Here is an interesting Counterpunch article by Margaret Kidder, about the Faustian deal that many 33 states have made with the Hillary Victory Fund. Essentially, the state Democratic parties have made deals to funnel donations to the Hillary Victory Fund, which then distributes these monies as it sees fit. This multiplies the limit that an individual donor can make to a state party committee by the number of states signing on to the deal. Instead of just donating $10,000 to one state per year, a donor can give this amount to all 33 participatory states, and all of that money ends up with the Hillary Victory Fund. Considering that the fund is administered by Elizabeth Jones, the Clinton campaign's chief operating officer, one can imagine where that money is going. More on that later. Meanwhile, understand that all of this is made possible by the 2014 McCutcheon et. al. v. FEC SCOTUS decision, which eliminated aggregate limits on individual political donations.

In theory, this agreement provides a larger pool of money that can go to candidates in these states, for example, Montana (whose Democratic party committee is cash-strapped). For this benefit, these state parties pledged their loyalty to the Hillary Victory Fund. This implies that super delegates from these states have promised their support to Clinton, and it will be hard to break such a promise no matter what the pledged delegate count looks like. This may explain why we have not seen defection of super delegates to Sanders in states such as Maine or Alaska, signatory to the HVF deal, despite large popular vote margins in Sanders' favor.

Think about that. A recent NYT article (cited in the Counterpunch article) proclaims that elected officials in 22 states would not support Bernie Sanders. All 22 of these states took the deal with the HVF. Does this really mean that these super delegates will weigh in to oppose the popular vote if Sanders is ahead in pledged delegates going into the convention but without enough to seal the nomination? This is a chilling prospect for the party and representative government itself. A scenario such as this would surely fracture the party, perhaps beyond repair.

Ironically, all of the states claiming interference by the Clinton campaign are signatories to the Hillary Victory Fund deal. Equally ironic is that the money being pooled by this deal is being handed over to the DNC. Montana, for example received $43,500 from the HVF and transferred it on the same day to the DNC. Other states have done the same with their kickbacks. Thus, this money isn't even benefiting candidates in these states. Not that anyone wanting untainted elections would want to support candidates taking such monies if they had a choice.

For someone who says she'd appoint SCOTUS justices who would overturn Citizens United, Clinton has made no bones about pursuing every angle to take advantage of Citizens United and its sequel (McCutcheon v. FEC) to raise as much as possible. And the people she's raising it from? Uber elite such as "Donald Sussman hedgefund manager from New York ... and NRA and Viacom lobbyist Jeffrey Forbes." A hedgefund manager. An NRA lobbyist. So much for standing up to the gun lobby! Such wealthy donors making such large donations will surely expect a nice return on their investment in the form of policies favoring their interests.

The original article can be found at http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-lo...". You might want to check out the Counterpunch Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CounterPunch-official-172470146144666/". In the comments, the author provides additional detail about her investigations that led her to these findings.