Holy fuck! As if Citizens United wasn’t bad enough. Our government is fully for sale now.
Its just out in the open. Corruption on full blast.
This is quid pro quo being ruled as NOT bribery because it comes to the person on the backside of the favor. This is almost certainly to do with the majority of the court recently being outed about the amount of high value bribes gifts/vacations they are getting from “friends”.
“We realized that people now knew the things we constantly do that are wrong, so we made them not wrong anymore.”
This is almost certainly to do with the majority of the court recently being outed about the amount of high value bribes gifts/vacations they are getting from “friends”.
Nah, this is a long running theme. In chronological order-
Sun Diamond Growers - The government must prove the bribe is actually connected to the act.
Skilling - Corruption charges require a second party to give you a bribe or kickback, self dealing is fine.
Citizens United - Money is political speech, and you can spend as much as you want on an election.
McDonnell - Acting as a pay to play gatekeeper is fine. Even if the government connects the bribe to the act.
Ted Cruz - Politicians can keep unspent campaign funds as long as they maintain the fiction of having lent the campaign money.
Snyder - Kickbacks aren’t actionable. <- We are here.
seems like a good thread to plug https://represent.us
they describe themselves as
RepresentUs is America’s leading nonpartisan anti-corruption organization fighting to fix our broken and ineffective government. We unite people across the political spectrum to pass laws that hold corrupt politicians accountable, defeat special interests, and force the government to meet the needs of the American people.
here’s their policy platform https://represent.us/policy-platform/
they claim to have played a part in over 185 pieces of legislation (mostly at the state level) that contributed to their core platform https://represent.us/our-wins/
here are their ongoing campaigns presented state by state https://represent.us/2024-campaigns/
nobody and no organization are perfect but I feel like most people can find something to agree on here
So that means that I can engage in a a little tax evasion, as a treat, right?
On a serious note, from the article:
the law makes it a very serious crime, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, for a federal official to accept a bribe
Can we start actually enforcing this please?
Define bribe and you’ll start to see where enforcing this becomes a problem. Especially with legalized corruption in the form of lobbying and ‘gifts’.
Well, federal officials are already forbidden from accepting gifts/anything valued more than $25 in one instance, and no more than $100 a year from any one group or person. Enforcing that seems like a good place to start.
Legislators, executives, and jurists aren’t officials in the sense you mean. They are referring to government employees, who can still receive every joyful punishment a prosecutor can dream of.
