Independent Debates

[Gary Sisco]

Interesting article here. Too long to post but worth reading:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[Scott Dolan]

Shitcan private financing, and make public financing mandatory. It's the one way to blow this two party system wide open.

[Gordon B]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Shitcan private financing, and make public financing mandatory. It's the one way to blow this two party system wide open.

That would be unconstitutional.

[Sandi22]

Unconstitutional" It's in, it's accepted. GOD!!!

[Gary Sisco]

What a great idea. We not only have to pay for their salaries, socialize medicine, and pensions (after six years, even if unelected), and their party functions, but now we'd be forced to pay for their campaigns as well.

No, thanks.

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Shitcan private financing, and make public financing mandatory. It's the one way to blow this two party system wide open.

Changing the voting system so that 2 parties aren't inherently favored would imo be the "one way" to do that. I don't see how public financing with the current voting system would effect that change.

[Gary Sisco]

It wouldn't. I've already lived through that debate. And in any case, the Supremes have already ruled against it. Vermont until recently had a very generous law re public campaign spending and restricting private money. The Supremes shot it down in flames.

Money is speech when spent on politics. Much as I object to money running ting, there really isn't an objective argument I can make against that.

If I had a political organization supported by people with money enough to give its ideas effective propagating ammunition, I'd accept it and I'd spend it, too. The alternative route is to do the necessary political work to build a financially self-sustaining organization. Americans always want the shortcut, which is the passing or not passing of laws, depending. I'd rather do the political work. Either your politics has the support of necessary numbers of people or it doesn't. If it doesn't, one is free to try to gain that support. If it does, money won't matter anywhere near as much. Vermont is a tripartite state, for example, where as recently as the 60s, well within my lifetime, in short, it was a stone one-party (Republican) state. What changed? People doing political work to make an alternative acceptable to them. Nothing else.

I'd support a constitutional amendment, however, that takes the power of the parties away so far as ballot access and so forth is concerned. There is not a single mention of parties in the Constitution. They are not a constitutional aspect of American government, and shouldn't be. I would also support a change forcing them to pay for their own party affairs (like primaries, caucuses, conventions, and so forth).

[Gary Sisco]

Quote from Sullivan's site:

The only two candidates that speak clearly, you see, are the ones they call the kooks. On the Democratic side they ask Mike Gravel a question and he goes, "Do you think Ameri-- English should be the official language?" He said, "Yes." And the rest of them say, "No, not the official language, the national language." I said, "Well, what the devil is the national lang"-- I mean, why don't you just say 'no'"? And on the Republican side you have Ron Paul, who was the only candidate who is antiwar and pro-civil liberties. That is he opposes what this administration is doing in terms of civil liberties. And they call him a kook. That's the closest thing you can get [to Barry Goldwater]. So you can imagine Senator Goldwater, if he were-- he'd probably throw up his hands at the whole process and not run," - Victor Gold, former speech-writer to Goldwater.

*********

Spoken by an actual republican, as opposed to a republofascist, conscious or otherwise.

Strange, indeed, how things change over time. I'd line up with Goldwater today, strange but true.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I'd line up with Goldwater today, strange but true.

You might as well since there's no left left.

[Gary Sisco]

You're right.

The main political divide today is between statists and antistatists.

Again, people can say what they want, but I spent a good deal of my adult life in the left, the real left. We never even talked about repub or dim party politics. It had nothing to do with us and simply wasn't a subject of conversation. It was assumed that liberals would take care of liberal politics.

None of that matters today because the divide between left and right was always, first, and before all else, opposition to capitalism as a social order. It was not a question of this issue or that within capitalism. We considered that kind of politics to be upper level management, nothing more. Had nothing to do with us.

Liberals are not opposed to capitalism as a social order. Therefore, they were considered to be of the right. Which they are.

I consider those questions moot today. Capitalism is in the drivers' seat for any future that's meaningful to the likes of me, so I don't even think anymore in terms of left and right.

The real left died forever with Bookchin.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

That would be unconstitutional.

So? Why should the Bush Admin have all the fun.

By the way, folks. I was being facetious.

[walto]

Money is speech when spent on politics.

Unh-unh. Only if you spend it on yourself.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

The real left died forever with Bookchin.

Tough. The antistatists hopes seem to rest on Sullivan these days.

[Scott Dolan]

Even though they really don't like him.

[walto]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

The real left died forever with Bookchin.

Well, there's always the surrealistic left....

[Gary Sisco]

Not so surrealistic, that view. It was much like daily experience for me for years. :-0

Re speech: Not what the court said, Walto, unfortunately. We all have every right to speak politically by giving money to campaigns and groups of our choice. I can't come up with a logical argument to counter it. If I can (and have) put much of my own bread into political activities over the years I was active, why can't someone else of larger means? I have no answer apart from not liking being outgunned moneywise. Things are not unconstitutional, however, because one doesn't like something or disagrees with it.

Of course, real parties, which we don't have in the US at that level, have actual memberships, dues and so forth. The groups and organizations I belonged to had regular dues, collected weekly at meetings, which we used to finance this or that activity including running political candidates, printing flyers and manifestos and so forth, along with a lot of money just given over in addition to dues. I seriously object to parties as institutions having their activities publicly funded. If a party can't pay for its own internal activities, that's not a public concern. It's an example of the party not having a real membership and popular base, to me.

If I (or you) had, say, a million spare bucks and wanted to give them to a candidate of my choice's campaign what would be wrong with it?

[walto]

The Court said it's unconstitutional to limit political contributions to one's own campaign, but they've allowed limitations to contributions to everybody else's.

[Gary Sisco]

Only to a certain, apparently unknowable, extent because they shot down Vermont's law, just this year, which did exactly that, Walto.

Not logical but who'd expect logic? Law doesn't have to be logical. It just has to be law.

It's okay to spend a huge pile of one's own money on one's own campaign but not on one that one supports. So, billionaires can just spend anyone else into the grave (assuming elections, or, more accurately, a majority of the voting public, are buyable) but not to help others' campaigns. Can't see the logic in there and can't see where it would help out people of more normal means in any way.

I don't think elections are buyable, however, if only because I've seen people try to do it in Vermont, more than once. A carpetbagging republotwit from Mass thought he could buy a Senate seat in Vermont. In fact, he thought so twice. First time he was shot down by the Vote For Fred absurdist campaign and second time by his own party in a primary. Last election, a billionaire tried to buy the seat Sanders occupies right now. If he'd had as much brainpower as money, he'd have known that Sanders could have beaten him in Vermont without even campaigning.

There have been many other examples. The repubs always have more money to spend. They don't always win because of it, however.

Some things can't be bought.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

By the way, folks. I was being facetious.

At least you admit it! American politics is awash with facetious-ism. Bush. McLame. Edwards. You name it! Even Barf Orama is facetioust to an extent. Sieg Heil, you ironic fuckers.

"I was just being facetious."

Yeah. First they came for the droll.
And I didn't complain, because I was not droll.
Then they came for the hilarious.

[Scott Dolan]

...and facetiously I said nothing..........

[GoodSpeak]

"Survey of Independents, Who Could Be Key in 2008, Finds Attitudes From Partisan to Apathetic"


Yeah...just like the Green dipshits who gave us George II in the first fucking place.


Vote Green = Vote Nader = We get the Moron for 8 god damned years..




Righty-O!

[GoodSpeak]

The Greens are solely and wholly responsible for the deaths and crippled service men and women who served in Iraq.


Yeah.


Vote Nader, you self-serving jackasses.



Democrats are the way out of what you force fed us and YOU fucking ignored it.



Damn you Green Party.

[Jeffrey Wozniak]

With the Rupubs and Demos both acting like total partisan assholes the independents are looking more and more attractive to many people.

[Gary Sisco]

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, you choose. You might want also to remember that it takes more energy to produce these "alternative" fuels than would be saved by making them. And if the whole of the US's arable land were given over to crops for their production, it wouldn't amount to spit for the US's energy needs. Nevertheless, subsidize the shit out of them while continuing to line oil company wallets and subsidize their profits as well.

The new biggest scam ripping off people's confiscated wages, this time for "alternative" bullshit, which they'll get away with because people won't follow the bouncing ball. The imagine a different ball and follow it, instead.

Nevertheless, here comes the other one, just like the other one:

Congress follows the money on energy
The Democrats now run Congress, but big contributors -- agribusiness and oil and gas -- continue to call the shots. The U.S. auto industry, though, faces a battle.

By Jim Jubak
The names may change in Congress. Democrats may replace Republicans in the majority. But when it comes to energy legislation, the same rule always applies: Money talks.

So is it any surprise that agribusiness, a sector that gave $44.6 billion to Democratic and Republican candidates in the last election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, came out the big winner in the energy bill passed by the Senate on June 21? The oil-and-gas industry, which gave $19.1 billion as part of a natural-resources sector that gave $46.4 billion, didn't do too badly, either.

Automakers, who gave $14.2 billion of the $39.9 billion contributed by the transportation sector, wound up with the short end of the stick in the Senate bill but look poised to recover in the legislation now moving through committee in the House. The auto industry is likely to benefit from the second rule of political giving: It's not how many politicians you buy but which ones. The first rule, by the way, is give early and often.

(For how the oil and gas industry passed out its dough in the cycle leading up to the 2006 elections, see my Oct. 24, 2006, column "Big oil's 10 favorite members of Congress.")

Pay to win
This is how I think investors should handicap the winners and the losers in the legislation so far. (See my video below for the names of some individual stock winners.)

Ethanol: huge winner. The Senate bill would require the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol in motor fuels by 2022. In the relatively near future, "ethanol" means ethanol from corn kernels, because what's called cellulosic ethanol, which produces ethanol from the cellulose of such green plants as switch grass, cornstalks or pine trees, is still in the process of moving from test project to commercial-scale production. And the new target is a huge jump -- about a fivefold increase -- from the goal of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012 set in the 2005 energy bill, a target that will be surpassed this year. The new target roughly matches the 35 billion gallons proclaimed by President Bush in his 2007 State of the Union address. It's no surprise that most farm-state Republicans crossed the aisle to join with Democrats like Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois to give the bill its 65-27 final approval.

Oil and natural gas: big winner. This industry didn't come away with anything like the bushel of money it got in the 2005 bill, but its lobbyists were able to beat back a strong effort to repeal those tax breaks. Citizens for Tax Justice calculates that just the four biggest tax breaks for the oil and gas industry add up to $11.4 billion over five years: $5.4 billion for deducting the intangible costs of exploration and development; $4.7 for allowing the percentage depletion for oil and gas properties; $700 million for expensing equipment used to refine liquid fuels; and $611 million for accelerated amortization of geological expenditures. Defeated versions of the Senate energy bill would have repealed some of these breaks and added taxes on the industry of about $30 billion over 10 years to increase funding for renewable energy and other energy technologies. That effort failed when six Democrats, including Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, voted with the majority of Republicans against ending debate and forcing an immediate vote, effectively killing that provision.

Coal-to-liquid fuels: big loser. The Senate rejected two amendments to mandate the increased use of liquid fuels made from coal. The first, proposed by Republican Sens. Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Pete Domenici of New Mexico, would have mandated the use of 6 billion gallons of coal-to-liquid fuel by 2022. The second, proposed by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., would have provided federal money for coal-to-liquid plants that capture and stored 75% of their carbon dioxide emissions.

Alternative and renewable energy: big loser. Besides losing the vote on funding alternative-energy development and production with taxes on the oil-and-natural gas industry, supporters of alternative energy such as Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Norm Coleman, R-Minn., failed in an effort to require utilities to produce 25% of their electricity from renewables by 2020. Even a compromise that would have cut the requirement to 15% -- and to count efficiency savings of up to 4% as part of the target -- failed when faced with opposition from senators who claimed that their states didn't have the wind power resources to meet the target.

Video on MSN Money
Jubak's Journal: Profiting from ethanol

The energy bill that just passed the Senate is a big win for ethanol -- and for stocks of fertilizer makers, seed growers, ethanol producers and farm machinery manufacturers. MSN Money's Jim Jubak picks stocks that he thinks will profit from a continued ethanol boom.

Energy-efficient technologies: a reasonable victory. The Senate bill includes new federal standards for energy efficiency in lighting and appliances. This will help build a market for more energy-efficient compact fluorescent and LED lighting and for more efficient appliances, including air conditioners and refrigerators. The bill also increased funding for research into advanced battery technologies.

If the Senate bill were to become law as it was passed at the end of June, I'd include U.S. automakers among the big losers. The Senate bill includes the first legislation to impose new corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards in 32 years.

[Gary Sisco]

accidental post, self-deleted

[Gary Sisco]

Having had some long thought, and conversations with my best pal (we often act as consiglieri to the other), I've decided that Ron Paul's stance on abortion will, after all, prevent my supporting him any longer. That's just too much use of governmental power in a person's personal affairs, whether federal or state. It's no one's business but the woman, period. There is also the larger issue of whether or not people have a right to a personal sphere of life that is not political, much less statified, and I believe there is, Constitution or not, though it can be deduced from the Constitution itself.

I also have a lot of trouble with this nativism re immigrants today, which Paul shares. I welcome any and all people who want to come to this country, from anywhere, and work and live. It helps to revivify the society and always has, from the very beginning.

So, I will fall back on my traditional stance toward presidential elections and either vote for Nobody or give one of the "third" parties a vote just to help them keep ballot status. I have no idea where I'll be come election day, so I can't know how the voting will be organized. Different states have different ways of handling ballots.