Bernie Sanders Doth Protest Too Much
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders wasted no time using the Tucson shooting to financially benefit his 2012 reelection campaign. From his email:
In terms of this savage shooting rampage, several points need to be made. First, this horrendous act of violence is not some kind of strange aberration for this area where, it appears, threats and acts of violence are part of the political climate. Nobody can honestly express surprise that such a tragedy finally occurred.
Sanders continued by implying that Republicans and their business interests are set to benefit significantly in the 2012 elections:
The right-wing Republicans now leading their party are extremely confident that the political momentum is with them. They not only won decisive victories in the last election but, as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, they correctly believe that they will have a huge financial advantage in future elections because billionaires and corporate interests can now contribute as much as they like into the political process without disclosure. …
Yes, of course they will continue their usual day-to-day efforts to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut back on programs desperately needed by the middle-class, but now they are prepared to go much further. [emphasis added]
Oxford English Dictionary defines “corporation” as “a large industrial company.” “Company” is defined as “a legal association formed to carry on some commercial or industrial undertaking.” Such undertakings are known as “business,” which OED defines as “commercial transactions or engagements; total bookings, receipts, etc.” Or “a commercial house, a firm.” The bottom line? Profit.
Some history is in order.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was intended to “immediately provide authority and facilities that the Secretary of the Treasury can use to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States.” It authorized the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to spend about $750 billion of our tax dollars on banks and other financial institutions, shoring up the economy and mortgage industry.
In the House, 172 (73.2%) Democrats and 91 (45.7%) Republicans voted Yea.
In the Senate, 40 Democrats (78.4%) and 34 Republicans (69.4%) voted Yea.
To his credit, Sanders voted Nay, along with 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Nevertheless, Democrats were instrumental in passing this legislation.
The financial and real estate industries responded by giving 51.6% of their 2008 campaign contributions to Democrats, the first time Democrats received over 50% since 1994. These industries include corporations like Citigroup and Southwest Louisiana Land LLC.
For the 2008 election cycle, all business sectors gave Democrats a record 54.7% of total campaign contributions. Since 1996, business has been finding more friends in the Democratic Party, increasing contributions from a record low of 40.4% to 51.2% in 2010. The Democrats became the party of Big Business in their own right.
Some of the financial institutions receiving TARP money awarded their wealthy officers “billions in bonuses,” including individual “million-dollar bonuses.” For example, “JPMorgan paid out bonuses in excess of $3m to more than 200 employees.” Since the TARP money was tax dollars, this qualifies as Sanders’ “tax breaks” for very wealthy people.
I am occasionally in Vermont, and it is amazing how the “flatlanders” have totally destroyed this state. 60 years ago, it was rock-ribbed Republican. Today, it is no exaggeration to say that it is Marxist, the most left-wing state in America. Seriously, it should join Canada or the EU and secede from America. It is THAT far gone.
Sanders, after all, is an avowed Socialist and has been elected to the House and now the Senate. Howard Dean may be even further left. Leahy is quite a hammer-and-sickle guy too. You have to go to Vermont (and not just the People’s Republic of Burlington, where Sanders was mayor), to see how the Leftist/Gaiaist culture has so infested the state and so taken over the schools and the media. You think it’s bad where you are? Pre-1991 Pravda would be mainstream in Vermont.
But Vermont is like Europe in more than just its radical left-green culture. The state is collapsing demographically. It has the 2nd lowest birth rate, and in a state that has little industry (IBM and semiconductors used to be big, but environmental regulations drove most of that away), young people leave when they graduate high school, many do not come back. Being overwhelmingly white and rural with little public transport, Hispanic immigrants have not come to the state for lower-paying jobs as they do elsewhere. School enrollments are dropping.
The white leftists from New York (including Dean and Sanders) who have ruined the state are going to see it all collapse on them.
Oops, don’t get fooled by Sanders accent. He may have been born in NY, but close friends from Springfield, VT, tell me they remember him from grammer and high school days. He was as much a jerk then as he is now.
A well researched article but, who really cares what Bermie Sanders is up to? He is a one man band form an area that keeps sending him back. Mostly Bernie is a curiosity. What seems obvious to the rest of the country will pass Bernie and most who voted for him by. They are still mired in 1960′s style politics. They have never left that decade.
And this is a surprise, why exactly?
Remember, all the left has left is ‘projection’ accusing us of what they do. It’s old, never changes, and if poosible needsto be ignored.
If all you Democrats on the hill would listen to the people and stop the overthrow of this country you may be able to sleep better at night. You are doing nothing but following the POTUSINO blindly not seeing what we see: a Dictator in the making. This country will not allow a Dictator.
Get balls and tell the Dictator in Training-NO and start being the representatives of the People that you were sent to the hill to be.
And this relates to the article above… how?
I simply look at the part of the country from which he hails, yawn, and delete. He needs to get out and see the real world.
Democrats being hypocritical when it comes to campaign donations? Naaaaa. Democrats using a tragic event (like the Arizona shooting) to score cheap political points with their base? Say it ain’t so. Democrats spending us into oblivion under four years of Pelosi and Reid and then blaming the Republicans (usually George W. Bush) for the budget deficits and gigantic national debt? Shocking. Yet people fall for this again and again.
Fight them with facts. Come 2012, facts will prove that Obama’s leap to the far left was a disaster for this country and nothing he can do now can really change that. Only a fundamental return to conservative principles (especially when it comes to low spending, shrinking the size of the Federal Government, and cutting down on massive government regulations) will save what’s left of this country and this economy. If we don’t do that, we will face a “lost decade” just like the Japanese did in the 1990s.
But the trouble is Liberty ship ,that the republicans could squash every Democrat line with the truth,but do they use it NO.They seem to be like Israel.If Israel countered the Arab lies with the truth in their media,it would help.But they are just like republicans,they ignore it and the gullible folk still think it’s true.
Why don’t the repubs state the obvious,?????. It really baffles me at times but I dont think they want to upset anyone,even a democrat. I think they are pussies.
Oh, stop with the FACTS! That’s hate speach!
“it appears, threats and acts of violence are part of the political climate. Nobody can honestly express surprise that such a tragedy finally occurred.”
According to Marxist Bernie, telling the truth about socialism causes violence. But his call for proletariat revolution doesn’t. He’s brilliant!!!
what a dope?
“AARP is in the business of protecting certain government programs which financially benefit their members”
You give them too much credit, Mr. Nemerov. The truth is far worse.
If you want some material for another column, investigate the political leanings of the current AARP leadership, going back about, oh, 15 or 20 years.
Running off topic, but you are correct. The people running AARP do not act in the interests of their members. They are politically motivated and act in the interests of their favored party, the Democrats, regardless of the impact on their members. AARP increases it’s membership each year, but not at the rate that they used to. AARP’s increase in membership is continuously offset by people who quit AARP and forgo any benefits of a group association or shift membership over to alternative associations that do act in the interests of seniors. The Association of Mature American Citizens and the American Seniors Association are two that come to mind.
What about the billionaire George Soros? Who does he contribute to?
He takes a slight of hand 10% off everything.
That photo of him looks like he over indulged at a Christmas Party if you’ll excuse the expression.
I know no profanities are allowed.
What is odd here is how Sanders pathetically drools to his constituency – there is absolutely no attempt to be real or current in his neo-stalinist era poltiburo message. It’s as if he has passed the point of being able to think and simply reprints blogs from Rachel Maddow as campaign messages. I guess that resonates for the simple, small town Vermont folks who are probably too busy fighting global warming by sucking the sap out of maple trees and selling it for $40 an jug to rich bourgeois.
It’s as if he has passed the point of being able to think and simply reprints blogs from Rachel Maddow as campaign messages.
That’s pretty much the modus operandi of the entire left. There’s one script, and they all recite it.
Remember, these people deny the very existence of objective truth. Why would any sane person expect them to care about telling truth?
One word. “Vermont.” Anyone know where it is? Nope. Anyone care? Nope
Case close.
Can anybody explain why Vermont elects such people when it was the first state to have Second Amendment carry? (no permit/license required) There has been no credible attempt to repeal it to date, despite the statist invasion from New York.
We will all better off when the “left” just gets out of the way of capitalism. Be grateful you middle class inferiors – the banks and the wealthiest interests are benevolent, god fearing entities capable of acts of human kindness, unless it gets in the way of their profits and their “vision” of the world. Your dialog is skewed by its self-absorbed righteousness!
The GOP should change it’s name to the IGM (I Got Mine)
Fear mongering and disinformation seem to be the mantra of the “haves”
Good luck with your vision of a “free” America. We have the government that money can buy. “The revolution will not be televised…”
Remember Eisenhower’s warning about the Military Industrial Complex.
In whose interest is this 2 pronged 8 year war? Create fear to manipulate the masses.