Why do conservatives think empty rhetoric constitutes “standing up to tyranny”? Bush gave us years of strong anti-Muslim rhetoric. You know what it achieved? A recruitment bonanza for Al-Qaeda who used it to show how much America hated Muslims. Bush’s Axis of Evil speech weakened Iranian moderates and strengthened the hardliners, facilitating Ahmedinejad’s rise to the presidency. Obama, on the other hand, refuses to use such rhetoric not because he’s too weak or too complacent but because he’s not a complete moron and knows that the best way to deprive the extremists of oxygen is to refuse to play their game.
When people like you go on about how evil Muslims are, you are giving the terrorists exactly what they want. So well done, DerekMichaels00, you’re letting the terrorists win and you’re too stupid to even realize it.
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America freed the world from fascism and communism, and will do so from Islamism.
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You keep saying this, and it persists in being a fantasy.
So "the “Stupid Liberal” thread continues to be just another “Right-wing stupidity as performance art” thread.
I’m glad this was immediately refuted. But DerekMichaels00 might want to ask himself why he thinks Obama’s phrasing would lead to a bad outcome. Can’t do it? Just want a Prez who parrots your own anger?
Hey now - there’s a possibility he may be able to provide examples of Obama “picking a public fight with” Netanyahu. Admittedly I expect his definition of “picking a public fight with” in the context of Netanyahu is “failing to fall to his knees and fellate” (as the Congressional Republicans have done) but give the guy a chance to back up his idiotic assertions.
Why? He’s a habitual liar who, when called on it, refuses to acknowledge it. He makes unfounded accusations and never backs them up. He’s either a lying bigot piece of shit or a trolling piece of shit. Either way, he won’t explain himself in any rational terms.
Well, those are ‘cites’ exactly (hint: a cite would involve a link or reference to an independent source that verifies your claim), but even if they were, it misses the point. Take the saying ISIS is unislamic example. I think where you’re getting confused is that calling something ‘Islamic’ isn’t an insult. Saying ISIS is unislamic is not intended as a defense of ISIS, but rather a defense of Islam.
I’m surprised this was confusing you, but it’s the only way I can make any sense out equating “ISIS is unislamic” with apologizing for “Islamic terrorist evil jihad.”
But I don’t think that Derrick and his ilk can understand the distinction between ISIS and Islam. They just assume that all Muslims evil terrorists who hate our freedoms. The fact that ISIS has killed an order of magnitude more Muslims than they have westerners somehow doesn’t register with them.
As much as I despise the U.C. decision, I don’t think it comes anywhere near the seriousness that an Amendment demands.
Along with the near impossibility of passing an Amendment.
Freed the world from fascism? I think the rest of the Allies in WWII had something to do with that too. Surely you’re not saying that the U.S. won the war single-handedly.
(BTW, we supported plenty of fascist regimes when it suited us. We also supported Bin Laden at one time, back in the 1980s)
There might be room in the very narrow alley between overturning it or amending it. Congress might be able to pass laws that are carefully enough phrased as to withstand court scrutiny and still have some limiting effect on corporate donations. Not all campaign finance laws have been overturned. The courts might choose to interpret Citizens more narrowly, and permit other regulations to survive.
(In the same way that, now that the Texas anti-abortion law – the one where doctors had to have hospital room admitting authority – has been struck down, you know we’re still going to see more state laws restricting abortions. They’re just going to have to be very careful in how they phrase them.)
(From the other side of the ideological divide, I could just as easily pointed to California’s gun-control laws, which are very carefully phrased so not to run afoul of existing Supreme Court decisions.)
I think Clinton knows better. This is just base bait. Any plan to overturn Citizens United involves deciding precisely what you want the government to have the power to do and what you don’t want the government to have the power to do. Most campaign finance advocates I’ve debated with don’t just have a problem with Citizens United. They have a problem with Buckley v. Valeo as well, and many have issues with corporate personhood to boot, and that’s a 100-year old precedent.
This isn’t the kind of issue one can speak in generalities about, because if you’re not very precise in your legal language you can end up with all sorts of unintended consequences.
Packing the courts doesn’t really help either, since the original SCOTUS endorsement of BCRA was pretty hesitant, and even JOhn Paul Stevens dissent conceded an awful lot, such as corporate personhood and inferred that the only reason BCRA was constitutional was because it banned certain types of election speech 60 days before an election. Stevens stated that BCRA passed a “time, place, and manner” threshold. The more sweeping bans on corporate and billionaire cash that some advocates want would not be helped by packing the court. And even BCRA might not be restored if the court was packed given the hesitancy which with the justices endorsed it he first time.
So you need an amendment, but all these politicians that call for amendments without getting specific are just BSing you.
A thing or two to note about that issue: the actual Citizens United decision pertained directly to Hillary Clinton’s '08 effort to gain the Whitehouse (something to do with a “documentary” or “bio-pic” about her). Also, a constitutional amendment does require the support of 290 Congresscritters, 67 Senators and 38 state legislatures, so President Rodham could certainly make a play to appear that she is at least trying to do something without any fear that something that might upset the financing applecart was in danger of really being done. It is posturing.
If she actually submits an amendment though things get a lot more perilous. She could easily be accused of desiring press censorship if she writes it in such a way that it is allowed for. And the problem with proposed versions that exempt the press is that everyone is the press, so the amendment is self-nullifying, which just makes whoever wrote it look ignorant.
May not matter much longer. There are signs, signs and wonders, that the era of big donor politics is passing. The mass market advertising they bought is less and less effective, it appears. Remember when the Pubbies sank millions of dollars into New Hampshire to get Jeb(!) a couple of poll points? Zero, zip, zilch, nada damn thing.
Remember when Jeb(!) was the presumptive nominee, the shoo-in, because he had sewn up all the big money donors? Hell, do you even remember Jeb(!)?
And the burgeoning power of small-donor campaigns, campaigns financed directly from the people for two, five, ten dollars each. How long will big money donors piss their money away if there is no solid result? Of course, if the Kochs and the Adelsons of the world want to toss bundles of Benjamins out their windows, well, no problem, I suppose.
