BrainWorms

Because the people who decide what is legal are the people who benefit from it.

Lobbying is supposed to be making your case to a politician, and hoping they vote/propose a bill/etc. With that interest in mind. You yourself are allowed to lobby your congress critters...technically.

The lobbying is not the problem. The donations that sway opinions are the problem. If it was entirely unrelated to donations and the congress person was just hearing out all sides of an issue, that's a good thing.

If you ever called or wrote a letter to your congress person about an issue you cared about you were a lobbyist when you did that.

The problem is not lobbying, the problem is pay-for-play. Something like 80%-90% of candidates who spend the most money end up winning their election. Our politicians are owned by wealthy corporate interests who fund their elections. The solution is to get money — especially corporate money — out of politics.

There are a number of policy proposals that might limit the power of money in our politics, federally funded elections, regulations for how much air time each candidate gets, perhaps bring back the fairness doctrine, just to name a few.

In theory, it's partially meant to educate politicians who cannot be experts on everything in a world where information exponentially grows, but this system has clearly been intentionally used to abuse power.

That's the point. It is meant to be legalised bribery.

That is why the Democratic party drastically changed its primary rules after Carter was elected (to make them less democratic, and to give establishment elite party members more power).

They tried to tighten the collar on the public even more when Occasio-Cortez primaried an establishment Democrat.

The left-wing of the Democratic Party, including President Jimmy Carter, are the red-haired stepchildren of the party, and they'll never let us forget it.

There are more secret fascists than it appears who will Hail Hydra when Secret Hitler makes his appearance.

What are bribes? You mean lobbying? Totally different thing, look, the words have totally different letters!

Citizens United is one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court.

"Why are there bribes coming out of your Congress and Supreme Court, Seymour?"

"Uh! ...Ohh, those aren't bribes! It's speech! Speech from the free speech we're having. Mmmm, free speech!"

door slams "Phew"...🏃‍♂️🎼🎵🎵🎵🎶

Well, between that and Reagan and Iran Hostage Crisis.

That and his own party turned against him when it became apparent he cared more about the country than their profits

The guy facilitated crimes against humanity in Indonesia and Afghanistan. I'd rather an incompetent war criminal than a cold blooded architect of genocide.

He can also fund and arm the Indonesian government while it commits genocide in East Timor

And he wasn't competent. He squandered a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate for two years by sitting to the right of both chambers of Congress, and ended up heralding the deregulation and deunionization that we blame Reagan for.

Like all US Presidents, Carter is a piece of shit

Seriously. This is political discussion, but not news (current events).

Had to scroll all the way down for this comment. The only response to this article should be : "Thanks for making this happen"