I can already imagine the reactions to the follow suggestion, but here goes anyways:
Joe Biden might be old, but somehow he got a lot of bills passed. He did a decent job. In my opinion. Even on the border he has vowed to secure it if a bipartisan bill lands on his desk that includes funding for Ukraine. Well, Trump said no, because he didn't want Biden to have a "victory."
That aside, the perceptions against Biden are two-fold. He is too old and no one seems to want the idea of a Kamala Harris becoming President if something happens to Joe.
Not saying I have anything against her, but there is enough negative press and negative enthusiasm about her being VP, that it might be prudent for Biden to jettison her. However, if he does, he will be accused of dumping a woman of color. Well, I might have a solution.
Name Nikki Haley as his running mate. Yes yes, I know she might bulk. But would she? She wants to be President. She might have a better chance of getting there than sticking with the Republicans if Joe Biden can't complete his next term.
Many reasons I thought this might work. A woman of color. Someone not totally MAGA. She would bring a lot of independent votes into the Biden camp. Now don't be throwing any fits at my suggestion, because quite frankly - She definitely could. Maybe not a majority, but enough to turn the election. Also, consider the optics. A liberal President with a conservative VP. I mean even that Republican Abraham Lincoln picked a Democrat as his running mate - Andrew Johnson.
Now everyone on here, left OR right can tell me my idea is totally goofy.
In yesterday’s DisPol OP (please review this link) regarding the Georgia
RICO case against Trump, Germaine wrote:
Roman is a radical right authoritarian activist and professional political dirt digger. Maybe the Georgia case will fall apart, but it is still too early to know. At this point, there is still too much the public has not been made aware of. I just get a real bad vibe from what has happened and is happening now. Radical right authoritarian state legislators are just itching to quash the lawsuit and this gives them an excuse.
Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about all that (Willis
being caught up in (let’s call it) a “sex scandal” with Wade). I had heard several things about it:
Now I know that schtuff happens when people are in the middle of a messy
divorce. I met my own husband when he
was in the middle of a messy divorce. So,
who am I, right?
My problem/conundrum is that we are blaming Trump for his affair with
Stormy Danials but we shouldn’t blame Willis, a government official, for pretty
much the same kind of activities? I’m no
prude but Willis hiding her affair is not a lot different than Trump trying to
hide his affair(s) with a porn star, is it?
Yes, he was running for president at the time and wanted to cover it up
because it might cost him votes.
Anyway, these are some of the questions running through my mind:
Help me understand why one is different than the other. I.e., why I shouldn’t forgive Trump, but I should
forgive Willis??
How do I reconcile the two? I
need (logical) help.
Is it unconstitutional for government to tax Faux News more heavily than NPR because Faux relies heavily on DFS? I don't see why.
Well, there's this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
Taxing a private company because of its speech - dark or otherwise - is definitely an abridgment of freedom, and unconstitutional.
Style over substance? I don't get it. Lies are lies, not truths. Logic flaws are logic flaws, not sound logic. Deceit is deceit, not honesty. Those things look clear to me, even if the lines are not always sharp...
So what "lies" are you referring to? That the moon landing was a side project by Kubrick filmed in Hollywood, or that global warming reversed when we elected Obama, or that there were no WMD in Iraq? Here you focus on the most straightforward of the criteria you listed earlier, and yet here too you'll find the utility of limiting speech marginal at best.
And whatever utility you think there is, none of these rebuttals eliminates the role of agreement in determining the "correct" standard. Ultimately your demand for limiting "dark" speech is inherently a demand for others to take your view of things. They must agree with you, do things your way, or be punished in some way.
To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.
Different states vary in their anti-defamation statutes. As such, courts in different states will interpret defamation laws differently, and defamation statutes will vary somewhat from state to state. In Davis v. Boeheim, 110 A.D.3d 1431 (N.Y. 2014), which is a New York state court case, the court held that in determining whether a defamation claim is sufficient, a court must look at whether the "contested statements are reasonably susceptible of a defamatory connotation.
Truth is widely accepted as a complete defense to all defamation claims. An absolute privilege is also a complete defense to a defamation claim. Among other examples, this includes statements made by witnesses during judicial proceedings.
In commerce, lying can amount to a criminal offense:
Businesspersons Beware: Lying is a Crime
The rules regarding lying in business in the U.S. are currently being vigorously enforced
In case after case, scandal after scandal, American federal law enforcement officials have clearly shown by their indictments and prosecutions that there is no confusion in their minds—lying is a crime. Businesspersons need to clearly understand those rules and what prosecutors define as lying.
In recent corporate scandals, some executives have learned the hard way that lying is still a crime in corporate America. Martha Stewart was accused of selling her ImClone stock allegedly after receiving insider information. However, she was not convicted of securities fraud. She was instead convicted for lying. In addition, Computer Associates executives were indicted and some have already pleaded guilty for lying to their own company’s attorney during an internal investigation when their lies were passed on by their attorney to the government.
To me the evidence is rock solid: It is sometimes or often possible to determine that a person has lied and that can trigger criminal guilt for the liar. That is a key point here.
So what "lies" are you referring to?
Excellent question. My main focus is on politics, which now clearly includes both commerce and religion. Therefore lies in politics are what I refer to, especially lies by people in government, commerce or religion who hold positions of power or public trust. Lies such as (i) the 2020 election was stolen, (ii) Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, (iii) Trump's 1/6 coup attempt was merely legitimate political discourse and/or something Trump bears no responsibility for, (iv) the over 30 thousand false or misleading statements DJT made while he was in office, (v) the lies that Faux News routinely asserts as truth in some or most of its broadcasts, and (vi) decades of corporate lies about climate change.
From what I (and some others) can tell, the entire GOP leadership now relies heavily on DFS because actual facts and truths are not on the side of kleptocratic authoritarianism.
No, fact checking is not a perfect science. Humans make mistakes, so honest mistakes will be made. But where does the greater danger lie? In my opinion, the greater danger is in letting people and interests who significantly rely on DFS to get away free and clear shifts the costs and harms from those responsible to the whole society. Screw that noise, I'm tired of people and the environment getting constantly shafted by the rich and powerful hiding behind a thick shield of constitutionally protected DFS.
Ultimately your demand for limiting "dark" speech is inherently a demand for others to take your view of things. They must agree with you, do things your way, or be punished in some way.
I vaguely recall this criticism from you before. Regardless, let's do it again.
My demand for limiting DFS is the opposite of a demand for others to take my view of things. Pragmatic rationalism is a demand for respect for facts, true truths and sound reasoning in a political context of democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law and service to the public interest. There is vast room for disagreements within those broad constraints, especially democracy, civil liberties, the rule of law and service to the public interest, all four of which I believe are essentially contested concepts. But notice, there is a lot less room for disagreements over facts and intermediate room for disagreements over true truths and sound reasoning.
So, on the one hand, my pragmatic rationalism is intended to at least partly (noticeably) purge some lies and irrationality from politics in defense of democracy and the public interest. Pragmatic rationalism frees minds, allowing freedom of thought and freedom of choice.
On the other hand, consider the mental framework and reality that purveyors of DFS use to win their arguments. They are usually corrupt authoritarians who deceive, distract, confuse, enrage, terrify, derationalize, polarize and bamboozle people to get what they want in defense of the elite's interests. DFS politics traps minds, infringing on freedom of thought and limiting choices.
What political framework do you prefer, pro-democracy pragmatic rationalism, anti-democracy DFS irrationalism, or something else? If something else, exactly what?
State Rep. E. Werner Reschke now says he was “grossly taken out of context.” He was not
State Rep. E. Werner Reschke made the comments earlier this month during an interview with Jason Rapert, the Christian Nationalist who now runs a group called the “National Association of Christian Lawmakers.” Reschke serves as the Oregon “chair” for NACL.Rapert asked a softball question about why Christians needed to get involved in government, and Reschke’s response was telling for all the wrong reasons. Instead of saying Christians had a spiritual duty to shape society (or something like that), he argued that certain non-Christians were unfit for public life and didn’t deserve to be in positions of power.He began by saying he admired the supposed Christian faith of the Founding Fathers before segueing into the people who shouldn’t be in government:… “Those are the type of people that you want in government making tough decisions during tough times,” Reschke continued. “You don’t want a materialist. You don’t want an atheist. You don’t want a Muslim. You want somebody who understands what truth is and understands the nature of man, the nature of government, and the nature of God.”“If you don’t understand those things, you’re gonna get things wrong,” he concluded. “In Oregon … we have a lot of people who are godless, unfortunately, leading the way and it’s the blind leading the blind.”
He’s not subtle about his feelings. He doesn’t believe atheists or Muslims are fit to hold public office—the former because they have no religion and the latter because they’re the wrong religion.
In a statement to Oregon Public Broadcasting, Reschke said his words were “grossly taken out of context.” But he didn’t bother clarifying what he actually meant to say.
It’s come to this. With Earth at its hottest point in recorded history, and humans doing far from enough to stop its overheating, a small but growing number of astronomers and physicists are proposing a potential fix that could have leaped from the pages of science fiction: The equivalent of a giant beach umbrella, floating in outer space.
The idea is to create a huge sunshade and send it to a far away point between the Earth and the sun to block a small but crucial amount of solar radiation, enough to counter global warming. Scientists have calculated that if just shy of 2 percent of the sun’s radiation is blocked, that would be enough to cool the planet by 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit, and keep Earth within manageable climate boundaries.To block the necessary amount of solar radiation, the shade would have to be about a million square miles, roughly the size of Argentina, Dr. Rozen said. A shade that big would weigh at least 2.5 million tons — too heavy to launch into space, he said. So, the project would have to involve a series of smaller shades. They would not completely block the sun’s light but rather cast slightly diffused shade onto Earth, he said.It was 1989 when James Early of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggested a “space-based solar shield” positioned near a fixed point between the Earth and the sun called Lagrange Point One, or L1, some 932,000 miles away, four times the average distance between the Earth and the moon. There, the gravitational pulls from the Earth and sun cancel each other out.A fully operational sunshade would have to be resilient and reversible, Dr. Szapudi said. In his proposed design, he said 99 percent of its weight would come from the asteroid, helping offset the cost. It would still likely carry a price tag of trillions of dollars, an amount that is far less than what is spent on military weapons, he said.
“Saving the Earth and giving up 10 percent of your weapons to destroy things is actually a pretty good deal in my book,” Dr. Szapudi said.
In a bombshell legal filing on Jan. 8, Roman’s attorney alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D), who is heading the prosecution, is in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, an outside lawyer she hired for the case. While Wade’s firm was receiving more than $650,000 in public funds, Wade — who has been embroiled in a messy divorce — was paying for vacations with Willis in the Caribbean and elsewhere, according to Roman, who alleges that Willis improperly benefited.
2 Georgia senators propose changing Georgia law to void Trump’s chargesBrandon Beach, Colton Moore want to amend Georgia’s RICO statute to prohibit prosecuting some racketeering charges.The legislation would be retroactive and therefore apply to Trump’s case. On Monday, Georgia House members passed a bill reviving a commission with powers to discipline and remove prosecutors, a move Democrats warn is aimed at disrupting Willis’ prosecution.
