. The firm sent a draft of the op-ed that called on Boston politicians to “reject an Amazon headquarters for the sake of small businesses.” The PR official wrote in an email to Mr. Lichtenstein, “If you are happy with the draft we can submit it as is,” according to a copy of the email reviewed by the Journal. The article was pitched to Boston newspapers and was eventually published in DigBoston.com.
Chris Faraone, editor-in-chief of DigBoston, said Mr. Lichtenstein first submitted the article, but that DigBoston didn’t publish it until receiving an email from the same public-relations representative who had initially contacted the professor.
“As for whether Lichtenstein wrote the piece himself, we assumed that was the case, but if it wasn’t, we assure you that we’re no more surprised to hear that than we are when politicians or celebrities use ghostwriters,” Mr. Faraone said.
Mr. Lichtenstein said he agreed to sign his name to the article, to which he made some changes and checked citations, because he believes in advocating for small businesses.
Told he was listed online as a member of the group, Mr. Lichtenstein said, “Wow. I had no idea.” He said the group had inflated his role.
Marathon Strategies, the firm behind Free and Fair Markets Initiative, said union official Gilda Valdez had signed an agreement to join the group, top. The union said she didn’t, and provided the bottom image as an example of her signature.
In a statement, Marathon said, “All of the individuals and groups that we work with have full editorial control and input on any materials they put their names on. In fact, those who play a more formal role with the group sign agreements that clearly spell out the mission and vision of the group.”
Mr. Singer provided the Journal a copy of Mr. Lichtenstein’s signed agreement.
Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents more than 95,000 workers in Southern California, was named as a member without permission, said Coral Itzcalli, communications director. “We have zero involvement with that organization,” she said. After being contacted by the Journal, the union’s attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding the removal of the union from the list of members. A few days later, it was.
Asked for comment, Marathon emailed to the Journal a membership agreement that the agency said had been signed by Gilda Valdez, the chief of staff for the union local, dated July 23, 2018. The firm also provided a statement from Juan Carlos Mendez, president of Churches In Action, a Christian community group in South Gate, Calif., stating that he had asked Ms. Valdez to join the group and had “secured her signature of FFMI’s consent form.”
But Ms. Valdez said that the signature on the documents provided by Marathon was not hers.
“I did not sign on with this group,” she said. “Their real motive for listing us as supporters remains unknown to us.”
—Sarah Nassauer, Esther Fung and Jay Greene contributed to this article.]]>Amazon contra-Amazon grass-roots nonprofit Oracle Wal-Mart clandestine countermeasures counternarratives dark_side e-commerce sophisticated lobbying lobbyists opposition_research Simon_Property misinformation coalitions public_relations strategic_communications political_operativeshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:d8e4986165c1/How small business can still make waves online - The Globe and Mail2019-08-12T14:11:49+00:00
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-how-small-business-can-still-make-waves-online/
jerrykingsmall_business e-commerce social_media buyer_choice_rejection digital_influencers LinkedIn roadmaps strategy TikTok Twitch grass-roots SMEs business_planning digital_strategies referrals strategic_planninghttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:c4c46766ca44/Opinion | A Nation of Weavers2019-02-19T16:55:08+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/opinion/culture-compassion.html
jerrykingcommunity community_builders David_Brooks personal_connections relationships social_fabric social_isolation bottom-up grass-roots civics disorganization engaged_citizenry social_cohesion social_collaborationhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:1eedd361b8c5/Melissa Harris-Perry: How to Save the N.A.A.C.P. From Irrelevance - The New York Times2017-05-30T15:46:08+00:00
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/opinion/melissa-harris-perry-naacp.html?_r=0
jerrykingirrelevance NAACP civil_rights revitalization reboot African-Americans history bigotry white_supremacy killings lynchings activism social_justice digital_advocacy grass-roots radicalization violence consciousness-raising Black_Lives_Matter leaders leadership CEOs marginalization bureaucracies protests protest_movements status_quohttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:33b0b7aab73a/The Women Who Met Hillary, and Spotted a Future Political Star - The New York Times2017-01-02T16:28:11+00:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/24/style/hillary-clinton-betsey-wright-women-in-politics.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ffashion
jerryking>inflection point<< for female activists. “We realized that the only way we could be accepted as equals was to be in office,” she said. “But the parties were not interested in cultivating women. So we realized we would have to train them ourselves.”...while Mrs. Clinton was a law student supporting the presidential candidate Senator George McGovern in San Antonio, she met Ms. Wright, the person she thought could galvanize and prepare potential female candidates.....Ms. Wright had previously worked on individual women’s campaigns. Yet it was Mrs. Clinton who suggested that Ms. Wright move to Washington to spread her expertise, by joining Ms. Piercy and Ms. Griffith to work for what would become known as the National Women’s Education Fund, an unofficial training arm of the National Women’s Political Caucus, with no formal affiliation. “Hillary was saying they really did need to get somebody who understood local races,” Ms. Wright said. “And she strongly urged me to go.”....Wright created seminars and training sessions that taught women how to maneuver within the political process.
She also formed a powerful partnership with Ruth Mandel, who had recently created the pioneering Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. It was not just that they needed to train women, Ms. Mandel said; they needed to “help women overcome their own resistance to gaining political power in their own right.”...Wright knew that revolutions start with pragmatics: She created a training manual that the Education Fund and the Political Caucus relied on heavily for years, a guidebook that broke down the logistics of opinion polling, reaching the news media and recruiting a staff. The training sessions offered advice on every aspect of campaigning, including details specific to women.]]>Hillary_Clinton politics political_campaigns discipline political_infrastructure institutions politicians institution-building women networking consciousness-raising inflection_points grass-roots political_organizing training_programshttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:979acff6a122/How Torontonians can get their hands dirty and improve their own parks2013-03-31T06:59:06+00:00
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/how-torontonians-can-get-their-hands-dirty-and-improve-their-own-parks/article10570956/
jerrykingToronto parks DIY volunteering community_support engaged_citizenry bureaucracies grass-roots community_activismhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:e2bba1610e9a/Can Museums Help Make Cities More Intelligent?2012-12-11T03:18:46+00:00
http://futureofmuseums.blogspot.ca/2011/06/can-museums-help-make-cities-more.html
jerrykingmuseums cities urban networks data Nairobi informal_economy sense-making public_spaces smart_cities interpretation engaged_citizenry grass-roots deprivations data_collection mapping personal_data curators cultural_institutions urban_literacy bottom-up open_data organizing_data public_behaviorhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:ce32618a60a8/How Reform changed our system2012-09-19T12:11:41+00:00
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19QzTPsGA8DUoY9Z4bCnVZ0Up7ig5b0vNX-OtkRysHdg/edit
jerrykingPreston_Manning Stephen_Harper Conservative_Party social_movements grass-roots think_tanks interest_groups political_parties political_agendas sharp_instincts political_infrastructurehttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:cf082177575a/Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy - New York Times2012-05-05T16:52:14+00:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/magazine/wiring-the-vast-left-wing-conspiracy.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
jerrykingMatt_Bai Democrats George_Soros political_infrastructure think_tanks grass-roots discipline social_movements institutions ideas ideologies conservatism politicians left-wing right-wing Fox_News advocacy messaging belief_systems GOP training_programs donors high_net_worth moguls Communicating_&_Connecting influence_campaigns leaders leadership_development Charles_Koch political_campaign_financing institutional_power political_agendas bankrolling policy_positions foundation_power media_power money_&_power out-organized well-organizedhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:425602f244c4/Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves: Amazon.ca: Adam Hochschild: Books2012-03-07T14:18:47+00:00
http://www.amazon.ca/Bury-Chains-Prophets-Rebels-Empires/dp/0618104690
jerrykingslavery emancipation Amazon books activism grass-roots abolition abolitionists boycotts civic_protests petitions protests protest_movements anti-slaveryhttps://pinboard.in/https://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:bb1ffe1b8702/The rise of the grassroots movements - The Globe and Mail2011-03-26T02:57:36+00:00
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/the-rise-of-the-grassroots-movements/article1918061/
jerryking>public agenda<< [i.e.= also "public consciousness"] – high enough that parties are obliged to respond.
(2) be able to alter their positions [i.e. = "policy positions"] to meet changing conditions [i.e. = "flip-flopping"/"change your mind"] more easily and quickly than parties, especially governing parties.
3) principled parties need their own philosophically compatible “movements” to sustain and enrich them because modern parties have become primarily mktg. mechanisms for fighting elections. They do little development of their own intellectual capital--depending on others – think tanks, academics, interest groups and the civil service, if they’re a governing party.]]>grass-roots social_movements Preston_Manning think_tanks bottom-up intellectual_capital political_parties responsiveness protest_movements public_opinion political_agendas policy_positions change_your_mind flip-flopping public_agenda public_consciousnesshttps://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:04b90c75e665/Food - Field Report - Plow Shares - NYTimes.com2010-03-01T12:32:47+00:00
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/magazine/28food-t-000.html?ref=magazine
jerrykingfarming grass-roots community networking food locavore greenhouses volunteeringhttps://pinboard.in/u:jerryking/b:02eeca31d571/