PeterWeller posted:I played a Brujah who could have used that as his portrait. Allen West is a total Ventrue, though, so it doesn't even make sense.  e: I am talking about VtM in D&D, what am I doing with my life SALT CURES HAM fucked around with this message at 03:47 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 03:44
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SALT CURES HAM posted:e: I am talking about VtM in D&D, what am I doing with my life Yeah, those are totally different games  e: and Allen West is way to stupid to be a Ventrue. He's some kind of insane Sabbat vamp.
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May 25, 2014 04:47
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fool_of_sound posted:Yeah, those are totally different games I'd say Lasombra... but we've already kinda got that creepy racist overtone going.
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May 25, 2014 05:31
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socialsecurity posted:Sadly they have been charging more and more for public defenders to where many people are stuck having to represent themselves. This entire article is quite depressing, but there's a snippet in the middle that made me happy for my home state  quote:This month, the governor of Colorado signed a law that tells judges they can't send people to jail simply because they're too poor to pay fines and fees.
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May 25, 2014 05:45
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PeterWeller posted:I played a Brujah who could have used that as his portrait. Brujah was exactly the reference I was going to make, but I figured that naming an actual vampire clan may have been too nerd obscure. Clearly I was overestimating the level of the room. 
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May 25, 2014 06:03
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For anyone here who buys into the "money = speech" idea, do you support any kind of restrictions on donations at all? I mean, if you think that money = speech and people shouldn't have their speech restricted, then why can't the Koch Bros. just donate $100M to the next Presidential candidate? I mean, if you restrict them to a fraction of that, aren't you are abridging their "free speech?" To me it's either/or. If you think there should be some restrictions, then the level of restriction is arbitrary and can be set by public debate (i.e. mild restrictions such as limits on contributions, all the way to public financing - it's just a matter of degree). If you believe limits are fundamental restrictions, then I don't see how you can support ANY restriction. And if you don't believe the "money = speech" theorem, then providing the Devil's Advocate argument works too. J. P. Beagley fucked around with this message at 06:29 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 06:25
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Naga Warlord posted:For anyone here who buys into the "money = speech" idea, do you support any kind of restrictions on donations at all? I mean, if you think that money = speech and people shouldn't have their speech restricted, then why can't the Koch Bros. just donate $100M to the next Presidential candidate? I mean, if you restrict them to a fraction of that, aren't you are abridging their "free speech?" The thing is that the restrictions don't meaningfully restrict anyone. Is anyone actually stupid enough to think the Kochs weren't able to spend all they wanted before Citizens United?
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May 25, 2014 06:31
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Would it be a restriction of free speech to disallow media and publishing companies from accepting money in exchange for putting out ads? Or for anyone offering them money to do so? Even if so, it seems like it would be justifiable under the same umbrella as things like corruption and insider trading and the like.
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May 25, 2014 06:36
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GlyphGryph posted:Would it be a restriction of free speech to disallow media and publishing companies from accepting money in exchange for putting out ads? Or for anyone offering them money to do so? That would be a restriction as all hell yes. Then there's also that media companies can still publish "hey we really like Candidate X and his plans! make your own decision but we really like him!" allt hey want, for free. And if you go so far as to disallow that, they can still put out programs in support of Candidate X's ideas in general and covering press conferences where Candidate X announces his support of those ideas, any reasonable person can draw the conclusion that the company supports that candidate. And if you disallow that... you've disallowed any form of political issue discussion.
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May 25, 2014 06:40
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Rockopolis posted:Hey, has anyone been to Left Forum in NYC? Is it worth going to? I have a couple of buddies who hit it up. Based on their experience, it is largely a networking scene but good things do come out of it. Not directly. Directly, it is a lot of People's Front of Judea vs Judean People's Front. But because you've got like minded people, you can network your way into a lot of worthwhile projects that you wouldn't otherwise have discovered. Also, good drugs and access to cameras and poo poo.
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May 25, 2014 06:40
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Install Windows posted:The thing is that the restrictions don't meaningfully restrict anyone. Is anyone actually stupid enough to think the Kochs weren't able to spend all they wanted before Citizens United? Why would the right wing bother to bring Citizens United and ensure that it gets decided as it does if it has no benefit?
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May 25, 2014 06:50
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Install Windows posted:The thing is that the restrictions don't meaningfully restrict anyone. Is anyone actually stupid enough to think the Kochs weren't able to spend all they wanted before Citizens United? gently caress it, we can't really stop very rich people from doing what they want. Let's stop trying to regulate them and give up any notion of regulating them in the future! After all, any regulations in the end are fundamentally meaningless because they'll always be able to do whatever they want anyways!
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May 25, 2014 06:59
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Naga Warlord posted:For anyone here who buys into the "money = speech" idea, do you support any kind of restrictions on donations at all? I mean, if you think that money = speech and people shouldn't have their speech restricted, then why can't the Koch Bros. just donate $100M to the next Presidential candidate? I mean, if you restrict them to a fraction of that, aren't you are abridging their "free speech?" The argument is that contributions have stronger links to corruption where independent expenditures don't, a distinction created in Buckley v. Valeo and mostly upheld since. Check out Thomas' dissent in Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC if you want to see an argument against it; I enjoyed this line: quote:For nearly half a century, this Court has extended First Amendment protection to a multitude of forms of "speech," such as making false defamatory statements, filing lawsuits, dancing nude, exhibiting drive-in movies with nudity, burning flags, and wearing military uniforms. Not surprisingly, the Courts of Appeals have followed our lead and concluded that the First Amendment protects, for example, begging, shouting obscenities, erecting tables on a sidewalk, and refusing to wear a necktie. In light of the many cases of this sort, today's decision is a most curious anomaly. Whatever the proper status of such activities under the First Amendment, I am confident that they are less integral to the functioning of our Republic than campaign contributions. Yet the majority today, rather than going out of its way to protect political speech, goes out of its way to avoid protecting it. Mornacale posted:Why would the right wing bother to bring Citizens United and ensure that it gets decided as it does if it has no benefit? Not all right-wing groups are the same. And when BCRA was first challenged the plaintiffs were a diverse list; including Mitch McConnell, the AFL-CIO, the NRA, the California Democratic Party, the National Right to Life Committee, the ACLU, and, of course, Ron Paul. Many of them came back for Citizens United. kurona_bright posted:gently caress it, we can't really stop very rich people from doing what they want. Let's stop trying to regulate them and give up any notion of regulating them in the future! After all, any regulations in the end are fundamentally meaningless because they'll always be able to do whatever they want anyways! What regulation do you think only harms "very rich people"?
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May 25, 2014 07:26
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:What regulation do you think only harms "very rich people"? Increasing Workers Rights. Like building regulations? It seems a lot? Femur fucked around with this message at 08:48 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 08:44
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e. disregard, a bad post was here
paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 12:13 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 11:38
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The Sovereign Cliven Bundy "only the county sheriff has the authority to arrest me" people are holding a camp out in Michigan. I used to go to that camp when I was a kid for summer youth camp. You can pay in dollars, the equivalent amount in bitcoin, gold or silver when you register. http://miplc.org/upcoming-events/fest/registration/
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May 25, 2014 12:25
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:The Sovereign Cliven Bundy "only the county sheriff has the authority to arrest me" people are holding a camp out in Michigan. I used to go to that camp when I was a kid for summer youth camp. You can pay in dollars, the equivalent amount in bitcoin, gold or silver when you register. "Peace and Liberty Fest"??? The fact that they would use that word is shocking, even suspect.
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May 25, 2014 12:37
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Yes, their way is the only way to true liberty and peace. Obviously being a statist you can't understand that. They just want to live in peace with their guns and dope and raw milk. http://miplc.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/pigsupportwinfobw.pdfJonathonSpectre posted:It's like you guys don't understand that a bunch of 18th-century primitives who spent their entire lives living in fear of getting an infected scratch, communicated solely through handwritten letters delivered by men on horses, and shat in buckets totally foresaw everything that has happened after their deaths and were (and are!) completely cool with the "voices" of three or four people being able to drown out the "voices" of a hundred million. And by voices I mean wealth and money because that's what speech is! The ability to pay for things! Heck, haven't you ever heard it said someone had to "sing for their supper?" You just need to do some more readin' and larnin', then you'll see! You forget in the founding father's day the only people allowed to vote in elections were the guys with money.
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May 25, 2014 12:56
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I find the argument persuasive that I've seen made in various political science blogs recently that regulation of campaign donations has done more harm than good because it has pushed the big money into shadier spending that's harder to trace. Rather, we should remove all caps on donations , but require full disclosure. This would also put more of the money in the hands of the candidates instead of third party groups where the candidate can deny affiliation. At the same time, there's evidence that (in most races), there are diminishing returns in spending significantly more than your opponent, if they are reasonably well funded, so we could establish a public funding system to ensure a floor of funding for opposing campaigns, which would also encourage both parties to at least run one candidate in each district.
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May 25, 2014 13:33
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socialsecurity posted:Sadly they have been charging more and more for public defenders to where many people are stuck having to represent themselves. This is infuriating because I grew up with the notion that you get a public defender, and it's free, and it may save your livelihood from regressive forces in the judicial branch. GRRRRRRRRR!!!
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May 25, 2014 13:47
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Joementum posted:Rather, we should remove all caps on donations , but require full disclosure. This was the reason given for the Supreme Court allowing Citizen's United to go forward with the ruling it did. They said Congress can pass disclosure laws if they want to somehow mitigate the negative effects of the dark money campaigns. That would be fine in normal times maybe, but not with this Congress at this moment. The PAC's are supposed to be somewhat transparent right now, but all the money is being funneled through 501(c)4's to keep the donors secret. So Congress would have to pass stricter disclosure laws for both PAC's and 501(c)4's, and that could lead to some funky places. If that happens then you'll probably see an IRS vs. Right Wing Dark Money Supreme Court case where they argue it's a violation of the first amendment to prevent educational non-profits from having the majority of their work be political. The right wing will suddenly become big believers in the right to privacy and right of free association, and argue requiring disclosure on 501(c)4's is also an undue burden on freedom of speech. With how wonky the current Supreme Court is right now I could very well see them just saying, "gently caress it, unlimited anonymous donations for all." Literally the one saving grace in all of this is that the dark money campaigns spend like 10x as much for the same ad space as the actual campaigns. Campaign laws right now say that broadcasters must give political candidates the cheapest deal on the rate card, but that same privilege does not extend to PAC's. This was an interesting problem for Romney because when everything was totalled up he had reached parity with Obama due to all the dark money, but Obama had more of it under his direct control to be able to buy cheap advertising. Nominally Romney had similar levels of fundraising, but his money couldn't go as far. This is also one of the reasons that Karl Rove was able to melt through his donation money so quickly in the 2012 race. The political blogs I was reading were saying it was literally a 10x difference in how far the money went between PAC's versus the candidate himself. ErIog fucked around with this message at 13:56 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 13:53
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I still want to see a right winger tackle the idea that unlimited campaign spending 'crowds out' or 'prices out' ordinary voices. The vast majority of voters cannot afford ad space for their opinions even if they combine their spending power because...dun dun DUN...they have no spending power. When spending = speech, we're going to see more and more regressive results in our politics, which is bad for the workers, which is bad for the country. Maybe I'm just stupid...
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May 25, 2014 14:01
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anonumos posted:I still want to see a right winger tackle the idea that unlimited campaign spending 'crowds out' or 'prices out' ordinary voices. The vast majority of voters cannot afford ad space for their opinions even if they combine their spending power because...dun dun DUN...they have no spending power. When spending = speech, we're going to see more and more regressive results in our politics, which is bad for the workers, which is bad for the country. You're so cute to think that American righties want ordinary people to have a voice in politics.
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May 25, 2014 15:12
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Mornacale posted:Why would the right wing bother to bring Citizens United and ensure that it gets decided as it does if it has no benefit? Why would a billionaire who could never spend all of his money in his life lower his tax burden by 1%? By which I mean that it cost them almost nothing to do it, and the benefit is not being fined or (lol) jailed, and it lends a certain amount legitimacy to their scheme.
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May 25, 2014 15:16
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BUSH 2112 posted:Why would a billionaire who could never spend all of his money in his life lower his tax burden by 1%? By which I mean that it cost them almost nothing to do it, and the benefit is not being fined or (lol) jailed, and it lends a certain amount legitimacy to their scheme. I don't know about for billionaires, but for "normal" rich people a lot of it has to do with stupidity and spite. Anecdote ahoy. Before Obama was elected back in 2008, I was talking to a local business owner who "just knew" that taxes were going to skyrocket under Obama, and that "anyone who makes over $250,000 was going to have whatever they made over that confiscated," and so they were going to limit their own business to making $250,000 a year no matter what. After pointing out that this was ludicrous and there was no evidence of this anywhere, I asked them what they really thought the worst case scenario was under Obama. They said, taxes go up 50% from where they are right now. We quickly did the math and though I forget the exact numbers, if they went out of their way to limit themselves to just $250k, they were going to end up forgoing ~$70,000 in profits to avoid ~$10,000 in taxes. When I pointed out this didn't make any sense (and btw, the lady had NO IDEA how marginal tax rates worked despite being so wealthy) she said something I have never and will never forget: "Well, I might be $70k down, but at least it's not going to help anybody who doesn't deserve it. gently caress everyone but me." The beating heart and motive force of the religion of conservatism, right there. gently caress everyone but me. Christ.
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May 25, 2014 15:51
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Zwabu posted:You're so cute to think that American righties want ordinary people to have a voice in politics. But quite a few of them, as in most, are ordinary people?
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May 25, 2014 15:59
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JonathonSpectre posted:"Well, I might be $70k down, but at least it's not going to help anybody who doesn't deserve it. gently caress everyone but me." I'm shocked she didn't just evade taxes with that attitude since she's being taxed on the first $250,000 as well so then she can avoid having to give anything to anyone, ever. Edit: Hell, why not also withhold trust fund taxes? It's not like the DOJ actively goes after people criminally for withholding FICA and other payroll taxes... 
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May 25, 2014 16:04
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Buffer posted:But quite a few of them, as in most, are ordinary people? But they don't believe that they're ordinary people. It's like internet lolbertarians that are somewhere around average but think they're hypergenius supermen. Most people are, by definition, average but piles of perfectly average people refuse to believe that they are.
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May 25, 2014 16:07
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anonumos posted:I still want to see a right winger tackle the idea that unlimited campaign spending 'crowds out' or 'prices out' ordinary voices. The vast majority of voters cannot afford ad space for their opinions even if they combine their spending power because...dun dun DUN...they have no spending power. When spending = speech, we're going to see more and more regressive results in our politics, which is bad for the workers, which is bad for the country. Ordinary citizens already do not get what they want.
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May 25, 2014 16:07
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ToxicSlurpee posted:But they don't believe that they're ordinary people. It's like internet lolbertarians that are somewhere around average but think they're hypergenius supermen. Most people are, by definition, average but piles of perfectly average people refuse to believe that they are. What? Where are you getting this? There's an entire and quite sizable subset of the right that wallows in being anti-elitist and embracing gosh-darn ordinary, real Americans. It's retail politics 101. Like have you ever talked to a republican voter in real life?
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May 25, 2014 16:46
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So, several other prominent Tea Party members in Mississippi arrested in the "break into a nursing home to take photos of a Senator's wife" scandal. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/tea-partier-conspired-bloggers-exploit-sen-cochran-ill-wife-article-1.1803346
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May 25, 2014 16:53
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SirFozzie posted:So, several other prominent Tea Party members in Mississippi arrested in the "break into a nursing home to take photos of a Senator's wife" scandal. Like, how mentally challenged do you have to be to think any single part of that scheme was a good idea and not likely to land you in jail?
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May 25, 2014 16:58
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Ask James O'Keefe.
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May 25, 2014 17:05
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Buffer posted:What? Where are you getting this? There's an entire and quite sizable subset of the right that wallows in being anti-elitist and embracing gosh-darn ordinary, real Americans. It's retail politics 101. Yes, actually, quite a few Republicans and they have a poo poo load of doublethink on the issue. On one hand, they are extremely anti-elitist when it comes to intellectuals and the well educated. On the other hand, they think they're extremely morally superior and know what's best for the world. The attitude is that those smug, educated liberal shits have absolutely no right to act elitist at all or to voice an opinion, ever, because they're so wrong. Good conservatives, however, are all salt of the earth laborer types and that makes them far better qualified to boss everybody around. What I've seen from a lot of conservatives I've known is a lot of "elitism is bad, unless we're the ones doing it."
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May 25, 2014 17:17
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JonathonSpectre posted:I don't know about for billionaires, but for "normal" rich people a lot of it has to do with stupidity and spite. Anecdote ahoy. Conservatism is literally the 'crabs in a bucket' school of political thought. It's just spite, all the way down.
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May 25, 2014 18:09
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socialsecurity posted:Really the only way to fix all of this is through education you have to get people from a young age to learn to look at evidence and critically think about situations so they can see the lies and pandering for what it is, of course the right has been pushing education in the opposite direction for years. loving education over is a bipartisan thing. Obama would charter school the entire country today if he could. anonumos posted:This is infuriating because I grew up with the notion that you get a public defender, and it's free, and it may save your livelihood from regressive forces in the judicial branch. GRRRRRRRRR!!! "In Ionia, Mich., 19-year-old Kyle Dewitt caught a fish out of season; then a judge sentenced him to three days in jail." I'm assuming he tried to keep it, because simply catching an out of season fish when you're out fishing isn't something you generally have control over nor can my mind accept the notion that hooking and landing the fish is a crime itself. Or maybe Michigan has a completely bullshit law on the books. SirFozzie posted:Ask James O'Keefe. So what you're saying is they should've made sure someone involved was the son of a US Attorney so thay they'd all get a slap on the wrist at most? Evil Fluffy fucked around with this message at 18:17 on May 25, 2014 |
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May 25, 2014 18:10
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ToxicSlurpee posted:What I've seen from a lot of This is probably even more accurate.
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May 25, 2014 18:22
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SirFozzie posted:Ask James O'Keefe. Once the right began sucking O'Keefe's cock for being so awesome it was really just a matter of time until someone started emulating him in order to hunt RINOs.
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May 25, 2014 18:22
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Mornacale posted:Why would the right wing bother to bring Citizens United and ensure that it gets decided as it does if it has no benefit? It saves them a few thousand bucks a year in Delaware corporation fees. And maybe a few more in other places. In essence the previous system was not providing deterrent it was providing the tiniest slap on the wrist possible; like fining Bank Of America $100,000 one time would. kurona_bright posted:gently caress it, we can't really stop very rich people from doing what they want. Let's stop trying to regulate them and give up any notion of regulating them in the future! After all, any regulations in the end are fundamentally meaningless because they'll always be able to do whatever they want anyways! Yeah actually laws that don't work and serve to act as a fig leaf so certain politicians can go all "oh look we're totally preventing corruption here believe us" probably shouldn't be in force? The laws we had were set up in such a way that the really big spenders had no impediment to making a bunch of contributions in the name of various shell orgs, employees, and the like. But they were pretty good at restricting the spending abilities of things like unions. Joementum posted:I find the argument persuasive that I've seen made in various political science blogs recently that regulation of campaign donations has done more harm than good because it has pushed the big money into shadier spending that's harder to trace. Rather, we should remove all caps on donations , but require full disclosure. This would also put more of the money in the hands of the candidates instead of third party groups where the candidate can deny affiliation. This is definitely true. In many ways it's a lot nicer to be able to see "Evil Corp gave $1 million to the Senator Jim campaign" rather than have to divine out that Evil Corp used 20 shell organizations to give a total of $1 million to the Senator Jim campaign. anonumos posted:I still want to see a right winger tackle the idea that unlimited campaign spending 'crowds out' or 'prices out' ordinary voices. The vast majority of voters cannot afford ad space for their opinions even if they combine their spending power because...dun dun DUN...they have no spending power. When spending = speech, we're going to see more and more regressive results in our politics, which is bad for the workers, which is bad for the country. That's the thing, the average person was already crowded out over two centuries ago. Spending has always been the important thing. I'm really not understanding where people are coming from that they think massive political spending is any sort of recent thing?
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May 25, 2014 18:34
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Evil Fluffy posted:I'm assuming he tried to keep it, because simply catching an out of season fish when you're out fishing isn't something you generally have control over nor can my mind accept the notion that hooking and landing the fish is a crime itself. It doesn't seem to address it in the article, but I heard the story on the radio a few days ago and they made clear that he mistook the fish for another kind that was in season. Whether you believe him or not, there's that, but he definitely kept it, and also shouldn't have gone to jail for it.
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May 25, 2014 18:57
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