$45 Million New Goal for Sanders After Original Surpassed

20160229_2130 Bernie Sanders raises more than $40 million in February (USAToday).jpg Bernie Sanders raises more than $40 million in February
By Fredreka Schouten, USA Today

(Feb. 29, 2016 21:30 ET) — Despite his recent losses in Nevada and South Carolina, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders remains a fund raising powerhouse, raising $40 million and counting in February for his bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Sanders had set a goal of collecting $40 million for the month before the fundraising deadline ended Monday. That’s nearly two times the $21 million the Vermont senator raised in January.

He started his last-minute fundraising drive Monday morning, having already collected $36 million. By 7:58 p.m. Monday night, he had raised $40.7 million — meaning donors had showered him with more than $4 million in a single day.

Donation Tracker

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Super-PAC’s Composition Reveals Donors, Contributors and Operators Behind Them

20160217_1556 Hedge Fund Billionaires Fund Super PAC Ad Against Bernie (Intercept).jpg Super-PAC’s Composition Reveals Donors, Contributors and Operators Behind Them
By Daryl Parsons

(Feb. 17, 2016 22:30 ET) In today’s article in the Intercept, “Hedge Fund Billionaires Fund Super PAC Ad Against Bernie Sanders and Minimum Wage Hike,” information about the donors, contributors and operators behind the Super PAC provides perspective and context to their mission and add campaigns.

By drawing attention to the underlying structure of these Super PACs, beyond the mere fact that they are directed at a particular candidate, helps the public’s understanding of them, contributes designing counter-information campaigns against them.

Since the term “Super PAC” has been used over and over during this year’s presidential election cycle. It’s easy to quickly roll one’s eyes and be dismissive about them. As a result, the true nature of any one particular Super PAC gets overlook. All these bad actors behind the Super PAC are then able to secretly continue their agenda as “business as usual.”

In Jilani’s article specific details of the Super PAC now launching add campaigns against presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders has been brought to light. By exposing the true inner structure of this particular Super PAC, it actually provides a great background to refer to when coming into contact with the media communications they put out into the public forum. There should be public registries, obviously online, where each Super PAC is required to disclose their contributors, membership and mission statement.

Though Citizens United Supreme Court case permits these Super PACs to operate as of now, disclosures of their inner structure is also part of the discussion. The public then will have all of the information about the Super PAC’s messages, both their media products, as well as their base structural foundation.

At the end of the day, researching information about any of the underlying Super PACs which have been activated during this election cycle provides context to the messages contained in their media campaigns. At the end of the day, the louder the distorted message put out by targeted Super PAC campaigns, the louder the counter-information campaign is heard addressing the inaccuracies, special interests, and any other information in the Super PACs media package which were not disclosed at the time it was released.

What to Know: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)

20100121_0000 CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION (US 08-2015) Opinion.jpg(Feb. 13, 2016 21:45 EST) Because the US Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, (2010), has been receiving so much attention throughout this presidential election cycle, here is a consolidated list of links which help those wishing to understand the case more than just its title.

Hillary Clinton has advocated, for unknown reasons, that the Citizens United case became to be because it involved an attack campaign against her.

Why she would want to take credit for something which drastically caused our campaign finance system to become corrupted, is unknown.

The gist of the case involves a movie produced by an anti-Hillary-Clinton entity. The movie was to cause people to not want to elect Hillary Clinton.

There were provisions in a law which required various disclosures when campaign related speech was being paid for and used against a political candidate. That, is what Hillary Clinton was at the time.

The producers of the movie then filed an action in court seeking an injunction to keep the law requiring disclosure from being applied to them.

Accordingly the case, originally launched in 2008, eventually cycled its way through the courts system all the way to the Supreme Court. When in 2010, the court, in a 5-4 split decision, ruled in Citizens United’s favor.

Below are some interesting links for reference.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310 (2010)

Wikipedia Overview

Opinion of the Court.

Taking Back Our Democracy: Responding to Citizens United and the Rise of Super PACs, ACLU, Washington, DC, (July 24, 2012)

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, McCain–Feingold Act, Mar. 27, 2002)

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA, McCain–Feingold Act, Pub.L. 107–155, 116 Stat. 81, enacted March 27, 2002, H.R. 2356) is a United States federal law that amended the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, which regulates the financing of political campaigns. Its chief sponsors were Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ). The law became effective on 6 November 2002, and the new legal limits became effective on January 1, 2003.[1]

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Dies (79)

20160213_1937 Justice Antonin Scalia dead at 79 (WP).jpg US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Dies
by Daryl Parsons

(Feb. 13, 2016 20:00 ET) United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in Texas today comes at a time when the Citizens United case, of which Scalia was part of the majority opinion, allowed corporate money to infiltrate the political process.

This has been an issue of much debate during the 2016 presidential race where campaign finance reform has been at the forefront of issues discussed.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, No. 08-205, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), the opinion of the court was split 5-4, with Justice Scalia making up part of the five justices ruling in favor of the case.

Of the nine total Justices, the breakdown included Justices Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia for the majority opinion. Dissenting opinions were held by Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor.

Scalia’s replacement is expected to set off political resistance over the course of the next year within which time an appointment may fill the slot.

Case Summary

Facts of the case
Citizens United sought an injunction against the Federal Election Commission in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to prevent the application of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) to its film Hillary: The Movie. The Movie expressed opinions about whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would make a good president.

In an attempt to regulate “big money” campaign contributions, the BCRA applies a variety of restrictions to “electioneering communications.” Section 203 of the BCRA prevents corporations or labor unions from funding such communication from their general treasuries. Sections 201 and 311 require the disclosure of donors to such communication and a disclaimer when the communication is not authorized by the candidate it intends to support.

Citizens United argued that: 1) Section 203 violates the First Amendment on its face and when applied to The Movie and its related advertisements, and that 2) Sections 201 and 203 are also unconstitutional as applied to the circumstances.

The United States District Court denied the injunction. Section 203 on its face was not unconstitutional because the Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC had already reached that determination. The District Court also held that The Movie was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, as it attempted to inform voters that Senator Clinton was unfit for office, and thus Section 203 was not unconstitutionally applied. Lastly, it held that Sections 201 and 203 were not unconstitutional as applied to the The Movie or its advertisements. The court reasoned that the McConnell decision recognized that disclosure of donors “might be unconstitutional if it imposed an unconstitutional burden on the freedom to associate in support of a particular cause,” but those circumstances did not exist in Citizen United’s claim.

Source: oyez.org (Accessed Feb. 13, 2016 20:00 EST)

Related News Stories:

Justice Antonin Scalia dead at 79 (Feb. 13, 2016 19:37 EST), Washington Post

20160213_1900 Justice Antonin Scalia Dies at 79 (NYT).jpg Antonin Scalia Justice on the Supreme Court Dies at 79, (Feb. 13, 2016 19:00 EST), New York Times
Reference:

Hillary Clinton’s $675,000 Goldman Sachs Paid Speech Transcripts Requests Evidence Lack of Credibility

20160204 Chuck Todd Asks Clinton During Debate to Release Transcripts.jpg Hillary Clinton’s $675,000 Goldman Sachs Paid Speech Transcripts Requests Evidence Lack of Credibility

(Feb. 7, 2016) — Hillary Clinton’s tendency to omit and obfuscate historical information has been an ongoing problem for her even more so now as the presumptive 2016 democratic nominee for president.  In light of the latest debacle, the requests for the transcripts of her paid speeches with Goldman Sachs where she was paid $675,000 are not appearing to go away.

The speeches Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs, and in light of the amount of fees she was paid, have spawned questions about her ability to not beholden to Wall Street if she were to be elected president and in light of the heated debate over campaign finance reform.

The request for actual transcripts of what Clinton said during those talks at Goldman Sachs is indicative of the lack of credibility she has to be able to be taken at her word.

Creating personalized historical time-lines appear to be a tendency of Clinton’s as noted by Carl Bernstein, known for his investigative Watergate reporting leading to the downfall of former president Richard Nixon.

Bernstein’s investigative reporting of Nixon also involved the acquisition of transcripts of audio recordings made of Nixon’s conversations inside the White House.

“Hillary has never wanted anyone else to tell her story except herself,” Bernstein said in a 2007 interview with CNN when discussing his book on the former first lady “A Woman in Charge,” released that same year.

“The former first lady’s 2003 autobiography ‘Living History’ was full of ‘omissions (and) obfuscation,'” Bernstein told CNN.

During Thursday night’s New Hampshire one-on-one debate with her 2016 presidential bid opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton was asked by MSNBC moderator Chuck Todd if she would release the transcripts of her paid speeches.

“I will look into it,” Clinton said. “I don’t know the status, but I would surely look into it.”

Clinton has already begun digging a hole around herself related to the speeches by characterizing the talks as being little more than a discussion of “issues that had to do with world affairs.”

Meanwhile, the matter has not gone away.

Powerhouse investigative journalists have already committed to uncovering the truth behind Clinton’s Goldman Sachs paid speeches.

Lee Fang, a reporter for the “The Intercept” has previously written about the transcripts in his article released Thursday, “Hillary Clinton Won’t Say if She’ll Release Transcripts of Goldman Sachs Speeches.”

Fang said when he asked Clinton about the transcripts two weeks before Thursday’s debate she, “Simply laughed and turned away.”

It appears the issues is not going away for the former first lady where leading investigative journalists are right on her heals.

Given Clinton’s ongoing lack of credibility to be taken at her own word, it appears the only way this matter can be resolved is if she releases the transcripts.

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