Comment by whoopdedo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whoopdedo | Hacker News Reader

Can we have a new rule when laws are proposed? Whenever you see the headline "(name of politician) wants to pass a law which will do ____" it should be rewritten to "Lobbyists have convinced (name of politician) that they need a law which will do _____".

From opensecrets.org:

Industry Favorite

John McCain is a top recipient from the following industries in 2015-2016:

    Cable & satellite TV production (#1)
    Defense Aerospace (#1)
    Defense Electronics (#1)
    For-profit Education (#1)
    Misc Defense (#1)

Total PAC Money for 2015-2016: $700,600

    Ideological/Single-Issue	$185,900
    Defense			$116,800
    Communications/Electronics	$61,600
    Energy & Natural Resources	$75,300
    Finance, Insurance & Real Estate	$71,500
    Lawyers & Lobbyists		$51,400

Personally I'd love it if TV networks would bring up ESPN style player stats summary sheets on politicians involved in a story listing a few key 'stats' such as what their top 3 sources of funding are, former employers, brief voting record summary etc. For so many politicians their motivations are so obvious when you see their records, but for most people that aren't willing to do a bit of digging, its essentially hidden in plain sight.

It's amazing how cheaply the public interest gets sold out for.

Really! To me, this suggests that the fundamental problem is the enormous size of USA. If it were replaced by twenty other nations each a twentieth the size, could the parasites even afford to subvert the popular will and well-being? Divide all those bribes by 20, and you're not left with much to corrupt a reasonable person.

> twenty other nations

Why not fifty-seven?

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