Doesn't a comment like that just piss EVERYONE off?
You'd think the Tea Party would come to the rescue of these poor, defenseless citizens getting harassed by big government.
the irony is that the Tea Party is now just a socialcon cover group. Their answer to big govt is big god. Trading one tyranny for another does not grant liberty to the people.
the irony is that the Tea Party is now just a socialcon cover group. Their answer to big govt is big god. Trading one tyranny for another does not grant liberty to the people.
While I would agree with you normally on this topic. I know enough REAL libertarians who think they are really in control of the movement and have tricked those people. However I am not sure if they realize the Faustian bargain they have made.
As far as claiming he is a Democrat plant... That is a charge you can only make when you have definitive proof that it is true. Otherwise you come off sounding like a whiny bitch who tries to blame everyone but them-self for the sorry state of affairs that you had a hand in creating in the first place.
It's no different than continually blaming your predecessor when they have been gone for over a year. Your boss does not care about what came before. They hired YOU to fix those problems. If all you can do is blame the last guy to hold your position than you are obviously not qualified to hold that position and should be replaced with a more qualified worker.
As far as claiming he is a Democrat plant... That is a charge you can only make when you have definitive proof that it is true. Otherwise you come off sounding like a whiny bitch who tries to blame everyone but them-self for the sorry state of affairs that you had a hand in creating in the first place.
As far as claiming he is a Democrat plant... That is a charge you can only make when you have definitive proof that it is true. Otherwise you come off sounding like a whiny bitch who tries to blame everyone but them-self for the sorry state of affairs that you had a hand in creating in the first place.
But that was an off the cuff joke.
Joke or not there are accusations in NJ of just such an event taking place.
As far as claiming he is a Democrat plant... That is a charge you can only make when you have definitive proof that it is true. Otherwise you come off sounding like a whiny bitch who tries to blame everyone but them-self for the sorry state of affairs that you had a hand in creating in the first place.
But that was an off the cuff joke.
Joke or not there areaccusationsin NJ of just such an event taking place.
Wow. It's only a matter of time before teabag paranoia goes critical mass and they start eating each other.
Also, Paladino continues to demonstrate his inability to keep is fat mouth shut. First he says gays are dysfunctional perverts, then he says that his comments were 'out of context', then he says he's for gay rights...except for the marriage thing on account of he's a Catholic. Apparently he thinks that his religion trumps other people's rights. Someone needs to explain this to him...preferably with metacarpolphalangeal to the teeth. Or maybe we could use that bat he keeps talking about.
Also, Paladino continues to demonstrate his inability tokeep is fat mouth shut.First he says gays are dysfunctional perverts, then he says that his comments were 'out of context', then he says he's for gay rights...except for the marriage thing on account of he's a Catholic. Apparently he thinks that his religion trumps other people's rights. Someone needs to explain this to him...preferably with metacarpolphalangeal to the teeth. Or maybe we could use that bat he keeps talking about.
This man goes back and forth more often than a ping pong match. My prediction is, like ping pong, he'll eventually make a bad move and end up with everyone finding out his ball(Read: Balls) ended up in some poor guys drink (read: mouth/ass).
Democrats, from President Barack Obama on down, are trying to turn an evidence-free allegation into a major campaign theme, claiming that foreign corporations are "stealing our democracy" with secret, illegal contributions funneled through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s a claim with little basis in fact.
The Democratic National Committee released a TV ad over the weekend claiming: "It appears they’ve even taken secret foreign money to influence our elections."
President Obama said last week that "one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign sources."
The liberal group MoveOn.org is claiming, without any qualification, that "[f]oreign corporations are funding some of the $75 million the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending to defeat Democrats."
The chamber says it does receive money from foreign sources, but that it amounts to only a small fraction of the chamber’s $200 million budget. The chamber says none of the foreign money is used in its ads, and no evidence has been produced to show otherwise. Federal Election Commission opinions state that organizations taking in foreign money may make political donations legally, so long as they have "a reasonable accounting method" to keep foreign money separate and have enough money from U.S. sources to cover the donations.
I expect individual campaigns to throw these sorts of unsubstantiated smears around but, the President? WTF?
On "Face the Nation," CBS’ Bob Schieffer noted that the Times had quoted the chamber’s chief lobbyist as saying that the chamber got less than $100,000 from foreign affiliates, and Schieffer challenged White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod:
CBS’ Schieffer, Oct. 10: But this part about foreign money, that appears to be peanuts, Mister Axelrod, I mean, do you have any evidence that it’s anything other than peanuts? Axelrod: Well, do you have any evidence that it’s not, Bob?
Axelrod said "the core of the problem" is that the chamber won’t identify the sources of money it is using to fund its ads, except to say that it’s not from foreign sources. It’s true that the chamber won’t release donors — there’s no legal requirement for it to do so — and also won’t discuss the specific accounting methods it uses to keep foreign money separate.
This is some seriously messed up stuff going on here. While the Obama quote merely states the unnamed organization takes in foreign money his own man Axelrod is clearly feeding the allegations. Is this what we have come to? Is this what hope and change is?
The point is there SHOULD be a legal requirement to release donors, the Republicans deep sixed the DISCLOSE bill because we would have seen Millions of dollars from foreign corporate leaders coming in to politicians. AT LEAST the democrats and Obama wanted to have this information out there. The republicans deserve to be hit for this, because if they didn't play like they have something to hide (like how much they are really benefiting from corporations donating to 527 groups... I'm a bit angry about this issue if you can't tell... In the end Corporations should not be able to spend money in any way in politics.
The point is there SHOULD be a legal requirement to release donors, the Republicans deep sixed the DISCLOSE bill because we would have seen Millions of dollars from foreign corporate leaders coming in to politicians. AT LEAST the democrats and Obama wanted to have this information out there. The republicans deserve to be hit for this, because if they didn't play like they have something to hide (like how much they are really benefiting from corporations donating to 527 groups... I'm a bit angry about this issue if you can't tell... In the end Corporations should not be able to spend money in any way in politics.
I agree that ALL money should be disclosed, however... I find it highly ironic that an administration that fights tooth and nail to keep documents relating to the President's past under lock and key is now throwing out accusations and telling another that they have to prove the allegations false by disclosing their own documents. 'Cause Axelrod is sounding an awful lot like a Birfer when he says, "Well, do you have any evidence that it’s not, Bob?"
I'm surprised no one on the right has come out and said, "you show us yours and we'll show you ours!" Or have they and I wasn't paying attention? I stand corrected.
Also, if you want to exclude corporations you also have to exclude unions and that includes 'in kind' donations like man power. I'm all for limiting political speech to citizens and by citizens I mean living breathing humans who are US citizens. If you want to pool your money to buy air time that's fine as long as everyone who has money in the mix puts their name out there to show who paid for it and signs a document showing that they (as an individual) approve of the message.
The pool should be equal as well, if Joe Spiffy donates $100 EVERYONE should donate $100 (no more, no less). This would stop the not so uncommon practice of the insanely wealthy creating front groups with their cash that look like member funded or grassroots groups. If you want to spend $100,000 pushing your agenda then either find other rich people to fund an equal amount or go solo.
Group names should also be required to accurately reflect the goals and beliefs of the organization. If your group is named "MADD" (Mothers against drunk driving) then you damn sure better be made up of strictly moms who are against drunk driving. You can have other crazy beliefs as well but if the group puts out an adv about anything other than how they are against drunk driving they should have their group name revoked and replaced with a more apt name.
For example if MADD put out a pro-gun control adv they would have to change their name to "Mothers against guns and drunk driving" or not put out the adv. Nothing is more infuriating than finding out the group with "freedom" in its name is not really about freedom or that "Hot moms for [insert candidate name here]" is made up of not-at-all-hot moms.
By documents I'm not referring to the BC (copy released is legal) but the other docs dealing with his college years: papers, grades, legal articles written, thesis, etc...
What I find funny about this is that we know that the USCoC takes foreign donations through their various chapters through out the world and we know that this money goes into the same account that they use to fund their political ads and they tell us that "We have this system to keep the money separate, don't worry".
Well lets say you have x money total. And you got y money from people in the US, z money from people outside the US.
x = y + z
Now you have money you're going to spend right, lets call this l? Say n amount of money in the elections and m amount of money on paying people and rent and taxes and all that other running the organization stuff.
So l = n +m
Now lets take a small thought experiment.
Imagine if you could only get money from people in the US.
y < x of course (assuming z is non-zero) so over all they would have less money to spend on everything.
So you have to use y to pay your bills (m) and you have to use y to pay for your elections stuff (n) y >= l = n +m
Now if you throw foreign money into the mix you can get something slightly different, you can spend, legally, all of your foreign money (z) on your bills (m) and then use all(or more) of your US money (y) on the elections (n)
So we get
y >= n + (m - z) {Where z <= m}
For large enough values of foreign money your operational expenses disappear allowing you to legally spend more money on the actual elections.
I can not see how you can disentangle the money, no matter how you put it.
Well unless you only spend the money from foreign countries on stuff that supports only the activities of the respective foreign branches of USCoC. But if you were doing this wouldn't it make sense to just keep the money in the branch's coffers?
Is there a flaw in my logic here? I am genuinely curious.
In another forum I'm having a discussion about the worker's protests and strikes that are currently going on in France. One Right wing loon in that forum is actually asking why the french government isn't quelling the protests with military force. He actually even said, and I quote, "It's far quicker and easier to shoot a few bad apples to get the rest of the herd in line". Please note that this is the same asshole that routinely makes threads about how gun control must not be enforced because it would make the government able to oppress its citizens who don't own guns. Basically he's advocating his own "survival of the fittest" universe where he wants citizens to be armed to defend itself from the government, which he attributes the right, if not duty,to kill anyone who protests.
In other news, I've already mentioned the christian conservative protests of Campbell's producing halal certified soup, in other words, soup that has been prepared in a manner to be fit for consumption by adamant muslims. Here we have an article by an American Family Asshole going berserk about it and basically trying to declare that this is imposing sharia law on everybody, nevermind that this is a private company doing what they perceive to be best for their sales. Probably the funniest thing is that in the process of his rant, he calls Allah a "demon-god", never realizing that he just blasphemed his own god.
In another forum I'm having a discussion about the worker's protests and strikes that are currently going on in France. One Right wing loon in that forum is actually asking why the french government isn't quelling the protests with military force. He actually even said, and I quote, "It's far quicker and easier to shoot a few bad apples to get the rest of the herd in line". Please note that this is the same asshole that routinely makes threads about how gun control must not be enforced because it would make the government able to oppress its citizens who don't own guns. Basically he's advocating his own "survival of the fittest" universe where he wants citizens to be armed to defend itself from the government, which he attributes the right, if not duty,to kill anyone who protests.
So he's promoting that the government should be a hard-line fascist state on one hand, and on the other he's saying that everyone should be armed in case the government comes after them? He does realize he'd be on the short end of that stick, right? I bet he also thinks that everyone would agree with his way once all the 'bad apples' were gone too. I wonder how he would feel about the current US government 'cracking down' on the obviously racist and apparently mentally unstable people at the tea-party rallies who want to overthrow the current government by what seems like any means necessary.
In other news, I've already mentioned the christian conservative protests of Campbell's producing halal certified soup, in other words, soup that has been prepared in a manner to be fit for consumption by adamant muslims. Here we havean articleby an American Family Asshole going berserk about it and basically trying to declare that this is imposing sharia law on everybody, nevermind that this is a private company doing what they perceive to be best for their sales. Probably the funniest thing is that in the process of his rant, he calls Allah a "demon-god", never realizing that he just blasphemed his own god.
Shhh. No one tell them that they already did this for the Jews.
I find the tea party people have some grand fantasies about overthrowing a corrupt and oppressive government. They fail to realize that the gov't is not trying to oppress anyone and is in fact so incompetent that they can barely tie their own shoes. I also think they lack the testicular fortitude to actually do anything if the shooting actually started. Guns feel awesome and empowering until you realize that in an armed conflict your enemy has them too.
Anybody read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress lately? Professor Bernardo de la Paz has some interesting things to say about democracy, specifically that it's designed to create the most block to progress that is possible -- and that this is good. Political gridlock keeps extremists from getting their way. For those who haven't read it... what the fuck, man?
Political gridlock keeps extremists from getting their way.
But an enlightened and compassionate government with fewer roadblocks can advance a society by orders of magnitude in short order.
Imagine if Congress actively argued and debated on the simple point of how to make life sustainably better for American citizens? What if, when confronted with contrary evidence, proponents of bad legislation conceded the point? What if compromise meant trying something to see if it works, agreeing to try the alternative after a set time if no progress were made?
What if a politician in America ever said "I was wrong," on any issue that wasn't a personal malfeasance (e.g., sleeping with someone they shouldn't have).
Comments
It's no different than continually blaming your predecessor when they have been gone for over a year. Your boss does not care about what came before. They hired YOU to fix those problems. If all you can do is blame the last guy to hold your position than you are obviously not qualified to hold that position and should be replaced with a more qualified worker.
Also, Paladino continues to demonstrate his inability to keep is fat mouth shut. First he says gays are dysfunctional perverts, then he says that his comments were 'out of context', then he says he's for gay rights...except for the marriage thing on account of he's a Catholic. Apparently he thinks that his religion trumps other people's rights. Someone needs to explain this to him...preferably with metacarpolphalangeal to the teeth. Or maybe we could use that bat he keeps talking about.
Hillary was robbed...
Also, that's just for criminal penalties. Anything else, anything goes.
I'm surprised no one on the right has come out and said, "you show us yours and we'll show you ours!" Or have they and I wasn't paying attention? I stand corrected.
Also, if you want to exclude corporations you also have to exclude unions and that includes 'in kind' donations like man power. I'm all for limiting political speech to citizens and by citizens I mean living breathing humans who are US citizens. If you want to pool your money to buy air time that's fine as long as everyone who has money in the mix puts their name out there to show who paid for it and signs a document showing that they (as an individual) approve of the message.
The pool should be equal as well, if Joe Spiffy donates $100 EVERYONE should donate $100 (no more, no less). This would stop the not so uncommon practice of the insanely wealthy creating front groups with their cash that look like member funded or grassroots groups. If you want to spend $100,000 pushing your agenda then either find other rich people to fund an equal amount or go solo.
Group names should also be required to accurately reflect the goals and beliefs of the organization. If your group is named "MADD" (Mothers against drunk driving) then you damn sure better be made up of strictly moms who are against drunk driving. You can have other crazy beliefs as well but if the group puts out an adv about anything other than how they are against drunk driving they should have their group name revoked and replaced with a more apt name.
For example if MADD put out a pro-gun control adv they would have to change their name to "Mothers against guns and drunk driving" or not put out the adv. Nothing is more infuriating than finding out the group with "freedom" in its name is not really about freedom or that "Hot moms for [insert candidate name here]" is made up of not-at-all-hot moms.
As for the DISCLOSE Act is was flawed and even the ACLU was against it.
By documents I'm not referring to the BC (copy released is legal) but the other docs dealing with his college years: papers, grades, legal articles written, thesis, etc...
Well lets say you have x money total. And you got y money from people in the US, z money from people outside the US.
x = y + z
Now you have money you're going to spend right, lets call this l? Say n amount of money in the elections and m amount of money on paying people and rent and taxes and all that other running the organization stuff.
So l = n +m
Now lets take a small thought experiment.
Imagine if you could only get money from people in the US.
y < x of course (assuming z is non-zero) so over all they would have less money to spend on everything.
So you have to use y to pay your bills (m) and you have to use y to pay for your elections stuff (n)
y >= l = n +m
Now if you throw foreign money into the mix you can get something slightly different, you can spend, legally, all of your foreign money (z) on your bills (m) and then use all(or more) of your US money (y) on the elections (n)
So we get
y >= n + (m - z) {Where z <= m}
For large enough values of foreign money your operational expenses disappear allowing you to legally spend more money on the actual elections.
I can not see how you can disentangle the money, no matter how you put it.
Well unless you only spend the money from foreign countries on stuff that supports only the activities of the respective foreign branches of USCoC.
But if you were doing this wouldn't it make sense to just keep the money in the branch's coffers?
Is there a flaw in my logic here? I am genuinely curious.
In other news, I've already mentioned the christian conservative protests of Campbell's producing halal certified soup, in other words, soup that has been prepared in a manner to be fit for consumption by adamant muslims. Here we have an article by an American Family Asshole going berserk about it and basically trying to declare that this is imposing sharia law on everybody, nevermind that this is a private company doing what they perceive to be best for their sales. Probably the funniest thing is that in the process of his rant, he calls Allah a "demon-god", never realizing that he just blasphemed his own god.
Imagine if Congress actively argued and debated on the simple point of how to make life sustainably better for American citizens? What if, when confronted with contrary evidence, proponents of bad legislation conceded the point? What if compromise meant trying something to see if it works, agreeing to try the alternative after a set time if no progress were made?
What if a politician in America ever said "I was wrong," on any issue that wasn't a personal malfeasance (e.g., sleeping with someone they shouldn't have).
It would be awesome, but it ain't happening any time soon.