US Politics Mega-thread - Page 52

On March 28 2018 15:02 Falling wrote:
Well, he isn't. But I think it probably is a big ask. No one is forcing me to watch Jones, so he can yell away in his corner of youtube- so long as it isn't defamation or slander. I haven't been impressed with youtube's efforts to clean house, and I doubt politicians will do much better. Partially it's just sheer volume of content being generated. 300 hours of video uploaded per minute and 500 million tweets per day. What politician can wade into that mess with any degree of nuanced understanding?

On March 28 2018 22:16 iamthedave wrote:


Dunno. Can you just imagine how hard the current senate/house would dig their heels in under a Bernie Sanders Presidency? If they were dedicated to ruining Obama they'd have wanted to burn down the white house over an actual leftie living there.

Everything involving the Parkland kids is fucked up beyond recognition. It's fine to dislike what they're saying (Conservative values and that), but the response is to recognise that they're grieving and trying to deal with it, not make spurious assertions that they're akin to the Hitler youth and SENDING THEM DEATH THREATS.

There's no point in pointing out the right has lost its mind, everyone knows that. I'm beginning to wonder what will make the majority of Conservatives wake up and realise that its gone too far. I'm waiting to hear about an actual attempt to kill one of the Parkland kids and the right start laughing about it/applauding the upstanding Conservative for trying to defend the Constitution against these parasites. And I'm not even sure that wouldn't be their response at this point.

The National Rifle Association is acknowledging that it accepts donations from foreign entities, and that it moves money between its various accounts “as permitted by law.”

The gun group insists it has never received foreign money in connection with an election. But campaign finance experts say that, since money is fungible, that assurance doesn’t mean much.

Though it’s a long way from being confirmed and may never be, the NRA’s new admissions offer perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that foreign money could have allowed the group to conduct political activities boosting Trump.

The admissions came in a recent letter to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has sought answers about the group’s foreign funding, following reports that the FBI is probing whether a Russian banker funneled money to the NRA to benefit the Trump campaign.

“While we do receive some contributions from foreign individuals and entities, those contributions are made directly to the NRA for lawful purposes,” NRA General Counsel John Frazer wrote to Wyden. “Our review of our records has found no foreign donations in connection with a United States election, either directly or through a conduit.”

The NRA is not required to disclose how funds are transferred between its various entities. As TPM has reported, that makes it difficult to trace if the NRA legally received foreign money into its general accounts, then transferred the same amount into an account that can be used for political spending.

“Even if the NRA segregated the foreign money that it received, money is fungible,” Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance expert at the Campaign Legal Center, told TPM. “Foreign money in one account frees up money that can be used for elections in another account.”

“This is a very carefully worded letter that appears designed to give the impression that the NRA does not take foreign money for its election work, but reading between the lines, it does not actually say that,” Fischer added. “The NRA said it did not receive foreign money in connection with the U.S. election. It does not say that foreign money was not used in a U.S. election.”

Paul S. Ryan, Vice President of Policy and Litigation at good-government group Common Cause told TPM that the system described in the gun organization’s letter means that “foreign money subsidizes the NRA’s U.S. political spending.”

In his letter, Frazer told Wyden that some donations received between 2015 and 2016 came from U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, but none were “connected with Russia, and none of their contributions were made in connection with U.S. elections.”

Campaign finance experts said that the Federal Election Commission would probably allow this system to slide, as long as the NRA was able to demonstrate it was using proper accounting measures to try to ensure that its political expenditures did not come from foreign nationals.

But other investigative bodies might have access to additional evidence that could determine how Russia or other foreign entities wanted their money to be spent. The FBI is reportedly investigating whether Russian banker and lifetime NRA member Aleksandr Torshin channeled money to the group with the express purpose of helping Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential race.

“Presumably they have emails, correspondence, communications,” said the Campaign Legal Center’s Fischer.

A liberal advocacy group has filed a complaint with the FEC requesting an investigation into links between the NRA and Russia.

In the meantime, Wyden’s office is continuing to press the gun lobbying giant for answers.

In a follow-up letter sent Tuesday, Wyden asked Frazer for an in-depth account of how foreign donations were used over the past thee years, and whether Russian nationals were members of the NRA’s donor programs, among other questions.
One issue of interest to Wyden: how the organization makes “transfers between accounts are made as permitted by law,” as Frazer acknowledged it does.

On March 28 2018 22:04 farvacola wrote:
Definitely not as good as Bernie, but still highly preferable to Trump.

On March 28 2018 21:29 TheTenthDoc wrote:
As much as I hate Jones, I think what he's done is close enough to Obama/Bush/Trump with a Hitler 'stache that he can get away with it. You can't watch the video and think "oh, this kid was actually a Hitler Youth" anymore than you can see those signs and think "oh yeah, Obama really is Hitler."

It's not as bad as e.g. doctoring and sharing a photo shoot so that it looks like someone is tearing up the Constitution and then being like "oh, lighten up, it's just satire" because the image alone contains no clues to that effect.

On March 28 2018 22:57 zlefin wrote:

I disagree on the "definitely not as good as bernie" part; definitely is too strong a claim.
I see it as more of an even split, it could go either way, depending on how a number of other factors play out, they each have some good and bad points.

On March 28 2018 23:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


If RBG dies soon and is replaced with another Scalia, we're screwed.

On March 28 2018 23:35 farvacola wrote:
Given that Scalia approved of Chevron deference to agency interpretations of statutes, a Scalia-like pick wouldn't be as bad who Trump picks next. Scalia and Gorsuch wouldn't have gotten along in all likelihood.

On March 28 2018 23:36 Plansix wrote:

Especially with campaign finance reform and limits on election spending. Any new law will be met with countless lawsuits that will travel all the way up to the high court. A bench of Alito 2.0 will make it very hard to curb spending on elections. And then there is the slow erosion of civil rights protections like the voters rights act and laws against redlining. People act like it won’t happen, but that is what I thought about the voters rights act.


From the limited reports I have seen from the court, it sounds like Gorsuch is out matched by most of the justices.

On March 29 2018 00:08 iamthedave wrote:


What do you mean by 'outmatched'?

And surely RBG is going soon? She's ridiculously old. Hard to believe she'll make it through Trump's whole 8 years. Just hope the Democrats control enough of congress to refuse interviews when he tries to pick one.

On March 28 2018 22:57 Artisreal wrote:
disclaimer: I haven't watched the video due to only mobile internet. This might affect the validity of my following paragraph. If so, please tell me so I can make amendments.

I have to disagree with you here.
The stark contrast of a youth movement that is organized by the pupils themselves which is an expression of Independent thought and perspective on life, to a hierarchical Hitler youth organisation that is run by adults to preserve the "Volkskörper" to build an army to dominate the world is very much a disgrace and is to be condemned. And in my opinion not harmless at all but full of contemp for the pupils as well as utter ignorance of the Hitler youth's context.

On March 29 2018 00:29 Plansix wrote:

The sitting justices are smarter and more capable at making substantive arguments than him. Both on the liberal and conservative justices. It was a from a NPR discussion with their justice correspondent, Carrie Johnson, who said that he was having a tough first year on the court. That he was not used to having the liberal justices as peers and maybe wasn’t has humble as he should be coming into the court. But it is all rumor, since court is really tight lipped about it.

On March 29 2018 00:43 zlefin wrote:

interesting to hear; wouldn't be surprising, what with his choice being partly based on ideology rather than competence.

On March 29 2018 00:55 Plansix wrote:

He is a very capable Judge, so I don’t want to give the impression he was not qualified. My impression is that he went from being the best and brightest in his section of the world to being one of nine staggeringly smart people. All with way more experience than him.

He also did some really dumb stuff, like speak at a Trump Hotel after being confirmed and I think he campaigned for Mitch McConnell. Just some really stupid unforced errors that I was really surprised he went through with. Which makes me believe that he got off on the wrong foot with the liberal justices nd had to be reminded that they are not his opposition.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/28/neil-gorsuch-trump-hotel-speech-243251

On March 29 2018 00:43 zlefin wrote:

interesting to hear; wouldn't be surprising, what with his choice being partly based on ideology rather than competence.