The U.S. Justice Department this week dropped an antitrust case against a company represented by the lobbying firm that employed Pam Bondi before her confirmation as attorney general earlier this year.
American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) has paid the lobbying giant Ballard Partners hundreds of thousands of dollars this year to pressure Bondi’s Justice Department on “antitrust issues,” according to federal disclosures.
The president is a fucking child rapist. This barely registers. Not that it shouldn’t, I’m just saying we’re too fucking far gone.
It is truly astonishing to me that we somehow allow official lobbying of the justice department by firms like this. Foundationally corrupt system.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The framers considered this such a basic right that it’s right there in the 1st Amendment. And not all lobbying is bad! We only hear about the corrupt shit like this.
Corporations should not be allowed to lobby. With all that money and concentrated effort capitalism can produce, the people will always lose.
I will never understand why people believe corporate influence on the government is so fucking important. It will come naturally, through the people not by lobbyist if you deny their influence
I didn’t say it was important, I said lobbying is protected.
Of course corporation should be able to lobby! A corporation, in theory (heh), is a group of people with a common financial cause. That notion is not inherently evil.
Were I a legislator I’d happily allow lobbyists in my office. Who am I to know everything? I’d listen carefully and kick their ass out if I disagreed morally. But then I don’t get campaign funds to continue fighting the good fight! What a trap.
Lobbyists aren’t the problem, Citizens United v. FEC is the fucking problem. As to Congress reigning in lobbyist favors and money, fat chance.
Read Obama’s two books? Forgot which one it was where he was talking about funding his run for Illinois State Senator vs. what Axlerod told him he’s need to run for US Senator. Don’t remember the numbers but Obama was fucking shocked! So was I!
tl;dr: Lobbyists aren’t so much an issue as campaign finance reform. But the good guys can’t reform it without losing the money to stay in office, not overnight. LOL, 10th grade government teacher covered this. Local guy dropped out the mayor’s race because he couldn’t, in good conscience, kiss all the asses he needed to appease to raise campaign funds. What a world.
Of course corporations should not be able to lobby!
See, we can’t outcompete corporate money and dedication. We will always lose, when profit is more important than say global warming or clean water or affordable / free healthcare.
Capitalism is way better then any other system to create and improve what gets the most profit and it’s by definition without morale.
It should not be allowed to do that with lobbing against the well-being of the people. It only exists because of us.
What I’m trying to say is: that protection is bullshit
should not be allowed to do that with lobbing against the well-being of the people
You surely see problems with “well-being” defined in law?
(can’t edit my posts and that one needs SERIOUS work, poor and conflicting arguments, fuck it, stands)
Agreed fully. It never fails to have people materialize who will say that rights that should be given to you but rarely are instead allows for legal fictions to have untold sway over policy.
That’s great and all, but I don’t see anything in that sentence that says ‘corporation (who is apparently a legal person) has the right to pay another entity vast sums of money to petition the govt to not enforce laws mandated by congress.
Devil’s advocate here!
So Greenpeace shouldn’t pay a firm for effective lobbying? (pulled from my ass, you get the idea) Think you or I could petition the government as well as the people who are close to it, know how it works, know what strings to pull?
Devil’s advocate 2:
Most literally, the first paragraph of our legal code:
§1. Words denoting number, gender, and so forth
…the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;…
Yeah, hate that SCOTUS took that literally in Citizens United v. FEC. It’s a necessary legal fiction, but hell. I know it. You know it. History may well mark that ruling as the end of the American empire.
And yeah, the case in question is blatant corruption, fuck you in your face we’re doing it anyway kinda corruption.
I’m only arguing that lobbying is a protected right and not necessarily evil. What if our legislators try to rule against it, LOL, fuck it up with vague rules and we get an even more damning ruling than Citizens? The mind boggles.
No, I don’t think Greenpeace should pay a firm to lobby effectively for them. My dad was big in his state’s trout unlimited and over time I realized that I disagree with our entire system of special interest groups. Almost all of them end up straying from their mission in the search for money to effectively lobby congress. It still favors the money over the individual and many orgs get such tunnel vision that they discredit other good solutions. It’s a crap system that leads to crap results.
