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New Yorker: "Ted Cruz Makes A Good Point" (link

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/live-d-c-ted-cru...
misanthropic henna personal credit line
  09/14/14
...
misanthropic henna personal credit line
  09/19/14
I can understand being uncomfortable with shady super pac's ...
bisexual saffron cuck
  09/20/14
LOLOL, how about you shut the fuck up faggot.
know-it-all heady orchestra pit yarmulke
  09/20/14
...
180 sooty hunting ground site
  09/20/14
sup shitlib pumo
bisexual saffron cuck
  09/20/14
you know, you've changed my mind breh. thanks for the schol...
bisexual saffron cuck
  09/20/14
The amendment, which is almost guaranteed to lose its up-or-...
drab library
  09/20/14
define "influence elections" for me you fucking mo...
bisexual saffron cuck
  09/20/14
*reasonable* Saying it's reasonalbe to jail the snl cast is...
drab library
  09/20/14
Lol here we go again. With the proper paperwork its absolute...
Tan sickened fortuitous meteor
  09/20/14
Maybe, but I don't see how such a law would be permissible w...
drab library
  09/20/14
and that is why nobody chooses to engage you in legal discus...
bisexual saffron cuck
  09/20/14
Your whole point was assinine
drab library
  09/20/14
it's hard to tell when you're flaming, because you're so spe...
bisexual saffron cuck
  09/20/14
Actually why don't you lay out the disastrous implications n...
drab library
  09/20/14
like i said...
bisexual saffron cuck
  09/20/14
Prison for tranny jokes. Got it.
drab library
  09/20/14
so you would like for congress to define "reasonable&qu...
misanthropic henna personal credit line
  09/21/14
they already did before SCOTUS decided it wasn't allowed
drab library
  09/21/14
then why are libs wanting to change the first amendment
misanthropic henna personal credit line
  09/21/14
...
misanthropic henna personal credit line
  09/21/14


Poast new message in this thread



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Date: September 14th, 2014 5:46 PM
Author: misanthropic henna personal credit line

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/live-d-c-ted-cruz-good-point

Sometimes it seems like a mistake to pay too much attention to what is said in the United States Senate. Even so, it was hard to ignore the spectacle of Ted Cruz, the highly mediagenic Republican from Texas, who took the floor on Tuesday to deliver a stirring speech with an unlikely twist. He spoke for nearly an hour, criticizing a constitutional amendment, sponsored by Democrats, that was designed to enable Congress to pass new campaign-finance-reform laws. Somewhere around the thirty-seven-minute mark, Cruz unveiled a placard bearing images of Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, and other “Saturday Night Live” stars, and suddenly he was defending a TV institution that isn’t usually considered a conservative cause:

“Saturday Night Live,” over the years, has had some of the most tremendous political satire for decades. Who can forget Chevy Chase tripping and falling over just about everything? Who can forget portrayals—Dana Carvey’s George Herbert Walker Bush, “Not gonna do it”?… Who can forget, in 2008, “Saturday Night Live” ’s wickedly funny characterization of the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin? It was wickedly funny and also had a profoundly powerful effect on people’s assessment of Governor Palin, who’s a friend of mine…. Lorne Michaels could be put in jail, under this amendment, for making fun of any politician. That is extraordinary. It is breathtaking. And it is dangerous.

Cruz is one of the Senate’s best and canniest speechmakers, and he surely knew that his not-awful imitation of Carvey imitating Bush would insure plenty of coverage. And his hypothetical outrage, inspired by the hypothetical imprisonment of Michaels, the show’s creator, seemed entirely appropriate during a week, and a year, when many of the Senate’s powers seemed hypothetical, too.

The proposed amendment—officially, Senate Joint Resolution 19—had been co-sponsored by virtually the entire Democratic Caucus, but it only avoided a filibuster with help from Republicans. A delicious Politico article laid bare the emptiness of the exercise. Mitch McConnell, the Minority Leader, objected that the proposed amendment was designed to fail because Democrats know they don’t have nearly enough votes to amend the Constitution. (Nevertheless, McConnell was one of twenty-five Republicans who voted with Democrats to allow debate on the amendment.) Harry Reid, the Majority Leader, seemed annoyed that Republicans had agreed to allow a vote on the amendment, even though he was one of its many co-sponsors. In his view, the Republicans’ willingness to consider this Democratic proposal was a kind of dirty trick—a way to “stall” the Senate and prevent it from taking up other issues important to Democrats.

The amendment, which is almost guaranteed to lose its up-or-down vote, is short and seemingly straightforward. It establishes that “Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.” And it also places restrictions on corporations, along with “other artificial entities,” by specifically authorizing legislation “prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections.” But a wide range of activities can plausibly be said to “influence elections,” and nearly all of them require “spending money.” Cruz mentioned “Saturday Night Live” as a way of asking what activities would be excluded from such scrutiny. It’s an intentionally silly example, but it’s not a silly question.

The proposed amendment is in large part a reaction to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court case that struck down some campaign-finance regulations. Election laws had prohibited corporations from engaging in “electioneering communication,” a term designed to include broadcasts that specifically mentioned political candidates, and which occurred within sixty days of a general election, or within thirty days of a primary. The case concerned a documentary called “Hillary: The Movie,” which the F.E.C. judged to be single-minded enough in its excoriation of Clinton to qualify as an “electioneering communication.” Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation, argued that the F.E.C. regulations violated its First Amendment rights.

In a famous exchange from the original oral argument, Malcolm Stewart, a Deputy Solicitor General, claimed that Congress has a broad ability to regulate corporate communication as part of its role in overseeing elections. Stewart suggested that Congress could, if it wanted, “prohibit the publication” of a book, if the book contained “express advocacy,” and if the book was published by a corporation. When the Court asked, controversially, to have the case re-argued, the government’s regulations were defended by Elena Kagan, who hadn’t yet joined the Court—she was then the Solicitor General, Stewart’s boss. She suggested that Stewart had been wrong: that Congress probably didn’t have the power to use election law to ban books, and in any case probably wouldn’t use it. “For sixty years, a book has never been at issue,” she said, adding, “Nobody in Congress, nobody in the administrative apparatus, has ever suggested that books pose any kind of corruption problem.” No doubt she meant to be reassuring, but there’s something unsettling about the image of government regulators determining which forms of media present a “corruption problem,” and which do not.

Kagan lost: the Court ruled for Citizens United, finding that the “prohibition on corporate independent expenditures is an outright ban on speech,” and that “political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it.” The ruling helped clear the way for Super PACs, groups that can spend as much as they want on elections, from any sources, so long as they don’t coördinate their activity with campaigns. And the ruling frustrated many advocates of campaign-finance reform, who began to think that the only way to fix the problem of corporate spending in elections was to fix the Constitution.

During Tuesday’s debate, Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat and the body’s only “Saturday Night Live” alumnus, called the Citizens United decision “a radical exercise of pro-corporate judicial activism.” He decried a system in which “a handful of superwealthy corporate interests, in effect, can buy our democracy.” In his remarks, Reid mischievously quoted a 1993 pledge from McConnell, promising that a Republican campaign-finance-reform plan would “keep wealthy individuals from buying public office.”

The Republicans who spoke against the bill mainly stuck to generalities about the First Amendment, instead of explaining whether or not they thought there was any reason to worry about corporate spending on elections. But the Democrats’ arguments were even more evasive. They listed all sorts of allegedly nefarious causes that corporate groups support, paying particular attention to groups affiliated with the Koch family, but didn’t explain exactly why Cruz’s hypothetical was absurd. The amendment does contain one big exception: “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress or the States the power to abridge the freedom of the press.” But who counts as “the press”? Does “Saturday Night Live” qualify? What about a political documentary like “Hillary: The Movie”?

The amendment’s main sponsor was Tom Udall, a Democrat representing New Mexico, and he spoke not long after Cruz did. Unfortunately, Udall, too, declined to offer a detailed rebuttal to Cruz. At times, he seemed intent on making Cruz’s point for him. “I would not lose any sleep about billionaires and their free speech,” Udall said. “But a lot of us are up late nights, thinking about the rest of America.” One need not be a billionaire to find this formulation—with its dismissive reference to “free speech,” and its rather presumptuous claim to speak for “the rest of America”—rather off-putting.

To anyone squeamish about Constitutional amendments, S.J. Res. 19 might seem too broad, allowing future Congresses to pass all sorts of regulations that might previously have been ruled unconstitutional. But if you agree with the dire diagnosis of Franken and the other Democrats, then perhaps the proposed amendment is too narrow, instead. If the true threat to democracy comes from “billionaires,” and not just the corporations they control, then why not limit personal spending on elections, too? For that matter, why focus on elections? In the era of the permanent campaign, it seems rather quaint to restrict regulations to the thirty or sixty days before people vote. If we were really serious about curbing the influence of money, we would consider regulating all kinds of political speech, all year long. We could certainly (though not easily) amend the Constitution to make that possible. And even then, a sketch-comedy show like “Saturday Night Live” wouldn’t have anything to worry about—so long as it were backed by a powerful media outlet like N.B.C., and so long as it didn’t get too political.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26328057)



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Date: September 19th, 2014 9:56 PM
Author: misanthropic henna personal credit line



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26360137)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 8:57 PM
Author: bisexual saffron cuck

I can understand being uncomfortable with shady super pac's spending millions and millions on campaigns. It gives me the creeps too. But these fucking assholes in the Congress who think we should trust them to make laws based on this vague ass shit have to be kidding me. They're the ones who are fucking for sale! I trust those grasping, thieving, duplicitous fucks in the Senate far less than I trust the Koch brothers... at least I know what the Kochs want from me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364606)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:11 PM
Author: know-it-all heady orchestra pit yarmulke

LOLOL, how about you shut the fuck up faggot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364662)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:14 PM
Author: 180 sooty hunting ground site



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364679)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:15 PM
Author: bisexual saffron cuck

sup shitlib pumo

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364685)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:15 PM
Author: bisexual saffron cuck

you know, you've changed my mind breh. thanks for the scholarly treat.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364683)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:18 PM
Author: drab library

The amendment, which is almost guaranteed to lose its up-or-down vote, is short and seemingly straightforward. It establishes that “Congress and the States may regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections.”

oh how vague!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364701)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:19 PM
Author: bisexual saffron cuck

define "influence elections" for me you fucking moron.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364711)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:39 PM
Author: drab library

*reasonable*

Saying it's reasonalbe to jail the snl cast is like saying the second amendment guarantees everyone the right to own anti aircraft missiles

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364795)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:41 PM
Author: Tan sickened fortuitous meteor

Lol here we go again. With the proper paperwork its absolutely legal to own anything in the US that's not a WMD.

Your ilk would have SNL in the clink if they said something sexist or racist or made fun of your gender nonconforming mentally ill tribe of filth.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364804)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 9:46 PM
Author: drab library

Maybe, but I don't see how such a law would be permissible within the framework of that amendment

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364824)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 10:00 PM
Author: bisexual saffron cuck

and that is why nobody chooses to engage you in legal discussions, or in any thread that requires basic critical thinking.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364870)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 10:02 PM
Author: drab library

Your whole point was assinine

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364876)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 10:05 PM
Author: bisexual saffron cuck

it's hard to tell when you're flaming, because you're so spectacularly ignorant of so many things. if you can't tell why this amendment is a fucking disaster waiting to happen there is absolutely nothing i can do to help you. take care bro, and sciencespeed.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364887)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 10:08 PM
Author: drab library

Actually why don't you lay out the disastrous implications n that I and most of the senate have failed to consider.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364897)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 10:08 PM
Author: bisexual saffron cuck

like i said...

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364902)



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Date: September 20th, 2014 10:14 PM
Author: drab library

Prison for tranny jokes. Got it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26364925)



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Date: September 21st, 2014 5:56 PM
Author: misanthropic henna personal credit line

so you would like for congress to define "reasonable"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26368794)



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Date: September 21st, 2014 6:12 PM
Author: drab library

they already did before SCOTUS decided it wasn't allowed

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26368876)



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Date: September 21st, 2014 6:13 PM
Author: misanthropic henna personal credit line

then why are libs wanting to change the first amendment

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26368883)



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Date: September 21st, 2014 5:53 PM
Author: misanthropic henna personal credit line



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2674516&forum_id=2#26368782)