Owners of Time Warner, ExxonMobil, JPMorgan, Monsanto donate millions to Bernie!

[DanTex]

Newsflash, people. Those companies are all publicly traded and owned by shareholders. They are also major large cap stocks and are part of the S&P 500 index. Which means that anyone who owns any mutual funds likely owns shares of all of them. In fact, Bernie's financial disclosures include mutual fund holdings, which means that Bernie himself owns parts of evil corporations like these.

Also, since people seem to not have figured this out yet, corporations do not and cannot contribute to campaigns. Those totals you keep seeing are from employees of said corporations. An individual can only donate $2700, so when you see something like "Pfizer donated $X million to the Clinton campaign", that's a lie, and what it actually means is that a lot of people who work for Pfizer each donated amounts of up to $2700 each, and the total amount of those individual donations was $X million. (And since I can see the conspiracy theories coming, yes, it is illegal for corporations to coerce their employees to make political donations).

And finally, corporations are not people. Corporate money is not individual money. I though that was something all progressives understood. It's disappointing to see some Bernie fans echoing Mitt Romney's "corporations are people" meme for the purpose of bashing Hillary.

[hobbit709]

1. Did you oil the bearings?

[DanTex]

2. Meh. This is why your candidate is losing. We have the facts, you have the one-liners.

[hobbit709]

6. Idiotic posts that stretch credulity only deserve one-liners.

[DanTex]

7. Keep doing what you're doing then. It's working out great for me.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

25. I am for either candidate, ultimately, but with a stretch like that you could

play basketball all day long.

Or run a marathon, etc.





Cant wait for the craziness to be over and we have a candidate to support.

if I could high-lite "stretch" it would make the joke better I think

[Segami]

41. LOL!...+1

It's GiggleFest Time!

[Logical]

31. LOL, your posts are worse than one liners. nt

[Armstead]

3. Pretzel Logic

I guess our campaign finance system is working prtfectly....Nooo finagling, no bundling, no superPacs or Pacs....No lobbyists exerting undue pressure based on campaign controbutions

Naw just a lot of average working folks funding all campaigns equally based solely on their personal preferences out of civic duty

[DanTex]

5. Who said the campaign finance system is working perfectly? Certainly not me, which is why

I stand with Hillary and her objective of overturning Citizens United.

But surely you agree that all the lies claiming that corporations are donating to the Clinton campaign have no place on DU, right?

[Eleanors38]

45. Next: pics of Bernie's 44 LOVERS!!!!

[randome]

4. That bastard is selling us out! Again!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]

[CalvinballPro]

8. Millennials are never going to get old and need retirement funds, remember? They're immortal!

Just like every young generation before them.

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. I'm good with that.

[EndElectoral]

10. Wow, what a stretch to deflect from the vast sums accepted from the HRC campaign for politcal favors

[DanTex]

11. "for political favors". Any evidence of that? Even a trace?

[SheenaR]

33. I guess this would be an anecdotal piece

I'm sure Senator Warren just made that up. Clinton wasn't answering to anyone

[DanTex]

36. Sorry, that's not evidence of bribery or quid-pro-quo. Not by a long shot.

[SheenaR]

38. That's fine

Changing a position based on who you now work for is the evidence you asked for.

It's fine. You win. That's the only way you won't make this exchange last two more hours

[DanTex]

39. Still no evidence of quid-pro-quo or bribery. Those are serious allegations you're making.

People change views all the time. Including Saint Bernie.

And as Senator she was representing the state of New York. Ask Bernie about the F-35 or Warren about the medical device industry.

[EndElectoral]

46. Seriously, what do you think these corporations are giving her money for?

"We have to reduce the influence of money in our politics, so that a handful of families and hidden interests can’t bankroll our elections — and if our existing approach to campaign finance can’t pass muster in the courts, we need to work together to find a real solution." — Barack Obama

“Let only individuals contribute — with sensible limits per election. Otherwise, we are well
on our way to ensuring that a government of the moneyed, by the moneyed, and for the moneyed shall not perish from the earth.” — Warren Buffett

"If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be Citizens United. I think the notion
that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be"
– Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“Members of the legislature, people who have run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed." - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law”
– Theodore Roosevelt 1905”

“Let individuals contribute as they desire: but let us prohibit in effective fashion all corporations from making contributions for any political purpose, directly or indirectly”
– Theodore Roosevelt

“You now have the potential of 200 people deciding who ends up being elected president every single time”
– Barack Obama

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both — Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

"People who contribute get the ear of the member and the ear of the staff. They have the access and access is it. Access is power. Access is clout. That's how this thing works." - Rep. Romano Mazzoli

"I don't think mistakes are just made at the edges. The entire process, even when conducted strictly within the law, invites corruption and erodes the confidence that the decisions made in our democracy are based on our representative honest judgment and deliberation about the best policies and the interests and opinions of all their constituents." - Sen. Bill Bradley

[HumanityExperiment]

12. Troll bait...

again with the troll bait from the usual suspects...

[DanTex]

13. LOL. You joined a week ago and already have a "usual suspects" list...

[HumanityExperiment]

14. Yep, would've been sooner but I was distracted...

wish you all were a bit more imaginative though...

[DanTex]

15. Enjoy your stay!

[SheenaR]

34. Been here two months, after years elsewhere and working for the Party

Get ready for the "new guy/girl" hazing, as if your opinion is any less worthy.

But I can already tell your judgment is pretty sound

[HumanityExperiment]

40. thx

yeah, I fully expect the dismissal attempts due to newbie'ism to occur

[NV Whino]

16. Oh, careful. With a stretch like that you're going to pull a muscle.

[shireen]

17. re: mutual funds, not necessarily so

First, not all of us have mutual funds making us money except in retirement accounts. Some of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Some mutual funds in retirement plans have an environmental program that excludes oil companies. I have one of those.

So, if you're going to accuse Bernie of getting money from oil companies, please take a close look at the type of mutual funds he owns.

Regarding your second paragraph, that is true. Thank you for educating people who were unaware of it. It's still, however, an indication of the type of people who support her.

[RiverLover]

18. Someone is seriously ignorant about SuperPACs.

And think tanks.

For example, corps donate $9 billion annually to Third Way Institute, anonymously.

WAKE UP.

[DanTex]

19. LOL. $9 Billion annually! I gotta see that link!

[ThePhilosopher04]

20. Americans know better but try explaining

$225k per speech which goes directly into her personal banking account ... essentially bribe money. Spin the corporate campaign dollars however you wish, she's on the direct payroll of Wall Street. There's no getting around that.

[DanTex]

21. Americans have chosen Hillary, thanks very much.

[snagglepuss]

22. Are you deliberately obtuse? Bernie is not anti-Capitalist, in fact business thrived

when Bernie was mayor of Burlington. Democratic-Socialism is simply the idea that government must be a countervailing power to massive private interest because private interest is not concerned with Public Good - private interest is only concerned with private interest.

[DanTex]

24. But he's anti-trade. You slap tariffs on everyone, it hurts workers in the third world.

[Chezboo]

28. Again, he's not anti-trade. He's FAIR trade. But you know that. nt

[DanTex]

29. What does that mean exactly, if not tariffs?

[4dsc]

26. So says a Hillary supporter

nice ramblings but it doesn't mean anything.

[DemocracyDirect]

27. I rec'd your post just to show how ridiculous it is.

Obviously you forgot about SuperPACs.

[TheBlackAdder]

30. As a Poli-Sci guy, I'm telling my Psychology friends of this site-fertile turf for thesis papers. nt

[Iliyah]

32. Fact, thanks DanTex!

Corporate "establishment" backing, who knew? LOL



Go Hillary!

[highprincipleswork]

35. And the PAC's of those companies.

[Marr]

37. What an embarrassing post. /nt

[PaulaFarrell]

42. since you mentioned Pfizer's

I have a friend who used to work there. He said that employees were let know in no uncertain terms whom they should be voting for. Do you think that's OK?

[mak3cats]

43. Oh, brother. Really?

[insta8er]

44. hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaahhahahah DanTex hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhaa

[ChiciB1]

47. I Have To Give You ONE STAR For Thinking Up This Piece

of Complete BULL CRAP! THIS type of post perfectly DEFINES the thinking of Hillary Supporters. Just DOUBLE SPEAK a bunch of garbled words and TRY to make it sound like truth.

Amazing, but that's taking one for the team I guess!

WOW!!?????!!!??????