Tag Archives: sanders

These Are Either the Best or Worst Political Presents We’ve Ever Seen

by WhitneyClogstoun Posted on November 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Christmas isn’t just a time to fantasize about going Zero Dark Thirty on a bunch of elves—it’s also a chance to show your friends and family how much you care about them by spoiling them with gifts. The problem is that you’re bad at it. You either get them something they’ll forget about and leave in a closet somewhere for years, only to rediscover it later in life when they’re finally moving out of that run-down apartment and getting a place in the burbs. Or it’s something they’ll mindlessly fold into their daily lives, as if an immersion blender was just something they always had. But not this year. This year you’re getting them something they can’t return. Something that will scar them permanently. You’re getting them some weird political swag you saw on Etsy.

Bernie Sanders Prayer candle

GoSaintYourself/Etsy

Bern your house down with the Bernie Sanders prayer candle! This is perfect for that special someone who loves Bernie Sanders but isn’t really convinced that he’s Jewish. GoSaintYourself will donate $3 from every purchase to Sanders’ campaign.

Jeb Bush brown paper bags

sammo/Etsy

Sad.

“Fuck GQ” Tshirt gentlemen’s quarterly for their article about ben carson for president

BitchinTshirts/Etsy

This oddly specific piece of apparel was inspired by a GQ article by Drew Magary entitled “Fuck Ben Carson,” which Carson supporters considered far more distasteful than Carson’s suggestion that victims of an Oregon mass murder should have stopped the shooter themselves. Available in three colors—but not denim—this is a surprisingly functional T-shirt, perfect not just for Carson supporters, but for anyone who’s ever gotten upset (or will get upset at some point, any point) over the magazine’s depiction of women, overpowering cologne ad inserts, or skinny-suit recs.

Elect troll doll ben carson 2016

MyBestFriendsPillow/Etsy

What is this, a pillow for ants?

Embroidered donald trump quote about john mccain hoop art

varouna/Etsy

Celebrate the fourth (or was it the fifth?) incendiary statement that was going to sink Donald Trump’s campaign but didn’t because pundits are worthless and it turns out a large percentage of Republican primary voters also prefer people who weren’t captured, okay? For $45, we’d prefer at least a few more doves, and maybe some quotation marks. It’s not the most absurd of Trump statements, either, but this one probably reads less offensively to neutral house guests than “Somebody’s doing the raping.” (If you are looking for some less subtle embroidery, there are other options.) You may also enjoy:

celebrity quote novelty wooden wall hanging (donald trump)

ThriftInSpaceTime/Etsy

When he’s right, he’s right.

bernie sanders bouncy bernie dashboard doll

SammAjivArts/Etsy

The hair comes from a feather boa, and according to the seller, “His tie is actually done up in a full-Windsor.” Each doll is shipped via USPS, in solidarity with the pro-Sanders postal workers union, and 10 percent of all proceeds go to the Sanders campaign.

Rick Santorum ceramic party cup

littlechairprinting/Etsy

How about a nice cup of Santorum?

three hillary clinton pantsuit pancake portrait

Dan Lacey/Etsy

So here’s the thing about art: We’re all just pretending it makes sense. Billionaire Bill Koch—of the billionaire Kochs—just sold a Picasso for $67.5 billion. But not, like, one of the really famous ones, where various household objects are split into weird pieces that don’t make sense. It was kind of a low-grade Picasso; he painted it when he was 19, and I mean, you can’t hang that thing just anywhere. You can have this for $10—a steal—and it’s got a nice little post-modern touch, in conversation with themes of modernity, feminism, and notions of identity in the digital age. If you’re looking for something with a little more darkness, we might recommend:

gears of war 3 hillary anya stroud clinton vs hair deep sea lambert leviathan donald trump utilizing chainsaw lancer

(What does this mean?)

Dan Lacey/Etsy

The scene depicted in this painting actually happened. Ben Carson saw it.

donald trump butter stamp

OhCuddles/Etsy

You never know you need a butter stamp until you really need it, and then it’s too late. At that point you will have to engrave the visage of some racist rich dude from Queens into your butter by hand. Be smart. Think ahead. Stay vigilant.

Jeb bush cd clock

DicksClocks/Etsy

Sad.

Lindsey Graham as a troll painting

ogerosity/Etsy

“This is a 18×24 acrylic painting of United States Senator Lindsey Graham as a troll crying a single tear of love for his country.”

Bernie reign of sanders shirt

TheCraftedThreads/Etsy

The Venn diagram of metal fans and Bernie Sanders fans is a circle.

holiday disco party with bernie sanders and elizabeth warren paper ornament

FullSnowMoon/Etsy

Fill your amendment tree with the gift that both embraces late-stage capitalism and destroys it at the same time.

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These Are Either the Best or Worst Political Presents We’ve Ever Seen

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Hillary Clinton’s Strange Definition of "Middle Class"

by AlissaDCBftg Posted on November 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton’s campaign has spent much of the past week trumpeting her pledge to protect the middle class from tax increases. Clinton has “proposed a bold, aggressive agenda,” campaign press secretary Brian Fallon said in a statement this week, “but when it comes to paying for it, she will make sure the wealthiest Americans finally start paying their fair share, not force the middle class to pay even more than they already do.”

The former senator and secretary of state hasn’t been shy about using that pledge to bludgeon her Democratic opponents, Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Gov. Martin O’Malley, as too eager to take money away from the middle class. “If you are truly concerned about raising incomes for middle-class families, the last thing you should do is cut their take-home pay right off the bat by raising their taxes,” Fallon said. “Yet Bernie Sanders has called for a roughly 9-percent tax hike on middle-class families just to cover his health care plan, and simple math dictates he’ll need to tax workers even more to pay for the rest of his at least $18-20 trillion agenda.” Twitter accounts affiliated with Clinton’s campaign have eschewed subtlety to attack Sanders and O’Malley on this point.

There’s a problem with Clinton’s line of attack: She is promising to exempt a lot indisputably rich people from paying more in taxes. Clinton pledged last week that, should she become president, she wouldn’t allow taxes to be raised on households earning less than $250,000 per year—by any measure a very high ceiling for the middle class.

The middle class is one of those nebulous terms with no clear-cut definition. But a glance at the distribution of income across the country makes it hard to argue that that anyone earning close to $250,000 a year could be considered part of the “middle” of the income range.

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Hillary Clinton’s Strange Definition of "Middle Class"

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The Biggest Difference Between Clintons’ and Sanders’ Policies Isn’t Their Substance

by FernandoBon885 Posted on November 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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The contrasts between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are largely differences of degree. He’s a self-proclaimed socialist; she fashions herself a “progressive that likes to get things done.” He hopes to bust up the biggest banks and offer free tuition at public colleges and universities; she wants to tamp down on risky Wall Street behavior and require students to work part-time in order to attend college without building up debt.

But these discrepancies would likely disappear if either Democratic candidate wins the presidency and attempts to push these bills through a Republican Congress that considers all of the proposals too far left for its liking.

The real difference between Sanders and Clinton might come down less to the what of their policies than to the how of implementing them. When Sanders unveils a new policy as part of his presidential campaign, he tends to pair it with legislation he introduces in the Senate. Judging from his campaign, a President Sanders would spend much of his time trying to convince Congress to pass massive legislative overhauls.

Clinton, on the other hand, often pair ideas for legislation with promises of executive action in her policy fact sheets. When she rolls out a new policy proposal, the most details are usually in descriptions of the unilateral actions she would take through the power of the executive branch.

Take the two campaigns’ recent approaches to reforming marijuana laws. Sanders introduced a bill in the Senate that would end the federal prohibition on the drug (which, like other far-reaching bills he’s introduced alongside campaign pledges, has not yet received even a committee vote). Clinton’s approach isn’t more modest just in substance, but also in approach. She’d change the classification of marijuana on the federal drug schedule, which would allow it to be used for medical purposes. That’s within the purview of the executive branch without congressional intervention. (Neither campaign responded to requests for comment on how each candidate views the role of legislation and executive action.)

The past two presidents have both slowly ramped up the frequency of presidential action without consulting Congress. Following 9/11, George W. Bush expanded the scope of surveillance and the executive’s international actions. “We’ve been able to restore the legitimate authority of the presidency,” Dick Cheney once bragged. President Obama, despite promising to “reverse” that expansion in his 2008 campaign, has only furthered the trend. Upon first gaining office, with friendly Democratic majorities in Congress, Obama pushed expansive laws like the stimulus and the Affordable Care Act. But once Republicans took the House in 2010, Obama’s ability to pass major changes through Congress was stymied, and he’s turned to executive action, such as using the Clean Air Act to lower carbon emissions from coal plants after Congress failed to pass a cap-and-trade bill.

With Democrats unlikely to retake the House anytime soon, if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2016, most progressive gains will probably have to come in areas where the president doesn’t have to seek congressional approval—through the courts and executive actions.

Sanders is hardly opposed to an expansive view of what a president can accomplish through executive order. Earlier this spring, before launching his presidential campaign, Sanders wrote a letter urging the Obama administration to close several corporate tax loopholes through executive fiat and and boost revenues by $100 billion. He’s cheered Obama’s use of executive orders to force federal contractors into more liberal employment practices.

But on the campaign trail, Sanders shows his instincts as a senator. While Clinton’s plan for financial reform pledged to appoint more aggressive regulators to crack down on Wall Street’s bad actors and focused on what she’d veto, Sanders’ issues page on Wall Street is a litany of changes that would have to clear Congress: a bill breaking up the biggest banks, a return to the Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial and investment banking, and a financial transaction tax.

When Clinton released her plan to tackle gun violence, she offered up a slew of ideas for the kind of legislation she’d like to see passed and said she’d push Congress to expand background checks. But in the likely event that a Republican Congress didn’t help her in passing that legislation, Clinton said, she’d focus on how she could use executive orders to close the gun show loophole. She made clear that she’d prefer to pursue the traditional legislative route, but was resigned to the realities of dealing with a Republican-controlled Congress.

Clinton’s proposals for executive action might be easier to enact, but they carry plenty of risk. Laws last until they’re overturned, which often involves relitigating the entire fight. Executive orders and instructions to federal agencies can be wiped out as soon as a successor enters the White House. And ambitious executive actions often stand on shaky ground while awaiting judicial approval. Take Obama’s executive order known as the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, which offered millions of undocumented immigrants a reprieve from deportation. He signed the order last year, but it’s remained in judicial limbo ever since. Earlier this week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the order unconstitutional, leaving the fate of the policy in the hands of the Supreme Court.

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The Biggest Difference Between Clintons’ and Sanders’ Policies Isn’t Their Substance

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Early Polls Suggest Hillary Clinton Did Pretty Well in Tuesday’s Debate

by LorrineBucher Posted on October 16, 2015

Mother Jones

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Now it’s time to take a look at the Democratic side of the presidential race. Obviously nobody cares about Webb, O’Malley, or Chafee, so let’s zero in on Clinton and Sanders. Who won Tuesday’s debate? Andrew Prokop summarizes the early polls in the chart on the right.

Now, these results are fairly consistent with Bernie supporters thinking Bernie won and Hillary supporters thinking Hillary won—plus a few extra for Hillary. We’ll have to wait for the big national polls to see if the debate actually changed support levels much for either of them. At a rough glance, though, it looks as if most of the folks who prefer Joe Biden in the polls ended up choosing Hillary when the choice was limited to just her and Bernie.

This makes sense ideologically, since Biden and Clinton occupy pretty similar niches, and it makes sense from a name recognition standpoint too. But I’d point out one other thing that we political junkies might miss: Bernie Sanders can sometimes come across on TV as loud and angry. We’re all so used to his speaking style that it doesn’t affect us much, but for people tuning in for the first time, it might have been fairly off-putting. I don’t know if likely Democratic voters feel the same way, but they might. Just a thought.

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Early Polls Suggest Hillary Clinton Did Pretty Well in Tuesday’s Debate

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Donald Trump Targets Bernie Sanders With ISIS-Themed Attack Ad

by MattKetner Posted on October 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday morning, the day after the first Democratic debate, Donald Trump unleashed an ISIS-themed attack ad against Bernie Sanders on Instagram. “We need a strong leader—and fast!” Trump wrote in the caption of the video.

We need a strong leader- and fast!

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on Oct 14, 2015 at 8:29am PDT

Trump live-tweeted last night’s debate and praised the performance of both Sanders and Hillary Clinton. But his video questions Sanders’ national security bona fides—in Trump’s characteristically controversial fashion. The video juxtaposes a clip of ISIS militants with the Black Lives Matter activists who interrupted Sanders during an August campaign event in Seattle, and it argues that if Sanders cannot “even defend his microphone,” then he is also unfit to defend the US. Trump has previously criticized Sanders for allowing the protestors to interrupt his speech.

Does Trump’s targeting of Sanders mean he views him as a formidable rival? Or does he just enjoy trolling his fellow presidential candidates? Perhaps it’s both.

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Donald Trump Targets Bernie Sanders With ISIS-Themed Attack Ad

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Jim Webb Misses His Moment

by MaryjoQuigley Posted on October 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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Jim Webb needed to make a splash at Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate, and his chance to do it arrived early. As the rest of the field sparred over the Iraq War and use of force in Libya and other countries, Webb tried to interject. It was time for the former Marine infantryman, the only person on stage with military experience, to lay the hammer of his combat experience and Pentagon leadership down on the rest of the field.

But when he finally got a chance to speak, Webb’s answer was more of a lecture than a smackdown. He wandered from ethnic divisions in Iraq to a nuclear Iran before unexpectedly diving into the issue of China’s rising power, one of the former Virginia senator’s pet themes. He then finished by picking the first of many fights with moderator Anderson Cooper over his speaking time.

It’s those moments, which came off as petulant, that may define Webb among voters who know little about him. That, or for his jarring answer to the final question of the night, where he said the enemy he was proudest of making was one he killed in Vietnam:

Outside of that, Webb’s debate performance was mostly soft. He was seen as the “wild card” in the days before the debate, an intelligent and unpredictable candidate whose straight talk could catch Sen. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton off-guard. But during the debate he was more often heard demanding airtime than he was seen on camera. When he was, his answers tended to be discursive, with essentially no big moments like Sanders’ “damn emails” line or effective policy shots like Clinton’s jabs at Sanders’ gun record that might grab the attention of media or voters.

His finest moment was a respectful exchange with Sanders, in which Webb gracefully declined to take shots at Sanders’ status as a conscientious objector during Vietnam and Sanders praised Webb’s service and key role in passing the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Both men came off as thoughtful and humane, and Webb got a competitor to talk about his biggest political achievement. But in a debate that was generally civil and substantive, it wasn’t enough.

The question for Webb was always one of organization: Even if he did turn in an outstanding performance, would his small campaign have the resources to make something big of that moment? After tonight’s debate, that question seems less relevant.

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Jim Webb Misses His Moment

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The 10 Best Moments of the Democratic Debate

by ThurmanFried Posted on October 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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The Democratic presidential contenders met in Las Vegas Tuesday night for the first of six debates. With just four of those debates scheduled to take place before Iowans cast the first presidential primary votes in February, this was Sen. Bernie Sanders’ moment to show that he should be treated as a serious challenger to Hillary Clinton—and a rare chance for former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to move out of “Who’s That Dude” terrain.

It was generally a friendly affair, with the candidates largely agreeing on the major issues. But a few fault lines popped up. Neither Sanders nor O’Malley agreed with Clinton’s suggestion that there should be a no-fly zone over Syria, and both of those upstart challengers also questioned Clinton’s commitment to challenge Wall Street.

Here were some of the debate’s best moments:

Clinton: “Save capitalism from itself.”

After quizzing Sanders on whether he is a capitalist (he identifies as a democratic socialist), moderator Anderson Cooper opened the question up to the rest of the Democratic contenders, asking if there was “anybody else on the stage who is not a capitalist?” Clinton eagerly jumped in. “I don’t think we should confuse what we have to do every so often in America, which is save capitalism from itself. And I think what Senator Sanders is saying certainly makes sense in the terms of the inequality that we have,” she said. “And it’s our job to rein in the excesses of capitalism so that it doesn’t run amok and doesn’t cause the kind of inequities we’re seeing in our economic system. But we would be making a grave mistake to turn our backs on what built the greatest middle class in this country.”

On her own political beliefs, Clinton identified as a certain brand of progressive. “I’m a progressive,” she said. “But I’m a progressive who likes to get things done.”

Sanders: “I’m not a pacifist.”

Cooper asked Sanders, a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, whether he is qualified to be commander in chief. In response, Sanders stressed his history of fighting for veterans’ benefits and his own willingness to go to war as a last resort.

“When I was a young man—I’m not a young man today—when I was a young man, I strongly opposed the war in Vietnam. Not the brave men like Jim who fought in that war, but the policy which got us involved in that war. That was my view then,” Sanders said.

“I am not a pacifist, Anderson. I supported the war in Afghanistan. I supported President Clinton’s effort to deal with ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. I support airstrikes in Syria and what the president is trying to do. Yes, I happen to believe from the bottom of my heart that war should be the last resort that we have got to exercise diplomacy. But yes, I am prepared to take this country into war if that is necessary.”

“Enough of the emails.”—Not the candidate you’d expect.

Cooper sure wanted to make a big deal about Clinton’s email scandal. Right after the first mid-debate commercial break, Cooper jumped into questioning Clinton’s email practices, wondering whether they showed a level of poor judgment that should trouble voters. After Clinton dismissed the email questions as a trumped-up Republican scandal, Sanders piped up. “Let me say something that might not be great politics, but I think the secretary is right,” Sanders said. That whole email kerfuffle? Bernie was having none of it. “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” he said, sharing a handshake and smile with his opponent.

Clinton’s one-word answer to the emails question.

After Clinton and Sanders both agreed that the email scandal had become a sideshow, Chafee challenged Clinton on the email issue, saying the highest ethical standards should be a prerequisite for the next president. Next, Cooper turned to Clinton.

“Secretary do you want to respond?” Cooper asked.

“No,” Clinton responded.

The audience cheered loudly.

Is Sanders tough enough on guns?

Sanders and Clinton had their biggest rumble Tuesday night over gun control. Sanders defended his votes in Congress against gun control measures. When Clinton got a chance to weigh in, she did not go easy on her rival. Cooper asked her, “Is Bernie Sanders tough enough on guns?”

“No, not at all,” Clinton responded. “Senator Sanders did vote five times against the Brady bill. Since it was passed, nearly 2 million illegal purchases have been prevented. He also did, as he said, vote for this immunity provision. I voted against it. I was in the Senate the same time. It wasn’t that complicated to me. It was pretty straightforward to me that he was going to give immunity to the only industry in America—everybody else has to be accountable, but not the gun manufacturers, and we need to be able to stand up and say enough of that, we’re not gonna let it continue.”

Watch:

Don’t blame Lincoln Chafee for his votes.

When Chafee was asked why he voted to repeal Glass-Steagall—the Depression-era law separating commercial and investment banking that was overturned in 1999—the former senator couldn’t muster more than ¯_(ã&#131;&#132;)_/¯ to explain his vote. Chafee tepidly said he didn’t really know what he was voting for since he’d just arrived in the Senate, after being elevated to the post by Rhode Island’s governor after his father had passed away. “I think we all get some takeovers,” he said sheepishly.

Clinton defends Planned Parenthood.

Clinton deftly turned a question about big government into a takedown of the Republican Party’s attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. CNN moderator Dana Bash questioned Clinton’s support for a paid family leave policy by saying critics call it another expensive government program.

“When people say that—it’s always the Republicans or their sympathizers who say, ‘You can’t have paid leave, you can’t provide health care.’ They don’t mind having big government to interfere with a woman’s right to choose and to try to take down Planned Parenthood. They’re fine with big government when it comes to that. I’m sick of it,” she said. The crowd applauded and she kept going.

“You know, we can do these things. We should not be paralyzed—we should not be paralyzed by the Republicans and their constant refrain, ‘big government this, big government that,’ except for what they want to impose on the American people.”

Watch:

Sanders would legalize weed. Clinton still doesn’t want to take a stance.

Nevada is set to vote on legalizing recreational marijuana in 2016. CNN’s Juan Carlos Lopez asked Sanders if he would vote to approve the initiative if he were a Nevada resident. Sure, Sanders replied. “I think we have to think through this war on drugs that has done an enormous amount of damage.”

What about Clinton? She’s still in a wait-and-see mode, happy to watch as states conduct their own experiments without legalizing weed nationwide, at least for now (though she is in favor of laws in favor of medical marijuana). Considering it another issue that she might be evolving on.

What’s the greatest security threat?

Each candidate described what they believe is the greatest security threat to the United States. For Chafee, it is the turmoil in the Middle East, which he says began with the Iraq War. O’Malley said a nuclear Iran; Clinton said nuclear proliferation; Webb mentioned China, cyber warfare, and the Middle East. But Bernie Sanders ran away with the question: climate change.

“The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change—transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy—the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable,” he said. “That is a major crisis.”

Jim Webb: I killed a dude, what have these chumps done?

Cooper lobbed one last, seemingly lighthearted question at the candidates before their closing statements: Which person are you proudest to have made an enemy of? Chafee said the coal lobby, O’Malley said the NRA, Sanders listed Wall Street, and Clinton touted how much Republicans hated her.

But Jim Webb. Ohhhhh boy. He turned nostalgic, looking back on his tour in Vietnam, during which he won a Navy Cross in a true act of heroism. But his method of boasting about that was…awkward. “I’d have to say the enemy soldier that threw the grenade that wounded me,” Webb said, with a smile creeping onto his face, “but he’s not around to talk to.”

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The 10 Best Moments of the Democratic Debate

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Here’s What Bernie Sanders Is Like as a Debater

by DebbraOXFM Posted on October 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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Forty-three years ago, moments before the final debate of his first ever political campaign, Bernie Sanders turned to one of his rivals for Vermont’s governorship, Fred Hackett, and made an unusual proposal: What if they switched outfits? The Republican could take off his tie, don Sanders’ ratty blazer, and mess up his hair. Bernie could borrow Hackett’s suit. “I tried to convince Fred that a great historical moment was at hand—that tens of thousands of people would turn on their TV sets and there, right before their uncomprehending eyes, would be a new Fred Hackett,” he recalled in an essay a few months later. “Fred didn’t take my advice—which is probably why he lost the election.” (Sanders, who was running on the third-party Liberty Union ticket, also lost the election.)

That scenario is unlikely to repeat itself on Tuesday, when Sanders faces off against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic presidential field at the Wynn hotel and casino in Las Vegas. After four decades in politics, Sanders is as veteran a debater as they come—but is he any good at it?

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Here’s What Bernie Sanders Is Like as a Debater

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CNN Poll: Hillary Clinton Gains Ground on Bernie Sanders

by KenSanchez Posted on September 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Yesterday I wrote about the new CNN/ORC poll taken after Wednesday’s Republican debate. Today CNN released the results of its polling on the Democratic race, and they have it at 42 percent for Hillary Clinton vs. 24 percent for Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden is at 22 percent, but no one even knows if he’s running yet, so take that with a big grain of salt. When he’s excluded from the poll, Hillary leads Bernie by 57 percent to 28 percent. In other words, if Biden officially drops out, it’s a big win for Hillary Clinton.

Compared to earlier this month, Sanders is down 3 points and Clinton is up 5 points. Sanders appears to be getting most of his support from liberals and Independent leaners—though this is a little confusing since the poll claims to be counting only registered Democrats.

In any case, I suppose this will all get lost in the mix amid Xi-mania and pope-mania. There’s always some excuse, isn’t there?

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CNN Poll: Hillary Clinton Gains Ground on Bernie Sanders

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James Bond Gives $50,000 to a Sketchy Bernie Sanders Super-PAC

by BerenicPaling Posted on September 10, 2015

Mother Jones

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James Bond’s latest attempt to save the world didn’t involve blowing things up or chasing down bad guys. Instead, Daniel Craig, the Englishman who plays Bond, acted with his wallet, making a healthy donation to support his preferred presidential candidate: Bernie Sanders. But in doing so, he may have played into a villain’s hands.

Over the summer, Craig donated nearly $50,000 to a super-PAC called Americans Socially United, which claims to support the Vermont senator’s dark-horse bid for the Democratic nomination, according to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI). The pro-Sanders super-PAC is run by a self-described lobbyist, Cary Lee Peterson, who “has routinely run afoul of creditors and the law,” with two outstanding warrants in the state of Arizona. The group was initially called “Ready for Bernie Sanders 2016” and “Bet on Bernie 2016,” both illegal uses of the candidate’s name that caused confusion for Sanders supporters who accidentally donated to Peterson’s PAC instead of the campaign. Peterson’s group has not filed the legally required campaign finance disclosures, CPI reports.

Moreover, Sanders, who supports campaign finance reform, doesn’t want super-PACs supporting his campaign and has asked Americans Socially United to stop its efforts on his behalf. His campaign sent Peterson a cease and desist letter in June, which Peterson continues to disregard.

But Peterson contends that he is simply trying to support his favorite candidate. “You don’t need to look back on my past,” Peterson told CPI. “I’m going out there trying to make a difference.”

Thus far, Craig is sticking to his guns, too. “Currently, I have been informed of no evidence to question that my donation has not been used as intended,” he told CPI. “Should that situation occur, then clearly, I will review my position.”

Super-PACs, which are largely unregulated by the Federal Election Commission, can get away with a lot. As attorney Paul Ryan explained to CPI, the people running these super-PACs could legally use the money they raise “to buy a yacht and sail off into the sunset.”

Originally posted here:  

James Bond Gives $50,000 to a Sketchy Bernie Sanders Super-PAC

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Mop, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on James Bond Gives $50,000 to a Sketchy Bernie Sanders Super-PAC