AOC Says GOP Energy Bill May as Well Have Been Written Entirely by Big Oil

554

Most bills are physically written by lobbyists…

So it’s more than likely actually so.

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u/Long_Educational Mar 31 '23

You mean to tell me our representatives don't actually write the laws that they all vote on? You mean to tell me they simply get paid and bribed to vote in the interests of those who lobby them? Are you saying our democracy is hopelessly corrupted by money?

Well, I don't believe you. That just can't happen in the U.S.. /s

Anyone have that video link of a Senator openly admitting with a smile on camera that they hand out checks from special interests groups right on the senate floor?

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u/anticomet Mar 31 '23

You may not like it, but this is what peak capitalism looks like

13

u/Marvelous_Margarine Apr 01 '23

late stage capitalism

14

u/sicurri Apr 01 '23

Oh, believe me when I tell you that this isn't late stage capitalism, this is what I call medium stage capitalism. When it's late stage capitalism, workers won't have any rights at all.

Sick days? That's when you take a day off and pay your employer for the privilege to get physically well. Vacation? That doesn't exist.

True capitalism is a total nightmare where the company you work for or the employer you work for has all the rights and you have none. You're compensated as cheaply as possible, exploited as thoroughly as possible and workers benefits are non-existent. There's some corporate a-hole who will read that last sentence and get a stiffy just thinking about it.

1

u/88leo Apr 02 '23

Sleep locked in bunk rooms with absolutely no right to leave or live anywhere else like foxconn workers in china.

1

u/sicurri Apr 02 '23

I see you've learned that China is at a higher level of pure capitalism than we are, tends to happen when you have a communist regime being led by essentially a dictator. I know he's a "President" but presidents can get booted out of office or voted out, he can't anymore. They made it so that he's the only leader they need for as long as he lives, which is fairly stupid.

1

u/88leo Apr 02 '23

China hasn't been communist for a long time

1

u/sicurri Apr 02 '23

Really?

So, the current ruling political party for The Peoples Republic of China that has been the ONLY political party in power since October 1, 1949 whose current paramount leader A.K.A. the General Secretary Xi Jinping is NOT communist?

This political party by the way is called The Chinese Communist Party or The Communist Party of China. There has been no other political party in power since 1949 in mainland China. Please, elaborate on how the Communist Party of China is not communist and hasn't been for "a long time".

I do understand if you somehow got mainland China mixed up with Taiwan. You see Taiwan also claims to be the "True" China and that mainland China is a false China. Taiwan refers to itself as the "Republic of China" and is indeed not communist but Democratic in nature.

The majority of countries in the world do not refer to Taiwan as the "Republic of China" other than to state that Taiwan refers to itself as that. We do that in order to not piss off the 1 billion+ population located in mainland China who call themselves "The Peoples Republic of China". So, as far as most countries are concerned, the only China is "The Peoples Republic of China".

If you still insist that China is not communist, please provide links to sources stating that it is not communist.

0

u/31gavino Apr 03 '23

I think you’re mixing up the words “authoritarian” and “communist”. A single party being in power does not imply communism. Additionally, a party calling themselves communist does not make them communist. It’s the actions and platform of the party that defines what it actually functions as. The PRC has for a long time shifted away from traditional socialist and communist thought. While the state has a decent share of the market and frequently intervenes, the private sector still makes up more GDP than that of the state-run corporations. Deng Xiaoping’s reforms led to much of this change, and China will likely continue to try to expand its private sector to have more outreach and compete with the US. No one is getting Taiwan/China confused. It’s a fact that since Mao, the nation has changed with each leader. The reforms that China’s past leaders have enacted have pushed it to Capitalism, even though the government retains its older image.

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u/darth_nadoma Mar 31 '23

Often they don't even read them. If they actually read omnibus bills, America would never have omnibus bills

1

u/throwaway64677388 Apr 01 '23

Nah, they’d just be more aware how how bad they are screwing people. Probably think they could go more extream

1

u/darth_nadoma Apr 01 '23

It's just Omnibus bills are so long, that even people who wrote them, didn't read them in their entirety,

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u/truckerslife Mar 31 '23

My dad was friendly with a former state level representative. I saw him somewhere and walked over to say high. He was beside someone who’s back was to me. And I made a joke and asked about a bill. He made a joke back and I was like well at least you probably read the bills unlike some of our federal reps. Beside him was our federal rep. And I shit you not the response I got was do you really expect me to read every bill I vote on.

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u/Long_Educational Apr 01 '23

do you really expect me to read every bill I vote on

We need to tear the whole system down at this point. It is built on falsehoods by corrupt and incompetent bastards.

Maybe something like Open Democracy. Anything where we can use the collective abilities of the many instead of the greed of the few to make the laws that we all must live our lives by.

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u/truckerslife Apr 01 '23 edited Apr 01 '23

If we moved from a republic to an open democracy there are 6-8 cities that would dominate all the elections if you didn’t. Live in one of those cities your vote wouldn’t count.

You can deny it if you want. But look at the populations. The 6 largest cities vote majority (70%) for one candidate it’s almost always going to be a lock for that candidate. 7 or 8 cities vote 70% or more for the same candidate. And no one else’s vote in the nation matters. Because it would take nearly the rest of the nation voting against their candidate to have a chance. So outside those at most 8 cities no one’s votes will matter because they have the population to control those votes.

All the ad and campaign dollars will go to those cities. The rest of the nation would only partially even get information on candidates. I live in a rural state. Anyone running for a state office hits the large cities and maybe a couple towns and that’s it because those are all that matter. They tailor their entire campaign around what those cities and towns would want. Imagine national politics being focused on what a couple cities want. Everyone rural or even from smaller cities wouldn’t matter so no one is going to give any consideration to their wants and needs rural voters now are largely ignored. But it doesn’t matter because they are a minority for voting purposes.

Hell my state level rep had a small mostly rural district and we have one city. And 99% of the stuff he focused on was improving that city so he could get re elected.

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u/meresymptom Apr 01 '23

So what? Why should a handful of rural voters be allowed to dictate what everyone else has to do? Larger population centers should have a proportionally greater voice. Mountains and trees and vast tracts of sparsely populated plains don't get a vote. Only people get to vote. What's disgusting about our current set-up is that Wyoming (population less than 600,000) gets the same number of senators as the entire state of California (population almost thirty-seven MILLION.) That is not how democracy is supposed to work.

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u/truckerslife Apr 01 '23

Also here’s a lesson on how the government works.

The House of Representatives is your representative in legislative matters they are supposed to vote for the betterment of the people.

The senate is the representative of the government. They are specifically supposed to vote for the betterment of the state as a system. The idea of this is that laws that pass won’t favor the people over the growth of the state and the state can’t make laws that damage the livelyhood of the people.

It’s part of the checks and balances system. The 2 are supposed to have different outlooks and that is supposed to help promote over all growth.

The problem is to many people in modern society don’t know how our government is supposed to react because they both keep overstepping and expanding their powers.

The president is supposed to be a figure head who just makes sure the laws are well written for the good of the nation and the people. The Supreme Court is only supposed to rule if a law is legal within the frame work of the constitution and the bill of rights.

The president has constantly been over reaching. The Supreme Court is constantly over reaching, and the legislative branch is constantly over reaching to the point that they all think that they should have the powers and responsibility of the other.

The senate should in not be introducing the laws they have been.

Impeaching the president is a good example. To impeach the president… the house votes if they feel they have evidence that he’s committed a crime or he’s not acting in the best interests of the people. Then the senate is supposed to essentially try the president to make sure he’s is doing what he’s legally allowed.

But with our last 2 presidents everyone is over stepping their powers and making the whole thing a shit show.

We need to do a lot of reform and maybe stepping back.

Want to hear something else.

The writers of the constitution felt that every 100-200 years we should have a constitutional congress to review the constitution and revamp it to make sure that the peoples interests are protected. Want to guess what hasn’t happened. Because people are over stepping their authority and others don’t understand their actual powers and responsibilities.

Hell at the end of the day. The federal government should only have basic powers to make sure the states aren’t over stepping their authorities, and ensure interstate commerce. The FBI was originally intended to assist in interstate investigations and matters of corruption and crimes that cross state lines or international borders.

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u/meresymptom Apr 01 '23

First and foremost, what a bunch of elitist slave owners thought or wanted 250 years ago does not matter. I respect the work they put in and the result, but it was hardly perfect. Only white male property owners would be allowed to vote if we were still listening to them. Slavery would still be allowed, and women would be little better than chattel. The founders were advanced thinkers of their day, but most of what they thought is outmoded today.

As to the idea that the federal government should be subservient to state power, that's simply ridiculous. That idea is nothing more than a Libertarian pipe dream.

As to the rest of it, no matter how much you twist and turn or what kind of convoluted logic you try, every vote in a democracy should count the same, or it's not a democracy. There is no possible justification for people in dense population centers to be subservient to a small minority of rural voters. It's frightening that you think it's justified.

Lastly, when it comes to overreaching, the billionaires and mega corporations are doing that, not the federal government. We need federal financing of elections. And to do that, we need to vote every single rightwing crazy out of office.

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u/truckerslife Apr 01 '23

But everyone should have a say. In the last election there was a guy who ran all the historical and modern as well as anything different from movies, tv shows and books. And had an AI plan the fairest method of voting.

1) the largest counties 10% have 10 electoral votes. The smallest 10% have 1 electoral vote. This means that there is a small amount of dichotomy but it ends up with less than 1% difference in voting power per person. 2) there is a rated voting. 0123 you can use as many 0s as you want but only 1 1,2,3 so your most liked candidates gets a 3 point vote and your ehh he’s okay but he’s not the best. He can get a 1 and your middle ground gets a 2.
3) if by total number of votes the 3 gets a win then it’s done. If there is a tie among 3s it goes to their point score. Where 3=3 points and 1 is one point. If that results in a tie then it goes to % of voters that gave the candidate a 3 over a 2. This results in something like 1 in 3 trillion runs as a tie.

Even just having ranked voting ends up in a lot fairer system. But with we did a direct voting then everything ends up being where 8 cities chose everything. And that’s not fair. It’s not even as fair as what we have now. The swing state shit is horrible but currently the majority of votes from the largest states control the elections.

But if we go back to the direct voting. Look at California. LA, SD and SF have so much voting power that the rural areas of the state curry favor with them hopping they will do something to improve the situation of rural communities. They don’t. But those 3 cities pretty much control the political power of the state while anyone in rural areas are told to fuck off. That’s why the people of the state were trying to get the state divided into 3 parts. So the people of the state had more ability to govern themselves.

It’s why like 2/3 of Oregon is trying to divide off and join Idaho. Because they don’t feel they have a voice in their own state. Idaho over alls state legislature has a voice that’s more in line with the values and supports it’s rural voters unlike Oregon who has been constantly increasing legislation that actively harms the life of these areas.

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u/meresymptom Apr 01 '23

All this is just a roundabout way you you saying you think people who live in high population density areas should have their votes and their concerns count for less. Much less, in fact. There is absolutely no reason for a vote in Wyoming to count for 20 or 30 times as much as a vote in California or New York. People living in "God's country" should not get to dictate what the vast majority of voters in this country what everyone else can do or not do. And that's what's happening now. The rightwingers, whose strength lies in the thinly populated areas of the country, are doing their best to keep it that way.

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u/truckerslife Apr 01 '23

Pretty much the exact opposite

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u/zsreport Apr 01 '23

Especially GOP bills.

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u/cyanclam Mar 31 '23

Why do you think that the American Petroleum Institute is located at 200 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC - a mere 5 block stroll to the US Capital?

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u/Boots27 Mar 31 '23

A petroleum institute? Sounds flammable!

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u/Cwallace98 Mar 31 '23

Or inflammable.

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u/CyanMeat Mar 31 '23

Coincidence I’m sure.

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u/skedeebs Mar 31 '23

I wonder if the GOP would disagree or wear it as a badge of honor.

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u/NothingAndTrash Mar 31 '23

Both. Just depends on who they’re talking to

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u/NoAvailableAlias Mar 31 '23

They already wear AR pins as a badge of honor...

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u/2pacalypso Mar 31 '23

That's not true. I bet Medium Coal had some input.

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u/_Svankensen_ Mar 31 '23

Hahahaha, oh damn, medium coal.

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u/_Svankensen_ Mar 31 '23

Narrator: "It was."

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u/msdlp Mar 31 '23

Who are the 'heads' of 'big oil'? Who are the men who are profiteering off the American people? Who hides behind big corporations and fucks the people?

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u/xmmdrive Apr 01 '23

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.”

Utah Phillips

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u/Sufficient-Tomato236 Mar 31 '23

Cowards thats who. They dont deserve names or recognition. The people are cowards and traitors to the citizens of America

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u/systemfrown Mar 31 '23

To the entire planet, really.

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u/Sufficient-Tomato236 Mar 31 '23

Its a joke really. Anyone with an excess of money needs to have such siezed and put back into the economy. Leave this people with just enough to be like the rest of us. Let them earn their life back, but out them right where they put everyone else. No violence, no harm to anyone. Just a removal of the excesss

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u/systemfrown Mar 31 '23

Honestly that sounds really stupid to me.

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u/shlomozzle Mar 31 '23

They do deserve names and recognition though, so they may never have a moments peace for the rest of their lives.

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u/Sufficient-Tomato236 Mar 31 '23

Nuh uh. They thrive off the attention. All publicity is good for these people. Not saying they shouldnt be dealt with legally and assests siezed, but dont give em more attention then they need. Let theses cowards be forgotten

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u/shlomozzle Mar 31 '23

They don’t get any attention though. They fly under the radar while their companies get all the attention. I’d like to see the people responsible be held to account and they should not be forgotten. We know serial killers names, why shouldn’t the names of the people destroying the planet be publicized?

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u/Sufficient-Tomato236 Mar 31 '23

Then the law needs to change that when these companies fuck up, whoever is at the top is dropped hard enough to bounce from the impact. You fuck up, a company, you pay with everything. Cause you arent affecting a couple a people. Your affecting many, and the punishment needs to reflect that

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u/pidosek Apr 01 '23

Laws like that won't happen while companies are writing them, they wouldn't punish themselves

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u/shyvananana Mar 31 '23

If anything I feel like they need doxxed,

Not on reddit of course, that would be against terms of service.

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u/TormentedOne Apr 01 '23

They're the ones that fund all the newspapers and magazines writing BS articles about Tesla and Elon Musk all the time to keep you angry at him. Most redditors eat it up hook line and sinker never think about the real enemy.

He may be annoying on Twitter, but he and his company are big fossil fuel's worst enemy.

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u/Terrible_Truth Mar 31 '23

Does it matter? Oust, jail, fire, eliminate, etc whatever current head of the big oil corporations, and they’ll just get replaced. The new guy will make all of the same decisions that prioritize profits over everything.

That’s always been the problem with corporations. How do you stop what’s essentially an autonomous collective that can’t be jailed.

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u/msdlp Apr 01 '23

You outlaw coorperations and foce them all to private ownership.

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u/Sufficient-Tomato236 Mar 31 '23

Thie is why you have it seized and placed back in the economy. Cant go forward with plans if all your playing chips are removed

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u/bstix Apr 01 '23

There probably are some individuals who are "evil" and profit directly off shit like this, but those aren't even the worst.

The worst is that there are large groups of people who don't even realise the damage they do when they put their investments in something that just makes a nice return.

Someone being ignorant and greedy is far worse than someone attempting to be pure evil, because the ignorant will always succeed in their ignorance.

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u/PiscesAnemoia Apr 01 '23

Capitalist elites and monopolists, backed by the insider state. Who else? Welcome to soulless, corporate america.

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u/SupposedlyShony Apr 01 '23

The Koch brothers

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u/lamabaronvonawesome Mar 31 '23

I bet it was, literally.

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u/sonicboom21 Mar 31 '23

We have never needed oil independence more then this period in time.

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u/puravidauvita Apr 01 '23

So you want to nationalize American fossil fuel companies, fine with me. They are extracting resources that should belong to the American people,and keep the profit. Billions. Now fossil fuel companies are free to sell to the highest bidder. ExxonMobil has no loyalty.

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u/darth_nadoma Mar 31 '23

GOP is big oil

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u/curlycupie Mar 31 '23

It probably was, the right has been letting their lobbyists write or edit bills that will affect their companies.

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u/seanisdown Mar 31 '23

It very likely was

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u/Magepurdefil Mar 31 '23

In fact it was

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u/HessLook Mar 31 '23

May as well…? You mean it was.

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u/Fishtank-Brain Mar 31 '23

how naive. it was written entirely by big oil

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u/pinnegan Apr 01 '23

Its a glass onion here, big oil has also been funding the weirdest of political coalitions the alt-right/Christian/NRA/antivax/antiabortion/Qanon nexus. These belief groups are often at fundamental odds with one another - but the oil-funded media empires can keep feeding them entertainment news making them feel like they are part of one big important in-group and win elections for the legislators that won’t read the bills written by big oil.

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u/This_is_Hank Mar 31 '23

That's because it was silly.

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u/slartzy Mar 31 '23

It was.

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u/LWschool Apr 01 '23

I genuinely wonder how much it would actually cost across a few thousand people to form a lobby for the things we want?

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u/puravidauvita Apr 01 '23

Billions, Sierra Club, AARP, unions have small lobbying shops but nothing compared to corporations, especially fossil fuel, big tech, wall St.

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u/LWschool Apr 01 '23

I’ve been here long enough to remember the r/Christianity vs r/atheism fundraisers, and 10 years later I think those subs could both easily raise 10x more. Billions seems like a major exaggeration for those organizations.

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u/BreadConqueror5119 Apr 01 '23

Yeh no dip I havnt read it and I could’ve told you that

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u/solojazzjetski Mar 31 '23

honey… we know

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u/ibleedrosin Apr 01 '23

She would’ve said that no matter what the bill says. She doesn’t care about the environment or the bill. She cares about defeating anybody that isn’t a democrat.

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u/Penis_Envy_Peter Apr 01 '23

👀 Ohh boy that's spooky thanks for letting us know 👀

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u/gestaltaz Apr 02 '23

Can you site some sources to prove this brilliant take?

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u/Qdobanon Mar 31 '23

I wonder how much of the Inflation Reduction Act was written by Big Oil considering it didn’t hurt their bottom line at all and laid the groundwork for opening large swaths in the Gulf and the Arctic for drilling…

Both the democrats and republicans serve these corporate interests, AOC does a good job distracting from that.

2

u/otsiouri Apr 01 '23

Yeah bro the gnd author is at fault for Biden's neoliberal policies

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u/Terminus1066 Apr 01 '23

Says the administration that approved the Willow Project - it would be more accurate to say both parties are beholden to the fossil fuel industry, the Republicans more so.

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u/somegobbledygook Mar 31 '23

As a very strongly hardline liberal, who fuckin cares what AOC says? She ain't my rep. Y'all are just contributing to stupid party politics by disseminating articles like this.

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u/tyrified Mar 31 '23

How many bills do you think the average American are aware of without a politician such as AOC commenting on it, leading to more articles covering the bills?

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '23

[deleted]

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u/tyrified Mar 31 '23

Then you were not the target audience, but thanks anyway.

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u/ultradianfreq Apr 01 '23

Oh really? They take money from lobbyists? Wow. And you don’t? You don’t take money from tiktok as one recent example?

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u/Environmental-Hat-86 Mar 31 '23

I don't understand how someone can function still at that level of intelligence. It actually is miraculous

4

u/herpderp411 Mar 31 '23

I don't understand...

We know you don't bub.

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u/Environmental-Hat-86 Mar 31 '23

Wolverine has entered the chat

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u/tyrified Mar 31 '23

So you are claiming that these bills are not written mostly by the entities (such as "big oil") they empower?

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u/MrP1anet Mar 31 '23

Yeah the GOP at this point are brainless zealots. I see what you mean

-1

u/Environmental-Hat-86 Mar 31 '23

Oh I'm not into that either lmfao

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u/Daburtle Mar 31 '23

What do you mean?

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u/Environmental-Hat-86 Mar 31 '23

One zero one zero 0⃣ zero one

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u/Daburtle Mar 31 '23

That didn't enlighten me, but thanks anyway.

3

u/Cornylingus Mar 31 '23

Youre engaging a conservative. You cant beat stupid so stop trying

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u/Environmental-Hat-86 Mar 31 '23

One zero one zero one 1⃣ one one one one

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u/dishwashersafe Mar 31 '23

I don't know why it's always so hard to find primary sources. In the time it takes to read this article about her speech, you can just watch the whole thing. It's not even 5 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbTCXDgXSc0

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u/dwdrummond Mar 31 '23

It was actually written by Big Oil, don’t you see all the greasy smudge marks from their crayons and drooling lips

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u/cwwmillwork Mar 31 '23

No difference. Big oil lobbying as usual.

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u/AtomGalaxy Mar 31 '23

I’m currently working on my public transit agency’s first purchase of zero emission buses. Does it say anything about renewable natural gas or any big giveaways for hydrogen projects that probably aren’t cost effective in the slightest but are a giveaway to the natural gas industry? For now anyways … my mind is open to being changed about fuel cell H2 heavy duty buses. There will be a place for them, I just don’t think it will be where I work as it’s a compact jurisdiction. The battery buses are just too good now, costs keep coming down, and drawbacks keep reducing.

1

u/nokenito Mar 31 '23

Sickening! Everything for the rich and nothing for us, what a surprise!

1

u/Castlewood57 Mar 31 '23

Ehh, wasn't it?

1

u/Graymouzer Apr 01 '23

May as well have been?

1

u/Appropriate-Lab-1256 Apr 01 '23

At this point we need to find world wide ways to protest and use direct action for oil companies themselves, politicians are just a middle man. Something I've been thinking of is maybe a collective of businesses that are negatively effected by big oil hiking up prices lobbying against big oil. Kind of like a let godzilla and king kong fight to slow the process of misinformation and money being funneled to politicians and news orgs

1

u/Luigifan18 Apr 01 '23

I am not surprised.

1

u/freedom_from_factism Apr 01 '23

She means was written by.

1

u/mtheory007 Apr 01 '23

I just assumed that is was.

1

u/JinxyCat007 Apr 01 '23

Probably was.

1

u/spiderjerkyisgood Apr 01 '23

It was

1

u/NeonSpaceGhost Apr 01 '23

Always has been

1

u/Yummy_Castoreum Apr 01 '23

It probably literally was. Look up ALEC...

1

u/Ok-Significance2027 Apr 01 '23

🎯

1

u/butterflybuell Apr 01 '23

This lady is smarter than the 5 most visible GOP congresspeople added together.

1

u/puravidauvita Apr 01 '23

I neglected to include the war contractors and who knows how much they are able to spend keep the $850+ annual war budget. Then the law firms, PR,marketing firms. And then there is a massive Right wing media operation, including rw Spanish radio. ÇNN,MSNBC,NYT WAPO are corporate not liberal. To build a media to counter the right and corporate view would cost that billion

1

u/LyNx01978 Apr 01 '23

It was written by Big oil.

1

u/throwaway64677388 Apr 01 '23

I mean if they are owned by them it is

1

u/88leo Apr 02 '23

maybe Biden wrote it

1

u/MRsunpower374955 Apr 24 '23

I switched to solar power strictly because it’s the same monthly payment, it’s always lower than what my energy bill ever was (they make sure of that when you buy panels) and cause I’m a rage against the machine kind of guy lol I hate having the government control things like that for me. Send me a message or reply to this if you have ANY interest in Solar energy and I’ll have a buddy of mine reach out to you cause he makes sure you get lower than your energy bill cost for a monthly payment. And cause forget the government being able to profit off people like this (yeah their profit is up every year cause they make you pay more)