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Saturday, April 30, 2016

Deadline Schmeadline

In A Perfect World, SOMEONE Would Vet Sanders
Yep. That email went out from the Sanders campaign this morning. He wants all of his supporters to send him some more money in light of the FEC deadline tonight. My question ... WHY? They've already told the FEC they would not be filing any additional information until after the campaign is over.
Thoughtfully ask yourself ... What does Sanders' busy schedule have to do with a paid treasurers time constraints? Does the treasurer have to go to all of the events? Shouldn't the job of treasurer limit one's time on the campaign trail so as to ensure their ability to maintain the finances of this 'revolutionary' fundraising apparatus? Apparently not.

The campaign has blatantly ingonred FEC guidelines, thus far. When asked for answers to quite pertinent questions, his treasurer, Susan Jackson, has replied with absolute NONSENSE. For instance, they have been asked every filing for correction on their filings of 'unitemized individual contributions.' Here they have disclosed $116,917,592. That amount has yet to be explained.

FEC Link Here
These questions of unitemized individual contributions began in June 2015, the same month Hillary Clinton kicked off her campaign. On filings every combined personal contribution above $200 has to show the name/address of the donor. The Sanders campaign, instead, offered this:


They have had similar entries every filing since. And that is how they have over $116M in donations they have not had to answer to. Keep in mind that the FEC has specific fines for each violation and their calculations are based on repeated offenses. How many donors are merely contributing to a pot that will be used to pay off the myriad violations and refusal to submit proper documentation to prove where their donations came from? I have seen many people write about this (not any MSM, of course) so I will leave it there and go into the things I found questionable in a single morning of looking through his FEC filing.

#1 February 29 was the day before Super Tuesday. He sent out emails and was all over Twitter and Facebook with pleas for donations with a really great video that got a lot of attention on social media. Sanders, however, has reported to the FEC that on that day, the day before Super Tuesday - the day all of his supporters had been waiting for, he managed to raise $650.50 in donations. If that isn't questionable enough, refer to every other day.

FEC Link Here
#2 All campaigns must disclose where their money is coming from. Some have reported on the fact that he was caught having a lot of donations from outside the US and he was supposed to have refunded that money. As of the last time they bothered to reply to the FEC, some of those had been refunded and they promised to have the rest completed for the April filing. (Yes, the filing they just extended til after the campaign is over). (See formal reply here from Sanders campaign).What I found interesting was the zip codes. As soon as I opened the link, something struck me. Those zip codes are not real. Lest anyone doubt my intentions ... this is the link to the USPS.com to search zip codes.

FEC Link Here
#3 In the summary of expenditures the campaign showed two that were questionable to me because they are the names of Superdelegates that have vowed to support him at the convention. First Keelan Sanders received $5,265.25. This is a superdelegate from Mississippi. If Sanders were sincere about his contention that Superdelegates should support the nominees their states voted for, his 18% should probably not warrant him the support. The second notable name on the list of payees is Troy Jackson who received $4,849.89. This is the name of a Superdelegate pledged to Sanders from Maine, but as this is a more common name, I will have to do more research before I make a full assessment. THIS LINK will take you to the payees. If you hit ctrl+f and type the names you can find them and do research beyond my own. (I swear to Christ if anyone decides to harrass either of these people after reading this I will do my best to shame and embarrass you online - let Sanders supporters be the assholes)

#4 Finally last week I had had enough of how questionable his campaign was in regard to their finances (refusing to release 8 years of tax returns, not correcting/explaining FEC violations, not addressing the $116M unitemized donations) and I wanted to do a little research myself. Knowing that my bank would never let a $5000 charge go through, I tried to donate to his campaign from his website. When you donate more than $2700, the system should stop you and tell you that you are exceeding the legal limit for donation. It did not. It sent it to my bank. My bank said, 'Yeah. Right.' And it STILL did not tell me I was exceeding a limit, it just suggested I try another credit card.




As if his campaign hasn't been toxic enough lately, he has had Sainte Jane all over MSM this week explaining that they were going to release their 2015 tax returns soon. She, of course, then changed the subject whenever anyone reminded her that they were supposed to be releasing many more than 2 years to the fact that Secretary Clinton had not released transcripts of speeches given while being a private citizen. So they're under fraud investigations from 2011 and America is supposed to take a pinkie promise on their finances and, instead, reflect on a demand made of no candidate in history?

America, really. Its time to be done with this bullshit candidacy. Its time to get back to reminding the country who are really jeopardizing our futures. Its time to tell Sanders and his embarrassing campaign to step aside and behave like adults. And I think its really time that Sanders be held accountable for his shady (at best) fund raising.


Kiss Kiss ... Mean Progressive



Wonder about that $889M they promised?




21 comments:

  1. Thanks for this. I was looking at page 8/9 of the FEC letter and saw that someone named James Bartlett made about 50 small donations on the same day. This will count as 50 donors that Sanders can brag about. Who donates in $10, $18, $25 increments on one day? Bartlett is just one example of multiple donations per day. Something stinks to high heaven. http://linkis.com/docquery.fec.gov/pdf/zMCqX

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  2. YES!!! Keelan Sanders! I identified that name this past weekend. Very interesting that he "endorsed" Bernie on January 19, and then suddenly became a paid consultant to the tun of $11,500+ through the end of the April Monthly report. On Keelan's LinkedIn page he indicates that his company "KLS Consulting, Inc." does "consulting" work for the Bernie 2016 campaign. However a search on the Mississippi State Business Registry shows that KLS Consulting, Inc. was dissolved in 2008. How convenient for Keelan that he was able to get this paid gig with Bernie 2016, so soon after offering his (paid) endorsement!

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  3. HARK!! I stumbled on a paid Hillary troll site!

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    1. hark - get a new line - burnie is the one that pays trolls, as well as funneling campaign money to his hagged out wife and daughter and friends. Are you one of those that burnie pays?

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    2. Neither here nor there on the article, but I must say that for all the "misogyny!" claims put forth by HRC and her supporters, first against Obama in '08 and now against Sanders....it's some kind of hypocrisy to see a Hillary supporter (female or not) make such a disgusting sexist comment. Should probably screenshot it and reply with it every time I see a b.s. "Sexism! Misogyny!" accusation fly at Bernie or his supporters.

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    3. Kellie ... If you aren't aware of the misogyny, you are either woefully overwhelmed by the movement and unable to see the forest for the trees or you don't know the definition of the word. Have you never seen anyone post a comment saying that someone is only voting for HRC because they're voting with their vagina? Have you no recollection of a speaker calling out 'whores'? Have no recollection of people tossing dollar bills at HRC? Have you no idea what it means when a woman is being called 'unqualified' by a man who has next to no accomplishments? How about a man who is literally losing a race who tells the world he'd be better suited than she? NO ONE would say someone is unqualified to run after having been the first functioning FLOTUS, 2 term Senator and Secretary of State. No one. But he used her vote to give authority to Bush (not the vote to go to war as sheep are prone to repeat) as a disqualfier. Curious, NO? We gave the nod to Kerry after he made the same vote. And VP Biden. But a woman is disqualified, after her entire record, because of her vote. It is all bullshit. And his overt sexism has been on display his entire career for anyone who bothered to vet his sorry ass. His rape fantasies should disqualify him at once, and if he were to have made it to the general (thank GOD he won't) it would have ruined him for the voting public at-large. He voted against rape victims. He ran against a woman in VT and told people he was more of a feminist than she. It was laughable upon review. He has NEVER had a woman on his staff until he ran for President. And you want to dismiss allegations. Kindly get your head out of your ass. It must stink in there something awful. Get a bit of fresh air and reenter the real world where Progressivism is something to be proud of and not use as a weapon against others and where humanity resides on the left. Your lot are destroying any chance we have at a healthy future in this country. You should all be ashamed.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. A candidate's dishonesty permeates top to bottom. This is precisely why we see the Clinton campaign paying trolls.

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  5. Desperate trash here. Anyone wishing to fish for Clinton scandal merely needs to skim the surface.

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    1. Sorry if the truth hurts Ann, but Bernie's past is littered with campaign finance fraud. This isn't the first time he's misappropriated campaign funds or otherwise committed FEC violations.

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    2. oh, poor ann, facts and truth upset her so. It is either a burnbot-shit-for-brains or a repuketard - same thing, actually. The ONLY one's desperate are the $CAMders crew - lying, trolling phony, scumbags. Those Clinton "scandals" are ALL made up by the repukes and adopted by burnie 'cause neither can win on the truth of their own records.

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  6. Anonymous stumbling in the dark. Not the brightest bulb in Sander's stable.

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  7. google "ad hominem". note that it in no way adresses the argument advanced.

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  8. This is all pure nonsense, based on fundamentally flawed assumptions and straw men.

    If this is site is supposed to convince Sanders supporters of anything (which I would hope is the goal, considering how vital they will be to victory in November), I would start by showing some actual evidence to support your claims, or at least partially acknowledging the validity of the grassroots movement that has demonstrably propelled Bernie to the fore.

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    1. What for? You guys never give us any good evidence Bernie is the guy to vote for. Don't vote for that guy didn't work out for the anti-Obama people, I don't know why you thought it'd work for you.

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  9. "And I think its really time that Sanders be held accountable for his shady (at best) fund raising." - I have no idea what this even means... He is the only candidate with a progressive platform, the only candidate that has been fighting for progressive ideals for 20 years, and the only candidate that isn't taking large corporate/lobby hand-outs that may influence his decision-making while in office. What are you insinuating? What's he's doing with the hundreds of thousands of small donations he's getting from around the country? You seem to be bashing on him without justification. out of all the candidates that have every reason to pocket special interest monies, you go on a non-sensical rant about Bernie somehow getting rich without a superpac...

    This article is so radically biased, dramatic, and non-sensical, even for a tea-party extremest, that one would HAVE TO assume you are being coerced to write this hit piece, I can only assume by who and with what.

    For being a progressive, you certainly hate progressives...

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    1. The implication is that he is NOT taking all small donations; that some of them are LARGE donations, split up or just ignored.

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    2. He is not the only candidate with a progressive platform. Try checking Hillary's
      He is not the only candidate fighting for progressive issues for 20 years. (fighting for ideals is pointless) Check Hillary's actual history of progressive accomplishments and actions, not just finger wagging speeches.
      Large corporate hand-outs or paid speeches? Hillary earns half of what the orange does for giving a speech and it is ILLEGAL for a sitting Senator to give paid speeches.
      His campaign finances are a disaster, he has been notified by the FEC since last July and hasn't fixed it, he has taken in enough $ to hire all the staff needed to correct the problem and hasn't done so. Imagine what an opponent would do with that. He never had private sector long term employment to support himself and his son, only finally having steady pay at 39 when he was elected mayor, so essentially taxpayers have been supporting him ever since and he can't manage his own campaign finances and you want to hand him control of our finances and economy- no thank you. Not getting control of one's campaign finances and filing reports is a Big Deal. It shows a complete lack of Executive ability. Not Qualified!

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  10. Thank you for this! So frustrating to see his supporters spreading right-wing lies about Hillary, when Sanders is the exact type of lying, hypocritical, scandal-ridden politician he claims he is so different from.

    Really wish the media would actually cover his lies, inconsistencies, hypocritical remarks, and apparent complete and utter lack of understanding his own central issues. Funny to see his supporters crying that the MSM isn't treating him fairly or giving him enough attention... They have ignored him because of how irrelevant he is, which has been the best thing that could have happened to his campaign.

    He runs around all day smearing Clinton and the Democrats without anyone retaliating. Would love to see how he, his campaign, and supporters would handle a REAL attack.

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  11. Troy Jackson from Maine worked for the campaign, that is why he was paid. While I disagree with his choice of candidate, I can assure you he is an honorable person.

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