LukeinNE

If I understand you correctly, this is the same point I made earlier: the bigger concern are the corporate/union political action committees and nonprofit political groups flooding the airwaves with millions in political ad spending. Where we differ is that you want "every single dollar accounted for and disclosed" and I think exemptions should be granted to lower donation levels.

The crimes weren't possible without that information? You're moving the goalposts a bit with your figures. That said, the sort of neighbor who would poison a dog wouldn't need to peruse a donor roll to find a reason to commit a crime. Putting aside the hate crimes against churches, and targeting of people with yard signs and the like, how else would Prop 8 supporters know who to target? As for the money goalposts, I'll add the zero and make the same point: I think the public's interest in knowing whether their neighbor was responsible for .001% ($5,000/ the est $40m Prop 8 raised), of a political campaign is outweighed by the possibility of somebody doing something bad to that neighbor in retaliation. I don't disagree about the character of people who do such things, and that again is my point: there are a lot of nasty people out there, and I don't think it's wise to give them an excuse to do something stupid.

I think every single dollar should be accounted for and disclosed. Many/most of the complaints in your Heritage link spring from actions that are illegal anyways. Freedom of speech (or in this case, freedom to influence politics with money, I happen to disagree about whether that constitutes speech) does not mean freedom from criticism. Those donors need to have the courage of their convictions. That criminal activity took place is the point. The availability of that financial information made the commission of many of those crimes possible. On those grounds, we restrict all sorts of information(varies by state): the identity of jurors, trade secrets, gun registration, voter registration, and so on. On balance, I think the public's interest in knowing what political cause their neighbor gave $500 to is outweighed by the possibility that citizen John Smith might be motivated to poison his neighbor's dog because his neighbor gave money to the wrong cause.

The political history of the American South is fascinating and naturally, neither party's rhetoric on it is all that close to accurate. Truman, JFK, and for a time LBJ, did all sorts of gymnastics to try to keep the South in line while trying to accommodate their northern liberal (and black) factions. Very interestingly, the plantation class in the South were mostly Whigs, not Democrats, prior to the Civil War.

I feel like this last season in particular began to struggle (maybe deliberately to buy the fat man more time to write the books) with the sheer breadth of everything that was going on. The most obvious example was the very entertaining but odd episode that was the Battle of Castle Black and nothing else. 10% of the season devoted to that alone, and all that happened plot-wise was fighting, a couple notable characters dying and "well we're still here, but there's still 100,000 wildlings outside!"

Not bad and not far from my expectations. I do like our team better than Iowa and Wisconsin, our two main challengers this year. The schedule (going on the road to both) does us no favors, though. I won't say surprised, but I will be very pleased if we win the West this year.

There's the rub. The language I've seen just talks about "reasonable limits" that Congress can place on campaign money. "Reasonable" means whatever an ideologically driven Congress can ram through at an opportune moment. I hated the out of state flooding of our airwaves this spring as much as anyone, but on something like this, the winners make the rules, which will inevitably help the winners remain the winners. I'm more than willing to look at a proposal to curb election buying by third parties, but I'd need assurances that I wouldn't be assisting in, say, shutting down Republican-friendly Wall Street money (which, by the way, is far more bipartisan than most realize) while leaving unions unchecked. We should ignore limits for the morning and focus on mandatory disclosure laws. That used to be an area of agreement . . . I can agree to that provided there's a fairly high ceiling (maybe $5000 or so) under which individuals and businesses don't have to be disclosed. The post-Prop 8 experience soured a lot of conservatives on disclosure laws. While I don't agree with them on the substance of Prop 8, for small, individual donors, I don't think political preferences should be organized into a spreadsheet-form political hit list because of campaign finance laws.

Definitely going to Northwestern, and I'm going to try to make it to either Wisconsin or Michigan State.

There's the rub. The language I've seen just talks about "reasonable limits" that Congress can place on campaign money. "Reasonable" means whatever an ideologically driven Congress can ram through at an opportune moment. I hated the out of state flooding of our airwaves this spring as much as anyone, but on something like this, the winners make the rules, which will inevitably help the winners remain the winners. I'm more than willing to look at a proposal to curb election buying by third parties, but I'd need assurances that I wouldn't be assisting in, say, shutting down Republican-friendly Wall Street money (which, by the way, is far more bipartisan than most realize) while leaving unions unchecked.

(OT) Does HB have its own version of the Wikipedia Hitler Game with abortion? On the topic of whether young voters tend to become more conservative as they age, I went through Presidential election exit poll data dating back to 1952, noted the Democratic or (Republican) margin among those voters, then compared that to the general election popular vote margin and came up with a final number of how much more Democratic or (Republican) the young electorate (under 30) was than the general electorate. Results: 1952: 13 1956: 1 1960: 8 1964: 6 1968: 10 1972: 19 1976: 6 1980: 11 1984 (4) 1988: 2 1992: 7 1996: 11 2000: 0 2004: 15 2008: 27 2012: 20 In short, while it has ebbed and flowed, young voters, have nearly always been significantly to the left of the American electorate as a whole, and if they had stayed there as they aged, we'd have a very different-looking political system today.

Short answer: I don't think so. Certain changes are absolutely going to happen, particularly the Religious Right and social conservatism are going to continue to lose influence (and that's great for religion, America, and the Republican Party), but that doesn't mean conservatism generally is going to be history. Ever since World War II, once a party wins two presidential elections in a row, people start breathlessly wondering "does this mean a permanent _____________ majority?!" only to have that party lose 4 or 8 years later. Looking to the future, here's my data-based rebuttal, courtesy of Pew. The two youngest groups they found (representing roughly 1 in 4 registered voters) were the Young Outsiders and the Next Generation Left. While one leans Republican and the other Democrat, they have some interesting convergences: In favor of Gay Marriage: YO: 68% NGL: 78% General Population: 54% Steadfast Conservatives: 12% In favor of legalized abortion: YO: 58% NGL: 71% GP: 51% SC: 24% So, the next generation of voters are well to the left of present day consensus on social issues. Role of Government/Aid to poor: Government is doing too much: YO: 66% NGL: 50% GP: 51% Strong Liberals: 20% Government can't afford to do more to help the needy: YO: 76% NGL: 56% GP: 51% SL: 12% People are poor due to lack of effort: YO: 56% NGL: 42% GP: 39% SL: 9% Most can get ahead if willing to work hard: YO: 76% NGL: 77% GP: 65% SL: 29% In short, not only is the future base of the Democratic Party to the right of 'solid liberals' on the proper role of government, it's to the right of the American people generally. Speculation: the Millennial Generation is possibly the most individualistic generation to live in this highly individualistic country. Individualism is a sword that cuts both ways: libertarian positions on moral issues that thrill the American left now will madden them in other areas as smaller government types start to play a larger role in the Democratic Party. Edit - Added in the responses from 'Steadfast Conservatives' and 'Solid Liberals' to underline the divides between the current and future party bases.

I'm an accountant, not a finance person, so my limited understanding of the markets is mostly rooted in nuts and bolts. I think the fact that the markets have vastly outperformed actual economic growth is something of a concern, though a lot of that disparity is simply that the market was massively undervalued in the wake of the 2008 and 2009 crashes (Warren Buffett Rule: Be scared when everyone else is greedy and be greedy when everyone else is scared). The cause for concern (imo) is that the Federal Reserve has made money so cheap, traditional savings is borderline pointless, and that's inflated stock values. Nothing to get too excited over, though. An imperfect but quick measure would be to look at the S&P's price/EPS ratio. Right now we're just under 20. Historically, that's on the high side and indicates we're due for a correction, and I think that's likely. I wouldn't get too excited about a bubble bursting, but I think we'll see a significant downturn sooner rather than later.

Uh, what? If there's no damage to the people of the town, just send the letter expressing your sorrow for the person that was killed and emphasize the usual stuff about emphasis on safety and whatnot. Including token compensation puts a value on things and then you get into trouble. Tone-wise, this is about as bad as BP's Snidely Whiplash CEO after the Gulf mess.

With all due respect to Vox, I think this article they linked to did a better job of explaining it. At least it did for me.

On border security, Israel may be a good place to look: That's a reduction in illegal crossings of over 99%. There are factors that would make our task a little trickier, namely heavily populated areas that at times are split by the border, and the border being almost 8 times larger than the Israeli-Egypt border, but I do think it's evidence that border barriers do have an effect, and that we can do better.

About the only issue I see this as addressing would be voting rights for convicted felons, which I do not support until their debt to society is paid. To be clear, I support a national voter ID law provided that, as others have said, they are free and readily available from the government. I think the lack of ID issue is fairly narrow (as you implied, you can't do a damned thing in this country without one) and nearly everyone has some form of ID, but again, I wouldn't want to disenfranchise people who have a legitimate right to vote.

1. (Term limits) We've had this discussion in the other thread. 2. (17th Amendment): I'm not sure how this would help, other than delay political power shifts for one term (the 2010 GOP wave wouldn't have been felt by the Democrats until 2012 and 2014). 3. (Congress overruling Judiciary) There's already a check on Judicial power: impeachment. With the exception of the Warren Court, I think Supreme Courts have been pretty good at avoiding settling political disputes. 4. (Taxes and Spending): A couple of problems here. One, the limits on taxes and spending settles a political question in a decidedly conservative direction. Two, a BBA is a really, really terrible idea from an economic perspective. 5. (Reign in regulations) Good ideas, maybe a little aggressive on timeline. 6. (Reign in Commerce Clause) Agreed again. 7. (Federal eminent domain) I could be wrong but I could see this potentially causing some logistical issues. 8. (Let the states alone amend the Constitution) Absolutely not. It is hard to amend for a reason: The Constitution is the legal framework that all of us, regardless of how liberal or conservative, can agree to work within. Lower the threshold, and political questions start getting amended into the Constitution, rather than issues that society by consensus has agreed needs to be in there. 9. (States override federal government): Again, no. I'm pretty pro-states rights, but there are certain issues, national defense above all else, where the federal government must have absolute supremacy. 10. (Voter ID) Again, this is a political question. I think it's a sensible policy, but it's transparently a conservative hobbyhorse and that kind of undermines the seriousness of the proposal.

I enjoy Volokh. I do take issue with: Because (at least to me) if you're going to incorporate in order to receive the legal benefits of incorporation, with the primary aim of making money, you should fall under public accommodation and anti-discrimination laws. But this: If it only applies to individuals or explicitly religious non-profits, that's fine. But the idea that if a for-profit corporation doesn't want to pay for this or that legally mandated thing, it can just shove the cost right back to the government, is wrong. I frankly dislike the contraception mandate (if you don't think your birth control is anyone's business, stop demanding that other people pay for it), but it is the law. Laws by definition aren't optional, and if you want to be protected by them, you have to follow them.

The House conclusion unsurprisingly put a lot of emphasis on Administration failures, I'll skip that one. Senate: -No protests in the area prior to the attack. -Attackers included members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. State: "The review, however, concluded that no protest took place before the attack." Administration Talking Points Email in wake of attack: “To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.” Administration meetings to influence CIA's talking points on the attack: That's really my only point. After the attack, the Obama Administration pretty clearly tried to de-emphasize the possibility of terrorism on 9/11. They played politics with it and that left a bad taste in my mouth.

What's the surest way to win a primary in a red state? What's the surest way to win a primary in a blue state? Plus if you're term limited out why not just give the richest job offer-er exactly what he or she wants? You don't really have to worry about public opinion at that point. Political campaigns have been about: "if the other side wins, the world ends" since time immemorial. I'm less concerned with rhetoric than I am action. The other question frankly has more to do with ethics reform, in my view. A probably more important, but separate question.

I think that viability is my touchstone as well. So somewhere between 22 weeks and birth. Carl and Luke: Are you stating that life begins at Viability or the place where abortion should not be allowed or both? The same as Carl. On the subject of when a human life begins....I'm agnostic. And I don't support laws regulating questions that I don't know the answer to.

I come at it from the other way. Term limits = less to lose = more prone to govern responsibly.

I would caution against taking the word of a terrorist in the interest of defending the Obama Administration. His statement flies in the face of the conclusions drawn by House, Senate, and State Department investigations. There was no spontaneous protest outside the compound, the attack was pre-planned, Al Qaeda was involved, and the video had little, if anything, to do with it. My bad, I forgot about Scott Brown. A few points, though. One, he campaigned on stopping the health care law and won....in Massachusetts (perhaps that particular bout of obstruction was in line with the wishes of the American people?). Two, the Democrats thoroughly deserved losing the precious time they did in between Kennedy's death and his replacement's appointment. Third, (minor correction to an earlier point of mine), one minority member must vote to let a bill out of committee, which happened with ObamaCare, the stimulus, etc, so let's not overstate the degree of obstructionism, and finally, ObamaCare was an enormous miscalculation on Obama's part. There are many things wrong with its legislative journey, including (for the sake of this issue) eating up the Democrats' precious time with an overwhelming majority.

It is a false equivalence because you incorrectly compared a zygote (genetically unique and complete). A skin cell is not genetically unique from the parent. A gamete cell is not genetically complete. Your science is bad for the same reason. It is a red herring because the examples you bring up are irrelevant to my argument. Finally it is a straw man because you are attempting to rebut an argument that I did not make (zygote = human being to be protected by law) and ignoring the argument that I did make (such a status can and should apply to viable fetuses).

RE: Republican obstructionism. Layup rebuttal guys: The Democrats had a massive House majority and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for most of two years (Al Franken provided vote 60 starting July 7, 2009). I don't approve of the GOP's tactics as the minority party by and large, but good lord. The Republicans could not stop anything by themselves in either chamber. That Obama, Reid, and Pelosi couldn't hold their people in line with the discipline required to enact his agenda is their failing, and to blame it on the GOP is intellectually lazy partisanship. Eh. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 pre-dates Reagan. Fannie Mae goes all the way back to the New Deal. Give me enough time, and I could probably find a cited example of at least a little culpability in the 2008 crash from FDR to Bush. I don't particularly care about scoring political points, I just wanted to emphasize it was a team effort. I wouldn't blink if the idea came from the White House, but there's no evidence of that, and if it did, that sounds like a classic case of "Chief of Staff will 'take care' of the issue and the president doesn't need or want to know." At most, Benghazi will be a minor problem for Clinton in 2016. The only issue for me was the disinformation campaign the White House went on for a couple weeks afterward. It was unnecessary and left a bad taste in my mouth, but almost certainly no criminal negligence or whatever was alleged. It's hard to keep all our State Dept assets safe. F&F to me seemed like an ambitious idea that went wrong. I frequently complain about the government responding weakly (or not responding at all) to problems. I won't go too hard on them when they were trying something creative and it just didn't work. The rising or shrinking deficit is largely a reflection of the economy writ large. He and Bush exploded federal discretionary spending and both put expensive new entitlements into place, so they deserve some blame for the deficit. That said, I'd be remiss if I didn't note the most productive episode of Congressional dysfunction in American history (sequester) happened on Obama's watch.