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Domain: opensecrets.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to opensecrets.org.
Comments · 2,126
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Not all of themProbably too late here, but I actually watched most of the judiciary hearing yesterday and while I was probably in the middle of a stroke for most of it the parts I remember paint a pretty clear picture.
On the one side you had a few (very few) congressmen/women, namely Mr. Issa, Mr. Polis, Mr. Chaffetz, Ms. Lofgren and Ms. Jackson. They spent the entire hearing pleading with the chairman and the rest of the committee to allow experts (nerds as they often said) to essentially come in and explain the internet to them, because it was obvious that 99% of the members of the committee had no idea what they were talking about. They made reasonable, logical arguments and put forth one amendment after the other trying to clarify some really vague areas of the bill, all of which were shot down by the rest of the committee usually by a vote of ~6 to 24.
On the other side you had 5 or 6 members of the committee who also admitted several times that they had zero understanding of the technical aspects of the bill, but that the bill was awesome anyway. This group was mainly the chairman of the committee Mr. Smith, Mr. Berman, Mr. Watt, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Goodlatte and Ms. Waters. They made no arguments beyond "We have to do something. This is something. Therefor we should do this". Unlike the first group they didn't care that they were ignorant on the subject, they just wanted to get the damn thing passed. I doubt anyone here would be surprised to learn they all received large campaign contributions from the TV/Music/Film industry. Check the contributions of the first group and you'll find the same industry conspicuously absent. It's also worth noting that more than half the committee never said a word during the entire session that wasn't "No" in response to an amendment vote. This third group cared so little they couldn't even be bothered to take part in the debate.
So when you're condemning this committee for being willfully ignorant just keep in mind that 5 or 6 of them don't deserve to be thrown in with the rest like that. I'll end with a quote from a frustrated Darrell Issa, speaking to the chairman of the committee half way through the second day:I thank you for continually trying your best to go Republican, Democrat, Republican, Democrat. I might suggest that you might as well go 'for' and 'against', that'll save a lot of your 'for' people some wasted time because you'll run out of the 'against' pretty quickly. Mr. Chairman it's very clear we're gonna lose here eventually, and we're gonna lose in the worst possible way. We're gonna lose without all the facts, and we're gonna lose without the process being open in the way that I would hope it will be in the new year.
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Not all of themProbably too late here, but I actually watched most of the judiciary hearing yesterday and while I was probably in the middle of a stroke for most of it the parts I remember paint a pretty clear picture.
On the one side you had a few (very few) congressmen/women, namely Mr. Issa, Mr. Polis, Mr. Chaffetz, Ms. Lofgren and Ms. Jackson. They spent the entire hearing pleading with the chairman and the rest of the committee to allow experts (nerds as they often said) to essentially come in and explain the internet to them, because it was obvious that 99% of the members of the committee had no idea what they were talking about. They made reasonable, logical arguments and put forth one amendment after the other trying to clarify some really vague areas of the bill, all of which were shot down by the rest of the committee usually by a vote of ~6 to 24.
On the other side you had 5 or 6 members of the committee who also admitted several times that they had zero understanding of the technical aspects of the bill, but that the bill was awesome anyway. This group was mainly the chairman of the committee Mr. Smith, Mr. Berman, Mr. Watt, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Goodlatte and Ms. Waters. They made no arguments beyond "We have to do something. This is something. Therefor we should do this". Unlike the first group they didn't care that they were ignorant on the subject, they just wanted to get the damn thing passed. I doubt anyone here would be surprised to learn they all received large campaign contributions from the TV/Music/Film industry. Check the contributions of the first group and you'll find the same industry conspicuously absent. It's also worth noting that more than half the committee never said a word during the entire session that wasn't "No" in response to an amendment vote. This third group cared so little they couldn't even be bothered to take part in the debate.
So when you're condemning this committee for being willfully ignorant just keep in mind that 5 or 6 of them don't deserve to be thrown in with the rest like that. I'll end with a quote from a frustrated Darrell Issa, speaking to the chairman of the committee half way through the second day:I thank you for continually trying your best to go Republican, Democrat, Republican, Democrat. I might suggest that you might as well go 'for' and 'against', that'll save a lot of your 'for' people some wasted time because you'll run out of the 'against' pretty quickly. Mr. Chairman it's very clear we're gonna lose here eventually, and we're gonna lose in the worst possible way. We're gonna lose without all the facts, and we're gonna lose without the process being open in the way that I would hope it will be in the new year.
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Not all of themProbably too late here, but I actually watched most of the judiciary hearing yesterday and while I was probably in the middle of a stroke for most of it the parts I remember paint a pretty clear picture.
On the one side you had a few (very few) congressmen/women, namely Mr. Issa, Mr. Polis, Mr. Chaffetz, Ms. Lofgren and Ms. Jackson. They spent the entire hearing pleading with the chairman and the rest of the committee to allow experts (nerds as they often said) to essentially come in and explain the internet to them, because it was obvious that 99% of the members of the committee had no idea what they were talking about. They made reasonable, logical arguments and put forth one amendment after the other trying to clarify some really vague areas of the bill, all of which were shot down by the rest of the committee usually by a vote of ~6 to 24.
On the other side you had 5 or 6 members of the committee who also admitted several times that they had zero understanding of the technical aspects of the bill, but that the bill was awesome anyway. This group was mainly the chairman of the committee Mr. Smith, Mr. Berman, Mr. Watt, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Goodlatte and Ms. Waters. They made no arguments beyond "We have to do something. This is something. Therefor we should do this". Unlike the first group they didn't care that they were ignorant on the subject, they just wanted to get the damn thing passed. I doubt anyone here would be surprised to learn they all received large campaign contributions from the TV/Music/Film industry. Check the contributions of the first group and you'll find the same industry conspicuously absent. It's also worth noting that more than half the committee never said a word during the entire session that wasn't "No" in response to an amendment vote. This third group cared so little they couldn't even be bothered to take part in the debate.
So when you're condemning this committee for being willfully ignorant just keep in mind that 5 or 6 of them don't deserve to be thrown in with the rest like that. I'll end with a quote from a frustrated Darrell Issa, speaking to the chairman of the committee half way through the second day:I thank you for continually trying your best to go Republican, Democrat, Republican, Democrat. I might suggest that you might as well go 'for' and 'against', that'll save a lot of your 'for' people some wasted time because you'll run out of the 'against' pretty quickly. Mr. Chairman it's very clear we're gonna lose here eventually, and we're gonna lose in the worst possible way. We're gonna lose without all the facts, and we're gonna lose without the process being open in the way that I would hope it will be in the new year.
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Not all of themProbably too late here, but I actually watched most of the judiciary hearing yesterday and while I was probably in the middle of a stroke for most of it the parts I remember paint a pretty clear picture.
On the one side you had a few (very few) congressmen/women, namely Mr. Issa, Mr. Polis, Mr. Chaffetz, Ms. Lofgren and Ms. Jackson. They spent the entire hearing pleading with the chairman and the rest of the committee to allow experts (nerds as they often said) to essentially come in and explain the internet to them, because it was obvious that 99% of the members of the committee had no idea what they were talking about. They made reasonable, logical arguments and put forth one amendment after the other trying to clarify some really vague areas of the bill, all of which were shot down by the rest of the committee usually by a vote of ~6 to 24.
On the other side you had 5 or 6 members of the committee who also admitted several times that they had zero understanding of the technical aspects of the bill, but that the bill was awesome anyway. This group was mainly the chairman of the committee Mr. Smith, Mr. Berman, Mr. Watt, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Goodlatte and Ms. Waters. They made no arguments beyond "We have to do something. This is something. Therefor we should do this". Unlike the first group they didn't care that they were ignorant on the subject, they just wanted to get the damn thing passed. I doubt anyone here would be surprised to learn they all received large campaign contributions from the TV/Music/Film industry. Check the contributions of the first group and you'll find the same industry conspicuously absent. It's also worth noting that more than half the committee never said a word during the entire session that wasn't "No" in response to an amendment vote. This third group cared so little they couldn't even be bothered to take part in the debate.
So when you're condemning this committee for being willfully ignorant just keep in mind that 5 or 6 of them don't deserve to be thrown in with the rest like that. I'll end with a quote from a frustrated Darrell Issa, speaking to the chairman of the committee half way through the second day:I thank you for continually trying your best to go Republican, Democrat, Republican, Democrat. I might suggest that you might as well go 'for' and 'against', that'll save a lot of your 'for' people some wasted time because you'll run out of the 'against' pretty quickly. Mr. Chairman it's very clear we're gonna lose here eventually, and we're gonna lose in the worst possible way. We're gonna lose without all the facts, and we're gonna lose without the process being open in the way that I would hope it will be in the new year.
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Campaign contributions influence
Guess from which industry the SOPA bill's sponsor, Lamar Smith, received his largest campaign contribution. Drum roll...the TV/Movies/Music industry. http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001811
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Crooked Government
FYI, My New York Senator Kirsten Gilibrand is a cosponsor of PIPA (the senate equivalent of SOPA) and is the top recipient of campaign financing from the TV / Movies / Music industry. In a decent society an elected official would recuse themselves from taking a position if they received bribes campaign funding from anybody that might benefit from that position. It's a disgrace that our government comprises of crooks like Gillibrand.
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Meet SOPA author Lamar Smith, Hollywood's favorite
There are both Ds and Rs in favor of the bill, too.
Meet SOPA author Lamar Smith, Hollywood's favorite Republican.
He may be a Tea Partier from rural Texas with an "A+" rating from the National Rifle Association," but the TV, movie, and music industries are the top donors to Smith's 2012 campaign committee, according to data complied by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Tea Party are marks. His donors are his real constituency.
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Re:This is being whitewashed from the white house
According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
The Federal Election Commission has no record of Phil Falcone, a registered Republican, nor LightSquared Chairman and CEO Sanjiv Ahuja of having ever contributed to President Obamaâ(TM)s political campaigns.
Honestly, he donate to both sides. Just look at the donations on OpenSecrets.org. Since you quoted wikipedia, it's only fair to include his article and a little quote as well " He has also attended fundraisers for Barack Obama,". But seriously, quoting wikipedia is kind of silly.
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Re:Other Motivation?
Why not transparency for all corporate donations?
You mean like this?
Are you prepared to declare your opposition to the Citizens United decision, and not to vote for any candidate who does not come out against it?
Hell no, it was a good decision. I don't like "personhood" for corporations, and they are given far too much deference even without all the favoritism by select politicians, etc. But the Citizens United case was decided the right way, for free speech. Now you can make a movie and release it close to an election, too, and that's how it should be in a free society.
Will you support a constitutional amendment saying that corporations are not people
Something like that, sure.
... and money is not speech?
Money buys media and exposure. Don't we have enough economic tyranny out of Washington already? They've already disposed of real money anyway, and have shoved Federal Reserve notes at us and jail anyone that doesn't use them. What we need more is a Constitution amendment clarifying what sound money is, and that the Federal government should be under the same restrictions on paying its debt that the states are required to follow.
another way for you to hate the black guy in the white house.
Race card? Really? Are all your arguments really that shallow? Here's some news for you: I opposed the policies coming from the White House before there was a black man there, and I still do - they haven't really changed. Same direction, and more power grabs.
Unless you have found the first truthful bit of news from Hotair, I'm going to wait for some further corroboration on your list of facts.
How about the New York Times?
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Re:Other Motivation?
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&type=I&cid=N00009638&newMem=N&recs=20
30 million from the communications sector? *gasp* That's 100 times what Chuck's gotten from the health sector. Why, by your logic there must be an even more immense conspiracy afoot! Oh, wait, that's guilt by association and unfair to Obama. We can only be pranoid over "teh ebil people who have 'R' after their names" -
Re:Other Motivation?
Why do I get the feeling that there is some motivation (other than lost farming equipment) behind the resistance to the LightSquared network?
I checked out Grassley on opensecrets.org
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2012&cid=n00001758&type=I&newmem=N
and he doesn't appear to get much money from telcos. He seems primarily a slave of the medical industrial complex. It could be he's doing a favor for a slave owned by the telcos, in exchange the telco-owned-slave will promote some medical industrial complex ripoff for his owner's interests..
But at least directly, he's not getting involved in something related to his owners interests. Hard to imagine what a Hospital/Nursing Home could care about LightSquared. Big money donors don't like loose cannons, he'd best look out. He's supposed to be devising new ways for healthcare to rip us off, not networking.
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Re:Remember Solyndra
What is it with polititians and always trying to give money to their friends?
FTFY
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/10615244-campaign-contributions-solyndra-disaster-and-president-obama
You think the wallstreet bailouts were done to help the economy? Think again
Top Contributors for Obama's campaign -
Re:I am planning to move to NC
If you want to understand why the do what they do, check out who contributes to them: http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php
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Open Secrets
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00029617&type=I
I don't see any obvious IT related industry donors from the past that might be influencing her (who knows about now). She is on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee so thats probably where it came from. Strange.
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Re:Money
Hmmmm
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Re:Money
I guess giving quite a bit to Obama didn't help them out... makes sense to change sides.
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Re:Kick'em all out
And here's exactly to whom he sold his soul:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638 -
Re:Glad to hear it, but a big "duh!!!"
Following the money doesn't seem to work here. The telecom industries are giving equally to both parties.
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B08
AT&T and Verizon are the biggest lobbyists in the telephone industry by 10:1 and 5:1 respectively. Most of the money went to Obama, naturally, but he supports Network Neutrality. The next 4 on the list are Republicans. Looking at the "Party Split" graph, 2010 the Democrats got 4.3 million and the Republicans got 4.2 million. The "Telephone Utilities to House" graph does show the Republicans receiving somewhat more money, but it is fairly even in the house.I don't see any definitive conclusion from this.
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Re:Well now
The only people who can sue them for anti-trust is the DOJ I believe. If so that ain't happening. Before the last anti-trust suit MS was stingy on political donations. They wised up when the DOJ went after them and now they donate tons of money to politicos, greasing many palms. I doubt there will be any anti-trust action. It's easy to follow the money.
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Re:Where can i sell my app?
Ask and ye shall receive...
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Re:Ron Paul should give away his money
His pension (Ronald E Paul MD Defined Benefit plan) provides him with an earned income of $91,185, And, of course, he owns lots of GOLD. Gold, Glorious Gold! source His Net worth is between 2.2 and 5 million.
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Amusing. Americans think the enemy is over there.
And are only just starting after 40 years to wake up to the fact that the enemy is over here not there, and usually has the title "leader".
Example:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638Guess that 1 million has been paid back several hundred thousand times.
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Re:Did it "confirm" it was caused by man?
Have you noticed that the supposed tree huggers with a direct line to the treasury haven't managed to convince the, ahem, ultra-liberal, pinko, commie socialist Obama administration from actually weakening environmental controls?
Heck, that pinko/commie/anti-business group is even now thinking about weakening Sarbanes-Oxley now that they've slackened emissions regs. So, yeah, totally the greenies have all the power and big, established corporate interests have nothing.
Go have a look at OpenSecrets.org's list of contributions by sector. Green doesn't appear on the list. Energy most certainly. Now, they could be under "Ideology/Single Issue", but that's a pie shared by a lot of groups and topped by "Friends of John Boehner" and "Every Republican Counts".
So, yeah, if "follow the money" is the metric than a bunch of propellerhead scientists are way, way more credible than skeptics and deniers whose interests just happen to align with some of the most powerful, monied, entities on the planet.
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Re:No Surprise Here
Change you can believe in right? I'm not a republican...
There's a tendency for people who visit slashdot to oversimplify and equate Democrat=good and Republican=evil. The truth is much more complex. In particular, The movie, TV, and record industry has always been squarely behind Democrats, and the publishing industry shifted that way during the Bush years (scroll down to the Party Split graphs).
This isn't a Democrat administration doing something with a copyright issue which you'd never expect, something you'd only expect from a Republican administration. It's a Democrat administration doing exactly what you'd expect it to do with a copyright issue. If you voted for Obama expecting him to side with the people instead of copyright holders, you need to do a better job researching political contributions next time. We have wonderful tools now which make it dirt simple compared to 15 years ago when we had to have it spoon-fed to us by the media, and you're remiss not to take advantage of them.
Personally I think it was the right choice - banking and finance reform was more important. But I knew it would mean copyright would shift the "wrong" way (in favor of content producers). -
Re:No Surprise Here
Change you can believe in right? I'm not a republican...
There's a tendency for people who visit slashdot to oversimplify and equate Democrat=good and Republican=evil. The truth is much more complex. In particular, The movie, TV, and record industry has always been squarely behind Democrats, and the publishing industry shifted that way during the Bush years (scroll down to the Party Split graphs).
This isn't a Democrat administration doing something with a copyright issue which you'd never expect, something you'd only expect from a Republican administration. It's a Democrat administration doing exactly what you'd expect it to do with a copyright issue. If you voted for Obama expecting him to side with the people instead of copyright holders, you need to do a better job researching political contributions next time. We have wonderful tools now which make it dirt simple compared to 15 years ago when we had to have it spoon-fed to us by the media, and you're remiss not to take advantage of them.
Personally I think it was the right choice - banking and finance reform was more important. But I knew it would mean copyright would shift the "wrong" way (in favor of content producers). -
Probably neither party with Democratic leanings
In 2008, Zuckerberg hosted Obama.
According to open secrets, Facebook employees support Democrats 97% of the time. But Zuckerberg personally hadn't donated enough to show up on the Fed's radar in 2008 or 2010.
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Re:Incentive -- no lobbying needed on this one.
I hate to reply to myself, but the situation is murkier still. First, Payne's name doesn't appear on the bill itself. Instead we see "Mr. TERRY (for himself and Mr. TOWNS) introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce." Weirder still is that neither of these Members appear on the OpenSecrets list of sponsors. Maybe they're having a database problem?Lee Terry is a Nebraska Republican with a lot support from famed "socialist" Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway. Adolphus Towns is a NY Democrat.
One thing they have in common is hefty contributions from telcos; Qwest in Terry's case, and AT&T in Towns's.
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Re:Incentive -- no lobbying needed on this one.
I hate to reply to myself, but the situation is murkier still. First, Payne's name doesn't appear on the bill itself. Instead we see "Mr. TERRY (for himself and Mr. TOWNS) introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce." Weirder still is that neither of these Members appear on the OpenSecrets list of sponsors. Maybe they're having a database problem?Lee Terry is a Nebraska Republican with a lot support from famed "socialist" Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway. Adolphus Towns is a NY Democrat.
One thing they have in common is hefty contributions from telcos; Qwest in Terry's case, and AT&T in Towns's.
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Re:Incentive -- no lobbying needed on this one.
Looking at Donald Payne's pattern of contribution shows his main sources of financial support are unions. Is the problem that the Longshoremen can no longer effectively recruit members who carry cell phones?
I don't see anyone associated with telemarketing on the list, though he did receive a small check from Verizon. Why is he the primary sponsor of this bill?
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00000716&type=I&newmem=N
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Re:Lobbyists
Oddly enough, apparently not: according OpenSecrets.org neither Terry (Rep) or Towns (Dem) have received much or anything from banking/debt collection/telemarketing industries. See http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005321 and http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001082 There's very good analysis of each at govtrack.us
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Re:Lobbyists
Oddly enough, apparently not: according OpenSecrets.org neither Terry (Rep) or Towns (Dem) have received much or anything from banking/debt collection/telemarketing industries. See http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00005321 and http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001082 There's very good analysis of each at govtrack.us
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Re:Incentive -- no lobbying needed on this one.
You do realize that the primary sponsor, along with the majority (albeit slight) of co-sponsors of this bill are democrats, right?
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Mathematical proof
Assertion 1: Elections are won by the candidate who spends the most money
I can't prove this logically, only empirically. A PEW study of large number of elections found that over 90% were won by the candidate who spent the most money. Of the remaining 10%, the majority self-destructed by political scandal. The general rule holds very well: the candidate who spends the most money (and doesn't get caught in a scandal) will win the election. Lots of corroboration on the net, such as:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/11/money-wins-white-house-and.html
Assertion 2: A candidate who acts in his own interest rather than the interest of the general public is corrupt.
By definition. (Note that sometimes an action is in both the general interest *and* the self-interest of a politician.)
Now calculate the % likelihood that a politician is corrupt in our system.
Any politician with a sense of ethics will be out-competed by one with a lower sense of ethics. The ideal candidate will be the one who can sell his integrity the fastest and to the most people. This is why politicians always seem to be in the pocket of large corporations.
I say this not because I'm lazy, destructive and incorrect, but to shed light on the problem. With a model whose outcome we don't like, we can try to get a different outcome by changing the parameters or moving to a different model. We can work to make a system that doesn't have quite so much corruption.
But it starts by admitting that "government is populated exclusively by immoral criminal scum", which is no secret and is independently arrived at by just about everyone.
It's predicted by the math. It's real - get over it.
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Re:Impact on jobs?
That's because the Repubs have been paid off by the big boys. They no longer represent you or me, they really represent corporate interests which have been bought out by all of that lobbyist money. They even managed to modify lobbying and financing laws to allow international companies to buy them off. To see how bad "your" representative has been bought off go here
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Re:It's the market
Just like the Obama administration hasn't said a peep about T-mobile? If you pretend this is a partisan issue you allow it to continue. This is a campaign finance issue, AT&T donates to Republicans, Democrats, even Independents. http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000076
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Re:Maybe, maybe not.
Not likely... every election folks are very disappointed with the job CONGRESS is doing, but they think their own district's representative is just fine. So they re-elected their guy, and that happens across all districts, with the results that the success rate for incumbents is pretty high. http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php
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Re:Oracle are the good guys here
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Re:Oracle are the good guys here
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Re:Oracle are the good guys here
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Zediva clearly forgot the Golden Rule
He who gives gold to Congressional and Presidential election campaigns makes the rules.
And $111 million is a lot of gold.
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Re:Corporate Lobbyists on Steroids
What is the difference between what he did and what google does?
About $5M per year in lobbying expenditures.
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Re:You can't fight conspiracy theories.
Let's check: OpenSecrets.org.
Oooh, that's ironic, the top five recipients of News Corp money are all Democrats, including Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, and Harry Reid. -
Not the medical establishment that's the problem
The guys that control the purse strings are politicians. And politicians are owned by big pharma. Just go look at how much money the big drug companies hand out in political donations every campaign cycle. It's up to over $30 million now. And that's just DIRECT giving to FEDERAL candidates. That doesn't include all their proxy non-profits (with their "public interest" ad money) and state giving.
So yeah, good luck with that.
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Re:Problem solved.
Can you get anymore scummy than them?
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Re:Windows Phone
Anti-Trust litigation is not likely now that Microsoft is donating millions of dollars to politicians. They learned their lesson from before when they didn't donate hardly anything at all to political candidates and got dragged into court for their anti-competitive activities. Soon after that happened the campaign donation checks started getting processed and magically all their problems with the department of justice started to melt away. Even Microsoft can learn.
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Re:Great, but ...
The two biggest components of "renewable energy" in EIA's report are hydroelectric dams and biomass -- the biomass sector is mostly industrial wood and paper plants which run on waste wood, plus people using wood-fired stoves at home. Good for them, but it's not exactly high tech.
And not always "renewable" either. If you don't replant the woods, or use chemicals from non-renewable sources or burn coal to create ethanol from maize, it's not really renewable except in the eyes of politicians and the producers who bought them.
Then there's the whole CO2 question - you get less emissions from gasoline than from US maize based ethanol. But you get more votes from farmers and more contributions from Monsanto by choosing maize over real renewable energy.
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Re:Strange definition of conservative
That's because "Liberal" and "Conservative" are basically meaningless.
Consider, for instance, the recent issue of the US war in Afghanistan. The 'liberals' Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid support it, along with the 'conservative' John McCain, John Boehner, and Mitt Romney. Opposed to the war are 'liberal' Dennis Kucinich and 'conservative' Ron Paul. Or another example: the Sierra Club really liked self-described conservative Senator Bob Smith (R-NH) back when he was in office, because he would frequently vote in their favor if they showed him a picture of a cute animal who would be harmed if he didn't. So you can't describe a political leader as 'liberal' or 'conservative' and give much insight into how they're going to behave once in office.
The far more useful measurement of a politician's actual behavior in office is to find out their campaign funding. Generally speaking, if a group that supports a policy you want doesn't appear on the politician's top 100 contributors list, the politician in question won't represent that policy.
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Re:Some american tell me
what the fuck is wrong with republicans ?
Nothing. They just see more of the world than you. They see the part where lawyers and greedy, lying claimants abuse the legal system for big settlements. They see huge, ongoing payouts recorded on the ledgers of every institution in the US for trumped up bullshit 'sexual harassment' lawsuits. They see intentionally vague laws being written at the behest of trial lawyers to maximize opportunities for liability, and they see which party is doing it. They see capital and organizations evacuating the US every day in part because all this legal bullshit has become intolerable, and they see their standard of living collapsing as a result.
You're just an angry, hateful little WoW playing office drone that pisses away a big chunk of every working day posting your malcontent nonsense on Slashdot. What do you know.
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Re:You have the right to be smeared.
Copyright industry (newspapers, TV stations, even movie studios) are owned by Republicans more than Democrats. The actors may be more visible and more liberal, but don't ever get confused that the industry is Republican as much or more than Democratic.
Let us know when you return to a planet with a blue sky.
The major players in the "copyright industry" are movie studios and record companies - MPAA an RIAA.
Got the stones to see who they give money to?
Why do I have the suspicion you DON'T have the balls to actually look at facts that will disabuse you of your infantile notions?
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Re:You have the right to be smeared.
Copyright industry (newspapers, TV stations, even movie studios) are owned by Republicans more than Democrats. The actors may be more visible and more liberal, but don't ever get confused that the industry is Republican as much or more than Democratic.
Let us know when you return to a planet with a blue sky.
The major players in the "copyright industry" are movie studios and record companies - MPAA an RIAA.
Got the stones to see who they give money to?
Why do I have the suspicion you DON'T have the balls to actually look at facts that will disabuse you of your infantile notions?