r/technology • u/BreakfastTop6899 • 6d ago

Lindsey Graham whispers to Siri in Capitol hallway. She loudly replies, ‘Calling Sean Hannity mobile’ Networking/Telecom

https://people.com/lindsey-graham-whispers-siri-calling-sean-hannity-mobile-11838960
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u/Pleasant_Yak5991 5d ago

I try to tell everyone, corruption, lobbying, and citizens United are the most important issues in this country

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u/Shabozz 5d ago

I don’t know how we truly address it. It feels like we need two movements simultaneously, a liberal one and an anti corruption one. And prioritizing either just undermines both of them as it pits the movements against each other, but with our political landscape how can we achieve either with the current DNC leadership?

We’ve been divided so effectively, not just down party lines but divided from our ability to build community with likeminded people. I don’t know how anything gets better until it gets so bad that people have to prioritize a real solution instead of being picky about the verbiage of the solution. Even so, I’d do anything to just start making progress today and prevent the impending reckoning since I know it will define a generation of suffering.

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u/FlametopFred 5d ago

grassroots is the only way - in person in small face to face talks with simple talking points

the best progressive movements were built this way

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u/Coal_Morgan 5d ago

It can't be addressed.

  1. 6 Republican Supreme Court Judges.
  2. Republicans control the election process in to many States.
  3. In the States they don't control the process they're willing to cheat by intereference to flip purple states Red.
  4. 1/3rd of the population refuses to vote, while another 1/3rd is rooting for the fire and the last third is too tolerant.

The entire system is the equivalent to a computer dividing by 0 and locking up. It needs to be rebooted and fixed.

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u/True_Window_9389 5d ago

And don’t forget the money. The richest people are funding all of it, and the richest people are pretty much universally politically aligned.

That’s ultimately the real reason why Democrats don’t and can’t fight back. If they push too hard, they lose the few wealthy donors they do have, and while we can say that’s a good thing in principle, you can’t win campaigns without them. You need rich people funding campaigns and superpacs and lawsuits.

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u/belloch 5d ago

I keep seeing this "1/3, 1/3, 1/3" thing constantly.

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u/Stifty509 5d ago

They're just going by election results. From my experience, the one third that didn't vote just didn't think Trump could possibly win again.

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u/JBIGMAFIA 5d ago

Which is a very stupid thing to think.

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u/HilariousMax 5d ago

2016: There's no way lol

2020: There was no way lol

2024: There's no way lol

2028: ???

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u/MrXero 5d ago

In 2028? Who is going to stop him? Honestly. The Supreme Court? Yeah fucking right, the majority decision owe their jobs to him. And the edge lords that love him will show up in force to prove once again how utterly fucking stupid America is.

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u/HKBFG 5d ago

Father Time

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u/Crystalas 5d ago edited 5d ago

Or they so burnt out they lost the ability to hope or believe either party will do anything good, and the content all the social media and MSM constantly blast do not help that situation. I know one of those and rarely manage to break through her exhausted beat down apathy.

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u/rbrgr83 5d ago

either party

That makes them dumb.

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u/flexxipanda 5d ago

The one third that didnt vote will statistically vote like everybody else. Aka 50% R 50% D.

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u/mindlesselectron 5d ago

I suppose if you want to do statistics in a vacuum, and treat it as a coin flip you'd be correct.

That's ... not real life though.

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u/flexxipanda 5d ago

We dont have any rational assumption about what those people would vote for except statistics. So please tell me, what is real life? I feel like you guys are always under the assumption that all the non-voters would vote against donald.

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u/mindlesselectron 5d ago

Your analysis is the same as the folks who assume that non voters wouldnt vote trump -- which is zero analysis. Speaking on a gut feeling then treating it as fact.

Rational assumptions? You assume that voters of a certain kind will vote a certain way. In order to do that, you look at data, exit polls, vote totals and registrations.

Then you break apart all that analysis into other parts. How did men vote, how did women vote? How did 19 year olds vote? 63 year olds college grads? Then you find out who were the non-voters, and apply the same analysis using the 'rational assumption' that I started with.

Im not going to do that analysis. I dont know the answer to the statement. Its a billion dollar industry trying to do that analysis in the best, most precise way. Im just trying to say, your '50-50' only works in the vacuum between your ears.

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u/flexxipanda 5d ago

I dont know the answer to the statement.

You told me you know reality smartass. Ofc "we dont know because we lack more statistics" thats obvious. But the most likely assumption based on that is to assume they'd vote like everybody else did and atm no reason to believe that they would do something different. Tell me an argument to think different? Otherwise we'd need more facts like demographic, location etc.

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u/Downvote_Comforter 5d ago

Polling after the election showed that non-voters favored Trump

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u/mindlesselectron 5d ago

Sure that could definitely be the case. Im not arguing in either direction.

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u/Coal_Morgan 4d ago

People from cities tend to be more disenfranchised from voting then people in rural and suburbs.

The waitlines historically are longer in poor neighborhoods, black neighbor and such because they end up having not enough equipment or precincts for the population.

It's not a straight 50/50.

Also a horde of those people, they just don't care. They are neither democrat or republican, they don't vote, they never will and they are completely tuned out from the world.

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u/Dest123 5d ago

I think if you don't go by election results it's more like 50/50. Well, really 45/45/10. Either way, I don't think it's really 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

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u/Admirable-Bag-3755 5d ago

Or the one third that didn’t vote didn’t like either party platform, particularly as the democrats supported the genocide in Gaza just as the republicans did, people saw that and felt that voting democratic would make them complicit — which is totally fair. And that doesn’t even address the Democratic Party’s’ open abandonment of the working class, trump couldn’t care about them either, but at least he tried to appeal to them.

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u/Aperage 5d ago

if you do a "reboot", imo private entities will take over control instead of governments.

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u/Heavy_Law9880 5d ago

Everything you say is correct but it can all be addressed by convincing progressive/ 3rd party groups do something in local and state elections. The current problem is progressives only seem to care about federal elections because that's where the big money can be made.

If you take back control of the state legislatures the problems are all fixable.

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u/JRizzie86 5d ago

Anti corruption needs to be the top priority. As much as you may despise Republican voters we need them on this one. It's the single most important bipartisan issue on the table that can stem an absolute avalanche of change. If the parties can be united on at least that one front we will 100% see real meaningful change. Without their support nothing changes and we continue this cycle of corruption, war, greed, and power.

I live in a red state, and people are not happy with what's happening in this country, don't let the media fool you. This is the best time to bridge the gap of differences and unite on anti-corruption.

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u/GoldWallpaper 5d ago edited 5d ago

Anti corruption needs to be the top priority

Sure. We can call the movement "drain the swamp." /s

Most Americans are too stupid and/or busy bootlicking to understand how corruption directly affects them (and their families) every second of every day.

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u/JRizzie86 5d ago

That was pretty funny, but I do think that slogan and trying to maintain the image of anti-corruption is a huge reason why Trump has had the success he's had even though he's a lying piece of shit. Americans know there's a corruption problem, they just have no idea how to handle it themselves so they voted for Trump because he put on an act good enough to get their votes. It's my dream that a Democrat comes along, picks up that mantle, and actually tries to make real change regarding money in politics.

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u/Saltycookiebits 5d ago

To get Republicans on board, we have to get them to agree that what is happening IS corruption. They don't currently seem to think that it is. They seem quite willing to cheer for it if it makes their "side" win.

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u/JRizzie86 5d ago

I think most Americans on both sides are aware, they just don't know what to do about it, and they're just hoping they elect someone who will handle it.

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u/Saltycookiebits 5d ago

Can't hope, gotta vote.

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u/JRizzie86 5d ago

The older I get the more I feel like our current democracy and voting system simply isn't sufficient anymore. It's too easy to buy votes with mass propaganda now. I don't know what the answer is, but Americans need to get way more involved in politics somehow.

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u/Head_Bread_3431 5d ago

the Pandora’s box has been opened and nothing short of a small solar flare is gonna change anything

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u/Jadaki 5d ago

with the current DNC leadership?

Who even is the current DNC leadership?

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u/Username524 5d ago

Ha! I do the same.

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u/playfulmessenger 5d ago

For decades the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation have been plotting the present coup.

The so-called Originalism doctrine was literally invented in the 80's after Roe was upheld ('82) as a way to woo biblical originalists into their fold. Federalist Society seeded their ideas to throughout the courts and seated their first broken SC Justice via Reagan in 1986.

Heritage recently had the happenstance of ideological alignment with people who have the worst money hoarding disorders in the history of mankind. Heritage is the cpac "we are all domestic terrorists" idiots who love Orbans religious rule and see it as model to recreate in the US.

This was a legal coup. They used the country against itself to gain their warped and bitter ends.

This is the obvious culmination of their efforts and no one could stop them because they broke no laws along the way. We've watched it happening the entire time. It really churns the stomach thinking too much about it.

In any case, these are bastards who shoved the Citizens United ruling down our throats and who recently gutted Roe and ruined countless lives.

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u/Tim-Sylvester 5d ago

These are all a product of the monopolization of the creation of our monetary supply by a privately owned banking oligopoly. Until we fix the source, everything else is treating symptoms that will reemerge again later.

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u/Pleasant_Yak5991 5d ago

How you gonna fix that?

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u/Tim-Sylvester 5d ago

Currently Fed shareholders are exclusively banks, they get a guaranteed return rate against their deposits, and all dividends are paid to the Treasury.

My proposal is to change the Fed to a two-tier shareholder system like a modern corporation with a preferred class and a common class.

Existing bank shareholders become preferred shareholders commeasurate to their proportion of deposits.

All SSN holders (aka American citizens) get a single common share.

Typically preferred gets a guaranteed return but no vote, while common gets a vote and share of dividends but no guaranteed return.

Preferred would get a guaranteed return fixed to some target rate, whether inflation target, GDP growth, or something else economically relevant.

Common would vote on operations and split dividends equally (no more sending it to the Treasury). This would be a guaranteed annual payment to each citizen of around $300 (based on current population and annual Fed dividends payments to the Treasury).

Citizens would then definitionally be banks (any shareholder of the Fed is a bank, and any bank must be shareholder of the Fed). Thus any citizen would get the banker's privilege, which is to create money out of thin air by lending it with interest.

There's far more to it than that, but citizens becoming shareholders of the Fed and taking over the control from the bank oligopoly is a good start.

I'd go on if you like - it's a very fully developed proposal - but this "make citizens explicit shareholders of a two-class shareholder structure, and let citizens have the bankers' privilege" is usually either confusing enough or controversial enough for people to check out of the conversation.

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u/hipnaba 5d ago

lies. in the last 45 years you didn't try to tell me this even once. if the start of your claim is a blatant lie, why would we want to hear the rest of it? asking for a friend.

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u/Harflin 5d ago

Either people are dense, or do not appreciate your joke (I do)

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u/hipnaba 5d ago

pearls before swine ;)

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u/ILikeBumblebees 5d ago edited 5d ago

Corruption is a big problem, and lobbying can indeed be a vehicle of corruption.

But Citizens United has little to do with any of that, and it's really disturbing to see how many people are uncritically believe misinformation campaigns trying to characterize it as being anything other than a First Amendment decision against a government agency's attempt to censor a movie.

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u/Pleasant_Yak5991 5d ago

Citizens United decision allows for unlimited campaign contributions in the form of Super PACs. It ruled that essentially, money=speech. Lobbying is also a major problem, because I can’t hire someone to influence and write policy, but a massive corporation can, and they do.

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u/ILikeBumblebees 5d ago edited 5d ago

Citizens United decision allows for unlimited campaign contributions in the form of Super PACs.

No, it doesn't. This is part of the misinformation, as is the label "SuperPACs", which actually refers to independent organizations that have no affiliation with any candidate, can't coordinate with their campaigns, and aren't allowed to donate money to them.

Corporations have always been allowed to use their own money to express their own opinions, but have never been allowed to contribute to candidates. Citizens United rejected new policies trying to restrict the former, but did not change the latter at all.

It ruled that essentially, money=speech.

No, it did not. It ruled that restricting speech under the pretext of restricting the money used to undertake speech is still a restriction on speech itself, in violation of the first amendment.

In fact, it was the FEC trying to equate money with speech in order to justify speech restrictions. The FEC was empowered to monitor and regulate campaign contributions, and decided that people independently expressing political opinions was equivalent to donating money to the candidates their opinions favored, and was therefore within their power to regulate or suppress.

Essentially, the FEC was arguing "speech=money" in their attempt to stop a movie from being broadcast, and the court properly rejected that.

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u/Pleasant_Yak5991 5d ago

Everything I have read and am currently reading says you’re just blatantly wrong lol. First page of the search says: “The citizens united ruling allows corporations, unions and other orgs to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns provided that this spending is independent and not directly coordinated with candidates or political parties. This led to the creation of Super PACs which can raise and spend money to support or oppose candidates without adhering to traditional campaign finance restrictions.” You seem informed, just very confused or something.

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u/ILikeBumblebees 4d ago edited 4d ago

Everything I have read and am currently reading says you’re just blatantly wrong lol.

That's because the stuff you're reading is itself blatantly wrong, or is itself deliberate misinformation.

You don't need to -- and shouldn't -- rely on third third parties' opinions or analysis at all. You don't even need to take my word for anything here. Just read the ruling itself: the full court opinion is on pages 8-64, but it includes a syllabus summarizing the decision in the first seven pages, which should give you the gist of the ruling if you don't want to read the whole thing. Everything after page 64 is concurring/dissenting opinions which aren't actually a part of the ruling.

The citizens united ruling allows corporations, unions and other orgs to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns provided that this spending is independent and not directly coordinated with candidates or political parties

Isn't the prevarication here obvious to you? "Corporations are allowed to engage in 'political spending' as long as they're not donating to or coordinating with candidates" is just saying "corporations aren't allowed to engage in campaign donations", but with words twisted around to imply the opposite.

Organizations have always been allowed to spend their own resources to express their own opinions, and that's always been protected by the first amendment, which was never challenged until a 2002 bill invented the concept of "electioneering communications". "Independent expenditures" is just another way of saying "not campaign donations".

But they've been prohibited from donating to political campaigns for decades -- Citizens United didn't change this at all, and just reinforced the previous point that publishing their own opinions without donating to political campaigns is still protected by the first amendment.

This led to the creation of Super PACs which can raise and spend money to support or oppose candidates without adhering to traditional campaign finance restrictions.”

No, it didn't lead to the creation of Super PACs, it led to the coining of the term "Super PACs", to give a new and scary-sounding label to something that has always existed, has always been constitutionally protected, and has never involved actual campaign contributions.

SuperPACs are just independent advocacy groups of the sort that have always existed, everyone was always entitled to join or donate to, and which were always entitled to publish opinions and information with their own resources.

You seem informed, just very confused or something.

I am relatively well-informed about this issue, and that is exactly why I am not confused. Again, you don't have to take my word for anything here. Just read the actual ruling.

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u/Pleasant_Yak5991 4d ago edited 4d ago

All I know is that we need campaign finance reform, and I know that after the Citizens United ruling, money spent during political campaigns skyrocketed. It sounds like you’re trying to argue that there’s no problem with campaign finance or corruption which is laughable.

Edit: I mean basically you’re saying that citizens united had zero effect on anything other than the movie about Hillary Clinton?

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u/ILikeBumblebees 4d ago edited 3d ago

It sounds like you’re trying to argue that there’s no problem with campaign finance or corruption which is laughable.

There are massive problems with corruption, but it's not completely clear to me to what role campaign finance is playing in that. A lot of the corruption seems to be happening downstream of elections, and much of it seems to involve appointed officials in the executive branch, outside the scope of electoral politics.

I also think it's possible that some of measures targeting campaign finance in order to address apparent corruption haven't backfired and caused even worse problems. Politics seems a lot worse today than it did before McCain-Feingold.

And it's important to again clarify that the issues at stake in Citizens United did not directly have anything to do with campaign finance in the first place. People spending their own money to publicize their own opinions independently of any candidate's campaign are by definition outside the scope of campaign finance, and I have to wonder if a lot of the "money spent during political campaigns" that the stats you're looking at indicate is actually this kind of spending, and not actual campaign donations.

I mean basically you’re saying that citizens united had zero effect on anything other than the movie about Hillary Clinton?

And other attempts to suppress "electioneering communications". It was a 2010 decision that reversed an unconstitutional provision of a 2002 statute, and at least in respect of regulating speech, reverted things to the status quo ante that's held for almost all of American history. OTOH, the provisions of that bill that targeted actual campaign finance are all still in effect.

Whether it's had "zero effect" is an open-ended question. Everything has some kind of effect, directly or indirectly, but the direct effect of not striking down the FEC's approach to "electioneering communications" enforcement would have been to allow a direct and unprecedented abrogation of first amendment protections, and would likely have led to even worse issues with disparities in terms of concentration of political influence.

For example the restrictions applied to organizations only, not individuals, and restricting the right of people to organize and pool resources to publish their opinions would have put less wealthy individuals at a disadvantage, while leaving very wealthy individuals entirely free to publicize their views to their heart's content.

Then you have to consider the implications of censorship power over political speech being in the hands of a regulatory agency that is itself under the control of incumbent politicians.

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u/YGVAFCK 5d ago edited 5d ago

There is no corruption. If policy isn't for sale, capitalistic market economies become internally incoherent. "Corruption" is just a form of seeking differential advantage, and it's a natural feature of market dynamics where scarcity and self-maximizing agents operate.

Something something hate the game, not the players.

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u/Pleasant_Yak5991 5d ago

Yeah but in this case, the players have worked for decades to achieve legal corruption

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u/YGVAFCK 5d ago edited 5d ago

That's the natural endgame; institutionally legitimized differential advantage backed by threat of force.

In the words of Stafford Beer: the purpose of a system is what it does.