It always seems to be the people who complain the most about the rich who are abusing the system whenever possible.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently toured the country whining about the oligarchy taking over, yet doing so while abusing campaign funds along the way.
For instance, a report just broke that AOC spent $50,000 on high-end hotel rooms, food, and entertainment, all being paid for with money donated to her campaign.
Sanders has long been railing against the likes of Elon Musk donating big bucks to Republicans to buy influence, yet he never seems to have a problem with the likes of people like Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates dropping money on behalf of Democrats.
Sanders has been traveling all over the country, usually on a private jet, to hold rallies, and AOC has been attached to his hip as the heir apparent to the congressional socialist movement Sanders has been leading since ascending to the Senate.
At an April rally, Sanders stated, "To Mr. Trump and people all over this country, we as Americans will not accept oligarchy.”
He continued, “We will not accept authoritarianism, and we will not accept a rigged economy where working people struggle while billionaires become richer."
When people donate to a political campaign, they expect that money to be spent on campaign expenses, such as advertising, rallies, and the like. They surely don’t expect it to be used for bougie trips. The problem is that this is all acceptable according to current FEC rules, as long as politicians can associate the spending with a campaign-related purpose.
A report just broke that while AOC traveled to Puerto Rico to blast gentrification, she was staying at high-end resorts, going to concerts, and eating gourmet meals, all paid for out of her campaign funds.
AOC’s most recent campaign finance report shows that she spent $15,000 on rooms at two luxury hotels in Puerto Rico, over $10,000 for “catering” and “meals,” and $23,000 on a “venue rental” at the Coliseo De Puerto Rico, which is where rapper Bad Bunny was peforming at the time (this would appear to be a suite rental during the show, or something along those lines).
We have seen other Democrats do this as well, with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) regularly taking overseas trips and writing them off to his campaign.
This is far from the first time that AOC’s spending habits have been called into question, as she was forced to fight off an ethics complaint in March for alleged campaign finance violations.
Americans for Public Trust, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, filed a complaint after AOC's disclosures showed excessive spending for what appeared to be dance lessons of some sort.
The lawmaker spent more than $4,500 with "Juan D Gonzalez" and another for $850 to "Bombazo Dance Co Inc.," both of which were classified as “training.”
This is something I have railed about for years, and it is why I no longer donate to political campaigns. From what I have seen in these reports, far too much campaign money is spent on politicians living an extravagant lifestyle rather than on actually supporting their campaigns. They stay at first-class hotels, they eat at five-star restaurants, and they go to expensive events and classify them as team retreats or some other nonsense. I think you have to be a fool to hand a candidate any money these days.
