trump off the CO ballot

[President Bush]

hmmm... does the Press Clause of the First Amendment give the institutional press any freedoms from government restraint not enjoyed by everybody else? Not really.

Exactly. It gives them exactly the same amount of freedom.

There have been attempts to impose restraints on the press, usually in the name of "fairness", but they have usually failed, as they should.

I brought the subject up as you said that the right to free speech and the right to a free press were two different rights. For what it's worth the US Supreme Court has held in a number of cases that the First Amendment doesn't provide the press any greater right of access than that of the general public.

That a free press is sometimes just an institution free to rake in unregulated amounts of money for political advertising, exempt from federal limits... seems really corrupt. As if the wealthy donors paying for all the political advertising might not expect a little something in return.

Every free society will have some element of plutocracy, after all.

[Admin]

Every free society will have some element of plutocracy, after all.

No shit.

NZ is held up as a close-to-perfect democracy, where every vote counts, but even when a left government is voted in we end up with the same old shit. Rich people got richer faster under Labour than they did under the prior right-wing government.

Sweden has had a left/centre-left government for decades, yet it's become a breeding ground for the super-rich. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68927238

It's impossible to take the money out of politics, so we're always left with governments that will pander to the rich. Totalitarianism isn't the answer, as China shows.

We need to accept our system isn't perfect wherever we are, and try to make the best out of what we have.

[President Bush]

Every free society will have some element of plutocracy, after all.

No shit.

NZ is held up as a close-to-perfect democracy, where every vote counts, but even when a left government is voted in we end up with the same old shit. Rich people got richer faster under Labour than they did under the prior right-wing government.

Sweden has had a left/centre-left government for decades, yet it's become a breeding ground for the super-rich. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68927238

It's impossible to take the money out of politics, so we're always left with governments that will pander to the rich. Totalitarianism isn't the answer, as China shows.

We need to accept our system isn't perfect wherever we are, and try to make the best out of what we have.

I was referring specifically to the present system here in the US which is up to its ears in soft cash.

[Meadmaker]

Alan Dershowitz doesn't think too much of this case that Trump is now being tried for:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-trial- ... 00210.html


I'm no lawyer, but I have paid attention to commentators on the case. I've heard Jon Stewart and Bill Maher talk about the case, but they basically ignored the "case" part. They may as well have just said, "He's scum. Lock him up." I even sought out what Rachel Maddow had to say, because she's usually quite good about going into the details but not getting lost in them. She tried to explain how Trump was quite clearly a criminal and was obviouly guilty, and I was left unconvinced.

I don't take Dershowitz himself all that seriously. He's more a celebrity/talking head today than he is a lawyer, so I'm never sure if he isn't just playing to the audience. However, if he is right, Trump probably won't be convicted, and if he is, it will be thrown out on appeal. If it's as bad as he says it is, even an appeals court that was appointed by Democrats will throw out the case. I think it stands zero chance at the Supreme Court level.

I guess we'll see. As I say, I'm not a lawyer. I would love to see him lose, but I don't think it's going to happen.

[President Bush]

Not too hard to guess what's being indicated here. Oh, the blond woman is Stormy Daniels.

[President Bush]

Things are getting strange...

[Meadmaker]

Things are getting strange...

Photoshop is getting too good.


ETA: Apparently....those shirts are a thing.

So, yeah, things are getting strange .....r.

[arthwollipot]

[stanky]

MM, you're very jaded in a nice way, like wearing rose colored spectacles.
I hate to sound ungrateful, but America has been eroding its freedoms lately and needs to be corrected. We don't have a free press. Truthful reporters can't be allowed to speak if it's counter to the sponsor's agenda. Social media has been shown to be censored along political lines. Surveillance has increased exponentially and the reporters that exposed it are exiled and defamed. News talking heads are mostly corporate shills kept in tight reins and paid like movie stars. Propaganda has never been so blatant.

The notion that the voters choose the leadership seems naive to the extreme. Take George Bush 1 for instance. The American people did not want the head of the C.I.A. to run the country. Nor is it a good look. And then, his chuckle-head son, somehow gets nominated and wins in a highly questionable way, via an extremely corrupt supreme court member...and GWB2 wins twice! Because he was the choice of the people.
No. He was a wealthy, well connected brat who engaged in war crimes for no credible reason. I'd suggest that almost no one wanted him or the wars.
He was installed, like his dad. And top chuckle-head, Ron ray-gun. Our lack of free press enables these appointees. Some good people always try, but the undemocratic system filters them out. If worse comes to worse, there's always assassination to prevent non-corrupt leadership.

Bernie Sanders was popular enough to win but wasn't allowed. Polls showed him crushing Trump. He was cheated by the DNC. The people were cheated again. That got us Trump. Thanks, democracy.
Then Biden. Almost no one wants him running. He represents nothing changing...by his own words. If he wins, and dies, we have Kamala...another 'leader' no one particularly wanted. RFK jr., whom has actual fans, is being censored and slandered. He's sued Biden and won even. He's denied secret service protection! Now that's a dick move. We must have criminals in charge, and voting rights need to be wildly crushed by a variety of undemocratic institutions. Perhaps you recall the dem primary in West Virginia where Bernie won every district by a lot. The state was given to Hillary. That sound like a democracy?
Voters have almost nothing to do with elections. Money does.
Now the W.H.O. is jockeying for ultimate, un-elected power in control of global pandemics. Bill Gates is a major player therein. He needs to be stopped. Greed is stupid.

[Meadmaker]

Perhaps you recall the dem primary in West Virginia where Bernie won every district by a lot. The state was given to Hillary. That sound like a democracy?

I didn't recall that. So I looked it up.

According to Wikipedia, Bernie Sanders won 51% of the popular vote. Hillary got 36% Other candidates split up the rest. There were 29 delegates at stake. Sanders was awarded 18 (62%), and Clinton 11 (38%).

I don't know of any historical event that matches your recollection.

As for your larger point, it is impossible to take 200 million potential presidents and somehow, from that, pick one, and have people agree that the one chosen is the very best that could have possibly been chosen. That's why it almost always feels like we are voting against candidates by the time the general election rolls around. Our favorite is probably not one of the two choices.'

As it turns out, I don't think that's so bad. In my lifetime, there has been one candidate where huge numbers of people enthusiastically support as the very best candidate. That one is Donald Trump. Having demonstrable support like that may not be a good thing for the country.. Most of the time, voters get behind a candidate and may even get enthusiastic, but it's usually just a case that we are happy that a guy from our party got back into the White House after 4 or 8 or 12 years of those other awful people.

(Ronald Reagan might have also had a number of very enthusiastic people, but it was a small number at the time of his election. It grew during his presidency, and grew much more during his legacy. At the time of his election, he was that candidate who was Not Jimmy Carter. He had a core following, but mostly he was the Republican who happened to win the nomination.

Barak Obama sort of had an enthusiastic following. Certainly he generated excitement for a candidate. However, I think it was a combination of personal charisma, enthusiasm about electing a black candidate for the first time, and, more than anything else, getting rid of Republicans after eoght years of GWB.)

Voters have almost nothing to do with elections. Money does.

Money does have a great deal to do with elections. It's the economy, stupid.


There are issues with the way we pick elected representatives, but there are issues everywhere in the world where there are elections. I'm just glad we have elections to complain about. If things were as bad as you say they are, power wouldn't shift back and forth the way it does in America.