Bernie Sanders Doth Protest Too Much
Recently, Reuters reported: “Banks seized more than a million U.S. homes in one year for the first time last year.”
Ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi received 65.6% of her campaign contributions ($1.6M) from business in 2008, including $120,500 from the insurance industry (4.9% of total). Pelosi called insurers “immoral” and “villains,” accusing them of “unethical behavior” during the ObamaCare debate.
President Obama received over $2.3M from the insurance industry during his 2008 campaign, the second-highest after McCain’s $2.4M. Obama campaigned for his health care reform by implying that insurance companies were the reason we needed it.
The rhetoric doesn’t appear to match reality. Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly runs the “largest U.S. commercial health insurer by membership.” Braly is on record supporting “guaranteed coverage for everyone.” In an interview of Braly, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the insurance industry was a cheerleader for the [Democrats'] plan.”
The health care drama appears to be profitable for Democrats. The 2008 and 2010 election cycles brought record campaign revenues from the insurance industry: Democrats received about 45% ($37.3M) of all insurance contributions these two cycles, higher than their historical cut of 37%.
This plays out like some nightmarish melding of Kabuki and Shakespeare where all the actors’ entrance speeches lose their hypnotic influence after the fancy masks are removed. Then, the protestations of innocence begin.
Sanders calls himself an Independent, but caucuses with the Democrats. Passing this legislation was good for his party’s business.
Between 2003 and 2008, Sanders received over $2 million in campaign contributions, 20.7% coming from retired individuals. Open Secrets notes: “The top industry isn’t really an ‘industry’ at all, but individuals who list their occupation as ‘retired’ in federal documents.” Open Secrets also notes that the AARP, with over 40 million members, “is the largest advocacy group for retired people.” AARP is in the business of protecting certain government programs which financially benefit their members:
AARP’s top concerns are maintaining the integrity of Social Security and improving Medicare and other health care for seniors. The association was a major, high-profile supporter of Obama and congressional Democrats’ plan for health care reform, which passed in early 2010.
Also, retirees often left businesses, and there’s no documentation they don’t promote business interests when contacting their representatives.
Businesses directly contributed 29.1% of his campaign funding. Industries included lawyers, health professionals, high tech, and entertainment. Perhaps these are “acceptable” businesses? But he also received money from investment, finance, and insurance companies, agri-business, manufacturers, and construction companies. Further:
- 16.2% of his money came from unions, who are in the business of representing dues-paying wage-earners
- 4% came from public sector unions and public officials, who are in the business of using taxpayers’ money to protect their jobs and expand their regulating power.
Another 15.6% came from Democratic/liberal special interests. As noted above, Democrats derived financial benefit from spending our tax dollars on the financial industry.
Depending upon how you categorize Sanders’ contributions, between 49.3% and 85.5% were related to somebody’s financial bottom line.
Curiously, Sanders attacks “right-wing” extremists for misleading America, but doesn’t apply his criteria to left-wing extremists cashing in on manufactured crises which benefit their corporate donors.
When Sanders complains about “billionaires and corporate interests,” he really needs to look in the mirror.
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.