Is John Hickenlooper deliberately sabotaging the Dems? His goofy last name alone will alienate moderates and independents and Dems should care about what they think. I know this because I spend sooo much time talking to moderates and independents. He could be making sure they don’t win in 2020, so he can try again in 2024, as the darling of the Left, because that is a tried and true strategy.
Maybe fringe wasn’t the best choice of words. Beto’s not all that ‘fringe-y’ but he probably wouldn’t have become a household name were it not for his candidacy against Cruz. Beto would have likely been obliterated against someone like Cornyn or Abbott; it’s just that Cruz is such a polarizing ass that if you put Willie Nelson against him, Nelson just might pull off the upset.
Of course now that Francis has let his mask drop for the whole world to see, he will never have a chance in Texas again. Which is great.
And as was already know, Cruz was right all along about him. He turned out to be exactly the douchebag everyone thought he was.
And yeah, Francis is fringe as fuck. He’s firmly planted both feet in the AOC camp of stupid.
The Vice Presidency is probably out of the picture now. He would be a liability on the ticket now.
That said it’s a strange phenomenom about him. Media darling in 2018, could do no wrong. Urged on by the media to run for president. Got fantastic early fundraising numbers from small donors. Then everything ground to a halt.
That Vanity Fair cover did him dirty to an extent and then the things he was being praised for in 18’ were being mocked in 19’. Things that are seen as cringe and overbearing now were seen as inspiring and enthuasistic then. Perhaps the real story was Ted Cruz was so despised by the democrats rather than Beto was admired and therefore everyone misinterpreted the enthusiasm for Beto.
He actually has pretty detailed plans and his climate plan and immigration plan are among the better ones in my opinion but he’s too eccentric to win a debate with this many candidates on stage (hands all over the place, talks too fast) so the time to build momentum has come and went.
Klobuchar had a better Fundraising quarter than him. I actually like her so I’m pleased but it’s bad news for Beto.
While O’Rourke’s specific proposal is one of the most blatantly unconstitutional ideas I’ve heard advanced by a politician on the national stage in quite a while even taxing religious institutions in general would almost certainly run afoul of the Free Exercise Clause. The Court has long held to the maxim “the power to tax is the power to destroy” and consistently applied it far outside its original context and specifically in the context of Constitutional Rights. And it has also noted that the practicalities of administering any such tax would almost certainly involve excessive government entanglement with religion (*Walz v Tax Commission *). The chances of a Court, regardless of its make-up, upsetting this long standing status quo anytime soon are slim to none.
So we have O’Rourke suggesting a blatant violation of Equal Protection, Free Speech and almost certainly Free Exercise, Sanders advocating for the abolition of Corporate Personhood, and Warren proposing that Congress can extend its oversight of Federal judges to the Supreme Court. The first is ridiculously unconstitutional, the second is ridiculously stupid and short-sighted and possibly unconstitutional as well, the last is probably unconstitutional and all of them are never, ever going to happen. So are these candidates actually this ignorant or even stupid or do they know better and are shamelessly appealing to a voter base that doesn’t?
It is likely, that when someone advances policy positions you disagree with, that they’re stupid and ignorant–not that they might know something you don’t, or have a disagreement over constitutional law with you. Well spotted.
For example, Here’s probably what you’re talking about with Sanders. All his amendment does (“all”!) is to specify that corporations may be regulated fully by the legislature, and that the people involved in the corporations may not appeal to the courts for the protection of the corporation’s rights. They may still of course ask for the protection of their own rights.
You say that his call may be unconstitutional. To be clear, are you saying that his proposed amendment to the constitution may be unconstitutional?
As for Warren, is this what you’re talking about? Calling for extending the judicial code of ethics to cover the Supreme Court? Why the hell would that be unconstitutional? Congress can impeach a judge, and that’s the only remedy AFAIK (please correct me if I’m wrong) for other federal judges who violate the code of ethics; this would just say that Congress ought to impeach a SC judge who violates it, right?
The SC can still conduct their business as they see fit. But if they violate that code, they’d know Congress was taking a close look at them.
On what possible basis are you making this assignment of probability? Is it based on your extensive knowledge of Constitutional Law? Because that’s what I’m basing my analysis on and maybe I do indeed know more about that subject than either you or the three candidates in question. See not everyone takes a position on an issue based on their biases and not knowing whatsoever what they’re talking about.
I explained above why O’Rourke’s proposal to tax churches is almost certainly unconstitutional as violative of the Free Exercise Clause. However, specifically singling out churches and other organizations who refuse to support gay marriage/rights is viewpoint discrimination and is as much a crystal clear example of an unconstitutional law as you are ever going to find. If you have any legal cites that say differently or are going to argue that this isn’t viewpoint discrimination or would somehow survive strict scrutiny by all means go right ahead.
As for Sanders his basic proposal is an idiotic idea that obviously fails to appreciate the enormous implications of what he’s advocating. If he attempts to advance it through statute then there’s a good chance it would be found unconstitutional. If he is advocating for change through Constitutional Amendment then it obviously couldn’t be unconstitutional but would still remain a massively stupid idea and a legal nightmare as the courts tried to reconcile it with other parts of the Constitution. So when you say “all it does…” are you sure you understand the full implications of the language of his proposal legally-speaking? Because I’m virtually certain that neither you nor Sanders in fact do.
Your characterization of Warren’s proposal is similarly an over-simplification. As with all things of this nature the devil is in the details but the basic Constitutional issue is that the Federal Courts are a creation of Congress and SCOTUS is a creation of the Constitution and a co-equal branch of government. Constitutionally speaking the remedy of impeachment, specifically mentioned in the Constitution, may be the only authority Congress can exert over a co-equal branch. There’s also the not-no-insignificant fact that any such laws Constitutionality would be decided by the very institution the law seeks to cover.
First, you’re not appreciating my parenthetical comment. It was important. Second, you’re not even clear on whether he’s advancing it through statute or amendment, but you think you’re in a position to criticize him? That tells me all I need to know about your argument.
This is not a fair assessment. He did not make the statement, he was asked a question.
A better analogy would be for him to have been asked, “Should women of color be allowed to have abortions?” and if he says “Yes.” then you jump on him for discrimination.
If he doesn’t feel that any churches should be protected by tax exempt status for non-charity work, but is asked how he feels about the protected church status for non-charity work of churches that spread hateful messages, is there a better way to answer this “yes or no” question?
But he doesn’t just say “yes”; he says “yes”, and then — since he doesn’t get asked another question — he still has the floor, and, well, he keeps talking. Goes on for dozens and dozens of words, in workmanlike sentence after workmanlike sentence, during which time he could explain that he favors removing the tax break for all churches. Instead, he then limits himself to only talking about how there can be no tax break “for anyone, any institution, any organization in America, that denies the full human rights, that denies the full civil rights, of everyone in America.”
That’s a bizarre thing to say if he meant “and also for any organization that doesn’t deny those human rights, please forget that I just mentioned the bit about denying human rights; threw that part in even though it’s irrelevant; there should be no such tax break regardless, so kindly ignore the red herring.”
Yeah, that’s answering the question that is asked, rather than the question that you want to answer. I’m not a huge fan of O’Rourke, but I can respect that. It would be like, in the abortion analogy, going on to explain why allowing women of color to have access to abortions is a good thing. That he did not bring up an unrelated topic about a question that was not asked is not a major failing, IMHO.
Now, the fact that he actually answered the question that was asked, rather than responding to the question he wants to answer does make him a poor politician, as a good politician never gets themselves into a situation like this, and they do so by not answering the questions as asked.
Has he been asked about his stance on automatic tax exemption for non-charitable religious institutions? Has he made his feelings known? I ask this because I do not know, and a simple google doesn’t really come up with anything other than this singular statement.
If I was feeling particularly cynical, I could say that "any institution, any organization in America, that denies the full human rights, that denies the full civil rights, of everyone in America.” applies to most churches. There are not many that are fully on board with equality as regards to sexual orientation or identity, and there are quite a few that still see discrimination of the sexes to be right and proper according to their beliefs. Some even still seem to struggle with accepting racial equality.
Personally, I say let churches file non-profit status with their charitable work like any other charity, but not get automatic exemption to everything deemed religious, whether or not it has any benefit to anyone outside that church.
In any case, his views matter very little unless the 42 democratic nomination candidates currently ahead of him drop out.
No, I understood your parenthetical comment just fine, it just completely glossed over the enormous problems such an Amendment would cause. Did you really think “(All!)” meaningfully addressed those issues? And whether he proposes to accomplish it through statute or Amendment is irrelevant to whether it is fundamentally a stupid idea and shows a complete lack of understanding of how these things work. And if the end goal is a stupid policy that will never pass as a Constitutional Amendment or be struck down as a statute if it even passes in the first place what does it matter what futile method is employed to try and make it reality?
So first you assume that my criticisms were based on bias, a lack of knowledge on my part, or a mere disagreement on the legal issues. You yourself have no expertise in this area but you somehow assume that 1) such criticisms must be the result of one of those three reasons and 2) that there aren’t Constitutional and other issues with these proposals that are glaringly obvious to those who actually can claim some expertise in this area. And not even knowing what you don’t know you further assume that I can’t possibly have more knowledge in this area than you or the candidates in question. It somehow never occurs to you that maybe, just maybe, your lack of knowledge about these things makes you incapable of a meaningful legal analysis and evaluation of either the candidates’ proposals or my criticisms.
But instead of even attempting that you focus on two irrelevant details to try and bail yourself out without addressing the actual legal or policy arguments. Somehow in your mind my not acknowledging your one word caveat and covering every possible outcome of Sanders’ proposal instead of merely addressing it as a Constitutional Amendment renders all the other myriad legal issues irrelevant. Just some real fine logic on your part. So no, you are not even close to “knowing all you need to know” about my arguments or the issues in general.
That’s a lot of words and a lot of implication of your own expertise. If you want to convince me you have some expertise, spend less time implying that you’re an expert, and more time demonstrating some basic knowledge of what you’re criticizing.
Uh, yeah. I, too, respect that he answered the question he was asked.
But then — after he did that, you understand — there’s nothing stopping him from going on to answer the question he wanted to answer. I’m not saying he should skip straight to that; oh, heavens, no; I’m saying that, if he’s already given his answer, and for some reason he gets to keep talking and talking and then talking some more, he can also answer the question he wanted to answer.
You know what? You’re right; it’s exactly like that. It’s like being asked whether a woman of color should have a particular right, and replying “yes”: thinking to himself that he believes all women should have that right, but not bothering to specify, even though he’s got plenty of time to do so (after, that is, answering the question that was asked, since you and I of course agree he should do that first; you and I merely disagree on what he should do after that).
IMHO, it is. Otherwise, he can forever get suckered into saying really dumb crap by answering the question that was asked instead of (a) doing that first, but then (b) going on to also answer some ‘unrelated’ question. Like, ask him whether he thinks white people should never receive the death penalty; and don’t interrupt him after he answers the question, make sure he’s got all the time in the world to answer the question he should’ve been asked — and sit back and watch as he doesn’t bring anything else up, because, gawrsh, strictly speaking that’d be unrelated, see.
Repeat as necessary, one supposes.
His views are also irrelevant, as are anyone’s who shares these views, if SCOTUS strikes down any such law. O’Rourke’s proposal of discriminating against organizations who don’t support LGBT Rights has absolutely no chance of being upheld for multiple Constitutional reasons. The Court upholding a general tax on churches that has the government necessarily deciding on what is legitimately religious for the purposes of administering that tax is only slightly less unlikely.
Can’t say that I disagree. As the article put it
I’ve seen quite a few bad faith attacks about Democrats’ intentions. Just because he makes it convenient doesn’t somehow make them make in good faith. It just gives the Republicans a convenient way to avoid the topic of what they are actually proposing, and paint to their opponent with a broad brush that includes someone polling below 3%.
It’s bad faith enough when a republican makes a bad faith attack against a democrat for something that another elected democrat is doing, but to make attacks against them for what someone who has no chance of holding any office in the future again goes a few steps further down the path of utter disingenuous rhetoric.
So, in order for a republican to in good faith make attacks against the democrats based on his remarks, they would not only have to accept responsibility for everything that Steve King has said and done, but also what David Duke has said and done as well. Do you feel that the republican party follows King and Duke the way that you seem to be insinuating that the Democratic party follows Beto?
Yeah, and I’ll agree, he’s absolutely terrible at extemporaneous speech. I noticed this about him when I barely paid attention to him as he was running for senate in a state I’ve never even visited. This disqualifies him from being a politician in this day and age of the soundbite, but it doesn’t actually make his positions or intentions nearly as nefarious as others try to make them out to be. And even less does it justify attacks on other democrats.