Courtesy of Pam Martens
Bernie Sanders Challenges Hillary Clinton on Her Acceptance of Campaign Funds from Wall Street During the Second Democratic Debate
Billionaires went to bed very cranky last night and are likely awakening to irritable bowel syndrome this morning. What has been working swimmingly well for them since the 2010 Citizens United decision was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing the super wealthy to dump unlimited sums of money into Super Pacs to sway the outcome of elections, just had a wrench thrown into the gears.
Voters in Iowa gave a resounding thumbs down to Jeb Bush and his massive Super Pac spending, giving him an embarrassingly low 2.8 percent of the Republican vote. According to data made available by BloombergBusiness (see chart below), Bush’s campaign spent $9.8 million in the final three months of last year while his Super Pac spent an astounding $54.3 million in the final six months of 2015.
Also embarrassing for the billionaires giving to Hillary Clinton’s Super Pac, Priorities USA, was her tiny margin of victory over Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has no aligned Super Pac of billionaires and millionaires, but has instead received hundreds of thousands of small checks from average people across America according to Federal Election Commission records. With 99 percent of the vote counted in Iowa caucuses, Hillary logged in with 49.9 percent of the Democratic vote versus Sanders’ 49.6 percent. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley drew 0.6 percent of the vote and announced he is suspending his campaign.
Hillary’s Super Pac, Priorities USA, was legally required to update its filings with the Federal Election Commission on January 31, 2016. Those filings make for some very interesting reading. Over 90 percent of the $41 million the Super Pac raised during the full year of 2015 came from a handful of billionaires and the super rich.
George Soros, the hedge fund billionaire, gave a total of $7 million to Priorities USA in 2015, writing one check in the second half of the year for an astonishing $6 million. The second largest bundle came from Haim Saban, a billionaire entertainment mogul, and his wife, Cheryl, who gave a combined $5 million in 2015. Another hedge fund mogul, David Sussman, operator of Paloma Partners, kicked in $2.5 million to Priorities USA in 2015.
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