Conservatives say stupid shit

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by Iacchus

I think the folks in China are probably more relaxed than they are here in the United States. Therefore, to them, a 10 x 10 cell probably ain't half bad.

Oh lord, it gets better virtually every time you post.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Clutch

So five bucks is enough money, but five minutes isn't enough time?

Originally Posted by Clutch

Meanwhile, in the real world, five bucks means less than fuck-all because its effects are vitiated a million times over by the single donor who donates five million.

If one million people each made 5 one minute videos talking up their preferred candidate (with their cell phones, even, no need for expensive equipment) and put them on YouTube, and then Pinterest and Facebook and Twitter etc. that would be 5 million minutes of actual people's speech, actually out there where people can hear it.

5 million dollars (from 1 million people with 5 dollars each to contribute) to a high level campaign pays for some plane tickets and hotels maybe, and those 1 million voices are not heard at all.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Kael

Donation limits are frequently opposed on the grounds that it costs so much to run a campaign these days, so lowering the cap on individual and/or corporate donations would sharply limit a candidate's ability to run.

Of course, part of the reason it costs so much to run a campaign these days is that the ceilings are as high as they are.

Originally Posted by LadyShea

5 million dollars (from 1 million people with 5 dollars each to contribute) to a high level campaign pays for some plane tickets and hotels maybe, and those 1 million voices are not heard at all.

That's a bit hyperbolic. $5 million is good for some pretty significant ad buys, even in some of the larger states.

However, one million people donating $5 each are equaled by one giant douche Sheldon Adelson pouring millions of dollars into Gingrich's campaign "non-coordinating" Super PAC, for example. That's bad enough without suggesting that a campaign needs $5 million just for travel expenses to a few places.

[yguy]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Article and section of the Constitution you are referring to please? Do you think the founding fathers equated speech with money?

Since there is also explicit protection of the freedom of the press, and since any organization dedicated to disseminating information may reasonably be considered a press outlet for 1A purposes, it doesn't matter whether they did or not.

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Readings - The Constitution And Campaign Finance - A Legal Movement For Change | Washington's Other Scandal | FRONTLINE | PBS
...>snip<...

There was a recent This American Life where they looked at some of the issues about money and politics, that relates directly to that quote above.

Andrea Seabrook: How many fundraisers do you typically go to in a given week, do you think?
Nancy Pelosi: A lot. Yeah. Either on the phone or attending events. But I think they've said this year I attended almost 400 fundraisers in nearly 40 cities.

So this is the norm for the Republicans as well- but think about how much of the time of our representatives is being spent raising enough money to compete in the next election. For example:

Andrea Seabrook: Minnick is a conservative Democrat who represented a Republican-leaning district in Idaho. He was first elected in 2008, and after he won, he took just five days off from fundraising. Then, two months before he was sworn in as a congressman, he was back raising money for the next election, two years away.
Walt Minnick: I needed to raise $10,000 to $15,000 a day, and you only do it by elbow grease.
Alex Blumberg: Let's stop and dwell on that statement for a second, shall we, Andrea? $10,000 to $15,000 a day. The typical cost of a congressional race is about a million dollars-- although, if you're challenging an incumbent, you need more. Minnick's goal was even more than that-- $2.5 million-- because he was in such a competitive district.
Walt Minnick: I would spend two or three hours a day as a congressman trying to raise money.
Andrea Seabrook: That's typical for a member of Congress, and most of those hours are spent across the street from the Capitol, in special offices set up by the parties specifically for this purpose.
Alex Blumberg: Special offices because federal law prohibits lawmakers from making fundraising calls from their own congressional offices.

Or you can go this route-

Alex Blumberg: Now, there is an easier way to relieve some of that pressure and raise money faster. A way that doesn't involve tapping out your friends. Just go to the people who already have big stacks of money set aside to give to politicians-- lobbyists.

As to the impact of PACs and Super-PACs:

Ben Calhoun: Soon, Time Magazine and The New York Times were reporting on how competitive the race was. The Times actually ran a piece calling the incumbent, Dan Lungren, "endangered." All of a sudden, more and more people were looking at Bera like he was a possible winner. And people started treating him like one. Donations took off. Everything sort of continued to fall into place until one very specific day.
Ami Bera: It was probably Wednesday or Thursday, right before-- at the end of the third week.
Ben Calhoun: This is the third week in October.
Ami Bera: This is the third week in October. So just as we're getting up to two weeks out of Election Day. And one of our team members says, "You know what? American Crossroads has made a media buy in our media market."
Ben Calhoun: American Crossroads is a Super PAC, put together by some of the country's leading conservative operatives and donors-- most notably, Karl Rove. In the Super PAC world, Crossroads is massive. Moneywise, they raise a ton-- $27 million last year and this year. Their directors are prominent conservative leaders and their donors, who give millions of dollars, are big ones. For example, Bob Perry, the main donor behind the Swift Boat stuff. Perry's given Crossroads more than $8 million.

But anyway, back to Bera, who, after weeks of picking up steam, has just found out that Crossroads is about to spend money in Sacramento. And it was a lot of money-- $682,000.

Ben Calhoun: Of course, it's impossible to know if, without the Crossroads ads, Bera could've closed that eight point gap and won the race. Eight points is a lot of ground to make up in two weeks. What is possible to know, though, is that Bera could not compete with $682,000 in TV commercials. I mean, just to put that number in context, during the entire campaign, the Republican incumbent, Dan Lungren, raised and spent about $1.9 million. That means American Crossroads, when it spent about $700,000, it single-handedly increased spending on Lungren's side by more than 30% in a single day.

So how does the political race work now?

Norm Ornstein: Imagine if you've got enough money to take on an opponent, even raise some money for your party, and two weeks before the election, somebody-- and you may not even know who it is, and certainly the voters aren't going to know who it is-- spends $10 million in a blanket television campaign defining you as a scoundrel, an alien, a felon, and a louse. You can't raise the money at that date to do anything about it. You don't have time. So what's happening now is more and more members of Congress are raising a protective war chest, just in case.
Ben Calhoun: Like a rainy day fund.
Norm Ornstein: You could call it a rainy day fund. You could call it an arsenal. A stockpile of nuclear weapons, just in case there's a sneak attack.
Ben Calhoun: If you do the long division of what's happening, it's not hard to see where it's headed. That we're drifting towards a new version of Congress, one where there are people in the House and in the Senate who have had their political existences made or broken by a single entity, one single donor. Norm Ornstein says money, in these kinds of amounts, in some cases, people don't even have to spend it and it can affect what happens in Washington.
Norm Ornstein: I've had this tale told to me by a number of lawmakers. You're sitting in your office and a lobbyist comes in and says, "I'm working with Americans for a Better America. And I can't tell you who's funding them, but I can tell you they really, really want this amendment in the bill." And who knows what they'll do? They've got more money than God.

If somebody disappoints them, the implication becomes clear-- cross them and you're going to get the $20 million alien/predator attack on you and your campaign. And when they leave the office, the lawmaker is sitting there thinking, it's just one amendment, one little thing. And so what's going to happen here is, even without spending the money, in a lot of instances, there are going to be changes in laws that will benefit special interests because of the threat of millions of dollars in undisclosed contributions to bludgeon somebody who thwarts them.
Ben Calhoun: You said that these are conversations that you've already heard of happening at this point?
Norm Ornstein: Yeah. I've had more than one member of Congress-- House and Senate-- tell me about having conversations like this.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by erimir

However, one million people donating $5 each are equaled by one giant douche Sheldon Adelson pouring millions of dollars into Gingrich's campaign "non-coordinating" Super PAC, for example. That's bad enough without suggesting that a campaign needs $5 million just for travel expenses to a few places.

Why do they need to travel anyway, since most folks have access to TV, radio or a newspaper? (or, the Internet). If they don't, they probably won't vote.

[LadyShea]

Sorry if it seemed hyperbolic, I was thinking about Presidential primaries and elections, because that's where we are. If the money spent on elections was spent on the country...OMG where would we be?

Romney spent a total of $76.6 million, far more than any other campaign. That total is, for example, more than the combined spending of Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Romney campaign spent $18.50 per vote - Apr. 25, 2012

That was the primaries. In March alone he spent $11000 on one hotel (Waldorf Astoria). How much do you think he'll spend between now and November on traveling?

[ChuckF]

I will just put this here instead of bamping a health care thrad, because of relevant. This is the Republican dude running for Gabrielle Giffords's seat:

My belief system is this. The health care for anybody but especially for our nation. The highest quality and lowest cost can only be delivered without the government. What I believe is that all things we drive, we do, health care, anything, is a privilege to some extent. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, those are inalienable rights endowed by your creator. If you’re claiming a right, if you’re going to say anything’s a right, if you’re going to say you have a right to a cell phone, then who has the responsibility to pay for it? That’s what I believe.

The health care for anybody. But especially for our nation.

[LadyShea]

Um, he can't even talk good

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

That was the primaries. In March alone he spent $11000 on one hotel (Waldorf Astoria). How much do you think he'll spend between now and November on traveling?

I just wonder if the Waldorf Astoria unties the dog from the Rmoney's auto roof.

[ImGod]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

I will just put this here instead of bamping a health care thrad, because of relevant. This is the Republican dude running for Gabrielle Giffords's seat:

The health care for anybody. But especially for our nation.

I believe this is what he meant to say,

My belief system is this. Health care is for anybody in our nation who can afford it. Not illegals. The highest quality and lowest cost can only be delivered by private healtcare. A Government healthcare will be over run by illegals. What I believe is that all things we drive, we do, health care, anything, is a privilege to some extent. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, those are inalienable rights endowed by your creator. For citizens of the US, not illegals. If you’re claiming a right, if you’re going to say anything’s a right, if you’re going to say you have a right to a cell phone, then who has the responsibility to pay for it? If we call it a right we might have to pay for healthcare for illegals. Go home illegals; no free healthcare for you. That’s what I believe.

The word salad makes more sense if he'd been giving the speech to private conservative groups but had to tone it down so he wouldn't offend a large voting block in his state. Illegals voting illegally.

[wildernesse]

Originally Posted by ImGod

I believe this is what he meant to say,

The word salad makes more sense if he'd been giving the speech to private conservative groups but had to tone it down so he wouldn't offend a large voting block in his state. Illegals voting illegally.

The improved version is exactly what someone should put in an email forward and send around to their gullible/right wing friends, purporting to support this guy. Right wingers seem completely unable to look at primary sources or do any kind of research, so they would never know it wasn't true.

I wouldn't mind making dog whistles explicit.

[Watser?]

It's not even about illegals, it's about black people being all black* in doctor's waiting rooms and in the next bed in the hospital and taking all that healthcare and somehow getting rich off of it, like the parasites they are.
I don't want THEM to get that, even, when it really comes down to it, if that means that I don't get it either.

*In some states/countries/cases Mexicans being all Mexican, Muslims being all Muslimy or even Jews being all Jewy.

[chunksmediocrites]

Originally Posted by ImGod

The word salad makes more sense if he'd been giving the speech to private conservative groups but had to tone it down so he wouldn't offend a large voting block in his state. Illegals voting illegally.

It would make even more sense if there actually was any evidence at all of the amount of voter fraud in Arizona that one would require to create a voting block, let alone a number of prosecutions.

But the Bush Justice Department’s war on voter fraud found little evidence of the illegal voting it alleged. Between 2002 and 2006, the DOJ’s efforts resulted in only 86 convictions out of nearly 200 million votes cast, a rate of 0.0000004%.
...>snip<...
A New York Times analysis of federal voting fraud cases found that roughly a third of the 86 convictions from 2002 through 2006 involved small vote-buying schemes in local elections. Nearly all the others were the result of honest mistakes by those who didn’t know they were ineligible to vote or instances of individuals acting alone. Ultimately, as the Times reported, prosecutors and election experts agreed that evidence of large-scale or coordinated fraud just wasn’t there.

Arizona Republicans are more worried about suppressing the votes of Latinos in the state who- not surprisingly- tend to vote not Republican.

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

... and it was frankly insulting to me that you made that analogy.

That looks like a complaint about an insult, as if there were something wrong with insulting each other, LS! Now, I know that you don't think there's anything wrong with insulting your fellow ers, because you were quite unapologetic about doing it yourself here.

So what exactly are you giving seebs a telling-off for?

[LadyShea]

seebs did not intend to be insulting, mick. I knew and know that. He thought his analogy and its implications were fair and I felt they were unfair. So, I told him so.

Nuance, ya know. Also, context.

So fuck off with your continuous net nannying...do you ever post about the thread topic? Do you have anything to say about campaign finance in the US or anything else found in this thread?

[ImGod]

Originally Posted by chunksmediocrites

It would make even more sense if there actually was any evidence at all of the amount of voter fraud in Arizona that one would require to create a voting block, let alone a number of prosecutions.

Arizona Republicans are more worried about suppressing the votes of Latinos in the state who- not surprisingly- tend to vote not Republican.

Evidence If they look Mexican and/or speak Spanish, they are probably illegals. If they vote they are probably illegals voting illegally. Americans speak English.

Even if they were born here and have the proper paperwork it's hard to tell them apart in the voting line so the Republican party just wants to error on the side of caution. Better to keep thousands from voting than let 0.0000004% get away with something.

In my wife's hometown, sometime around 1980, the meat packing plants started hiring illegals. Now roughly 1/2 of the highschool graduating class in the small town is Hispanic. Roughly 1/4 of the population in town is Latino. There are 2 Hispanic run resturants and a store. Without an influx of Hispanics the town would have died long ago. And some people there still can't wait until "those people" go home and stop using all the free stuff while avoiding taxes.

I bet some of the illegals born in, raised in, graduated from high school in the town even vote in the next election. To some people Hispanic=Illegal regardless of citizenship.

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

So fuck off with your continuous net nannying...

Now, now, LS! I don't believe I'm nannying anyone (whatever that means). I'm just trying to understand how you deny seebs the same right to make insults that you have accorded yourself. How is it you think you are entitled and seebs is not?

seebs did not intend to be insulting, ...
True, but irrelevent surely, unless insulting people unwittingly is worse that doing it deliberately? I've never before heard of anyone using "They know not what they do" as grounds for harsher judgement.


do you ever post about the thread topic? lol sometimes, and please don't do a seebs and pretend you've never seen it. There's no rule that I have to, though, so this just looks like peevish deflection.

[ChuckF]

There's no rule that I have to, though, so this just looks like peevish deflection.
LOL how pomo of you, dude!

[LadyShea]

I don't believe I'm nannying anyone (whatever that means).

Nannying means all you ever do is post about other posters' behavior that you don't like, and rarely (if ever?) post about the actual topic of the thread.

I'm just trying to understand how you deny seebs the same right to make insults that you have accorded yourself. How is it you think you are entitled and seebs is not?

seebs said something and I said something in response. No denial of rights, no claims of entitlement or non entitlement going on anywhere.

Free speech is free speech, you see. People say stuff, other say stuff back.

You think I am trying to deny people their speech, their right to say whatever they want. That's not the case. I think your nannying is annoying as shit, and would love if you fucked off with that and started posting about topics, but I would never want you censored or silenced by me or anyone else. You have the right to complain about posting behavior and I have the right to tell you it sucks.

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I think your nannying is annoying as shit, and would love if you fucked off with that and started posting about topics, but I would never want you censored or silenced by me or anyone else.

But if I stop out of respect for you, then your disapproval has silenced me. You are trying to make a distinction there that can only be made in a moral vacuum. I don't believe you or I, or seebs, or any of us are operating in a moral vacuum.

[ChuckF]

But if I stop out of respect for you, then your disapproval has silenced me.
mickthinks, if, out of respect for you, I were stop calling you on your repeated use of a hateful anti-Semitic slur and refusal to acknowledge the historicity of the Holocaust, this would be a reprehensible form of censorship. Fortunately, I do not respect you, thus my freedom is safe from your hateful attacks. Please keep this in mind.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

But if I stop out of respect for you, then your disapproval has silenced me.

If you choose to give weight to my preference that you fuck off, that's on you. My disapproval cannot silence you, only your giving a shit about my disapproval enough for you to choose to stop talking can silence you. Nothing to do with me at all.

You could tell me to fuck off in return, or ignore me, or, you know, just keep doing what you want to do regardless of my opinion on it.

You are trying to make a distinction there that can only be made in a moral vacuum. I don't believe you or I, or seebs, or any of us are operating in a moral vacuum.

WTF are you babbling about?

[LadyShea]

Hey Chuck, fuck off with your legalize!

You are now silenced by my disapproval because I know you respect me.

[godfry n. glad]

So...Clue me in. Is mickthinks the conservative who says stupid shit in this thread?