> JON TESTER: You know, a perception is reality in Washington, D.C. and in politics in general. But the fact is that I think Palantir's got a good story to tell, and they need to tell it. And hopefully folks will be receptive to it.
This tells you all you need to know about politics and who elected people work for, it's a cancer that you can "hire" people to go and "talk" to another people in congress, what an infinite level of corruption.
Sometimes you have to buy Trumpcoins first before meeting with certain politicians. The most powerful politicians just do it in the open like never before.
The levels of hell run deep, and we just got schooled as to how deep. The revolving door is the surface, POTUS shitcoin was next level, pumping and dumping the world economy with fake Iran announcements to insider trade it and brag about it on national TV was next level, and there are levels beyond these.
Revolving door is a bit gross but we've just seen sooooooooo much worse.
LOL. I go to an 18-day-long Folk festival and as a songwriter I am a member of Folk Alliance International.
For what it's worth, "folks" is my preferred gender-neutral noun for a large group of humans. So, point of order, but at least one folk uses "folks" regularly. :D
Propaganda (renamed 'PR' in the 50s), media distractions, political lobbying. Illegitimate power-seeking individuals and organizations always use the same toolkit.
The only permanent remedy is to outright ban those - or better: mandatory transparency into what politicians spend how much time with whom, where money streams come from and go out of organizations, etc, etc. All transparent in a public ledger. (and no: it is not 'anti-competitive' if it's the same regulatory landscape for everybody, but a way to safe-guard the government permanently from corruption). Of course if you there are ideas that would complete this or are truly overall better, feel free to throw them in the comments hat.
> better: mandatory transparency into what politicians spend how much time with whom, where money streams come from and go out of organizations, etc, etc. All transparent in a public ledger
The only downside of transparency is that it often has the net effect of increasing partisanship, as quietly making deals and compromises isn't possible.
While I agree this is the only sustainable way of ensuring transparency, I'd want gerrymandering handled and some version of ranked choice voting passed before implementing it. Otherwise, you're going to get even more dysfunctional candidates.
I think the evidence is all anecdotal about the end of Congressional earmarks. In 2008-9 Congress banned set-aside earmarks, and no one has brought that back, and there are plenty of experienced legislative people who claim that has hurt the ability to get deals done.
In addition, the fate of the "Cornhusker Kickback" is illustrative. One of the more conservative Democratic senators during the ACA negotiations was Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. In exchange for his vote he got Nebraska a much better deal than any other state- the Federal Government would pay 100% cost of Medicaid expansion costs, rather than 90% as with every other state. This was a classic case of negotiations and special deal cutting for important votes. This was a classic horse-trade.
But then the news media got a hold of it, called it the "Cornhusker Kickback" and it became so unpopular that Nelson got it stripped out of the final bill. These sorts of things dying in the attention of the media mean that Nebraska got a worse deal than they could have! But it was so unpopular in Nebraska that Nelson thought it hurt his standing with the state. Which goes to the main point.
Politicians should be allowed to have their net worth increase by, let's say, $200,000 a year while in office and for 15 years afterwards. Anything more is taxed at 100%. Let it be a price of public service.
Judges around the world have a lot of restrictions on economical participation. Of course, politicians legislate their own incompatibilities. The only absurd proposition is that it would ever happen, but if we suddenly woke up in a parallel world where politicians would be economically restricted, the world would go forward. Of course, the following day they'd just dissolve those restrictions.
Palantir will have no problem pivoting to serve a hypothetical D administration, and the same future admin will have no trouble bringing it into the fold and leveraging its services. Many Palantir employees will probably welcome it given the direction of their political donations: https://residualthoughts.substack.com/p/libbing-out-at-palan...
The same invasive surveillance apparatus thatâs been focused on immigrants and left-wing protestors can easily be retargeted to focus on gun owners, âhate speechâ, and right wing groups. This industry shouldnât exist at all in its current form.
But of course neither party will be able to turn down the power to subjugate its political enemies.
> During his 18 years in the Senate, Tester was an outspoken critic of the PATRIOT Act that passed shortly after the 9/11 attacks that expanded the Justice Department's surveillance powers. When asked whether his concerns over government surveillance remain and whether he has the same concerns with his new employer, Tester said Palantir is different and that the company doesn't build "big databases" or trade in private data.
That is literally what Palantir does.
> "I wanted to do away with the Patriot Act because it was about privacy," Tester said. "It was about making sure that I am not being watched by anybody, including Big Brother. And by the way, I've talked to many people within Palantir. They believe the same way I do. This is an organization that believes in privacy."
Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic. Talk a big game in office, develop your network and have a cushy job waiting for you once you leave where you make millions calling your friends who are still in office. All while saying that it's not lobbying with a straight face.
Such rules have to be marketable to people in public office in order to be enacted. One way might be to have a congressional alumni committee with very high salaries and strict rules on donations (this strictness could be sold as a way to prevent alumni officials from competing against the power of active officials).
Even if it cost a few hundred million a year in do nothing salaries, it'd help the integrity of multi trillion dollar budgets.
The British House of Lords sort of used to work this way until the stigma of aristocrats being involved in commercial/social activities faded.
But then the only people who run for office, are independently wealthy and don't need work after they serve. Which is also a class of people who don't represent the people.
> I think what is needed is restrictions on jobs people can do after leaving public office.
People who have left public office aren't the only concern, either, there are also quite a few disturbing family connections these days.
For example, both of Chuck Schumer's daughters work in "government outreach" and "politics marketing" positions for big tech companies. One works at OpenAI, the other works at Meta. Not illegal, but not a good look and the sort of thing people should be concerned about.
(I'm glad the Democrats trounced the much worse Trump Republicans, but let's not pretend they are beyond reproach).
>Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic.
I wish more people understood this. Forget party allegiances, vote for those who have your best interests in mind. I bet if the people stopped focusing on their differences, and instead focused on the struggles we all have in common, we would get so much done.
General annoyance: Not having a specific patriot act-like privacy violation ready to not let politicos weasel out like this is journalistic malpractice. Is it just laziness? Just look up some examples before the interview!
What is and isn't "Big databases" isn't up for debate, point to the exact example and ask them about it.
I genuinely think we need some kind of restrictions on free speech for representatives in/formerly in government, because the fact that our politicians can lie this blatantly is as disgusting as it is anti-democracy. It's no wonder 1/3 of our electorate is completely fucking detached from reality.
And the complicity of the media here is also fucking disgusting. A former senator getting a job at Violating Privacy Inc. after opposing the Violating Your Privacy law, Jesus fuck.
At first glance this came off as a bit absurd to me but the government puts restrictions on what it can do all the time. Now it is probably too far to say officials not currently in government have speech restrictions but restrictions on those in office is no more outlandish than any other regulation or rights legislation. Elected officials _are_ the government.
Agreed. I think the US Military is a good example- when you enlist you agree to limits on freedom of speech, association, and privacy. Parker v. Levy established the fact that the military is a âspecialized societyâ with unique needs. Congress could be a similar group.
I don't think it was ever meant for free speech to mean free lying, and if you forbid politicians to lie in public you solved most problems of democracy
Way back in the day, when Twitter was a thing and the API feeds were reasonably accessible, people were using tweets to build network graphs of terrorist cells and drawing maps of territories gangs controlled in major cities. It's amazing what people would put on twitter, and assuming that a micro blogging platform open to the public wouldn't be an incredibly fertile ground for the people looking for them.
This was all done in excel spreadsheets at first, then custom built tools later on. Palantir was one of the early tools, though not the most capable at the time, just the one with the most red-tape-cutting backing.
The Patriot Act survived nearly two decades with power changing hands between the parties many times. You don't need to look very hard at all to see that this former senator is not much of an exception for either party.
The more leftwing ones are much less likely to fall for this. But they have had to fight some of the "democrat blob" along the way (e.g. the Hayley Stevens meltdown).
The bar is on the floor. To be less hawkish than every Republican this decade/century/millenium, Democrats just have to avoid starting a forever war. That's it.
That's not entirely true. They just have to fail at stopping the forever wars, so they can play the victim card and say "I tried! If only you'd given me more money, I could have done it."
And now: "President Donald Trump has nominated Palantir security chief Michael LoSapio to lead CISA, putting an executive from the controversial government supplier in line to run America's civilian cyber defense agency"
Fox is CEO of the henhouse. It's cartoonish, nobody seems to care at all any more about looking remotely ethical.
The 'Democrats' in Montana are the worst sort. They pretend to support the people, but then slow walk anything the people actually want, leading to accidentally fall short at the last minute. Then after they've spent 18 years in the Senate doing this, they get rewarded for their incompetence, by the people who had the most to gain from it.
Steve Bullock did the same thing when he rode out his last term. He became the head of the largest Democrat Dark Money SuperPac.
The Bankhead/Bodnar race was a complete clown show too, designed to split the vote to ensure Alme won. Watch where Bodnar and Bankhead reappear later, I'm sure they'll magically land in places with money and power.
> JON TESTER: You know, a perception is reality in Washington, D.C. and in politics in general. But the fact is that I think Palantir's got a good story to tell, and they need to tell it. And hopefully folks will be receptive to it.
These people are a cancer.
This tells you all you need to know about politics and who elected people work for, it's a cancer that you can "hire" people to go and "talk" to another people in congress, what an infinite level of corruption.
Sometimes you have to buy Trumpcoins first before meeting with certain politicians. The most powerful politicians just do it in the open like never before.
The levels of hell run deep, and we just got schooled as to how deep. The revolving door is the surface, POTUS shitcoin was next level, pumping and dumping the world economy with fake Iran announcements to insider trade it and brag about it on national TV was next level, and there are levels beyond these.
Revolving door is a bit gross but we've just seen sooooooooo much worse.
That guy saw Digger.
Jon "look at me and my lack of fingers!" Tester
Anyone who uses folks is suspect. No folk use folks in regular conversation.
LOL. I go to an 18-day-long Folk festival and as a songwriter I am a member of Folk Alliance International.
For what it's worth, "folks" is my preferred gender-neutral noun for a large group of humans. So, point of order, but at least one folk uses "folks" regularly. :D
Next theyâre gonna ban saying yâall!
Huh??? It's definitely a part of my everyday vocabulary, and of many people I know.
Obama does, and Trump doesn't.
Anybody that doesn't say "folks" to me is suspect, and I probably wouldn't trust them.
They are the exact same sort of people who do not care about us.
Imagine thinking that politicians are any different to what they say publicly.
All of them are liars and are grifting in front of you.
> All of them are liars and are grifting in front of you.
No, there are good people in Congress who do want to help out normal Americans.
Saying all of them are bad and corrupt is helping the bad and corrupt ones.
Propaganda (renamed 'PR' in the 50s), media distractions, political lobbying. Illegitimate power-seeking individuals and organizations always use the same toolkit.
The only permanent remedy is to outright ban those - or better: mandatory transparency into what politicians spend how much time with whom, where money streams come from and go out of organizations, etc, etc. All transparent in a public ledger. (and no: it is not 'anti-competitive' if it's the same regulatory landscape for everybody, but a way to safe-guard the government permanently from corruption). Of course if you there are ideas that would complete this or are truly overall better, feel free to throw them in the comments hat.
> better: mandatory transparency into what politicians spend how much time with whom, where money streams come from and go out of organizations, etc, etc. All transparent in a public ledger
The only downside of transparency is that it often has the net effect of increasing partisanship, as quietly making deals and compromises isn't possible.
While I agree this is the only sustainable way of ensuring transparency, I'd want gerrymandering handled and some version of ranked choice voting passed before implementing it. Otherwise, you're going to get even more dysfunctional candidates.
This is an interesting observation. How are you evaluating this is the outcome? Is there some historical precedence? Would love to read about it.
I think the evidence is all anecdotal about the end of Congressional earmarks. In 2008-9 Congress banned set-aside earmarks, and no one has brought that back, and there are plenty of experienced legislative people who claim that has hurt the ability to get deals done.
In addition, the fate of the "Cornhusker Kickback" is illustrative. One of the more conservative Democratic senators during the ACA negotiations was Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. In exchange for his vote he got Nebraska a much better deal than any other state- the Federal Government would pay 100% cost of Medicaid expansion costs, rather than 90% as with every other state. This was a classic case of negotiations and special deal cutting for important votes. This was a classic horse-trade.
But then the news media got a hold of it, called it the "Cornhusker Kickback" and it became so unpopular that Nelson got it stripped out of the final bill. These sorts of things dying in the attention of the media mean that Nebraska got a worse deal than they could have! But it was so unpopular in Nebraska that Nelson thought it hurt his standing with the state. Which goes to the main point.
Politicians should be allowed to have their net worth increase by, let's say, $200,000 a year while in office and for 15 years afterwards. Anything more is taxed at 100%. Let it be a price of public service.
That's an absurd proposition. It would be easier just to ban stock trading altogether.
Stock trading isnât the only way to illegally profit as a politician though.
Judges around the world have a lot of restrictions on economical participation. Of course, politicians legislate their own incompatibilities. The only absurd proposition is that it would ever happen, but if we suddenly woke up in a parallel world where politicians would be economically restricted, the world would go forward. Of course, the following day they'd just dissolve those restrictions.
Palantir will have no problem pivoting to serve a hypothetical D administration, and the same future admin will have no trouble bringing it into the fold and leveraging its services. Many Palantir employees will probably welcome it given the direction of their political donations: https://residualthoughts.substack.com/p/libbing-out-at-palan...
The same invasive surveillance apparatus thatâs been focused on immigrants and left-wing protestors can easily be retargeted to focus on gun owners, âhate speechâ, and right wing groups. This industry shouldnât exist at all in its current form.
But of course neither party will be able to turn down the power to subjugate its political enemies.
What do they think Tester can do for them?
Help them meet and target campaign donations to people he knows in Congress.
No strings attached, of course.
QA
Question Avoidance.
> During his 18 years in the Senate, Tester was an outspoken critic of the PATRIOT Act that passed shortly after the 9/11 attacks that expanded the Justice Department's surveillance powers. When asked whether his concerns over government surveillance remain and whether he has the same concerns with his new employer, Tester said Palantir is different and that the company doesn't build "big databases" or trade in private data.
That is literally what Palantir does.
> "I wanted to do away with the Patriot Act because it was about privacy," Tester said. "It was about making sure that I am not being watched by anybody, including Big Brother. And by the way, I've talked to many people within Palantir. They believe the same way I do. This is an organization that believes in privacy."
Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic. Talk a big game in office, develop your network and have a cushy job waiting for you once you leave where you make millions calling your friends who are still in office. All while saying that it's not lobbying with a straight face.
Its not just the US either. Meta hired a former British deputy Prime Minister and leader (Nick Clegg) and it happens everywhere.
I think what is needed is restrictions on jobs people can do after leaving public office.
If I have to sign a non-compete agreement in the private sector, it seems very reasonable to have a similar restriction for public employees.
Politicians should have a cap on the amount their net worth can increase for the rest of their life.
Let it be a price of public service. Let them build a society that works for normal people, and then they'll be fine being a normal person.
Palantir itself has done a similar thing in the UK by hiring Tom Watson [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Watson,_Baron_Watson_of_Wy...
Such rules have to be marketable to people in public office in order to be enacted. One way might be to have a congressional alumni committee with very high salaries and strict rules on donations (this strictness could be sold as a way to prevent alumni officials from competing against the power of active officials).
Even if it cost a few hundred million a year in do nothing salaries, it'd help the integrity of multi trillion dollar budgets.
The British House of Lords sort of used to work this way until the stigma of aristocrats being involved in commercial/social activities faded.
But then the only people who run for office, are independently wealthy and don't need work after they serve. Which is also a class of people who don't represent the people.
That's not true. To stay with the UK example, think of Jeremy Corbyn.
Perhaps we should pay them a pension that will make them comfortable for life and actually ban them from ever working again.
This already exists, at least for senior US senate staff. Not sure about actual senators. The restrictions are relatively mild but do exist.
> I think what is needed is restrictions on jobs people can do after leaving public office.
People who have left public office aren't the only concern, either, there are also quite a few disturbing family connections these days.
For example, both of Chuck Schumer's daughters work in "government outreach" and "politics marketing" positions for big tech companies. One works at OpenAI, the other works at Meta. Not illegal, but not a good look and the sort of thing people should be concerned about.
(I'm glad the Democrats trounced the much worse Trump Republicans, but let's not pretend they are beyond reproach).
>Congress is full of these people. Forget party affiliation, this is as broad as it is systemic.
I wish more people understood this. Forget party allegiances, vote for those who have your best interests in mind. I bet if the people stopped focusing on their differences, and instead focused on the struggles we all have in common, we would get so much done.
The structure incentivizes it.
> This is an organization that believes in privacy.
Like a doctor believes in disease
Like a preacher believes in sin
Like a teacher believes in ignorance
General annoyance: Not having a specific patriot act-like privacy violation ready to not let politicos weasel out like this is journalistic malpractice. Is it just laziness? Just look up some examples before the interview!
What is and isn't "Big databases" isn't up for debate, point to the exact example and ask them about it.
I genuinely think we need some kind of restrictions on free speech for representatives in/formerly in government, because the fact that our politicians can lie this blatantly is as disgusting as it is anti-democracy. It's no wonder 1/3 of our electorate is completely fucking detached from reality.
And the complicity of the media here is also fucking disgusting. A former senator getting a job at Violating Privacy Inc. after opposing the Violating Your Privacy law, Jesus fuck.
At first glance this came off as a bit absurd to me but the government puts restrictions on what it can do all the time. Now it is probably too far to say officials not currently in government have speech restrictions but restrictions on those in office is no more outlandish than any other regulation or rights legislation. Elected officials _are_ the government.
Agreed. I think the US Military is a good example- when you enlist you agree to limits on freedom of speech, association, and privacy. Parker v. Levy established the fact that the military is a âspecialized societyâ with unique needs. Congress could be a similar group.
There are good reasons we don't allow the DoJ to investigate senators for "lying."
I don't think it was ever meant for free speech to mean free lying, and if you forbid politicians to lie in public you solved most problems of democracy
No, we need more of these people getting into car accidents.
Really disappointed in Tester about this
âThey (palantir) have a story to tellâ, what a shameless sleezeball.
They are politicians and they are not your friends nor do they care about us.
Some things really start to make sense when you look at the political landscape from this point of view.
I still don't get what is inherently evil with Palantir. Is it the use-cases? The clients? The technology? The founder?
I mean does it do anything I couldn't do with Postgres?
It's the combination of capability and clients.
Way back in the day, when Twitter was a thing and the API feeds were reasonably accessible, people were using tweets to build network graphs of terrorist cells and drawing maps of territories gangs controlled in major cities. It's amazing what people would put on twitter, and assuming that a micro blogging platform open to the public wouldn't be an incredibly fertile ground for the people looking for them.
This was all done in excel spreadsheets at first, then custom built tools later on. Palantir was one of the early tools, though not the most capable at the time, just the one with the most red-tape-cutting backing.
"oh boy! i sure hope this democratic congress will be less hawkish and pro surveillance than the republican one!"
this democrat congress:
That might be true but it's not implied by this, given that this is a former senator.
The Patriot Act survived nearly two decades with power changing hands between the parties many times. You don't need to look very hard at all to see that this former senator is not much of an exception for either party.
The more leftwing ones are much less likely to fall for this. But they have had to fight some of the "democrat blob" along the way (e.g. the Hayley Stevens meltdown).
The bar is on the floor. To be less hawkish than every Republican this decade/century/millenium, Democrats just have to avoid starting a forever war. That's it.
That's not entirely true. They just have to fail at stopping the forever wars, so they can play the victim card and say "I tried! If only you'd given me more money, I could have done it."
I mean, Obama ended the Iraq War and Biden ended the Afghanistan War.
Would have been nice if Obama ended both of them, sure, but it's not like anyone threw Biden a parade.
Palantir really loves hiring former public office holders, must've happened at least a dozen times across US and UK by now.
They love for public office holders to know that if they behave during their term, a cushy gig might be waiting for them after.
The Carlyle Group showed the way.
> Palantir has long denied claims it aids mass surveillance on the American public
This seems at odds given that Alex Karp went on TV talking about how Palantir's tech is used to kill people. [1]
Pointing out Alex Karp saying something evil isn't exactly "original", but forgive me when I don't really believe their PR bullshit.
[1] https://youtu.be/NQ5107TKTBg
Time to pay the protection fee buddy buddy!
See also Dame Cressida Dick, former Metropolitan Police commissioner, who's been hired to sell surveillance to the UK.
Mark Rowley's already said how much they 'need' Palantir too. It's all very, very fishy.
And now: "President Donald Trump has nominated Palantir security chief Michael LoSapio to lead CISA, putting an executive from the controversial government supplier in line to run America's civilian cyber defense agency"
Fox is CEO of the henhouse. It's cartoonish, nobody seems to care at all any more about looking remotely ethical.
I mean... they've been around for 20+ years, they know exactly how to play this game.
The 'Democrats' in Montana are the worst sort. They pretend to support the people, but then slow walk anything the people actually want, leading to accidentally fall short at the last minute. Then after they've spent 18 years in the Senate doing this, they get rewarded for their incompetence, by the people who had the most to gain from it.
Steve Bullock did the same thing when he rode out his last term. He became the head of the largest Democrat Dark Money SuperPac.
The Bankhead/Bodnar race was a complete clown show too, designed to split the vote to ensure Alme won. Watch where Bodnar and Bankhead reappear later, I'm sure they'll magically land in places with money and power.