Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell bluntly warned Republican senators in a private meeting not to sign on to a bill from Sen. Josh Hawley aimed at limiting corporate money bankrolling high-powered outside groups, telling them that many of them won their seats thanks to the powerful super PAC the Kentucky Republican has long controlled.

    • Lophostemon@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      Yes! I’m confused! Hawley has always been a shithead. What’s changed!!?! I’m not complaining, just curious… and a little suspicious.

      • DigitalTraveler42@lemm.ee
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        He’s still a shit head, he just probably thinks this will limit corporate money to Dems, plus most of the Republican party takes donations from shady or compromised sources like the NRA, so it doesn’t hurt them as much to limit corporate contributions.

        • HurlingDurling@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Shhhh… Let them think they’ll own the libs on this “terrible bill for democrats” wink wink

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
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        He may actually be dumb enough to believe that such legislation would hurt Democrats more than Republicans.

    • yata@sh.itjust.works
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      He doesn’t, and he won’t. It is part of their culture war against woke. It will not end in any legislation, but it will be repeated ad nauseum in the press as if it was actually serious, and his voters will lap it up.

    • Riskable@programming.dev
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      The more extreme the Republican party becomes the more likely it is that big corporations will fund Democrat opponents.

    • Maeve@kbin.social
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      Yes; either redemption is possible and a choice or there’s an angle. And this is not a partisan issue.

  • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    Imagine being about to die any day now, and still using your failing, literally sputtering life force to proactively stand for enduring corruption even when you’re gone and will no longer profit from it, as if the corporations that bribe the Republicans and Neoliberals will be able to send the bribe checks to hell or something.

    There aren’t many villains, even in fiction, that lack any nuance to this degree. McConnell truly is a palpatine-esque cartoon of malevolence.

    • Jarmer@slrpnk.net
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      He really is one of the most evil humans to ever exist in the USA. PLEASE can he die soon. PLEASE. The earth needs a win.

      • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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        Jesus, I can just picture the Heritage Foundation fascist thinktank rolling a screen onto the Senate floor that’s some janky McConnell LLM Max Headroom looking AI to tell the Senate Republicans what to think.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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          Now that’s an obscure reference. I was a kid in the 80s, and there were whole decades of my life where, if I thought about Max Headroom at all, I suspected I had just hallucinated the whole thing.

  • Jeff@lemm.ee
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    Let them eat their own faces. Corruption of these folks Tammany Hall level is where we are again.

      • yata@sh.itjust.works
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        He doesn’t though. It is all culture war posturing:

        “Let’s get one thing straight,” Hawley bellowed this summer, “Corporations are not people.” The crowd, this one gathered in Washington for the social conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition summit, barely stirred. But then they erupted when the populist senator continued, “I’ve got news for these woke corporations: We are not going to surrender this nation to the cultural Marxists in the C-suite.”

        • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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          This is typical conservative behavior. The moment the status quo does not benefit themselves, they become stridently progressive on that one issue.

          Notice the subtext. Woke corporations and C-suite Marxists. He’s opposed to corporations funding his opponents, and he finally got around to doing the math on Citizens United and realized that most corporations aren’t run by fundamentalists and bigots.

          Money isn’t speech, and corporations aren’t people. I’ve always said that. But the only reason Hawley agrees with me now is that the “people” are “saying” they don’t want to be associated with fascists and terrorists.

          • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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            But that’s…fine. Because corporationsa aren’t fuckin “woke” either. Corporations help nothing but corporations. Overturning citizens united does not change if their reasons for wanting to overturn it are stupid. These people are stupid. If they want to do the right thing for the stupidest, most incorrect reasons…it’s still getting the right thing done.

            • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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              I agree with you completely. It just seems like a lot of people are confused about being on the same side of an argument as Hawley when they know what a selfish gasbag he is. He hasn’t changed in the slightest, and hasn’t become a better person or principled in any way. His interests align with the greater good right now, and he’ll be useful as long as that’s true.

        • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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          The cultural Marxists in the C-suite

          Wtf does that even mean? It’s just a nonsensical jumble of buzzwords thrown together. The crowd cheered for that?

        • Telorand@reddthat.com
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          Knew it. He’s cutting off his nose to spite his face.

          Edit: However, in this case, the nose has cancer, so maybe it could accidentally wind up being a good thing. Is he doing something he thinks is so evil, he’s flipped back to good, like an old videogame score…?

        • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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          Must be an ulterior motive, like corporations being people makes anti abortion legislation impossible to write in legaleaze or similar.

      • eric@lemmy.world
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        It pisses me off that I agree with Hawley about anything, but here we are.

        • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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          I think it’s always important to remember that people like him aren’t evil incarnate they just have radically different worldviews, the majority of which I vehemently disagree with, but there’s always some commonality out there somewhere. Cory Booker is working with Hawley on child labor prevention.

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
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    McConnell’s undeath can only be maintained by a constant flow of bribery cash. Nonexistent campaign finance law is where he hides his phylactery.

  • dynamojoe@lemmy.world
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    What’s the catch? What is Hawley’s new source of funds that he has and the Establishment GOP doesn’t have? There’s no way in hell that seditious pigfucker would cut off the money supply unless he’s got a private source.

    • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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      As I understand it, the more extreme nutcases like Hawley and MTG get much more of their funding from small donations. They make the news for saying insane shit and being controversial, spread their crazy bullshit on social media, and then get money pouring in from around the country.

      I think it’s clear at this point that the MAGA Republicans are willing to undermine their party as a whole if it fits their agenda. What do they care, anyone who isn’t 100% loyal to their movement is just a RINO anyway, right?

    • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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      Maybe I’m being overly optimistic but it’s at least possible he just thinks it’s wrong. He’s a grade A schmuck but like it or not he is a senator. Maybe this could create bipartisan support to over turn Citizens United.

    • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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      I replied to another comment saying that it’s important to remember that these people are not evil incarnate. Many of them just have a radically different worldview, one that I strenuously disagree with in many ways, but that doesn’t mean there can’t ever be compatibility. Cory Booker is working with Hawley to combat child labor. Booker disagrees with Hawley on a lot of stuff but he’ll put that aside to work on something productive.

      • halferect@lemmy.world
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        Gacy was a great member of the community and helped at hospitals and charitable event but he also murdered a lot of people and I can say he was evil. Is Hawley evil I would say yes, can he do right things sometimes? Sure but his end game is inherently evil

    • oyo@lemm.ee
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      It only applies to publicly traded companies, which tend to be beholden to the “woke, oppressive majority” of society. Private companies would remain free to funnel unlimited funds to their choice of shithead.

  • buzz86us@lemmy.world
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    I vote we have a law where politicians have to have logos of their sponsors emblazoned on all their suits

    • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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      This. Lawmakers should have to dress in polyester jumpsuits, covered in advertising, just like the folks in “Idiocracy.” If they’re going to BE removed, they might as well LOOK like them.

    • nxdefiant@startrek.website
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      s/uits/kins

      and now im with you.

      It’ll be awkward when they all have 666 branded on their foreheads though

  • fluxion@lemmy.world
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    Yes just keep handing our democracy over to the highest bidders and see how this all ends

    • Unaware7013@kbin.social
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      You make it sound like that’s not the express aim of the mainstream republican politicians. This isn’t a bug to them, it’s a feature.

        • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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          One of the most successful con-jobs ever was convince people that all Democrats and all Republicans are the same because all it does it create apathy among democratic voters and help Republicans get elected.

          • jas0n@lemmy.world
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            Hey, you guys remember that time that Democrat president refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, refused to accept that he lost the election and said that Congress shouldn’t certify the vote? Then, most of the Democrats in Congress just blindly agreed and said fuck the vote results, let’s keep this guy!

            Yeah, that was pretty treasonous of those Democrats.

              • SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world
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                The FBI, DOJ and CIA are all infiltrated by antifa to the point of them only charging the trump supporters who got caught up in the crowd, swayed by the agent provocateurs into doing things they never would.

                That’s why the only people charged so far are Trump loyalists even though we all know that BLM and antifa (who were sponsored by Bud Light and Target) actually caused it.

          • Asafum@feddit.nl
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            I cannot fucking stand the fact that EVERYTHING that comes up in politics is always dismissed as “equal.” Every fucking time… “Republicans did x,y,z” “yeah? Well Democrats did a,b,c so it’s the same thing.”

            Then as you say the apathy kicks in and it allows you to say “fuck it, I’m still voting for R)Mr.Babykiller because D)Mrs.Babypincher is just as bad plus she’s a communist Venezuela socialism or whatever Tucker Carlson said she was.”

          • N-E-N@lemmy.ca
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            Idk man, as a Canadian looking at US politics from outside, it seems kinda naive to presume Dems aren’t also incredibly corrupt.

            But yes Trump and his goonies are another level

    • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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      From the article:

      Hawley’s new bill, called the Ending Corporate Influence on Elections Act, is aimed at reversing the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that loosened campaign finance laws

  • j4k3@lemmy.world
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    Anyone resisting corruption legislation should be placed under direct investigation, prosecuted, and made into the primary benchmark example.

      • tory@lemmy.world
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        Manufactured consent, the two party system, and entertainment “news” ensure that will never happen.

        • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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          People have a right to vote and access to accurate news if they care enough to look for it. It’s pathetically easy to stay informed in this day and age.

          • maskofdaisies@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            Accurate news is only accessible to people who can read it. And sadly, a majority of the US lacks the literacy skills to do that. Additionally, voter suppression in the US is becoming increasingly common with some nonprofits seeing the US becoming less democratic over time. Combine this with recent efforts to sabotage education even more, and it becomes unlikely that voting will meaningfully change anything.

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
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              The only ones at fault for all of those problems are the American people themselves. As long as they continue to play victim and blame everyone else for their problems instead of working to fix what has been broken and combat tyranny, even at the cost of their own lives, nothing will change.

              But they won’t because they are selfish, cowardly, immature, abusive and cruel, so nothing will change for them.

            • Salamendacious@lemmy.worldOP
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              Voting is the only way anything has any chance of changing. What if the other option? Hoping? Protesting? Complaining on message boards won’t ever change anything. A lot of users are here because reddit became significantly worse. Lots of mods and users protested and subreddits went dark. Did that accomplish anything? You can’t vote for the board of directors at reddit but you can vote for your government. If you want better policies the only option is to vote.

    • Bernie_Sandals@lemmy.world
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      I’ve been thinking about this for awhile cause Gates has said some similar stuff in the past, I’m guessing they’re scared of establishment republican PACS turning on them.

      Idk though, the so called “establishment” republican elite hasn’t done much against Trump and his cronies the past 8 years

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    Looks like someone is afraid of the truth… Good. Let the truth out, and let it hurt.