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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

wsj.com

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Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#231

Post by nl »

gruez wrote: post #182
karaterobot wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason Supreme Court justices are appointed for life is so they are independent. That cuts both ways, protecting both people I agree with, and people I disagree with from having their verdicts influenced by outside forces. Sometimes this is inconvenient for me, but on the whole I prefer it over the alternative. The key is to hold the people who nominate and confirm these justices to account, since they are electe…

>The reason Supreme Court justices are appointed for life is so they are independent Can't you just make it so it's x years appointment, but you can't be reappointed?

The issue with term limits is that it gives a potential perception of bias related to whatever they do when they leave.

An example of this is in agencies like the FTC, where people leave the regulator and end up in well paid jobs in the companies they are supposed to be regulating. Even if there was no bias in their decision making people point to it and it undermines confidence in the system.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#232

Post by stefs »

d4rti wrote: post #36
scoot_718 wrote: post #26

Rightwing playbook: Republicans in power: Use every loophole Democrats in power: Preach bipartisanship and the importance of fairplay.

We're about to see the big switch in caring about deficits too.

you're already a week late here, they already started.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#233

Post by aniro »

dnautics wrote: post #224
aniro wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen how big the Chernobyl exclusion zone is? are to move your family there? Have you paid any attention to the after effects at Fukushima? Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water (and one of the greatest repositories of life) on Earth? That the effects will likely reverberate for a 1000 years or more? What is your solution to the problem of ac…

" Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water..." Real talk: Which do you think is worse, fukushima, or one atmospheric nuclear test?

Real talk:

Doses of radioactive elements from high atmosphere Nuclear weapons testing persist in trace amounts in all living things on Earth today. Dispersal of radioactive elements would be faster and point source radioactivity thereby reduced by that due to the nature of the medium into which it was released and the very short duration of the release.

Fukushima because it lacks these characteristics.

Blow up all the shit you want.. nuclear energy (when it fails, and every failure is too often) is way more disruptive then nuclear weapons. Evidence? See Nagasaki today vs Pripyat today.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#234

Post by CameronNemo »

bhickey wrote: post #201
CameronNemo wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the Emmet Till accuser admitting she lied, once she was on her death bed.

At age 84 Carolyn Bryant Donham allegedly confessed to instigating Till's lynching. She's still is alive today, age 86.

My bad, thanks for the correction. I guess subconsciously I assume everyone over 80 is on their deathbed?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#235

Post by pavel_lishin »

> At 85, the libertarian tycoon who spent decades funding conservative causes says he wants a final act building bridges across political divides

Isn't that what all the republicans are saying now that their presidential candidate has lost? Now that they've lost a modicum of power, now is the time for partisanship and teamwork? Where was this spirit of cooperation before?

This seems like a good way to spend money on his interests, while pretending he's building bridges, and blaming the other side when anything goes wrong.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#236

Post by forest_dweller »

aniro wrote: post #187
forest_dweller wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It highlights the very important point that activist groups will quite often ignore viable solutions. This is usually because they wish to keep on being activists and keep on continuing the fight. Thus it brings into question anything they claim and all claims should be treated with skepticism.

Have you seen how big the Chernobyl exclusion zone is? are to move your family there? Have you paid any attention to the after effects at Fukushima? Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water (and one of the greatest repositories of life) on Earth? That the effects will likely reverberate for a 1000 years or more? What is your solution to the problem of ac…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Greenpeace

There are plenty of criticisms of greenpeace in the same vain. Being skeptical of any of their claims is healthy.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#237

Post by iSnow »

throwawayxyz987 wrote: post #216
CalChris wrote: post #208

“Still, his political spending remains almost entirely partisan. Koch Industries’ PAC and employees donated $2.8 million in the 2020 campaign cycle to Republican candidates and $221,000 to Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.“

BigTech is just as biased, if not more, only in the other direction. https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/18039528/tech-employees-polit... Employee donations to midterm candidates by party Netflix ($321K) 99.6% D 0.4% R Twitter ($228K) 98.7% D 1.3% R Airbnb ($107K) 97.8% D 2.2% R Apple ($1,218K) 97.5% D 2.5% R Stripe ($152K) 97.0% D 3.0% R Lyft ($47K) 96.1% D 3.9% R Google ($3,742K) 96.0% D 4.0% R Salesforce ($364K) 94.8%…

This article isn't about BigTech. That's pure Whataboutism.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#238

Post by zimpenfish »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #4

Apologies if this is covered in the article, which I can't get to, but what is he doing to make amends? Or is this just empty, placatory words?

Like others have mentioned, it's an empty rebranding. His super-PAC is still dumping money into the Georgia Senate race to help Perdue and Loeffler's re-election.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/charles-koch-what-a-...

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#239

Post by iSnow »

pydry wrote: post #207
rurounijones wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear energy is still dangerous. For example, it is still not safe against possible natural disasters (Fukushima), I mean, if we are going to be bringing up a single datapoint then allow me to raise a counterpoint. Nuclear energy is still safe. For example, it is still safe against possible natural disasters (Onagawa) [1] [1] https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/onagawa-the-japanese-nuclear...

It's also, like, 4x more expensive per kWh (probably 2x more expensive with variability taken into account) than wind or solar and is uninsurable without a government backstop. I really wonder why people are so keen on it. It made sense to build them 40 years ago to deal with global warming. Today it's only financially viable if it's massively subsidized compared to wind/solar. What is it that makes that extra cost s…

Well, the idea of an energy source that never fails, is abundant and reliable has some allure. Solar and wind seem capricious in comparison.

Nevertheless, nuclear has some big issues: try to switch to it now and it will take decades for the power plants to be build. Expensive as well and leaves a lot of toxic and radioactive waste.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#240

Post by nl »

jonstewart wrote: post #76
extra88 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Federalist Society finds, indoctrinates, and advances conservative lawyers and judges. That's not inherently anti-democratic though their level of success and influence on judges selection processes may be considered so. The problem is they also tend to be highly partisan (pro-Republican) which undermines the separation of powers. Often their picks ignore their "originalist" approach when it would be counter to t…

Indeed. To illustrate Samuel Alito just gave a keynote address to the Federalist Society a few days ago. The NY Times and NPR have recaps: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/samuel-alito-religious... https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/934666499/justice-alito-pande... You can watch the whole thing for yourself here: https://youtu.be/tYLZL4GZVbA The speech is an attack on science, expertise, and common sense. It’s a MAG…

I agree with Alito on his "the state treated houses of worship less favorably than it did casinos" point, and I don't think it's anti-science to say that.

To quote NYT: "Casinos were limited to 50 percent of their fire-code capacities, while houses of worship were subject to a flat 50-person limit."

It seems reasonable to me that both should be limited to a 50-person limit, or perhaps a people-per-area limit (although I do understand that Churches are higher risk because singing spreads the virus much more than silently sitting at a slot machine).

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