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Ballot Access News reports:
On August 5, U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer, a Bush Jr. appointee, ruled against Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in their debates lawsuit. The case had been filed on September 28, 2015, and is Johnson v Commission on Presidential Debates, U.S. District Court, D.C., 1:15cv-1580.
[...] The 27-page decision[Redirects to a PDF] [...] says, "Because Plaintiffs have no standing and because antitrust laws govern commercial markets and not political activity, those claims fail as a matter of well-established law."
[...] Footnote three, based on the judge's own research (or the research of her clerks), has factual errors. The judge relied on election returns published by the FEC, but the FEC returns do not say which candidates were [...] in states with a majority of electoral college votes, and the opinion's list of candidates is erroneous.
[...] Another factual error in the decision is on page 21. The decision says Ralph Forbes, an independent candidate for U.S. Senate, lost a case over debates in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1998. Actually Forbes was a candidate for U.S. House.
In the comments, Richard Winger notes a similar case.
the lawsuit Level the Playing Field v FEC is still pending, before another judge, in the same court
The presidential debates were previously moderated by the League of Women Voters (1976, 1980, 1984). The Democrats and Republicans screwed things up in 1988. The Commission on Presidential Debates, a corporation controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties, has run each of the presidential debates held since 1988.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @06:34AM
Why would I want to go to the "center"? What the fuck is the "center"? These terms are meaningless. I think we should evaluate each individual problem on its own merits and work to solve it, rather than bothering with nonsense like "left", "right", or "center". Whichever way the solutions take us, so be it.
(Score: 2, Troll) by MostCynical on Monday August 08 2016, @11:17AM
Where's the "sweet, but delusional" moderation option?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 08 2016, @12:30PM
The "center" is made up of people who wholeheartedly believe in the Middle Ground Fallacy.
The importance of "left" and "right" is in deciding what phenomena are to be considered problems. Take, for example, health care: To a liberal, the fact that millions of Americans still can't afford to pay for health care and thus have to go without is a problem. To a conservative, that isn't a problem, but the taxes used to pay for other people's health care are a problem. Trying to simply solve the problem on its merits requires an agreement as to what the problem is, and we don't have that in the US at least.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @01:16PM
No, its made up of people who believe the right approach should be used for each problem individually. You're right that the real problem is inability to agree on the problems though.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 08 2016, @05:37PM
And where do I fit?
I think we should have Universal Healtcare.
And I think Fracking and cheap natural gas have improved the environment by replacing coal.
Are my evaluations fallacious, or am I in the center?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 08 2016, @06:53PM
Your evaluation about natural gas is probably fallacious [nationalgeographic.com]: The natural gas industry has put a lot of money into convincing people that natural gas is much cleaner than coal, when it actually isn't.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 08 2016, @08:11PM
Well, I walked right into that one. I wasn't asking whether the reasoning I used to arrive there was wrong. I was asking if it was a "fallacy of the middle" to split my opinions between "left" and "right" like that.
Meanwhile, I'll take a measurable reduction in GHGs for the first time in US history over a bunch of "coulds" and "mights."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 08 2016, @10:04PM
The Fallacy of the Middle isn't that sort of thing: It's normal to be conservative about some issues and liberal about other issues. A common split is "Government pays me - I'm liberal. I pay the government - I'm conservative."
What I mean by the Fallacy of the Middle: The left wing wants to raise tax rates overall by 5% to create new program X to address what they see as a pressing problem. The right wing wants to cut tax rates by 5% and cut out program Y they see as unnecessary. The centrist will conclude that tax rates should remain exactly as they are, and either Y remains and X doesn't happen, or X is started and Y is cut so that both sides get something they want. That seems very sensible, until you realize that the centrist skipped right past the part where they evaluated whether either X or Y were a good idea, and whether they are worth 5% of everybody's income. That's the problem with centrist ideology: It replaces thinking and evidence and such with an assumption that both sides of a debate are equally right or wrong about something.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:55AM
Except thats not the ideology of the political center at all. The ideology of the political center is that there is no ideology and instead some problems are handled conservatively and some problems are handled liberally, whichever is the best approach to handle that specific problem, rather than strictly sticking to one ideology based on tribalism and ideological purity. What you describe is exactly what you said it was, fallicious thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:56PM
Terms like "liberal" and "conservative" have no concrete definitions. They are vaguely-defined at best. So these "centrists" have the same problem as "liberals" and "conservatives" have: They are obsessed with labels.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday August 08 2016, @11:07PM
uh huh. Here is the money quote:
An abundant supply of natural gas "delays up to decades the time period over which renewable energies become economically competitive," the researchers write. And if natural gas makes energy cheaper, the study argues, people will use more energy rather than cut back to save money.
In other words they are just talking about their hokey religion and totem objects like windmills. As to the actual reality of whether gas is cleaner than coal, they say, "Natural gas has been promoted as a "bridge fuel" even by some environmentalists because it emits half as much CO2 as coal to produce a given amount of electricity. "
But all that misses the point entirely, that whether one fuel is cleaner than another should count more than bullshit religion like AGW. CO2 is not a very dangerous burn product. I have an unvented natural gas powered space heater and clothes dryer in my home. The gas powered hot water heater is vented, go figure. A hell of a lot of people have natural gas ranges in their kitchens. Because they do not produce any waste products harmful to humans unless they malfunction and produce carbon monoxide due to incomplete combustion. (Please buy a CO detector is you have natural gas service in your home!)
You certainly wouldn't want to sit in a room with an unvented coal fired furnace. Even the large coal fired power generation plants with scrubbers still put a lot undesirable stuff out.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday August 08 2016, @10:53PM
You're with Hillary. She says she favours "universal, quality, affordable health care" and she has a flexible position on fracking.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/09/politics/hillary-clinton-health-care-public-option-bernie-sanders/ [cnn.com]
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/03/hillary-clinton-debate-fracking [motherjones.com]
In 2010, shesaid: [state.gov]
Sixth, the United States will promote the use of shale gas. Now, I know that in some places is controversial. But natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel available for power generation today, and a number of countries in the Americas may have shale gas resources. If developed, shale gas could make an important contribution to our region’s energy supply, just as it does now for the United States. And the geologists at the U.S. Geological Survey are ready to work with partners to explore this potential. And we want to do it in a way that is as environmentally respectful as possible. So there are some best practices that we would be more than willing to share, and as countries develop the legislation or regulation necessary for this industry, to make sure it gets off on the best foot.
"Shale gas" is produced by hydrofracturing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @01:19PM
What is "center"? How about a government that isn't fascist or run by people write laws straight out of their Holy Book, as their God demands?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @06:33PM
I've seen a lot of authoritarian centrists, so I'm not so sure about that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:00AM
The authoritarian/libertarian axis is a completely different axis from the right/left (capitalist/anticapitalist) one. Given that there are [at least] two axes, you can have an authoritarian centrist, or a communist centrist, or a center centrist. Fascism is extreme right wing (capitalist/corporatocratic) + extreme authoritarianism rather than just authoritarian.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Monday August 08 2016, @09:42PM
I think we should evaluate each individual problem on its own merits and work to solve it,
How old are you, 14?
This ultra-naïve mentality shows you really don't understand politics or how different peoples' thinking is.
You talk about "each individual problem": well, who decides what the problems are in the first place?
I'll name one big, big problem with America: women are allowed to walk around with their faces uncovered in public!! It's horrible! This is completely against the will of Allah! </sarcasm> Now, of course, most Americans probably don't think this is a problem at all, but there are surely some who do. So how are we going to "solve" this "problem"? Pass a law requiring women to wear burqas in order to appease some small religious minority? Or tell the religious minority to stuff it? Well, either of these is now a "problem": in the first case, you're oppressing half the population for the sake of some minority, in the latter case you're oppressing "religious freedom", because you're not allowing those religious people to force their religious views on everyone else. And before you dismiss this as insanity, this is exactly the reasoning that approximately half the nation has about gay marriage: they think that allowing homosexuals to marry each other, or requiring businesses to not discriminate against them (just like they're not allowed to discriminate against racial minorities) constitutes an "attack on their faith". There's some Americans who think businesses should be allowed to discriminate all their want, and that this is forbidden is a "problem"; change that, and now minorities (and others opposed to discrimination) will think it's a "problem" that this discrimination is allowed to happen.
Bottom line: no one can agree on what constitutes a "problem", and if you can't do that, then you can't "fix" it either. This is why we have labels like "left" and "right"; people tend to fall into groups that have similar beliefs, and they form parties based on those shared opinions, and elect representatives to push for their agenda. You're simply not going to get any agreement on some issues between people who are too far apart, so your sentiment of "working [together] to solve" problems is really nonsensical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 08 2016, @11:51PM
How old are you, 14?
Stating what we should be doing is entirely different from saying that that's what will actually happen.
You talk about "each individual problem": well, who decides what the problems are in the first place?
Each individual. The point is, people shouldn't be so considered about this meaningless "left" and "right" nonsense, which have no concrete meanings despite what you may think. Looks like you missed that.
so your sentiment of "working [together] to solve" problems is really nonsensical.
That wasn't my position either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:05AM
Yup, no concrete [wikipedia.org] definitions at all [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:58PM
None of that is concrete. There's plenty of subjective terminology and differences from culture to culture. Nice try.