US POLITICS election/post-election edition: your country will improve immediately.

Speaking of distractions, anyone pay attention to the video game case before SCOTUS today?

My reading was that it was yet another boomer, having benefited from the above, griping about having to pay for the same for current generations.

either that or its an argument for decimating the over 50s.

this was lol worthy:

But Justice Scalia said there was nothing in the tradition of American free speech that would allow the government to ban depictions of violence. The thought, he said, would have been foreign to the drafters of the First Amendment, drawing a needling comment from Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the lone dissenter in the Stevens case.

“What Justice Scalia wants to know,” Justice Alito said, “is what James Madision thought about video games.”

“No,” Justice Scalia responded, “I want to know what James Madison thought about violence.”

And:

Justice Elena Kagan, the court’s newest and youngest member, seemed to be the only justice with even a passing familiarity with the genre under review, even if it was second-hand.

“You think Mortal Kombat is prohibited by this statute?” she asked Mr. Morazzini. It is, she added, “an iconic game which I am sure half the clerks who work for us spent considerable time in their adolescence playing.”

xp there was a decent article about the case in (i think) Game Informer a month or two ago. this is basically about whether to federally mandate age restrictions on rated M video games, right?

It's better than arguing about whether to vote D or 'punish them' again!

― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, November 2, 2010 8:44 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

please excuse me for turning the cynical chatter to an attempt to actually discuss why the D's are about to lose

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/today-is-the-day_b_777560.html

The final ABC/Washington Post poll shows that, among registered voters, people still say they prefer the Democrats over the Republicans by 5 percentage points. It's only when the pollsters ask "likely voters" who they want that the Republicans come out ahead by a few points.

So it's clear the majority of voters want the Dems, but the prediction is the Republicans will win because Dem voters are going to stay home.

i know this is quite sad of me to say but kagan is kind of justifying her seat right there

What article is that from, Alfred?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/03scotus.html?_r=1&hp

but I'm glad you're all concerned about the last principled senator getting bounced by a flood of newly unleashed corporate cash

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 20:47 (29 minutes ago)

I'm confused by your reverence for Feingold above all others.

Michael Moore?!

So it's clear the majority of voters want the Dems, but the prediction is the Republicans will win because Dem voters are going to stay home.

which raises the question, how much of a "want" is it if you stay home (because your preferred party has chosen to do jackshit for you whenever possible)?

I'm confused by your reverence for Feingold above all others.

Name the senators who voted against the USA PATRIOT Act.

but Morbs that was a long time ago and besides, there was public pressure

only one to vote nay at the time, a few more voted nay on the re-up

Actually, if the Tea Party was as principled as it pretends, it would have acknowledged how independent Feingold's been his whole career.

haha nice quote from Kagan AND nice quote from Scalito

also, all of those senators are still in office

Here's a case where Scalia will vote with the liberals. Actually, this is the kind of case that screws with ideology and depends entirely on one's interpretation of the First Amendment.

Assuming Harry Reid loses (I won't miss him a bit), who will be the new majority/minority leader? Schumer? Levin?

Schumer is angling for it, alas.

Schumer vs Durbin

only one to vote nay at the time, a few more voted nay on the re-up

right but...I mean...it's not like it was a secret that the patriot act was bullshit -- the ones who voted "yea": what do you imagine motivated that bullshit vote?

yeah my money would be on schumer probably. Reid is terrible but Angle will be so much worse (albeit less powerful)

on the plus side she will be first Asian legislator in the Senate

aero did you live in this country in 2001?

all the votes for the patriot act and the iraq invasion are unforgiveable sins imho

I would like to know why Wellstone voted for it.

closet fascist

not making any defense of the act itself, but the idea that it was bullshit on its face would have been a very rare opinion in those days

xp wellstone 'put a suit on' as you'll all recall...

on the forgiveness scale:

Iraq War >>>>>> Patriot Act

i owed my prior job to the Patriot Act ... just sayin'

aero did you live in this country in 2001?

yeah I did. there were millions of people writing their elected representatives to urge opposition to USA Patriot. the notion that nobody could have voted against it and survived politically is total bullshit of the make-excuses-for-asshole-voting-records variety. that shit was a stake through the heart of democracy and "but the political climate!" is the best you can muster? please.

ok, here's another question, can you tell the difference between explaining behavior and excusing it? why the patriot act sailed through congress in october of 2001 seems as obvious a political question as there has ever been

Wellstone also voted for DOMA.

I'd like a citation on the "millions" of letters.

"they had to vote for it...otherwise they risked getting reelected!" well ok yeah with reelection on the table I can see how erasing several centuries of settled constitutional law via congressional fiat would be totally understandable

xp yeah that explains it, all right...what remains inexplicable is how one could support any politician whose values & ethics are so clearly not just flexible but completely on the block depending on how the winds of reelection are blowing

Dammit, all these Brangelina pix coming up in my GIS for "Mr. Smith".

can you tell the difference between explaining behavior and excusing it? why the patriot act sailed through congress in october of 2001 seems as obvious a political question as there has ever been

I was about to say: from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the Espionage Act to Truman's loyalty oaths, American history is replete with assaults on free speech after a good scare. I totally understand why these guys voted for it.

The Iraq war vote certainly makes less sense.

aero i don't think many of those dems were (mostly) afraid of not getting reelected, i think the lion's share of them, or the overwhelming number of their constituents, were really and genuinely afraid of being killed by arabs and wanted Someone to Do Something.

Yes. This was the time when the entire Congress recited the Pledge on the steps of the Capitol, remember?

cryingeagle.gif

radical orgs like the american booksellers association were coordinating letter-writing campaigns

over 200 individual municipalities protested it, and this is well-documented

the idea that the political climate of post-9/11 excuses, explains, or otherwise justifies support for the total undermining of basic liberties assured by the constitution is ridiculous -- if these guys were suffering post-attack shock they might have maybe used their brains and said, jeez, you don't go fucking up 200 years of settled law just because your feeling of immunity from attack took a hit? like, otherwise, we're basically saying "the difference between our elected officials and some random hysterical asshole is...our elected officials ran for office"

honestly 99% of the actions of our elected officials immediately following 9/11 made me embarassed/ashamed for our country

You overrate the intelligence of your average legislator.

lol not any more I don't!

yes i am basically saying that

and again: we know from russ feingold that it didn't take some fuckin' einstein/superman hybrid to oppose this shit. it just took the teeniest tiniest bit of spine.

I'm confused by your reverence for Feingold above all others.

Name the senators who voted against the USA PATRIOT Act.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, November 2, 2010 9:25 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

Bernie Sanders voted against it as a congressman and surely would have as a Senator.

Yes. This was the time when the entire Congress recited the Pledge on the steps of the Capitol, remember?

― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 2, 2010 9:50 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

god, so much crazy shit that is easy to forget.

Apparently also easy to forget just how scaredy-cat your average U.S. citizen was immediately thereafter.