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You do get the opportunity to do so, every 2 to 6 years. But with re-election rates well over 80%, it seems most people do not want to fire/recall their Congressmen.

refuse to vote for politicians who take money from Super PACs and big money donors. I'm adding the latter qualifier as Beto O'Rouke seems to have used the $2700 limit and a lot of repeated small donations to make his fundraising hall look like Bernie Sanders' when it's looking more and more like he got a few thousand rich folk in a donation network to fund his campaign on the sly.

Either way it'll come out later this month when he's forced to declare the number of unique donors. You'll need to watch out for that stuff now, but opensecrets.org is your friend.

Bottom line, just don't vote for anyone who takes PAC money, and watch out for fake populists and this crap just ends. Your Trumps, Bidens, Pelosis, Paul Ryans, etc of the world can't win if they can't outspend real populists 10 to 1.

She wasn't corrupt, sure people donated to her charitable foundation with the hopes of gaining some favour. But would you prefer they donated to her campaign or PAC instead? Or hosted a fundraiser? That kind of stuff was literally standard operating procedure in Washington.

Are you serious? Check the donations. They skyrocketed when she ran for President - and fell like a stone when she failed. Then boomed again when she was suddenly in charge of all US International relations (Sec State). And you're telling me people are not buying her?

Uhhh, you're confusing things.

Like I said, people were donating to gain favour. Obviously they did so more when she was in a position of power or potential power. But that's absolutely Washington SOP.

It's not a bribe as much as a "I'll do something nice for me and I'll hear you out... but I won't actually do something I think is wrong". I mean it's pretty much standard that if you want to meet with a politician you don't have to be a donor.. but it would really help if you were.

It's highly problematic, but it's how the system works, Clinton was entirely normal in that regard.

Like the way her foundation and husband received millions of dollars after choosing not to deny the Russian buyout of Uranium One?

You mean the acquisition that was completely normal and uncontroversial acquisition and H. Clinton had almost nothing to do with anyway?

The multiple ties between Hillary and Russia,

People with international dealings having a few connections to a major country is fine. The problem with Trump is there's a ton of people with big connections to incredibly shady people.

including secret meetings in 2016

as she was candidate Clinton?

The problem with the Trump orbit meetings is:
1) A few of them seem directly related to the stolen emails.
2) Many of the Trump people in question repeatedly lied about the meetings. Either leaving them off official forms or denying they took place under oath.

Funding fake dossiers against candidate Trump?

Sigh. The dossier was opposition research, not "fake". Somethings have been proven wrong, and some have been verified.

Colluding with personal friends in the media to get advance information about campaign questions and the like?

Wasn't corrupt? I guess the Sahara is a frigid, sodden wasteland in your world...

Campaigns do sketching things sometimes. Hell, this guy signed up a fake candidate to launch an attack campaign against his rival then drop out of the race.

Oh, and here's a fun question where I'm really interested to hear the answer.

So lets assume you're right and the dossier really was a "fake dossier".

So... what was the point?

Because it didn't come out before the election, and as you pointed out she certainly had enough friends in the media to put it out.

Hell, they could even "anonymously leak" it somewhere, yet they obviously didn't.

So why get a fake dossier to slander Trump if you don't actually release it till after you already lost the election?

I feel like you w

See the Clinton Foundation donations for yourself. Exploded when it looked like she would be elected in 2008, fell when she failed. Blossomed again when she was Sec State. Fell when she left.

She wasn't corrupt, sure people donated to her charitable foundation with the hopes of gaining some favour. But would you prefer they donated to her campaign or PAC instead? Or hosted a fundraiser? That kind of stuff was literally standard operating procedure in Washington.

Are you serious? Check the donations. They skyrocketed when she ran for President - and fell like a stone when she failed. Then boomed again when she was suddenly in charge of all US International relations (Sec State). And you're telling me people are not buying her?

Like the way her foundation and husband received millions of dollars after choosing not to deny the Russian buyout of Uranium One?

The multiple ties between Hillary and Russia, including secret meetings in 2016

as she was candidate Clinton?

Funding fake dossiers against candidate Trump?

Colluding with personal friends in the media to get advance information about campaign questions and the like?

Wasn't corrupt? I guess the Sahara is a frigid, sodden wasteland in your world...

Seriously. Our expanding government is a direct result of allowing public employees both to unionize, and then allowing such unions to donate to political campaigns.

Public-employee unions dominate the top political spenders in the US.

And what's in the interest of public employee unions? More government! Government by the government for the government.

All other political donors outside of public employee unions have a vested interest in the overall success of society - they can't just donate to politicians who'll use the powers of government to funnel more resources to them like public employee unions do.

And who are public employee unions organizing against anyway?

No less a progressive than Franklin D. Roosevelt said this:

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that "under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.

Public employee unions distort the policy-making of government.

Just look at the pensions retired government employees get in places like New York, Chicago, and many California cites - the places where public employee unions are strongest. Look at the tax rates in those places. Look at the numbers of people actively fleeing those locations.

Amazon lobbieslots of government branches because they do business in basically every jurisdiction in the U.S. in multiple industries. If you look at raw number of dollars spent lobbying, Amazon doesn't even make the top 10.

Why are we focusing on Amazon?

Amazon doesn't even figure as one of the top 10 lobbyists in the United States.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lo...

Of course, these stats don't even take into account the Super PACs

How much does pharma contribute to their campaigns?

I think you are talking about Charles Grassley.

Not that "tech company" is a separate category anymore what with almost every part of industry transforming itself onto a technological base. But every industry from pharma and insuranceto automobilesto appliances is pouring money into politicians with very predictable results. For decades. For centuries. Now I'm supposed to believe the government is actually reigning in capitalism under a Republican president and a heavily Republican-constrained congress? Pull the other one, it squeakes.

Not that "tech company" is a separate category anymore what with almost every part of industry transforming itself onto a technological base. But every industry from pharma and insuranceto automobilesto appliances is pouring money into politicians with very predictable results. For decades. For centuries. Now I'm supposed to believe the government is actually reigning in capitalism under a Republican president and a heavily Republican-constrained congress? Pull the other one, it squeakes.

Uh, sorry buddy, history says you totally can fight money with no money: https://www.opensecrets.org/el...

Look! 12% of the time it works every time!

(But I do totally agree - until we somehow can pass a law that says spending must be equal, this isn't a solvable problem. And with the Citizen's United ruling, that's not going to happen anytime soon.)

I will remind people that the NRA is not a lobbying group

Never heard that one before. The Senate Office of Public Records disagrees with you.

Because they spend money on campaign contributions.

Hmm... If we all chip in, you think we could afford a politician that actually works for us for a change?

You are overrating money.

We didn't get a President Forbes, despite all of Steve Forbes' money. He didn't even win the party nomination.

Money matters, but blaming your losses on money is a way of avoiding the fact that you didn't make a compelling case (yet) to enough of the public.

Focusing on money in politics is also a trick to get away with regulating speech.

Because they spend money on campaign contributions.

Hmm... If we all chip in, you think we could afford a politician that actually works for us for a change?

Looks pretty evenly split to me, about as close to 50/50 as you can get. Business tends to donate to both sides, because both sides not only influence legislation, but - as we just saw - can gain control every 2 years.

But if you want to dig into it, you'll find that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama lead the list of recipients of telecom largesse, by a large margin.

They tried to protest at that "Occupy Wall Street" thing and were shut down by the FBI & provisions in the patriot act.

I was kind of with you until this point.

This is the first I've heard of the FBI and Patriot act being the downfall of Occupy Wall Street. It was more likely the disunity of different groups and the decentralized approach. As much as we all love purely democratic and leaderless movements (and I'm being serious here, there's something inspiring about a large group of people coming together), they're too easy to hijack. Moderates get driven out by those willing to be louder and more extreme. Occupy took on a very left-wing, anti-GOP bend despite the status quote being very much bi-partisan (with Wall Street even backing Democrats more than Republicans). If they stayed focused on the banking corruption, they easily could have gained the support of Tea Party Republicans (or at least avoided antagonizing them and solidifying them as opposition).

Then you had the Progressive Stack. What better way to promote unity for economic reform than by using a racist divide-and-conquer approach.

Not sure where you get the statistics, but a lot of gun death reports from the US include suicide, which while significant on its own, doesn't really factor into the "gun violence" discussion IMO. 60% of total gun deaths are from suicide. The second side of the story is that many of the death are gang related. This is by far and wide a social issue, which (IMO) is mostly caused by bad family life... many of the kids involved in gangs are from single parent homes: being poor and not having good male role models makes a gang very tempting. The third thing is the fluff around the NRA in the US. As a lobby group a lot of people talk about how much they donate. ~3 million a year! That's a crazy amount of money and power, right? Well...no. https://www.opensecrets.org/lo... Are most shootings in the US a crack team of crazies with enough training to go after people with weapons first? Are most shootings in the US showdowns like in the movies? Of course not. Most are suicides and gangbangers. Knowing this is key to solving some of the issues of gun violence, and most people who are against guns are missing it.

Given how some of the richest companies on earth are vehemently anti-Trump, overall funding is heavily skewed towards the Democrats. Remember, in 2016 Clinton actually raised 84% more funds than Trump.

1.7 billion was also spent during just the 2016 election cycle alone. Some of these superPACs don't even bother to hide that they are astroturf agencies who operate their own troll farms.

As for figures, Facebook and Twitter released some regarding Russian activity, if they are to believed. Also underwhelming.

The answers are here.

Also worth reading about Dark Money.

The answers are here.

Also worth reading about Dark Money.

Senator Wyden sits on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He knows damn well that the NSA is doing the exact same shit to the countries that are doing this to us, and I'm sure he's perfectly fine with that.

What goes around, comes around. Plus, he married a rich New Yorker and spends most of his "not-in-Washington" time in Manhattan. He's only a senator from Oregon by name, and comes back to visit Oregon every 6 years or so to get re-elected; not that Oregon would ever vote for any of the stiffs that the Republican party puts up.

He has the resources to hire to do this correctly, and not bitch and whine that the government isn't doing it for him. As for the campaigning, I'm pretty sure that he gets plenty of donations that can help to secure campaign communications.

Still not going to show any sympathy for an entitled jackass hypocrite.

Trump self-financed his campaign

No, he didn't. Here's his campaign financing: https://www.opensecrets.org/pr...

"Donald J Trump for President" is his campaign. Scroll down and you can see all the sources of funding, which was primarily campaign contributions.

He directed Cohen to pay with a check for crying out loud. He would've paid even if he wasn't running for office.

Running for office triggers a different set of rules. Don't run for office if you want to pay off your mistresses.

Even if it had been a publicly-funded campaign, see the John Edwards precedent.

John Edwards was put on trial for his campaign finance crimes. There was no precedent set, he was just acquitted by the jury.

Maybe this: https://www.opensecrets.org/se...

also you can check: http://www.opensecrets.org/

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

120 pages of microsoft political contributions..... https://www.campaignmoney.com/... and with a snazzier interface / less data https://www.opensecrets.org/or...

If you actually wanted to integrate the tech population (or any of the upper middle class in most cities), the best way to do that would be to force everyone to send their kids to the public school system (and make sure the individual districts are uniform). I've read several papers stating that that is probably the best way to fix the public school system. Right now, anyone with any money in most big cities quickly opts out. It's similar to the brain drain that merit based immigration systems cause to 3rd world countries.

Funny how the people with the ability to choose get their kids good educations, isn't it?

The real question is why do you want to keep poor kids trapped in what even you acknowledge is a failed education system.

Hopefully, Janus will decouple what's good for teacher's unions (the largest political contributors in the US...) from local school policy. (Yeah, the Democratic Party that rules most cities is pretty much funded by public-employee unions. How's that "government for the government by the government" working out for ya?)

Corporate America jumped ship on the republican party and took over the dems the instant Trump got the nomination. Public perceptions are slow to catch up, but suffice it to say the Bernie people aren't going to be happy about it.

Pretty much every industry not only donated overwhelmingly more to Hillary than Trump (the oil industry did give 2.5% more to Trump than Hillary), they usually even gave more to Trump's primary opponents, who weren't even around for the general.

You're preaching to the choir. Most of us anyway. It's the republicans you have to convince.

FTFY. Though sometimes I wonder if there is much of a difference...

The Supreme Court decisions this week prove that Democrats place funding public employee unions above First Amendment-prohibited compelled association/speech/financial donations.

Literally. Read Janus for Kagan's long-winded dissent in response to:

Under Illinois law, if a public-sector collective-bargaining agreement includes an agency-fee provision and the union certifies to the employer the amount of the fee, that amount is automatically deducted from the non-member’s wages. 315/6(e). No form of employee consent is required.

This procedure violates the First Amendment and can not continue.

Yet it's Democrats and "progressives" who justify compelled association, speech and financial contributions in violation of the First Amendment because
it funds the Democratic Party.

Who are the Nazis here?

I'm thinking it's the group who wants to force people to join organizations they don't want to.

I'm thinking it's the group that wants to force those people to fund political speech they don't agree with.

Let the people decide. I doubt they'll believe Trump promises again.

No one believed Trump's promises in the first place.

He was elected because he wasn't Hillary.

Oh, and he'd appoint judges who place following the Constitution and the law above the desired result. Because when the choice is between "Compelled association/speech violates the First Amendment" or "Public employee unions could lose funding", HOW THE FUCKING HELL DO YOU DECIDE FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS?!?!?!?!

Do you really think it's OK to violate the First Amendment and compel financial donations from unwilling persons just to fund the Democratic Party?

Who's the fucking fascist?

Campaign contributions typically favor the party in power (scroll down to the historical party split and historical average contributions), which is currently Republicans. A fact conveniently omitted by journalists who cherry-pick data to try to make the party they oppose look like bad guys.

Historically, telecom contributions have slightly favored the Democrats. The only reason Democrats are making a fuss about net neutrality is because they consider it to be an issue they can leverage for votes. If they truly believed in net neutrality on principle, they could've easily passed it during Obama's first term when they held the Presidency and both branches of Congress with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

The problem has always been local governments granting monopolies for cable and phone service. Both parties are complicit in this and neither seems willing to change it. Passing net neutrality is putting on a band-aid to hide festering gangrene caused by these government-granted monopolies these telecom companies enjoy. A way to placate the voters by pretending to be on their side, while making sure the monopolies awarded to their campaign contributors (the telecom companies) continue undisturbed.

This doesn't apply to anyone in the Trump administration who will soon be relinquishing all cell phones and such devices, for life in many cases.

After a few more Supreme Court nominations? Who cares!

Are you progtards happy now about harassing McConnell and his wife yesterday?

Keep pushing that Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's working so well - for everyone but progtards.

Oh, yeah - four of the top six biggest political donors in the US are public employee unions that give exclusively to Democrats.

Not any more. BWAAA HAA AHAAAA!!!!

Oh, that pesky First Amendment prohibiting compelled political speech. If you're upset about today's Supreme Court decision prohibiting compelled public employee union dues and membership, you're admitting you rely on dictatorial statutes to fund your policies. Who's the fucking Fascist?

TOO MUCH WINNING FOR YOU!!!

Hey, about that.....

It looks like Bernie took PAC money: "PAC Contributions* $112,340 1.73%" And it's impossible to tell how much went through a superPAC because fuck you Citizens vs. United. And the same goes for all the candidates. And it's kind of impossible to stop them. What are you going to do? Sue them for advertising for you? pft.

Buuuuuuut, that kinda looks like Bernie broke his pledge.

Thoughts?

. . . You're the one that said integrity doesn't require grandstanding and that they "could just go do it".

And now you're saying it doesn't matter if any republicans do it? ...That's back-peddling.

But yeah, I agree. I had to look into it again, but superPACs don't need to contribute anything to the campaign. They can simply advertise for the candidate.

(now... if they DID want to get money to the candidate... they's simply make TWO PACs. or three. Or more. Corporations are just paper, there's an unlimited supply, effectively removing any cap)

BUT ANYWAY, yeah, Bernie took PAC money: "PAC Contributions* $112,340 1.73%" And it's impossible to tell how much went through a superPAC because fuck you Citizens vs. United. And the same goes for all the candidates. And it's kind of impossible to stop them. What are you going to do? Sue them for advertising for you? pft.

hmmm, hang on lemme poke rsilvergun and see the response.

(And all of that is different than actual real people stumping for a candidate... which I think is a good thing. )

CO2, soot, lead... Yeah I hold the oil companies responsible. Not least because when it became clear what was happening they were extremely slow to do anything about it, just like tobacco sellers.

The courts are a good venue for this kind of thing, especially in the US where politicians are owned by corporations.

Not even close

If any group "owns" politicians, it's public-employee unions. Much more so that corporations.

And there are actual facts backing my assertion up.

No now is the time when everyone will claim that socialism is so much better. Without any evidence to back it up.

Thanks, low effort A/C.

None of the wealthy corporate interests that run the US would allow even a debate about a better governmental system in the US, as this article helps illustrate.

Government for the government by the government - AKA "public employee unions" disagree with your assertion as to who runs the country.

The CU verdict by the Supremes essentially made bribery 100% legal, because money is considered free speech, and a wad of dollars to a campaign from an anonymous source is protected by the 1A.

I would be astounded if anything came of this, but at best it might be an "investigation" that winds up stalled and sidetracked, or at best, delayed for many years.

Something tells me you wouldn't apply your desire to "get the money out of politics" to the largest political donors in the country.

Hint: something like 7 of the top ten are public employee unions, and you don't hit the fifth "Republican" donor until you get down to the 32nd largest political donor.

Conclusion: the really big money in politics leans left.

We keep being told how much better the EU is than the US - but then they do something awful like this, which is much, much worse than anything that would be seriously proposed in the US.

Trump administration: "Hold my beer and bucket of chicken"

Just be patient, it will get worse here.

There's copyright infringement enforcement, and then there's "fascism disguised as protecting copyright."

People around here generally supported the right to have your misdeeds forgotten, now let's see how they like phase 2.

Yeah, because you can spell DMCA without that big fat fucking D-for-Democrat.

Wait, no you can't.

Why would that be?

Because "content producers" pretty much own the parts of the Democratic Party not totally annexed by public employee unions.

We keep being told how much better the EU is than the US - but then they do something awful like this, which is much, much worse than anything that would be seriously proposed in the US.

Trump administration: "Hold my beer and bucket of chicken"

Just be patient, it will get worse here.

There's copyright infringement enforcement, and then there's "fascism disguised as protecting copyright."

People around here generally supported the right to have your misdeeds forgotten, now let's see how they like phase 2.

Yeah, because you can spell DMCA without that big fat fucking D-for-Democrat.

Wait, no you can't.

Why would that be?

Because "content producers" pretty much own the parts of the Democratic Party not totally annexed by public employee unions.

We keep being told how much better the EU is than the US - but then they do something awful like this, which is much, much worse than anything that would be seriously proposed in the US.

Trump administration: "Hold my beer and bucket of chicken"

Just be patient, it will get worse here.

There's copyright infringement enforcement, and then there's "fascism disguised as protecting copyright."

People around here generally supported the right to have your misdeeds forgotten, now let's see how they like phase 2.

Yeah, because you can spell DMCA without that big fat fucking D-for-Democrat.

Wait, no you can't.

Why would that be?

Because "content producers" pretty much own the parts of the Democratic Party not totally annexed by public employee unions.

Launched the campaign on his own dime? Oh, I expect we'll need to overlook all the pac money he got, the wealthy donors he slimed. About halfway down the page at https://www.opensecrets.org/ne... shows his campaign donors. And his own money was in the form of loans if memory serves correct.

It costs a lot to run an election in the US. See: https://www.opensecrets.org/ov... The cost for the 2016 presidential election was $2,386,733,696, and the total cost, including congressional races, was $6,444,253,265. Do you any suggestion for how to or regulate election contributions, or for a different way to finance them?

Trump is, of course, wholly unqualified to be President. Having stated the obvious about him, let me clear up something that should be pretty obvious about Clinton. Here's who funds Hillary, her top contributors:

Paloma Partners (hedge fund) $21,613,800 Pritzker Group (investment firm) $16,626,207 Renaissance Technologies (hedge fund) $16,543,000 Saban Capital Group (investment firm) $12,283,411 Newsweb Corp (media conglomerate) $11,016,642 Soros Fund Management (investment firm) $10,556,793

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

> Nor the tax breaks for the ultra rich including Wall Street.

The literally works for the largest Wall Street firms, that's who pays her bills. Ultra-rich? With $29 billion, Pritzkers are one of the wealthiest families in the country. Soros is one of the richest people on Wall Street, with $8 billion. These are the people funding Clinton, the people she works for.

So what you are saying is that because Hillary is corrupt it's OK for your guy (who ran on a platform of cleaning up political corruption) to be a corrupt scumbag too? Interesting point of view.

Trump is, of course, wholly unqualified to be President.
Having stated the obvious about him, let me clear up something that should be pretty obvious about Clinton. Here's who funds Hillary, her top contributors:

Paloma Partners (hedge fund) $21,613,800
Pritzker Group (investment firm) $16,626,207
Renaissance Technologies (hedge fund) $16,543,000
Saban Capital Group (investment firm) $12,283,411
Newsweb Corp (media conglomerate) $11,016,642
Soros Fund Management (investment firm) $10,556,793

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

> Nor the tax breaks for the ultra rich including Wall Street.

The literally works for the largest Wall Street firms, that's who pays her bills. Ultra-rich? With $29 billion, Pritzkers are one of the wealthiest families in the country. Soros is one of the richest people on Wall Street, with $8 billion. These are the people funding Clinton, the people she works for.

Microsoft was the target of an antitrust action in the late 90s / early 2000s. Then they ramped up their lobbying spending. The problem went away. Mnuchin is just looking to shake the money tree.

Its funny you post this in support of the supplement industry who more than pharmaceutical companies fund & lobby politicians to maintain their ability to peddle snake oil with no evidence of efficacy. On the other hand actual medicine is subject to rigorous testing to both ensure safety and efficacy.

If you want to complain about the pharmaceutical you should be complaining about the trend lately for predatory pricing and massive price increases.

The pharmaceutical industry is guilty on all counts. But that's off-topic for this discussion, which is the pharmaceutical industry's stranglehold on advertiser-supported media.

But since you went there, let's point out that it's so disingenuous of you to claim that I'm supporting the supplement industry (I did not), that they lobby more than pharmaceutical companies (laughably wrong), AND defend the pharmaceutical company's supposedly "rigorous testing" that I can only conclude you are employed by or shilling for those pharmaceutical companies.

Pharmaceutical contributions VS. Supplement manufacturers. Also, Drug lobby second to NONE

As far as that "rigorous testing"? Yea, it turns out, pharmaceutical companies are fond of only publishing clinical trials that have positive results, while failing to publish trials that show no efficacy or bad side-effects.

Its funny you post this in support of the supplement industry who more than pharmaceutical companies fund & lobby politicians to maintain their ability to peddle snake oil with no evidence of efficacy. On the other hand actual medicine is subject to rigorous testing to both ensure safety and efficacy.

If you want to complain about the pharmaceutical you should be complaining about the trend lately for predatory pricing and massive price increases.

The pharmaceutical industry is guilty on all counts. But that's off-topic for this discussion, which is the pharmaceutical industry's stranglehold on advertiser-supported media.

But since you went there, let's point out that it's so disingenuous of you to claim that I'm supporting the supplement industry (I did not), that they lobby more than pharmaceutical companies (laughably wrong), AND defend the pharmaceutical company's supposedly "rigorous testing" that I can only conclude you are employed by or shilling for those pharmaceutical companies.

Pharmaceutical contributions VS. Supplement manufacturers. Also, Drug lobby second to NONE

As far as that "rigorous testing"? Yea, it turns out, pharmaceutical companies are fond of only publishing clinical trials that have positive results, while failing to publish trials that show no efficacy or bad side-effects.

I just did a little digging, so https://www.opensecrets.org/me.... Biggest campaign donors oil and gas and aerospace and health. Look just another talking head sucking up to campaign donors, they will say what ever they are paid to say.

So what who cares what they say, the requirements of who paid the most is all that means anything. So obviously the oil and gas mobs will want NASA to deny human caused climate change, and the aerospace mobs will want more money spent with fewer controls to maximise profits.

Expect them always to say what they have been paid to say, truth or lies, doesn't make an iota of difference, their claimed opinion will not even be their opinion but the opinion the lobbyists they interact with demand they have to continue to receive bribes 'er' campaign donations.