How Bloomberg’s Digital Army Is Still Fighting for Democrats

With expensive data and tech heavy hitters, Hawkfish is backing the former mayor’s promise to take on Donald Trump.

Last month about two dozen engineers, designers, and product managers met on Zoom for a check-in on a software project: an app to help people register to vote by mail. The devs had pedigrees from places like Google and Amazon. Much of the discussion involved weighing each design tweak for its potential to entice users to register—or to irritate them so much that they bail. For instance, the merely curious or the mildly paranoid might balk at being asked for a phone number and jump off long before getting to the end point of finger-scrawling their signature. “We learned this from the Bloomberg campaign,” says one of the tech leads. “Every single element can drag you down.” Mike Bloomberg’s $1 billion presidential campaign is over—having crashed and burned after Elizabeth Warren’s blowtorch attack in the Las Vegas debate last February—but part of it survives as a hundred-person operation dedicated to electing Joe Biden and other Democrats. This is Hawkfish, the surviving digital component of the massive army that Bloomberg mustered last November to try to get the former New York City mayor into the White House. Hawkfish has been described as everything from the secret weapon to counter the powerful data operation of Trump’s digital guru Brad Parscale, to a stealth operation to neuter the increasingly progressive wing of the Democratic party. But until now, its operations have been conducted in secrecy. Months after the company was formed in 2019, a CNBC team unsuccessfully tried to locate the building where Hawkfish employees worked, dead-ending the search at the address of Bloomberg’s accountant. (The real headquarters, pre-Covid, was near Times Square.)

Recently, WIRED got an inside look at Hawkfish and found that the firm built on the Cult of Mayor Mike is still working to make its mark on the presidential campaign. What Hawkfish brings to digital politics is costly data, bought with Bloomberg’s billions and augmented with research and analysis from digital warriors on leave from the tech world. (More than once I heard that the reason for leaving a cushy job in tech was to explain to as-yet-unconceived grandchildren that they didn’t sit out the most critical election of our time.) But as with his presidential campaign, Bloomberg has learned that his name and money don’t automatically equal success. Hawkfish lost its bid for the biggest potential client: It won’t be the main data provider to the Biden 2020 campaign organization.

Still, the company has quietly won the business of several clients, including the Democratic National Committee, two well-funded SuperPacs, and others it has vowed to keep confidential. Democrats may not trust Mike Bloomberg, or even like him. But they like his money, which in Hawkfish’s case has bought a load of digital talent and valuable data stores. And the Democratic ticket needs all the help it can get in the digital battle against Donald Trump.

Still, the company has quietly won the business of several clients, including the Democratic National Committee, two well-funded SuperPacs, and others it has vowed to keep confidential. Democrats may not trust Mike Bloomberg, or even like him. But they like his money, which in Hawkfish’s case has bought a load of digital talent and valuable data stores. And the Democratic ticket needs all the help it can get in the digital battle against Donald Trump.

Still, the company has quietly won the business of several clients, including the Democratic National Committee, two well-funded SuperPacs, and others it has vowed to keep confidential. Democrats may not trust Mike Bloomberg, or even like him. But they like his money, which in Hawkfish’s case has bought a load of digital talent and valuable data stores. And the Democratic ticket needs all the help it can get in the digital battle against Donald Trump.

https://www.wired.com/story/hawkfish-bloomberg-digital-army-fighting-for-democrats/

Anons this is a long article, but you don't have to read far into it to realize, what is described in it, is exactly what is happening here. Mike Bloomberg has pulled out all the stops.. We need a dig on his Hawkfish Company

This was posted in last nights pb..spooked the current baking team so much that they created 3 breads to bury the information!

>>11195625

AstraZeneca shares turn negative after Brazilian health authority says volunteer in Covid vaccine study dies

AstraZeneca shares turned negative after a Brazilian health authority, Anvisa, said a volunteer in its coronavirus vaccine study died. The Federal University of Sao Paulo, which is helping coordinate late-stage trials in Brazil, separately said that the volunteer was Brazilian, according to Reuters. The news comes as the Food and Drug Administration still has a late-stage clinical trial from AstraZeneca on hold in the United States.

AstraZeneca shares turned negative Wednesday after a Brazilian health authority, Anvisa, said a volunteer in its coronavirus vaccine study died. The Federal University of Sao Paulo, which is helping coordinate late-stage trials in Brazil, separately said that the volunteer was Brazilian, according to Reuters. Shares of AstraZeneca, a front-runner in the Covid-19 vaccine race, gave up a slight gain after the news broke. Shares were down by about 1% in early afternoon trading. A spokesperson from AstraZeneca declined to comment on the volunteer, citing “medical confidentiality and clinical trial regulations.” The spokesperson added that ”[a]ll significant medical events are carefully assessed by trial investigators” and ”[t]hese assessments have not led to any concerns about continuation of the ongoing study.”

In a statement, a spokesperson from the University of Oxford, which is developing the vaccine with AstraZeneca, said “there have been no concerns about safety of the clinical trial” after an assessment of the case in Brazil. “The independent review in addition to the Brazilian regulator have recommended that the trial should continue,” Oxford spokesperson Alexander Buxton said. Oxford provided no further details on the volunteer’s death, and it’s unclear if the volunteer received the vaccine. Brazil currently has the second deadliest outbreak in the world, behind the United States, with at least 115,914 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. A source familiar with the situation told Reuters that the trial would have been suspended if the volunteer had been a part of the group getting the shot. The news comes as the Food and Drug Administration still has a late-stage clinical trial from AstraZeneca on hold in the United States. That means the company is unable to administer second doses of its two-dose vaccine regimen to U.S. participants.

The company announced on Sept. 8 that its trial had been put on hold due to an unexplained illness in a patient in the United Kingdom. The patient is believed to have developed inflammation of the spinal cord, known as transverse myelitis. The trial has since resumed in the U.K. and other countries. The U.S. is expected to resume the trial as early as this week after the FDA completed its review, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing four anonymous sources. AstraZeneca is one of four drugmakers backed by the U.S. in late-stage testing for a potential vaccine. AstraZeneca’s vaccine, called AZD1222, uses genetic material from the coronavirus with a modified adenovirus. In July, the company published data that showed its vaccine produced a promising immune response in an early-stage trial and appeared to be well tolerated. The vaccine produced no serious adverse events in volunteers, according to the researchers at the time. Fatigue and headache were the most commonly reported side effects, they said. Other common side effects included pain at the injection site, muscle ache, chills and a fever.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/21/astrazeneca-shares-slide-after-brazilian-health-authority-says-volunteer-in-covid-vaccine-study-dies.html