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The purpose of federalizing airport security was to create more union members to funnel federal tax dollars to the Democrats.

https://www.opensecrets.org/pa...

Looks like I was right.

If you want an anti-trust lawsuit, usually you need political connections, and better political connections than your opponent. And Amazon keeps up on their payments, to both parties.

Mickey Mouse et al paid WAAAAY too much to let that happen.

PS - Just to tweak the /. crowd, guess which party they've bought?

Here's your shot for intellectual honesty, as compared to just hating on Republicans.

In the current 2015-2016 election cycle, who is the top recipient of money from "big Pharma", as you call them, almost 40% higher than the next closest candidate?

I bet Hillary Clinton just jumped to the top of your mind there, right? Health industry in general? Hillary, by 2.5x the next closest candidate.

Face it, if you look at the records, the industries donate to whoever they think might win. There isn't an ideological bias in their donations, there is a bias towards giving money to anyone who may end up writing or enforcing laws which affect them.

The corporate accounts that provide most of Microsoft's sales , characterized as mostly Democrats or mostly Republicans?

Microsoft and The Bill Gates Foundation are separate entities. Microsoft's biggest donations go to Seattle area and Washington State politicians, who are mostly Democrats.

2002-2014 https://www.opensecrets.org/or... if numbers are right unions 300+ million on Democrats....there the little guys lol

Try reading ... https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

Apparently that's the exception to the rule, because...

In 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 94 percent of Senate races that had been decided by mid-day Nov. 5, the candidate who spent the most money ended up winning

And that was in 2008. It's only gotten worse since Citizens United (2010). If you think our governance is not hopelessly corrupted by money in politics, then I've got a bridge you might be interested in.

https://www.opensecrets.org/pr...

bernie sanders largest contribution out of ~15 million is 15,000 from google.

Rrrrrriiiiiiggggghhhhhtttttttt....

https://www.opensecrets.org/or... - looks pretty blue to me!

Millions spent by 487 organizations to influence TPP outcome

Kneel before the god of free trade.

I look forward to discovering the unexpected surprises in this thing.

Sanders opposes and has opposed Citzens United, Corporate Financing of Election, the TPP, and the Iraq war since the beginning. He has never accepted corporate money in his entire career and isn't now that he's running for president.

AFAIK he is the only candidate with a long political record who's speeches are in line with his actions. You could vote for him or, you know, talk about the cynacism of the two party system and how political change is impossible.

I do know one thing. Cynacism is obedience to the plutocracy. Sure, it talks differently, but it functions exactly the same way.

They donated far more to the Democrats. Source, your own site:
https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

Google will simply pay them off, no big deal, just like they have paid the US government and the EU over countless privacy-based violations.

Google is now one of the biggest bribers to the US Government... err, of course I mean lobbyists(!)
http://www.opensecrets.org/lob...

Democrats.

And more Democrats.

After all, you can't spell DMCA (signed by Bill Clinton-D) without the D.

Democrats.

And more Democrats.

After all, you can't spell DMCA (signed by Bill Clinton-D) without the D.

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

Seems pretty close to equal D and R, a little more R, but it isn't as clear cut as that only accounts for 1/3 of their political donations (they hat 2x the amount in PACs).

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

And that one says mostly D, but it is still pretty close split.

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

Seems pretty close to equal D and R, a little more R, but it isn't as clear cut as that only accounts for 1/3 of their political donations (they hat 2x the amount in PACs).

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

And that one says mostly D, but it is still pretty close split.

In short, Congress cannot define a group of people, and require people to give up their right to speech when joining it, to take advantage of that group's provided features.

Yes, but the executives take the logical construct's money, of which there is a copious amount, and use it to influence legislators. It's not their own personal money they're spending. Putting limits on how they can spend the construct's money is not the same thing as putting limits on how they can spend their own money.

Public transport in the US is a sad, sorry state, but blaming people who drive is stupid.

• The busses in pretty much any US city don't exist, run up to an hour late, are filthy, require up to an hour waiting just to be sure you can catch the bus, and/or are insufficient in number.
• Regulatory capture keeps the rail industry barely alive with passenger lines several hundred miles apart in many, many places. Hell, if it weren't for war hawks supporting infrastructure in the cold war the US passenger rail system probably wouldn't even exist.
• US cities are far apart relative to European countries. Therefore the economics are completely different. In particular it makes a lot more sense in the US to run four airplanes and a few hundred cars between two cities on a regular basis than to pay for the upkeep of such a long railroad.
• Car ownership is a rite of passage in the US. Getting a license is one's first taste of freedom. In Japan you step outside, wait 5 minutes, a taxi will pass. In the US you have to call one and wait, and it's even more expensive. In the UK you walk two blocks to your train station. In the US? That's a laugh. In India and China cheap labor provides bicycle cabs. My point is, culturally in the US a car is just how people get around and that's okay!

To change from a car culture in the US to use of public transportation would cost many billions of dollars, a major shift in values, and reducing or eliminating the influence of lobbyists. So sure, blame me as a driver. Because it's my fault that driving my 20 year old car costs half what I would pay for taxi's. Because I don't want to sit on someone's wank stain. Because taking a bus would require walking 8 blocks each way and waiting an hour and a half each time. Because the nearest railroad is on the other side of my city. Because the grocery store within walking distance costs three times as much for the same basket of goods. Yup, I don't care about any of that. The real reason I drive a car is that I want things a little warmer.

https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

They don't have to buy the country, just the government. And all that's required to do that is merely to spend enough to influence a sufficient number of the 535 legislators who make its laws.

The same dynamic works at the state and local levels.

All corporations allocate a certain amount to lobby/invest in government. Those investments typically have a very high rate of return. Another more in-depth analysis is here.

Corporations were not considered in the original list of entities that would need to be included in the checks-and-balances equation. Back in the Founders day, there was the East India Tea Company, but still governments were unquestioningly the shot callers. So, there was an effort to place checks and balances within government.

Today, businesses have grown large enough to co-opt government. And they definitely influence society.

Eisenhower warned of the Military-Industrial complex in his famous speech: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Today, the financial sector dwarfs defense in its lobbying efforts. Technology is also another gigantic sector with a growing influence.

So - Business must now be included in the check and balance equation of governing. Unfortunately, virtually no one willingly gives up power.

The problem is that we can't provide cushy sinecures for them after they complete their government service.

Looking at the Revolving Door can be truly startling.

HODAD- "Hands of Death And Destruction" - A Hopkins doctor wrote a book about the subject.

From the article:

"At a medical conference Dr. Marty Makary saw one of his Harvard professors who “looked out at a room of 2,000 doctors and asked ‘How many of you know of another doctor who should not be practicing because he is too dangerous?’ Every hand went up.” Yet few report bad doctors and those that do often get fired.

Hospital staff knows they are practicing bad medicine and mostly do nothing. In Makary’s provocative book, Unaccountable, he describes one Ivy League-trained doctor who’s popular with patients yet dubbed Hodad, by his colleagues, for his continuing string of patient deaths. Hodad is their dark humored acronym for “hands of death and destruction.”

Doctors are kind of like cops. They both do a life and death, high stress job, and are under assault from all corners (for different reasons). So they protect their own. But to improve illness survivability, and in the interest of trying to get more information to patients, there has to be some way to get information about doctors to patients.

On the other hand, any metric will be gamed. So - if doctors aren't willing to police themselves... what choice is there but trying to get metrics on them? We're not talking about a good and a bad choice, we're talking about a bad and worse choice - which one is less bad?

And if you think the teachers union is badass - the AMA is made up of doctors, who are smart and relentless and wealthy. They're a big lobby in DC (although smaller than I thought prior to looking them up. In recent election cycles, with Obamacare, I recall seeing them near the top of the list).

"Creative Destruction" is the destruction of the "worse" which is replaced by the "better". Hopefully resulting in better overall social welfare.

Would the destruction of the current model of the taxi industry lead to higher general social welfare? If the choice is between concentrating more of the profit at the top and less of it among the workers, probably not. If it means more profit for workers, and more workers, then it would improve social welfare.

Trying to identify which model improves social welfare is the key. Change is scary and disruptive, and not always good. But without technology-driven change, we'd still have a wagon-wheel manufacturing industry. On the other hand, we have lost a great deal of manufacturing, with all the costs and benefits that entails. IMO the costs outweigh the benefits in losing manufacturing.

Unfortunately, we don't see creative destruction in other important areas such as finance or politics. The financial system imploded in 2008, due to consistent patterns of misjudgment and malfeasance. But, they are among the biggest donors to federal politicians, so they received a rescue. I can understand saving the banks, but no executives were penalized, much less jailed. And the business models didn't change. Too Big To Fail just got bigger. Also, we don't see creative destruction in politics where the game is heavily rigged to favor the incumbent. If taxi drivers can convince (i.e. contribute sufficiently to) local, state and federal politicians, they may be able to save their business model, regardless of the social welfare implications.

"Creative Destruction" is the destruction of the "worse" which is replaced by the "better". Hopefully resulting in better overall social welfare.

Would the destruction of the current model of the taxi industry lead to higher general social welfare? If the choice is between concentrating more of the profit at the top and less of it among the workers, probably not. If it means more profit for workers, and more workers, then it would improve social welfare.

Trying to identify which model improves social welfare is the key. Change is scary and disruptive, and not always good. But without technology-driven change, we'd still have a wagon-wheel manufacturing industry. On the other hand, we have lost a great deal of manufacturing, with all the costs and benefits that entails. IMO the costs outweigh the benefits in losing manufacturing.

Unfortunately, we don't see creative destruction in other important areas such as finance or politics. The financial system imploded in 2008, due to consistent patterns of misjudgment and malfeasance. But, they are among the biggest donors to federal politicians, so they received a rescue. I can understand saving the banks, but no executives were penalized, much less jailed. And the business models didn't change. Too Big To Fail just got bigger. Also, we don't see creative destruction in politics where the game is heavily rigged to favor the incumbent. If taxi drivers can convince (i.e. contribute sufficiently to) local, state and federal politicians, they may be able to save their business model, regardless of the social welfare implications.

A worker works for who pays them. Hillary's current gig is financed by Goldman, Citigroup, and Chase. She'll say whatever she likes to get elected, and serve the people she works for. Biting the hand that feeds you is bad for business.

You could always vote for someone who takes money almost exclusively from unions and individuals and talked about corporate greed and struggling workers before it was "cool", but hey, how can you get elected without at least 3 major banks funding you?

A worker works for who pays them. Hillary's current gig is financed by Goldman, Citigroup, and Chase. She'll say whatever she likes to get elected, and serve the people she works for. Biting the hand that feeds you is bad for business.

You could always vote for someone who takes money almost exclusively from unions and individuals and talked about corporate greed and struggling workers before it was "cool", but hey, how can you get elected without at least 3 major banks funding you?

Who wouldn't rather get "free energy" from the wind, the natural flow of water, or the sun shining down on us?

Who indeed.

http://priceofoil.org/fossil-f...

http://www.petrostrategies.org...

https://www.opensecrets.org/po...

I have two sources for that. Neither side in this argument-trope is actually "lying" there are two very valid ways to count it:

In direct spending Obama actually outspends Romney: http://elections.nytimes.com/2...

But the metric you'll often hear is that Romney's "dark money superPACs outspent Obama 2:1" https://www.opensecrets.org/ou...

In any way I do the math, Romney had no more than a 20% total money footprint advantage. That wasn't enough to overcome his party's handicap. In that cycle he could not simultaneously please the grassroots TeaPartiers and his Wall Street pals and alienating either would have lost him the election quite assuredly. I don't intend to comment on whether he would have made a good president only that as a gamer, the one he was playing does not look winnable.

The IATA is asking for change. Can they make it happen?

They are, at first, a considerable global consortium of airlines, possibly in the realm of super-villians (given the global nature).

But, they only charge $15,000 USD per airline annually ($30,000 USD to join).

https://www.iata.org/about/mem...

Further, they have 256 member airlines from all around the globe (US based majors included).

So, they have a guaranteed annual revenue of $3.84M USD (excluding application and acceptance fees, non-recurring).

And that means they cannot be super-villians. It's a global organization, and they don't make enough money to buy a single US politician.

Per Open Secrets, US based airlines spent over $30M USD on lobbying and Federal election's in 2014.

http://www.opensecrets.org/ind...

I wish the IATA luck with the changes it wants.

But they are not super-villians.

What corruption? Aren't the donations publicly disclosed?

Yes, at least a lot of the donations are publicly disclosed. Here are some more publicly disclosed bribes.

You've hit on a larger problem: as long as the general public cares so little about government, there is no law you can make that will fix it. A good democracy requires involvement.

Representative Democracy. The worst system ever devised, except for all the others.

You think we have a "representative democracy" here in the US?

Representative of whom? Do you believe this government represents you? Do you think it represents the will of the people?

https://www.opensecrets.org/pa...

https://www.opensecrets.org/ov...

Representative Democracy. The worst system ever devised, except for all the others.

You think we have a "representative democracy" here in the US?

Representative of whom? Do you believe this government represents you? Do you think it represents the will of the people?

https://www.opensecrets.org/pa...

https://www.opensecrets.org/ov...

You want facts? Challenge accepted!

How about Lobbyists Now Spend More on Congress Than the Government Does, think that is for shits and giggles? Or Study shows revolving door of employment between Congress, lobbying firms, or even better you can go and see the sellout of the week right here!

You see THAT is why your "vote" is nothing but a sham, its because if you "herp derp, vote the bums out" they just walk across the street and become the lobbyist that buys the guy you just voted in! Saying you can do squat with voting, or blaming the public for how things are is like making you try to "win" your weekly paycheck by being forced to play 3 card monty with a street hustler and then blaming YOU for not getting paid because "if you tried real hard you should find the lady!"...no you won't, the game is rigged, and playing a rigged game and expecting to win? Its a suckers bet.

Interestingly, this article was in the news just a few days ago: Report: Harvard Faculty Supports Democrats a Whopping 96% of the Time

Talk about cherry picking. You my get daily "How to Lie with Statistics" award. Yes, Harvard faculty who donated money to candidates supported Democrats 90% of the time. Everyone knows that Harvard is a very liberal university. For example, Texas A&M faculty supported Republicans by a "whopping" 75%. I simply picked Texas A&M because it was conservative, I'm sure if I looked I could find a large university that was 90% Republican donating in some year.

Interestingly, this article was in the news just a few days ago: Report: Harvard Faculty Supports Democrats a Whopping 96% of the Time

Talk about cherry picking. You my get daily "How to Lie with Statistics" award. Yes, Harvard faculty who donated money to candidates supported Democrats 90% of the time. Everyone knows that Harvard is a very liberal university. For example, Texas A&M faculty supported Republicans by a "whopping" 75%. I simply picked Texas A&M because it was conservative, I'm sure if I looked I could find a large university that was 90% Republican donating in some year.

You do realize that site conflates all donations from anyone employed by those companies as donations from those companies. Sure, at the bottom in red they say "these dontations weren't contributed by the companies rather the companies pac, individuals, etc." 88%+ of the money donated in Hillary's career (by your own source) came from individuals, and not companies or their PACs. PAC money accounted for 1% of her donations. Just because I work for a company doesn't mean when I write a check to a candidate (which unlike a PAC is strictly limited in quantity) that the company is donating. You are distorting the source of these numbers by pointing to "donors" which is a conflation of people's employment. Although I expect that's the whole purpose of this site -- to distort and conflate individual donations with big corporate PACs. That way the republicans don't look as shifty using Citizens United style PAC money (unlimited) over individual contributors (which are limited to ~$2,000 or ~$5,000? don't recall exactly). Maybe you should link to the Hillary Clinton donations summary page rather than the misleading "donors" page if you want to make your bias a little less obvious.

Republians? Surely you jest. Take of the partisan hat and look at the actual data for Hillary Clinton, presumed Dem presidential candidate.

Her top 10 career donors are mostly investment banks (all the big names are there), but Time Warner and Cablevision make the top 10.

Will we get a GOP candidate not already in the pockets of investment banks and cable companies? I'm not holding my breath, but it's theoretically possible, unlike the Dem side which is already bought and paid for.

Finally, you might say, "Well why not just vote those bribe-takers out of office?" The problem there is that the bribes are used to buy elections. Without that money, you can't run ads, you can't get on TV, and you can't even participate in the public debate.

Not only that, but those in power can change the district lines to make sure they remain in power. Congressional re-election rates are over 80 percent. You have to go back to 1980 for the lowest rate and that was 55% in the Senate. So even at the worst, a Congressman had a better-than-a-coin-flip chance of staying in office. In some elections, you would have better luck betting on 4 numbers on a Roulette wheel than you would betting against a random incumbent.

Thanks for the telephone folks.

Here are the links for computers and internet:

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B12++

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?ind=B12++

Your #1 - AT&T, spent $3 million on lobbying.

That's about 1/10 of what net neutrality proponents Google and Facebook spent.

So which megacorp gets to buy the rules they want? Looks like it's being done by the Golden Rule - thems with the gold makes the rules. And Google's got the most gold.

So are you annoyed AT&T won't be able to charge you (and facebook/google/any popular site) a premium to connect to their sites at a decent speed? If you even pay for the search engine and social media packages.

Thanks for the telephone folks.

Here are the links for computers and internet:

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B12++

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?ind=B12++

Your #1 - AT&T, spent $3 million on lobbying.

That's about 1/10 of what net neutrality proponents Google and Facebook spent.

So which megacorp gets to buy the rules they want? Looks like it's being done by the Golden Rule - thems with the gold makes the rules. And Google's got the most gold.

So are you annoyed AT&T won't be able to charge you (and facebook/google/any popular site) a premium to connect to their sites at a decent speed? If you even pay for the search engine and social media packages.

For decades, AM/FM radio has used whatever music it wants without paying a cent to the musicians, vocalists, and labels that created it.

That's because radio is free advertising for the artists. Now they want the free advertising and to get paid for it, too? In decades past, the labels would bribe radio station PD's to get their music played; I wonder if they'd rather return to that model where it costs them money (and coke, and cars, and plane tickets) to get their artists some airtime?

Speaking of payola, it should come as no surprise that "TV/Movies/Music" are among the top 3 industries donating money to both Mr. Nadler and Ms. Blackburn.

For decades, AM/FM radio has used whatever music it wants without paying a cent to the musicians, vocalists, and labels that created it.

That's because radio is free advertising for the artists. Now they want the free advertising and to get paid for it, too? In decades past, the labels would bribe radio station PD's to get their music played; I wonder if they'd rather return to that model where it costs them money (and coke, and cars, and plane tickets) to get their artists some airtime?

Speaking of payola, it should come as no surprise that "TV/Movies/Music" are among the top 3 industries donating money to both Mr. Nadler and Ms. Blackburn.

That's not really what happened here though. Congress long ago gave the FCC the authority to classify communications, establish rules for them, and enforce those rules...which is exactly what the FCC has been doing all along.

Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to (re-)classify cable, DSL, and wireless broadband in 2002, 2005, and 2007, respectively, under Title I of the Telecommunications Act, even though Title II had applied to some of those previously. After all, it was a burgeoning industry, so the lighter touch afforded by Title I made more sense, and there were other laws on the books to prevent the worst of the nasty things those companies might do.

Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to establish policy regarding net neutrality in 2005, establish ancillary regulations piecemeal over the years, or establish stronger protections for net neutrality in 2010. After all, as these companies were getting bigger, it was becoming more and more important to ensure that they acted in ways that were fair, and with the previous rules protecting against nasty things expiring, it was time to establish new ones.

Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to enforce fines against ISPs in response to nasty things they were doing. After all, them's the rules.

But then the Supreme Court slapped down one of the rules over a procedural issue, saying that if the FCC wanted to enforce that rule, they'd first need to reclassify those communications under Title II. The FCC attempted to work with the ISPs to come up with a middle-ground, but the ISPs refused to budge, so the FCC finally went and did exactly what the Supreme Court had suggested: they used their Congressionally-granted authority to reclassify those communications under Title II.

And now, suddenly, Congress is throwing a hissy fit. Why? Because, as it turns out, it isn't a burgeoning industry made up of companies like Prodigy and CompuServe still. Instead, it's made up of massive media and telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon with hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, and they are not happy with having an appropriate classification applied to them, given that it's a lot more fun to be a misbehaving behemoth.

The text of the rules has been public for months, even though it hadn't been added to the Federal Register yet. This isn't a "we have to pass it to see it" situation at all. And Congress has no good reason for sticking their noses into this situation, unless you consider the millions and millions of dollars they're receiving to be a good reason.

That's not really what happened here though. Congress long ago gave the FCC the authority to classify communications, establish rules for them, and enforce those rules...which is exactly what the FCC has been doing all along.

Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to (re-)classify cable, DSL, and wireless broadband in 2002, 2005, and 2007, respectively, under Title I of the Telecommunications Act, even though Title II had applied to some of those previously. After all, it was a burgeoning industry, so the lighter touch afforded by Title I made more sense, and there were other laws on the books to prevent the worst of the nasty things those companies might do.

Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to establish policy regarding net neutrality in 2005, establish ancillary regulations piecemeal over the years, or establish stronger protections for net neutrality in 2010. After all, as these companies were getting bigger, it was becoming more and more important to ensure that they acted in ways that were fair, and with the previous rules protecting against nasty things expiring, it was time to establish new ones.

Congress didn't bat an eye when the FCC used their authority to enforce fines against ISPs in response to nasty things they were doing. After all, them's the rules.

But then the Supreme Court slapped down one of the rules over a procedural issue, saying that if the FCC wanted to enforce that rule, they'd first need to reclassify those communications under Title II. The FCC attempted to work with the ISPs to come up with a middle-ground, but the ISPs refused to budge, so the FCC finally went and did exactly what the Supreme Court had suggested: they used their Congressionally-granted authority to reclassify those communications under Title II.

And now, suddenly, Congress is throwing a hissy fit. Why? Because, as it turns out, it isn't a burgeoning industry made up of companies like Prodigy and CompuServe still. Instead, it's made up of massive media and telecommunications conglomerates like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon with hundreds of billions of dollars on the line, and they are not happy with having an appropriate classification applied to them, given that it's a lot more fun to be a misbehaving behemoth.

The text of the rules has been public for months, even though it hadn't been added to the Federal Register yet. This isn't a "we have to pass it to see it" situation at all. And Congress has no good reason for sticking their noses into this situation, unless you consider the millions and millions of dollars they're receiving to be a good reason.

Thanks for the telephone folks.

Here are the links for computers and internet:

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B12++

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?ind=B12++

Your #1 - AT&T, spent $3 million on lobbying.

That's about 1/10 of what net neutrality proponents Google and Facebook spent.

So which megacorp gets to buy the rules they want? Looks like it's being done by the Golden Rule - thems with the gold makes the rules. And Google's got the most gold.

Thanks for the telephone folks.

Here are the links for computers and internet:

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=B12++

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/lobbying.php?ind=B12++

Your #1 - AT&T, spent $3 million on lobbying.

That's about 1/10 of what net neutrality proponents Google and Facebook spent.

So which megacorp gets to buy the rules they want? Looks like it's being done by the Golden Rule - thems with the gold makes the rules. And Google's got the most gold.