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Category: Web/Tech

  • 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.

    LESSON TWO:  Sorting Analyses Using Custom Standard Filters

    [Note: you may first wish to read Lesson One: Sorting Analyses Using Basic Standard Filters, linked here].

    By F.E.C. Nerd

    Step One:  Log into your favorite Internet browser.  Then go to:

    https://www.fec.gov/data/browse-data/?tab=candidates

    This will take you directly to the Homepage of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and its webpage that permits browsing of candidates’ financing.  This is the official repository of federal election campaign finance information relating to Federal office candidates.  Campaign reports are filed electronically and the information reported can be directly accessed here. 

    Step Two:  Scroll down the page towards the bottom and click on the link for “House of Representatives Candidates.”

    Step Three:  The next page that appears lists all House candidates in order of totals raised for this election cycle.  The list is topped by AOC, with Hakeem Jeffries and Mike Johnson both near the top.  However, if you scroll down to the 18th-ranked you will see Eric Jones with $8.3 Million.  Where did all this money come from?

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  • Taming The Beast; L’homme Machine

    By Bertie Brouhard

    Craving a burger after a recent trip abroad I recently made a beeline for In-N-Out on Olive Drive. Dining in savoring my Double-Double with cheese, fries and chocolate shake (consistently delicious) I was struck by how very quiet my surroundings were. It was busy. I suspect a normal lunch hour. A dozen or so white clad employees crowned by chef overseas caps and secured by large safety pins holding tight their aprons were slicing, dicing, frying, serving. Filling orders. The drive-thru was backed up, the inside big bench occupied by customers waiting to pick up their meals, and the indoor and outdoor dining areas crowded with tradesmen, high school and college kids and a couple old townies like me. The few conversations (albeit brief) were those of other old schoolers needing to voice their orders at the walkup counter, the server calling out numbers for pickup and those I suppose shouting theirs from their vehicles into the drive-thru box.

    Other than one older couple rambling in Spanish I didn’t see or hear one ongoing verbal conversation amongst the several dozen inside dining customers or the dozen or so fast moving employees. The employees were not on their phones but all the customers; burger, fries or drink in one hand had their cell phones in their other. The singles, doubles, threesomes and foursomes all we glued to theirs.

    How sad! I for one miss good conversations. This “beast” (mine and your mobile, cellular phone) needs some usage guidelines, etiquette training perhaps; maybe a day or two weekly of rest (turned “off’.) The scene while munching my lunch got me thinking about my tech journey and our phones’ overblown importance and unbridled use.

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  • 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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  • 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.

  • 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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  • 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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  • Eric Jones, a moving target, Part 1: The Davis town hall

    By John Smolenski

         I went to the town hall Eric Jones held on August 26 at Watermelon Music. I came away from the town hall without a clear sense of why Jones is running for Congress in District 4 and what he hopes to accomplish. This emerged as he talked about the policies hoped to enact if elected to Congress. (That he showed more enthusiasm regarding an endorsement from Republican candidate Raymond Riehle than he did for the Democratic party’s goals seemed telling.) Comparing what he said at his town hall to what I found re-reading his website only compounded this sense. It’s not entirely clear what Jones stands for, especially since his policies have moved significantly to the right since the primary, as he sought Riehle’s endorsement. In many respects, it seems as if this movement has happened less as a ideological evolution than an opportunistic attempt to get elected. I do not believe Jones is a viable choice for progressives seeking change in Washington.

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  • To share: Links to articles about Eric Jones

    By request, here are links to Davisite articles about Eric Jones’s bid to unseat Mike Thompson in the House, plus his recent donation #s (as best as I can determine them), for easy sharing with friends & on social media. I will try to keep this post updated. – Roberta

    *** This is a pinned post — scroll down if you’re on the main page looking for new Davisite articles on other topics

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  • Eric Jones’s Healthcare Record: Employers 7, Patients 0; the good news is your boss saved money

    Wrong seat, wrong moment, CACD-04 Part VI

    By Judy Tipple

    His campaign biography says his father’s health struggles taught him “how critical affordable health care” is to working families (ericjones.us/meet-eric). It says he “built a firm that built businesses.” It lists Lyra Health as a company he helped make “accessible to millions.”

    Fair enough. Let’s look at the businesses.

    His job was healthcare

    Jones joined Dragoneer Investment Group in 2013 and became a partner 4 years later, where he remained until he resigned in July 2025. Not an employee. A partner. His sector title at the firm was “Partner – Healthcare, Fintech, Internet” (RocketReach profile; his LinkedIn will confirm). Healthcare was not a side interest. It was his book.

    So the question is simple. When Jones and Dragoneer put money into healthcare, who was the customer?

    Seven companies. Same answer.

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