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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

#131

Post by jjeaff »

colinmhayes wrote: post #119
chmod600 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supreme court partisanship is overstated. It's brought out all the time as though the sky is falling, but typically when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears. Roberts, Gorsuch, Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter all switched sides on major issues. Conservatives switch sides a lot more often, but perhaps because the court has been tilted towards Republican nominees.

Sure, but partisanship is getting much worse. The precedent has now been set to completely reject any nomination from the opposing party. That will lead to even more partisanship as nominating "moderates" no longer makes sense. We're in for a future of nothing but Alito's and Thomas's.

Partisanship in the nomination process, sure, but it remains to be seen if the more recent nominees will be impartial judges. After all, several court decisions have already not gone the way the gop wanted.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#132

Post by throw0101a »

andrewmg wrote: post #78
louwrentius wrote: post #19

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist Society is a conspiracy against democracy.

(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—…

> If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—then so is pretty much every other civic organization in existence.

The connotation of secrecy with the work "conspiracy" is only one definition. "Conspiracy" and "conspire" have the same root:

> 1. the act of conspiring

* https://www.dictionary.com/browse/conspiracy

> 2. to act or work together toward the same result or goal: The wind and rain conspired to strip the trees of their fall color.

* https://www.dictionary.com/browse/conspire

> A civil conspiracy or collusion is an agreement between two or more parties to deprive a third party of legal rights or deceive a third party to obtain an illegal objective.[1] A conspiracy may also refer to a group of people who make an agreement to form a partnership in which each member becomes the agent or partner of every other member and engage in planning or agreeing to commit some act.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(civil)

> This is a list of political conspiracies. In a political context, a conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of damaging, usurping, or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination. A conspiracy can also be used for infiltration of the governing system.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_conspiracies

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#133

Post by andrewmg »

tehjoker wrote: post #124
andrewmg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—…

FedSoc has a well known reputation for being a nice civic organization for the legal profession and also endorsing the most radical right wing supreme court nominees. Without the broad acceptance by the legal community, it wouldn't be as effective.

While we might disagree over who's a "radical right wing" nominee, it's indisputable that the Federalist Society hasn't endorsed any nominee for any position.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#134

Post by chmod600 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #128
chmod600 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The supreme court partisanship is overstated. It's brought out all the time as though the sky is falling, but typically when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears. Roberts, Gorsuch, Kennedy, O'Connor and Souter all switched sides on major issues. Conservatives switch sides a lot more often, but perhaps because the court has been tilted towards Republican nominees.

"when the court is tilted, side-switching magically appears" Two sides of a conservative position.

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

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#135

Post by forest_dweller »

colinmhayes wrote: post #98
medium_burrito wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenpeace is directly working against nuclear energy, which is the best way to have clean energy in the future for a large portion of humanity.

I don't think that changes how much the Koch's donated to climate change deniers.

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.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#136

Post by forest_dweller »

flavor8 wrote: post #40
the-dude wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Greenpeace, with a 'campaign' director who used to fly up & down from Luxemburg to Amsterdam for his commute? [0] Dutch, no international sources available AFAIK : [0] https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/artikel/1806716/greenpeace-v...

Do you dispute the figure?

Don't you find it troubling that these people don't practice what they preach?

It is as if they don't really believe it.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#137

Post by nickysielicki »

andrewmg wrote: post #78
louwrentius wrote: post #19

“Dark Money” by Jane Mayer was extremely enlightening. The influence of the Koch family on politics and public opinion has been devastating. The Federalist Society is a conspiracy against democracy.

(Longtime HN lurker and FedSoc member/leader, although speaking for just myself here.) The Federalist Society's entire annual convention was just broadcast online this past week,[0] and it's pretty typical of the Society's activities: hosting panels, debates, and speeches on the law featuring a wide breadth of views. If the Federalist Society is some kind of "conspiracy"—one that you can join today, for fifty bucks!—…

Thanks for this, I didn't realize membership was so cheap. Joined.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#138

Post by lumost »

roenxi wrote: post #22
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…

"Should" is a very easy word to throw out. Yeah, elections should be all those things. The problem is the follow up questions of "how?", "what would the unintended consequences be?" and "can we enforce this objectively when the situation gets murky?". It seems all but impossible to stop billionaires like Koch waging public relations campaigns. If nothing else they'll just buy entire media companies (c.f. Bezos and th…

It's pretty straightforward to spot billion dollar ad campaigns. The FCC has carried out its duty to regulate airtime for the better part of a century.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#139

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

akudha wrote: post #90
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 saw parts of the speech and it was crazy. This is why appointing judges for life makes zero sense to me. If I become a supreme court judge at 45 and live to 75, I have a full three decades to change the direction of the country forever. This is very very scary. There should be a term limit for everyone in government like presidents do - mayors, congressmen, senators, judges...

Not to mention it'd make the majority of turnovers in the supreme court an orderly scheduled event fair between parties.

Re: Charles Koch Says His Partisanship Was a Mistake

#140

Post by cwhiz »

colinmhayes wrote: post #98
medium_burrito wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greenpeace is directly working against nuclear energy, which is the best way to have clean energy in the future for a large portion of humanity.

I don't think that changes how much the Koch's donated to climate change deniers.

It changes my evaluation of the claim, which is sourced by Greenpeace.

In the long run I have no doubt that Greenpeace will have caused more damage than the Koch family. We could have clean energy right now if it weren’t for the decades of nuclear fear mongering, and the Koch family isn’t even opposed to nuclear.

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