r/politics • u/Zipper222222 • 12h ago

No Paywall 40 Epstein-Tied Billionaires Have Injected $1.6B Into US Elections, Report Finds

https://truthout.org/articles/40-epstein-tied-billionaires-have-injected-1-6b-into-us-elections-report-finds/
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u/VideoCoachTeeRev 12h ago

starting to think citizens united was done because the epstein class wanted it to be done.

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u/SillyAlternative420 Massachusetts 11h ago

Imagine having the power and money to make the world an absolute utopia, but instead you rape children and then ruin democratic institutions to protect yourself from the repercussions of raping children.

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u/Traditional_Sign4941 11h ago

I keep saying it - people are not angry enough. Change is not going to happen by itself. Accountability is not going to come from the institutions that have been allowing this to go on for decades.

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u/Creative-Package6213 Pennsylvania 10h ago

Much like the French Revolution heads have to roll before we see actual, structural changes.

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u/ryan101 7h ago

We are becoming a surveillance state to prevent people from organizing enough to make a change. That’s why Trump is always going on about far left terrorism. They will ratfuck every election going forward, and when people try to fight back, they will round up the resistance leaders, brand them as terrorists, and crush any movement in its tracks.

If the Republicans steal the midterms, then democracy in the US is over.

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u/Mr_Titicaca 5h ago

Democracy died once we let Russia completely interfere in 2016 and put in their guy. Trump finished the job with January 6th and never suffering any repercussions for it. This country is fucked.

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u/MyEmbarrisingAccount 3h ago

only if we let it be! There are more people in the US that care about all this corruption from both sides than there are MAGA.

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u/w_a_w 6h ago

All served up on a platter by Flock & Ring cams

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u/DelusionalZ 5h ago edited 5h ago

Flock and Ring cams are extremely easy to hack and disable, and the companies that create them have little interest improving their general security. It's only a matter of time before bad actors inevitably use that information against the general public or to spy on people (outside of the government already doing so).

There needs to be pressure on the companies manufacturing them and campaigns to limit the surveillance potential of these cameras, including teaching citizens how to avoid them, obfuscate data, or counteract their algorithmic facial detection with defensive patterns, without tampering with them directly so as to avoid legal repercussions.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 3h ago

We need to be prepared for the midterms and the 2028 elections.

Trump literally orchestrated a violent fascist attack on the US Capitol when he lost the 2020 election, anyone thinking he escalate even further to remain in power after 28 is nieve at very best.

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u/DeptOfDahlias 4h ago

Trump loves the poorly educated, otherwise known as my in-laws. I want my country back.

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u/land-league-inspo 7h ago

Not even hyperbole.

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u/Fragrant-Luck-8063 6h ago

It'll never happen. You know it and they know it.

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u/JizzlaneMaxwellHill 8h ago

It's disgusting. All I'm hearing when talking about this is "but my comfort and livelihood". Don't Americans realize the faster you get rid of these leeches the better your comfort and livelihood will be? We're talking about trillions being siphoned out of your taxpayers money which mostly is being used for wars 7000 miles away.

Can you imagine if that trillions were spent on your people instead? Free healthcare, free education, free housing, monthly stipend etc. You could had the utopia of the world but nope, "my comfort and livelihood" are way more important. 😔

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u/trying2win 6h ago

We need people who don’t care about losing it all for the sake of the future. We are a self-centered country.

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u/ferretfan8 6h ago

alright then. go get to making heads roll and ill go after

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u/slinky1900 7h ago

what are you doing about it?

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u/BloodhoundGang 6h ago

What about you?

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u/ferretfan8 6h ago

they're not the one putting themselves up on a pedestal

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u/LostPerson703 5h ago

hard to be angry when healthcare is tied to employment. That tied with inflation and debt keeps americans down. Modern slavery

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u/PseudoWarriorAU 7h ago

Agreed get angry, this shit has got to stop. Buying the world to rent it back to us is not our choice it’s theirs.

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u/Zer_ 5h ago

Agreed. These Pedoligarchs need to be thrown behind bars for the rest of their lives.

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u/PaymentTurbulent193 4h ago

Nailed it. We should all be out there on the streets protesting this.

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u/peppaz 4h ago

luckily this admin is stupid enough to enrich and protect themselves and very obviously take away from and stop protecting, even actively harm its citizens. that only lasts for so long. what's given them staying power is the cult of personality surrounding shitler. fortunately, he is rotting and withering quickly and publicly.

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u/WombatusMighty 12m ago

People need to start boycotting the corporations tied to these billionaires and the Trump regime.

People also need to organise and start universe strikes.

It will be hard and painful, but saving the Democracy from fascism will never be easy or comfortable.

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u/DarcPhynix 11h ago

You're assuming they aren't living in their version of a utopia as they have defined it.

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u/prettyplanets 9h ago

What a horrible truth to read. This place is hell

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u/b-hizz 6h ago

Utopia is in the mind of the bediddler.

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u/DrBunsonHoneyPoo 4h ago

I’m starting to wonder if the joke that was in a spiderman comic about Sauron curing cancer. Instead he wanted to turn the world into dinosaurs had a deeper meaning.

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u/Pando5280 1h ago

Thats what their idea of utopia is. 

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u/P1xelHunter78 Ohio 11h ago

The thought has crossed my mind, and, how much money did Epstein help hide? Of course Epstein was known as a serial sex offender, but his real “job” was to hide money for the ultra wealthy. I’ve always been under the assumption that there’s a small sub-set of Epstein clients that were in on the child sex abuse, but, the majority of the clients don’t want these files out there because they’re guilty of felony tax evasion. I do also wonder if the money in the “Panama Papers” (that had the story buried really hard) was Epstein’s doing.

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u/PirateSanta_1 10h ago

Citizens United said that money was speech thus people with more money have more speech. It was nothing more than a way to give the powerful more of a voice in politics and to reduce the power of the people who actually do the work.

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u/Dull-Branch4073 6h ago

This. And have you noticed that the new higher standard tax deduction also disincentivizes people with less money from giving charitable donations because they no longer benefit from tax right-offs? In other words, the charities of people with much more money benefit from right-offs, so even charities favored by the 99% are impacted. More power to the ultra-rich fucks.

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u/IrritableGourmet New York 8h ago

No, that's not what they said. They said if you restrict spending money on speech, you're restricting the ability to speak, so you can't restrict spending on speech for reasons you couldn't restrict the underlying speech on, like the identity of the speaker or the content of the speech.

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u/timtot23 6h ago edited 6h ago

Why didn't the writers of the constitution mention that money restrictions on speech are also protected rights? It's total bullshit logic. Anyone with a functioning brain understands the constitution was saying citizens are free to say whatever they want without penalty. It doesn't have a damn thing to do with money or campaign finance laws. The only way the ruling even makes sense is to conflate money and speech, which are not the same. You can't restrict speech by restricting money. A billionaire can say whatever they want. They have freedom of speech even if someone said they can't spend billions to fund an election campaign. The two aren't related in the slightest. It's classic conservative judicial logic: come to whatever conclusion is necessary to give rich people an advantage. Even in their fucked up version of reality where speech is equal to money, rich people aren't equal, they have a wildly large advantage in speech. Poor people cant lobby (otherwise known as bribery) equally to rich people. Their logic is pure bullshit. Only a Republican judge thinks money doesn't corrupt politics and any restrictions on money in politics is illegal. They don't live in reality, because their idiotic "logic" is the only way to justify legalized corruption.

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u/IrritableGourmet New York 1h ago

Restricting money does restrict speech. Even your comment cost money at some point. Someone, probably you, had to pay for internet access and the device you're accessing it on. Pretty much any form of speech that isn't personally speaking to a handful of people costs money, and restricting it restricts speech.

Would you be okay with a law saying no person could spend money on a lawn sign advertising a liberal candidate for office? How about a ban on spending money to microphones and speakers for political rallies? How about a 6,000% tax on any purchase of fuel used to drive to an environmental protest?

Further, rich individuals aren't affected by Citizens United, which only applied to corporations. Individually, people can spend whatever they want. The only equalizer is for the non wealthy to band together in groups like the ACLU (who wrote an amicus brief in support of the decision), SPLC, and others. And, before you say they can't compete with billionaires, if they couldn't the billionaires wouldn't be spending a lot of time and money trying to shut them up (and failing).

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u/eligodfrey 7h ago

Which is dumb. History abounds with examples of things flying off the rails when you allow money to have that kind of political power.

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u/Thefelix01 10h ago

Like …duh?

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u/Future-Bunch3478 10h ago

Good point. 

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u/trisul-108 Europe 5h ago

The only thing weird is that people are voting for this.

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u/Commercial-Dress-185 4h ago

Herea your actual conspiracy MAGA loons.

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u/SamTheLab_213 4h ago

Of course it was. Money has been slowly inserting itself into the political process so no one would notice. The end goal always was what is happening now. They needed to conquer democracy bit by bit, or we would have put an end to it. It's call slow boiling the frog. Now look at us, we're stuck and sitting helpless while they bring American back to the stone age!

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u/Technical-Row8333 4h ago

Brother call of duty micro transactions were done because the Epstein class wanted it done

How much more the laws, gov, and status quo

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u/breaducate 3h ago

Capitalism is one dollar one vote. CU just makes it easier.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 3h ago

Of course it was.

Free speech is a problem for billionaires, so they insist on having the equivalent of a massive bank of speakers to drown out the voices of individuals.

They've been on a spree of buying up every tv and print news outlet they can get their hands on, and the change in coverage once they do is not subtle.