SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday August 08 2016, @06:43PM
The constitution we have is better than the one we are told we have, but it is unusable in a world with fast transportation and communication.
Additionally, even at the time it was written it was known to have defects. Patrick Henry's evaluation of it was "I smell a rat. It squints towards monarchy."
The constitution originally presupposed that the primary power resided in the states. This was quite reasonable with the slow transportation and communication that was available at the time, and way, actually, the only feasible way forwards. Properly the constitution should have been changed by amendment as the conditions changed, but it was easier and faster to just start reinterpreting pieces in way obviously contrary to their intended meaning. E.g. "A well organized militia" doesn't either say or imply anything about the government either controlling or approving of that militia. And the action claimed was "the right to bear arms". I'm not really sure that's workable in a dense metropolitan society. The way Marshal Matt Dillon brought law and order to Dodge City way by curtailing the wearing of guns within the city limits. It pretty much worked, but I'm not sure it was constitutionally defensible.
Additionally the original constitution doesn't have ANYONE as the final authority as to what it means. The Supreme Court just stepped in and declared that it held that role, and nobody challenged it. Because John Marshall used that as grounds to decide a case in the direction that the president wanted it decided...and then that role wasn't used again for decades. NOW it's traditional, but it's NOT a part of the constitution. There are other flaws.
The constitution can't be used as written because the people who were supposed to be keeping it current refused to do proper maintenance, and instead took short cuts that were, given a reasonable interpretation, illegal, and often malfeasance...as well as being violation of their oath of office, but that doesn't have much of an enforcement clause.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Monday August 08 2016, @08:30PM
The constitution can't be used as written because the people who were supposed to be keeping it current refused to do proper maintenance, and instead took short cuts that were, given a reasonable interpretation, illegal, and often malfeasance...as well as being violation of their oath of office, but that doesn't have much of an enforcement clause.
That is because the people who are supposed to be keeping tabs on the office holders and judges have dropped the ball. You hear congress has around a 90% disapproval rate, but around 90% are returned to office every election. We've allowed media to be consolidated to where a tiny few corporations control access to news on a national scale. Too many people do not even vote, let alone make any effort to find out any facts about issues they claim to care about. Blogs originally designed to get hits by being outrageous are being taken as news and shared on social media by people who should be capable of knowing better. We do not need a violent revolution, we simply need people to care enough to make an effort to participate. If we had near 100% voter turnout and near 100% of office holders tossed out, the establishment would certainly take notice. Stop thinking "my guy is OK, it is the rest that are the problem" and grade them all on the performance of them all. Do it a few times in a row and they might start to actually govern professionally (either that or martial law would ensue). Our elected officials are simply a mirror of society, whining about it until distracted by a shiny bauble accomplishes nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:27AM
Article I, Section 8
Combine this with Amendment 10
And we see that the militias are to be firmly under state control, except for the navy which is approved full-term as a federal military, and the federal government can take the militias from the states and make them the federal army for no longer than two years.