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Category: Politics

  • PoliSci 101A:  Following the Money — Who’s Behind All the Slick Campaign Ads

    CHAPTER ONE:  Digging into the Details About Federal Candidates’ Supporters — Looking Beyond the Hype, Hyperbole, and Total B.S.

    By F.E.C. Nerd

    The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican appointees negated virtually all of the campaign finance reform laws at the federal level over the past several decades.  (Buckley v. Valeo; Citizens United; National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission.)  They have left us with little protections against the excesses of extreme campaign spending by powerful monied interests in an attempt to literally “buy elections.” 

    There are some campaign contribution limits, but thanks to the court cases, there are many ways to circumvent those limits.  What is left is campaign finance disclosure.  We voters must use that one remaining tool to inform ourselves.  So, I write this to help the reader with practical guidance to assist in determining the sources and likely motivations of the big-money players in our current election cycle.

    I’ve been overwhelmed by the deluge of TV ads by Eric Jones, the challenger in our home district (California Congressional District 4).  Sometimes the same tedious AI-generated ad appears on my TV screen as many as four times in a single program!!  Not to mention, the wholly unsolicited SPAM texts from someone I haven’t given my number, or permission to fill my inbox.  Plus, the paid canvassers delivering doorhangers despite my “No Soliciting” sign.  So, I ask myself, WHERE IS ALL THAT MONEY COMING FROM?  Perhaps you are wondering the same thing. 

    Here’s how to find the answers from the authoritative source — not some “never-heard-of-it- before” on-line website or slick campaign ad.  Because my goal is to help you to ferret out the truth and then allow you to reach your own conclusions based upon the unvarnished facts, you do not need to “trust me” in terms of viewpoint.  Just do your own research and decide for yourself.  Ballots have just been mailed, early voting begins in the next few days and the candidates have debated on TV. (See here for the video of the debate, in case you missed it):

    https://kcra.com/article/congressional-district-4-debate-recap-mike-thompson-eric-jones/74070817

    So, this is an opportune time to delve into the facts behind the facade and find out what’s really powering these incessant attack ads.

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  • The Lorax’s Neighborhood Voting Flier

    12th Edition of our local Davis ballot, summarized to save you time!

    By Alan Hirsch

    Dear Neighbor,

    This 6-page flier’s goal is to save you time as you make your voting decisions. This is my 12th neighborhood flier. I am not a candidate or a party, and I don’t work for any candidate. It is just me, with help from a neighbor, Victor Libet. This flier flows from my long-time hobby of observing council and city commission meetings

    This time the ballot is for 12 offices plus Judge retention. There are 14 Propositions, 12 state propositions, and two local propositions:  a Los Rios Bond & Davis Housing Prop “W”.

    I’ve done research, including interviewing many of candidates, talking to campaign staff and talking to other council/DJUSD observers.  I also have suggestions on where to get more information.  I suggest reading the local opinions and news articles at DavisVanguard.org and Davisite at www.Davisite.org.  Sadly, The Enterprise doesn’t add much value though Calmatters authored articles are helpful on state races and propositions. LWV gives good summary and pros/cons of proposition but not who’s behind them and the spin in the arguments. The BlueVoterGuides.org does an excellent job here.

    NOTE: This election, I think your focus should be items marked “?”  which are 3 Props& 3 candidate races.  My “progressive biased” endorsements are in bold and indicated by  “*” 

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  • 4th District Congressional Candidate Eric Jones Admits: “I’m not from here.”

    (From press release) In a televised debate hosted by KCRA on Wednesday, 4th District congressional candidate Eric Jones declared “I’m not from here.”

    Jones, a venture capitalist, has claimed he moved to the 4th district in 2021 but in fact voted in San Francisco until 2025 and purchased his $4 million Napa home with a mortgage that described it as a second home. His shocking admission came at the end of a half-hour televised debate where Jones faced questions about his venture capital firm’s investments in companies fined hundreds of millions of dollars for harming consumers, his reversal on policy positions including his suggestion to sunset all federal programs including Medicare and Social Security, and whether he is truly a resident of the community he wants to serve in Congress. In his closing statement, Jones said, “I’m not from here”

    Jones’ admission is in stark contrast to Congressman Mike Thompson, who was born, grew up, and still lives in our district. Thompson, a combat veteran and member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in Congress, dominated the debate. 

    “Eric Jones couldn’t have said it better: he’s not from here, and he doesn’t know the needs of our community. While Eric furnishes his third home in Napa with half a million dollars worth of designer furniture, Mike Thompson has been showing up and delivering for our District to lower costs for families, protect our democracy, and put an end to this forever war that’s raising prices,” said Thomas Dowling, Mike Thompson for Congress Campaign Manager. 

    Congressman Thompson is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over health care, tax, trade, Social Security and income security issues.  Congressman Thompson is the Ranking Member of the Tax Subcommittee and a senior member of the Health Subcommittee.  He is also a member of the fiscally responsible Blue Dog Coalition and a combat veteran. To learn more about Congressman Mike Thompson visit here.

  • Eric Jones’ Super PAC Hypocrisy

    By Sue Greenwald

    [Note: this letter first appeared in the Davis Enterprise, here. However, they did not have room to print the first paragraph, which the author asked to be included here].

    Eric Jones has been touting his strict opposition to ‘corporate PACs’ over the course of the entire campaign. But Super PACs are worse than corporate PACs, because corporate PACs limit individual donations to $5,000, whereas Super PACs have no limit on individual donations. So Eric Jones, while sanctimoniously abjuring corporate PACs and attacking Thompson for accepting some donations from them, himself not only benefited from his (barely) former partners’ $3.9 million Super PAC, but also personally donated $10,000 to a Super PAC in support of the campaign of one of his tech cronies.

    Eric Jones claims to be a progressive congressional candidate who wants to get money out of politics, but his actions speak much louder than his words.

    Eric Jones was a big venture capitalist — a partner at Dragoneer Investments — until only one month before he declared for office. He received the vast majority of his outsized war chest from his network of AI/Crypto/tech-related executives and their financiers and his own venture capital fortune. He is also supported by a $3.93 million Super PAC largely funded by his long-term fellow Dragoneer venture capital partners/spouse. Dragoneer is a huge investor in tech and artificial intelligence.

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  • 350 words that explain why you should vote for Mike Thompson over Eric Jones

    By Roberta Millstein

    [Note: This letter first appeared in the Davis Enterprise, here].

    Would you vote for a congressional candidate who had endorsed a variety of Republican positions while at the same time touting his progressive credentials and connections to candidates like Ro Khanna? Someone who: advocated for “immigration reform” for a “secure border”, said he was “ashamed” of Prop 50, called for “sunsetting” federal programs, donated to Republican politicians including a member of the Bush family?

    What if you learned that he had, in a very short amount of time, flip-flopped his views on important issues such as data centers and Medicare for All?  What if you found out that he had distributed two versions of the same flyer on the same block of the same street, one for Republicans and one for Democrats?

    What if you further learned that he had no political track record to back up his ever-changing political promises?  That he had been a partner at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm for 8 years (12 in total), allowing him to dump $5 million of his own money into his campaign?  And that on top of that, former colleagues and associates from the same firm continue to dump millions more into his congressional campaign, including a Super PAC, a legal but shady way to skirt campaign donation limits?  (If you’ve been deluged with mailers, flyers, and intrusive texts, now you know why).

    Citizens of Congressional District 4, the candidate described above is Eric Jones, recently resigned from Dragoneer Investment Group.  He would represent the interests of out-of-district tech oligarchs — resisting needed protective regulations at every turn — rather than the interests of ordinary citizens, whether Republican or Democratic.

    What if you were to further learn that there was another candidate, Mike Thompson, who has seniority and thus power to wield in the House, who has a proven and known political track record, who has deep roots in our district along with military service, who has legislative accomplishments in areas as diverse as affordability, climate change, agriculture and fishing, preventing gun violence, and supporting veterans?

    It’s an easy choice, friends.  Vote for Mike Thompson for Congress.

  • Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren calls out Eric Jones in letter to the editor

    Jones has misrepresented Congressman Mike Thompson’s record, according to Lofgren

    (From press release) In a letter to the editor published in the Napa Valley Register, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren dispelled one of Eric Jones’ most common talking points as a complete falsehood. When Eric Jones attacks Congressman Thompson’s record, he uses faulty and inaccurate data that excludes nearly $7 billion dollars worth of Social Security spending in the district.

    Read the full letter to the editor here and below:

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  • Eric Jones compares himself to Jesus Christ

    Jones’s shamelessness and hubris knows no bounds

    By Roberta Millstein

    Recently, I came across a Facebook reel where Eric Jones compares himself to Jesus. Here is a screenshot of the text that accompanies the reel:

    Screenshot from https://www.facebook.com/reel/1683293890472814 taken on 1 October 2026. Underlining is mine.

    [Edited to add: Note that in an earlier version of this article, I wrote that this was the same text that is in the reel, but it is in fact a bit different — I don’t know if he changed it or not. In the video, Jones brings up a comparison of himself and Jesus turning over the table of the money lenders].

    I must admit I was rather stunned by this. As someone who is not a Christian, I try to be respectful of religious differences and not to comment on other people’s beliefs. But this seemed above and beyond to me. So I wrote:

    Looking at it again, I also notice Jones’s implication that Thompson, who has dedicated his life to public service and who is supposed to be his fellow Democrat, is his “enemy.” Nice. My point, which I didn’t express as well as I would have liked, was that Jones was not in fact speaking any kind of “truth,” much less “truth to power.”

    But then I saw a reply from Sue Greenwald, which was much better than mine and really got to the heart of the matter:

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  • It’s Time To Give Youth A Chance

    By Bertie Brouhard

    Maybe for our U.S. House of Representatives 4th California Congressional District Seat? Time for us on November 3rd to elect Eric Jones as our new representative?

    So … who are we? And who are the incumbent, Mike Thompson, and his opponent in the midterm, General Election, Eric Jones? Soon we need to decide. 

    “We” of the “newish” 4th District (one of California’s 52) with its 760,000 population have an ethnic breakdown of 51.3% white, 31.4% Hispanic, 7.6% Asian and 5.3% two or more “other.” We’re solidly of the Democratic Party persuasion with a median income of $98,000 and median age of 39.9 years.

    Thanks to the passage of Prop. 50 in 2020 our district’s boundaries changed again. What were new district boundaries in 2012 which shifted the population centers to the south and east were shifted again in ‘20 to the west and the Bay Area adopting the bulk of District 5. Today our district is all of Lake and Napa Counties, most of Yolo and parts of Solano and Sonoma County. It includes the cities with populations greater than 10,000 of Santa Rosa, Vacaville, Napa,Woodland, Petaluma, West Sacramento, Rohnert Park and our home; Davis.

    Democratic Party candidates win most seats in our district. In 2024 Mike defeated Republican John Munn 66% to 33%. But sadly only about half our population is registered to vote and of those registered only about 50% cast a ballot. In June’s Non-partisan Primary election Thompson received some 84,000 votes to Jones’s 46,000. 

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  • Super PAC supporting Eric Jones spends $1.1 million more on campaign ads in just three weeks

    A new Substack author joins the chorus of people revealing the dark underside of Eric Jones’s run to unseat Mike Thompson

    💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰

    By Roberta Millstein

    This is just a quick little post to let people know about a new Substack author to pay attention to. Regular readers of Davisite articles on Eric Jones already know about the awesome Judy Tipple, who has kindly let us repost some of her articles here. Judy’s articles are always in depth and on point, and she always brings the receipts! Now here comes Bruce Banner with some quick and pointed articles on Eric Jones.

    Both Substacks are free, so give them a follow!

    And I thought I had been tracking the expenditures of the Super PAC that has been supporting Eric Jones, but Bruce’s most recent Substack post caught me by surprise: $1.1 million spent on ads for the Eric Jones campaign in September alone. This from the candidate who is still deceptively claiming not to take corporate PAC money, not beholden to special interests.

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  • Remembering Dick Livingston

    By Scott Steward

    Richard (Dick) Livingston was the kind of educator and citizen who defined what it means to belong to a community. He passed away in June, and a celebration of life will be held this Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at Rushtallers to honor his legacy.  Mr. Livingston had a whole family side I wasn’t familiar with, and I offer my condolences to them. I knew Mr. Livingston as a Davis Senior High School teacher and social justice activist in 1978.  I would learn much later that he was a jazz musician. There is much to know and remember.  He did not like overwrought accolades, but I’ll do it anyway.

    In a town where roughly 95% of the student body was headed for four-year universities, it was easy for a student running behind the curve to feel out of place. Dick never let that happen to me. He was more than an instructor—he was a mentor who saw potential where others saw performance gaps. He had an infectious joy in meeting students exactly where they were, building confidence, and cherishing their individuality.

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