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Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

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Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#241

Post by arcticbull »

nokcha wrote: post #194
arcticbull wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elections are in the public interest and therefore should be publicly funded -- exclusively. Each registered candidate with more than a certain number of signatures of support should be given a budget of money and pre-paid airtime on all major networks by the FEC, and that's it. Once it's out, it's out. All other contributions (including in-kind) to political campaigns are tantamount to bribery and should just be ill…

>Elections are in the public interest and therefore should be publicly funded -- exclusively. That doesn't really follow. Why should something be exclusively publicly funded just because it is in the public interest? >All other contributions (including in-kind) to political campaigns are tantamount to bribery and should just be illegal. What about completely anonymous donations? If the receiver doesn't know who is gi…

I can’t think of anything in the public interest that shouldn’t be publicly funded. I would go so far as to say that’s the only class of thing that should be publicly funded. Did you have something in mind?

Re: completely anonymous donations, you mean, like Bitcoin? Generally any legitimate business has to report where it’s money came from - even if just for tax purposes - otherwise it’s a whole new crime. Remember, under my model, all contributions would be banned. Then, candidates would have to compete on platforms instead of fundraising.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#242

Post by 5d749d7da7d5 »

eghad wrote: post #162
ceilingcorner wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s actually not very much compared to someone like Bloomberg.

The Koch's political funding goes far beyond just this one PAC fyi. Their funneling of millions into the Federalist Society and its individual causes serving as just one example that has had an outsized negative influence on the health of American democracy.

I recalled this story [0] where the Koch brothers said they would organize $1 billion to conservative groups for the 2016 election.

[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/koch-brothers-network-will-spen...

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#243

Post by crocodiletears »

nicetryguy wrote: post #222
StreamBright wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember what DNC did to Bernie? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sa...

Sure do. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was fired over it. They also dismantled the superdelegate system. Changes were made. The media was still heavily biased against Bernie before the pandemic; probably due to half of their commercials being for drug and insurance companies. I'm just looking forward to a period of relative stability the next four years. #MakePoliticsBoringAgain

I don't think politics will reset just like that. Schultz was sacrificed at the altar to calm the public. The superdelegate system, too. The political establishments (Dem and Rep) have been given a taste of how much their constituencies resent them. If they want to maintain power, primaries can only become less democratic going forward.

I'm worried that insurgent candidate like those in 'the squad' were only allowed to succeed as an olive branch to the left-populists for the purposes of maintaining a coherent anti-trump coalition.

The Republicans ran a reasonably clean primary in 2016, and got Trump, a demagogue completely dismissive of the party's interests, who catered to his base, and only helped the Republicans in circumstances of mutual interests. I don't think the party's leadership will be willing to risk something like that again, if the behavior of the Bush-era cabinet appointees he had is any indicator.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#245

Post by jonstewart »

nl wrote: post #240
jonstewart wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (althoug…

As a states-rightser, shouldn’t Alito argue that it’s just fine for “the” state to prioritize thusly?

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#246

Post by chris_wot »

divbzero wrote: post #196
bwanab wrote: post #156

This reminds me of George Wallace’s famous realization that his long term institutionalization of racism in Alabama was wrong when he was getting close to death’s door. It was kind of nice to hear, but lots of damage was done.

Lots of damage done, but for Charles Koch there might be time still to heal some of the polarization.

I think it's unlikely. Once you fully unchain the beast of partisanship like they have, then it's very hard to releash it.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#247

Post by leftyted »

jaggederest wrote: post #159
chmod600 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Republican-appointed justices joining the Democrat-appointed justices in an opinion. Are you saying all nine are conservatives?

Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making? The US, in general, does not have any non-conservative judiciary. Stare decisis by itself ensures that there is a strong conservative streak in the available pool of jurists. So yes, the Supreme court…

> Are any of them advocating the seizure of the means of production for the workers? Abolish the state or private property? Devolve control into local worker's councils or other non-hierarchical means of decision-making?

Are any of them arguing for an ethnostate? For shipping non-whites "back to where they came from"? For re-establishing anti-miscegenation laws?

Your perspective is absurd. Of course the court has a left wing. It's just not radical enough for your liking and, similarly, the court's right wing isn't radical enough for David Duke's liking.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#248

Post by aniro »

forest_dweller wrote: post #236
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…

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.

I am highly skeptical of them. It was not my intent to defend them.

I do not consider nuclear energy a viable alternative to the hydrocarbon economy. I have considered it and I have dismissed it. You will not change my mind unless you can produce it off planet. I have dismissed it as a non-viable option (apparently the "non-viable" part is inconceivable to you.) This dismissal is not tied to my need to coddle and protect my identity as an activist.

"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."

This line dismisses .. pretty much anyone advocating for change. "I proposed a solution that works for me. They don't like it. They must wish to protect the identity." Pure poppycock.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#249

Post by Answerawake »

crocodiletears wrote: post #243
nicetryguy wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure do. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was fired over it. They also dismantled the superdelegate system. Changes were made. The media was still heavily biased against Bernie before the pandemic; probably due to half of their commercials being for drug and insurance companies. I'm just looking forward to a period of relative stability the next four years. #MakePoliticsBoringAgain

I don't think politics will reset just like that. Schultz was sacrificed at the altar to calm the public. The superdelegate system, too. The political establishments (Dem and Rep) have been given a taste of how much their constituencies resent them. If they want to maintain power, primaries can only become less democratic going forward. I'm worried that insurgent candidate like those in 'the squad' were only allowed…

>I'm worried that insurgent candidate like those in 'the squad' were only allowed to succeed as an olive branch to the left-populists for the purposes of maintaining a coherent anti-trump coalition.

I don't buy that but happy to be proven wrong. I was following AOC's race closely before she won her election (any before anyone had heard of her). They went out of their way to work with and endorse her competitor. It was AOC's hustle and innovative techniques that made up for her huge money disadvantage (~300k at the end of the election vs ~3mil) as well as the fact that her rival was appointed the seat through a loophole (and so never really learned how to run a campaign) that resulted in her win.

The opposition spent 10+ million trying to unseat her since then.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#250

Post by bleepblorp »

Animats wrote: post #147
alain94040 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "originalist" means anything. The constitution, like all legal texts, contains contradictions between different principles. As logic students know, once you have contradictions in your principles, you can prove anything you want. The role of a judge is to sort through these contradictions to decide which principles are more important than others, even though they are all mentioned in the constitution. So…

It has meaning, but not what we see today. Interpreting the US Constitution as intended by its authors would probably have consequences like this: - A much stronger view of the Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or…

The even more blunt implication of good-faith originalism would be interpreting the 2nd amendment to allow the non-governmental ownership of nuclear weapons.

The original intent of the 2nd amendment was to allow a 'well regulated militia' to be adequately equipped to fight off an invading army, which in modern terms would mean that the 'well regulated militia' would need to be able to own tanks, fighter aircraft, warships, missiles, and nuclear warheads.

Contemporary originalists, however, both completely discard the mention of a 'well regulated militia' in the 2nd amendment and have re-interpreted the right to encompass only small arms.

Legal originalism is not an ideology predicated on good faith. It is a figleaf to misuse the opinions of the authors of the US constitution to defend the beliefs of contemporary conservatives.

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