Reading Charles Krauthammer is a little bit like a more sophisticated form of nutpicking, but we’re probably going to hear more like this:
Open the floodgates, and let the monies, big and small, check and balance each other. And let transparency be the safeguard against corruption. As long as you know who is giving what to whom, you can look for, find and, if necessary, prosecute corrupt connections between donor and receiver.
This used to be my position. No longer. I had not foreseen how donor lists would be used not to ferret out corruption but to pursue and persecute citizens with contrary views. Which corrupts the very idea of full disclosure.
It is now an invitation to the creation of enemies lists. Containing, for example,Brendan Eich, forced to resign as Mozilla CEO when it was disclosed that six years earlier he’d given $1,000 to support a referendum banning gay marriage. He was hardly the first. Activists compiled blacklists of donors to Proposition 8 and went after them. Indeed, shortly after the referendum passed, both the artistic director of the California Musical Theatre in Sacramento and the president of the Los Angeles Film Festival were hounded out of office.
The Will/Krauthammer justification for unlimited campaign contributions is that it is free speech protected by the Constitution, and it’s just a happy coincidence that the political party they back has more money to spend on political donations. Now that they’ve installed a Supreme Court that agrees with them, they’re trying to turn the reasonable consequences of free speech into some form of persecution. Perhaps this will be considered stereotyping on my part, but I’m just guessing that non-profits like musical theaters and film festivals derive a more-than-average amount of their donations from gay patrons and their friends. If the artistic director of one of those places were to be photographed holding a “God Hates Fags” sign, they’d no doubt lose their job, because their protest would enrage their donor base. I’m sure Krauthammer et. al. would cry and moan about the unjustness of it all, but they would also question the judgment of someone with that job making that protest. If campaign spending is really free speech, why is it a tragedy when the same ugly sentiment, expressed with a check rather than a sign, produces the same predictable result?
(via Kevin Drum)
Baud
Yes, he did foresee. This push to end disclosure laws was obvious years ago.
terraformer
It never occurs to them that people being against something they said or did equates to free speech; indeed, this even when it is a solid example of the free market in action (i.e., people make their own decisions to go elsewhere), what they say they worship.
J.D. Rhoades
I actually heard an otherwise intelligent person argue the other day that if what happened to Eich was acceptable, then we owe the people responsible for the Hollywood blacklist an apology.
Mnemosyne
@Baud:
He didn’t foresee that the donor lists would be used against conservatives. He thought they would only be used to persecute liberals and their fellow travelers.
IOW, it’s the same old, same old Republican complaint: How dare you use the rules we set up against us!
JPL
Medical marijuana was up for a vote recently in GA and those who killed the bill were taking money from big pharma. Of course there was no connection,so we don’t need no transparency. link
scav
Free Speech Demands the Privacy of Speachifying while wearing Hoods!
footnote: Especially if the hoods are gold-plated, red-beanied and/or especially pointy. Hoodies are not covered by such protections, it goes without saying.
ETA: and these same clowns will turn round and bemoan the demise of a program of infiltrating and spying on every Muslim coffeeshop, college meeting or mosque in and around NYC.
Ash Can
Krauthammer, run through the “honesty” translator.
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
Disagree. They were always going after disclosure rules. First, contribution limits, next disclosure rules.
Mike in NC
Another day, another sad tale of right-wing persecution. Poor babies.
D58826
And Faux news is now in a lather about the WAR ON EASTER!!!!!
A tea party group is planning to occupy Washington on May 16th to demand that the Kenyan be removed from office, If they don’t get satisfaction thru peaceful means they will resort to other tactics.
The common thread in all of this is if my opinion is not carried out then my freedom is denied. If your opinion is ignored then that’s the price of free speech since we can’t all have our way. Rather one sided it seems
maya
If I had a Krauthammer,
I’d wing it in the mo aw awrn ing
Baud
@D58826:
I can’t believe they are trying to resurrect that story.
Mike G
Kraut Hammer is pissed because his born-to-rule crowd is supposed to judge everyone else. The little people being able to judge them over their funding of self-serving toxic politics is unacceptable.
Chris
Oh, dear. Oh noes. CONSEQUENCES for free speech? Perish the thought.
What’s next, anonymity for people who write columns in major newspapers so their readers can’t leave messages forcefully disagreeing in the comments section?
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: Krauthammer, like all maggots who call themselves “conservative”, is projecting.
The sooner he’s crushed beneath an 18 wheeler, the better.
Chris
Um, once you’ve made it okay to buy and sell politicians because Free Speech, the idea of “prosecuting corruption” is pretty much a nonstarter. You just legalized it.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav:
DING DING DING DING DING
Krauthammer seems to forget (as do guys like Scalia and Tancredo) that not all that long ago they were among the ones the guys in the hoods were coming after, not just the blahs.
scav
Can’t have the rabble, the mere hoi polloi dictating what majority opinion is.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris: Please not to throw unassailable logic in the face of fascist shitstains.
Thanks.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: The serfs. The peasants. The proles. The mob. The Sans-culottes.
Talentless Hack
http://xkcd.org/1357/
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
And now Herman Cain and Allen West aspire to follow in their footsteps. Everything old is new again.
Kyle
@Chris:
And the law in its majesty prohibits both rich and poor from sleeping under bridges. So it’s all balanced.
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826: There’s a war on Easter now? What, are people taking bunnies and peeps hostages and demanding a higher grade of chocolate?
It always strikes me as hilarious that Judas is hated, but he made the Resurrection possible through his actions. Also, too, the Jews. Without that event, Jesus would have been just another Rabbi that got in the way of the long arm of Roman law. Isn’t the Resurrection what makes Jesus so special, that gives him that ILM seal of approval for performing a serious miracle and making the mythical afterlife available to all at popular prices?
Of course, these are the same people who actively ignore most of Jesus’ teachings, so what else can you expect?
Schlemizel
Obviously Kraphammer is setting up the solution for his problem in the way he is framing the issue. Its not the money its the transparency that is the problem. We simply HAVE to keep donor lists private then there would be no problem and the big money & little money will balance out like he said.
BGinCHI
The nauseating pattern is this: the right makes an argument (or more commonly, an “argument”) then the left pulls it apart because it is not really based on anything truthful or logical or both.
They have no arguments. They only have money and power.
For now.
Mnemosyne
@Talentless Hack:
As usual, the extra text that appears when you hover over the cartoon really makes it.
Villago Delenda Est
@terraformer: They say they worship the free market, but in the real world, they hate it with the intensity of 1000 burning suns.
Kyle
@BGinCHI:
All the right’s arguments are based in the notion that only the “right people” get to do the things they are demanding. One rule for them, and another for the rest of us.
Higgs Boson's Mate
From Watergate, to Iran-Contra, to torture and unrestrained rendition under the G.W. Bush administration, the conservatives have eluded any significant consequences for their worst actions. It’s been going on for so long that they now seem to believe that nothing they do should have consequences. That freedom is not to be extended to non-conservatives.
? Martin
OpEds in the WaPo are not nutpicking.
And since political giving is speech now, how is this new form of speech more deserving of protection than the speech of the people targeted by that giving calling for their resignation?
Oh right, he was rich and we aren’t, therefore his speech is more protected than ours.
Talentless Hack
Open the floodgates, and let the monies, big and small, bla bla bla.
This used to be my position. No longer. I had not foreseen how donor lists would make it easy to identify assholes – and make no mistake, we are a bunch of assholes – and punish them. Which corrupts the very idea of full disclosure, which was so we could identify those right-minded people on our side and reward them accordingly.
It is now an invitation to the creation of enemies lists, not only those that serve conservative assholes like us, but liberals as well. People are figuring out that the First Amendment only prohibits government from cracking down on undesirable speech, not individuals, and certainly not liberals. So full disclosure has to go.
/FIFY, Mr. Krauthammer, you asshole.
different-church-lady
Is there anything you get right, ever?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
This reminds me of something very similar that happened in the 90’s.
When cell phones first came into use, the landline telephone companies demanded that calls originating on cell phones to landline phones be paid for by the cell phone companies, as the cell phone companies were using land line infrastructure, that they were not paying for, to complete the calls.
Very well, said the FCC. You’re allowed to bill the cell phone companies for the use of your facilities.
Fast forward a few years, to the period where modem access to the internet was at its height. ISPs set up their own local exchanges to handle the calls coming in from the landline telephone providers and demanded the same payments from the landline telephone companies because calls coming into the ISP were originating on the landline network.
The landline phone companies objected strenuously! That is ridiculous!.
No, said a judge. It’s the same thing. You guys wanted this rule when it benefited you, now your balking when you have to pony up. Too bad, assholes. Pay up.
Anoniminous
For Krauthammer and etc. “Free Speech” = “Do what I say.”
Scotius
This whole Brendan Eich thing has totally broken their minds hasn’t it? It probably never occurred to them in their wildest dreams that a well off powerful person could be made to pay for his actions and be held accountable.
Mandalay
A Yale law professor has an interesting suggestion:
Bobby Thomson
Hammer of the krauts is just stating the obvious. The poors aren’t entitled to free speech, which has to be costless for the rich.
Another Holocene Human
Mister, don’t look for consistency. Hammer of the Kraut’s one principle is “Heads I win, tails you lose.”
smintheus
Campaign donations that are sheltered as anonymous and untraceable cannot also be treated as free speech, just as a crank call is not free speech.
Ruckus
@Scotius:
And worse, not by the government which they could yell about and get support, but by the people who paid him, in effect themselves.
Some of their own, doing the proper thing. Can’t have that.
J.Ty
@Villago Delenda Est: there’s a Borges story about that you know. “three versions of judas.”
Another Holocene Human
@terraformer: Free speech was never intended for shrill, impertinent rabble like you.
Another Holocene Human
@J.D. Rhoades: Dipshit “tu quoque” (as in, one of these things is not like the others, but I’m going to say it is, because SHUT UP) is one of the favorite logical fallacies of the 101st Chairborne Twitter Tweaker Division.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL:
Hahaha, I’m surprised GA Assoc of Sheriffs and other correctional/law enforcement associations, contractors, and even unions weren’t in on it too.
Actually, wasn’t it a sheriff who testified using Onion articles about Colorado, ironically timed with some pretty prominent alcohol deaths while claiming in front of the lege that people don’t die from alcohol, basically the complete inverse of the truth? I thought that was so precious. Bless his heart.
Another Holocene Human
This is one more reason why elected sheriffs are a dumb idea, as opposed to have an elected board that hires and fires the sheriff. Because you get people with little relevant law enforcement experience or who have experience but sucked at the job but who want power getting to be in charge.
I question the law enforcement bonafides of a sheriff who claims with a straight face that alcohol doesn’t kill people. Now, I know people do drink more aggressively up north where the winters are darker than in the South. But I don’t think the curve is so high that a Georgia cop wouldn’t have seen the ugly things your average Eastern Mass cop has seen: kids choking to death on their own vomit while passed out from alcohol poisoning, drunk passed out kids left to die of exposure in sub freezing weather, college students falling through ceilings while drunk and dying from the fall or bleeding out from cuts, frat boy chugging contests that end with an ambulance and a dead freshman, drinking parties that end with an adult drowned and unrevivable in a pool, and so on, and so on.
trollhattan
Speaking of Uberdouches, this opinionator gets the Cliven Bundy tale exactly right: “Welfare queen in a cowboy hat.”
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/18/6335430/viewpoints-welfare-queen-in-a.html#storylink=cpy
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m surprised the FUNDIES haven’t declared war on Easter for being unbiblical
Here we are blithely taking part in the fertility rites of our ancestors–hell, in English we’re still shouting out Easter/Ostara/Ishtar/Asherah, also could be associated with Hera/Iuno because Asherah and Iuno have sacred groves, and guess what, Maria Maggiore was built on the temple grounds/sacred grove of Iuno and OH GUESS WHAT May Day and the month of May are associated with Mary, yes the fertility rites, May Queen, all of that crap. Ethnic Catholics used to do that shit hardcore until Vatican II/the 60s happened and all those nuns quit and it all stopped. Traditionally the rites of Hera were a no boys allowed club, so wondering if the exodus of nuns is EXACTLY what ended May Day among ethnic Catholics in the US.
When I went to CCD the new orthodoxy was that October is the Month of Mary and the only thing getting a mention in May was Pentacost. Counter Reformation FTW!
But the bunnies and the eggs and the lambs and the donuts and all that jazz are still going strong. “Blah blah agricultural calendar blah blah.”
Really surprised the Fundies haven’t jumped all over this one. It’s an idolatry fest. Did not the Bible command you twice to cut down the groves of Asherah (the asherot)?
Another Holocene Human
@trollhattan: I liked the political cartoon where he’s singing “Oh give me a home, next to land I don’t own…” and ends with his cows destroying said land. It was a very clever filk. Bundy was drawn to look ever so slightly like the political cartoonist’s global cowboy W.
? Martin
@Another Holocene Human: Chocolate bunnies are okay so long as you remember afterward to tell your gay neighbor that he’s an abomination and slut-shame the single mom down the street. Baby steps. We’ll get a chocolate fetus in that basket soon enough.
VOR
The US Constitution says the government may not take action based on your speech. But your fellow citizens are perfectly free to take action when you say something stupid. That action can include criticism, mockery, and even outrage.
So is money now anonymous speech?
Jay C
@Scotius:
More accurately, held accountable for actions THEY approve of (or ideological positions they hold). I would like to read (if someone else would retrieve them, I’m too lazy to Google-dive today) Mr. Krauthammer’s opinions on, say, backlash against outspoken anti-war folks back in 2003: I’m sure his opinions on the adverse consequences of “free speech” were quite different.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Holocene Human: Critical thinking, and logic, are not strong suites in the Fundie intellectual arsenal.
MomSense
@Villago Delenda Est:
If there is a war on Easter why didn’t I get the message?? I’m on day two of cooking.
I blame Obama.
NCSteve
Who could possibly have foreseen this shocking change of mind?
Fuckers aren’t going to stop until they’re riding the tumbrels to the town square.
Iowa Old Lady
I thought the way to fight speech/money was with more speech/money, and the point of disclosure was to make it clear who to fight.
RSA
@Chris:
How can speech be free unless it’s free of consequences? At least, consequences that one doesn’t like. Conservatives want to live in a world full of unicorns.
scav
Even they don’t go overboard on (corporate) Free Speach without consequences. The consequences of saying “Happy Holidays!” are Swift, Faux-Trumpeted! and Righteous!
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
Thus their opposition to disclosures.
Baud
Ayn Randy
This is the party of McCarthy. The fuckin’ PARTY OF MCCARTHY is complaining about being demonized for speech.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
They have an intellectual arsenal? I always thought their tools consisted of a rusty butter knife, a very used heroin spoon and a medium sized box of $100 bills which they didn’t remember who they stole it from.
Another Holocene Human
@MomSense: Of course there’s a war–just look at you, not spending money at national retailers.
In the 50s families JUST HAD TO buy new sets of clothing for all the children to wear to Easter Sunday services? Whence the Easter Sunday run-up clothing sales of yore?
Why do you hate America?
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: Fake quotes, 20th century style. Voltaire never said it, and there was nothing like free speech when and where he lived (France and Prussia before the revolutions).
That’s why Voltaire used satire, in hopes that his head could outrun the blade that the most dull-witted conservative prigs would take to it if they ever caught on….
England had had a revolution a century earlier. Things were quite a bit different there.
Another Holocene Human
Here’s what Voltaire would actually say: “I disagree with what you say, but you’re [snide put-down couched as back-handed compliment I’m calculating that you’re too silly to grasp].”
Candide is nothing more that a series of elaborate and progressively more cutting barbs directed at the intellectual fads of his day. (The 1950s version is an indirect attack on McCarthyism, with some nice misogyny heaped on because why not. Also self-insertion by Bernstein–not Candide, but The Old Woman.)
MomSense
@Another Holocene Human:
I guess my second-hand bonnet just won’t do!
Little Boots
music. music is good.
Iowa Old Lady
@MomSense: Would this be the one with all the frills upon it?
Litlebritdiftrnt
This just came over Twitter from the Nevada SPCA and I thought OMG it’s another Lily!
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/372461831655381559/
Even her personality seems the same.
Little Boots
no music?
everyone here is evil.
Little Boots
fine, once again, it’s up to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwaxT7zL7kA&feature=kp
Redshift
Since Krauthammer has determined, with great sadness, that his preferred solution of no limits + disclosure is unworkable because the mob has made disclosure unworkable, you would think he must logically conclude that we have to have restrictions on spending. You can search in vain in his op-ed for anywhere that he says that though. Also notably absent is anywhere where he admits favoring the only alternative result, which is unlimited spending without disclosure. Funny that.
MomSense
@Iowa Old Lady:
I’m telling you I could write a sonnet about my Easter bonnet.
Little Boots
why they treat you like they do, john, when you such a good man?
dammit!
aimai
@Mandalay: A better suggestion would be that every advertisement from an unknown donor should have to appear with this appended:
Thlayli
There’s a Harry Truman quote that fits this situation.
Something about heat and kitchens.
Redshift
This is my favorite bit:
Apparently Krauthammer is oblivious to the imagery that big and small money “balancing each other” calls to mind.
Baud
@MomSense:
You make
babyarisen Jesus cry.Little Boots
@Little Boots:
although you have not been nearly as nice to me as I deserve.
Little Boots
don’t make me go all mellencamp. cause omnes gets all weird.
Mnemosyne
@Little Boots:
I think we’re all weirded out that you’ve appeared in the middle of the day. Doesn’t sunlight make you catch on fire or something?
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne:
that was very bitter.
but yes, it is a struggle.
Steeplejack
@Little Boots:
It’s a nighttime thing. And what are you doing out before sundown anyway?
Iowa Old Lady
@Little Boots: I appreciate Tina Turner even if no one else does.
Little Boots
and aimai’s back.
that is awesome.
Little Boots
@Iowa Old Lady:
thank you.
there’s a whole lot of anger in this place, nice to know there’s also some taste.
Little Boots
@Steeplejack:
don’t you start.
actually, you start.
post music.
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
See, it’s not just me. Is this a global warming thing that the nightwalkers can emerge in the middle of the day?
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne:
least of your worries, darling.
Mnemosyne
A classic 80s music video for Little Boots.
And a modern band, also, too.
Little Boots
and if johnnie would just let it go, and let it post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wSn81dLK6s
scav
@Mnemosyne: Entropy? Anyway, clear sign to move on as the threads dead.
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne:
at least somebody’s getting into the spirit of the thing.
Little Boots
@efgoldman:
don’t be bitter.
just post great songs.
Mnemosyne
@Little Boots:
Aw, c’mon, we’re just teasing you a little. You so rarely emerge into daylight that it’s an occasion when it happens!
Here’s a My Chemical Romance song for you.
Little Boots
@Mnemosyne:
don’t mind you a bit, mnemosyne. you, are wondeful.
see, I lurk and notice.
Little Boots
now I might have to, yeah, I have to, I’m in that mood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU615FaODCg
Little Boots
still think this whole thing is Steeplejack’s fault, for not posting music.
Keith G
One of the biggest changes in how we do politics from my youth (1960s) to now , is the 52 weeks a year nature of almost all political organizations. Those campaigns, parties, action committees, and other types (527s, 501C5 and C6s) are essentially full time employers designed to make a profit that makes their founders and/or administrative staff quite a bit of bank.
Tax them. Let them rack up the first $100 million tax free (that’s about the annual budget of the Sierra Club and less than half the budget of the US Chamber of Commerce) and then tax the rest at 30%.
If it is the case that there are few ways to limits how much cash is given into our political process, fine – let’s find a way to tax it.
Little Boots
must I? I blame John.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o
Litlebritdiftrnt
Does anyone have any explanation as to why I cannot get sound on any youtube videos? My speakers are working, as I can get sound everywhere else. When I pull up a youtube video I get an X by the speaker and no matter what I do I cannot get sound. I am stumped.
Keith G
@Litlebritdiftrnt: Google the question and whatever the issue is, about 100,000,000 others will have experienced it and solved it.
rikyrah
they don’t want people to be HELD ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. Nobody is stopping their ‘ free speech’. But now, that ‘ those people’ can find people ACCOUNTABLE for such ‘free speech’, now disclosure is a bad thing.
whatever.
MomSense
@Little Boots:
I do love Tina. Have been on an Etta James kick of late.
Snarki, child of Loki
@Mandalay:
“This ad was paid for by a Rabid Pack of Syphilitic Goat-Fuckers”
FIFY. If they don’t want do identify who they are, we get to do it for them.
John Weiss
Nutpicking? Never heard of that expression. The one I know is ‘nitpicking’, ‘nits’ being the eggs of lice.
cokane
these fuckers insist on maintaining such insane amounts of privilege and calling it rights, fucking a
Keith G
@efgoldman: Well, ya gotta start somewhere. Some ideas need to to be developed that have a (even slight) chance of accumulating popular support. Then the real dealing can begin.
J R in WV
@Iowa Old Lady:
When we went to see Tina a very few years ago, it was a wonderful show. We were typically in jeans, but the African-American contingent were dressed to the nines, splendid-looking every one of them. I was proud of them, every one of them!
And Ms Turner tore the place down! Dancing and singing the way it was meant to be! What a gorgeous, talented woman! She was ageless, timeless beauty~!
Wow, what a wonderful show that was!
ETA: Etta James Rocks totally, also too!!!
Neldob
Remember NPR CEO Vivian Schiller who was forced out for criticizing the Tea Party? Also Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado? Didn’t hear any complaints about persecution for speech when they lost their jobs.