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List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

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Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#61

Post by gfaremil »

gammarator wrote: post #50

Both California Senators (Boxer and Feinstein) are supporters (and co-sponsors!) of Protect-IP. Silicon Valley needs to make its voice heard, and soon.

And they both live in San Francisco - which shows that it is all about $$ and not about their political views or principles.

So this is one of the problems I can see with politics today: politicians have no views or principles you can count on. Everything is depended on how much money they get (of course they all stick and talk about wedge issues such as guns, gays, and god which are really stupid).

That is one of main reason people like Ron Paul: you know what you get.

Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#63

Post by beagle3 »

Natsu wrote: post #52
windexh8er wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Al Franken is a joke. Initially I thought he had good intent, but then I realized he's just another shit "actor" turned "politician". Unfortunately those words are more interchangeable than ever and reflects the current state of dismal affairs that is the United States government as a whole.

Actors possess most of the skills required to get elected. A successful actor starts out being well-liked, well-known and rich. They also have an easy time getting press and experience dealing with them. Knowing what the hell you're doing is, sadly, not required.

> Knowing what the hell you're doing is, sadly, not required.

This sentiment is exactly why they can keep doing it.

It reflects an implicit (and unfortunately, widely held) assumption that they're trying to get elected to help their fellow men, constituents and otherwise do good.

Sadly, there is no supporting evidence for this assumption, and endless supporting evidence against it.

Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#64

Post by evoxed »

Jach wrote: post #49
ams6110 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those sources are definitely not unbiased. I'm sure you know this, so you need to either temper them with some Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, or seek out some neutral reporting (sadly hard to find).

They may be biased but they're nowhere near the level of make-stuff-up and outright brainwashing that Limbaugh and Hannity are at so frequently. I wouldn't recommend those characters to anyone. Plus the Daily Show is primarily comedy rather than news, the news is incidental to understanding the comedy. I get my primary news from non-US websites like BBC and Al Jazeera (and tech-specific websites like Ars for interest…

Well Rush Limbaugh is comedy too, in a "Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood-want-to-throw-up-in-your-mouth-it's-so-bad" kind of way.

Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#65

Post by fl3tch »

fecklessyouth wrote: post #7

Biggest surprise among supporters: Al "Net Neutrality is the 1st Amendment issue of our time" Franken. Among opponents: Bachmann.

Yeah, Bachmann stood out to me, too. Really shows that even a broken clock is right sometimes.

Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#67

Post by noahc »

asdfasdghasdf wrote: post #56
noahc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to understand this you have to understand that in American corporations are persons. When Mitt Romney said, "Corporations are people too" at the Iowa State Fair he wasn't sharing his own personal beliefs. Instead he was telling the truth. See Corporate Personhood[1] for more. From this it follows that Corporations have the right to free speech. This is where the supreme court ruled[2] that it is unconstituti…

While this has been true for the past year, the linked page gets its data from OpenSecrets which tracks only hard money donations to campaigns. It's tracking almost entirely donations from people who work in the given industries, so I think it's misleading to bring up corporate personhood here.

It's not hard to imagine that hard money can be used as a proxy for soft money to some multiple. For example soft money is 78x what the hard money is.

Hard money donations are often given by corporations through PACs as well. The reason this is allowed? Corporations have personhood. Your other post is correct and I'm not down voting you, but if you really want to understand corporate money in politics you need to understand corporate personhood.

If anything the numbers are misleading, because all it really tells you how much people who identify their employer are really giving. That's just demographic data, not proof of a particular policy.

Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#68

Post by Natsu »

beagle3 wrote: post #63
Natsu wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actors possess most of the skills required to get elected. A successful actor starts out being well-liked, well-known and rich. They also have an easy time getting press and experience dealing with them. Knowing what the hell you're doing is, sadly, not required.

> Knowing what the hell you're doing is, sadly, not required. This sentiment is exactly why they can keep doing it. It reflects an implicit (and unfortunately, widely held) assumption that they're trying to get elected to help their fellow men, constituents and otherwise do good. Sadly, there is no supporting evidence for this assumption, and endless supporting evidence against it.

While I value competence and indeed vote with it in mind, it has not proven to be a prerequisite to getting elected.

Understanding the problems is an important first step towards solving them, but understanding alone is, obviously, not enough to fix the problems here.

Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#69

Post by miked »

josh33 wrote: post #55
wyclif wrote: post #51

Note that Rep. Ron Paul is the only current Presidential candidate that opposes SOPA.

Yes, but many are not members of congress currently - Romney and Gingrich being 2 specifically.

Also, former Senator Christopher Dodd is now CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/201...

Re: List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

#70

Post by tzs »

jsundquist wrote: post #3

Very depressing. Almost without any exception (I admit there are a couple) every single for or against can be determined by how much money they get from the computer industry(Against) or from the Music / Movie industry (For). All of this happens across party lines...

Why is that depressing? If your company were going to make a political contribution, wouldn't you pick politicians whose record indicates they agree with your positions?
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