this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 223 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

"Endorsement" meaning the ~~25~~ 45 million a month to a PAC...

How the fuck are we not going after them for this?

The PAC system is incredibly fucked, but outside of a handful of progressives no politicians want to admit it's legal bribery

[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 months ago (3 children)

maybe this is the straw that breaks the camels back. hoping this admission changes things

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It won't.

Biden inherited the HVF, and called it the BVF but it did the same thing.

A big part of the discussion of Kamala taking over, was if she got the BVF.

I don't know what she's calling it now, but she has it.

It's the thing Hillary did that took all the money from state parties, that coordinated with the DNC during the primary. Giant shit show.

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/dnc-leak-clinton-team-deflected-state-cash-concerns-226191

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donors-can-now-give-620600-to-biden-and-dnc-expanding-democratic-big-money-fundraising/2020/05/16/d2bf51cc-978a-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/23/g-s1-12807/harris-biden-fec-campaign-finance

Neither party will do shit about it, because they all benefit from it

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-64-million-mystery-anonymous-donations-2024-presidential-campaign/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Democracy™️

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No it’s not bribery. He changed his stance for Musk’s endorsement. Musk then exercised his free speech into a Trump PAC. There was no coordination. Besides, even if there was coordination, it was a just a gratuity after the service!

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just a little bit of corruption, as a treat!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Really thick, pasty corruption, generously applied.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

Because they all take super PAC money and dont want the flows to stop.

Except ofc Bernie and a handful of others

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

“Endorsement” meaning the 25 million a month to a PAC…

Oh, I can see the problem here - you thought he was giving his pro-Trump PAC $25 million. That's just not true. $25 million? That would be crazy.

No, no, it was $45 million.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

45mill*

Elon denies it but I’d lie about it too and when a matter involves 2 compulsive liars, I just default to “it’s a lie.”

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Every ad should be a clip of Trump raging against electric cars, then the Musk tweet, then a clip of him praising electric cars. End with: do you really think he works for you?

I'm sure you can build more ads on this theme with the millions of other things he flip flopped on when someone promised him a bag of cash.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

That should be one ad. Another should be about him turning on every one of his supporters that he's turned on. Trump: on your side as long as it's still convenient for him.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"We" aren't going after them for this because they all do it, Trump just said it out loud. Welcome to American politics. This will never get fixed because the people in power stand to lose millions of dollars if it does. People will posture, pander, and pretend, but they will never get a majority willing to take the pay cut and actually fix it. It's ~~the~~ a glitch in a capitalist republic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Oh it can totally be fixed. People change their tune really quick when they can't put food in their mouths, and others change faster within close proximity to wood chippers.

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[–] [email protected] 113 points 2 months ago (5 children)

How is this obvious and even admitted bribery not illegal?

[–] [email protected] 63 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In an ideal, fair, and just world, yeah, but have you been following the Supreme Court lately? This is their King we're talking about!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

..... have you been following the ~~Supreme~~ Extreme Court Court lately?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago

I' e come to realize that sadly, legslity is irrelevant. If there are no consequences, then there's effectively no law for rhe powerful.

The SCOTUS ruling that they can declare the president above the law was really about shiwing they can make anyone above the law, if they wish.

The last eight years have highlighted how the US is in fact, a caste system.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

It's not bribery until he actually pushes for EVs (Tesla, specifically) as President. And then it will be an official act, so he's immune.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

To be bribery it needs to involve literal gold bars... and people who aren't Republicans.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

The supreme court got bribed into saying bribery is fine as long as you pretend it's not a bribe.

[–] [email protected] 95 points 2 months ago

well known for the transactional nature of his politics

Also known as “taking bribes.”

[–] [email protected] 64 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

He bragged less than a week ago in Michigan that he is going to ban EVs just so he can pander to Michigan auto workers.

Practically everything he says is a lie

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Which is ridiculous because most manufacturers are building multiple new factories for batteries and EVs. It's a pretty shitty pander all things considered.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ford recently announced their decision to use their facility built for the purpose of expanding their EV supply to instead manufacturer more ICE pick-up trucks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

And? It still means that the push for EVs wound up creating those factories, and therefore jobs at those factories.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I could be wrong, but isn't a blatant quid pro quo basically the only way to wind up on the wrong side of the Citizens United decision? Didn't the Supreme Court rule that, unless a candidate was engaged in open bribery, campaign contributions constitute free speech? I could be misremembering/misinterpretating, and he'll never face any consequences for it anyway, but it would be very funny if there was a Supreme Court ruling that said, "As long as you're not dumb enough to admit it's a bribe it's not illegal," and he still fucked that up.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The Supreme Court ruling splits a very fine hair. If you give a government official money and say "make sure my housing development goes through", that's a bribe and it's illegal. If you show them money and say "I'll give you this if my housing development goes through", that's a gratuity and is perfectly fine.

Why, yes, this is a stupid as it sounds.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Wrong Supreme Court decision. They said Citizens United.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Didn’t the Supreme Court rule that, unless a candidate was engaged in open bribery, campaign contributions constitute free speech?

The core of the CU decision is that engaging in political speech is not a campaign contribution. Even if you spend money to engage in that speech. Even if you pay some 3rd party organization to engage in that speech on your behalf, unless that 3rd party organization is operating in collusion with the actual campaign.

Or to put it another way, if you run off a bunch of flyers supporting Kamala Harris and pass them out, that's not a campaign contribution despite ink and paper (and your labor) not being free. If Staples agrees to print those flyers free of charge for you, Staples is not making a campaign contribution. Unless the campaign itself is involved with the process. Now, just scale that up to massive corps and political nonprofits.

People try to describe it as "deciding money is speech and corporations are people", but both of those are long held by law - corporations have had 1A rights for a long, long time and likewise arguments that restricting things used to engage in protected expression is in fact restricting protected expression have held for a long, long time (for example you can't just place a $10,000,000/week tax on printing presses to silence newspapers).

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

a) yes

b) maybe he'll be held accountable for this within the course of the next 20 years

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

He'll be posthumously sentenced at this point

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Hope and pray that the courts see it your way!

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

"Yes, I'm a whore. I have been bought." -- Donald T.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Really? Whores have it hard enough, no need to associate them with Little T.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

For sale: 1 (one) old man with dementia, loose bowels, poor grasp on simple concepts, malignant narcissism, and a massive following of slack-jawed troglodyte voters.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

He then went on to say “they”, presumable the democrats, want to go all electric and that eight electric chargers cost $9 billion. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1819863379835830603

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean, it's one electric charger, Michael. How much could it cost? 1.125 billion?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Man, Toyota is gonna be pissed when they find out how much money they threw away on a charger they gave me with a $50k car.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hard-line MAGAts wishing to publicly demonstrate their allegiance will have to start wearing flip-flops alongside their diapers and ear pillows.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Also, driving cyber trucks.

Which would actually kinda be hilarious, if I didn’t have to share the road with those morons.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Can they start wearing fake purple hearts, too?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Don is probably mad that Elon backed out of giving him large monthly donations.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

That's politics, this shouldn't be a surprise. None of this is remotely illegal as suggested in the comments.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (11 children)

People are saying it should be illegal and the fact that it is legal is an issue that we should fix...

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Having your position on issues for sale isn't illegal when you're not in office, but it's certainly not normal politics. It's fuckin' the weird for a politician to openly admit they're for sale.

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