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Comment by skinfaxi | Hacker News Reader

> JON TESTER: You know, a perception is reality in Washington, D.C. and in politics in general. But the fact is that I think Palantir's got a good story to tell, and they need to tell it. And hopefully folks will be receptive to it.

These people are a cancer.

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This tells you all you need to know about politics and who elected people work for, it's a cancer that you can "hire" people to go and "talk" to another people in congress, what an infinite level of corruption.

Sometimes you have to buy Trumpcoins first before meeting with certain politicians. The most powerful politicians just do it in the open like never before.

The levels of hell run deep, and we just got schooled as to how deep. The revolving door is the surface, POTUS shitcoin was next level, pumping and dumping the world economy with fake Iran announcements to insider trade it and brag about it on national TV was next level, and there are levels beyond these.

Revolving door is a bit gross but we've just seen sooooooooo much worse.

I'm probably more worried that any corporation or trillionaire can dump limitless money into elections. That said, I'm encouraged to see that despite the far right buying up such a large share of the traditional and social media networks and astroturfing the shit out of our feeds with right wing AI slopaganda and dumping record setting sums into campaign ads that they still suffered a massive defeat.

Unfortunately, the defeat probably had less to do with their outright corruption and contempt toward American values or basic decency and probably everything to do with the cost of gas specifically.

That was a bit convoluted. I can tell you're very passionate and filled with hatred, but it seems your data on which US political party has more of a presence online and in traditional news media has been outdated since the early 90s.

They are correct. Efforts like the US TikTok acquisition and Warner Bros/Paramount merger were pushed through the FTC specifically to consolidate media power with GOP-friendly EOs like Safra Katz and Larry Ellison.

What causes you to disagree?

The fact that those, and Twitter, were recently bought and the mergers were allowed because they don't get close to the reach that Disney, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, and Threads), Google (especially Youtube), Netflix, Reddit, CNN, etc do. Do you really think these recent mergers have already produced biased content that gets more eyes per day than even the non-exhaustive list above? If so I encourage you to do some basic fact checking, and maybe I didn't account for something.

> the mergers were allowed because they don't get close to the reach that Disney, Meta [...]

Do you have a citation for that, or are you putting words into the FTC's mouth that nobody ever said?

You are every bit capable of googling it for yourself, this lazy behavior of asking for links is not a defense nor any kind of support for your argument.

The fact that you think approval of the merger by the U.S. Department of Justice on June 12, 2026, with no major concessions is "putting words into the FTC's mouth" is just plain annoying and, at best, misleading.

Since you seem to value links over rational thought and independent research, you can start here:

https://hls.harvard.edu/today/will-12-states-block-the-111b-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Warner_Bros._Di...

https://usaherald.com/doj-opens-antitrust-review-into-netfli...

> it's a cancer that you can "hire" people to go and "talk" to another people in congress,

Is it? Regular Americans do this all the time. Lots of charities exist that, in part, use money to lobby members of congress. Lots of citizens do this as well. I do.

I have lobbyists that speak on my behalf as a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

So, you need to explain to me why I am not allowed to have someone else speak on my behalf?

Now, to be clear, bribing and other illegal things are still illegal. You need to answer why I am not allowed to have someone else speak on my behalf?

More importantly, why do you want to repeal the First Amendment?

I think the problem is we assume that lobbying is evil. It's not. What we should do is make sure we have stronger ethics reform and not what we have now (which is basically letting anyone get away with anything). But that's not getting rid of lobbying, which is just speaking to the government and addressing concerns.

You call it a cancer. I call it the First Amendment. Anyways, you have questions you need to answer.

Perception is reality especially online, you get people vehemently pushing their broad generalizations on topics they learned about through memes, comments, and maybe a handful of snips from dubious online articles.

FWIW, these types of people were still a cancer before the internet existed. If CCTVs were being put up on every block in the 1980s, citizens would be indignant no matter what the TV lobbyists told them.

That guy saw Digger.

Jon "look at me and my lack of fingers!" Tester

Anyone who uses folks is suspect. No folk use folks in regular conversation.

Obama does, and Trump doesn't.

Huh??? It's definitely a part of my everyday vocabulary, and of many people I know.

LOL. I go to an 18-day-long Folk festival and as a songwriter I am a member of Folk Alliance International.

For what it's worth, "folks" is my preferred gender-neutral noun for a large group of humans. So, point of order, but at least one folk uses "folks" regularly. :D

Next they’re gonna ban saying y’all!

I mean, in the quote "people" would have made sense and worked just the same. It does feel excessively corpo-speak, especially when you consider the full context of the article.

Anybody that doesn't say "folks" to me is suspect, and I probably wouldn't trust them.

I don't get it, what's wrong with the midwest?

South, Midwest, West for sure all say folks

They are the exact same sort of people who do not care about us.

Imagine thinking that politicians are any different to what they say publicly.

All of them are liars and are grifting in front of you.

> All of them are liars and are grifting in front of you.

No, there are good people in Congress who do want to help out normal Americans.

Saying all of them are bad and corrupt is helping the bad and corrupt ones.

> No, there are good people in Congress who do want to help out normal Americans.

No. ALL of them are liars and do what is best for their political party. They are lobbied (bribed) very easily to appease the one that has the most money and they even insider trade on key legislation before it becomes law.

Even when they get caught, it is a slap on the wrist. If any of us did the same thing, we would be in prison.

There is no need to defend this grift.

What if I told you that there are more than two numbers? What if there are things which are neither 0% nor 100%? What if there are politicians who are not perfect but also far better than the far right?

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