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How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#31

Post by michaelt »

telltruth wrote: post #12
propman wrote: post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

To me it looks like US Congress is dirt cheap. Just few thousand dollars to pass laws that would have massive impact! Top countries spend billions on military and trying to revive their economies. With a tiny fraction of that budget you can buy lots of US politicians legally and easily generate desired effect. The beauty of this whole thing is that everything is legal. Rich folks even made sure you can have unlimited…

  To me it looks like US Congress is dirt cheap. [...] No
  need to debate gun laws. Who ever is able to beat auction
  gets their say.
The cost of a bribe depends on multiple factors - but one of the most key ones is how important an issue is in terms of publicity and re-election chances.

A senator won't take a bribe that lets them buy campaign ads that get them 3000 votes if it requires them to take a position that loses them 4000 votes.

So it's cheap to bribe a politician to support some trivial matter that won't make the news, like not auditing the use of subsidised water for agriculture; but expensive to bribe a politician on matters voters will find out about and care about, like abortion and gun control.

This is part of what gives groups like the NRA their power; by keeping their members informed, they convert trivial, cheap-to-bribe issues into important, expensive-to-bribe issues.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#33

Post by enraged_camel »

telltruth wrote: post #15
dmode wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, if you think they are doing great reporting, isn't it worth to pay for a subscription? It is dirt cheap for Prime members

No it isn't because there are other dozens of such outlets there. I can't buy dozens of subscriptions for everyone doing good reporting. Either they have to come up with some subscription bundle that covers large number of outlets (like Netflix or Google Music) or rely on ad revenues. I just don't know why these people don't think of this and just assume people would just swipe away their credit cards for new subscri…

I disagree. Very few outlets are as high quality as WaPo in my opinion.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#34

Post by wahsd »

Feniks wrote: post #32

The US has decided that its politicians are for auction. I don't see why its a problem if the bidding is from China instead of Comcast? Besides foreign governments have been lobbying in Washington for decades. There is a whole industry about it.

It's almost even more sickening that our "media" and "news" are totally and utterly compromised. The corruption or even impropriety is really the secondary story when the whole structure and process for holding them accountable is corrupt and rotten and just plain blind with incompetence, ineptitude and stifling bias.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#36

Post by skj »

propman wrote: post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

FYI: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/apr/28/...

Unless you meant something else, just more garbage.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#37

Post by mac01021 »

corvallis wrote: post #18
telltruth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't because there are other dozens of such outlets there. I can't buy dozens of subscriptions for everyone doing good reporting. Either they have to come up with some subscription bundle that covers large number of outlets (like Netflix or Google Music) or rely on ad revenues. I just don't know why these people don't think of this and just assume people would just swipe away their credit cards for new subscri…

How many newspapers do you need to read in order to be well informed? I subscribe to two newspapers and a magazine. I don’t feel like adding more would give me additional value. Surely you wouldn’t feel the need to read every newspaper in existence to feel well informed. I encourage you to subscribe to one or two that you feel provide a valuable product to you.

If there was a way to get a single subscription for access to every article linked from HN (whether it be from NYT, WaPo, WSJ, or whatever) I might pay for that. I don't think most people read a newspaper front to back anymore.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#38

Post by tome »

sien wrote: post #22
propman wrote: post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman. Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress. http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti... Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore... The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions an…

Israel has never been a signatory to the NPT (unlike North Korea and Iran). As far as I understand they are under no obligations not to develop nuclear weapons technology and they do not have the right to help with civilian nuclear infrastructure programmes that signatories have.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#39

Post by Vinnl »

propman wrote: post #8

Foreign influence in congress may not be the biggest threat to Democracy, but it is one of my biggest pet peeves. A country has vastly greater resources that any other individual, business or entitity. A foreign country's intentions are also potentially far more nefarious than a company lobbying to make more profit in a capatilistic system or an individual wanting government policies to be shaped more according to hi…

I have a different but somewhat similar concern: whatever the US (or other influential country's) government does also largely impacts my country, yet we have no democratic say in that what-so-ever.

Re: How China got a U.S. senator to do its political bidding

#40

Post by Udik »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #29
sien wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article bangs on about how China got a single US congressman. Israel has enormous influence over the whole of congress. http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2017/07/17/aipac-sti... Mearsheimer and Walt is still the big book on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore... The US give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. Allows them to disgregard UN resolutions an…

Reminds me of how the NRA is supported by a small but active part of the population that votes. Jews may be small in number but I would bet dollars to Latka’s that they vote. If Tech issues brought people out to vote like guns or Israel I bet we would have more engineers in Congress.

Jewish Americans are about 2.6% of the US population. I doubt that their obviously disproportionate influence in politics is carried out through democratic vote. Channelling donations and exerting pressure by means of well organized lobbies is a much more effective way of getting what you want.
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