Congressional Fundraising: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

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Recommends pdkl95 · 2017-03 · on “Senate Guts Privacy Rules. Will House Follow Suit?”

> Are most of these representatives just willfully corrupt? Yes, but they prefer the terms "lobbying" and "campaign contributions". While theoretically they are concerned with their constituency so they can keep their job, the big problem with our system is the expense of running campaigns. While serving in congress, our representatives a massive amount of time is spent "dialing for dollars". The parties even require ("encourage") spending time "fundraising". This makes lobbying easy. Constructing a compelling case isn't necessary. Just promise to free up their time by making various donations to their campaign and/or their party. This is legal as long as there isn't specific quid pro quo ,

Cites cm3 · 2016-04 · on “When Lobbying was Illegal”

And they all hate it if this video is any proof: [this video] Why do countries like Germany make do without these huge fundraising campaigns, while a having a more balanced parliament, and the US is just Rep or Dem (binary) plus a huge show on a tour bus across the country, instead of doing real politics? I mean, what's the cultural difference in the US population that facilitates the circus?

Cites ddingus · 2016-10 · on “Howard Dean: How to Move Beyond the Two-Party System”

Had to login for this one. I've seen something remarkable this year and I can't shake it. We have a core fault line between those of means and those of little or no real means. Money has a grip on our politics too. Many, and I submit a majority, are not OK with that. However, we have the system we have, and reforming it takes working with that system to improve it. It's not like we can just reset. This year, a lot of us pooled our money and dropped just south of a quarter billion large on the idea of better politics. And it almost worked! For sure, it gave us a lot of data on what ideas resonate, where they win, etc... Over 60 percent of that funding came from people who are on a fixed incom

Cites clarkevans · 2017-01 · on “Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy”

Lovely list. I'd add ways to address problems with "congressional fund raising" as discussed by John Oliver ( [this video] ), so congress members can focus on the needs of their constituents rather than those who pay for their re-election run.

Cites pdkl95 · 2017-05 · on “Florida GOP consultant admits he worked with Guccifer 2.0, analyzing hacked data”

The Russia/"hacked election" meme is amazing. With very little actual evidence , careful use of linguistic framing, and a lot of angry rhetoric on all sides, the public was successfully scared into wasting their time and energy fighting among themselves over hearsay and rumor, instead of addressing any of the numerous actual, known problems that are already known and far more likely to impact the average citizen. If there's actual evidence of an actual crime , then present it to the public and the court. In the meantime, healthcare is still a huge mess, regulatory capture is keeps getting worse (an isn't limited to the FCC), systemic corruption continues to erode the public sector as politic

Cites clarkevans · 2017-09 · on “What Is To Be Done? It is time to consider alternate systems of governance”

We certainly need a better way to organize politically. Listing to John Oilver's episode on congressional fundraising ( [this video] ) leads me to believe that our representatives aren't particularly accountable to the people they represent. That said, this [LINK] seems a bit technical, a bit more technical than what's needed? Couldn't we just take standard democratic representation down a level? Replicate and automate a pattern is already known to work, at a more granular level, rather than reinventing a brand new structure? Let's say a house representative agreed to cast their votes reflecting the preferences of a majority of "block champions" in their district. Perhaps these block leaders havi

Cites jmyeet · 2022-10 · on “Private Prisons Are Behind the Push for Homeless Criminalization”

Let's follow the money. The "thinktank" pushing criminalizing homelessness (from the article) is the Cicero Institute [1]. Here is their July 2022 update gloating about their anti-homelessness lobbying [2]. The Cicero Institute is the pet project for the predictably awful politics of billionaire Joe Lonsdale (eg [3][4][5]), co-founder of Palantir and General Partner and presumptive owner of 8VC who funds many companies [6]. My point is it's not quite accurate to say private prisons are lobbying for this. Their owners are. For those unfamiliar, lobbying firms often write the legislation they push [7][8][9]. At the Federal level, lobbyists are often former Senators and Congressmen. Why? Part o