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And their bosses -- the people who own the big media empires -- are registered Republicans.

Ted Turner owns many media companies, including CNN. He's not a Republcian and has spoke out against them many times, also in favor of Obama.

Really only Fox is owned by someone you could call Republican. The fact is that a vast majority of the entertainment industry (which is what news is now) is made up of people with a heavily liberal slant.

To claim that big business is the domain of Republicans is laughable as anyone who has looked at Obama's donor list now. For a REAL eye-opener, take a peek at some of Obama's biggest donors in 2008:

Goldman Sachs
JPMorgan Chase & Co
Citigroup Inc
Time Warner
Morgan Stanley

Obama has been the best investment the banks ever made.

Who do you think has the bigger influence, the boss or the peons who work for him?

Quite obviously the people that make stories every day for broadcast. You obviously do not know much about media.

For perspective of how low a bar $50,000 is, open secrets has the FEC data for the race. Both of the top 2 candidates have raised over $1.4 million dollars as of 2 months ago, and have likely raised a bunch more since. Even excluding PAC/other money they have raised $866k/$1.22m.

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000115

I'm surprised that high-paid execs only "slightly" prefer a republican to a democrat. You'd think it would be a landslide.

Really?

Government power goes to the highest bidder. Democrats like big government and more power.

High-paid execs already have the power to buy the rules they want - and Democrats sell more rules.

Why the hell do you think Wall Street and Big Insurance spent overwhelmingly for Obama? The banks a MINT off the latest "reforms", and the insurance companies got a windfall of new forced customers with Obamacare.

Don't believe me? Look here.

Wow. The energy industry (which includes Big Oil, BTW) donated 3-1 for Obama. Hmmm, how much of that came from Solyndra, one wonders.

The info is freely available to the public. They're just too busy watching "Desperate Cunts of some city or other" or "Dancing with the washed up hasbeens" ot worry about something as unimportant as who's buying up Congress.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/index.php

by 'United States' you mean 'Motorola'.

No, they probably mean 'AT&T', which just happens to be the 3rd largest campaign contributor in the country:

You're seriously suggesting that AT&T, with their $4.5 million in contributions (20th largest) this election cycle and $31 million in lobbying (5th largest) in the last 2 years alone, doesn't know how to lobby effectively?

Yes. I mean, they lost, right? Clearly, they did not spend enough.

You're seriously suggesting that AT&T, with their $4.5 million in contributions (20th largest) this election cycle and $31 million in lobbying (5th largest) in the last 2 years alone, doesn't know how to lobby effectively?

I didn't say anything about your right to lobby. What I said was that the way Apple and Ford (to use your examples; Coke doesn't lobby to the scale it matters) use large amounts of money to lobby the government currently makes your personal lobbying irrelevant in scope. Effective lobbying takes either personal time or money. Right now the money side of things is so large the personal one is drowned by its scale. Your rights to have your voice heard have effectively already been shit on, past tense, by how loud the corporate shouting is.

I didn't say anything about your right to lobby. What I said was that the way Apple and Ford (to use your examples; Coke doesn't lobby to the scale it matters) use large amounts of money to lobby the government currently makes your personal lobbying irrelevant in scope. Effective lobbying takes either personal time or money. Right now the money side of things is so large the personal one is drowned by its scale. Your rights to have your voice heard have effectively already been shit on, past tense, by how loud the corporate shouting is.

If you don't like it, lobby your lawmakers.

And who will "your" lawmakers listen to, you or these guys?
Lobbyists
Interest groups
PACs

If you don't like it, lobby your lawmakers.

And who will "your" lawmakers listen to, you or these guys?
Lobbyists
Interest groups
PACs

If you don't like it, lobby your lawmakers.

And who will "your" lawmakers listen to, you or these guys?
Lobbyists
Interest groups
PACs

open secrets, maybe? though it's more like 10-to-1, so you're only off by a factor of 10.

and while union donations are down 50%, I'm failing to see any evidence that Obama is having trouble raising money this cycle.

open secrets, maybe? though it's more like 10-to-1, so you're only off by a factor of 10.

and while union donations are down 50%, I'm failing to see any evidence that Obama is having trouble raising money this cycle.

I was citing last election cycle actually, but yes from that source. This list shows a lot more skew to the left, with the first right-leaning donor coming in at #19, the National Auto Dealers Association. Coincidentally the one group that got the shaft when Detroit got bailed out (remember all those GM dealers forced to shut down). IIRC the Realtors were the only other top-ten group to lean right in 2008. Note that Goldman Sachs was 75% Democrat 2008, unlike this year where they are fairly balanced.

But thanks for the link, should have checked it myself first, and admittedly any one list isnt the whole story, and one reason why I dont always bother with cites. Still, point being, while I agree Romney owes money favors Obama is no less beholden. I really dont understand so many people's utter and complete belief that one side is completely corrupt and the other is completely principled, when the vast movement of money to both candidates from large donors and PAC's seemingly makes it obvious the whole system is corrupt.

8 out of the top 10 largest PAC's fund Obama

Cite? I looked up http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/toppacs.php, and it looks like all the PACs give to both D and R. Of the top 10 in that list, 4 gave mostly to D's, 6 mostly to R's. Is there a different list you meant?

Contributions to Obama's 2008 campaign:

Health Services/HMOs: $1.3 million
Health professionals: $12.6 million
Hospitals/Nursing Homes: $3.7 million

Contributions to Obama's 2008 campaign:

Health Services/HMOs: $1.3 million
Health professionals: $12.6 million
Hospitals/Nursing Homes: $3.7 million

Contributions to Obama's 2008 campaign:

Health Services/HMOs: $1.3 million
Health professionals: $12.6 million
Hospitals/Nursing Homes: $3.7 million

....

I'll just leave this here.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=F09

If you're voting for either Democrats or Republicans this November, both are guaranteed to win:
AT&T's bribes.
Microsoft's bribes.
Now, Microsoft is about 2/3 supporting Democrats and hedging 1/3 for Republicans, and AT&T is the other way around, but neither of them can really lose.

If you don't want to vote for them, you'll have to vote for a third-party candidate like Jill Stein (Green) or Gary Johnson (Libertarian).

If you're voting for either Democrats or Republicans this November, both are guaranteed to win:
AT&T's bribes.
Microsoft's bribes.
Now, Microsoft is about 2/3 supporting Democrats and hedging 1/3 for Republicans, and AT&T is the other way around, but neither of them can really lose.

If you don't want to vote for them, you'll have to vote for a third-party candidate like Jill Stein (Green) or Gary Johnson (Libertarian).

OpenSecrets shows he donated the max amount to Maria Cantwell and Nancy Pelosi in 2011.

No I was pointing out the statement is absurd on its face without at least a minimal effort to back it up, as was mine. Without that it just "some dude saying something on the internet".

Are you too lazy to use the Google?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros

"Soros supports progressive-liberal causes. He is known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England" because of his US$1 billion in investment profits during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis."

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/09/opensecrets-battle---koch-brothers.html

David Koch: $1,472,000

        $1,352,000 â" Republican Governors Association
        $100,000 â" Americans for Better Government

George Soros: $32,506,500

        $12.05 million â" Joint Victory Campaign 2004
        $7.5 million â" America Coming Together
        $2.5 million â" MoveOn.org
        $3.65 million â" America Votes
        $3.5 million â" The Fund for America
        $150,000 â" Win Back Respect
        $120,000 â" Majority Action
        $100,000 â" Campaign Money Watch

Soros certainly wins the 527 group spending battle, beating the Koch brothers $32.5 million to $1.5 million.

It's not hard to find. Unless you don't really want to know.

Strat

...that one of the most reliably-Democratic demographics is teachers?
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000064
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/top10000.phtml?topl=1&topnum=10000

NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
- #1 Contributors to state-level campaigns, political parties, and ballot measure committees in 2007 and 2008
- donated 2:1 to Democrats over Republicans in state races.
- donated 25:1 Dems:Repubs in national races since 1990 (the charted dates, but it's been a mainstay of DNC contributors for much, much longer)

The facts are otherwise: "Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street’s most prestigious investment banks ... tends to give most of its money to Democrats."

The discussion system understands HTML (this post is written with <p>'s around the paragraphs).

When you link, just use HTML:

<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811">OpenSecrets<a>

...displays as:

OpenSecrets

If you just want the link displayed and clickable, here is pseudo-html:

<url:"http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811">

...displays as:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811

The discussion system understands HTML (this post is written with <p>'s around the paragraphs).

When you link, just use HTML:

<a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811">OpenSecrets<a>

...displays as:

OpenSecrets

If you just want the link displayed and clickable, here is pseudo-html:

<url:"http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811">

...displays as:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2012&type=I&cid=N00001811&newMem=N&recs=20

I truly believe that any president, R or D would do this. You're forgetting that in the public light they bash each other and act like enemies but behind closed doors they all work together to fill each others bank accounts.

Indeed; a cursory glance at who is financing Obama and Romney's campaigns shows who really runs this country: Namely, Goldman motherfucking Sachs and J.P. Morgan.

More amazing is how this information is publicly available, yet the masses still trend towards eschewing reality in favor of the nonsense-topic-of-the-day.

I still laugh at the so called occupier idiots that protest the rich CEO's (well unless it's Steve Jobs/Apple) and banks. They should really be marching in Washington.

Again, considering that Wall Street banks are the de facto, shadow rulers of America, their protest was targeted at the right group, albeit by a highly misguided group of college dropouts with too much free time.

If you want to kill a serpent, cut off the head.

I truly believe that any president, R or D would do this. You're forgetting that in the public light they bash each other and act like enemies but behind closed doors they all work together to fill each others bank accounts.

Indeed; a cursory glance at who is financing Obama and Romney's campaigns shows who really runs this country: Namely, Goldman motherfucking Sachs and J.P. Morgan.

More amazing is how this information is publicly available, yet the masses still trend towards eschewing reality in favor of the nonsense-topic-of-the-day.

I still laugh at the so called occupier idiots that protest the rich CEO's (well unless it's Steve Jobs/Apple) and banks. They should really be marching in Washington.

Again, considering that Wall Street banks are the de facto, shadow rulers of America, their protest was targeted at the right group, albeit by a highly misguided group of college dropouts with too much free time.

If you want to kill a serpent, cut off the head.

There are 535 member of Congress. There over 10,000 registered lobbyists and the real working number exceeds that by between 3x and 4x. That means that there are nearly a 100 lobbyists for every single person in Congress. Considering these people go after the largest number of representatives possible, that means every person in Congress is beset by a virtual HOARD of lobbyist, hundreds even thousands of people representing mostly corporate interests (though everyone from AARP to the Sierra Club has folks wandering the halls of the Capitol.)

Now consider that huge PACs can openly influence political campaigns and billions of dollars will be thrown at candidates for this fall's elections thanks to the Supreme Court's decision, and what part of what I say to you sounds like nutty conspiracy. Have you not been watching your government at work over the last 12 years? Have you been avoiding the news? Are you not clear about what's at stake and the erosion of your Constitutional rights? This is no conspiracy, these thieves are working in broad daylight, and self absorbed, apathetic, weenies are too involved in their GameBoys and iPads to bother with the fact that our collective Freedom is going down the toilet.

Koch Bros.?

Those are the evil task-masters that are controlling the world energy markets?

Let's compare federal government subsidies for solar and wind power to the entire revenue stream of Koch Bros... Which is greater?

How can little-old Koch Bros. control the world oil/energy market? They have near zero influence over the President/Senate...

According to Rolling Stone magazine, the Koch Brothers have poured about $100 MIllion over the past 30 years into supporting organizations, politicians, and think tanks that they agree with - the US Gov't poured $528 Million down the drain at Solyndra in just under two years.

Put another way, over the last thirty years the Koch Brothers have (in your mind) controlled the Repubican Party and hence the controlled the country while Senator Obama spent nearly 8 times as much on his campaign to become President in 2007-2008.

Apple is antitrust-proof because they don't control upwards of ninety percent of a market like MS do with desktop OSs.

Apple and Microsoft are both anti-trust proof because they both pay the dane-geld.

Apple is antitrust-proof because they don't control upwards of ninety percent of a market like MS do with desktop OSs.

Apple and Microsoft are both anti-trust proof because they both pay the dane-geld.

Top 5 Contributors, 2007-2012, Campaign Cmte

Alliance Resource Partners
$40,650
Koch Industries
$17,000
Mason Capital Management
$16,800
Murray Energy
$14,613
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030836

Even more:
http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00462069

YOU need to wake up to the fact he wants to turn everything over to unregulated corporations.

Do we need a 3rd party? yes. heel a 4th and 5th party!
That does not me we should blindly jump on board anyone who shows up as 3rd party. Since you are ignorant of who donate money to them, I don't think it's not too far of a stretch to say you are blindly jumping on his bandwagon simply because it's a new band wagon.

The question is: Have you rapped yourself so emotionally into the Paul's that you won't change your view in light of the new evidence?

Actually it may also help if you vote the idiots in Congress out. Just sayin....

The problem is these incumbents don't fight too hard for their jobs and at least 3/4 of them are re-elected all the time. The Senate drags the average down a bit, but if you can get into Congress then you're pretty much set for life.

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Any source for that comment? Because I'm pretty sure it's extremely misleading.

Clooney held a fundraiser in which other people donated something like $40k a head. Now, that is a lot of money. But it's chump change compared to the amount raised by the Republican Super PACs. Romney's personal Super PAC has brought in around $52 million. Karl Rove's has brought in another $28 million. Newt Gingrich has another $24M. Santorum's got a little over $8M. There's another $30M among the smaller Republican Super PACs.

All told, that's around $142 million dollars. All the Democratic PACs have together brought in about $30M. It's pretty clear who the billionaires want to win.

The only reason there's even a chance of Obama being re-elected is because the small individual donors (under $5k) heavily favor Obama: $96M to $11M.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/31/us/politics/super-pac-donors.html
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php

Microsoft learned after their last antitrust investigation, and increased their political contributions by an order of magnitude

Erm... according to the data YOU point me to, their contributions all round have gove down. To be fair, today it might still be an order of magnitude greater than in....1994, if you think of total cash contributions but when you take account ofthe accumulative effect of 55% inflation since 1994, it weakens your case. ...and you think a couple $M buys any serious influence in the federal government? What planet are you from?

so I don't get why

Employers are routines sued for large settlements when they fire people. The basis for these cases are legion, but some of the common claims include racism, sexism and homophobia. Anytime you fire someone that isn't a white, healthy, heterosexual male you stand a good chance of getting sued.

The labor department is simply expanding the basis for future claims. Some number of hapless employers will, on becoming annoyed with someone's Facebook stuff, fire people. The labor department, on behalf of certain interest groups, is making it clear that this is legitimate grounds to sue for millions.

Microsoft learned after their last antitrust investigation, and increased their political contributions by an order of magnitude, without changing their business practices at all. Now that Microsoft has paid the appropriate protection money, they can do whatever they want.

Now they can suck our economy dry with even more speed and efficiency!

I'm sure they'll have some nice propaganda to tell us all about how this benefits the common man.

They already do; it's called the 2012 Presidential Election. Donations to Barack Obama in 2008 - $1,013,091 2012 (reported thus far) - $80,224 Donations to Mitt Romney (2012, reported thus far) - $528,180 I believe this is what they in the finance 'industry' refer to as "hedging."

It sure is easier when there's only two parties with a chance of winning. I mean if there were 4-5 or more parties that can win federal elections, why, they'd have to spend a lot more money! Clearly being one party away from total dictatorship and winding up with half-dictatorship is producing value. For America! *cue flag, fireworks, apple pie, maybe an image of a soldier who fights for "your freedoms" by blowing away some brown people who never were a threat to us...*

Now they can suck our economy dry with even more speed and efficiency!

I'm sure they'll have some nice propaganda to tell us all about how this benefits the common man.

They already do; it's called the 2012 Presidential Election.

Donations to Barack Obama in 2008 - $1,013,091
2012 (reported thus far) - $80,224

Donations to Mitt Romney (2012, reported thus far) - $528,180


I believe this is what they in the finance 'industry' refer to as "hedging."

He's a registered hard money 'bundler' ($132,813 on '08) for Obama.

Happy Friday.

I can think of about 1.8 million reasons why the US Justice Department might be inclined to look the other way.

Entry no. 3, in between all the banks, content owners, universities and trail lawyers.

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000115

Because Microsoft increased their political contributions by an order of magnitude after the anti-trust trial. It was never about protecting consumers, it was a shakedown pure and simple. Microsoft didn't pay the requisite bribes, and they suffered for it. Now they've learned their lesson, and you can expect pretty much anything they do to be ignored by the DOJ. Especially Obama's DOJ.

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=E01