"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
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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maybe this is the straw that breaks the camels back. hoping this admission changes things
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.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/
Democracy™️
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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!
Just a little bit of corruption, as a treat!
Lite corruption
Really thick, pasty corruption, generously applied.
Because they all take super PAC money and dont want the flows to stop.
Except ofc Bernie and a handful of others
“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.
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.
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.
"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.
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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How is this obvious and even admitted bribery not illegal?
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!
..... have you been following the ~~Supreme~~ Extreme Court Court lately?
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.
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.
To be bribery it needs to involve literal gold bars... and people who aren't Republicans.
The supreme court got bribed into saying bribery is fine as long as you pretend it's not a bribe.
well known for the transactional nature of his politics
Also known as “taking bribes.”
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
Which is ridiculous because most manufacturers are building multiple new factories for batteries and EVs. It's a pretty shitty pander all things considered.
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.
And? It still means that the push for EVs wound up creating those factories, and therefore jobs at those factories.
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.
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.
Wrong Supreme Court decision. They said Citizens United.
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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a) yes
b) maybe he'll be held accountable for this within the course of the next 20 years
He'll be posthumously sentenced at this point
Hope and pray that the courts see it your way!
"Yes, I'm a whore. I have been bought." -- Donald T.
Really? Whores have it hard enough, no need to associate them with Little T.
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.
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
I mean, it's one electric charger, Michael. How much could it cost? 1.125 billion?
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.
Hard-line MAGAts wishing to publicly demonstrate their allegiance will have to start wearing flip-flops alongside their diapers and ear pillows.
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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Can they start wearing fake purple hearts, too?
Don is probably mad that Elon backed out of giving him large monthly donations.
That's politics, this shouldn't be a surprise. None of this is remotely illegal as suggested in the comments.
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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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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