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PoliGAF 2012 |OT3| If it's not a legitimate OT the mods have ways to shut it down

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Loudninja

Member
Hahahaha

Wisconsin Top Court Won’t Hear State Voter-ID Case Quicky
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court denied the state’s request to immediately hear its appeals of two trial court-level rulings invalidating a voter identification law.

Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen last month asked the high court to delay enforcement of the decisions rendered by a pair judges in the state’s capital city, Madison, earlier this year pending appellate review. He also asked the seven-justice panel to immediately hear his challenges and bypass the state’s intermediate appellate court.

In separate rulings issued today, the high court denied Van Hollen’s requests.

“There will be no voter ID law in effect for the presidential election on Nov. 6,” plaintiffs’ lawyer Lester Pines said in a phone interview. His Madison firm represented the League of Women Voters Wisconsin Education Network in one of the cases.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...p-court-won-t-hear-state-voter-id-case-quicky
 
There's one thing to play the political game, and there's another thing to actively contribute to the literal demise of the democratic process. There are lines that must be drawn.

Citizens United is single handedly one of the most dangerous and democracy-undermining rulings of the last hundred years; encouraging it simply reinforces the cycle. The minute you start cheering because your candidate of choice is doing it (or has supporters who are, in any event), is the minute you pretty much condone it. You lose the right to then say you don't want it used, because you're helping propagate its spread.

Let me ask you a simple question, and this one is based on harsh reality, unlike your 'idealism' bullshit screed:

If SuperPacs actually help the Democrats win extra seats or help Obama win, just how many Democrats do you believe are then going to go to Congress and help pass laws to limit its powers?

If you said 'none', then BINGO!

The way to win this particular fight is to sap SuperPACs of their power, and the only way to do it is to not support the practice in any light.


Rustynail's point is that if you don't fight fire with fire at all, then you pretty much wave the white flag of defeat. I'd rather play the same game using the same rules as everyone else (with no handicap) and have a chance at overturning it eventually than not fight at all. You're guaranteed to lose with the latter.
 
Fuck these racist nutjobs. Really, fuck them to hell. Edward Said? Probably THE greatest voice on the middle east? I'd love for Edward Said to be the founding father of America. What a bunch of crackpots.
Bleh bleh bleh and it has nothing to do with racism...but I don't feel like redoing grad school debates again. So you said your piece and me mine and we agree to disagree.
 

Chumly

Member
LOL millions wasted

I mean, this is exactly what the Republicans clamoring for Romney to attack harder sound like. Sure, they're mental, but either way, we need to remember that politics isn't about winning elections, it's about governing a country. I can be glad that the Democrats are getting superPAC money to counter the Republican superPAC money while simultaneously recognizing that the entire superPAC situation is bullshit and should be fixed.

Who isn't saying that the entire superpac situation is bullshit? There is only one party talking about fixing the situation and thats the democrats. I fully support them steamrolling republicans during the election using as much superpac money as possible.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Rustynail's point is that if you don't fight fire with fire at all, then you pretty much wave the white flag of defeat. I'd rather play the same game using the same rules as everyone else (with no handicap) and have a chance at overturning it eventually than not fight at all. You're guaranteed to lose with the latter.

that's the lesson as taught by the late and great MLK, of course. He fought fire with fire and won the entire civil rights war on the back of police riots and counter lynchings and shit

i know I'm being extreme here, but my point is that this is demonstrably not true. Yes, it makes it HARDER, but sometimes the harder way is genuinely the only acceptable way.
 

RDreamer

Member
There's one thing to play the political game, and there's another thing to actively contribute to the literal demise of the democratic process. There are lines that must be drawn.

Citizens United is single handedly one of the most dangerous and democracy-undermining rulings of the last hundred years; encouraging it simply reinforces the cycle. The minute you start cheering because your candidate of choice is doing it (or has supporters who are, in any event), is the minute you pretty much condone it. You lose the right to then say you don't want it used, because you're helping propagate its spread.

Let me ask you a simple question, and this one is based on harsh reality, unlike your 'idealism' bullshit screed:

If SuperPacs actually help the Democrats win extra seats or help Obama win, just how many Democrats do you believe are then going to go to Congress and help pass laws to limit its powers?

If you said 'none', then BINGO!

The way to win this particular fight is to sap SuperPACs of their power, and the only way to do it is to not support the practice in any light.

If the Democrats don't get help from SuperPacs, then they might not win at all. Just how many Republicans do you believe are then going to go to Congress and help pass laws to limit the power of the thing that just got them elected? If the Democrats barely eke out a win because they were forced to use SuperPacs against monster SuperPacs, they still might write laws against it. The thing is that Republicans have the advantage with SuperPac money, and I don't see that changing. Until that changes the Dems will have motivation to even things out.
 
that's the lesson as taught by the late and great MLK, of course. He fought fire with fire and won the entire civil rights war on the back of police riots and counter lynchings and shit

i know I'm being extreme here, but my point is that this is demonstrably not true. Yes, it makes it HARDER, but sometimes the harder way is genuinely the only acceptable way.

Sorry, but that's not even remotely on point. First of all, numbers alone would have made such a strategy untenable. Power came from peaceful protests, that's why they were used. A minority uprising does not engender empathy from a white majority. Peaceful protests and violence against those, does.

In our case, talking about pure electoral politics, pity doesn't win elections.
 

RDreamer

Member
I found this kind of funny:

N2Rzp.jpg
 

Gotchaye

Member
If someone held a position you genuinely felt was detestable, and then got a law passed to support said position, it still would not change how detestable that position is.

To be extreme for a moment, if murder was the name of the game, and everyone was out murdering on the other side in order to win votes, you'd say "well, murder is in order. Gotta fight fire with fire!"

Slippery slopes are slippery slopes for a reason. I understand that it is still a perfectly reasonable position to feel that the only way to eradicate this particular position is to get people in power to limit the power of Citizens United, but I don't think that makes PhoenixDark wrong. Cheering Democrats getting more SuperPAC money is sad no matter how one slices it, if individuals were truly against the law.

This confuses two very different kinds of "fighting fire with fire".

Murder is wrong, full stop. Even if some Republicans were out there murdering Democrats in order to reduce Obama's share of the vote, it would not be okay to go out and murder random Romney supporters in order to even things out. This would be true even if the Supreme Court declared this tactic of killing one's political foes to be protected speech. It remains true up until Romney (perhaps tacitly) endorses the tactic and the judgment such that support for Romney is support for killing one's political foes. At that point you've got a declared civil war, and one can permissibly fight a war in self-defense, although there's still a duty to minimize noncombatant casualties.

But spending/accepting money to buy ad space to try to persuade people to agree with you is not wrong in itself. At all. The problem with Citizens United is that people who can spend a lot of money on speech can drown out everyone else. Citizens United would be totally unproblematic, morally speaking, if everybody had the same amount of disposable income. Given the real differences in wealth that we have, and given that no one is pouring money into the system and drowning out other speech, it is wrong to pour money into the system (because this would drown out other speech). But, if lots of people are /already/ pouring money into the system and drowning out other speech, someone else can come along and put money in without doing much additional drowning out (there are diminishing returns). And especially when the existing money is buying speech which is not representative of the views of the population as a whole, more money coming in and rounding out the speech which is out there can actually counter the negative effect of the initial influx of money by representing some of the drowned-out viewpoints. That's mitigating the harm rather than exacerbating it.

Edit: Ignoring constitutionality, suppose some Republican legislature made it the case that only the first 100 people in line at each polling place on election day would have their votes counted. Are you seriously saying that it would be wrong to fight fire with fire by encouraging Democrats to show up early in order to elect politicians who would undo that policy?
 

Chumly

Member
There's one thing to play the political game, and there's another thing to actively contribute to the literal demise of the democratic process. There are lines that must be drawn.

Citizens United is single handedly one of the most dangerous and democracy-undermining rulings of the last hundred years; encouraging it simply reinforces the cycle. The minute you start cheering because your candidate of choice is doing it (or has supporters who are, in any event), is the minute you pretty much condone it. You lose the right to then say you don't want it used, because you're helping propagate its spread.

Let me ask you a simple question, and this one is based on harsh reality, unlike your 'idealism' bullshit screed:

If SuperPacs actually help the Democrats win extra seats or help Obama win, just how many Democrats do you believe are then going to go to Congress and help pass laws to limit its powers?

If you said 'none', then BINGO!

The way to win this particular fight is to sap SuperPACs of their power, and the only way to do it is to not support the practice in any light.
Really? None? is this some kind of joke? Even if Dems win in a landslide election this season its not going to magically make them all for Citizens United.
 
There's one thing to play the political game, and there's another thing to actively contribute to the literal demise of the democratic process. There are lines that must be drawn.

Citizens United is single handedly one of the most dangerous and democracy-undermining rulings of the last hundred years; encouraging it simply reinforces the cycle. The minute you start cheering because your candidate of choice is doing it (or has supporters who are, in any event), is the minute you pretty much condone it. You lose the right to then say you don't want it used, because you're helping propagate its spread.

Let me ask you a simple question, and this one is based on harsh reality, unlike your 'idealism' bullshit screed:

If SuperPacs actually help the Democrats win extra seats or help Obama win, just how many Democrats do you believe are then going to go to Congress and help pass laws to limit its powers?

If you said 'none', then BINGO!

The way to win this particular fight is to sap SuperPACs of their power, and the only way to do it is to not support the practice in any light.
My idealism bs screed is grounded in reality. It never gets you anywhere in politics other than a pedestal with a bunch of cultists cheering. Your "either with us or against us" binary view of superpac money is depressing. It invalidates any positive future outcome from being on either side of the issue. As for your example, you're missing out on an outcome because of this worldview. Democrats, if they win based off pac money, won't see their win because of pac money. It means playing with same rules as Republicans. Overturning the Citizens united will mean no superpacs for both you and your opponent. The playing field will be leveled, and they won't have to beg their contacts or hope for an ad buy from friendly superpacs. Besides, superpacs have been shown to decisively favor Republicans over Democrats. For every Koch brother, Sheldon addelson and Karl Rove, we have 1 bill maher (who's a loose canon anyway). Removal of Citizens United being hurtful to democrats is impossible, unless they're blue dogs like Ben Nelson in which case they need to step the fuck out anyway.
 
Are they still pushing the "Connecticut being a possible swing state and could possibly go red" narrative yet?

Also the map could look similar to 2008, save for Indiana and possibly NC... That surprises me.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Amir0x is guaranteed to be on one or more drugs right now and is doing his Amir0x thing.

Even if I was on drugs, the response is to pick what is wrong with the comment. But don't let me stop you from making yourself look comically inept, i always find it entertaining.

Really? None? is this some kind of joke? Even if Dems win in a landslide election this season its not going to magically make them all for Citizens United.

It's never going to come up for a vote, ever. Because if SuperPACs have demonstrated their usefulness politically, no shrewd politician is going to allow it to happen. At BEST you might have a Dennis Kucinich screaming at clouds in the corner, but in order for legislation to pass, you need there to be a real movement for it. It won't even be allowed to come on the schedule for a vote, let alone any real debate.

This has happened time after time when politicians have had a chance, on average: they do what is politically expedient. And if political expediency is defined by the number of ways you have to get into office easier, then allowing SuperPACs to pollute the process and corrupt the other side all the same means you will never get your Citizen United reform.

Edit: Oh, and don't take my word for it. See what happens after this election. And the next. See exactly how much movement occurs on the topic.
 
Dunno how anyone is still writing off NC as a Romney favored state. He can still win it but it'll be close either way.

And the fact that he has to fight for it is telling of the demographic troubles the GOP faces as a whole.

I do understand that pundits want to keep the illusion of a close race however, and that they're used to everything coming down to Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, two of which are in the bag for Obama and one that's getting there.
 

Loudninja

Member
So Akin is pretty stupid

"The first two minutes, wow, it's like somebody let a wildcat out of the cage," Akin told a small group of supporters and activists as his statewide bus tour stopped Wednesday evening in Rolla, a rural college town between St. Louis and Springfield. "She was just furious and attacking in every different direction, which was a little bit of a surprise to us.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-todd-akin-mccaskill-ladylike-20120927,0,18421.story
 

reilo

learning some important life lessons from magical Negroes
Last bit of NC polling:

Code:
NBC News/WSJ/Marist		9/27	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
National Research		9/19	49.0	45.0	Obama +4.0
Purple Strategies		9/19	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
High Point University		9/18	48.0	44.0	Obama +4.0
YouGov				9/14	44.0	45.0	Romney +1.0
Rasmussen			9/13	45.0	51.0	Romney +6.0
PPP				9/9	49.0	48.0	Obama +1.0

Can you spot the outlier?
 

Gotchaye

Member
It's never going to come up for a vote, ever. Because if SuperPACs have demonstrated their usefulness politically, no shrewd politician is going to allow it to happen. At BEST you might have a Dennis Kucinich screaming at clouds in the corner, but in order for legislation to pass, you need there to be a real movement for it. It won't even be allowed to come on the schedule for a vote, let alone any real debate.

This has happened time after time when politicians have had a chance, on average: they do what is politically expedient. And if political expediency is defined by the number of ways you have to get into office easier, then allowing SuperPACs to pollute the process and corrupt the other side all the same means you will never get your Citizen United reform.

Edit: Oh, and don't take my word for it. See what happens after this election. And the next. See exactly how much movement occurs on the topic.

But this all relative, and in several ways.

Democrats can win even if Democratic SuperPACs spend less money than Republican ones. It remains the case that the net value to the candidate of Citizens United is negative. Many incumbents may have particular reason to worry about SuperPACs, since they require less organization to have an impact on a race (and incumbents typically have an advantage in this area).

You would also need to at least sketch out an argument that there would be more effective opposition to SuperPACs if Democrats did not take advantage of them and (probably) lost some seats because of it. I don't care about what politicians think about Citizens United. I care about what elected politicians think about it.

Edit: And this also speaks to something we talked about either in this thread or in a related thread in Off Topic the other day. Democrats who cave on this issue can be primaried, and it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to primary a CU-loving Democrat than it would be to run a CU-less Democrat against a CU-using Republican.
 

markatisu

Member
Last bit of NC polling:

Code:
NBC News/WSJ/Marist		9/27	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
National Research		9/19	49.0	45.0	Obama +4.0
Purple Strategies		9/19	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
High Point University		9/18	48.0	44.0	Obama +4.0
YouGov				9/14	44.0	45.0	Romney +1.0
Rasmussen			9/13	45.0	51.0	Romney +6.0
PPP				9/9	49.0	48.0	Obama +1.0

Can you spot the outlier?

Just wait its been about 2 weeks, Rasmussen is going to have a 10 point swing the other way for absolutely no reason lol
 

Chumly

Member
Even if I was on drugs, the response is to pick what is wrong with the comment. But don't let me stop you from making yourself look comically inept, i always find it entertaining.



It's never going to come up for a vote, ever. Because if SuperPACs have demonstrated their usefulness politically, no shrewd politician is going to allow it to happen. At BEST you might have a Dennis Kucinich screaming at clouds in the corner, but in order for legislation to pass, you need there to be a real movement for it. It won't even be allowed to come on the schedule for a vote, let alone any real debate.

This has happened time after time when politicians have had a chance, on average: they do what is politically expedient. And if political expediency is defined by the number of ways you have to get into office easier, then allowing SuperPACs to pollute the process and corrupt the other side all the same means you will never get your Citizen United reform.

Edit: Oh, and don't take my word for it. See what happens after this election. And the next. See exactly how much movement occurs on the topic.

Its never going to come up for a vote since republicans filibuster it. Democrats aren't going to have a supermajority.

Your deluding yourself if you actually think Dems are going to magically flock to superpacs. Regardless if superpacs help dems this elections they are still CLEARLY being outspent by republican big donors. Soros gave peanuts compared to Aldelson or the Koch brothers. Your argument falls flat on that alone. Since its bad for dems they will continue to be against it.
 

Amir0x

Banned
I believe Romney will ultimately pull North Carolina, barely. But I'm also just as sure it won't change a thing electorally. He's just as fucked either way :p

Chumly said:
Its never going to come up for a vote since republicans filibuster it. Democrats aren't going to have a supermajority.

Your deluding yourself if you actually think Dems are going to magically flock to superpacs. Regardless if superpacs help dems this elections they are still CLEARLY being outspent by republican big donors. Your argument falls flat on that alone. Since its bad for dems they will continue to be against it.

It has already been shown that Democratic contributions to SuperPAC has been steadily rising as they've seen the outpouring from the Republican side. So I think this is an early demonstration of how easily politicians and their supporters will give in on central ideals if it means getting elected. It's the equivalent of a political cold war, where each side keeps developing larger and larger nukes. Only I'm not sure where a nuclear nonproliferation treaty can come into play.
 

Vahagn

Member
Bleh bleh bleh and it has nothing to do with racism...but I don't feel like redoing grad school debates again. So you said your piece and me mine and we agree to disagree.

Wait so, just so we're clear. It's perfectly ok to create a propaganda piece where we single out 5 extreme people Obama has known, or has read, or learned about to then make claims that Obama is this or that kind of person.



But saying that the people doing that are racist is not ok? Here, let's do this. I can point to at least 5 people who say racist things within the Republican party and Conservative movement. I can then extrapolate out to say that any and all people who share any one of these views, are deeply affected by all the views.


This is why it's so obvious that the right is racist. They're perfectly willing to say "well it's not racist to use stereotypes if the stereotypes are grounded in reality". Ignoring for a second the absurdity of that statement, or that most stereotypes aren't grounded in reality. The progressives can then use the exact same argument to say "There are lots of racist Conservatives I've met, or heard. Therefore it's perfectly legitimate to call you a racist by using stereotypes grounded in reality.


teapartyniggar2.jpg


cnn_dc_tea_party_racist_sign.jpg


340x_picture_13_01.jpg


20090916TeaParty03.jpg



All Conservatives are racists because many conservatives are racists, and most conservatives associate with one or another racists. That's essentially the right-wing argument flipped back on their heads.
 

Vahagn

Member
Come on, not all conservatives a racist. Just a loud chunk of them.

Of course I don't think all are racist. My post right above that was arguing why, anytime the right wing makes arguments based on stereotypes, that we can use similar logic in arguing they're racist. People in the right love arguing using stereotypes but hate stereotypes being used to typecast them as racist. They want distinction and accurate parsing of the right, but then turn around and use arguments laden with nothing but stereotypes.


All Conservatives are racists because many conservatives are racists, and most conservatives associate with one or another racists. That's essentially the right-wing argument flipped back on their heads.
 

Chumly

Member
I believe Romney will ultimately pull North Carolina, barely. But I'm also just as sure it won't change a thing electorally. He's just as fucked either way :p



It has already been shown that Democratic contributions to SuperPAC has been steadily rising as they've seen the outpouring from the Republican side. So I think this is an early demonstration of how easily politicians and their supporters will give in on central ideals if it means getting elected. It's the equivalent of a political cold war, where each side keeps developing larger and larger nukes. Only I'm not sure where a nuclear nonproliferation treaty can come into play.

What support? How is it even remotely close to what republicans are doing. We get giddy over a million from a single person. Meanwhile Romney is getting 10 million dollar checks. People forget that republicans wasted a LOT of money in the primaries with their PACs. W


Superpacs are not helping dems like you think they are. If democrats are voting solely in their own best interests then yes they would be voting against citizens united since they would be getting outspent.
 

Raine

Member
Last bit of NC polling:

Code:
NBC News/WSJ/Marist		9/27	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
National Research		9/19	49.0	45.0	Obama +4.0
Purple Strategies		9/19	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
High Point University		9/18	48.0	44.0	Obama +4.0
YouGov				9/14	44.0	45.0	Romney +1.0
Rasmussen			9/13	45.0	51.0	Romney +6.0
PPP				9/9	49.0	48.0	Obama +1.0

Can you spot the outlier?

I was thinking that the two candidates were gonna hold their conventions in the two states they would likely lose...now it's just looking like that'll be the case for Romney lol.

All jokes aside, as of right now NC is looking like it may be the only true "toss-up" by election day.
 

Amir0x

Banned
What support? How is it even remotely close to what republicans are doing. We get giddy over a million from a single person. Meanwhile Romney is getting 10 million dollar checks. People forget that republicans wasted a LOT of money in the primaries with their PACs.

It's not where Republicans are at yet, and I didn't say it was. I said Democratic SuperPAC support has been steadily rising in response to Republican SuperPAC spending, and it's starting to gain substantial numbers. There has been some noteworthy trends too:

That shouldn't be much of a surprise. After remaining chilly to the concept of super PACs, some of the party's wealthier members are beginning to take out their checkbooks. Priorities USA announced to supporters in Charlotte that it had raised $10 million in August -- its biggest haul yet over a one-month period. As The Huffington Post's Paul Blumenthal reported, many of the super PACs spent time in North Carolina hosting happy hours, private donor briefings and end-of-convention parties, all intended to make next month's figures much larger.

The embrace has extended to the top reaches of the White House as well. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff, announced during the convention that he would be leaving his post as an honorary chair of the reelection campaign to help raise money for Priorities USA. (He put those fundraising efforts on hiatus Monday to deal with the teachers strike in Chicago.)

The article goes on. It's not as if Democrats are yet matching them, but they are slowly getting comfortable with it, and more and more money is coming in through just such dangerous ways.

There's no doubt the problem with the process now. It has become fudnamentally broke, and the problem is Democrats are helping it stay broke.
 
Are their israeli popularity polls?

That is, do the people of israel support their idiot in chief?

Bibi has been an effective bully for them. Of course, the interesting thing is that Bibi doesn't bully the Palestinians so much as he bullies the USA.

But from the Israeli perspective, if it ain't broke, why fix it? Sadly, that probably sows the seeds for violence on the Palestinian side. Eventually the lack of any progress will cause another uprising. The cycle starts a new.
 
There's no doubt the problem with the process now. It has become fudnamentally broke, and the problem is Democrats are helping it stay broke.
Not true.

Once Obama wins he'll type his name into the SuperPac machine under the White House, and it'll self destruct as he walks away.
 
Last bit of NC polling:

Code:
NBC News/WSJ/Marist		9/27	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
National Research		9/19	49.0	45.0	Obama +4.0
Purple Strategies		9/19	48.0	46.0	Obama +2.0
High Point University		9/18	48.0	44.0	Obama +4.0
YouGov				9/14	44.0	45.0	Romney +1.0
Rasmussen			9/13	45.0	51.0	Romney +6.0
PPP				9/9	49.0	48.0	Obama +1.0

Can you spot the outlier?

Is it those polls that are using demographic turnout of 2008?
 
Wait so, just so we're clear. It's perfectly ok to create a propaganda piece where we single out 5 extreme people Obama has known, or has read, or learned about to then make claims that Obama is this or that kind of person.

What the fuck? No. I just don't like Edward Said and don't think he was a great leader or writer which was what Rusty said.I didn't say the poster was appropriate at all or not anything but mind numbingly stupid.
 
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