title:  John Oliver Exposes Shocking Reality Of Money In Politics (VIDEO)
text: Activist groups across the U.S. have been raising the alarm about the disastrous impact of money in politics for a long time.While the majority of Americans take issue with the massive amount of money that flows into the political system, most have no idea just how absurd the situation has really become.Leave it to John Oliver to shine a light on the problem.In this segment of Last Week Tonight the comedian/talk-show host goes behind the scenes of Congress to examine how fundraising activities have all but replaced activities related to policy-making and governing in Washington DC.One the most startling revelations from the segment is the fact that most Washington officials now spend at least two-thirds of their time in office raising money for reelection.Oliver reports that elected officials spend at least four hours out of every work day inside Washington call centers. This time is entirely devoted to calling wealthy donors to solicit funds.Toward the end of the segment Oliver sits down with New York Congressman Steve Israel who recently announced his retirement from office, saying: I don t think I can spend another day in another call room making another call begging for money As John Oliver points out in the segment, every elected official in Washington is expected to raise a certain amount of funds for their respective political party.The amount of money a member of Congress is expected to bring in varies according to their position in Washington. An ordinary member of Congress might be expected to raise $125,000, for example. On the other hand, a representative with a greater amount of power and influence, such as Nancy Pelosi, is expected to raise as much as $800,000 for the DNC.During the interview Rep. Israel described how the current system skews the political system toward the rich.Describing what goes on inside a congressional call center, the congressman said: You have a bunch of cubicles set up, and those cheap fabric dividers, and you sit at a little desk, and you have a phone, and you have an assistant next to you, and you have a call book, and the call book has sheets of every donor, uh, past donors and their records, and your assistant gets a supporter on the phone and gives the phone to you and you engage in polite conversation and then you get to the point and then you hang up and then you flip the page to the next donor and then you make another call After John Oliver points out that it sounds like he s describing a  shitty telemarketing operation,  Rep. Israel responds by saying that he views it as  a form of torture.  He then points out that the real victims in all of this are the American people.He notes that the average American citizen believes that  they don t have a voice in this system. Because of the absurd amount of money that federal legislatures are forced to raise, elected officials can t afford to waste time on people unable to donate at least $1,000 to their campaigns.What this means is that if you have large amounts of money to donate to your Senator or Congressman, that money buys you access to an elected official. If you don t have that kind of money to contribute, you re basically out of luck.Watch the segment below, via Last Week Tonight on YouTube:Image credit: video screen capture via Last Week Tonight on YouTube