“Party of the People: A History of the Democrats”, published in 2003, is a book written by Jules Witcover who co-wrote the syndicated column “Politics Today” with Jack Germond for more than 24 years. Germond passed away here in Jefferson County, at his home in Charles Town in 2013. According to one synopsis of Witcover’s weighty 846 page tome, “Jules Witcover traces the Democratic Party’s evolution, from its roots in the agrarian, individualistic concepts of Thomas Jefferson to its emergence as today’s progressive party of social change and economic justice”.

To my mind, tracing the modern Democratic Party back to Jefferson is a stretch. “Today’s progressive party” has very little in common with Jeffersonian principles. Jefferson’s party was called Jefferson’s Republicans later to be called the Democratic Republicans in 1798. However, in 1828 the Democratic Republicans broke up into factions, one of which became the Democratic Party - making it older than the Grand Old Party. Go figure.

The winner of the 1828 presidential election, running as a Democrat, was Andrew Jackson. What Jackson and Jefferson had in common was that they were both vehemently opposed to the idea of a National or Federal bank. Today’s Democrats just love their Central Bank.

I also think that it is a bit of a stretch to call the Democrats the “party of the people”. When it comes to Republicans, there are “Wall Street Republicans” and there are “Main Street Republicans”. Among Democrats there are “Wall Street Democrats” and then there’s the social justice crowd who have done a good job of chasing Main Street Democrats out of the party. They’re all Independents now.

Like Bernie Sanders. Er, maybe. Move On, the anti-Republican, pro-Democrat progressive activist group that campaigned so enthusiastically for Barak Obama has endorsed the Democratic Socialist in his bid to run for president as a Democrat. It’s like free agency in football. Move On’s members went for Bernie in a big way - 78.6% - lauding his “lifelong commitment to standing up to corporate and 1% interests”. Perhaps Witcover might issue a revised edition of his book that covers the party’s change from Democratic Republicans to Democratic Socialists.

For his part, on his website, Bernie says that America is becoming an oligarchy that is “of the billionaires, by the billionaires, and for the billionaires”. Now, would that be billionaires like Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffet, George Soros and Bill Gates, all of whom are “progressive”? And of course, as FactCheck reports, Move On’s “initial donors included billionaire George Soros”. Soros co-founded the Quantum Fund Group, a hedge fund for the 1%. According to Wikipedia, the Rothschild banking family was an initial investor. You can’t make this stuff up.

All that said, Bernie’s vote on S 2232, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2015, also known as Audit the Fed was more than interesting. The bill, which calls for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve Bank was filibustered. The vote for cloture only got 53 yea votes, falling short of the 60 votes needed to end the filibuster. But the results of the vote were rather telling. Fascinating, really. Of the 97 Senators voting, every Republican except one voted for ending the filibuster and bringing the bill up for a vote. Every Democrat, except one, didn’t. Al Franken didn’t vote. Perhaps he’s working on turning all this into a Saturday Night Live skit. As for Bernie Sanders - he voted with the Republicans.

That’s right, Move On, Bernie voted with the Republicans. After the vote, Bernie wrote, “To rein in Wall Street, we should begin by reforming the Federal Reserve, which oversees financial institutions and which uses monetary policy to maintain price stability and full employment. Unfortunately, an institution that was created to serve all Americans has been hijacked by the very bankers it regulates.”

There are those who would say that the Federal Reserve wasn’t hijacked at all - that it was created to serve the very bankers it “regulates”. Which begs the question, who owns the Federal Reserve? The Federal Reserve is a shareholder corporation given the exclusive monopoly authority by congress to create US Dollars and yet congress, to my knowledge, has never required the bank to disclose who its shareholders are. Allegedly, those shareholders are the banks that it is supposed to oversee. And, according to a Freedom of Information Act filing by Bloomberg News, it was discovered that the Fed not only bailed out domestic banks, it also bailed out foreign banks, in essence conducting foreign policy without congressional oversight. Wow.

Executives from J. P. Morgan Chase have held board posts at the Fed, including its current president. Chase Bank, long associated with the Rockefeller family, bought J. P. Morgan in 2000 and is now the largest bank in the US with $2.6 Trillion in assets.

Goldman Sachs is America’s 5th largest bank. According to (very) progressive Rolling Stone magazine, Goldman Sachs is a “vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity”. From conservative Breitbart News Network, in an article entitled “The Federal Reserve of Goldman Sachs”, Chriss Street reports that with its most recent appointment “former Goldman Sachs executives will hold 4 of the 5 Fed Presidents’ seats on the powerful Federal Open Markets Committee that controls U.S. interests rates”. You might almost call that a consensus.

And maybe that is what Bernie means by hijacked. Consider this additional quote from the Breitbart article, “Since reporting records became available in 2002, Goldman Sachs and its employees have made $51.6 million in political contributions. The majority of funds have gone toward Democrats and liberal causes”. Goldman Sachs was also Obama’s most generous private sector contributor in 2008. Party of the people indeed. Perhaps Bernie means that the Democrat Party has been hijacked.

On the Republican side, the only senator to vote with the Democrats was Bob Corker from Tennessee who actually participated in the filibuster with Harry Reid. Maybe a party switch is in the works? Ted Cruz didn’t vote on the bill; neither did Dan Coats from Indiana. Recently Cruz has been under scrutiny regarding campaign loans from a previous senate campaign. Allegedly, the loans were from…….drum roll please….Goldman Sachs.

The great thing about a vote like this is that it gives us an opportunity to get politicians on the record. By voting with the Republicans, Bernie Sanders calls out the Democrats that voted with the banking interests. Like Elizabeth Warren.

The lead sponsor of the S 2262 is Republican Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky who, for his trouble, has been cut from the televised presidential debate. Ironically, according to CBS news, recent poll numbers were good enough to get him in. Maybe Fox Business channel has other criteria?

Move On hasn’t commented on Bernie’s vote. To bring things full circle, before endorsing Bernie, Move On tried to draft Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to run for the Democrat nomination for president. Move On hasn’t commented on her vote either. However, with the Audit the Fed bill, we see that that the Democrats just love those Wall Street banks that serve the 1%. Main Street Republicans can only watch and shake their heads.