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    portland1Melissa Cronin
    5/21/16 10:03am

    I think Todd’s question is a reminder that journalists in our current era exist to lick the boots of the wealthy and famous. TMZ sets the tone for our nation.

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      Armageddon T. Thunderbirdportland1
      5/21/16 10:26am

      Corporate media serves corporate masters.

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      Nateportland1
      5/21/16 10:26am

      This comment makes me sick. Mostly because it is accurate.

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    KyuzoMelissa Cronin
    5/21/16 9:59am

    Why is it that people continually conflate the accrual of loads and loads of money coupled with a cheesy TV spot as prerequisites to becoming an effective policy-maker?

    Because we’ve spent the past 40 years conditioning two generations to believe that wealth equals intelligence and success.

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      Josh SalaamKyuzo
      5/21/16 10:14am

      It’s not even wealth.

      It’s fame—people were paying attention to Sean Penn’s dumbass long before he could be considered wealthy and that’s just the most obvious example.

      Well, reap what you sow.

      And that is President Donald Trump.

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      Captain HindsightKyuzo
      5/21/16 10:24am

      wealth equals intelligence and success.

      Gee, I dunno - creating 3B in wealth from nothing is pretty impressive in my book.

      You’re right though, it’s probably all just luck - you certainly could’ve done it, but instead you’ve chosen to write snarky little comments on gawker from your basement. To each his own, I guess.

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    TRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)Melissa Cronin
    5/21/16 10:29am

    This isn’t completely new.

    Only difference is, the 24-hour media’s desperation for content means these guys don’t have to pay for airtime anymore. They are a readymade publicity firm begging for clients. Give them ratings, and they will give you the world.

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      Gabrielle CyniqueTRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)
      5/21/16 10:35am

      TV famous billionaires are even older than that.

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      Gabrielle CyniqueGabrielle Cynique
      5/21/16 10:37am

      And if we just stick with “famous billionaires"...

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    DoribaxMelissa Cronin
    5/21/16 10:02am

    Because at least 40% of the country still votes for the tallest male in the room that projects enough aggression and power to be an “alpha dog”. They’re voting for who they’d like to be when they get rich and famous someday soon. Tribalism!

    And lest you think that it’s only a Wing Nut phenomenon, examine Exhibit B: white man babies that are growing ever more strident about “Queen Bitch” “Shillary” and “sorry not sorry we’re interrupting that cunt’s coronation”.

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      You might be wrong.Doribax
      5/21/16 10:28am

      Okay, but she is also rich and famous and among the most aggressive and powerful figures in recent American history.

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      benjaminalloverYou might be wrong.
      5/21/16 10:32am

      Ya, she’s pretty alpha.

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    You might be wrong.Melissa Cronin
    5/21/16 10:34am

    He wouldn’t be a bad VP pick for Clinton, though. It’d work well as the culmination of the ongoing series of big crybaby pre-convention fuck yous that the Democrats keep sending to the left.

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      AlmightyPoopcatYou might be wrong.
      5/21/16 11:07am

      Yep, and after the umpteenth “Fuck you!” the Democratic Party sends to the Left, the party faithful will nonetheless complain how the Left can’t be bothered to elect the very assholes who’ve treated them so contemptuously — and Democrats will continued to be utterly mystified how or why this happens every goddam time.

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      You might be wrong.AlmightyPoopcat
      5/21/16 11:12am

      And when Jill Stein gets a bigger share of the vote than any third party candidate since Ross Perot, they’ll say everyone that voted for her are the real sexists.

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    Cam/ronMelissa Cronin
    5/21/16 9:50am

    The same insightful one who bought a friend’s mansion for millions without ever seeing it, and the same one who believed that YouTube was the dumbest website on Earth.

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      FC37Cam/ron
      5/21/16 9:57am

      Spend some time really watching YouTube videos and reading the comments. He may not be wrong...

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      JapaneseJustinBeiberblowupsexdollFC37
      5/21/16 10:23am

      Fun pastime: researching about the large hadron collider at CERN. No really. Look up CERN and start watching one of the videos, and then you will start clicking on more. They are summoning a gate to hell? Demons feed on antimatter? The reason why people think it is Sex in the City and not Sex and the City is because CERN crossing different time streams from parallel universes? The science if physics comes from the ancient study of the occult?

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    XrdsAlumMelissa Cronin
    5/21/16 10:36am

    Why is it that people continually conflate the accrual of loads and loads of money coupled with a cheesy TV spot as prerequisites to becoming an effective policy-maker?

    Because since at least 1968 (when Joe McGinniss wrote “The Selling of the President”) accumulating lots of money to buy TV time has been the only way to become a policy-maker (effective or not). Americans have had 45 years to get acclimated to that, as the source of the money gradually got consolidated from small individual donors to big money donors to corporate donors to superPACs to the current logical endpoint of ultra-wealthy celebrities who already have their own TV shows and know how to attract free airtime.

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      benjaminalloverXrdsAlum
      5/21/16 10:44am

      Corporate capture has also progressed via this one weird trick of purchased politicians appointing heads of industries to key policy-making positions.

      (I don’t normally link to HuffPo, but I think the title is hilarious)

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    ww1383Melissa Cronin
    5/21/16 10:10am

    Why donate money when you can just do it yourself. Soon only the shareholders in Americorp will be able to vote for CEO.

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      GeorgeGeoffersonLivesww1383
      5/22/16 4:01am

      Like the City of London!

      Make America British Again.

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    HeyEinstein2Melissa Cronin
    5/21/16 11:20am

    I really don’t hate Mark Cuban, but he is a blatant media whore. A couple of months ago, I happened to be home during the day, and saw Cuban on some tenth-rate daytime cooking show. For a billionaire, he seems to have a lot of spare time on his hands.

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      You might be wrong.HeyEinstein2
      5/21/16 12:24pm

      When you have billions of dollars, you don’t have to spend all your time at work in order to make ends meet. The rich have all the spare time in the world.

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      HeyEinstein2You might be wrong.
      5/21/16 1:09pm

      You also don’t have to piss away your dignity on shitty tv shows.

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    Monsterparty711Melissa Cronin
    5/21/16 10:06am

    Rich people wanting to break into politics is older than the Constitution. I am not sure why many people are acting like this is unprecedented (John Hancock would like a word with everyone) If anything, it’s more amazing that so many rich people stay out of politics considering their influence and tendencies toward wanting to control things.

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      CharitybMonsterparty711
      5/21/16 10:59am

      You’re right, historically politics was the exclusive domain of the wealthy or upper middle class — political positions used to be unpaid or poorly paid specifically because the wealthiest citizens didn’t need to draw a salary. It’s really a (relatively) modern idea that someone could be a professional politician, devoting their lives to public service and earning a living just from that alone without having a huge trust fund behind them to keep them comfortable while they serve as a state legislator for a dollar a year.

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