Hillary Victory Fund and Superdelegates Flipping to Bernie
I've been musing over the recent article in Politico and elsewhere about how the $61 million raised by Hill for her Victory Fund, ostensibly to help down-ballot Democratic candidates win elections, hasn't actually gone to them. $3.8 million was transferred to state parties, but $3.3 million of it was immediately transferred back to the DNC. In other words, less than 1% of Clinton's haul went to down-ballot candidates. And $23.3 million of the $61 million was already spent on Clinton's staffers and advertising. Bernie's campaign claims that Clinton is laundering the money through the DNC to skirt campaign finance limits.
Aside from the obvious - that the Clintons have corruption built into their DNA, why would all the superdelegates who pledged to nominate her years ago hold up their end of the bargain if she isn't holding up her's? It's beginning to look like Bernie's mission to get the superdelegates to flip their votes to him are a distinct possibility. I also don't think it's plausible that Joe Biden is going to ride into Philadelphia on his white horse and get the nom without getting one single primary vote from the little people. It won't sit well with voters and pitchforks will come out and blood will flow in the streets. Interesting times.
Comments
Yeah, this 'promise' that the states and the Super D's would get
funds when none show up has been on my mind. I'm not leaning toward thinking they necessarily are sway-able on the whole, I just think we're missing information. I attempted to clarify with the author of the first article I saw on the subject, and that person said the allure is apparently in the promise that the money will come. I'm more cynical than that - I think there's an extra-contract promise for which there's no paper trail. Or maybe it's a threat. I do not think we know the full conversation.
It's unclear what this state party official's take is on the state party NOT receiving $$ from the HVF/DNC deal in Montana, but presumably she supports it and is not balking as represented here:
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Ya, if you're only a money laundry
you too can move millions of dollars, and still not get one red cent out of it. But only if they're strong-arming you or making promises they can't keep--and then only if you're stupid enough to take them at their word.
The corruption is thick with this DNC. Disgusting. Forget broken promises, though, and remember--money laundering is a federal offense. Add that to Clinton's list.
There's a number of reasons that hashtag is trending, for her to drop out. She is unelectable with all the shit hanging over here.
Which hashtag?
I'm so out of the loop.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
I think it's #HillaryDropOut
I think it's #HillaryDropOut
#DropOutHillary
https://twitter.com/hashtag/dropouthillary?f=tweets&vertical=news&src=hash
I think the optics is the main problem
rather than the lack of money. If it is indisputable that the money went right back to the DNC, then the state parties who set up these funds were either duped, or, more likely, were simply complicit in a scheme, probably vetted by 50 lawyers, to skirt campaign finance laws, and let the Clinton campaign and their Clooney's to lie about down-ballot races. That must be pretty embarrassing for them, and for Clooney, e.g. who probably believed what he was told. And what of the donors? Were they basically defrauded, giving money to the state parties that secretly went straight to DNC? Or did they know that it was going to Clinton, and thus participate in a conspiracy to avoid campaign finance limits? This has left a lot of people exposed.
Well, yeah--but if the donors were defrauded
that's about far more than optics. Either way, money laundering is a federal offense. It might even fall under RICO, since it's institutional corruption, plus it breaks banking laws.
If 50 lawyers vetted it, there's at least 1 that tried to tell them they were stupid for trying this. And I'll guarandamntee you that one lawyer is the one telling them to start thinking about DNC Plan B, starring Joe Biden.
I'm not sure money laundering is a crime
either it is hiding money from other crime or avoiding taxes. IANAL, but I think we are using the term figuratively. In this case, the crime would be breaking campaign finance laws, which are already so weak and bullet ridden it is not even necessary, hence the 50 lawyers, and this whole circus of PACs. So I don't think there is any outright criminality from that, though I sure hope some motivated professionals are looking at this very carefully. I sure hope all the relevant parties in every state are asked a lot of questions by a lot of concerned constituents.
As to defrauding the donors, that also seems like something they would have covered in fine print somewhere, though if high profile donors were accused of conspiring to avoid the campaign finance laws by writing 33 checks, they might feel obliged to demonstrate that they wanted to help those 32 states by claiming to feel defrauded and going to court. In any case, I think they should all be questioned about their involvement in the scheme.
This fumble will not impress anyone with the Clinton/Schulz gang.
I am
and I'm not even a lawyer. US law is pretty clear on this, and any competent lawyer will tell you some variation of the following:
Skirting campaign finance laws is ILLEGAL.
Obviously colluding to make donations to state parties with
The clear understanding these are donations for the HRC campaign IS illegal... It done specifically to skirt campaign finance limits and the Mayor of NYC is now embroiled in a mini version of just this very thing... possibly colluding with BIG MONEY donors to "wash" some gigantic donations to 3 specific state candidates that a Ted to more then 10 times the legal limit for donations. These are PASS THROUGHS. never ever intended for state party use... And only being passed through the local party coffers and then The PARTY gives all that money to the pre selected candidates .
DiBlasio is under investigation by both the NY DAs office AND the DA for the entire southern district and this is already in the supeona stage.
Orwell was an optimist
Dennis Hastert’s going to prison because he broke banking laws
— the statute of limitations having expired on any sexual abuse he may have committed.
Sauce for the goose . . .
Maybe they were made an offer they couldn't refuse.
If you believe HRC is inevitable, you're going to do whatever the fuck she tells you to do, rather than face the downstream consequence of defying her.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
But under McCutcheon, laundering appears to be legal...
So, I'm not sure where RICO would even come up. Sure, we all (by that I mean us, here, as opposed to those we've left behind) are disgusted by the very idea of money laundering, but I'm not sure it's actually a crime in the post-McCutcheon world. It SHOULD be a crime in a just world.
This is why I advocate for people ALWAYS mentioning McCutcheon in the same breath as Citizens United!
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
McCutcheon does not codify
skirting campaign finance law if there has been willful lying about who gets what and how it's gotten.
In other words, the main crime here is not the laundering, it's the promise to enrich all parties in exchange for donations or votes, and then not following through. That's fraud. Under that rubric, they might be able to get "laundering" to stick as a secondary crime.
That sounds correct to my untrained ear
But my main source for what the DNC is shoveling these days is comment threads at GOS (yes, I do keep an eye out and even sometimes comment at this point to push back), and a day or so ago, there was a diary hootin' and hollerin' about how what Bernie said about HVF is fallacious.
Don't remember how much was in the diary or in the comments, but consensus from the Bots over there is that the DNC funding coordinated campaigns in the states equals state parties getting cash (which is not at all the same thing in my read of it).
Point being, they all seem to think whatever the DNC says/does is dandy. Truth-telling appears to be optional.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Hillary Victory Fund
I forgot to include in this essay that Clintonbots have been all over the Internet and the MSM, especially on TOP, crowing over how Hill is supporting down-ballot Dems, while turncoat socialist Bernie is a traitor to the party and not contributing one red cent to other Dems. This has gone on for months and started when Bernie started winning.
If one repeats a lie often enough...
Here it's repeated by Politico: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/hillary-clinton-fundraising-democr...
(Also, not sure Sanders 2016 actually signed a deal as it suggests here: the DNC made an account for Sanders called Bernie Victory Fund, but unlike the Hillary Victory Fund where the person who signs off on that fund is a Hillary staffer, the person who heads the Bernie Victory Fund is a DNC staffer.)
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Is not the person who headed the
"Bernie Victory Fund" engaged in "conflict of interest"?
This thing is not set up the same way for all parties. That's a problem.
Problem is in the eye of the beholder
...I gather they may have been able to benefit themselves in other ways by creating a sham account. I'm hoping the person who told me that will write more publicly on the topic because I'm intrigued.
I've said this here in comments previously that the one thing I know we get out of this election FOR SURE is blockbuster movies about political espionage.
We may or may not get a new president out of it, and having that person be democratically elected is seeming pretty iffy at present.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
This is not a conflict of interest case
It's a case of using state parties to pass LARGE donations to the HVF
Private donors have strict limits on how much they can donate to her
State parties have different limits
If you want to give HRC 50,000 the only way to do it is to do ate it to a state party with the clear understanding they are to immediately give all that money to the HVF.
It's illegal and it IS money laundering
Orwell was an optimist
This is not a conflict of interest case
It's a case of using state parties to pass LARGE donations to the HVF
Private donors have strict limits on how much they can donate to her
State parties have different limits
If you want to give HRC 50,000 the only way to do it is to do ate it to a state party with the clear understanding they are to immediately give all that money to the HVF.
It's illegal and it IS money laundering
Orwell was an optimist
HVF ad says it's also paid for by state parties
First time I've noticed this (but then I haven't made a habit of clicking their click-bait).
Found here.
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
But if the money went into the state fund
and then right back out, back to either the DNC or the "Hillary Victory Fund", then the DNC either paid for the ad buy, or they laundered money through the state parties, to circumvent limits, and made the states cut the checks to pay for the ads anyway.
Most interesting--they put the Bernie Victory fund under the oversight of the DNC. Yeah, realllllllly interesting, that little tidbit...
I've seen reported that it's NOT the state Dem parties
making the transfers - the money comes into their accounts and immediately goes out, and it's not them signing off on the transfers - it's either the DNC or HVF, I haven't looked into that detail.
At any rate, I think the state parties are just listed here, I don't think they are paying for the ad buys out of their accounts - ALL the HVF-related money goes through their accounts into DNC. And then I don't know what happens from there. But I think they are listed to make it appear that it's aggregate but what they are referring to is just that money passed through their accounts for a moment.
I linked the Bernie Victory Fund info in this piece: http://caucus99percent.com/content/whos-behind-bernie-victory-fund-dnc-o...
'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member
Here is a link to an article that explains it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-lo...
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
She is such a hypocrite
She has been our arms merchant and chief, and got money to boot. Then she acts like gun control is such a big deal. Too much!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
But those countries NEED arms to defend democracy & human rights
Oh — wait . . .
oh crap. hadn't thought about the currency angle
The First Woman President would end up on the currency FOR SURE. It would certainly be bitterly ironic for us who view Hillary as a consummate criminal. Fuck it, if Hillary ends up on the twenty I'll finally go paperless. Just so I don't have to see that face.
With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU
The best government money can buy
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.