Then to let we the people fund your campaign. It's a kin to having to pay doubled medicare and Social Security if you are self employed. It's done to discourage the practice of accepting small donations or being self employed. The rich have rigged the system.

....political campaigns.

If it's true, can you come up with a single example? Just one? Eh?

....their "system" and/or people are incompetent.

The second contributor on the list, some guy named Jeremy Abramowitz, had 125 contributions totaling $4500, $1800 above the limit.

When I was a campaign treasurer, I set things up so that once a contributor reached the limit there was a flag that said so. It's not rocket science - it's ONE number, $2700. Simple!

Also, this whole fiasco belies Sanders' magnanimous claim "our campaign is finance by "SMALL" contributors" - well that whole story is unraveling more and more as they have to account for their contributions. $4500 is NOT a "small contributor", nor is it legal.

This was just one, Abramowitz' wife, Nancy, gave more than $4000, and there are hundreds of others that are over the limit.

The laws apply to EVERYONE, regardless of the candidate.

It seems that more and more we're seeing that the Sanders campaign and they way they operate and the way they gather money is extremely flawed, whether by accident or intentional.

They'll pay it back and fix their records. As the poster said above, Bernie's campaign is unique in the way it fund-raises and it's testing the traditional FEC requirements in its shear volume. Bernie once gave back a meager donation from an underage supporter when he was mayor. He'll set it right - it's who he is.

Meanwhile, we may never know what Russian hackers saw in our former Secretary of State's email server.

And, it's not "testing the traditional FEC requirements" - those requirements are simple - don't accept any contributions above $2700 from a single person, don't accept foreign contributions. It's the responsibility of the campaign to keep track of their own finances and sources of money. You're acting like it's the FEC's responsibility to do it for them.

And just what does that last snarky comment have to do with Sanders' incompetent record keeping?

ignores the rules.

There is a single problem cited. People who gave many small donations that add up to more than limit.

PACs can donate as much as they like - us people, the regular ones can only donate $2,700. Koch's donate MILLIONS cause they use all sorts of crazy loop holes and PACS, but normal people NOPE...

Sorry I could give a rats ass about this shit and I think your gloating over it shows more about you than Bernie.

... someone be PROSECUTED for these violations? Is this serious enough to warrant FINES or PRISON if someone is found to be GUILTY?

Does the FEC have investigatory or prosecutorial powers ... or do they only recommend such actions to another agency?

How powerful is the FEC? Or is it a toothless organization?

... but that's just my opinion, since I'm not a lawyer. It's likely that many other non lawyers have come to the same conclusion and that's not good news for Bernie.

With that level of desperation it's clear this concerns them as well.

... I think I'd be concerned as well. They have EVERY REASON to be concerned.

Either Bernie's campaign is FLAGRANTLY and WILLFULLY ignoring and disregarding the LAW, or, Bernie's campaign is SO over-their-heads and INCOMPETENT when it comes to COMPLYING with the law, or, they DON'T CARE any more.

After that, they're running out of excuses and justifications to choose from, and the ones I've already mentioned DO NOT look good for Bernie's campaign.

In my opinion, SOMEONE is going to be PROSECUTED. And I'll emphasize for clarity that this is just my opinion, since I'm not a lawyer.

But I wonder, when a campaign is found GUILTY of BREAKING THE LAW, who is it that pays the penalty? Is it the campaign treasurer? The candidate?

Obviously, you can't lock up the entire campaign staff, so the "buck-stops-here" philosophy must apply to SOMEONE... so I wonder who it is.

As the old saying goes ... the "shit's about to hit the fan."

As you say, the "shit's about to hit the fan," but your camp is the one that's about to be splattered.

Doubt it.

This is an anti-establishment revolution. Get with it.

Four individual users, twenty-five searches, eleven states, information downloaded.

Rules do not apply to them as rules are for establishment fascists.

...I started getting two or three emails a day from Sanders' campaign via DFA.

A campaign has limited options for preventing excessive donations. So then they have three options for what to do with the money: redirect to the party or charity or whatever, redesignate for another campaign by the same candidate, refund to the donor.

The long list included in the letter shows many negative amounts. Those are refunds to deal with excessive donations. It shows that the campaign is working on the problem. As long as they're working on it, there's no reason to prosecute them. I don't think it's a crime sat all to donate excessively, so those people wouldn't be prosecuted either.

The people posting this with "damning" titles are desperately trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

It's pretty clear to me that they're not "working on it" at all if there are repeated violations like this. When a pattern is clearly visible, it's not "oops" any more.

It certainly suggests CRIMINAL behavior and DISREGARD for the law, or it could suggest INCOMPETENCY. One is only slightly better than the other, but neither are good news for someone who wants to run the entire country.

I'm less concerned about the "one-automatic-donation-too-many" folks and more concerned about the FOREIGN donors.

(These are my opinions. Other people may have different opinions but these are mine.)

The campaign has little to no ability to keep that from happening. All they can do is deal with it once it has happened.

Nobody's saying oops, this is just the order in which they have to deal with things. They doesn't become either nefarious or incompetent unless they refuse or fail to deal with the problem. The letter laid out a date for response and that date is still in the future.

Mischaracterizing it like you do doesn't make them the liars.

(So, you're suggesting that the FEC are liars?)

Like mowing the lawn. The grass growing back isn't evidence of failure. It's just normal.

The law is there to be complied with ... not as a mere "guideline" that can be ignored repeatedly. I'm sure it didn't become law with the notion of it being disregarded and ONLY complied with whenever someone notices and makes a stink about it.

Bernie's "gardeners" should be out there mowing the "lawn" every day, continuously, not allowing these weeds to keep popping up and grass to become overgrown.



(I did like the "lawn" analogy, though.)

The refunds shown in the tables in the letter from the FEC prove that much.

To answer your question, there is no evidence that she doesn't. Kinda obvious since you can't prove a negative. But that also means the lack of a complaint doesn't prove anything one way or another either, so it's a misleading question. The reason Sanders' campaign received this latest notice is apparent; Brock's group filed the complaint.

The sheer volume of donations the Sanders campaign receives makes it a difficult problem to manage, as was discussed way back in February, the last time people tried to blow this up into criminal activity. The campaign addressed the problem and met the deadline back then, so their intent is clearly proper. http://linkis.com/docquery.fec.gov/pdf/zMCqX

... Hillary's campaign to hide similar violations of law? There's nothing misleading about that at all. It's reasonable to assume that the FEC would also cite Hillary's campaign (or any other campaign) for flagrant and repeated violations, yet they haven't. What can rational people conclude from that?

I haven't said that Hillary's campaign hasn't made mistakes, surely they have. But it's pretty clear that they run a much tighter ship compared to Bernie, and they're able to AVOID breaking the law before it happens. Bernie's campaign is clearly having a problem with that.

As already explained, there is a grace period the campaign is allowed to deal with prohibited contributions, and the vast majority of contributions are legitimate (you'll note that the letter does not list millions of entries).

... by proxy is lazy and they're not meeting their obligations. They're keeping everything, legal or not, until sometime else comes in and does their job for them? Outsourcing bookkeeping to the FEC? Wasting taxpayer money on something they should be doing themselves? That seems fraudulent to be.

Done.

....STOP ACCEPTING donations when the contributor reaches the legal limit! It's simple.

They're not keeping track of their revenue on the back of an envelope - hopefully they're using one of the many sophisticated software packages available (remember, this IS a $139M campaign!) that are relatively inexpensive.

Just the cost of a fraction of that trip to Rome would have paid for software that would prevent tens of thousands of impermissible and/or illegal contributions.

With all the letters Sanders has received now from the FEC, the list of questionable (to be nice....) contributions is now about 50,000.

It's not like this is a surprise to the Sanders campaign, this is the fourth or fifth letter from the FEC, going back 5 months now. You'd think after the first, or even the second, they'd be a lot more careful about their record keeping, but as each letter goes out the lists get longer and longer - first was about 95 pages, second was 150 pages, then over 200 pages, now up to 650 pages!

There are NO excuses or rationalizations that can logically explain these major screw-ups.

Oh, wait...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1943465

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511943735#post4

Money trumps all. Weaver has won the battle of control over Sanders and now Sanders owns this.

Sid

And by greatest, I mean the most individual contributions ever.

They've had MONTHS to correct the violations of law that have already happened... yet they haven't.

The excuse that they were "surprised" or "caught off-guard" can only buy his campaign a limited amount of goodwill and leniency.

At this late date, and with the repeated violations of law, and the obvious disregard and unwillingness to do anything about it ... well ... it's pretty clear that there's something MORE going on that meets the eye.

No one actually cares about it. Though I know you love to pretend to.

You know ... if something like this was happening that showed Hillary's campaign of being incompetent, or of willfully violating campaign finance laws ... well ... I know I'd be as nervous as you guys are.

And, just like you guys, I'd be posting dismissive "nothing burger" replies as well ... in the vain hopes that it would all just go away.

I get it ... it's actually pretty embarrassing, isn't it? I almost feel sorry for you guys.

...which is not concerned at all, whatsoever. I'm fair and objective like that. You should try it sometime.

And I don't fault you for that one single bit. It's just human nature. We're all humans here. Appearances count. No worries, I'm not judging you personally. It's all about the incompetence of Bernie's campaign to follow campaign finance laws, not you.

And its not incompetence. A fraction within a fraction of Sander's donations have come up as presenting an issue. I'm not even stretching the truth one bit. Its literally next to nothing. 99% of his massive pile of contributions are not a problem. But you are too pig headed to give his campaign credit for that.

However, you are so desperate to get under my skin, I'll pretend that you are just to make you feel better about yourself. Obviously, you need the self esteem boost.

... oh wait, never mind ... now that I think about it, I see you want to attack me to distract from the embarrassing issue of Bernie's campaign and its violation of campaign finance laws.

Understandable.

Well, anyway ...

The cognitive dissonance on your part is embarrassing.

Based on what I've seen here, whenever Bernie or his campaign is criticized, many of Bernie's fans take it as a personal attack on themselves. In my opinion, these fans are the ones who appear to believe they have a "personal" or "emotional" connection or attachment with the candidate. As a result, any "attack" on their candidate results in an almost instinctive lashing-out at others (again, in my opinion.)

It's not nice, and some might describe it as being wrong ... but it's a "natural" response, and understandable when viewed in that context. I know you don't have anything against me personally, so I forgive you.

I supported Bernie. I'm fine with Hillary. I'll vote for her in November. That fact alone, which I've expressed many times on DU, is why you are coming off so ridiculous and petty right now.

... and I still forgive you.

Wishing you much happiness and contentment.

Now you realized you've stepped in it and have resorted to nonsense.

You're the one who took this detour to try and distract from how poorly his campaign is being run. I could see that it was an emotional and personal thing to you and simply acknowledged your feelings as a courtesy and a gesture of sympathy and understanding.

But, I see that even that's not good enough and you now want to make THAT an issue as well.

I'm sorry you feel that way. There's not much I can do to reason with you if you're going to let emotional responses cloud the discussion. In spite of everything, I'm sure you're actually a nice person.

Once again, I wish you peace and happiness.

tick tock goes the clock and Bernie is done in four weeks no matter what. (I mean, he's *done* already, but his ass will be handed to him then).

See you at the convention!

Hillary, that is what truly leaders do, they LEAD BY EXAMPLE!!!!!!

I would guess...never.