Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
I'm glad to see you say so. I agree, as far as i can tell, but I know that - while I'm fairly knowledgeable about modern day affairs - my knowledge of American history is fairly limited (blame a European education
). Which forefather to quote in what context and how to interpret it can be very misleading/partisan/etc without appearing so. You're one of the people on "the other side" (insofar as we're on opposing sides - I'm fairly sure we agree on more than we disagree but American identity politics is horrible and "forces" us to opposing points more often than not) I trust most to actually judge something like this somewhat fairly.Yes, you are a stinky stinky
No, he's a Flower.Yes, you are a stinky stinky
I've seen that type of comic-like presentation of subjects before (I think there was a whole one on Music Theory). I actually like it, because it explains our current problem: one group of people have taken over all three branches of government, and this goes completely against the Checks and Balances ideal of Mr. Madison and company.
Republicans : The NFL has every right to prevent players from kneeling during the anthem, it's not a freedom of speech issue because the NFL is a private company and can make it's own rules.
*Youtube, a private company, bans Alex Jones for hate speech*
Republicans : This is an outrage! BIG TECH is attempting to squelch our unalienable right to free speech!
Me :
figmentPez
Staff member
On the other hand, YouTube does have a near-monopoly on web video, and it has that near monopoly because of a combination of severe corporate and government meddling. Being banned from YouTube is, arguably, a more severe form of censorship than not being able to kneel during an NFL game. There are other sports, other TV shows, other audiences as big as football. There's no other web video source as big as YouTube. I'm not even sure there's another internet audience as large as YouTube.Republicans : The NFL has every right to prevent players from kneeling during the anthem, it's not a freedom of speech issue because the NFL is a private company and can make it's own rules.
*Youtube, a private company, bans Alex Jones for hate speech*
Republicans : This is an outrage! BIG TECH is attempting to squelch our unalienable right to free speech!
Me :
Does that really matter though? The reason people even complained about the kneeling during the NFL is because the NFL is the most viewed sport in the country. They wouldn't have cared if it was the WNBA or something. That's the stupid thing. If you (no not specifically you, just those people in general
) are going to argue this one thing isn't a free speech issue because it's a private company, then start bitching when another one does something similar, because now they are squelching something you wanted to hear instead, then you are a hypocrite. It's all or nothing.
figmentPez
Staff member
Maybe it's because I'm not a big sports fan, but yeah. Because YouTube has a dominance that was intentionally manufactured by corporate and government interests, it's a pretty big fucking deal to be blocked from YouTube. It really should not be that way, but because it is, that makes it a much bigger deal than the NFL censoring it's own games. I do think it's wrong for the NFL to control their players like that, but I think there's at least an order of magnitude difference between the two.
Consider an alternate history where the US had only one nationally available newspaper (or magazine, or any periodical), and everything else was small town and school newspapers, back in the days when newspapers mattered the most. Not only that, but corporations and governments had set up the laws so that any other newspaper would get sued into oblivion if they even made it big enough to cover a region. Would it be a major issue if someone were banned from buying space in the only national newspaper? More important than a sportsball player being able to make a political statement? You bet your ass it would.
YouTube and web video is just a really messed up situation on the whole. Because of it's unique standing in the market, both commercially and legally, it means a lot if someone can't express their views there. And the problem isn't that YouTube wants to get rid of morally reprehensible content, the problem is that their competitors have been unfairly restricted from providing alternative solutions.
GasBandit
Staff member
Much as I hate to say it, because I love the unified cross-platform architecture it's created, but I really do think it is getting to be time that Google gets the ol' Ma-Bell treatment. It's got too many tendrils in too many pies, and the thought process behind their leadership grows darker by the week. They are anti-competitiveness made manifest.
But they're also not the only ones.
But they're also not the only ones.
There are still places he can go.
I wish I could vote more freely in the primaries. You can only choose one party's section, but it's likely we will have a republican governor, and democrats in other positions (given the district I'm in encompasses Ann Arbor, ie, University of Michigan, ie liberal leaning leftists).
So now I have to decide whether to influence the governorship or who we send to the house.
Over half the states have already held their primaries, but if yours hasn't, please vote, and please pay attention to the seats you may not care or know about - they eventually work their way up, and the only way to change congress is to start changing who makes it that far in the first place.
For those curious, here's what my ballot looks like.
https://webapps.sos.state.mi.us/MVIC/SampleBallot.aspx?d=4890&ed=675&bl=
So now I have to decide whether to influence the governorship or who we send to the house.
Over half the states have already held their primaries, but if yours hasn't, please vote, and please pay attention to the seats you may not care or know about - they eventually work their way up, and the only way to change congress is to start changing who makes it that far in the first place.
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For those curious, here's what my ballot looks like.
https://webapps.sos.state.mi.us/MVIC/SampleBallot.aspx?d=4890&ed=675&bl=
New York State has two primary dates. One for national representatives and one for local + state. We've only had the national one so far. I knew my districts were both unopposed but I figured I should vote in case there was some write-in shenanigans. Turns out when everyone is unopposed, they just don't bother with a vote and I just looked like a jackass walking around a closed school.
They are sort of the only game in town for user uploaded content because:
A - No one, not even Google, wants to police that shit.
B - Youtube is a MASSIVE financial sink. It doesn't make money. But because it's culturally important, Google doesn't want to lose it.
Youtube has a near monopoly on web video because hos
In this age of transnational corporations, what happens if Google says "No" and just moves their company to another country? I -doubt- that would happen, but it's sort of the doomsday scenario for governmental control.
This would be unlikely. They'd still have to have servers and regional offices (particularly sales - their primary source of income) located within the US. Further, even if they were able to pull it off (and I think they're so entrenched - owning fiber, etc - that they couldn't) they'd still have peering agreements in order to obtain enough bandwidth, and they'd 1) get screwed on them, and 2) could easily be regulated at those points.
For better or worse, Google (ie, Alphabet) is an will remain an American company for the foreseeable future.
You meant to tell me Google isn't headquartered in Ireland or something? Just Apple then?
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Well, i guess if their goal was to reach as few people as possible...
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Google did it too back when the "Double Irish" was a thing.
Going further right seems to galvanize the older crowd, while going further left is the only thing that gets younger voters out.
Though as someone from a country that's a little more left leaning than the US (further right than a lot of Europe) I do often find it funny what people in the states consider extreme left (Healthcare! YOU EXTREMISTS!).
JUST LIKE THE GOOD OLD DAYS! MAGA!
https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/
Jist, EPA no longer against asbestos in manufacturing and will no longer be assessing the presence of such toxic materials in it's air, ground and water risk assessments.
https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/
Jist, EPA no longer against asbestos in manufacturing and will no longer be assessing the presence of such toxic materials in it's air, ground and water risk assessments.
figmentPez
Staff member
Guess where a lot of asbestos is mined.... Russia. Mines there provide more than half of the world's asbestos.
I'm also going to bet that Trump owns a lot of buildings with asbestos in them that he doesn't want to have to clean up.
I actually brought this up earlier in the thread; Trump's a New York City slum lord and it's almost certain fact he has buildings full of asbestos. That he hans't been caught yet is amazing and he almost certainly will after this.
He's as much a piece of shit as Old Man Fred was. Same goes for the rest of the family.
Meanwhile in Ohio
Pretty much. The Green Party is pretty intolerable here in central Ohio.
The ENTIRE WV Supreme Court is facing impeachment. Depending on how that turns out, Gov. Justice (yeah, right) could get to appoint an entirely hand-picked court to finish out the terms.
Top THAT, Walker!
Top THAT, Walker!
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Article can't be shown "because of GDPR" (which is bs)
Dave
Staff member
The West Virginia House Judiciary Committee approved 14 articles of impeachment against the four sitting justices of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals on Tuesday.
The eighth day of the committee’s meetings regarding possible impeachment produced the first material results when 14 articles of impeachment were introduced at 9:25 a.m.
By the time the committee adjourned at 6:15 p.m., its members had added two new articles to their draft and rejected two of the original proposed articles, advancing the possibility of impeachment for the majority of the elected officials in the Mountain State’s judicial branch of government.
“It’s a sad day, and it certainly isn’t a cause for celebration,” Judiciary Chairman John Shott, R-Mercer, said Tuesday as the articles were distributed to the 24 committee members present in the House chamber.
Those articles will now advance to the full House of Delegates for consideration. Speaker Pro Tempore John Overington, R-Berkeley, said Tuesday he called for the House to reconvene at 10 a.m. Monday.
The articles serve as formal charges or accusations that the justices committed one of the impeachable offenses listed in Section 9, Article 4 of the West Virginia Constitution.
The articles of impeachment charge Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justices Robin Davis, Allen Loughry and Beth Walker with maladministration, corruption, incompetency, neglect of duty and certain high crimes.
In total, Loughry is the subject of eight articles of impeachment. Workman and Davis each are the subject of four and Walker is the subject of two.
Former justice Menis Ketchum was not a subject of impeachment because he resigned from the bench last month.
Some of the articles charge more than one justice at a time with a given impeachable offense.
Each justice is charged with “unnecessary and lavish” spending of state taxpayer dollars to renovate their offices in the East Wing of the Capitol. All four of them also are charged with failing to develop and maintain court policies regarding the use of state resources, including cars, computers and funds in general.
Loughry faces additional charges related to his alleged use of state vehicles for personal travel, having state furniture and computers in his home, having personal photos, documents, photos and artwork framed on the state’s dime, and handing down an administrative order authorizing payments of senior status judges in excess of what is allowable in state law.
Davis and Workman are charged with signing documents authorizing that senior status judges be paid in excess of what’s allowable in state law.
One article against Walker, charging her with using state money to pay an outside attorney to author an opinion in 2017, was rejected by the committee in a 14-9 vote. The outside attorney in that matter was Barbara Allen, currently the interim Supreme Court administrator, who wasn’t employed with the court at the time she wrote the opinion, said Marsha Kauffman, attorney for the Judiciary Committee.
The committee also rejected an article against Workman that charged her with facilitating the hiring of a contracted employee to do IT work for the court as a political favor.
After early morning arguments about whether Republican members of the committee gave Democrat members enough notice that the articles would be presented Tuesday, the committee began its consideration of whether to adopt the articles at 1 p.m.
The committee’s questions regarding the articles mostly dealt with clarifying certain points of evidence and whether certain actions violated court policies or state law.
Committee members spent the most time debating Article 7, which charges Loughry with “unnecessary and lavish spending” on renovations to his office. The committee approved articles regarding such spending on renovations against all of the justices.
The debate about Article 7 first included an amendment from Judiciary Minority Chairwoman Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, who proposed adding language that additionally charged Loughry with lying to lawmakers in January in an attempt to deceive them regarding his knowledge of, and involvement in, renovations to his office.
The committee eventually rejected Fleischauer’s amendment and instead made the amendment into a separate charge, establishing the 15th article of impeachment.
When the committee debated the actual amendment, the debate steered into whether adopting articles against the justices on the matter of the cost of renovations was overstepping the boundaries of the committee’s charge.
Those who spoke against the article argued that the matter of whether Supreme Court justices misused their funds should be judged by West Virginia voters, who will have the chance to vote in November on a constitutional amendment to give the Legislature more control over the Supreme Court’s budget.
Those who spoke in support of the article said it was the duty of those elected to the Legislature to hold the other branches accountable through basic checks and balances written in the constitution, and voters additionally would serve their own checks and balances with their vote in November.
Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, also suggested the nature of grouping all of the justices into one set of articles of impeachment appeared to be an attempt to allow Republican Gov. Jim Justice an opportunity to appoint four of the five Supreme Court justices for at least two years on the bench.
Pushkin originally drafted a resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings in February. At the time, Senate President Mitch Carmichael said it was a political stunt, and the resolution didn’t gain traction.
“Now, I see an effort to capitalize on this entire affair by taking out an entire branch of government and replacing it through appointments,” Pushkin said.
Fleischauer said the way the articles of impeachment were drafted against all sitting justices at once gave her the appearance of an attempted “coup” to let the governor appoint the court.
Shott denied that was the case.
“We said this to our committee when we started, this was a no-win situation,” Shott said. “Especially in an election year, there’s going to be people who will spin it however it creates the most advantage to them. That’s just part of the process.”
Under state law, if a justice has more than two years left in his or her term and leaves or is removed from office 84 days prior to a general election, the governor appoints an interim justice, and voters pick a new justice during the general election.
Eighty-four days before this year’s general election is Aug. 14.
If a justice with more than two years left in a term leaves office or is removed after Aug. 14, the governor still appoints an interim justice, but the special election to replace the justice would be in May 2020.
All of the sitting justices have at least two years left in their terms.
Workman’s term is set to expire in 2020. Loughry’s and Davis’ terms are set to expire in 2024 and Walker’s will expire in 2028.
Justice already called a special election for Nov. 6, to allow voters to select who will fill the vacancy left by Ketchum’s resignation.
To date, the articles of impeachment are the only charges faced by Workman, Davis and Walker.
Ketchum was not subject to any of the articles of impeachment. His resignation last month meant he couldn’t be impeached under the procedures established by the Judiciary Committee.
Ketchum agreed to plead guilty to one count of federal wire fraud, according to a plea agreement announced by U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart last week.
Loughry is the subject of a 23-count federal indictment charging him with 16 counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, three counts of making false statements to a federal agent, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of witness tampering.
The first indictment against Loughry was handed up on June 19, and a federal grand jury handed up a superseding indictment against him in July.
Loughry is out of jail on a personal recognizance bond, and his trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 2.
Loughry has been suspended from the bench without pay since June 8.
On June 6, the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission charged Loughry with 32 counts of violating the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct by misusing the state-owned cars, computers and furniture and lying to lawmakers, the public and the news media about it.
Now that the committee has adopted the 14 articles of impeachment, the full House will consider the articles.
Shott said he and Judiciary Vice Chairman Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, likely will present the articles to the House with assistance from Judicary Committee attorneys.
If a majority of the elected members of the House, or 51 delegates, votes to adopt any or all of the articles of impeachment, the process advances to the Senate.
In the Senate, two-thirds of the elected members, or 23 senators, have to vote to adopt any or all of the articles of impeachment.
If that threshold is met, the Senate will be responsible for facilitating an impeachment trial to determine if those charged in the articles of impeachment are guilty of the impeachable offenses.
Then, if the Senate, by another two-thirds majority, determines that any or all of the justices committed the impeachable offenses, the “guilty” justices would be removed from the bench and banned from ever seeking public office again in West Virginia.
The eighth day of the committee’s meetings regarding possible impeachment produced the first material results when 14 articles of impeachment were introduced at 9:25 a.m.
By the time the committee adjourned at 6:15 p.m., its members had added two new articles to their draft and rejected two of the original proposed articles, advancing the possibility of impeachment for the majority of the elected officials in the Mountain State’s judicial branch of government.
“It’s a sad day, and it certainly isn’t a cause for celebration,” Judiciary Chairman John Shott, R-Mercer, said Tuesday as the articles were distributed to the 24 committee members present in the House chamber.
Those articles will now advance to the full House of Delegates for consideration. Speaker Pro Tempore John Overington, R-Berkeley, said Tuesday he called for the House to reconvene at 10 a.m. Monday.
The articles serve as formal charges or accusations that the justices committed one of the impeachable offenses listed in Section 9, Article 4 of the West Virginia Constitution.
The articles of impeachment charge Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justices Robin Davis, Allen Loughry and Beth Walker with maladministration, corruption, incompetency, neglect of duty and certain high crimes.
In total, Loughry is the subject of eight articles of impeachment. Workman and Davis each are the subject of four and Walker is the subject of two.
Former justice Menis Ketchum was not a subject of impeachment because he resigned from the bench last month.
Some of the articles charge more than one justice at a time with a given impeachable offense.
Each justice is charged with “unnecessary and lavish” spending of state taxpayer dollars to renovate their offices in the East Wing of the Capitol. All four of them also are charged with failing to develop and maintain court policies regarding the use of state resources, including cars, computers and funds in general.
Loughry faces additional charges related to his alleged use of state vehicles for personal travel, having state furniture and computers in his home, having personal photos, documents, photos and artwork framed on the state’s dime, and handing down an administrative order authorizing payments of senior status judges in excess of what is allowable in state law.
Davis and Workman are charged with signing documents authorizing that senior status judges be paid in excess of what’s allowable in state law.
One article against Walker, charging her with using state money to pay an outside attorney to author an opinion in 2017, was rejected by the committee in a 14-9 vote. The outside attorney in that matter was Barbara Allen, currently the interim Supreme Court administrator, who wasn’t employed with the court at the time she wrote the opinion, said Marsha Kauffman, attorney for the Judiciary Committee.
The committee also rejected an article against Workman that charged her with facilitating the hiring of a contracted employee to do IT work for the court as a political favor.
After early morning arguments about whether Republican members of the committee gave Democrat members enough notice that the articles would be presented Tuesday, the committee began its consideration of whether to adopt the articles at 1 p.m.
The committee’s questions regarding the articles mostly dealt with clarifying certain points of evidence and whether certain actions violated court policies or state law.
Committee members spent the most time debating Article 7, which charges Loughry with “unnecessary and lavish spending” on renovations to his office. The committee approved articles regarding such spending on renovations against all of the justices.
The debate about Article 7 first included an amendment from Judiciary Minority Chairwoman Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, who proposed adding language that additionally charged Loughry with lying to lawmakers in January in an attempt to deceive them regarding his knowledge of, and involvement in, renovations to his office.
The committee eventually rejected Fleischauer’s amendment and instead made the amendment into a separate charge, establishing the 15th article of impeachment.
When the committee debated the actual amendment, the debate steered into whether adopting articles against the justices on the matter of the cost of renovations was overstepping the boundaries of the committee’s charge.
Those who spoke against the article argued that the matter of whether Supreme Court justices misused their funds should be judged by West Virginia voters, who will have the chance to vote in November on a constitutional amendment to give the Legislature more control over the Supreme Court’s budget.
Those who spoke in support of the article said it was the duty of those elected to the Legislature to hold the other branches accountable through basic checks and balances written in the constitution, and voters additionally would serve their own checks and balances with their vote in November.
Delegate Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, also suggested the nature of grouping all of the justices into one set of articles of impeachment appeared to be an attempt to allow Republican Gov. Jim Justice an opportunity to appoint four of the five Supreme Court justices for at least two years on the bench.
Pushkin originally drafted a resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings in February. At the time, Senate President Mitch Carmichael said it was a political stunt, and the resolution didn’t gain traction.
“Now, I see an effort to capitalize on this entire affair by taking out an entire branch of government and replacing it through appointments,” Pushkin said.
Fleischauer said the way the articles of impeachment were drafted against all sitting justices at once gave her the appearance of an attempted “coup” to let the governor appoint the court.
Shott denied that was the case.
“We said this to our committee when we started, this was a no-win situation,” Shott said. “Especially in an election year, there’s going to be people who will spin it however it creates the most advantage to them. That’s just part of the process.”
Under state law, if a justice has more than two years left in his or her term and leaves or is removed from office 84 days prior to a general election, the governor appoints an interim justice, and voters pick a new justice during the general election.
Eighty-four days before this year’s general election is Aug. 14.
If a justice with more than two years left in a term leaves office or is removed after Aug. 14, the governor still appoints an interim justice, but the special election to replace the justice would be in May 2020.
All of the sitting justices have at least two years left in their terms.
Workman’s term is set to expire in 2020. Loughry’s and Davis’ terms are set to expire in 2024 and Walker’s will expire in 2028.
Justice already called a special election for Nov. 6, to allow voters to select who will fill the vacancy left by Ketchum’s resignation.
To date, the articles of impeachment are the only charges faced by Workman, Davis and Walker.
Ketchum was not subject to any of the articles of impeachment. His resignation last month meant he couldn’t be impeached under the procedures established by the Judiciary Committee.
Ketchum agreed to plead guilty to one count of federal wire fraud, according to a plea agreement announced by U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart last week.
Loughry is the subject of a 23-count federal indictment charging him with 16 counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, three counts of making false statements to a federal agent, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of witness tampering.
The first indictment against Loughry was handed up on June 19, and a federal grand jury handed up a superseding indictment against him in July.
Loughry is out of jail on a personal recognizance bond, and his trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 2.
Loughry has been suspended from the bench without pay since June 8.
On June 6, the West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission charged Loughry with 32 counts of violating the state’s Code of Judicial Conduct by misusing the state-owned cars, computers and furniture and lying to lawmakers, the public and the news media about it.
Now that the committee has adopted the 14 articles of impeachment, the full House will consider the articles.
Shott said he and Judiciary Vice Chairman Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, likely will present the articles to the House with assistance from Judicary Committee attorneys.
If a majority of the elected members of the House, or 51 delegates, votes to adopt any or all of the articles of impeachment, the process advances to the Senate.
In the Senate, two-thirds of the elected members, or 23 senators, have to vote to adopt any or all of the articles of impeachment.
If that threshold is met, the Senate will be responsible for facilitating an impeachment trial to determine if those charged in the articles of impeachment are guilty of the impeachable offenses.
Then, if the Senate, by another two-thirds majority, determines that any or all of the justices committed the impeachable offenses, the “guilty” justices would be removed from the bench and banned from ever seeking public office again in West Virginia.