Uh, you do know Sanders is Jewish, right?
Money != speech and campaign-finance reform != “shutting own the political speech of their opponents.” But you knew that.
Would the Democratic party be better off with a straight up Trump nomination, or an open convention at this point?
Doubt it will make any difference in November.
First of all Citizen’s United did nothing to enable the Kochs’ to spend their own money, so Bernie is being deliberately vague on this issue, just like Trump constantly does on other issues.
And secondly, “shutting own the political speech of their opponents.” is exactly what it is. Explicitly. Shutting up the people who are deemed too influential by self appointed progressive arbiters.
I suppose, once Trump is elected, no one will object should he try to enact and enforce a prohibition against spending any money in order to facilitate criticizing him.
All of those who have made the inane “money doesn’t equal speech” arguments will have no credibility when doing so, were such a thing to happen.
Trump claiming the guy who rushed the stage is ISIS. Of course he has no proof but he has seriously claimed all the proof he needs is that it’s on the internet.
I want to see Hanks defense.
No, it isn’t. If we cut the pipeline between checkbooks and elections, the Kochs are not “shut up,” they remain free to write letters to the editor and show up at political events and post to messageboards just like poor people can.
Joe Scarborough has an interesting column on that Chicago rally.
"Friday’s freak show was as prepackaged as a rerun of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” The only difference was that Donald Trump delivered his lines on the phone from a hotel room in the Windy City instead of on the set of his made-for-TV boardroom.
It was all a scam"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/03/13/donald-trumps-chicago-scam/
Letters to the editor. So if having a better megaphone is wrong, why do we allow editors to decide who gets on the letters page? Heck, the editor gets a HUGE megaphone with the editorial. We should ban editorials.
Apologies if this has been mentioned. I didn’t see it.
Benjamin Ginsberg, at Politico, and Harry Enten at 538, say that Trump pretty much has to win Ohio to avoid a contested convention.
And Sam Wang says Kasich winning Ohio maybe helps Trump.
So confusing!
Chris Christie is such a lapdog. Trump was criticizing Kasich in Ohio for having spent so much time campaigning in New Hampshire, and he said, “Kasich spent more time in New Hampshire than Chris Christie did.” Then he turned to Christie and said, “Sorry, I had to do that.”
A trivial reform in the Information Age; as you know, newspapers are dying and editorial gatekeepers, for better or for worse, are a thing of the past in Cyberspace. And that makes things even fairer for the Kochs, doesn’t it? And also fairer for the rest of us, the entry-costs being so low – doesn’t it? 
Unfortunately, money still does matter, as it costs so much to buy TV ads, and money still does inflate the political influence of the rich far out of any fair proportion to their numbers, in elections. 
And we don’t have to put up with that. :mad:
A group calling itself The Lion’s Guard is forming a militia to “protect” Trump supporters.
Will they wear brown shirts?
Sam Wang is just wrong, since there is no plausible outcome in Ohio other than Kasich winning or Trump winning. Cruz and Rubio never had a chance there.
As I noted on the pit it seems that several outlets of the right wing media are falling apart when their reasonable members (that still exist) have to deal with Trump.
Editor-at-large Ben Shapiro, national security reporter Jordan Schachtel and Jarrett Stepman, an editor resign from because they are upset that Breitbart News is not supporting Michelle Fields after she alleged that Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, grabbed her arm and pulled her away bruising her as she tried to ask the Republican presidential candidate a question last week.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...ump-propaganda
This is notorious for 2 reasons, it shows how Trump is even dividing the right wing press and also shows how the right wing media is going to run over the reporters and news people that still do manage to think independently.
Still, one has to mention this:
:smack:
You guys just figure it out until now? 
Personally I have no issue with being able to sue if someone willfully lies. I see no benefit to society with lies being protected speech, even when the lies are directed at someone like Trump.
And note that you can sue for libel on the basis of false, defamatory statements in the US; it’s just that the procedure / definition for this varies from state to state. And in most cases it skews more defendant-friendly than most other countries – the plaintiff must show what the truth is, the defendant doesn’t need to show they didn’t just pick an assertion out of thin air.
Anyway, the problems that UK libel law has are not inherent to the concept of libel. Pretty much the whole of the developed world has broadly similar libel laws, and manage to avoid libel tourism, shutting down legitimate discussion etc.
And I suppose they might even be allowed to own and operate a printing press, as long as it didn’t produce more controversial books or newspapers than you think are prudent.
What a grand bargain you have devised. We should all be grateful!
I agree with you generally, but some of the libel cases than have gone down in the UK are way over the line.
No, it’s not for that reason, and you know it.