Bernie is an old revolutionary who got stuck in a time warp. His wife’s moral compass is another matter.

The sooner he ends his campaign the better it will be for the country.

Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2020, 12:11 AM - Edit history (1)

The article notes that "Sanders also imagined a third organization, described broadly as a political ad agency, that has not materialized."

If you look at Open Secrets, Sanders campaign has paid close to $12 million to Aisle 518 Strategies:

https://www.opensecrets.org/2020-presidential-race/expenditures?id=N00000528

What is Aisle 518 Strategies? It is political ad ageny and it was formed by a close Bernie Sanders associate:

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/14/bernie-sanders-campaign-2020-election-1098795

You know we have a nominee.
What’s gained by continuing to trash the other side? I don’t see where that helps the upcoming campaign or the November election.

I was critical of Tulsi Gabbard, but she dropped out, so there is no need to criticize her. But, I think it is a mistake to give Bernie a free pass until he drops out. We tried that before. It did not work. Bernie continued to make personal attacks that were subsequently adopted by the Trump administration until Bernie finally conceded the very end with many of his surrogates loudly declaring that they would not support the Democratic nominee. We cannot fall for this again.

At this point, Bernie Sanders is acting as a virtual surrogate for Trump. This is why you have his surrogates like David Sirota continuing to attack Biden. This is why we need to expose Bernie for what he is. He is not some white knight nor is he free from controversy. As the article above shows, he is far more guilty of the very sames types of conflicts of interests that he himself criticizes.

At best, it seems like Bernie just wants to keep the gravy train going to his family who have been hired in some shape or form by many of his enterprises. After all, does Bernie have an immediate family member who has not been on his payroll? At worse, Bernie really is just trying to damage Biden so that Trump will win.

nominee we can have a truce. He's still running for the Democratic nomination. The contest still goes on distracting from the bigger picture, the need to get rid of Donald Trump. Bernie can't win the nomination. He has only two choices, help defeat Trump or help reelect Trump. So long as he is contesting the nomination and his campaign is attacking Biden, and they are, he is helping Donald Trump.

Then we'll let up.

Why? Because campaigning candidates get scrutinized. That's how politics work, and how they've always worked.

He's the one who insists on remaining a candidate; therefore, he can't complain when voters and the press treat him like one. As long as he keeps campaigning, he remains open to criticism for things that reflect on him as a candidate. It's called vetting, and no one is immune from it as long as he continues to run for the highest office in the land.

If BS wants people to stop digging around in his every move, all he has to do is stop being a candidate by conceding and throwing his support behind the voter's choice. It will all stop then and there, and he can go back to being the backbencher Senator he's always been. Until then, he's fair game for criticism and scrutiny.

The choice is his.

Welcome to political reality.

...as a "Senior Policy Strategist":

https://www.linkedin.com/in/levi-sanders-8a112825

So, Bernie pays Levi with campaign moneys. What does Levi do? Well, it seems like Jeff Weaver has no idea:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/bernie-sanders-son-loses-campaign-for-congress

Hunter Biden, Levi Sanders and the whole rotten Trump litter along with that Kushner creep.

Thankfully they don't all go on to then become equally rotten Senators like Rand Paul.

Hunter Biden is like Megan Markle's dad trying to use his connection to Joe to profit, but Joe is not putting him on Joe's payroll.

Blaming Joe for Hunter is like blaming Megan Markle for her dad's actions.

Just that Hunter used his Dad's name to make some good dough...that seems irrefutable. Not saying I wouldn't have done the same thing if my Pop had been famous and had some political influence if I didn't really have to do anything for it.

I wouldn't have done anything illegal, unpatriotic or used my Pop to then influence peddle...which I do not believe Hunter did. No matter how much the GOP tries to say he did if/when they have a show hearing later this year.

Just looks real bad and wish he hadn't put his father in such a position, is all. Seriously doubt it will derail him, thankfully. And it's not like Dems don't have a target-rich environment when it comes to corrupt kids who've done FAR worse than anything Hunter ever did.

...in Bernie's case he is paying his family members with either charitable donations to his foundation or with campaign contributions.

If Levi Sanders got a job with moveon.org or a TV commercial capitalizing on his celebrity as the son of Bernie that is one thing. You can't blame Bernie for the actions of his adult son.

However, Bernie has hired family members using his campaign funds and charitable donations. That's on Bernie similar to Trump putting his family on the payroll.

Not only family members, but close associates of Bernie, since nearly $12 million has gone to Bernie's former Director of Fundraising who founded Aisle 518 strategies.

Bernie's funneling of money to close associates who are running newly created businesses is not first time Bernie did this. Back in 2016, most of Bernie's millions went to Old Towne Media, a company that did not exist, accept to funnel money from contributors to buy ads as noted in Slate:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/how-bernie-spent-his-millions-was-anything-but-revolutionary.html

The top-billing vendor among all candidates during this campaign cycle is Old Towne Media. Located in a residential home on a leafy suburban street in Alexandria, Virginia, Old Towne Media is, from all outward appearances, a black box. Incorporated as an LLC in 2014, it lists no employees, and its only clients this cycle have been the Sanders campaign and a small PAC supporting an Ohio gubernatorial candidate. A close examination of the Sanders campaign’s ad buys suggests that Old Towne Media is a front company for Canal Partners Media, a well-known media firm aligned with the Democratic Party. According to Federal Election Commission data compiled by Open Secrets, Canal Partners Media billed $45 million during the 2014 midterms, half of which came from the Senate campaigns of Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, Michelle Nunn in Georgia, and Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, the only winner of the three. During this cycle, however, the company has taken in only $515,000 as of May 23. It appears most of its business was shifted into Old Towne, which billed the Sanders campaign $82,773,463 by the end of May.


Buying ad time doesn’t take rarified skills, but it’s a major source of revenue for political consultants—who typically receive a 15 percent commission on ad expenditures for scheduling commercials, negotiating with broadcasters, and settling accounts on behalf of a campaign. Ad buyers are one of a number of businesses that saw a huge surge in revenues during the $2.6 billion 2012 presidential campaign. A study published in May by researchers at Emory University found that in the three most recent election cycles, “less than 1% of total expenditures by federal candidates for the purpose of purchasing television advertising are paid directly from the campaign committee to a provider.”

An examination of 5,800 Sanders ad buy contracts and supporting documentation found that one Canal Partners Media employee, Jeff Scattergood, and two partners, Barbara Abar Bougie and Shelli Hutton-Hartig—all three working as representatives of Old Towne Media—are listed on over 1,000 documents related to air-time purchases for the Sanders campaign. Keeping the different companies’ names straight appears to have been difficult, even for the people filling out paperwork for the ad buys. In one document submitted in February, Canal Partners Media was listed as the agent of the Sanders campaign requesting rates for television time from stations in Columbus, Ohio.

* * *
Why create a front company at all? One possible explanation relates to another Canal Partners client: Friends of the Earth Action Fund, which made ad buys supporting Sanders in early primary states. Friends of the Earth Action Fund is a 501(c)4 organization, meaning it’s a “dark money” group that isn’t required to disclose its donors. FEC rules prohibit such groups from coordinating with the campaigns they support, but Canal Partners received $20,971 from Friends of the Earth Action; documents acquired by Slate confirm that Canal Partners Media staff made ad buys on behalf of Old Towne Media for the Sanders campaign. Campaigns and independent expenditure groups can use a common vendor, but they can’t coordinate in any way and the vendor cannot be a conduit for nonpublic strategic information.

are getting paid out of campaign funds, and their girlfriends, too. But I don't see any of you BS supporters thinking that's all right. So why is it okay when your guy does it? Do you not get how that reeks of hypocrisy?

Wrong is wrong. It's wrong for Agolf Twitler to do it. And it's wrong for BS to do it, too.

This isn't a difficult concept to grasp, you know.

It certainly opens a window to sme interesting speculations regarding motive....

"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

There was a reason for it.