4 ms·

It's bizarre seeing the outright bribery. A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office. You

by jfengel 8mo ago

It's bizarre seeing the outright bribery. A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office. You couldn't give money directly to the candidate for personal use. Donations went to the campaign of the guy who already agreed with you. The FEC used to take a dim view of outright pay-for-service, even dressed up. This is new. And now people need to decide how they feel about that. They get one chance to say "no, that's not how we do things." Even if the administration suffers a blow this November, if they hear that this is mostly acceptable to their base, it will be what every politician does from here on.

wrqvrwvq 8mo ago
In what sense is this new, other than a different side cares about the optics?
- mikestew 8mo ago
  OP explained it clearly: “you couldn’t $1, now you can”. It would be helpful if you explained which part did you not understand. Alternatively, that barking sound I hear might be a sea lion.
specialist 8mo ago
IANAL, IIRC: SCOTUS has very narrowly defined bribery as explicit quid pro quo. And sometimes not even then.
- RajT88 8mo ago
  You recall correctly. And they did so, so they could take bribes with no consequences as long as they take them the right way.
  - nobody9999 8mo ago
    >And they did so, so they could take bribes with no consequences as long as they take them the right way. Yep. cf. Snyder v. United States[0] [0] https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scope-of-anti-bribery-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop...
- roughly 8mo ago
  Trevor Noah pretty much nailed this in the first Trump admin: https://x.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105 https://x.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105
  - trymas 8mo ago
    https://xcancel.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105 https://xcancel.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105
coldtea 8mo ago
>A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office. Having a preferred candidate you give money to is already bribery - whatever the law says. You fund your favorite pony to get the power. They then scratch your back or lend a sympathetic ear.
- Nevermark 8mo ago
  Simply spending money to get someone you like elected isn’t bribery. To the degree great inequality leads to this being decisive in elections, it is a corrupting influence, but the term for it is still not “bribery”. But when a presidential candidate tells oil companies they should donate because he is going to help them, that’s solid bribery. When companies pay to “settle” ridiculous accusations, or “donate” to a president’s causes, while their mergers or other business legal issues depend on an openly pay-for-play president’s goodwill, that’s solid bribery. The country’s policies, discipline, reputation and competence (economic, diplomatic and political) are being sold off for a tiny fraction of what their future adjusted value is worth.
  - yencabulator 8mo ago
    In actual functioning democracies political donations are capped severely. Say, a single donor can contribute a maximum of €6,000 per parliament candidate per election. Yes, that's a real limit.
    - kelnos 8mo ago
      We used to have laws like that, but apparently our supreme court believes that bribing politicians is political speech, and curtailing that speech is unconstitutional, so... It's so broken.
      - apparent 8mo ago
        Are you aware that the Citizens United case was actually about a movie? It wasn't about handing someone a stack of cash. When I see perspectives like yours, I wonder what you would say is the right way to handle the question of whether someone can make a movie that portrays a candidate in a positive or negative light. It seems to be pretty clearly a matter of free speech (first amendment), so unless there's some other provision of the constitution that would override that, I don't see how it could be forbidden. To the extent that a pretty big chunk of donations are used to fund very short movies (we call them ads) for or against candidates, I'm not sure how that can be distinguished. I could see how one would distinguish get-out-the-vote or other similar non-speech type activities, but those on the Left seem to not oppose such expenditures.

by jfengel 8mo ago

wrqvrwvq 8mo ago

In what sense is this new, other than a different side cares about the optics?

mikestew 8mo ago
OP explained it clearly: “you couldn’t $1, now you can”. It would be helpful if you explained which part did you not understand. Alternatively, that barking sound I hear might be a sea lion.

specialist 8mo ago

IANAL, IIRC: SCOTUS has very narrowly defined bribery as explicit quid pro quo. And sometimes not even then.

RajT88 8mo ago
You recall correctly. And they did so, so they could take bribes with no consequences as long as they take them the right way.
- nobody9999 8mo ago
  >And they did so, so they could take bribes with no consequences as long as they take them the right way. Yep. cf. Snyder v. United States[0] [0] https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scope-of-anti-bribery-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop...
roughly 8mo ago
Trevor Noah pretty much nailed this in the first Trump admin: https://x.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105 https://x.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105
- trymas 8mo ago
  https://xcancel.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105 https://xcancel.com/thedailyshow/status/1177221786720559105

coldtea 8mo ago

>A lot of things that people call "bribery" is really just ensuring that your preferred candidate gets in office. Having a preferred candidate you give money to is already bribery - whatever the law says. You fund your favorite pony to get the power. They then scratch your back or lend a sympathetic ear.

Nevermark 8mo ago
Simply spending money to get someone you like elected isn’t bribery. To the degree great inequality leads to this being decisive in elections, it is a corrupting influence, but the term for it is still not “bribery”. But when a presidential candidate tells oil companies they should donate because he is going to help them, that’s solid bribery. When companies pay to “settle” ridiculous accusations, or “donate” to a president’s causes, while their mergers or other business legal issues depend on an openly pay-for-play president’s goodwill, that’s solid bribery. The country’s policies, discipline, reputation and competence (economic, diplomatic and political) are being sold off for a tiny fraction of what their future adjusted value is worth.
- yencabulator 8mo ago
  In actual functioning democracies political donations are capped severely. Say, a single donor can contribute a maximum of €6,000 per parliament candidate per election. Yes, that's a real limit.
  - kelnos 8mo ago
    We used to have laws like that, but apparently our supreme court believes that bribing politicians is political speech, and curtailing that speech is unconstitutional, so... It's so broken.
    - apparent 8mo ago
      Are you aware that the Citizens United case was actually about a movie? It wasn't about handing someone a stack of cash. When I see perspectives like yours, I wonder what you would say is the right way to handle the question of whether someone can make a movie that portrays a candidate in a positive or negative light. It seems to be pretty clearly a matter of free speech (first amendment), so unless there's some other provision of the constitution that would override that, I don't see how it could be forbidden. To the extent that a pretty big chunk of donations are used to fund very short movies (we call them ads) for or against candidates, I'm not sure how that can be distinguished. I could see how one would distinguish get-out-the-vote or other similar non-speech type activities, but those on the Left seem to not oppose such expenditures.