The initiatives and proposed solution would solve any "leftist" kleptocrats doing the same thing as the teabaggers too - as such shouting "others do it too" smacks of somebody wanting to distract from the problem rather than solve it.
The biggest spenders on lobbying are typically business-right groups. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2015&inde...
The top individual funders tend to be conservatives: https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?disp=D
And on the left, the biggest organizational contributers in election cycles tend to be unions (which is a significant factor behind the right's desire to break them): https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?cycle=2014
let alone your term teabaggers clearly shows your tendencies
stories with any political connection either need flagged or a new flag, "Political"
You've not been coming here very long, have you?
I agree. The anger should be directed towards the University, who could refuse the pledge with its associated demands. Why blame the Koch brothers for expecting their money to peddle influence? It's sort of the point. And it's only ever a problem for people who don't agree with the politics. Was having Larry Summers participate in the annual reviews at Harvard after a post in the Clinton Whitehouse corrupt? These sorts of things are inherently political.
In fact, just one article over, is this:
"Hoffman and Pincus each gave a million dollars to Priorities USA, the Democratic Super PAC. Since then, they have had the opportunity to spend time with Obama. In a private forty-five-minute meeting in the Oval Office in 2012, Pincus gave the President a PowerPoint presentation on what he calls “the product-management approach to government.”
>let alone your term teabaggers clearly shows your tendencies
It's funny that in another HN thread people are discussing "trolling" and how HN gets it right by allowing people to express dissenting views, respectfully, without being punished. Meanwhile, the parent is downvoted and the comment with a derogatory political term lives on.
And, for the record, I'm Canadian, so none of these politics are really mine.
That's really not the right use of the term "influence peddling", which refers to something you do when you're in a position of authority in exchange for money, i.e. it's when you sell influence.
From my perspective it sure seems like any public organization (university, NGO, foundation) that isn't explicitly conservative will trend sharply to the left over time due to the kinds of people who tend to work in those organizations. If I were donating a lot of money to a university department I'd want to maintain some control over who they hired as well.
Which is exactly what the University executives did...sold influence to the Koch's. Hence, their money peddled influence.
Oh? They spend more than a billion dollars every year? Please, sign me up for your newsletter.
I'm not sure what Steyer is worth, he's referred to as a billionaire so that would suggest slightly more than that figure, but it's not so far away as to require a sarcastic response.
For more realistic numbers this is a good place to start:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/09/opensecrets-battle-k...