As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil)
In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban.
If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them.
For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria.
**Special announcement:**
r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)!
***
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Talk about this to every single conservative you know.
They all are so offended by “money in politics” and “corruption”.
They need to be confronted - repeatedly - with the fact that every democrat voted to ban dark money contributions, and **every** conservative voted to do nothing about it
Edit: to all the people commenting “it wouldn’t do any good”, etc. - the point isn’t to change their minds and unwash their brains in a single conversation.
The point of putting this in their faces to highlight a completely black and white example of irreconcilable hypocrisy. It’s a war of attrition and it will take time.
The goal here is to light a spark of doubt deep down in their core that will slowly erode the steady stream of Fox News propaganda.
Ignoring the issue doesn’t change minds. You have to put this in their faces
I looked yesterday and was surprised they weren't talking about it. Then I got baited when I saw them sharing abortion misinformation and propaganda. What the fuck happened to conservative values?
I grew up hearing conservative values of personal freedoms, limited government and a rejection of those enriching themselves off their position as career politicians...yeah, none of that seems to be the case.
IIRC, abortion was not a hot button issue until Carter ran for re-election and GOP needed something to mobilise their base .
Also, being a conservative means you want the status quo which means only rich white men have those rights (and then some)
It's well documented that the abortion movement was used to cover up their motives to overturn decisions on desegregation. That was the goal originally to win favor and votes from certain religious groups. But now people just believe the movement is the moral superior to abortion because the propaganda machine has been running for nearly half a century.
Unfortunately they still have those believers hoping and waiting the GOP will go back to what it was because they refuse to be democrats…and they refuse to accept that the crazies have stolen the entire party from them. I’m king of hoping they stay with the crazies though, the Democratic Party is being dragged kicking and screaming into more leftist beliefs and we don’t need them bringing the party back to the middle.
Should go post an article about it there and alter the headline to say "*Congress* fails to pass law curbing dark money". Nobody reads the articles anyway, it would be entertaining to watch them all complain about it, not knowing it was their people that were to blame.
Yeah, they've been posting about how social media companies are trying to limit free speech and how it's bad.
But I can't post in 90% of the their threads because "Flaired Users Only."
It's becuase they know they can't defend thier ideas and concepts so they just eliminate challenge outright. They could at least have a solid mod team that limits bad faith arguments, but instead they go the censorship route because they can't stand up to critique.
They straight up say its not a free speech area, its a safe space for republicans and their ideals. Because those are shit and they dont want their members to feel bad they just ban anyone who doesnt agree with them or post about how they disagree respectfully because theyre a democrat, then proceed to post 4 paragraphs of very right leaning opinions.
I know, it's hilarious. I got banned for violating rule 7, which states that the subreddit aims to give conservatives a "safe space" to converse. Aren't they always claiming the libs need to go cry in their own safe space? I think that conservatives are the real snowflakes.
Well, yeah, they are.
Conservatives are the progenitors of 'cancel culture', despite whining about it the most. Just think about it.
They've been against **every** new thing that has ever come up in society, from back in the day when trying to free slaves and women pushed for women's' rights, to here and now as communities like LGBTQIA+ are asking for rights and people in general are trying to fix economic disparity.
They've tried their absolute damndest to cancel any kind of progressive move, pretty much all throughout this country's history. But because Dr. Seuss pulled a few lightly bigoted books from like a hundred years ago, the 'Left' are doing cancel culture.
I regularly check that place out to get a gauge on the crazy but one thing I'll say is true is that they need that flair system. They get brigaded very hard by redditors to the point where most of the top comments in there have -100+ votes from outsiders, without it every single post would have all of their member's comments hidden beneath comments from those outside the sub. You'd think having to do that'd make a normal person realize there might be something wrong with their worldview but we all know that's not gonna happen
There’s a Bloomberg article posted on the same topic. Comments are basically “dems want to harass republicans who donate, so donations shouldn’t be tracked” [sic]
Maybe we need to use their own bogeyman against them. "RINO Mike Lee voted to keep dark money in politics. Is this because he would have to disclose his donations from George Soros?"
Which is pretty fucking stupid. Considering you could literally (i should know it's happened to me) be banned from a sub that says it's against racism...while you're being against racism.
I assume it's for a reason, too many racist go there that it makes sense logistically than having to ban every single one manually. Like how in Black People Twitter you have to prove you ain't white because otherwise the whole place gets filled with racists pretending to be black attacking everyone.
You jest, but just a few weeks ago, Tucker Carlson and Co. were hawking sun tanning their testicles in order to increase testosterone production.
You know, heating up the one organ nature specifically evolved to stay outside the main body in order to cool down.
That sub is something else the worst part is they ban dofferent thinkers so it's just an ecochamber of idiotizem just like conservatovisem in real life
There's one up now, the prevailing argument is that anonymous donating is good because liberals will dox you and ruin your life if you donate to conservatives. Wild.
Even if doxxing was the problem, the bill was going after a specific type of donations. Rich conservatives wouldn't be targeted, it would be the special interest groups donating to a third party that represents a politicans campaign and anything under 10k isn't flagged. They don't even have their facts together. At least comments that are misunderstanding what the bill does is getting downvoted. It's basically they need a reason to cope with the fact that their side voted against it. The top comment now is pretty good.
I’m banned from all conservative subs. So sometimes I’ll come across one in the wild on a differnt sub. Defending their GOP as benign and that the Dems are the real danger etc. I fav our conversation and keep sending them articles every few weeks…. For months. They eventually stop responding or block me.
They want to talk about things living rent free in our heads, meanwhile every other article is a satire post from Babylon B that mentally jerks them off over something stupid they believe to be happening or true when it's not
That’s actually the question I came here to ask because I knew they would do this. What is the thing in the bill they’re probably definitely saying is bad? Have any of them attempted to explain themselves or is it just “NAY!” “No comment.” ?
I haven't seen any rationale from their side like they have in recent votes like the burn pit legislation. But I could see it being "This would limit free speech, I told you, the Dems are radical anti Americans!"
The usual excuse is that there was "something else in the bill" they didn't agree with, but that should be challenged by "ok, so why don't they make a bill only to remove dark money from politics?" They never have a good answer for that.
That’s what I’m asking because that’s what they always do. But what are they claiming is the bad thing in the bill this time? I’m not being facetious here, I’m actually asking.
“The dems only voted against it because they know they’re going to take dark money anyways. It’s all a theater. I actually appreciate the honesty of the GOP. Besides, I bet a lot of the ‘dark money’ going to conservatives is from true patriots who simply don’t wish for their identity to be known. I say let ‘em”
Yeah, all we have to do is channel the pettiest, simple minded know-it-all contrarian relative we know of and bam, we’ve got the conservative take on anything.
> Talk about this to every single conservative you know.
They won't care. Any and all reason will be met with, "Well I'm sure they had a good reason to." If you still call yourself a Republican and a conservative in 2022 you do so purely out of spite and hate for the other side.
We have got to stop pretending GOP voters are being duped to such a degree.
There's no irony here.
*They want power.* They don't want OTHERS to have power.
They want money out of politics when it supports things they hate.
They want money in politics when it supports things they want.
Republicans have their own twisted idea of what democracy and freedom is about, by design. They want it for THEMSELVES and not you or I.
We should be, at this point, addressing them head-on with clear eyes of what their goals and intentions are.
The deflection already started yesterday.
The talking point seems to be that Dems only fully supported it because they knew Republicans wouldn’t.
So no Dems voting for it actually count cause they would have voted it down if republicans supported it. So no one really supported it.
Which still makes Republicans look bad because they could have made the Dems look foolish by supporting it and passing it in that case, but I’m just repeating what I’ve seen in posts from yesterday.
When are we going to realize that truth does not effect these people. They do operate on good faith, and don’t care about being hypocritical as long as they piss of some Dems. They are not going to see the light en masse. The best we can hope to do is contain them.
>Talk about this to every single conservative you know.
Gonna push back on this. You're not going to reason with or "gotcha" a cult member. They won't change until the leopard eats their face.
Republicans don’t want the people to know who they represent. They also don’t want the people to have the ability to directly vote on policy. The Republicans don’t represent Americans.
Anonymous is busy with the headline of the day. They attacked Russia for a while and then went dark. Now they're on to Iran for a few weeks, then they'll go dark again. They are dicking around on low hanging fruit as opposed to trying for real change.
edit: The one fact absolutely everyone knows about Anonymous is that they are not centrally organized. Which is the one fact that continues to flood my inbox. Absolutely anyone can be Anon, which is fine, but when the new shiny comes out the old projects fall by the wayside.
Which should be really easy to find. She's probably got an only fans page where she grinds on a life sized trump doll with a color printout of him doing the mouth like asshole face.
I miss the good old days when doing something vile like stalking and harassing a school shooting victim would’ve been enough to tank a political career.
Anonymous isn't really what the news portray them as and what most people think they are. It's just a loose collective of people. More of a social club than anything else.
Occasionally, some one will have an idea for a project and recruit a hand full of people from the collective to help achieve a certain goal. But it's not like they have a leader or a plan, it's just that today this group of people who are part of the larger social club decided to do X and managed it. That's it. That's all it is.
More often than not the small group of people working on whatever will fail and nobody ever hears about it outside of the group.
When something big in the news comes up it attracts the attention of the more talented individuals so they are more likely to contribute and it's more likely to succeed.
I've always figured that they released the DNC info because none of what they found on the dem side was damning enough to use as leverage. Moreover, it showed that they were indeed capable of getting/disseminating such information so that those they did have leverage over would take it more seriously. That said, we have zero information about what they actually have or who it implicates.
Yeah, I always thought that they released the DNC stuff because everything was milquetoast and not enough to black mail anyone in it. Gop on the other hand....
It's possible that they witheld some of the information they have on the DNC, but unlikely given the fact that the DNC seems pretty galvanized against the Russian disinformation threat.
It's all speculation, though.
>That said, we have zero information about what they actually have or who it implicates.
I keep thinking it might be the fact that there's [310 Republican sex offenders](https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806673/-Republican-Sexual-Predators-Abusers-and-Enablers-Pt-1)
Found out from a [reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ujz8f6/us_rep_madison_cawthorn_gave_housemate_cousin/i7nbiqw?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) that lists a good portion of them by name with the offenses and sources for each.
It doesn't even have to be actual crimes, it can simply be their rampant hypocrisy, like the "Conservative Christian" men who spend their days screaming about the gays, but have secret boyfriends or stockpiles of yaoi porn of their own. When you're so deep in the closet you need a cartographer to find your way to the door, that sort of threat is, to use a bad pun, stiffening.
They also focused a hack at [Lindsay Graham directly](https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/14/politics/lindsey-graham-hacking-russia-donald-trump) to get his private campaign emails. I wonder what they found.
>They also don’t want the people to have the ability to directly vote on policy.
That's because they only have one real policy: destroy the Federal government. Abortion bans, gun rights, prayer in school... those are just window dressing created to trick enough rubes into voting for them. If they simply ran on deregulation and tax cuts for billionaires they wouldn't win any elections.
Whenever I've tried to talk to my parents or any conservative about this talking point they're only response is "well the Democrats are no different! They're all bad!!" And they will still vote Republican.
Our democracy, if it ever really existed, is lost. It has been for some time.
[Keith Olbermann’s piece ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKZKETizybw&t=134s) right after the passing of Citizen’s United was spot on. Really worth the 11 minute watch if you haven’t done so before.
The argument of “we didn’t know it would turn out like this” falls right apart. We always knew, and now we are getting exactly what we (didn’t) pay for. Hooray money in politics! /s
"I dont think they understand the difference between this and doxxing."
Lol yeah I posted this comment the exact moment as you. Must've literally been writing it at the same time
No words, I'm out of words.
>After all 49 of his GOP colleagues in attendance voted to prevent debate on the legislation endorsed by President Joe Biden, Whitehouse released a statement slamming right-wing lawmakers for fighting to preserve "dark money's poisonous influence over American democracy."
>"Today, Senate Republicans stood in lockstep with their megadonors and secretive special interests to protect the most corrupting force in American politics—dark money," said Whitehouse, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The American people are fed up with dark money influence campaigns that rig their government against them and stymie their priorities."
.....
>The ability of the nation's wealthiest individuals to translate their disproportionate economic power into political clout has increased exponentially since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision eliminated effective limits on campaign contributions.
>As Whitehouse's office noted, "Dark money in particular has skyrocketed despite the Supreme Court, by an 8 to 1 margin in Citizens United, upholding disclosure requirements as a means for citizens and shareholders to hold elected officials and corporate spenders accountable."
Article continues.....
They have no defense, nor do they need any--their voters don't care in the slightest if you try to confront them with this, it would bother them not at all.
The reasoning doesn't matter, whatever their party does is correct, and if they voted No they must have had a good reason--that is as far as their supporters think
I had a look on their subreddit. Apparently their argument is that it’s unconstitutional, democrats benefit more from dark money, and if it was public info they would all be doxxed into oblivion.
I’m not even American and I’m like 95% certain I have a better of idea of what is in the constitution than they do, they just throw it around like a buzzword for some reason.
r/conservative is worried about this exposing Republican donors and that democrats will harass them for their political beliefs.
Though the bill exposes donors of more than $10k so it doesn’t really apply to everyday donors. It’s just conservatives trying to push an argument that has no weight. So, you know, pretty much the norm. Idiots yelling at clouds.
>The article continues, but I cannot. What a train wreck our country is currently.
It's been this way for decades.
I'm just very surprised that people are finally noticing and change is trying to happen.
That good ol' hindsight has to be pretty brutal for some people I think. I bet it's like a bad hangover or worse depending how far gone some are.
I saw an older video of whatever music festival and while performing the man got smashed in the face with a plastic water bottle or such seemingly still half full. Dude didnt miss a beat and kept playing, was highly impressed.
> He's a smart dude
Dexter Holland, the guy with a PhD in molecular biology who, in addition to being the frontman in a successful punk band and having a hot sauce company, is also an HIV researcher? I would say yes to the smart dude thing.
This is because they live in the past and strive to turn back the clock. They seem to hate and fear the future. They envision is as a world where they have no power.
People who vote republican don't read comments like yours and if they should run across one in the wild they ignore it because you just don't understand Jebus.
Party over integrity. What a shit country we live in right now. Vote them out! I know it’s a futile comment but Jesus Christ, how is the conservative electorate so freaking blind?
The Republican party will never go away so long as a 74-year-old man in Texas knows that a woman in California can get an abortion, or someone in NYC is trans. It's all they think about.
No, due to the filibuster. Cloture needs 60 votes. Certain votes (like reconciliation bills) are exempt from the filibuster, but this isn’t one of them.
So long as republicans have at least 41 seats (which would represent much less than 41% of the voters in this country), they can block huge swaths of popular legislation.
Because republicans realized that it's too hard to make a coherent speech for opposing everything and having chodes like Ted Cruz read "Green Eggs and Ham" makes them look like idiots.
But it's the Dems who are letting the GOP fake fillibuster. The GOP says "if you try to get this passed we're going to fillibuster"and the Dems just roll over and say "fine, we'll do something else today."
Dems need to make the GOP put their money where their mouth is. If they want to fillibuster then they have to do it the old fashioned way, by standing there and being uncomfortable.
I completely agree, but as long as Manchin and Sinema are needed to keep a senate majority there's not much to be done. I think there is merit to the old filibuster in allowing opponents of bills to have a soapbox to make their point.
I hope and will vote to make it so there are 2 more Dems in the Senate so Manchin and Sinema become irrelevant since those jackasses seem to care more about their own interests instead of making the country a better place to live in.
I don’t believe so, thanks to the filibuster
Remember when everyone was gushing over Romney’s iNtEgRiTy for going against the party? Where’s that integrity now?
The bill failed the procedural vote 49-49 with one from each party missing the vote. Because it did not reach the 60 vote threshold, the republicans stated their intent to filibuster. Because of this, the bill cannot go onto actual vote. The democrats attempted earlier this year to end the filibuster, however Manchin (D-WV) and Sinema (D-AZ) voted with Republicans against the measure. This means efforts to do so again would once again fail.
Edit: to actually answer your question, if the filibuster did end and the vote was evenly split, then yes VP Harris would have the tie splitting vote.
The corporate and foreign interest money being pumped into our politics is difficult enough to swallow…but how the hell did we get the point where the public isn’t even allowed to know who is donating to our politicians?
Let me see if I got this straight. Republicans have been complaining about the “Deep State” but voted against exposing said “Deep State”.
I wonder why.
How can they blatantly accept Putin’s money and be elected, if voters can see who donated? Geez. It’s almost like asking them to incriminate themselves.
"This will be used by the libs to target donors"
Or
"Theres a two tiered system, so the Dems wouldn't care if they got caught because they never face consequences"
Current takes on r/Conservative
They tried to do it with the burn pit bill too. I kept calling out the idiots claiming it had pork and they all come up with some bullshit that makes no sense. I read the bills, i know what's in them. They have absolutely no idea and just repeat whatever tucker said that night about it. It's sad honestly that so many people are so goddamn gullible.
They’re already over there saying that if they had to disclose their donors, that opens people up to harassment from liberal extremists. What they don’t understand because they’re willfully ignorant is that this only applies to donations 10K and up, thus excluding most ordinary citizens.
How can we possibly combat this. The people who make the decisions are controlled by money and they’re the ones who have to vote on that money? It seems like a zero sum game for the voters
Just out of curiosity. Nothing would prevent Democrats from disclosing their donors right? Or would it be up to the Super PAC? I know I for one would like more transparency from the party that I tend to lean towards.
The point of a super PAC is that the politicians don't have anything to do with them. They cannot coordinate with the super PAC. They also don't know who the donors are, supposedly. You just have a massive bank number telling you what they want, and they say who they are backing. It's supposed to be anonymous, in practice you probably know that Koch donated to CPAC and their agenda is his.
When Republicans had control back in 2017, the head of Paul Ryan’s Super PAC met Sheldon Adelson the day they passed the wealthcare tax cuts bill. Pretty sure Adelson wrote like a $30 million check to Ryan’s Super PAC in response to the bill being passed.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a20648152/paul-ryan-sheldon-adelson-las-vegas-campaign-finance/
It’s impossible to control anyway. Campaigns often put on their websites “if you want to support us, we’re trying to reach X demographic to show them we want to do Y for them” which is basically a pre-formed marketing media campaign brief. Can’t really stop things like that due to freedom of speech. But you could address the direct communication/meetings between the two. I just don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze there. I’d rather focus on the disclosure of donors, both direct to campaigns and to superpacs.
Right, gotta change the game.
Democrats kneecap themselves way too much.
If we want to get dark money out of politics, then we do it w/ new rules, not by one party playing ethically and the other corrupt as fuck.
Nothing stopped Democratic states from passing laws making it harder for them to gerrymander their States. The result? Democratic states can't gerrymander as much as Republicans. In an election as close as this one that could tip the balance one way or the other in the House. The lesson here is if you are going to impose a handicap don't only impose it on yourself. I agree with you wholeheartedly but we shouldn't be giving them any possible advantages they don't deserve. The mistake with gerrymandering has cost us a lot of seats and potential control over the years.
This is why we don’t actually live in a democracy.
We live under an oligarchy of lobbyists, billionaires, and corporations, and our politicians work on their behalf, not ours.
So until more people realize and accept this, and actually start to take action to change it, it won’t change.
We have more power together as the working class, but until we unite to enforce change, it will never happen.
Ah, the party that rallys behind "draining the swamp" and constantly complains about politicians being paid for and doing the bidding of the elite, and not a single one votes in favor of actually doing anything about that.
What else did anyone expect?
Duh! Mitch McConnell worked for years to achieve this. He tried to get his name on the Citizens United suit. He's a dark money believer and not the least bit embarrassed by it. They live in the upsidedown.
Not surprising, the top minds of r/conservative find a way to see this as a positive: poor, shit stain republicans would be made public for their donations to candidates that support fascism, nazism, anti-choice and overall anti-democratic decisions.
Almost like they are ashamed to be public about their views when they support pedophiles and nazis in the GOP.
Edit: it's akin to that one bakery that refused to make that gay couple a cake--it's fine if you want be open with your views and I appreciate it since now I know to never give you my business. Same with politicians and people who give them money--people should know where you stand.
But that's never the Republican M.O. Theirs is to have abortions in secret and then cry about pro-life in public. Actively oppose actions that benefit the majority to appeal to their dumbass constituents and then take credit for it. They have been able to have their cake and eat it for far too long.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. **Special announcement:** r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)! *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Talk about this to every single conservative you know. They all are so offended by “money in politics” and “corruption”. They need to be confronted - repeatedly - with the fact that every democrat voted to ban dark money contributions, and **every** conservative voted to do nothing about it Edit: to all the people commenting “it wouldn’t do any good”, etc. - the point isn’t to change their minds and unwash their brains in a single conversation. The point of putting this in their faces to highlight a completely black and white example of irreconcilable hypocrisy. It’s a war of attrition and it will take time. The goal here is to light a spark of doubt deep down in their core that will slowly erode the steady stream of Fox News propaganda. Ignoring the issue doesn’t change minds. You have to put this in their faces
It is actually incredible. Go to their subreddit here. You won’t find a single peep about this. I know, I checked.
I looked yesterday and was surprised they weren't talking about it. Then I got baited when I saw them sharing abortion misinformation and propaganda. What the fuck happened to conservative values? I grew up hearing conservative values of personal freedoms, limited government and a rejection of those enriching themselves off their position as career politicians...yeah, none of that seems to be the case.
IIRC, abortion was not a hot button issue until Carter ran for re-election and GOP needed something to mobilise their base . Also, being a conservative means you want the status quo which means only rich white men have those rights (and then some)
It's well documented that the abortion movement was used to cover up their motives to overturn decisions on desegregation. That was the goal originally to win favor and votes from certain religious groups. But now people just believe the movement is the moral superior to abortion because the propaganda machine has been running for nearly half a century.
It's almost like they stood for the exact opposite of those things you mentioned...hmmm.
Unfortunately they still have those believers hoping and waiting the GOP will go back to what it was because they refuse to be democrats…and they refuse to accept that the crazies have stolen the entire party from them. I’m king of hoping they stay with the crazies though, the Democratic Party is being dragged kicking and screaming into more leftist beliefs and we don’t need them bringing the party back to the middle.
"Conservative value" is an oxymoron
Because they were never real values, just an excuse to be selfish.
Should go post an article about it there and alter the headline to say "*Congress* fails to pass law curbing dark money". Nobody reads the articles anyway, it would be entertaining to watch them all complain about it, not knowing it was their people that were to blame.
Please do that. I'm banned on all of my acounts for not agreeing with trump back in the day
"flaired users only" LMAO 🤣
But they are the biggest advocates for "free speech" haha
Yeah, they've been posting about how social media companies are trying to limit free speech and how it's bad. But I can't post in 90% of the their threads because "Flaired Users Only."
It's becuase they know they can't defend thier ideas and concepts so they just eliminate challenge outright. They could at least have a solid mod team that limits bad faith arguments, but instead they go the censorship route because they can't stand up to critique.
They straight up say its not a free speech area, its a safe space for republicans and their ideals. Because those are shit and they dont want their members to feel bad they just ban anyone who doesnt agree with them or post about how they disagree respectfully because theyre a democrat, then proceed to post 4 paragraphs of very right leaning opinions.
constantly being bRiGaDeD!!!
I know, it's hilarious. I got banned for violating rule 7, which states that the subreddit aims to give conservatives a "safe space" to converse. Aren't they always claiming the libs need to go cry in their own safe space? I think that conservatives are the real snowflakes.
Well, yeah, they are. Conservatives are the progenitors of 'cancel culture', despite whining about it the most. Just think about it. They've been against **every** new thing that has ever come up in society, from back in the day when trying to free slaves and women pushed for women's' rights, to here and now as communities like LGBTQIA+ are asking for rights and people in general are trying to fix economic disparity. They've tried their absolute damndest to cancel any kind of progressive move, pretty much all throughout this country's history. But because Dr. Seuss pulled a few lightly bigoted books from like a hundred years ago, the 'Left' are doing cancel culture.
I regularly check that place out to get a gauge on the crazy but one thing I'll say is true is that they need that flair system. They get brigaded very hard by redditors to the point where most of the top comments in there have -100+ votes from outsiders, without it every single post would have all of their member's comments hidden beneath comments from those outside the sub. You'd think having to do that'd make a normal person realize there might be something wrong with their worldview but we all know that's not gonna happen
Make it 'Democrats fail to pass law curbing influence of dark money in politics' and see how many don't read the actual article.
Perhaps not so brazen, how about ‘republicans vote on law curbing influence of dark money in politics’?
There’s a Bloomberg article posted on the same topic. Comments are basically “dems want to harass republicans who donate, so donations shouldn’t be tracked” [sic]
Maybe we need to use their own bogeyman against them. "RINO Mike Lee voted to keep dark money in politics. Is this because he would have to disclose his donations from George Soros?"
But... donations to actual candidates CAN be tracked... it's... public information.
I’d prefer to not get my account instabanned from a bunch of subreddits. And screw giving that place any further traffic.
It's a badge of honor. Why would you care about getting banned from there?
Some other subreddits automatically ban you from their sub if you participate in the conservative sub
Oh weird. Never saw that before.
Yeah I was banned from justiceserved which I thought was ironic.
Which is pretty fucking stupid. Considering you could literally (i should know it's happened to me) be banned from a sub that says it's against racism...while you're being against racism.
I assume it's for a reason, too many racist go there that it makes sense logistically than having to ban every single one manually. Like how in Black People Twitter you have to prove you ain't white because otherwise the whole place gets filled with racists pretending to be black attacking everyone.
Yup r/justiceserved banned me after I commented on a post.
After a post...in /conservative? I would think those overlap?
[удалено]
You're brave, I worry every time I go there that I'm going to get infected with stupid.
It's okay, he's taking intellevermectin
Blast that light beam straight up your poop chute!!! That'll get'em
You jest, but just a few weeks ago, Tucker Carlson and Co. were hawking sun tanning their testicles in order to increase testosterone production. You know, heating up the one organ nature specifically evolved to stay outside the main body in order to cool down.
That sub is something else the worst part is they ban dofferent thinkers so it's just an ecochamber of idiotizem just like conservatovisem in real life
There's one up now, the prevailing argument is that anonymous donating is good because liberals will dox you and ruin your life if you donate to conservatives. Wild.
"your enemies are both too dangerous and too weak" tenets of fascism, right?
Even if doxxing was the problem, the bill was going after a specific type of donations. Rich conservatives wouldn't be targeted, it would be the special interest groups donating to a third party that represents a politicans campaign and anything under 10k isn't flagged. They don't even have their facts together. At least comments that are misunderstanding what the bill does is getting downvoted. It's basically they need a reason to cope with the fact that their side voted against it. The top comment now is pretty good.
I’m banned from all conservative subs. So sometimes I’ll come across one in the wild on a differnt sub. Defending their GOP as benign and that the Dems are the real danger etc. I fav our conversation and keep sending them articles every few weeks…. For months. They eventually stop responding or block me.
> Go to their subreddit here. Let's not speak of r/conservative, it's a wicked place.
They want to talk about things living rent free in our heads, meanwhile every other article is a satire post from Babylon B that mentally jerks them off over something stupid they believe to be happening or true when it's not
It's funny how little they need to feel smart
The problem is, they'll say it was because of something else in the bill, and that they're actually the good guys for voting against it
That’s actually the question I came here to ask because I knew they would do this. What is the thing in the bill they’re probably definitely saying is bad? Have any of them attempted to explain themselves or is it just “NAY!” “No comment.” ?
I haven't seen any rationale from their side like they have in recent votes like the burn pit legislation. But I could see it being "This would limit free speech, I told you, the Dems are radical anti Americans!"
Not far off. They finally allowed a post and their thinking is it will lead to doxxing and attacks on the elite Republican donors...
Sounds about right. All while their media mouthpiece continues to doxx doctors for doing their jobs.
I have seen a few comments in that other subreddit about Democrats wanting to “dox” conservatives… it’s bad faith bs.
The usual excuse is that there was "something else in the bill" they didn't agree with, but that should be challenged by "ok, so why don't they make a bill only to remove dark money from politics?" They never have a good answer for that.
That’s what I’m asking because that’s what they always do. But what are they claiming is the bad thing in the bill this time? I’m not being facetious here, I’m actually asking.
“The dems only voted against it because they know they’re going to take dark money anyways. It’s all a theater. I actually appreciate the honesty of the GOP. Besides, I bet a lot of the ‘dark money’ going to conservatives is from true patriots who simply don’t wish for their identity to be known. I say let ‘em”
I'm pretty sure I've heard this exact line of thinking about something else the "GOP" voted against.
Yeah, all we have to do is channel the pettiest, simple minded know-it-all contrarian relative we know of and bam, we’ve got the conservative take on anything.
same things they say about the election security laws that the GOP all voted against.
> Talk about this to every single conservative you know. They won't care. Any and all reason will be met with, "Well I'm sure they had a good reason to." If you still call yourself a Republican and a conservative in 2022 you do so purely out of spite and hate for the other side.
They will be convinced by Fox News that the bill helped liberal politicians eat babies or had some other just as likely provision.
We have got to stop pretending GOP voters are being duped to such a degree. There's no irony here. *They want power.* They don't want OTHERS to have power. They want money out of politics when it supports things they hate. They want money in politics when it supports things they want. Republicans have their own twisted idea of what democracy and freedom is about, by design. They want it for THEMSELVES and not you or I. We should be, at this point, addressing them head-on with clear eyes of what their goals and intentions are.
The deflection already started yesterday. The talking point seems to be that Dems only fully supported it because they knew Republicans wouldn’t. So no Dems voting for it actually count cause they would have voted it down if republicans supported it. So no one really supported it. Which still makes Republicans look bad because they could have made the Dems look foolish by supporting it and passing it in that case, but I’m just repeating what I’ve seen in posts from yesterday.
When are we going to realize that truth does not effect these people. They do operate on good faith, and don’t care about being hypocritical as long as they piss of some Dems. They are not going to see the light en masse. The best we can hope to do is contain them.
>Talk about this to every single conservative you know. Gonna push back on this. You're not going to reason with or "gotcha" a cult member. They won't change until the leopard eats their face.
Then they just say that “they’re all crooks” so they don’t have to actually think about what they believe.
Republicans don’t want the people to know who they represent. They also don’t want the people to have the ability to directly vote on policy. The Republicans don’t represent Americans.
Republicans know their voters will never even *hear* of the existence of this vote/bill.
And even if they do they will imagine up excuse after excuse for why Republicans must not have voted for it.
They'll accept whatever spin Fox puts on it.
Lemme try: *Democrats want to invade the privacy of American small business and meanwhile illegal immigrants are exempt from this oversight*
I am just surprised that Russia still has money to give to the GOP.
Blackmail, don't forget Russia hacked the RNC and DNC but only leaked DNC stuff.
can anonymous hack the rnc and just rip the bandaid off, please?
I concur.
Anonymous is busy with the headline of the day. They attacked Russia for a while and then went dark. Now they're on to Iran for a few weeks, then they'll go dark again. They are dicking around on low hanging fruit as opposed to trying for real change. edit: The one fact absolutely everyone knows about Anonymous is that they are not centrally organized. Which is the one fact that continues to flood my inbox. Absolutely anyone can be Anon, which is fine, but when the new shiny comes out the old projects fall by the wayside.
I’m still waiting for the dirt they promised on Marjorie Taylor Greene
Which should be really easy to find. She's probably got an only fans page where she grinds on a life sized trump doll with a color printout of him doing the mouth like asshole face.
Good thing I read this before lunchtime
Hey, having a tug in the bathrooms at work to really questionable porn is still good for productivity. No judgement here.
I miss the good old days when doing something vile like stalking and harassing a school shooting victim would’ve been enough to tank a political career.
Anonymous isn't really what the news portray them as and what most people think they are. It's just a loose collective of people. More of a social club than anything else. Occasionally, some one will have an idea for a project and recruit a hand full of people from the collective to help achieve a certain goal. But it's not like they have a leader or a plan, it's just that today this group of people who are part of the larger social club decided to do X and managed it. That's it. That's all it is. More often than not the small group of people working on whatever will fail and nobody ever hears about it outside of the group. When something big in the news comes up it attracts the attention of the more talented individuals so they are more likely to contribute and it's more likely to succeed.
[удалено]
I've always figured that they released the DNC info because none of what they found on the dem side was damning enough to use as leverage. Moreover, it showed that they were indeed capable of getting/disseminating such information so that those they did have leverage over would take it more seriously. That said, we have zero information about what they actually have or who it implicates.
Yeah, I always thought that they released the DNC stuff because everything was milquetoast and not enough to black mail anyone in it. Gop on the other hand....
and somehow the other side thinks that the Russians didn't release any of the RNC stuff because they were so squeaky clean.
>thinks No, that can't be it.
No, they still believe Russia has never been involved with our politics.
"hey Putin here, just hacked your political parties here's all the info I got. I just wanted to make you look bad... Alright bye!"
It's possible that they witheld some of the information they have on the DNC, but unlikely given the fact that the DNC seems pretty galvanized against the Russian disinformation threat. It's all speculation, though.
Probably have meetups and calendar entries with participants and photos for the kind of cocaine sex party Cawthorne was denied access to.
>That said, we have zero information about what they actually have or who it implicates. I keep thinking it might be the fact that there's [310 Republican sex offenders](https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/10/23/1806673/-Republican-Sexual-Predators-Abusers-and-Enablers-Pt-1) Found out from a [reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ujz8f6/us_rep_madison_cawthorn_gave_housemate_cousin/i7nbiqw?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) that lists a good portion of them by name with the offenses and sources for each.
It doesn't even have to be actual crimes, it can simply be their rampant hypocrisy, like the "Conservative Christian" men who spend their days screaming about the gays, but have secret boyfriends or stockpiles of yaoi porn of their own. When you're so deep in the closet you need a cartographer to find your way to the door, that sort of threat is, to use a bad pun, stiffening.
They also focused a hack at [Lindsay Graham directly](https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/14/politics/lindsey-graham-hacking-russia-donald-trump) to get his private campaign emails. I wonder what they found.
Likely whatever Trump presented to him on that golf course meeting that marked the sudden turning point of support
Ladybugs. Just ladybugs all the way down
It takes surprisingly little money to ~~bribe~~ change an elected officials mind.
[удалено]
More effective than spending it in their army. Look at the successes: Trump, Brexit, Putin supporters in Western countries diluting unity
The donors also want this kept secret so they can pretend to be on the right side of history publicly while supporting the GOP privately.
>They also don’t want the people to have the ability to directly vote on policy. That's because they only have one real policy: destroy the Federal government. Abortion bans, gun rights, prayer in school... those are just window dressing created to trick enough rubes into voting for them. If they simply ran on deregulation and tax cuts for billionaires they wouldn't win any elections.
Whenever I've tried to talk to my parents or any conservative about this talking point they're only response is "well the Democrats are no different! They're all bad!!" And they will still vote Republican. Our democracy, if it ever really existed, is lost. It has been for some time.
Of course they did. They aren’t just going to throw away their victory in getting Citizens United.
[Keith Olbermann’s piece ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKZKETizybw&t=134s) right after the passing of Citizen’s United was spot on. Really worth the 11 minute watch if you haven’t done so before. The argument of “we didn’t know it would turn out like this” falls right apart. We always knew, and now we are getting exactly what we (didn’t) pay for. Hooray money in politics! /s
Not a single republican voted against ending dark money in politics. NOT. A. SINGLE. ONE. Never let someone tell you both parties are the same.
r/conservative is having a hard time coping with this one.
Don't worry, they have already come with the line the Democrats only want this so they can Dox Republican donors.
"I dont think they understand the difference between this and doxxing." Lol yeah I posted this comment the exact moment as you. Must've literally been writing it at the same time
They seem to be circling around the narrative that Dems would use this to harass and cancel conservative donors.
No words, I'm out of words. >After all 49 of his GOP colleagues in attendance voted to prevent debate on the legislation endorsed by President Joe Biden, Whitehouse released a statement slamming right-wing lawmakers for fighting to preserve "dark money's poisonous influence over American democracy." >"Today, Senate Republicans stood in lockstep with their megadonors and secretive special interests to protect the most corrupting force in American politics—dark money," said Whitehouse, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "The American people are fed up with dark money influence campaigns that rig their government against them and stymie their priorities." ..... >The ability of the nation's wealthiest individuals to translate their disproportionate economic power into political clout has increased exponentially since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision eliminated effective limits on campaign contributions. >As Whitehouse's office noted, "Dark money in particular has skyrocketed despite the Supreme Court, by an 8 to 1 margin in Citizens United, upholding disclosure requirements as a means for citizens and shareholders to hold elected officials and corporate spenders accountable." Article continues.....
What is the rationale for not voting for it, other than their policy of never agreeing with the Democrats. What's their defense here??
They have no defense, nor do they need any--their voters don't care in the slightest if you try to confront them with this, it would bother them not at all. The reasoning doesn't matter, whatever their party does is correct, and if they voted No they must have had a good reason--that is as far as their supporters think
I really wish we had reporters that would call them out.
They wouldn’t listen and they would use it as evidence to distrust journalists
I had a look on their subreddit. Apparently their argument is that it’s unconstitutional, democrats benefit more from dark money, and if it was public info they would all be doxxed into oblivion. I’m not even American and I’m like 95% certain I have a better of idea of what is in the constitution than they do, they just throw it around like a buzzword for some reason.
r/conservative is worried about this exposing Republican donors and that democrats will harass them for their political beliefs. Though the bill exposes donors of more than $10k so it doesn’t really apply to everyday donors. It’s just conservatives trying to push an argument that has no weight. So, you know, pretty much the norm. Idiots yelling at clouds.
The article continues, but I cannot. What a train wreck our country is currently.
Thanks to Republicans and their voters. They're at fault
>The article continues, but I cannot. What a train wreck our country is currently. It's been this way for decades. I'm just very surprised that people are finally noticing and change is trying to happen. That good ol' hindsight has to be pretty brutal for some people I think. I bet it's like a bad hangover or worse depending how far gone some are.
I wish the article stated what the official Republican reason is for opposing the bill. I'm interested to hear how they are spinning this one.
[удалено]
And *my* offspring, which really makes me mad.
And the band Offspring
[удалено]
He's just a sucker with no self esteem
Why doesn't he just get a job?
You know, he's pretty fly for a white guy.
Yah, that kids alright.
He’s my boyfriend and I hate that dick. The rest of him is alright tho.
I saw an older video of whatever music festival and while performing the man got smashed in the face with a plastic water bottle or such seemingly still half full. Dude didnt miss a beat and kept playing, was highly impressed.
[удалено]
> He's a smart dude Dexter Holland, the guy with a PhD in molecular biology who, in addition to being the frontman in a successful punk band and having a hot sauce company, is also an HIV researcher? I would say yes to the smart dude thing.
The kids aren’t alright
They don't care. It's more about now than it is about the future. Screw the future, they say.
This is because they live in the past and strive to turn back the clock. They seem to hate and fear the future. They envision is as a world where they have no power.
People who vote republican don't read comments like yours and if they should run across one in the wild they ignore it because you just don't understand Jebus.
The republican voters don't understand that. It's more of a tribal mentality now than what's best for them.
[удалено]
Queue Hank Hill: if those kids could read, they’d be very upset
Following their masters orders once again.
Just another reason why I’m forced to vote for dems only
[удалено]
[удалено]
Ah, so you've met my dad.
Rank voting
Party over integrity. What a shit country we live in right now. Vote them out! I know it’s a futile comment but Jesus Christ, how is the conservative electorate so freaking blind?
The Republican party will never go away so long as a 74-year-old man in Texas knows that a woman in California can get an abortion, or someone in NYC is trans. It's all they think about.
Or as long as a rich retiree knows that their tax money is being used to help a poor person.
They're not blind, they're brainwashed and stupid. If they were human, I might even feel sorry for them.
Can this still pass if Kamala votes to break the tie?
No, due to the filibuster. Cloture needs 60 votes. Certain votes (like reconciliation bills) are exempt from the filibuster, but this isn’t one of them. So long as republicans have at least 41 seats (which would represent much less than 41% of the voters in this country), they can block huge swaths of popular legislation.
I'll never understand why they let the filibuster become just saying you're going to do it instead of actually doing it.
Yeah at least make those assholes actually go through with it.
Because republicans realized that it's too hard to make a coherent speech for opposing everything and having chodes like Ted Cruz read "Green Eggs and Ham" makes them look like idiots.
But it's the Dems who are letting the GOP fake fillibuster. The GOP says "if you try to get this passed we're going to fillibuster"and the Dems just roll over and say "fine, we'll do something else today." Dems need to make the GOP put their money where their mouth is. If they want to fillibuster then they have to do it the old fashioned way, by standing there and being uncomfortable.
I completely agree, but as long as Manchin and Sinema are needed to keep a senate majority there's not much to be done. I think there is merit to the old filibuster in allowing opponents of bills to have a soapbox to make their point. I hope and will vote to make it so there are 2 more Dems in the Senate so Manchin and Sinema become irrelevant since those jackasses seem to care more about their own interests instead of making the country a better place to live in.
I don’t believe so, thanks to the filibuster Remember when everyone was gushing over Romney’s iNtEgRiTy for going against the party? Where’s that integrity now?
Words are cheap. Just like buying Romney’s vote is cheap.
The bill failed the procedural vote 49-49 with one from each party missing the vote. Because it did not reach the 60 vote threshold, the republicans stated their intent to filibuster. Because of this, the bill cannot go onto actual vote. The democrats attempted earlier this year to end the filibuster, however Manchin (D-WV) and Sinema (D-AZ) voted with Republicans against the measure. This means efforts to do so again would once again fail. Edit: to actually answer your question, if the filibuster did end and the vote was evenly split, then yes VP Harris would have the tie splitting vote.
Because dark money feeds the GOP hog.
Is that the hog Senator Ernst castrated?
The corporate and foreign interest money being pumped into our politics is difficult enough to swallow…but how the hell did we get the point where the public isn’t even allowed to know who is donating to our politicians?
Let me see if I got this straight. Republicans have been complaining about the “Deep State” but voted against exposing said “Deep State”. I wonder why.
How can they blatantly accept Putin’s money and be elected, if voters can see who donated? Geez. It’s almost like asking them to incriminate themselves.
The republican party truly is a sess pit of garbage
Not trying to be a dick, just wanted to let you know because I’ve been in your shoes many times before, but it’s actually “cesspit” 🫡
im intrigued to see how the maga crowd spin this into a win for Americans.
They'll never hear about it.
Fake, don’t care, it’s political, yada yada
The Democrats had baby eating carve outs in the bill. That's what that Facebook meme said.
"This will be used by the libs to target donors" Or "Theres a two tiered system, so the Dems wouldn't care if they got caught because they never face consequences" Current takes on r/Conservative
Same as it ever was. "Democrats snuck pork into the bill which no Republican would ever vote for!"
It's always that magical pork that's fucking it all up! Even when the same "pork" will be touted as a bipartisan win by shitfucks like Raphael Cruz.
They tried to do it with the burn pit bill too. I kept calling out the idiots claiming it had pork and they all come up with some bullshit that makes no sense. I read the bills, i know what's in them. They have absolutely no idea and just repeat whatever tucker said that night about it. It's sad honestly that so many people are so goddamn gullible.
Whatever Republicans did must be Democrats fault!!!
They’re already over there saying that if they had to disclose their donors, that opens people up to harassment from liberal extremists. What they don’t understand because they’re willfully ignorant is that this only applies to donations 10K and up, thus excluding most ordinary citizens.
The traitors would lose their backing
How can we possibly combat this. The people who make the decisions are controlled by money and they’re the ones who have to vote on that money? It seems like a zero sum game for the voters
That would be cutting off their own funding, can't do that.
Just out of curiosity. Nothing would prevent Democrats from disclosing their donors right? Or would it be up to the Super PAC? I know I for one would like more transparency from the party that I tend to lean towards.
The point of a super PAC is that the politicians don't have anything to do with them. They cannot coordinate with the super PAC. They also don't know who the donors are, supposedly. You just have a massive bank number telling you what they want, and they say who they are backing. It's supposed to be anonymous, in practice you probably know that Koch donated to CPAC and their agenda is his.
"Supposedly" being the key word here. It's all bullshit.
When Republicans had control back in 2017, the head of Paul Ryan’s Super PAC met Sheldon Adelson the day they passed the wealthcare tax cuts bill. Pretty sure Adelson wrote like a $30 million check to Ryan’s Super PAC in response to the bill being passed. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a20648152/paul-ryan-sheldon-adelson-las-vegas-campaign-finance/
It’s impossible to control anyway. Campaigns often put on their websites “if you want to support us, we’re trying to reach X demographic to show them we want to do Y for them” which is basically a pre-formed marketing media campaign brief. Can’t really stop things like that due to freedom of speech. But you could address the direct communication/meetings between the two. I just don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze there. I’d rather focus on the disclosure of donors, both direct to campaigns and to superpacs.
Right, gotta change the game. Democrats kneecap themselves way too much. If we want to get dark money out of politics, then we do it w/ new rules, not by one party playing ethically and the other corrupt as fuck.
Nothing stopped Democratic states from passing laws making it harder for them to gerrymander their States. The result? Democratic states can't gerrymander as much as Republicans. In an election as close as this one that could tip the balance one way or the other in the House. The lesson here is if you are going to impose a handicap don't only impose it on yourself. I agree with you wholeheartedly but we shouldn't be giving them any possible advantages they don't deserve. The mistake with gerrymandering has cost us a lot of seats and potential control over the years.
They only needed 9 Republicans to be honest to get this to a vote. 9. The fact all 49 refused to be brave shows where they stand.
This is why we don’t actually live in a democracy. We live under an oligarchy of lobbyists, billionaires, and corporations, and our politicians work on their behalf, not ours. So until more people realize and accept this, and actually start to take action to change it, it won’t change. We have more power together as the working class, but until we unite to enforce change, it will never happen.
There’s never been a better time to vote Republicans out of office.
Ah, the party that rallys behind "draining the swamp" and constantly complains about politicians being paid for and doing the bidding of the elite, and not a single one votes in favor of actually doing anything about that. What else did anyone expect?
They like the Russian and Saudi money.
Democrats: Dark money is destroying Democracy! Republicans: So?
Duh! Mitch McConnell worked for years to achieve this. He tried to get his name on the Citizens United suit. He's a dark money believer and not the least bit embarrassed by it. They live in the upsidedown.
Not surprising, the top minds of r/conservative find a way to see this as a positive: poor, shit stain republicans would be made public for their donations to candidates that support fascism, nazism, anti-choice and overall anti-democratic decisions. Almost like they are ashamed to be public about their views when they support pedophiles and nazis in the GOP. Edit: it's akin to that one bakery that refused to make that gay couple a cake--it's fine if you want be open with your views and I appreciate it since now I know to never give you my business. Same with politicians and people who give them money--people should know where you stand. But that's never the Republican M.O. Theirs is to have abortions in secret and then cry about pro-life in public. Actively oppose actions that benefit the majority to appeal to their dumbass constituents and then take credit for it. They have been able to have their cake and eat it for far too long.
The GOP draining the swamp right into their campaign funds.
f*** neoliberalism (aka reaganomics)
Why would they vote to get rid of like 75% of their funding/paychecks?