Just remember Trump's DOJ (SDNY) prosecuted Michael Cohen for this same crime Trump is convicted of and Cohen served time in prison.
Just saying.
Just saying.
More Hunter Biden Bribe taking for Dad.
- Thread starter Butler1000
- Start date
You're cute.
The problem is the family, obviously.
There are all kinds of proposals to improve the status quo.
You can put in harder laws on lobbying and the revolving door. (I am not totally convinced by the "lifetime ban" some people have proposed, but a cooling off period makes sense.)
We can (and should) expand the definition of lobbying, because there are too many ways around that.
We can say no one connected to politics can sit on a corporate board. (I think most corporate boards are kind of bullshit anyway.)
Those are just a few off the top of my head and people have proposed more.
But that doesn't address the main thing YOU have complained about - Hunter Biden.
You have said repeatedly that paying the family is all just secret ways to bribe the main politician.
I have never seen ANYONE propose something that can fix that, since obviously ANY employment of a family member is a front for money laundering and bribes by your definition.
Unless you are proposing banning family members from working, you will always have someone who fits your criteria for corruption.
Those of us who think about these things more than you realize this.
So, things I said, now and in the past. We'll aren't you a smart cookie!
And my point stands. Changes won't be made, because the politicians, who do make the laws, and the party leaderships, who do set policy, are happy with the corruption. And will actively work to keep reformers out, or actively recruit them once in.
AOC as a prime recent example of how that works.
so what laws would you make to stop this ? Not allow campaign contributions ? exile all family members of politicians to a deserted island where there is no currency ? an extreme form of communism which bans all currency and personal property is the only way to accomplish this utopia you dream of
He already gave a list of changes he would make.
I pointed out they wouldn't apply to Hunter's work with Burisma.
Really fixing the problem isn't because of Butler's "Everyone I disagree with is a crook" theory.
Yes, getting reform passed through an institution is hard, but it can be done.
But drafting a law that actually stops all corruption is unbelievably hard unless you are wildly authoritarian.
(Then you just get different corruption.)
You can mitigate some things, and you can make it better, but since Butler doesn't actually care about corruption, he cares about having a stick to wield against people he doesn't like, it will never be enough.
Part of butler's issue is that he's declared all politicians are crooks but he only wants dems arrested. So he needs to frame a law that can be used on anyone but somehow doesn't apply to republicans and be can used on all politicians even if they are honest.
So likely he'll have to come up with all politicians, their families and staff who work with anyone on the GOP list of people who don't donate to the party should be charged, but only because they are corrupt because they don't support the incredibly honest GOP team.
No stock market speculation, and all immediate family(parents, children, spouses, and siblings) stock portfolios to be reported. Politicians money goes into a separate account similar to CPP, at arms length, later withdrawn. No government contracts to businesses connected to sitting politicians and immediate family where they donated to a party. As in ownership, board positions. Senior (VP and up) positions. I know this is a tough one. But it means companies have to make a choice in who they give money too(also see below for best scenario) , disclose it, and know that the hiring a of Senior person to gain access to lobbying won't work.
No lobbying period by the above family members. Lifetime ban to all sitting politicians and senior military members(colonel, Generals, Admirals etc) to lobbying.
Term limits. This will absolutely slow down the ability to corrupt. 6 terms Congress, 3 terms senate.
I would also expand Congress. To where 1 Rep per 200,000 residents max is the norm, minimum say 150,000. This would dilute the pool of money from special interest groups, reduce the amount needed to be elected. And create an increased likelihood of 3rd party party opportunities. With this I would eliminate the primaries. Parties put forth candidates how ever they like but no taxpayer money used to determine it. Eliminate registration for party affiliation. This is the tool of gerrymandering. It's how they draw the lines. A simple block structure to determine districts.
While dark money is legal and not going away I see no reason to try to bring light on it. Treat it as campaign contributions. Make all donations spending reportable to the public. It's a start. From there continue to test laws to limit contributions.
Ban all corporate donations to political parties. I don't care they are considered so called "people". The laws can be rewritten to disclude them from this. This would eliminate the need to punish family members by eliminating the chance for legal graft. It's a choice.
Oh no, I think the GO are equally bad. It hits them just as hard. See above. The point is to break the system.
next question is - why in the flying fuck would anyone want to be a politician if it didnt involve enriching themselves ? look at the garbage running for US president. Who wants to be put under a microscope and not allowed to go for a walk without bodyguards ? sounds like absolute hell to me. Look at the shit bags running now - just imagine if they had way less incentive and their families and friends put under strict control by the IRS. Nobody in their right fucking mind would run - some people running now arent in their right fucking mind already.
How about more Bernie Sanders rather than more Nancy Pelosi? You would get people willing to sacrifice for public service rather than benefit from it.
You really just made the case.......
why would anyone do public service for free and throw in your family and friends have their lives torn apart, but then for them not to benefit from your legacy ? no thanks. there are some great people that could be president, prime minister etc, but they dont want to be. Wouldnt you rather be rich and anonymous than paid a couple hundred grand to ruin your life ?
How can they be great when their prime motivation is greed and not the betterment of the nation? I also have no problem with paying them more, adding in a housing and travel allowance. And a decent pension as well.
In the past many elected officials weren't in it as a career but a stop on a life journey. They went to represent their local people. Or with a issue dear to their heart to try to get addressed. And we're going up for a period before going back to private life.
I believe we need more like that.
Expanding the reporting out to the immediate family is probably do-able.
There also needs to be significant work done in making these reports more available and searchable to the general public.
(You can get them now but they are a huge pain in the ass.)
I think the blind trust solution is probably the acceptable compromise.
I don't love the idea of a single account all the politicians are forced to move their assets to.
This can be fine, sure, but again - given your Hunter Biden obsession, this does nothing to fix that.
The companies he was a board member for weren't getting government contracts.
A huge part of the corporate corruption we see doesn't involve government contracts.
Cutting this off is fine and has some specific merit because it is a direct line of an apparent conflict of interest, but it doesn't seem to address the thing you have been complaining about.
I've gone back and forth on the ban being lifetime.
I've seen it being pitched by people I respect and I've seen the counter of a cool off period with significant length being enough to blunt the immediate cut a deal aspect while still allowing people to work as they want.
That's a "don't make the perfect the enemy of the good" argument, so I wouldn't fight a lifetime ban if it became the consensus approach.
Fundamentally terrible idea that is actually pro-corruption.
Although given you've made the Senate one an 18-year limit, it might be salvageable. (Probably better if it was 4 terms.)
Make the House one 9 terms so they are equal if you are keeping 18.
About 60-70% of Congress turns over every 12 years, so if you put the term limits outside that normal bound, the damage probably won't be too bad.
Been arguing for this for years.
I've usually supported the cube-root rule as a way to figure out the numbers, but have over time begun to like bringing back the original first amendment (slightly tweaked and clarified) as the way to figure out the number of reps.
Which, coincidentally, would put the re-apportionment after the 2030 census at ~ 1/190,000 residents or ~1/200,000 depending on what the exact census number comes in as. (Probably, 1/200,000).
It would reduce that entry barrier but change nothing about the other structural issues working against 3rd parties.
I do think the general larger number of seats would allow for some regional third party blocs to form local 2-party duopolies.
Much bigger reforms are needed to get real third parties in the US system.
Back to pre-1968?
A hard sell in the US, given the popular sentiment has been that voters should be allowed to have input.
That said, the primary system is a fucking mess (like most of the voting system in the US).
If you overhauled the whole system, this would be part of it.
Of course, at this point we aren't talking about family corruption issues anymore.
They don't draw lines based on registration. (There is a LOT more that goes into it.)
I assume you are arguing for removing registration for when you register to vote, not stopping people from joining parties.
An Electoral commission such as the one in Canada would be better for districts, but I would also prefer it be national.
Take the "how you choose your delegates is up to your state" concept completely away. (Especially if they aren't going to all experiment with different systems.)
But this gets back to the whole "Overhaul the entire voting system" concept in general.
Dark money is called that because it isn't reported. (Well, the donors aren't disclosed.)
You can't say "it isn't going away" if your whole proposal is to make it go away.
They should keep passing laws to push here, but until the Supreme Court changes, it's going to be rough sledding.
Banning SSFs entirely or banning all contributions by anyone on a board or in a senior position in a corporation?
I don't understand how you think this addresses that issue.
How does banning the ability of a Corporation to make a PAC address the family member corruption question?
"Break the system" doesn't mean anything without an idea of what system you want in place instead.
Because there a number of people who think public service is valuable.
If these changes actually pushed the people who thought it was a quick road to huge riches out, things would probably be better.
No one is saying they have to do it for free.
They would still be paid.
Asset declaration by your family members doesn't seem egregious.
The bans on employment are probably the biggest issue in terms of 'is this an unfair imposition on people who aren't actually running', but nothing else that was proposed there was particularly egregious.
Notice how many you agree with and how many we are close on?Expanding the reporting out to the immediate family is probably do-able.
There also needs to be significant work done in making these reports more available and searchable to the general public.
(You can get them now but they are a huge pain in the ass.)
I think the blind trust solution is probably the acceptable compromise.
I don't love the idea of a single account all the politicians are forced to move their assets to.
This can be fine, sure, but again - given your Hunter Biden obsession, this does nothing to fix that.
The companies he was a board member for weren't getting government contracts.
A huge part of the corporate corruption we see doesn't involve government contracts.
Cutting this off is fine and has some specific merit because it is a direct line of an apparent conflict of interest, but it doesn't seem to address the thing you have been complaining about.
I've gone back and forth on the ban being lifetime.
I've seen it being pitched by people I respect and I've seen the counter of a cool off period with significant length being enough to blunt the immediate cut a deal aspect while still allowing people to work as they want.
That's a "don't make the perfect the enemy of the good" argument, so I wouldn't fight a lifetime ban if it became the consensus approach.
Fundamentally terrible idea that is actually pro-corruption.
Although given you've made the Senate one an 18-year limit, it might be salvageable. (Probably better if it was 4 terms.)
Make the House one 9 terms so they are equal if you are keeping 18.
About 60-70% of Congress turns over every 12 years, so if you put the term limits outside that normal bound, the damage probably won't be too bad.
Been arguing for this for years.
I've usually supported the cube-root rule as a way to figure out the numbers, but have over time begun to like bringing back the original first amendment (slightly tweaked and clarified) as the way to figure out the number of reps.
Which, coincidentally, would put the re-apportionment after the 2030 census at ~ 1/190,000 residents or ~1/200,000 depending on what the exact census number comes in as. (Probably, 1/200,000).
It would reduce that entry barrier but change nothing about the other structural issues working against 3rd parties.
I do think the general larger number of seats would allow for some regional third party blocs to form local 2-party duopolies.
Much bigger reforms are needed to get real third parties in the US system.
Back to pre-1968?
A hard sell in the US, given the popular sentiment has been that voters should be allowed to have input.
That said, the primary system is a fucking mess (like most of the voting system in the US).
If you overhauled the whole system, this would be part of it.
Of course, at this point we aren't talking about family corruption issues anymore.
They don't draw lines based on registration. (There is a LOT more that goes into it.)
I assume you are arguing for removing registration for when you register to vote, not stopping people from joining parties.
An Electoral commission such as the one in Canada would be better for districts, but I would also prefer it be national.
Take the "how you choose your delegates is up to your state" concept completely away. (Especially if they aren't going to all experiment with different systems.)
But this gets back to the whole "Overhaul the entire voting system" concept in general.
Dark money is called that because it isn't reported. (Well, the donors aren't disclosed.)
You can't say "it isn't going away" if your whole proposal is to make it go away.
They should keep passing laws to push here, but until the Supreme Court changes, it's going to be rough sledding.
Banning SSFs entirely or banning all contributions by anyone on a board or in a senior position in a corporation?
I don't understand how you think this addresses that issue.
How does banning the ability of a Corporation to make a PAC address the family member corruption question?
"Break the system" doesn't mean anything without an idea of what system you want in place instead.
Yes.
It's too bad you're so convinced none of this can happen and are so enamoured of your own flights of fancy
Politicians, under pressure from activists.
Just like every other reform that has ever happened.
Lol. You mean like Bernie Sanders? Who was repeatedly derailed? Or AOC? Now co-opted? Or the Tea Party, also co-opted or ran out?
Where are these reformers, and how exactly do do think the donors will allow them into positions of power in either party.
Unless of course you are discussing a third party?
