Cuz, revolution and all that.

Since his thing is getting money out of politics, perhaps he should shut down his fund raising. Then there's no question as to illegal contributions.

I know, wishful thinking on my part that he'll shut up shop and go home.

You see single donations that exceed the $2700 legal limit. It's really astounding how little attention the campaign paid to the requirements of campaign finance law.

A treasurer worth that title would immediately flag any contributions that exceed $2700 or not formally accept them until they can be substantiated.

I'm not familiar with federal laws, but I know that on a state level even depositing those contributions is a violation and subjects the treasurer to a fine or worse. A treasurer doesn't cash the check first and then ask questions - or in the case of the Sanders treasurer not even both to ask the question until caught.

It's simple - hold any excessive contributions until they are verified. It's not like there's a myriad of acceptable limits - there are only TWO, $2700 and $5400.

Same thing with contributions from foreign addresses. A good, smart treasurer would not even cash the check until the contributor is confirmed as an American citizen.

I've been Treasurer for more than 10 campaigns over the years, I can't tell you how many checks I returned un-cashed - even some that were within the limit but without the proper documentation.

Campaign finance laws are black and white, not subject to interpretation. Either the contribution is acceptable or it's not, and the regulations aren't complicated.

And that is who we are expected to entrust with running the federal government and submitting federal budgets?

And cut him big checks with many strings attached.

Who stands with you is pretty damned Republican

"who stands with you"? Bernie doesn't stand with that poster or with me. He announced on national television that my rights--the rights of over half the population--were a distraction from what really matters. He denounced Planned Parenthood as establishment and defends his cadre of 1 percenters while insulting ordinary voters as not "smart" enough to vote for him.

Not only that, his campaign has announced a strategy of overturning the results of elections by flipping earned delegates. http://www.ibtimes.com/bernie-sanders-fantasy-campaign-hopes-win-hillary-clintons-pledged-delegates-unlikely-2338452
They implemented that effort in Nevada and plan to take it all the way to the convention in order to subvert the results of elections in order to install Bernie as the nominee in violation of the will of the people. Bernie stands with Bernie.

So everytime I see a Hillary supporter call Senator Sanders BS and call us BSers it makes me think of my girls when they were in 1st grade & I just laugh at them.

$2700 for the primary and $2700 for the GE, which would be legal if Bernie's campaign had applied the second amount to a GE fund. Only they didn't. And they apparently have not created, nor anticipate creating, a GE fund and are therefore returning the excess funds to Maher and others whose contributions exceeded legal limits.

He's returning the funds, isn't he. I wonder out of all the million supporters they get donatins from, how many of them scew up and have to be fixed. That's a hell of a lot of work.

You know this letter from the FEC is for one month's list which is 85.3 thousand pages long. Hillary did not get any FEC letters for her list for the same month, but her list was only 18.6 thousand pages long.

Can you imagine how easy it would be to make mistakes on a list 89 thousand pages long for a one month period of donations?

Yeah, I bet you think it would be no problem.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/26/bernie-sanders-campaign-contributions/80999298/

Michael Briggs wrote in an email that such inquiries are "standard" and the campaign would address the FEC's questions. He noted that 85,391-page report covering the month of January listed over 125,000 separate contributions.

Hillary Clinton, Sanders' opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, submitted a 18,642-page report for the same filing period.

Briggs said the contributions in question involved about 200 donors who appeared to have gone over the contribution limit.

"This happens all the time in campaigns, and the FEC’s rules explicitly allow 60-days from receipt of an over-the-limit contribution for campaigns to remedy the excessive portion of the contribution," Briggs wrote.

BTW, they are supposed to get 60 days to correct errors, but it looks like they were only given about 40 days from the mailing of the February report, which was Feb 20.

Last edited Tue Apr 5, 2016, 01:47 AM - Edit history (1)

That's why it's a problem. It's a problem because the man claims to stand for reforming campaign finance while showing he can't even bother to follow existing regulations.

You cite references from one letter while there are two separate complaints. The numbers of violations are enormous, far more than 200.

If Clinton has 20% of the violations Sanders was cited with in that one report (except he has had citations from two separate reports and one from his authorized pac in 2015 for failing to file ANY paperwork that quarter) your argument might hold. Only Clinton has had zero violations, and Sanders has thousands, not 200.

Clinton's campaign, like all professional campaigns, uses software that tracks total contributions of donors. The campaign emails donors periodic reports indicating what their donation total is. Do you actually think Sanders can't afford that software? How hard do you think it is to tell that a single check of $5000 or 12,000 is over the legal limit? Is that a level of math too complicated for his accountants? A simple alphabetical ordering of names should have showed they were over the limit. The Sanders campaign clearly does not take its responsibility for public disclosure of donors seriously, which draws into serious question his commitment to campaign finance reform. He criticizes Clinton for legal activity, assails her character multiple times a day, while he has shown gross disregard for the existing law.

It's a problem because it's fucking illegal, because he pretends to be more honest than other politicians when evidence like this shows the opposite; and it's a problem because it shows an absolutely stunning level of incompetence.

It's also clear from the report that a number of those small donations are in fact efforts to game the system, with a single donor making multiple donations of $27 on a single day so they can claim to be "small donors" when in fact their total amounts exceed even legal limits. It demonstrates willful dishonesty, and not even a little bit clever dishonesty either.

It would also be a problem if his supporters actually gave a shit about campaign finance reform, which the responses here and to other posts show that they do not. They are more than happy to justify any and all illegalities, while you are angry that the FEC didn't give his campaign even longer to try to explain away its illegal activity. How horrible of them to expect him to follow the law. How horrible of a voter like me to want the Democratic nominee to be someone who hasn't proven himself grossly incompetent on the very issues that he is running on? It's becoming increasingly clear that he is far more enamored of campaign slogans than implementing within his own campaign any of what he preaches.

I understand for those who despise government, installing in the Oval Office someone who has proven to be grossly incompetent may be a plus because it would grind government to a halt and thereby bring about great hardship in the lives of millions of Americans who depend on government paychecks or benefits to survive. That many of those Americans are from the very demographics who most often support Democrats like Hillary Clinton is all the more reason the anti-government ideologues might want to see them punished. So for that purpose, gross incompetence might be actually seen as a plus. But for voters who want to see government play a positive role in the lives of ordinary Americans, a certain level of competence in its functioning is essential. I happen to fall in the latter category, which is why I see breaking the fucking law as a problem.

Last edited Wed Apr 6, 2016, 12:03 AM - Edit history (3)

You think he is doing this deliberately? IF this were a deliberate attempt to use illegal funds, he would have tried to hide the funds, rather then turn them over in the report to the FEC for review. He's a smart man. He would not be that stupid.

I'm sure Bernie has some kind of software, I get multiple e-mails daily asking me for another contribution and it's always the same amount I donated last time. Maybe he needs to get someone who knows the software better? I don't know why he's having problems, but I do know he's not happy about it and it's not deliberate on his part. He will get it fixed. And the size of his report certainly does have something to do with it, because even if it's run by software, someone has to check in manually for errors that the software cannot find. He may need to hire more staff to handle this.

As long as he fixes the errors, there IS no problem and nothing done by his supporters (even if deliberate) is his mistake, unless he tries to hide and keep the money and he's not done that. The more people who do this, the more work they cause for him, so I'm also sure he does not want people doing this. If it's small amounts, how do we know it's even Sander's supporters doing this? Maybe it's a Brock campaign to make him look bad.

So far I've not seen any threats from the FEC because he is not complying with rules. It's all blogs and news sources that back Hillary, again trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. the FEC is not going to let him get away with fraud. But you guys keep chasing that red dot. Brock loves this game.

Now how about a little tit for tat? After all, Hillary is not always on the up and up when it comes to donations.

Even wiki has a story on it



Looks like the FEC caught all these guys, but should we blame Clintons for it? I could keep on going, but I think you get the picture. Nobody comes out looking 100% clean at the end of a campaign where big money is involved. But that doesn't mean they are guilty. Mistakes happen. Hillary has experience on this level of campaign that Bernie does not. she's had experience with dealing with the mistakes and attempts of fraud too.

How horrible? Yeah, you are being pretty horrible about Bernie. You have been since day one. And you've been horrible to his supporters as well. And what I don't get is that because you feel threatened by his possibly beating Hillary, you all take a perfectly honest and respectable person, who has never done anything but show honesty and integrity, and you continuously try to dredge up the most impossible schemes against him to make him look bad. I would never do that to Hillary. As a matter of fact, I've gone overboard her on defending her on stupid stuff. She has done enough damage to herself. And yes, when it's real, I will expose it to the light, but I don't go creating things out of nothing.

I really don't understand the need to tear down a good man because you are afraid of him.

I don't know how you all sleep at night.

China gave to the clinton/gore campaign

1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy
From wiki
Department of Justice investigation
Attorney General Janet Reno
The Justice Department opened a task force in late 1996 to begin investigating allegations of campaign fund-raising abuses by the Clinton/Gore re-election campaign. It expanded its internal investigation to include activities related to President Bill Clinton's legal defense fund in December 1996.[35]

No other presidential campaign has ever had anywhere near this number of violations.

Can you point to another campaign that has ever taken multiple donations of single amounts in excess of the legal limits?

You made the statement, now I challenge you to back it up.

who has an FEC sited violation for accepting even one donation in excess of legal limits?

How about hiding...

We'll have to see whether the Sanders campaign refunds excess contributions in a timely fashion or winds up being subject to a similar fine.

I'll wait for the percentages. The complete total is misleading, of course.

by any presidential campaign. Name one campaign that has ever accepted even a single donation in excess of the legal limit.
That needs to be established before any claim of percentages. Most politicians go their entire careers without a single violation, as much as a single letter from the FEC. That is because they make an effort to obey the law.

...filings in late 2015 or 2016?

But since you brought it up, what was the nature of those "abuses" and the result of that investigation?

he can't even get it right himself. What does that tell you. Doesn't bode well for any of his other platforms.

This is a stunning development.

whether he can be trusted to competently oversee campaign finance reform.

The vast number of violations is because he, unlike Clinton, receives his donations from individuals in small amounts.
Look at the numbers refunded $50, $100, etc.

It is because those donating, most likely, have not realized that they have gone over their limit, as they are making many small donations. The campaign has returned the excess.

Again, these finance violations are due to the way people are donating, which is fairly unprecedented. People, or corporations that give large donations generally know the rules and keep track of what they've donated. "Regular" folk, such as those donating to Sanders in amounts of $10 to $100 whenever they can have a higher probability of over donating.

Sanders isn't to blame unless you want to blame him for receiving contributions from everyday people.

There are single donations in excess of the legal limits. They are multiple donations by the same individual on a single day for a small amount, which isn't itself illegal except when the donations total more than $2700. There are also hundreds of illegal donations from foreign nationals.

The Clinton campaign, like the Obama campaign before it, also fields large numbers of small donations. They track them through software that keeps track of the total any participar individual has donated. I have received two reports from the Clinton campaign regarding what my total is. Not that my donations approach the limits, but the safeguards are in place so that the campaign remains in compliance with federal election law.

Sanders has raised an enormous amount of money. He certainly can afford that same software. He can afford to hire accountants who know the legal limit is $2700, not $12,000.

Your excuses do not hold water.

the papers and that is what I see.
The accountant isn't going to stop people from donating, but they will determine what will be returned.

So with his type of campaign, I would expect these types of violations as normal and don't see the issue.

I do believe you are barking up a tree that holds no prey.

they should catch it

that is at the top of the letter. Your attempt to justify illegal campaign finance activity as inevitable doesn't explain the single donations in excess of legal limits or the campaign's failure to implement mechanisms to track legal limits. At the very least is shows gross incompetence.

it doesn't show incompetence. You'd have to stop the donors before they donate!

... we're not talking about tenured level software either.

Sanders is being disingenuous here

Really? Out of an 85.3 thousand PAGE report for February? People made mistakes, and they didn't get caught until the FEC saw them?

OMG...I'm so embarrassed for bernie. NOT!

You guys are having too much fun chasing that little red dot. Who is playing with you this time, Hillary or Brock? I put my money on Brock.

His Feb report was 85.3 thousand pages long. Hillary's was 18.6 thousand pages long.

K&R

I don't see HRC using it a campaign fodder like she could.

Hillary does enough BIG stuff (like millions of dollars for speeches to banks) he has plenty to talk about.

1. Our hand was never in the cookie jar
2. If it was in a jar, it wasn't a cookie jar
3. If it was a cookie jar, it didn't contain any cookies
4. If it did contain cookies, we didn't take any
5. If we did take any, we didn't eat them
6. Ok .. we ate a few and here ... we will return them back to the cookie jar.

The Koch's and Tea Party know how to pad a campaign with small donations. Many thousands of employees and millions of dollars - if they wanted to defeat Hillary or cause her to spend money in the primary, just prop up the opposition. We've seen it before. Plenty of examples, and who can "check up" on thousands of small contributions with self-report information?

http://www.crewsmostcorrupt.org/mostcorrupt/entry/vern-buchanan

Jeezus....You'd rather wallow in some bookerping snafus and errors of a campaign that is trying to actually practice a more democratic form of campaign finance....AND FUCKING IGNORE AND CONDONE the status quo of a larger system that is corrupt by design.

Yeah blame Sanders bookeepers, and meanwhile celebrate the idea of Big Corporations, Wall Streeters and Billionaires buying our piliticans and givernment.

the vast majority, accidental and corrected.
This is a non-issue, in my opinion.
(and I'm not necessarily a Sanders supporter)