> OpenAI nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditure to a record $2.22mn in the first half of 2026, compared to last year, while Anthropic nearly tripled its spending to $3.53mn, according to federal disclosures.
Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.
Compared to the bailout they're going to get at some point, because they're vital to national security and whatever, I think you could easily be looking at a 1000x+ return on investment on those numbers.
I already pay for my government in taxes (which ironically these big cos don't pay).
Besides, if I were to gather up 4 million to lobby, the opposition would simply spend 8 million instead which they could come up with just as easily. They don't have to outrun the bear, the just have to outrun you.
j/k, but then again, it's not like we have other means to "help make good governance decisions" that we haven't already tried before. Maybe except the failed cybernetics experiments that came a little before their time and in the wrong political regime, but then those are effectively replicated by any large multinational internally to some extent.
This is what a PAC is. Political Action Committee.
They primarily only get headlines for outrage topics when people don’t like what they’re pushing toward. Many of the top PACs are from groups like realtors or sheet metal workers lobbying for their interests.
Most people skip PACs and donate straight to political candidates instead. Individual donations to candidates outweigh anything the AI companies are spending by a huge number.
Right. That's what actually buys you the politician. Being able to promise "Pass this regulation for us and we'll make sure you are set up for life, since we know it's politically unfavorable"
the ~$2M just gets your foot in the door, that's it.
I think of that Netflix series on FIFA and its rampant corruption. The bribes in question are laughable, considering that FIFA is a multi-billion dollar operation, and it's always some round number like $1M. At least add some cents to it so it's not glaringly obvious in the bank accounts.
Are the bribes round, or is it just usual bullshit journalism practice of fudging the numbers and rounding them in the process (usually made apparent when there are multiple reports for the same number, each using different units of currency or measure).
It seems to me that there's really nothing at that store that "normal people" want to buy.
Everything that we want to do can be done through ordinary collaboration with no need for the state. The special services which the state provides (violence and threats of violence, imperialism, inhibition of movement of people and goods across imaginary lines, etc) are the kinds of things that are really only interesting to the kinds of people who are already spending their money on lobbying.
These numbers are so small that I'm doubly ashamed of all the corruption happening. If politicians at least sold out for fuck-you money, I'd understand, but no.
People need to look at financial kick backs. There is a certain
guy here in central Europe who left politics quite recently, but
suddenly has 400 million euros wealth - out of nowhere. And
nobody questions how he got that ...
The corruption happens not only via direct lobbyism. One has to
look at the whole corruption bribe bubble here.
Because lobbying is essentially just the process of petitioning the government. Mostly.
It's buying dinners so you can talk with a Representative or Senator one-on-one. It's traveling to D.C. or the Congressperson's home state. It's paying for studies and etc to support your points. It's financing campaigns of politicians who already agree with your viewpoints. It's not "here's money, make law".
Alternatively, couldn't this be seen as evidence on favor of the "corporate narrative" on lobbying? Namely, that the purpose of lobbying is to ensure politicians have instant and easy access to high-quality, insider information relevant to their decision-making on corporate issues (as opposed to simply being bribed)?
I remember my poli sci teacher on college tried very hard to convince the class of this (with little success).
I have a family member who's a lobbyist. When he talks about his job, a common theme is that a huge amount of his work is trying assess the impacts of policy on businesses (albeit mainly big businesses) and make sure lawmakers are able to take that into consideration. I don't know how well that represents lobbying as a whole, but that part always made sense and didn't seem like a bribe.
Several million dollars, as mentioned in the article, could easily be the cost of paying, e.g., 20 people to perform and communicate an assessment, as opposed to a direct "donation" to a politician. It's not said where that money was spent.
I never understood that narrative either. You won't get high quality information from someone that is paying you for influence. You will get a lopsided/biased perspective, and the unwritten expectation is you will use it or contributions will cease.
Congress can and does ask companies for their expertise/stance on any given issue or policy, for free. They want to be involved for the same reason they lobby.
The same could be said about the judicial system though, right? Both the prosecution and defense are paid to influence the judge, and will naturally provide a biased perspective. But that doesn't mean there's not high quality information within.
I don't think biased information is a total dead end, but the onus is just on judges and politicians to tease out information from more than one angle. And often they don't.
I've been seeing them too. Towards the bottom of the recaptcha box there's an option to select "conventional" or similar and not use QR, it's easy to miss
oh, thanks for pointing this out ill click that next time. i can be a bit unaware sometimes.
one time i visited a compromised site that put up a fake cloudflare challenge that told me to paste a script into powershell, and i was all ladeeda nothing seems wrong. only because i forgot how to paste in powershell, did i not run it. i sure tried though. I typed ctrl v about 5 times not realizing it wasnt supported in powershell and then ragequit. funnily enough, whne i refreshed that page to try and get rid of the challenge the page loaded fine. I fail upward like this all the time.
That's not new though. Washington succumbed to bribes decades ago already.
It just is much more apparent now with the orange king and his billionaire
bodies. The Epstein network must be much bigger than what is already known.
It is also most likely still existing today, just with different actors.
Billionaires want to party - often with people below a certain age ...
It was always the era of lobbying, now you just shower the gold-obsessed king with tribute — crypto, ballroom funds, a private jet — in order to buy a presidential decree.
Just lay gold and silver at the feet of the monarch and wait for your royal pardon or policy favor.
Never ceases to amaze me how cheap lobbying is. That's pocket change for these companies.
- The AARP ($21M annual spend) has 38M members
- The National Association of Realtors ($54M annual spend) has 1.5M members
- The American Medical Association ($24M annual spend) has 300K members
Of course that doesn't mean that their interests necessarily align with your interests.
Besides, if I were to gather up 4 million to lobby, the opposition would simply spend 8 million instead which they could come up with just as easily. They don't have to outrun the bear, the just have to outrun you.
j/k, but then again, it's not like we have other means to "help make good governance decisions" that we haven't already tried before. Maybe except the failed cybernetics experiments that came a little before their time and in the wrong political regime, but then those are effectively replicated by any large multinational internally to some extent.
They primarily only get headlines for outrage topics when people don’t like what they’re pushing toward. Many of the top PACs are from groups like realtors or sheet metal workers lobbying for their interests.
Most people skip PACs and donate straight to political candidates instead. Individual donations to candidates outweigh anything the AI companies are spending by a huge number.
the ~$2M just gets your foot in the door, that's it.
Everything that we want to do can be done through ordinary collaboration with no need for the state. The special services which the state provides (violence and threats of violence, imperialism, inhibition of movement of people and goods across imaginary lines, etc) are the kinds of things that are really only interesting to the kinds of people who are already spending their money on lobbying.
People need to look at financial kick backs. There is a certain guy here in central Europe who left politics quite recently, but suddenly has 400 million euros wealth - out of nowhere. And nobody questions how he got that ...
The corruption happens not only via direct lobbyism. One has to look at the whole corruption bribe bubble here.
It's buying dinners so you can talk with a Representative or Senator one-on-one. It's traveling to D.C. or the Congressperson's home state. It's paying for studies and etc to support your points. It's financing campaigns of politicians who already agree with your viewpoints. It's not "here's money, make law".
I remember my poli sci teacher on college tried very hard to convince the class of this (with little success).
Several million dollars, as mentioned in the article, could easily be the cost of paying, e.g., 20 people to perform and communicate an assessment, as opposed to a direct "donation" to a politician. It's not said where that money was spent.
https://www.forbes.com/2008/01/10/jpmorgan-consultancy-advis...
Congress can and does ask companies for their expertise/stance on any given issue or policy, for free. They want to be involved for the same reason they lobby.
I don't think biased information is a total dead end, but the onus is just on judges and politicians to tease out information from more than one angle. And often they don't.
https://archive.ph/PASMJ
Busclickers are S-tier captchas IMO, always easy to identify. Motorcycles and bicycles, on the other hand, are maybe the worst – D-tier at best.
/tangent
one time i visited a compromised site that put up a fake cloudflare challenge that told me to paste a script into powershell, and i was all ladeeda nothing seems wrong. only because i forgot how to paste in powershell, did i not run it. i sure tried though. I typed ctrl v about 5 times not realizing it wasnt supported in powershell and then ragequit. funnily enough, whne i refreshed that page to try and get rid of the challenge the page loaded fine. I fail upward like this all the time.