In his past life as a Democrat, Jared Kushner contributed to a long list of Democrats

[pnwmom]

and Democratic organizations.

Funny that the only person people are trying to smear is the one who might be a contender for 2020.

Jared Kushner's donations:

Committee for Working Families
DNC Services
New Millenium PAC
NJ Democratic State Committee
HillPAC
Democratic Committee of NY State

Hillary Clinton, Dick Swett, Charles Schumer, Robert Torricelli, Jon Corzine, Frank Lautenberg, Robert Abrams, Cory Booker, Sean Eldridge, Bill Pascrell, Timothy Carden, Robert Menendez.

The only non-Dems he gave to were Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani.

https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Jared+Kushner

[LisaM]

1. Yup.

The smear campaign has begun. Expect three or more years of this.

[NewJeffCT]

2. the only black one in the group as well

and also arguably the most charismatic speaker of the group you mention as well.

[pnwmom]

3. Yeah, and I doubt that that is a coincidence, with some of these smearers. n/t

[NewJeffCT]

8. He was also targeted when he voted against the Sanders resolution

regarding importing medication from Canada because he had accepted a small amount of money from people who worked in the pharmaceutical industry. With some basic research, what I found was 89% of the money Booker received for his Senate run was from individuals. (the largest PAC donor industry, by the way, was Legal/Law Firms. The second largest was the Entertainment industry) There are over 300,000 people in NJ, NYC and PA that work in the pharmaceutical industry, so it's no surprise that some people in that industry gave money to Booker's campaign.

However, Booker was singled out despite several Democrats voting against the Sanders resolution, even though Booker voted for the similar Wyden resolution.

[pnwmom]

17. Exactly. He received lots of money from "big pharma" because lots of people

in New Jersey work in big pharma. Big deal.

And that amendment Sanders proposed was half-baked -- his effort to get in first. It lacked the consumer protections that were in the subsequent bill that Booker did support. My state's Senators opposed Bernie's amendment, too, because we had already had a problem here with people buying fake drugs from online pharmacies purporting to be in Canada. The bill Booker and Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell supported was a much better bill.

[JustAnotherGen]

19. Thank you

I posted in the NJ group a high level explanation of who lives here and what we do for a living. People twisted over this must never donate to campaigns. I've always had to declare my line of work.

[NewJeffCT]

21. If you do the math

I think it was $450,000 in total from the pharmaceutical industry. With 300,000 employees in the industry, it's a huge $1.50 per employee.

[NurseJackie]

27. And there you have it!

[Txbluedog]

4. This is all being bought up so

that when SS Trump sinks the rethuglicans can claim that the family were democrats to begin with and they are blameless in this whole mess

[MADem]

7. Never mind that all these politicians were players in the Tri-State area,

where his real estate interests were centered.

He was buying ACCESS. If all of those seats were filled by Republicans, he would have donated to them, too.

[Txbluedog]

10. very true but this is not why it is being bought up

[MADem]

13. It's being brought up to fuck with Booker.

It's often easier to fight a fire when you know what accelerant started it.

[mcar]

5. Great find!

Curious that only one Dem pol is being criticized for it.

[MADem]

9. The "blah" one, to quote Rick Santorum....

Hmmm.

Reference:

[mcar]

12. Ah yes, he's "blah"

Also a possible 2020 contender.

[MADem]

6. Rupert Murdoch donated to Dems, too.

It's all about buying influence.

Rich people know that, the way the system works, MONEY buys ACCESS.

Don't hate the players, hate the game.

We need to CHANGE the game. We can't do that until we get rid of that nutjob in the WH, and this GOP Congress, which thrives on this game.

[Txbluedog]

11. The nutjob in line to replace the nutjob in the WH is worse

[MADem]

14. We just may see PRESIDENT HATCH. nt

[Txbluedog]

15. So senile nutjob then?

[MADem]

18. Right now, PRESIDENT HATCH sounds by orders of magnitude better than

President Pence or President Ryan.

We can try hanging on until JAN 2019 and aiming for PRESIDENT PELOSI, but in the meantime, someone needs to muzzle the Orange Asswipe and slow his roll.

[zipplewrath]

25. Best point

Don't hate the players, hate the game. The only thing I'd add is we saw the game moving in this direction decades ago and we were sold on the whole "it's a good thing" idea by the post McGovern/Carter democratic party. Well, rightly or wrongly, it's how we ended up here.

[MADem]

28. I don't think "we were sold" on anything. I believe that we held our noses

and went along, because we were already being voter caged and gerrymandered and Voter ID'd out of our franchise. The only place we could compete is on the money front.

No Dem likes this shit--they spend every spare minute dialing for dollars and chowing down on rubber chicken at fundraisers. It eats them up.

[zipplewrath]

29. Too some extent, neither do the GOP

Practically everyone in congress complains, and comments upon the problem of nonstop fund raising. But they don't try to change the "game" either. In the end their all invested in the game.

A few years ago someone commented upon the expanding reality of the "Political Industrial Complex". It is a system by which consultants and political operatives, plus organizations that do polling and other political research have grown to the point at which they are an industry in and of themselves. And with Citizens United, it has greatly expanded. The problem is that these people aren't in politics as "public service". They aren't in it for ideology. They are in for money/power (which is a bit like space/time or mass/energy. It's the same thing). The point of politics for them, for this industry, is to make money. And they have gotten very good at it. And the best way to make money is to win elections. And so we get into this vicious cycle where winning makes money which then causes people to win more and make more money, that they use to win more.

But HOW and WHY they win is unimportant. And so it becomes the equivalent of TV. A vast waste land of crappy shows occasionally interrupted by a bit of art once and a bit. And right now our national politics has become a season of "The Apprentice".

[MADem]

31. But the GOP started it.

It's an error to suggest that both sides shoulder equal blame.

[zipplewrath]

35. Not equal

I'm not sure who you can trace the whole "war room" schtick for money raising to. I can tell you that it has long been a tradition within politics that the politician who can help OTHER politicians raise money, will find themselves in a leadership role quickly.

[MADem]

38. Those days of sacks of cash were...quaint.

Citizens United is what really screwed the pooch.

[zipplewrath]

40. Politics on steroids

Truth be known, I won't be surprised if soon the RNC will cooperate with the DNC on restricting the cash flow into politics. It's getting so expensive that it's getting harder to play the game. It also empowers the "wrong" people. The current flock of billionaires has as many left leaning as right leaning. It's less and less about the Wall Street crowd, and they don't like that.

[ehrnst]

16. Kicked and recced. (nt)

[mhw]

20. Ya well the Dems ain't gonna save his ass now.

Jared who?

[sheshe2]

22. Thank you for posting this, pnwmom.

I am sick of all the faux outrage we have been seeing.

[alarimer]

23. More reason to get money out of politics

So our elected officials don't ever have to choose between doing the right thing and doing the bidding of these people because you had better believe they expected to get something in return for that money. It might only have been a few government contracts or maybe an ambassadorship or something, but it still slimy business-as-usual.

If Kushner does go down (and I hope he does), everyone he donated to is tainted somewhat.

[pnwmom]

24. He donated to Dems years ago while he was a Dem. These candidates

get donations from thousands of people. No, they are not "tainted" because years later one of their donors does something wrong.

[MADem]

36. No.

You can scrub anyone's donor or fan lists and find jerks and worse.

I don't see anyone blaming Sanders for that Portland lunatic...yet he was a BS cheerleader on fb.

No one "should" blame him, mind...but the shoe pinches on the other foot.

[BigmanPigman]

26. Why are 99.9% of Republicans such hypocrites?

[DemocraticWing]

30. Looks like a rogues gallery of NYC Centrists to me

The problem with Booker is the same as with Lautenberg, Lieberman, Giuliani, etc.

They are all owned by Wall Street

[MADem]

32. Centrists look a helluva lot better

thanks some of these Russian loving Putinbot fringe characters. I prefer the middle of the horseshoe to the ends.

[DemocraticWing]

34. Horseshoe Theory is dishonest bullshit

There is NO comparison between Nazis and socialists. One side wants free college and the other wants genocide; if you think those two things are equally bad you are deluded.

So called centrism is an ideology of its own and extreme adherents to it have helped wreck this country.

[MADem]

37. Because you say so?

Sorry pal, if we survive Trumputin, those centrists you deride will look sweet to the majority of voters.

[WinkyDink]

33. So once upon a time JK was a human being. Now he is a wraith-like Creature from the Black Sea.

[kentuck]

39. They are "Democrats" for different reasons...

Not necessarily the same reasons that we might be Democrats.

They are Democrats for political advantage only. They are mostly apolitical in their beliefs. But they usually donate to Democrats in expectation of political favors.

For example, Gary Cohn from Wall Street, is also a Democrat. He may be appoint Chief of Staff if Preibus is dismissed?

[pnwmom]

41. There were plenty of other Republicans they could have given to

if they had been truly apolitical.

In any case, it's not fair to Cory Booker to blame him for not having the foresight to realize that Kushner would be switching teams eventually.

[kentuck]

42. Kushner and Trump are those types of Democrats also...

When it suits their financial interests.

They change parties about as often as the wind blows.

I don't consider them "real" Democrats.

I doubt that Republicans consider Donald Trump a "real" Republican either?

[pnwmom]

43. Kushner had never changed his party before,

and both his parents were lifelong Democrats.

Regardless, he no longer is one.