FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

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Gadianton
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

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I don't recall ever saying that the forum bans people for being republican
You referred to A-Mike as a banned republican. What you meant was that he was banned for being republican.

If A-Mike wasn't banned for being Republican, what was he banned for?

While you aren't registered, you promote the right-wing agenda with more fervor than any other poster who has ever posted here. So to say you have been punished for anything other than "expressing republican views" would be getting off on a technicality, from within your own perspective.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

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1) The US should rely on goods and services produced or provided within it's own borders. This includes limiting trade with other nations and exacting heavy tariffs on foreign goods and materials to allow domestic goods and services to outcompete them in the domestic market.
I'm for leveling the playing field and reducing trade deficits.
2) The US government should interfere with markets rather than rely on market forces to determine supply and pricing.
I see tarrifs as a tool to keep competitors like China honest when they manipulate their currency and don't play fairly.
3) The US government should buy US goods and services to ensure there is demand and manage employment.
I'm not sure.
4) The US government should encourage or directly intervene to ensure US citizens are hired over migrant labor regardless of who is better qualified.
I do think companies should have to pay American standard wages. You can't just bring in foreigners who are willing to work for less. And you certainly can't just bring them in illegally because you couldn't get legal American citizens to vote in favor of bringing in cheaper foreign labor. To me that would be destroying democracy.
5) The US government should ignore paying debts to foreign debt holders in favor of payments to US citizens who hold bonds or other securities.
[/quote]

I don't know.

Let's say for the sake of argument that the 74 million people who voted for Donald Trump agreed with these criteria you lay out. How is that destroying American democracy?
The best part about this is waiting four years to see how all the crazy apocalyptic predictions made by the fear mongering idiots in Right Wing media turned out to be painfully wrong...Gasoline would hit $10/gallon. Hyperinflation would ensue.
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Gadianton
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

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Dr. Exiled wrote:The Supreme Court currently has it correct in that the answer to bad speech isn't repression or cancellation, but more speech. If there is a bad idea out there, then educate and inform.
That's a platitude and truism that many will just assume is right. The fittest ideas may survive, but weeds can be awfully fit. What fit means in social media land is "catchy". I think it's false to say that maximizing free speech would allow, for instance, for the best possibility that the general public will become better scientifically informed.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

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Gadianton wrote:
Mon Sep 05, 2022 5:15 pm
Dr. Exiled wrote:The Supreme Court currently has it correct in that the answer to bad speech isn't repression or cancellation, but more speech. If there is a bad idea out there, then educate and inform.
That's a platitude and truism that many will just assume is right. The fittest ideas may survive, but weeds can be awfully fit. What fit means in social media land is "catchy". I think it's false to say that maximizing free speech would allow, for instance, for the best possibility that the general public will become better scientifically informed.
The FBI and DOJ successfully shat in the free speech punch when they lobbied Twitter and Facebook (per Zuck). The vaccine lobbies shat in the punch even more and the lockdown lobbies shat in the social media free speech punch even more. I think it is fair to say that free speech is the deepest part of the social media festival porta-potty.

Social media is a game. It is not a form of speech. And the FBI and DOJ like that game and played it better.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

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Dr Exiled wrote:
Mon Sep 05, 2022 4:37 pm
The Supreme Court currently has it correct in that the answer to bad speech isn't repression or cancellation, but more speech. If there is a bad idea out there, then educate and inform. Don't stamp out speech that you don't like simply because it is inconvenient or more importantly because it exposes lies and deceit that you want to cover up for political expediency. The Mormon church would love to repress certain speech and we don't want to live in a world where the Book of Mormon as historical is forced on us.

The only place I see where government might regulate is if a company gains monopoly power and then uses it to limit speech. We cannot have voices stamped out due to monopoly forces. There are a lot of bad ideas out there but allowing a monopolist to decide what is good and what is bad is dangerous. Who fact checks the fact checkers? Trump or someone like him could become such a monopolist fact checker and then gain control of the government via campaign contributions, etc. and then turn around and ban everyone who disagrees. However, the same goes for the Democrats and their billionaire supporters. We shouldn't want anyone with too much power.

Here is an old article about Google's monopoly power: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles ... -regulated

Here is one that mentions the antitrust lawsuit against google: https://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketi ... rketplace/

Looks like the DOJ is gearing up for an antitrust lawsuit against google as well: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... trust-suit

Finally, I think forcing Fox to wear a scarlet letter is unworkable. It won't convince anyone and will probably lead to retrenchment and would make Fox more popular than ever. Trump gained support after the FBI actions in August. The FBI actions were viewed as being repressive and designed to stamp out Trump's voice. He was allowed to be the victim and his base got energized by it. Attack Mormons and they will rally around their cause, regardless. Here again, more speech is the answer and not suppression of unwanted opinion.
You make excellent points. For what it’s worth I’m in the camp that government should exercise extreme restraint in its efforts to be “fair” when it comes to the governed. Better to let people work it out. For example, Reddit has been locked down by ideologues who ban people for badthink and wrongspeech. It’s very Orwellian in a way. I see this happening on Twitter, Facebook, and even more nefariously with Google ref their search algorithms - they have a literal team of social activists that monitor and change search results. As a result I deleted my Twitter and Facbook accounts, and haven’t posted on a comment on Reddit for about a year now (though I read Reddit religiously because it’s a great content aggregator). In other words, people can and should vote with their eyes, feet, and dollars.
The only place I see where government might regulate is if a company gains monopoly power and then uses it to limit speech. We cannot have voices stamped out due to monopoly forces. There are a lot of bad ideas out there but allowing a monopolist to decide what is good and what is bad is dangerous.
I think the role of government in the quoted case would be to ensure competition has space to create content, and to ensure new competition isn’t squashed before it has a chance to succeed or fail. Despite my political differences, I’m a huge fan of Parler existing so that the voices that have been silenced on other platforms have a chance to actually talk. So, the government doesn’t necessarily have to give oxygen to a platform, but it certainly shouldn’t deprive it, either.

Just my two cents.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

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Doc Cam wrote:For what it’s worth I’m in the camp that government should exercise extreme restraint in its efforts to be “fair” when it comes to the governed. Better to let people work it out.
Isn't an example of "creating more free speech" to allow creationism to be taught alongside evolution in high school biology?

also, there are all kinds of institutional constraints on speech that don't rise to the level of direct government interference.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

Post by Doctor CamNC4Me »

Gadianton wrote:
Mon Sep 05, 2022 7:53 pm
Doc Cam wrote:For what it’s worth I’m in the camp that government should exercise extreme restraint in its efforts to be “fair” when it comes to the governed. Better to let people work it out.
Isn't an example of "creating more free speech" to allow creationism to be taught alongside evolution in high school biology?

also, there are all kinds of institutional constraints on speech that don't rise to the level of direct government interference.
Sure, there are all sorts of examples where a government does step in or doesn’t when it should. I suppose when it comes to curriculum, “free speech” differs from an institutional syllabus, so to speak. Like, I don’t care that a government would forcibly remove a disruptive student ‘exercising their free speech’ at the expense of other students’ learning, but I’d have major problems with a government that didn’t allow for dissent - say a student disagreed with creationism and expressed their opinion in a respectable and lucid manner and they were kicked out of public school for it. Whether or not a public school can teach out and out falsehoods is something for the judicial system to rule on if the institution itself can’t self-correct.

Well.

That’s assuming the judicial system hasn’t been packed with religious zealots and authoritarian sociopaths.

- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

Post by honorentheos »

This conversation took place in early December 2019 after the general election and before the insurrection on January 6, 2020.
honorentheos wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 6:50 pm
It seems to me that the current strategy involves using the general confusion the litigation caused among elements of the public to support a challenge on the floor of the results from the Electoral College.

As I understand it, that requires a member from the House to call the results from a state into question, have a Senator sign on to the complaints and then both chambers debate the issue before voting on whether or not to accept the electoral votes from that state.

So we should expect to see PA, GA, AZ, MI, and WI challenges. This will happen after the GA runoff election, and it seems unlikely that every Republican Senator will vote to disenfranchise all of the voters in any state based on the evidence to leave Pence casting the deciding vote. But it will also serve to undermine Biden and Harris in the same way an impeachment vote influences how legitimate parties see the President. In other words, it will further calcify the partisan emotional divide and affect his administrations ability to enact an agenda before Biden even takes office. That's the best case scenario. Worst case? Phew.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:31 pm

Just a couple of details. A challenge at the joint session in January requires a written challenge signed by a house member and a senator. It does not have to initiate with a house member. There will be all kinds of speeches and drama. Those don't count -- only written objections. When a written objection is made, the process of accepting the electors stops. The two houses of congress meet separately, and both houses must vote to decline the electors. Otherwise the slate is accepted.

The language of the statute is very dense. But, as I understand it, if the state misses the safe harbor deadline and multiple slates of electors are sent by different actors in the state government, Congress picks which slate to accept in a manner that would give Rs the majority of votes.

I don't think going through that process would undermine Biden and Harris any more than Trump's impeachment undermined him.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/3 ... ege-441459

I don't believe it matters if the state misses their safe harbor deadline or fails in compliance. As I understand it, there just needs to be a challenge by a member of the House and Senate, then it is debated and voted on, and it does have the remote but possible chance of discounting the electoral votes of a state of the challenge is successful in getting both House and Senate support.

As to whether or not it will affect Biden...well. The litigation has had an effect on confidence and support. It isn't clear to me that a year from now we won't have it brought up regularly as an astrix to Biden's presidency in similar ways more liberal/progressive types would toss in Trump being impeached by the House. Turns out the American experiment gets to die a death by a thousand paper cuts.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:15 pm
The Politico article makes some questionable assertions. The Safe Harbor law is clear on this point: the “safe harbor” it provides is safety from Congressional challenge. The portion of the statute that allows challenges also says it does not apply if the Safe Harbor deadline is met.

The Politico also fails to adequately distinguish between a challenge to a state’s electors and what happens if multiple slates of electors are presented.

ETA: Here’s a good interview in The Guardian that explains it. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... epublicans
subgenius wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:59 pm
honorentheos wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:47 pm
...Turns out the American experiment gets to die a death by a thousand paper cuts.
reap what you sow.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:15 pm
The Politico article makes some questionable assertions. The Safe Harbor law is clear on this point: the “safe harbor” it provides is safety from Congressional challenge. The portion of the statute that allows challenges also says it does not apply if the Safe Harbor deadline is met.

The Politico also fails to adequately distinguish between a challenge to a state’s electors and what happens if multiple slates of electors are presented.

ETA: Here’s a good interview in The Guardian that explains it. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.thegua ... epublicans
honorentheos wrote:Thanks for the link.

Maybe I'm missing something but it still sounds like contesting the electors on the floor is a real possibility. Here's why. The law professor interviewed in the Guardian article, Edward Foley, makes the case that what Congress ought to limit their vote to is whether or not a given state followed the legal procedures in place. Safe harbor applying the confidence that this is the case so unless there is really good evidence to the contrary, Congress should simply ratify the results of the electoral college.

But his argument also presents the unlikely scenario that a Congressperson who wishes to challenge a state's results would come at it from the direction of who they think actually won.

Every conscientious member of Congress, whether representative or senator, once the objection is raised … they’re not supposed to say: ‘Who do I think won Georgia? Who do I think won Pennsylvania?’ They’re supposed to ask themselves: ‘Did Georgia and Pennsylvania utilize a procedure to achieve its own resolution of that issue? Did they do so by 8 December?’

That's not likely to happen, though. What's almost certain to happen is there will be challenges questioning the procedures and their effects on the results. And what does the law professor have to say about that?

It’s up to Congress to abide by that rule that Congress created and not be tempted to second-guess a decision that it’s not supposed to second-guess. But human beings being human beings, if members of Congress want to ignore their own rules and second-guess something which they shouldn’t be second guessing, then who’s to stop them?

And frankly that sounds exactly like the conditions we should expect where members of Congress will use the barrage of litigation and social media claims to put forward the argument the results in certain states SHOULD be questioned by Congress. That procedures were followed and the results certified isn't stopping the litigation other than judges who actually feel obligated to sustaining the law are acting as a valuable line of defense against those claims. But Congress? Uh. If all it takes is one congressperson and one senator to force a vote, I am going to go with it being pretty damn likely we'll see electoral results voted on come January 6.

And here, the law professor and I really see eye to eye.

There’s no threat to Biden’s inauguration. What there is potentially … if one senator signs anything that Representative Brooks submits, that’s going to cause there to be a repeat of what happened in 2004 … I think there will be roll-call votes.

Even though Biden’s going to be inaugurated, if a lot of senators go on record agreeing with Brooks, that’s agreeing with a claim that Biden didn’t win those states.

Journalist: I think that’s a very likely scenario.

It’s taking us into a realm of American politics that I’m not sure we’ve had before. I mean, it’s a denial of reality that’s very dangerous.

Elections require accepting results, even if your team loses. Your team will win next time, maybe. You give the winning team a chance to govern based on what the voters said this time. You have to acknowledge that reality. For significant numbers of members of Congress, going on the record, if that’s what happens, in defiance of that reality, that will be really dangerous for the operation of competitive elections.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:06 am
Well, yes. I suppose it's possible that Congress could violate its own clear law. But, hell, if that's what's going to happen, the country's done anyway.
- cont.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

Post by honorentheos »

Continued -
honorentheos wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:42 am
Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:06 am
Well, yes. I suppose it's possible that Congress could violate its own clear law. But, hell, if that's what's going to happen, the country's done anyway.
Well, buckle in then. I'm in the probable column, not possible. It seems nearly inevitable that at least one House member and one Senator will agree to challenge one of the five states being targeted by the litigation. And probably all five will see challenges. The argument still seems likely to be that there were anomalies and issues not fully investigated so the process was flawed, and that Congress needs to protect the voters who voted legally. I could probably write the speech within a few words just from cobbling together the sound bites being used over the last month calling for support of the challenge.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:07 am
I would be genuinely surprised to see a written objection with two signatures submitted at the joint session. Both houses have to vote to reject, and the house is not going to vote to reject. Even if they reject, the total votes case decreases, so Biden still gets a majority. And how badly does the Republican Party want to be known from now on as the party that robs American citizens of their votes? It's the campaign issue that lasts forever.

It's different if a legislature votes to send a second set of electors. But then you have a bunch of Republicans who voted to rob the people of their own state of votes. You think that's an easy sell to a majority of state legislators? It's one thing to talk about all this, or send meaningless letters. It's another to actually rob your own constituents of their votes.

Trying to rob voters whose states came within the safe harbor would be even worse. Congress critters would actually have to openly break their own law to do that. There's absolutely no wiggle room in the safe harbor provision -- Congress legislated absolute deference to state-selected electors who meet the deadline. Should they actually try, there's an excellent chance a court would grant an injunction to declare the object illegal. And you can bet that the necessary complaints and motions will be ready to file on a moments notice.

I'm sure that there will be tons of posturing, bluster, sending meaningless letters, punditry, and handwringing for the next month. But I would be surprised to see a Senator sign an objection. And shocked if that objection were to a safe harbor state. Robbing people's votes is damn serious stuff -- the kind of stuff that leads people to exercise second amendment rights. And I really don't want to have to buy a gun.
subgenius wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:29 am
You keep saying "rob votes" as if the result wouldn't be the exposure of fraudulent votes, ergo no votes were "robbed" but rather, the votes were rightfully possessed. Removing illegal ballots isn't robbing.

honorentheos wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:55 am
Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:07 am
And I really don't want to have to buy a gun.
Heh. Thanks for the smile. I hope you're right. I don't think you are but this is definitely a time I won't feel bad about being wrong.
Res Ipsa wrote:
Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:59 am
I hope I am, too.
Then January 6th happened and it was worse than predicted.
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Re: FOX NEWS Is an Enemy of the State

Post by honorentheos »

Actually, here's another post from that thread:
subgenius wrote:
Sat Dec 12, 2020 11:40 pm
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