Corporations are using the dark-money bribery legalized by conservative supreme court justices to control and undermine our democracy, just like the conservatives intended. All the important agencies that are designed to regulate industry and protect us, are now compromised and captured, making the government work only for big money. Our votes mean little any more, as they capture our government with their money and turn it into their puppet, destroying our democracy in the process.

Joe Biden's agenda faces an unprecedented onslaught of dark money: The FCC is just the start
https://www.salon.com/2023/02/19/how-much-of-bidens-agenda-will-be-defeated-by-dark-money-fcc-is-just-the-start/

#GreedKills
#GreedKillsDemocracy
#GreedCheatsNLies
#GreedHatesDemocracy

"Joe Biden's struggle to get FCC nominee Gigi Sohn confirmed by the Senate offers an early warning sign of the legislative battles ahead.
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Dark money spending — untraceable political donations funneled through super PACs that aren't required to report who their donors are — topped $1 billion in the 2020 election cycle. Perhaps surprisingly, that funding largely benefited Democrats, and that sum exploded to the unprecedented $8.9 billion midterm spending spree of 2022.
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Sohn has pointed to ISP and telecom dark money as the cause of a delay that now threatens to divide Biden from members of his own party, aiming to peel off key Democratic votes and sink her nomination.
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Craig Holman, Public Citizen's Capitol Hill lobbyist on ethics and campaign finance, argued in an email to Salon that the telecom industry offers a prime example of how dark money transcends pure partisanship.

"While some dark money groups spend most of their money supporting candidates of a single party...many dark money groups could care less about party affiliation and support anyone who promotes their specific causes," Holman said.

"This is particularly the case for industry-related dark money groups, such as in the telecom industry.
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All this Big Telecom dark money, he adds, has endangered Sohn's nomination, "despite the fact that she espouses traditionally Democratic values and thus should otherwise easily be confirmed by the Democratic majority in the Senate."
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"Corporate-backed nonprofit groups are an easy and effective vehicle for special interests to push a particular policy or decision without necessarily having their name attached to the campaign," said Robert Maguire, research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

"These groups are often made to look like legitimate grassroots organizations when in reality they're consultant- or lobbyist-run astroturf groups, crafted specifically to fit the policy goals of their corporate funders, whose identities are often difficult or even impossible to suss out."
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According to public records gathered by Open Secrets, 254 businesses and organizations sent lobbyists to the FCC in 2022, for a total body count of 781 actual human lobbyists. Forty-two percent of those actual humans were former government regulators, former members of Congress members or former congressional staffers. Leading the pack were the usual industry players: T-Mobile, Charter Communications, Verizon, Comcast and the NCTA, a leading cable and broadband trade group.
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Members of the 2022 Senate Commerce Committee, where Sohn now awaits a vote, received $4.5 million in campaign contributions from internet industry groups. Those members, both Democrat and Republican, received $3.8 million from telecom services industry groups.
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But dark money's best strategy isn't always aimed at determining outcomes so much as delaying them endlessly, by preventing basic governmental bodies from functioning as intended.
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"These dark money efforts are designed around shaping outcomes in government without revealing to the public who is behind it," he told Salon.
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Falcon tweeted last year: "...It is not the people, it's functional government under attack,"

"Why attack functional government? Because billions of $ are made from the current dysfunction...If you make billions from a bad status quo and Biden's Administration signals they want to fix it, you'll spend a lot of dark money to stop them."
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"It's clear the industry sees no problems with the status quo," said Getachew. "In a Senate where the Democratic majority is not high, they only need a couple of Democrats to tilt the balance in their favor."