This is so very repulsive I can hardly believe you wrote it, much less thought it a “joke.”
No so much here. People are finally “getting it” that demand is going to keep rising and we can’t wish away the problem by demanding solutions that are either not viable or not available yet.
I have no problem believing it. Not because I believe that Shodan is racist, but because I remember his stated intention of becoming a dedicated right-wing instigator (he used another word for it, actually) on this board.
This discussion probably belongs in the Pit, not in this thread.
I apologize (to you and to Shodan). I actually came back in to retract that because I can’t find the post I thought I remembered him making about it, but I passed my five-minute mark while searching.
Let’s leave aside for now the general thrust of Obama’s comment, that corporations can now buy all the air time they want. You’re not contesting that, but are instead picking a narrow side topic in order to declare victory while avoiding conceding anything in public. You know by now how well that works here.
Now: Do you really think it’s difficult for a foreign company to set up a US subsidiary, or transfer funds to an existing one with similar interests, in order to buy advertising in the US, without violating US law? Are their lawyers all that dumb? Really? Unless you do think so, then yes, the “floodgates” are open, and the real world answer is that yes, Obama was right to say so. Alito may have been correct in the narrow, legal sense, but that only reveals his disconnect with the real world in which his opinions have real effect. It would help the Court’s decisionmaking immensely to be more aware of the bubble they surround themselves with. Kudos to Obama for pricking it.
I think it is very difficult in the wake of certain campaign finance scandals of the 1990s - this was illegal before McCain-Feingold and is still illegal. See US v. Hsia and US v. Trie.
Skin color can be a perfectly good descriptor, for of two people are standing by each other and someone asks you to clarify who “Bob” might be, you could point to their color. As someone that didn’t see anything wrong with describing your very tanned son by saying he’s almost as dark as the President, you’re just trying to be a douche now.
Don’t insult other posters in this forum. Again, this stuff belongs in the Pit, not here.
I’ll stop being subtle, then: no more racial comments. They’re not appropriate in here and they really don’t belong on this site at all.
Campaign donations are beside the point. The ruling will allow foreign corporations to buy ads, which is effectively the same thing.
Well, to be fair, I didn’t say he* was* a douche. He’s trying to be a douche. That’s an important bit of flavor that’s being missed there.
He wasn’t necessarily being misleading, mentally he could have been including all the “US” companies that shipped themselves off to developing nations for cheap labor…
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I’m curious, would this decision allow for a foreign governments to pay to use American corporations for advertising? For example, could Russia secretly pay $2,000,000,000 to Wal-Mart to advertising against democratic nominees in the 2010 election?
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Then put it like this - if Bush or another Republican had delivered the same speech with the same initiatives announced, word for word, there would be a six page thread in the Pit attacking every word, syllable and punctuation mark. Coming from Obama, with some reasonable exceptions, it gets a pass. Imagine that.
Come on, it is almost line-by-line - the bank bailout was a great idea, I cut taxes, I want to cut taxes, I want to spend more, we need to spend more on education, terrorism, nuclear war, God bless America.
Nope - he said he wants to cut all capital gains taxes on small business and also cut taxes on large businesses -
And if you read all the way to the end of my cite, you see -
He is certainly being inconsistent. First he promised to do it upon taking office - then he was going to do it after the end of his first term, now he claims he wants to do it now.
I think this is an example of Obama in campaign mode.
Regards,
Shodan
He said during his campaign he would cut capital gains on small businesses. He said nothing in this speech he didn’t say in his campaign.
As for Bush, you really think he would have given a SOTU in which he acknowledged “overwhelming scientific evidence” for Global Climate Change, called for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t tell,” pushed for Health care Reform and said he would have all combat troops out of Iraq by the end of August? That sounds like a Republican speech to you?
I think you’re reading off the wrong talking points. A lot of people, especially in the right wing media echo chamber, were smugly predicting that Obama would pivot to the right in this speech because he was supposed to be so chastened that a liberal, pro-choice, pro-government health care Repubican got elected to Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. The pivot never came. Obama stuck to the same principles he’s always espoused, and, if anything, shifted his weight slightly back to the left.
Absolutely not. From the Federal Election Commission compendium of election law:
Footnotes here explicitly state that this applies to foreign companies and individuals alike, and this prohibition is further fleshed out in FEC regulations.
Your cite is not on point. The question was about who can buy advertising, not who can make donations. Wal-Mart is not a PAC. nothing forbids China from giving Wal-Mart money to buy advertising. Nothing prevents anybody from buying advertising. Your protestations that they can’t contribute directly to candidates or PACS or parties is meaningless. They can directly buy advertising, which is the same thing.
So it goes with politics. But I think you’re wrong on some important points, and lucky for me Diogenes the Cynic already laid those out.
You had to expect him to defend the bailout. And he didn’t call it a great idea. He said it was necesary and said several times that he hated doing it.
I take your point, but most of that isn’t Bush-esque at all. It’s just generic and therefore pretty typical for any politician.
He said during his campaign that he would cut taxes for 95% of the people, and he did. He has, thus far, raised them on nobody.
He said during his campaign that he would remove troops from Iraq, but amp up in Afghanistan, and he did.
Nobody wanted the bailout, but nobody (including both GWB, John McCain and Sarah Palin) though we had any choice.
Just because I think it bears repeating, George W. Bush, John McCain an Sarah Palin all supported the bailout. Why don’t Obama bashers ever mention that?
It is exactly on point - my cite bars expenditures by foreigners (directly or indirectly) for electioneering communications. Read it again - more closely this time.
Other provisions of the law prohibit contributions in the name of another - thus Russia can’t legally run a disbursement for communications through the Wal-Mart network.