It’s a career that self-selects for narcissists and sociopaths. What kind of person thinks they should lead others and is willing to treat them like resources and pawns?
> During his 18 years in the Senate, Tester was an outspoken critic of the PATRIOT Act that passed shortly after the 9/11 attacks that expanded the Justice Department's surveillance powers. When asked whether his concerns over government surveillance remain and whether he has the same concerns with his new employer, Tester said Palantir is different and that the company doesn't build "big databases" or trade in private data.
That is literally what Palantir does.
> "I wanted to do away with the Patriot Act because it was about privacy," Tester said. "It was about making sure that I am not being watched by anybody, including Big Brother. And by the way, I've talked to many people within Palantir. They believe the same way I do. This is an organization that believes in privacy."
Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic. Talk a big game in office, develop your network and have a cushy job waiting for you once you leave where you make millions calling your friends who are still in office. All while saying that it's not lobbying with a straight face.
I genuinely think we need some kind of restrictions on free speech for representatives in/formerly in government, because the fact that our politicians can lie this blatantly is as disgusting as it is anti-democracy. It's no wonder 1/3 of our electorate is completely fucking detached from reality.
And the complicity of the media here is also fucking disgusting. A former senator getting a job at Violating Privacy Inc. after opposing the Violating Your Privacy law, Jesus fuck.
At first glance this came off as a bit absurd to me but the government puts restrictions on what it can do all the time. Now it is probably too far to say officials not currently in government have speech restrictions but restrictions on those in office is no more outlandish than any other regulation or rights legislation. Elected officials _are_ the government.
Agreed. I think the US Military is a good example- when you enlist you agree to limits on freedom of speech, association, and privacy. Parker v. Levy established the fact that the military is a “specialized society” with unique needs. Congress could be a similar group.
I want the DoJ to prosecute Trump for his lies to be honest.
He's free to accuse whoever of whatever (as though we could stop him anyway) but if not implied in the original comment, this should be subject to being proven to be lies. And I think similar to libel, it should be a decently high bar to clear in terms of "this person knew what they were saying was bullshit," insofar as it's able to be proven in court what someone or some entity knew at a given time.
>At first glance this came off as a bit absurd to me but the government puts restrictions on what it can do all the time. Now it is probably too far to say officials not currently in government have speech restrictions but restrictions on those in office is no more outlandish than any other regulation or rights legislation. Elected officials _are_ the government.
That's not a great idea. In fact, that's why it's explicitly disallowed[0] by the US Constitution.
If you think that should be changed, you just need to convince 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 of the legislatures of the several states to officially agree with you[1]. Good luck with that.
I don't think it was ever meant for free speech to mean free lying, and if you forbid politicians to lie to the public you solved most problems of democracy
Let people lie. However, if they're arguing politics then they have to provide equal time to the opposition. Bring back the fair-time rules and make them apply beyond radio.
>Bring back the fair-time rules and make them apply beyond radio.
While that seems like it might be a good idea, there are those of us who remember watching late-night TV and seeing those "equal time" segments at 0400, just before the channel signed off until 0600. I'd expect that except for drunk/high people and insomniacs, no one saw those segments.
Which significantly limited the usefulness of such rules.
All that said, the world has changed since then. There are plenty of places for anyone that wants to share their opinions to do so. And that's good for all of us.
What's more important isn't (as you correctly point out) restricting speech, but rather restricting the amount of money that's allowed to be used for political "speech."
What's more, we should have publicly funded sites where anyone can express their political opinions that are not curated, but can be scraped and curated by others in very specific ways only.
There are a raft of other ways to maintain freedom of expression while limiting the power of money to corrupt the political process. Limiting such activities/expenditures, whether that be directly, via ad/marketing campaigns, payments/salaries to insiders to advocate for monied interests with our elected officials or engagement maximizing algorithms designed to increase corporate profits and other mechanisms should be a top priority.
But yes, cap their wealth, limit their stock investments to broad market ETF for stocks and bonds. Extend this to spouses and probably children (for a term). Perhaps provide them with housing in Washington DC.
And attempts to bypass the limits should have very harsh punishments.
Politics should be like teaching - no one does it for the money.
Just place all their assets into a blind trust, perhaps a "congressional employees' index fund", for the duration of their employment plus n years. There are many obvious loopholes, like all assets in your spouse's name, etc, but maybe there is a lookback period or something. There are much thornier compliance problems that are solved, so all the what-ifs can likely be addressed with precedent.
Such rules have to be marketable to people in public office in order to be enacted. One way might be to have a congressional alumni committee with very high salaries and strict rules on donations (this strictness could be sold as a way to prevent alumni officials from competing against the power of active officials).
Even if it cost a few hundred million a year in do nothing salaries, it'd help the integrity of multi trillion dollar budgets.
The British House of Lords sort of used to work this way until the stigma of aristocrats being involved in commercial/social activities faded.
> I think what is needed is restrictions on jobs people can do after leaving public office.
People who have left public office aren't the only concern, either, there are also quite a few disturbing family connections these days.
For example, both of Chuck Schumer's daughters work in "government outreach" and "politics marketing" positions for big tech companies. One works at OpenAI, the other works at Meta. Not illegal, but not a good look and the sort of thing people should be concerned about.
(I'm glad the Democrats trounced the much worse Trump Republicans, but let's not pretend they are beyond reproach).
But then the only people who run for office, are independently wealthy and don't need work after they serve. Which is also a class of people who don't represent the people.
They can be paid to make up for it. MPs have a good pension scheme too (especially if they serve several terms).
I also said restrict, not prevent them from working. If their previous jobs do not present a conflict of interests they can go back to that. There are lots of careers that are fine.
> Which is also a class of people who don't represent the people.
Neither do professional politicians, especially as they end up being closely connected to the wealthy who fund them.
General annoyance: Not having a specific patriot act-like privacy violation ready to not let politicos weasel out like this is journalistic malpractice. Is it just laziness? Just look up some examples before the interview!
What is and isn't "Big databases" isn't up for debate, point to the exact example and ask them about it.
>Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic.
I wish more people understood this. Forget party allegiances, vote for those who have your best interests in mind. I bet if the people stopped focusing on their differences, and instead focused on the struggles we all have in common, we would get so much done.
> > Tester said Palantir is different and that the company doesn't build "big databases" or trade in private data.
> That is literally what Palantir does.
I don't know where this perception of Palantir comes from. Why do people believe things like this that are utterly divorced from reality. I'd ask you to point to a single instance where Palantir has "traded in" private data.
As for building "big databases", it is technically true that Palantir helps organizations organize and operationalize their data. But it brings no data to the table and stores no data for the organizations. It originates no data. It does not have access to any of this data.
The bar is on the floor. To be less hawkish than every Republican this decade/century/millenium, Democrats just have to avoid starting a forever war. That's it.
That's not entirely true. They just have to fail at stopping the forever wars, so they can play the victim card and say "I tried! If only you'd given me more money, I could have done it."
Yes, but the 2028 Democratic President hasn't traveled back in time to stop Trump from starting a war in Iran, so both sides are basically the same, you see?
The more leftwing ones are much less likely to fall for this. But they have had to fight some of the "democrat blob" along the way (e.g. the Hayley Stevens meltdown).
The Patriot Act survived nearly two decades with power changing hands between the parties many times. You don't need to look very hard at all to see that this former senator is not much of an exception for either party.
Sure, but I assumed that the poster was talking about the new wave of democrats just voted in in the recent election. It's possible, even likely, that they'll be as irritating and terrible as the rest of congress has been since the PATRIOT Act, just that it's not implied by this event. They haven't even been sworn in yet.
> 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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
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:
> 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.
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
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.
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.
Propaganda (renamed 'PR' in the 50s), media distractions, political lobbying. Illegitimate power-seeking individuals and organizations always use the same toolkit.
The only permanent remedy is to outright ban those - or better: mandatory transparency into what politicians spend how much time with whom, where money streams come from and go out of organizations, etc, etc. All transparent in a public ledger. (and no: it is not 'anti-competitive' if it's the same regulatory landscape for everybody, but a way to safe-guard the government permanently from corruption). Of course if you there are ideas that would complete this or are truly overall better, feel free to throw them in the comments hat.
> better: mandatory transparency into what politicians spend how much time with whom, where money streams come from and go out of organizations, etc, etc. All transparent in a public ledger
The only downside of transparency is that it often has the net effect of increasing partisanship, as quietly making deals and compromises isn't possible.
While I agree this is the only sustainable way of ensuring transparency, I'd want gerrymandering handled and some version of ranked choice voting passed before implementing it. Otherwise, you're going to get even more dysfunctional candidates.
I think the evidence is all anecdotal about the end of Congressional earmarks. In 2008-9 Congress banned set-aside earmarks, and no one has brought that back, and there are plenty of experienced legislative people who claim that has hurt the ability to get deals done.
In addition, the fate of the "Cornhusker Kickback" is illustrative. One of the more conservative Democratic senators during the ACA negotiations was Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. In exchange for his vote he got Nebraska a much better deal than any other state- the Federal Government would pay 100% cost of Medicaid expansion costs, rather than 90% as with every other state. This was a classic case of negotiations and special deal cutting for important votes.
But then the news media got a hold of it, called it the "Cornhusker Kickback" and it became so unpopular that Nelson got it stripped out of the final bill. These sorts of things dying in the attention of the media mean that Nebraska got a worse deal than they could have! But it was so unpopular in Nebraska that Nelson thought it hurt his standing with the state. Which goes to the main point.
It's definitely true, and there are a lot of studies and papers on it that you can read that usually use the term "horse trading." It's an important thing for people to know about, especially extreme partisans who like to accuse people of "conspiracy theories" who are just ignorant of the way day to day politics works.
But a thing that's important to keep in mind is that most of it in regard to the US is an artifact of having two parties who stand for nothing in particular and are virtually (and sometimes explicitly) written into law; making other parties difficult or impossible to make viable at any level. In that situation, horse-trading between the two parties entirely determines the outcome of governance, and they can (and will) also work together on public messaging to create a narrative that favors both parties against their unsatisfied bases.
So this does not work as well in parliamentary democracies, where horse-trading between the two dominant parties (usually nominally representing workers and business) and their coordinated actions and messaging can result in the shrinking of both of them together, as we've seen all over Europe where the dominant "opposition" parties who have been trading off rule since after WWII have been shrinking to a third or less of the electorate and only holding onto government by explicitly cooperating to hold onto presidencies or by pressuring other smaller parties through the media to refuse to create coalitions with the parties that have been their biggest 3rd party threats in the recent past.
In the US, what happens is that the entire electorate shrinks, and the party who had fewer voters in that cycle discouraged enough to leave the political system altogether declares that they have a mandate to continue the same policies that their predecessor instituted.
To both commenters under here (re: earmarks and horse trading) - thank you. This was really informative. I still don't fully understand this, but it seems related to public perception, automatically assuming concessions == corruption, so we allow politicians to do this behind closed doors. Things still don't fully connect, but this Gemini response is definitely helpful:
While (1) is important, I'd continue the prompt towards (2) and (3), which are equally corrosive of middle-ground. Suggested follow-on prompt: "proof that transparency increased the effect of 2 and 3, to the detriment of bipartisan compromise"
It's ultimately an argument between whether one wants the best possible outcomes for the country and state, regardless of party affiliation, or the most party-obedient voting.
The parties (enforced through the primary process) naturally prefer the latter.
Here's an excerpt from an interview with Senator Slotkin of Michigan talking about working on a committee, and how it being private avoids Grandstanding effect [0]:
> Jordan Schneider: Maybe before we do the specific stuff — is there any structural change that would make more of the building work like SASC does on NDAA markup days?
> Senator Slotkin: The way you would do it is probably never gonna happen, because it means you kick the cameras out. That’s the only difference — the cameras are not there, so people don’t feel like they need to play to an audience. They aren’t kicking back with their political talking points; they’re actually doing substantive work. And it’s a pretty hard argument to make: “Hey America, we’re going to be less transparent in the Senate.” That’s a hard thing to do.
> I think there’s a million ways to make the Senate more efficient. The Senate was a caterpillar and could one day be a butterfly, but is right now in the disgusting cocoon and doesn’t know what it’s going to be. I have a million ideas on how to reform this institution. But we’re effective in the NDAA because people are not playing to the bleachers.
> Jordan Schneider: Do people really need those clips, though?
> Senator Slotkin: I don’t know that people wake up in the morning and say, “I’m so excited for my five minutes in front of an Armed Services hearing today.” But those hearings have been televised for over twenty years, and no one’s gonna be the chairman who says, “I’m kicking out the public,” right? And I don’t think the public feels like they want less oversight and insight into what the House and Senate are doing. So it’s a tough position.
And now: "President Donald Trump has nominated Palantir security chief Michael LoSapio to lead CISA, putting an executive from the controversial government supplier in line to run America's civilian cyber defense agency"
Fox is CEO of the henhouse. It's cartoonish, nobody seems to care at all any more about looking remotely ethical.
The 'Democrats' in Montana are the worst sort. They pretend to support the people, but then slow walk anything the people actually want, leading to accidentally fall short at the last minute. Then after they've spent 18 years in the Senate doing this, they get rewarded for their incompetence, by the people who had the most to gain from it.
Steve Bullock did the same thing when he rode out his last term. He became the head of the largest Democrat Dark Money SuperPac.
The Bankhead/Bodnar race was a complete clown show too, designed to split the vote to ensure Alme won. Watch where Bodnar and Bankhead reappear later, I'm sure they'll magically land in places with money and power.
Palantir will have no problem pivoting to serve a hypothetical D administration, and the same future admin will have no trouble bringing it into the fold and leveraging its services. Many Palantir employees will probably welcome it given the direction of their political donations: https://residualthoughts.substack.com/p/libbing-out-at-palan...
The same invasive surveillance apparatus that’s been focused on immigrants and left-wing protestors can easily be retargeted to focus on gun owners, “hate speech”, and right wing groups. This industry shouldn’t exist at all in its current form.
But of course neither party will be able to turn down the power to subjugate its political enemies.
> retargeted to focus on gun owners, “hate speech”, and right wing groups
This sounds like retargeting the surveillance apparatus away from people who are opposed to fascism, genocide, and secret police killing people in the street, to focus on the groups that actually commit 90% of political terrorism in this country. Unfortunately, it will never happen, because liberals have never, in their entire history, had the guts to go after citizens for political reasons, even when those citizens have actually committed crimes. This is why almost everyone who openly fomented insurrection against the United States is still walking around and even running for (and sometimes winning) office. Right-wing groups love to pretend that they're being targeted and victimized -- mostly because it gives them an excuse to overtly victimize other groups -- but they never actually are. You sometimes see right-wingers claim that they'll be sent to prison if liberals are elected; it's a damning self-incrimination, but nothing ever actually comes of it. Microseconds after it was clear that this latest "blue wave" was actually happening, Hakeem Jeffries was already making speeches about how, don't worry you guys, we're not ever actually going to hold anyone accountable for any crimes.
Palantir is not just going to suddenly give up on instituting their fascist dystopian dream just because some liberals won some elections. There will be no "pivoting to a D administration." Their politics isn't going to change at all -- it doesn't need to.
I suppose you're right, there isn't an "A implies B" relationship there. That said, if the tech is used to kill people, and given that their tech is primarily data analytics and correlation, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that their tech being used to kill people is likely as a result of surveillance. They aren't producing katanas or machine guns; the only realistic way their tech could be used to kill people is surveillance.
That said, they also did a pretty big contract with ICE recently. Trump 2's ICE is basically just a private militia right now, so it's easy to assume that their tech is used for surveillance.
Way back in the day, when Twitter was a thing and the API feeds were reasonably accessible, people were using tweets to build network graphs of terrorist cells and drawing maps of territories gangs controlled in major cities. It's amazing what people would put on twitter, and assuming that a micro blogging platform open to the public wouldn't be an incredibly fertile ground for the people looking for them.
This was all done in excel spreadsheets at first, then custom built tools later on. Palantir was one of the early tools, though not the most capable at the time, just the one with the most red-tape-cutting backing.
It's just political hatred and jealousy from what I can tell. They make a lot of different software, it's not like it's just a custom type of database. They don't have any sort of information that didn't exist before, it's just new ways of presenting that information. Instead of $$$$$ tax dollars being spent in secret, it's $$ and the company is in the spotlight. Anyone against transparency and cost-savings naturally hates them, but I don't know where the other hatred comes from.
They are a analysis and presentation layer that is used to plug in data sources gathered by brokers (or other parties) and present it for other uses. Yes, they themselves don’t gather this data, but they do make it seamless to use the data.
I’ll admit they are much less culpable than companies like LexisNexis or CLEAR (or even shadier outfits), and those companies should receive the lion’s share of the scrutiny, but Palantir is not blameless.
Knowingly building an apparatus that evil people can use to more easily do evil things, and which seems to have that as its primary purpose. And then naming it after a similar device used by a Tolkein villain. All accidental, I’m sure.
Politicians should be allowed to have their net worth increase by, let's say, $200,000 a year while in office and for 15 years afterwards. Anything more is taxed at 100%. Let it be a price of public service.
Judges around the world have a lot of restrictions on economical participation. Of course, politicians legislate their own incompatibilities. The only absurd proposition is that it would ever happen, but if we suddenly woke up in a parallel world where politicians would be economically restricted, the world would go forward. Of course, the following day they'd just dissolve those restrictions.
Stock trading is a red herring. By all means, it should be banned, but nothing will change after it's banned. Politicians will still have a string of good luck and well paying "jobs" after they retire, etc.
I'm kind of tired of hearing about stock trading, because it's such a tiny drop in the bucket, and yet it gets so much talk.
You have come up against a fundamental problem with capitalist private property, to which there is no solution no matter how clever. In this case they would just point the lobbyists towards their family members.
You cannot solve the problem in this way unless you're willing to restrict people's property right to "give away" money; and even then it's likely the ultra-rich will find a loop hole given they can pay teams of lawyers indefinite full time salaries to do so.
You need to attack the source of elite power, not play the game it designed. You need to tax wealth itself, regardless of who holds it. You can't "keep money out of politics" in a system premised on money's right to do whatever it wants. People act like we can just post about repeal Citizens United and it will happen, like they don't live in a world that went from no Citizens United to Citizens United because of a powerful force called capital, to which they have no answer.
Public service should not be any different from a regular job. You should be paid no less or more than a regular job. And the consequences of your performance and your ethics should be the same as a regular job.
I can’t trade my company stock outside of a few days in the year even though I’m a lowly IC with access to no additional non public information. Same should be true for politicians. I can’t take money from other companies to influence the way I do my work. I cannot influence my ex colleagues to work a certain way after I leave my company based on what another company pays me. I get fired for poor performance at any time and I have to consistently show that I’m working. I can’t take a “recess” and not work a third of the days I’m supposed to work. And I can’t take paid indefinite medical leave. The list goes on.
Once you align the public and private sector, you’ll see improvements on both fronts.
I'd be happy for people in Congress to not have to deal with money from then on, and just to be put on a generous allowance until they die. They can do volunteer work, and we'll give their kids a few bucks and a free ride through state school. Of course, that means that they will have to give up what they have now before they serve - 100% tax.
So not just giving up "increase," but I'd advocate giving up bank or stock accounts altogether. Democracy is worth it.
>During his time in office, Tester voted for the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which rolled back parts of the Dodd–Frank Act,
From Wikipedia, this shows he fully aligns with Palantir. He seems to be 1 step away from being a Republican.
So it cam probably be said he is a DINO (democrat in name only).
Democrats love war and billionaires almost as much as republicans. "Scrutiny" in the title essentially functions as propaganda to manage perceptions of the public. Ha, the unpopular Palantir will be facing "scrutiny" meaning more tea-and-coffee conversations between lobbyists and government officials. Maybe a few beers.
We need real socialists in congress to reign these guys in and obliterate these companies.
These are the companies most closely integrated with the government. If USA went socialist, much more of our production capacity would be allocated to this work, not less. The most likely scenario is that instead of choosing to work for a company and being able to step away from the job when you felt it crossed your moral line, you'd just be forced to continue working there. I think threatening families is the most often used tactic in socialist societies.
The part where the private sector is five times larger than the public sector and completely out of control in exactly the ways it wants to be, so giving it even more power is a deeply unserious strategy for addressing any of the problems it has created.
npc99 | 5 hours ago
arandomhuman | 5 hours ago
rvz | 5 hours ago
eschulz | 4 hours ago
an0malous | 4 hours ago
tencentshill | 5 hours ago
CodingJeebus | 5 hours ago
That is literally what Palantir does.
> "I wanted to do away with the Patriot Act because it was about privacy," Tester said. "It was about making sure that I am not being watched by anybody, including Big Brother. And by the way, I've talked to many people within Palantir. They believe the same way I do. This is an organization that believes in privacy."
Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic. Talk a big game in office, develop your network and have a cushy job waiting for you once you leave where you make millions calling your friends who are still in office. All while saying that it's not lobbying with a straight face.
ToucanLoucan | 5 hours ago
And the complicity of the media here is also fucking disgusting. A former senator getting a job at Violating Privacy Inc. after opposing the Violating Your Privacy law, Jesus fuck.
skinfaxi | 5 hours ago
trescenzi | 5 hours ago
mcbobgorge | 4 hours ago
whimsicalism | 4 hours ago
ToucanLoucan | an hour ago
He's free to accuse whoever of whatever (as though we could stop him anyway) but if not implied in the original comment, this should be subject to being proven to be lies. And I think similar to libel, it should be a decently high bar to clear in terms of "this person knew what they were saying was bullshit," insofar as it's able to be proven in court what someone or some entity knew at a given time.
nobody9999 | an hour ago
That's not a great idea. In fact, that's why it's explicitly disallowed[0] by the US Constitution.
If you think that should be changed, you just need to convince 2/3 of each house of Congress and 3/4 of the legislatures of the several states to officially agree with you[1]. Good luck with that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_or_Debate_Clause
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_Sta...
trescenzi | 28 minutes ago
whimsicalism | 5 hours ago
g-b-r | 4 hours ago
lesuorac | 3 hours ago
Let people lie. However, if they're arguing politics then they have to provide equal time to the opposition. Bring back the fair-time rules and make them apply beyond radio.
nobody9999 | an hour ago
While that seems like it might be a good idea, there are those of us who remember watching late-night TV and seeing those "equal time" segments at 0400, just before the channel signed off until 0600. I'd expect that except for drunk/high people and insomniacs, no one saw those segments.
Which significantly limited the usefulness of such rules.
All that said, the world has changed since then. There are plenty of places for anyone that wants to share their opinions to do so. And that's good for all of us.
What's more important isn't (as you correctly point out) restricting speech, but rather restricting the amount of money that's allowed to be used for political "speech."
What's more, we should have publicly funded sites where anyone can express their political opinions that are not curated, but can be scraped and curated by others in very specific ways only.
There are a raft of other ways to maintain freedom of expression while limiting the power of money to corrupt the political process. Limiting such activities/expenditures, whether that be directly, via ad/marketing campaigns, payments/salaries to insiders to advocate for monied interests with our elected officials or engagement maximizing algorithms designed to increase corporate profits and other mechanisms should be a top priority.
graemep | 5 hours ago
I think what is needed is restrictions on jobs people can do after leaving public office.
hydrogen7800 | 5 hours ago
Buttons840 | 4 hours ago
Let it be a price of public service. Let them build a society that works for normal people, and then they'll be fine being a normal person.
mywittyname | 4 hours ago
But yes, cap their wealth, limit their stock investments to broad market ETF for stocks and bonds. Extend this to spouses and probably children (for a term). Perhaps provide them with housing in Washington DC.
And attempts to bypass the limits should have very harsh punishments.
Politics should be like teaching - no one does it for the money.
lesuorac | 4 hours ago
If you were the VP of some company with a trillion dollars of revenue your compensation wouldn't be under a million/year.
Buttons840 | 2 hours ago
hydrogen7800 | 2 hours ago
spacebanana7 | 5 hours ago
Even if it cost a few hundred million a year in do nothing salaries, it'd help the integrity of multi trillion dollar budgets.
The British House of Lords sort of used to work this way until the stigma of aristocrats being involved in commercial/social activities faded.
georgemcbay | 5 hours ago
People who have left public office aren't the only concern, either, there are also quite a few disturbing family connections these days.
For example, both of Chuck Schumer's daughters work in "government outreach" and "politics marketing" positions for big tech companies. One works at OpenAI, the other works at Meta. Not illegal, but not a good look and the sort of thing people should be concerned about.
(I'm glad the Democrats trounced the much worse Trump Republicans, but let's not pretend they are beyond reproach).
whimsicalism | 5 hours ago
nilamo | 5 hours ago
vrganj | 4 hours ago
bad_haircut72 | 4 hours ago
iamnothere | 3 hours ago
graemep | 2 hours ago
I also said restrict, not prevent them from working. If their previous jobs do not present a conflict of interests they can go back to that. There are lots of careers that are fine.
> Which is also a class of people who don't represent the people.
Neither do professional politicians, especially as they end up being closely connected to the wealthy who fund them.
rjsw | 4 hours ago
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Watson,_Baron_Watson_of_Wy...
forshaper | 5 hours ago
pj_mukh | 5 hours ago
What is and isn't "Big databases" isn't up for debate, point to the exact example and ask them about it.
Phemist | 5 hours ago
Like a doctor believes in disease
Like a preacher believes in sin
Like a teacher believes in ignorance
robotnikman | 4 hours ago
I wish more people understood this. Forget party allegiances, vote for those who have your best interests in mind. I bet if the people stopped focusing on their differences, and instead focused on the struggles we all have in common, we would get so much done.
andrewla | 4 hours ago
> That is literally what Palantir does.
I don't know where this perception of Palantir comes from. Why do people believe things like this that are utterly divorced from reality. I'd ask you to point to a single instance where Palantir has "traded in" private data.
As for building "big databases", it is technically true that Palantir helps organizations organize and operationalize their data. But it brings no data to the table and stores no data for the organizations. It originates no data. It does not have access to any of this data.
jdb9001 | 5 hours ago
this democrat congress:
smallmancontrov | 5 hours ago
webdoodle | 5 hours ago
saalweachter | 4 hours ago
Would have been nice if Obama ended both of them, sure, but it's not like anyone threw Biden a parade.
smallmancontrov | 4 hours ago
j_w | 25 minutes ago
Only one party seems to have a spending problem, and it's not the Democratic one.
pjc50 | 5 hours ago
tombert | 5 hours ago
zdragnar | 4 hours ago
tombert | 4 hours ago
ferguess_k | 5 hours ago
pjc50 | 5 hours ago
_joel | 5 hours ago
skinfaxi | 5 hours ago
These people are a cancer.
sb057 | 5 hours ago
rvz | 5 hours ago
Imagine thinking that politicians are any different to what they say publicly.
All of them are liars and are grifting in front of you.
mywittyname | 4 hours ago
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.
rvz | 2 hours ago
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.
throwaway894345 | 4 hours ago
xlayn | 5 hours ago
Buttons840 | 4 hours ago
smallmancontrov | 4 hours ago
Revolving door is a bit gross but we've just seen sooooooooo much worse.
throwaway894345 | 4 hours ago
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.
scottyah | 3 hours ago
bigyabai | 3 hours ago
What causes you to disagree?
scottyah | 3 hours ago
bigyabai | 3 hours ago
Do you have a citation for that, or are you putting words into the FTC's mouth that nobody ever said?
scottyah | an hour ago
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...
jasonlotito | 4 hours ago
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.
very_good_man | 5 hours ago
edot | 5 hours ago
breezybottom | 4 hours ago
Hugsbox | 4 hours ago
scarecrowbob | 4 hours ago
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
bix6 | 4 hours ago
skinfaxi | 3 hours ago
esseph | 4 hours ago
sophacles | 4 hours ago
esseph | 3 hours ago
scottyah | 4 hours ago
bigyabai | 4 hours ago
mentalgear | 5 hours ago
The only permanent remedy is to outright ban those - or better: mandatory transparency into what politicians spend how much time with whom, where money streams come from and go out of organizations, etc, etc. All transparent in a public ledger. (and no: it is not 'anti-competitive' if it's the same regulatory landscape for everybody, but a way to safe-guard the government permanently from corruption). Of course if you there are ideas that would complete this or are truly overall better, feel free to throw them in the comments hat.
ethbr1 | 5 hours ago
The only downside of transparency is that it often has the net effect of increasing partisanship, as quietly making deals and compromises isn't possible.
While I agree this is the only sustainable way of ensuring transparency, I'd want gerrymandering handled and some version of ranked choice voting passed before implementing it. Otherwise, you're going to get even more dysfunctional candidates.
vhiremath4 | 4 hours ago
mandevil | 4 hours ago
In addition, the fate of the "Cornhusker Kickback" is illustrative. One of the more conservative Democratic senators during the ACA negotiations was Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. In exchange for his vote he got Nebraska a much better deal than any other state- the Federal Government would pay 100% cost of Medicaid expansion costs, rather than 90% as with every other state. This was a classic case of negotiations and special deal cutting for important votes.
But then the news media got a hold of it, called it the "Cornhusker Kickback" and it became so unpopular that Nelson got it stripped out of the final bill. These sorts of things dying in the attention of the media mean that Nebraska got a worse deal than they could have! But it was so unpopular in Nebraska that Nelson thought it hurt his standing with the state. Which goes to the main point.
RHSeeger | 4 hours ago
Another way of wording that is
> the rest of the US states got a better deal than they would have
Because that extra money paid to Nebraska had to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is the people in the rest of the states.
pessimizer | 4 hours ago
But a thing that's important to keep in mind is that most of it in regard to the US is an artifact of having two parties who stand for nothing in particular and are virtually (and sometimes explicitly) written into law; making other parties difficult or impossible to make viable at any level. In that situation, horse-trading between the two parties entirely determines the outcome of governance, and they can (and will) also work together on public messaging to create a narrative that favors both parties against their unsatisfied bases.
So this does not work as well in parliamentary democracies, where horse-trading between the two dominant parties (usually nominally representing workers and business) and their coordinated actions and messaging can result in the shrinking of both of them together, as we've seen all over Europe where the dominant "opposition" parties who have been trading off rule since after WWII have been shrinking to a third or less of the electorate and only holding onto government by explicitly cooperating to hold onto presidencies or by pressuring other smaller parties through the media to refuse to create coalitions with the parties that have been their biggest 3rd party threats in the recent past.
In the US, what happens is that the entire electorate shrinks, and the party who had fewer voters in that cycle discouraged enough to leave the political system altogether declares that they have a mandate to continue the same policies that their predecessor instituted.
vhiremath4 | 2 hours ago
https://share.google/aimode/nzJAjdOzDHZteAZxl
ethbr1 | 2 hours ago
It's ultimately an argument between whether one wants the best possible outcomes for the country and state, regardless of party affiliation, or the most party-obedient voting.
The parties (enforced through the primary process) naturally prefer the latter.
ppseafield | an hour ago
> Jordan Schneider: Maybe before we do the specific stuff — is there any structural change that would make more of the building work like SASC does on NDAA markup days?
> Senator Slotkin: The way you would do it is probably never gonna happen, because it means you kick the cameras out. That’s the only difference — the cameras are not there, so people don’t feel like they need to play to an audience. They aren’t kicking back with their political talking points; they’re actually doing substantive work. And it’s a pretty hard argument to make: “Hey America, we’re going to be less transparent in the Senate.” That’s a hard thing to do.
> I think there’s a million ways to make the Senate more efficient. The Senate was a caterpillar and could one day be a butterfly, but is right now in the disgusting cocoon and doesn’t know what it’s going to be. I have a million ideas on how to reform this institution. But we’re effective in the NDAA because people are not playing to the bleachers.
> Jordan Schneider: Do people really need those clips, though?
> Senator Slotkin: I don’t know that people wake up in the morning and say, “I’m so excited for my five minutes in front of an Armed Services hearing today.” But those hearings have been televised for over twenty years, and no one’s gonna be the chairman who says, “I’m kicking out the public,” right? And I don’t think the public feels like they want less oversight and insight into what the House and Senate are doing. So it’s a tough position.
[0] https://www.chinatalk.media/p/sen-slotkin-ndaa-ai-guardrails...
BeFlatXIII | 3 hours ago
kobalsky | an hour ago
if just making it illegal prevented politicians from being dishonest we would live in a utopia.
bribing will still happen, just off the books and often with dirty money, this is by far worse.
politicians should wear the logos of the people giving them money, like F1 drivers, you want them in the open, you want to know who is doing it.
dumberquestions | 5 hours ago
vrganj | 5 hours ago
forshaper | 5 hours ago
sirtaj | 5 hours ago
Fox is CEO of the henhouse. It's cartoonish, nobody seems to care at all any more about looking remotely ethical.
webdoodle | 5 hours ago
Steve Bullock did the same thing when he rode out his last term. He became the head of the largest Democrat Dark Money SuperPac.
The Bankhead/Bodnar race was a complete clown show too, designed to split the vote to ensure Alme won. Watch where Bodnar and Bankhead reappear later, I'm sure they'll magically land in places with money and power.
criddell | 5 hours ago
shagie | 5 hours ago
Question Avoidance.
ceejayoz | 4 hours ago
No strings attached, of course.
iamnothere | 5 hours ago
The same invasive surveillance apparatus that’s been focused on immigrants and left-wing protestors can easily be retargeted to focus on gun owners, “hate speech”, and right wing groups. This industry shouldn’t exist at all in its current form.
But of course neither party will be able to turn down the power to subjugate its political enemies.
feoren | 40 minutes ago
This sounds like retargeting the surveillance apparatus away from people who are opposed to fascism, genocide, and secret police killing people in the street, to focus on the groups that actually commit 90% of political terrorism in this country. Unfortunately, it will never happen, because liberals have never, in their entire history, had the guts to go after citizens for political reasons, even when those citizens have actually committed crimes. This is why almost everyone who openly fomented insurrection against the United States is still walking around and even running for (and sometimes winning) office. Right-wing groups love to pretend that they're being targeted and victimized -- mostly because it gives them an excuse to overtly victimize other groups -- but they never actually are. You sometimes see right-wingers claim that they'll be sent to prison if liberals are elected; it's a damning self-incrimination, but nothing ever actually comes of it. Microseconds after it was clear that this latest "blue wave" was actually happening, Hakeem Jeffries was already making speeches about how, don't worry you guys, we're not ever actually going to hold anyone accountable for any crimes.
Palantir is not just going to suddenly give up on instituting their fascist dystopian dream just because some liberals won some elections. There will be no "pivoting to a D administration." Their politics isn't going to change at all -- it doesn't need to.
tombert | 5 hours ago
This seems at odds given that Alex Karp went on TV talking about how Palantir's tech is used to kill people. [1]
Pointing out Alex Karp saying something evil isn't exactly "original", but forgive me when I don't really believe their PR bullshit.
[1] https://youtu.be/NQ5107TKTBg
scottyah | 3 hours ago
1. mass surveillance on the American public
2. Palantir's tech is used to kill people
tombert | 3 hours ago
That said, they also did a pretty big contract with ICE recently. Trump 2's ICE is basically just a private militia right now, so it's easy to assume that their tech is used for surveillance.
gadders | 4 hours ago
I mean does it do anything I couldn't do with Postgres?
zdragnar | 4 hours ago
Way back in the day, when Twitter was a thing and the API feeds were reasonably accessible, people were using tweets to build network graphs of terrorist cells and drawing maps of territories gangs controlled in major cities. It's amazing what people would put on twitter, and assuming that a micro blogging platform open to the public wouldn't be an incredibly fertile ground for the people looking for them.
This was all done in excel spreadsheets at first, then custom built tools later on. Palantir was one of the early tools, though not the most capable at the time, just the one with the most red-tape-cutting backing.
scottyah | 3 hours ago
iamnothere | 3 hours ago
Every aspect of the industry from initial collection to resale to packaging to presentation needs scrutiny.
scottyah | 3 hours ago
iamnothere | 3 hours ago
I’ll admit they are much less culpable than companies like LexisNexis or CLEAR (or even shadier outfits), and those companies should receive the lion’s share of the scrutiny, but Palantir is not blameless.
scottyah | 28 minutes ago
iamnothere | 12 minutes ago
Buttons840 | 4 hours ago
breezybottom | 4 hours ago
gobdovan | 4 hours ago
breezybottom | 2 hours ago
bix6 | 4 hours ago
shimman | 4 hours ago
Buttons840 | 2 hours ago
I'm kind of tired of hearing about stock trading, because it's such a tiny drop in the bucket, and yet it gets so much talk.
jackb4040 | 4 hours ago
You cannot solve the problem in this way unless you're willing to restrict people's property right to "give away" money; and even then it's likely the ultra-rich will find a loop hole given they can pay teams of lawyers indefinite full time salaries to do so.
You need to attack the source of elite power, not play the game it designed. You need to tax wealth itself, regardless of who holds it. You can't "keep money out of politics" in a system premised on money's right to do whatever it wants. People act like we can just post about repeal Citizens United and it will happen, like they don't live in a world that went from no Citizens United to Citizens United because of a powerful force called capital, to which they have no answer.
drekipus | 2 hours ago
darth_avocado | 4 hours ago
I can’t trade my company stock outside of a few days in the year even though I’m a lowly IC with access to no additional non public information. Same should be true for politicians. I can’t take money from other companies to influence the way I do my work. I cannot influence my ex colleagues to work a certain way after I leave my company based on what another company pays me. I get fired for poor performance at any time and I have to consistently show that I’m working. I can’t take a “recess” and not work a third of the days I’m supposed to work. And I can’t take paid indefinite medical leave. The list goes on.
Once you align the public and private sector, you’ll see improvements on both fronts.
pessimizer | an hour ago
So not just giving up "increase," but I'd advocate giving up bank or stock accounts altogether. Democracy is worth it.
jmclnx | 4 hours ago
From Wikipedia, this shows he fully aligns with Palantir. He seems to be 1 step away from being a Republican.
So it cam probably be said he is a DINO (democrat in name only).
JohnMakin | 4 hours ago
Advice on who/how to lobby is not 'lobbying' but come on.
lisp2240 | 4 hours ago
tehjoker | 4 hours ago
We need real socialists in congress to reign these guys in and obliterate these companies.
scottyah | 3 hours ago
tehjoker | an hour ago
scottyah | 29 minutes ago
smallmancontrov | 15 minutes ago
ElProlactin | 3 hours ago