from the he's-in-but-does-he-have-a-chance dept.
TechDirt reports
Larry Lessig Dumps His Promise To Resign The Presidency In An Attempt To Get People To Take His Campaign Seriously
We've written a few times about Larry Lessig's somewhat wacky campaign for President, which was premised on the idea that it was a "referendum" campaign, where his entire focus would be to push Congress into putting in place serious campaign finance reform and then resigning from the Presidency. As we noted, the whole thing was a bit of a gimmick. And apparently that gimmick hasn't been working too well.
Earlier this month, Lessig noted that he was being shut out from the Democratic debates, despite being a Democrat running for President and polling roughly on par with a few of the other nobodies in the campaign. The problem is that the Democratic National Committee apparently chose to ignore the campaign and because it refused to officially "welcome" him to the campaign, pollsters aren't including him and thus he didn't have enough polling data to be invited to the debate.
[...] Late on Friday (not exactly the best time to announce anything but bad news...) Lessig announced that he's dropping the promise to resign, because while it may have gotten some attention as an initial gimmick, it was also dragging him down (including potentially keeping him out of the debates).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:32AM
So he's like any other politician: He drops his promises for political advantage.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:34AM
Hey, at least he dumped it BEFORE being elected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:36AM
October 23
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/23/3715488/lincoln-chafee-drops-out/#article-header [soylentnews.org]
.
October 20
Jim Webb Drops Out of The Democratic Primary, Says He Could Beat Both Trump And Clinton [thinkprogress.org]
They both appear to hate what the Tea Partiers / Republican obstructionists have done to the Right Wing party but they are both Blue Dogs who still think like Goldwater-era Republicans.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:50AM
If the trajectory doesn't change, Hillary is going to win the nomination. Her poll #s went up after the debate.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:10AM
The Lamestream Media outlets^W^W^W Establishment whores said that Hillary creamed Bernie.
The online polls and focus groups said the opposite. [alternet.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @03:46PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @06:23PM
Bernie has always refused to go negative in his campaigns.
Radio/TV host Thom Hartmann is an unflinching Democrat.
He refers to Democrats ragging on other Democrats as a circular firing squad and notes that it is a losing strategy for the party.
The Reds are doing more than enough of that on their own.
(We should note at this point the low comedy that is the performance of the Reds on the Benghazi committee.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:35PM
He refers to Democrats ragging on other Democrats as a circular firing squad and notes that it is a losing strategy for the party.
For the party. For Bernie Sanders and anyone who buys into the same beliefs, it's probably the only chance he has.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:41PM
A lot of people are ignoring her incompetence and illegal activities while Secretary of State because it is a Republican-only issue.
Yeah, either it's that, or it is a Republican-only issue because the Republicans are just making stuff up. Lying liars gotta lie!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:51PM
There's the nasty stuff they pulled on some crazy dude just because he made a YouTube video which could conveniently be blamed for the Benghazi attacks. Since, we have a number of private emails (including one to Chelsea Clinton) which indicate that Hillary Clinton didn't buy into the story she and her underlings were peddling at the time.
Then there's the ancient Bill Clinton-era crap like Hillary Clinton making $100k on cattle futures, White Water, or the abusive treatment of women harassed by her husband. There are decades of ill hidden skeletons.
I think we need to get rid of the brazenly corrupt politicians. Else why bother complaining about business corruption? It's just the same shit you vote for.
Personally, I think it would be great if Republicans and Democrats were to collect scalps from each other on these issues.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 28 2015, @05:41AM
Psst! khallow!! You forgot to mention Vince Foster!!! And the Contrails and the use of vinegar! And the Lizard people! Stay free, my brother!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 28 2015, @06:12AM
You wrote during that previous rant [soylentnews.org]:
But really it is the "moralistic argument" that seems to be at issue here. Certainly capitalist like Donald Trump, the Kock Bros, and Rupert Murdock are morally reprehensible in more ways that I as a mere human could recount. But you are right to point out that this is not the problem with capitalism. But just because the "greed" argument is invalid, that does not mean that there are not many other, and often structural, critiques of capitalism that still hold water. The "swag" argument on you side still makes no sense to me. Why is that a bad thing? I mean, if capitalism produces surpluses, why should these not be distributed? Win the lottery, yo! So we don't have to have a revolution?
I guess it's ok, if your tribe does it.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 28 2015, @07:20AM
Not the point at all. All you say about Hillary is unsubstantiated. The Benghazi committee can find nothing to charge her with. You just seem to not like Hillary very much at all. Not very interesting.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 28 2015, @03:20PM
All you say about Hillary is unsubstantiated. The Benghazi committee can find nothing to charge her with.
Let's note two things about the Benghazi thing. First, the Benghazi committee only considered a small subset of Clinton's behavior from a narrow window of time and half the committee would not have charged Clinton under any circumstances short of say, brazenly murdering someone in public. Second, just because one doesn't get punished for an activity doesn't mean that it isn't immoral or illegal. The Benghazi thing was ludicrous. A damn YouTube video gets publicly blamed for a well-planned attack on a US ambassador by Clinton and her underlings while Clinton's private emails indicate she doesn't believe the story at all. That's lying to the public.
Then there's the silly law enforcement theater around the kook who had created the insulting video. The guy was a scammer and he did violate parole conditions in creating the video. So what? No reason for the rest of us to care.
You just seem to not like Hillary very much at all.
I don't like anyone who pulls that kind of crap for decades.
Not very interesting.
I apologize for our boring villains and your short attention span.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 28 2015, @05:16PM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 29 2015, @05:47AM
Yes! Amazing! Hillary has destroyed all the evidence! Of all the crimes! So obviously she is guilty, of something. It is just we don't know what, and we have no evidence. OK, khallow, I have been seriously trying to understand what is going on in your head, and I am massively failing! How can you take these Republican attacks as anything but what they are: Republican attacks? Of course there is no evidence! You may want to say that is because the She-Devil, Hillary "Rodham_Hussein" Clinton destroyed it, but there is no evidence of that other than there is no evidence against her! Do you not see what this is? You have assumed that Hillary is not a nice person, and everything you say tends to be a rather desperate attempt to prove that. So can you at least understand why myself and most other Soylentils find this tiresome? OK, frojack is down with it, although he feels dirty, and jmorris was already there before you were, and Runaway . . . oh, Runaway, well, we all know about Runaway. From Arkansaws, probably implicated in the whole "Whitewater" thing.
So again, no indictment, no crime. Your delusions and conspiracy theories are no substitute for a day in open court in front of the public. Like the Hague? International Criminal Court? Nah.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 29 2015, @12:42PM
Yes! Amazing! Hillary has destroyed all the evidence! Of all the crimes!
The obvious relevant point here is that her email server setup has allowed her to destroy evidence and deny FOIA requests with respect to her activities as Secretary of State.
So obviously she is guilty, of something.
Yes.
How can you take these Republican attacks as anything but what they are: Republican attacks?
By using reason and evidence. Really, just stop being a partisan dumbshit for once. And it's not like Clinton's loyal allies are to going to attack her. This is the real world. There will never be a perfect courtroom for convicting an active politician. Real crimes will near always be brought up by the partisan, biased enemies of a politician not allies. Competent neutral parties will be hard to come by.
You may want to say that is because the She-Devil, Hillary "Rodham_Hussein" Clinton destroyed it, but there is no evidence of that other than there is no evidence against her!
Real courts and diligent police would not give a potential defendant or hostile witness, months to years to destroy evidence once the court has learned of the existence of that evidence. And if the person then released only partial evidence while claiming they had released everything (which is a thing Clinton did), then that would subject the person to charges of obstruction of justice and perjury which can be felonies just on their own.
And your use of the term, "she-devil" is silly name calling (her sex or plane of origin is not relevant to her behavior). My concern is here that Clinton has committed a variety of crimes for an extended period of time. And you continue to thoughtlessly support her.
So can you at least understand why myself and most other Soylentils find this tiresome?
Oh, I understand tribe loyalty quite well. I don't respect it though.
My view is that if she becomes president, we will continue to see such relatively petty crimes of corruption and incompetence. We'll also see methodical suppress of evidence. And there's a good chance, we'll also see you excusing that behavior through to the end of her term(s) as president.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:13AM
Yes, heaven forbid we get a moderate Democrat nominated, rather than an another wacko cryptoneocon authoritarian dingbat.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is the decider for the Democratic party, and she's gonna decide either Hillary or Bernie. [theintercept.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:56AM
No one among the current crop of whackos can buy enough weapons or station enough troops on the other side of the globe "for defense".
Ike was to the Left of everybody who has been in this race (except Jill Stein)--but Ike is dead.
What "Moderate" did you have in mind?
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 24 2015, @12:37PM
Unfortunately I can't answer that -- because it will likely be another third-party protest vote for me this coming election.
(Score: 1) by bornagainpenguin on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:04AM
Can we still vote for Ike any way? I mean it's not like he's going to do more damage, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:23AM
"You just keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at."
(Your line is "Boy, I got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals.")
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @03:28PM
They both appear to hate what the Tea Partiers / Republican obstructionists have done to the Right Wing party but they are both Blue Dogs who still think like Goldwater-era Republicans.
We wouldn't want Republican obstructionists to get in the way of the political machines, would we? You know, if a candidate like Bernie Sanders wasn't going to be a total disaster, completely ignoring the economic and political lessons of the past century, there might be some common ground between the Tea Party people and the various marginalized groups on the Democrat side who also happen to prefer freedom to tyranny.
And I'd have more respect for Lincoln Chafee, if he weren't defending [facebook.com] the currently defunct Ex-Im Bank [reason.com].
Tea Party Republicans trying to kill Ex-Im Bank are killing good American jobs. The Bank's been helping companies and workers since 1934
I googled for his name and "tea party" and that was the first hit. I guess Boeing's money (they got something like half the money that the Ex-Im Bank doled out when it was active) speaks louder.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:34PM
ignoring the economic and political lessons of the past century
Only going back 1 century gets us one big success (Democrat interventionist FDR and The New Deal).
If we don't cherrypick the data and instead look at the -entire- history of boom-and-bust Capitalism, we get a recession|slump|slowdown (pick the term you like best--theres a wad of them) at least every 7 years and a complete collapse (depression) about every 80 years--as we are in now with over 20 percent of USAians unable to get a fulltime job at a living wage.
FDR's advisor was John Maynard Keynes who got the president to put 15 million USAians on the **public** payroll, rebuilding or constructing **public** infrastructure when 25 percent of USAians were unemployed.
One wonders how much faster|longer-lasting that recovery would have been if FDR had noted how flawed Capitalism is and had not saved it but had instead replaced it with a -FULL- system of collective ownership of the means of production aka Socialism.
the currently defunct Ex-Im Bank
(reason.com may be less awful if you download their stylesheet but, with just HTML, that site is irritating--particularly with you not indexing the URL to where the content begins.)
WRT banks, USA had a great thing going until that nitwit Neoliberal (way before the term was coined) Andrew Jackson decided to kill it. [wikipedia.org]
Lather, rinse, repeat for the "Federal" Reserve (a cartel of 12 private banks).
Private bankers suck.
Wanna see banking done right today? Check out the (public) Bank of North Dakota.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 24 2015, @07:55PM
Only going back 1 century gets us one big success (Democrat interventionist FDR and The New Deal).
The double dip recession of 1936-1937.
FDR's advisor was John Maynard Keynes who got the president to put 15 million USAians on the **public** payroll, rebuilding or constructing **public** infrastructure when 25 percent of USAians were unemployed.
And yet, we didn't have actual economic improvement till they started destroying FDR's state-enforced oligopolies around the beginning of the Second World War. Keynesian economics never has had a success story to point to. It's all like tiger repellent rock stories like this one. There was a recession, we spent a bunch of money, and recession stopped. Therefore, our Keynesian spending must have done it. The only problem is that recessions and recoveries happen anyway, while double dip recessions don't always happen.
One wonders how much faster|longer-lasting that recovery would have been if FDR had noted how flawed Capitalism is and had not saved it but had instead replaced it with a -FULL- system of collective ownership of the means of production aka Socialism.
If we had done that and hadn't reverted the system to capitalism by now, the Great Depression would still be with us. There isn't a mechanism by which the economy could improve under your scenario.
(reason.com may be less awful if you download their stylesheet but, with just HTML, that site is irritating--particularly with you not indexing the URL to where the content begins.)
It's not my website and hence, not my call where the URL starts.
WRT banks, USA had a great thing going until that nitwit Neoliberal (way before the term was coined) Andrew Jackson decided to kill it.
All you show here is how bankrupt a term, neo-liberal is. He was no more a neo-liberal than you are.
Lather, rinse, repeat for the "Federal" Reserve (a cartel of 12 private banks).
Private bankers suck.
Andrew Jackson would have agreed with you. That's why he destroyed the Second Bank of the US. Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it.
Wanna see banking done right today? Check out the (public) Bank of North Dakota.
I'll check it out.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:29PM
The double dip recession of 1936-1937
[...]we didn't have actual economic improvement
There was no "double" about it.
...and to have a recession, you need to have a recovery, so your dishonesty and double-talk implode on themselves.
Yeah, after 4 years of recovery, FDR foolishly listened to the Neoliberal jackals on Wall Street, loosened up on his methods, and the economy began to tank again.
The lesson to take away from this is that a lot of Capitalists are idiots.
the Great Depression would still be with us
It must cost a lot to live in that kind of isolation from reality.
not my call where the URL starts
Actually, in most cases, it is.
It's called "accessibility". You should look into that.
(The pages that are not constructed by chimps are fully-compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act [google.com] and make it dirt simple.) [google.com]
N.B. There are some web guys|sites who give you a link at the very top of the page (good so far)--but the damned thing doesn't do what it promises.
Again: chimps (who don't even check their work).
I typically index all of my links to the significant portion of the page.
I recommend the SeaMonkey Navigator browser.
It allows you to mark text, right-click, and choose to see the source code of that bit.
(Look for _id= or _name= with a whitespace in place of the underscore.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 25 2015, @01:52PM
...and to have a recession, you need to have a recovery, so your dishonesty and double-talk implode on themselves.
In order for there to be dishonesty there has to be a falsehood. The double dip recession is a matter of fact. You can see it both in a drop in GDP and jump in unemployment in the years in question. And it happened after FDR assumed power and started implementing some of his dumber stuff in 1935.
not my call where the URL starts
Actually, in most cases, it is.
Don't buy it. You mention a bunch of stuff that is the responsibility of whoever sets up that site. I'm just a reader dumping the URL they gave me. But yes, I do wish sometimes that site didn't have so much weird crap on it.
I recommend the SeaMonkey Navigator browser.
If it doesn't have an option to display webpages as they're interested to be viewed, then maybe it's not that good a web browser after all.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:13PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @10:49PM
In the Democratic debate, Chaffee spoke [thenation.com] in favour of clemency for Edward Snowden.
Perhaps Barry Goldwater would have done the same. Mr. Goldwater's Wikipedia bio [wikipedia.org] says "he became a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as abortion, gay rights, and the role of religion in public life" and in spite of voting against the Civil Rights Act, "he had quietly supported civil rights for blacks, but would not let his name be used".
Mrs. Clinton voted for the invasion of Iraq; Mr. Sanders opposed it but authorized the attack on Afghanistan. Mrs. Clinton thinks it's a good idea [theguardian.com] to keep U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan after 14 years of war.
The Democratic Party isn't the party of the far left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:53AM
The title, as submitted, had a spelling error.
The submission was accepted into the on-deck part of the queue as-is.
An editor later noticed my bonehead and swapped in a t for the c.
I believe that, if the dialog boxes on the submission page [soylentnews.org] were just a few pixels taller, the underlinings of my spellchecker would be visible in those places.
Has anyone else found this to be bothersome when submitting?
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:16AM
I'll add this to my extension.
If you don't want to wait or use it, you can add this to a custom stylesheet:
#storyTitle {padding: 4px !important;}
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @09:07AM
Corruption will fight you back.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by moondoctor on Saturday October 24 2015, @10:42AM
Running for president stating he would wave a magic wand, successfully fix a specific issue and resign is so arrogant it boggles the mind.
Now we're supposed to think he's magically developed a deep understanding of American politics, economics, foreign policy and also the character, strength and will to be president and deal with these issues successfully? You be the judge.
By making this announcement he has demonstrated his incompetance and inablilty to handle modern US politics.
AKA: Fuck off.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @11:19AM
That one issue is at the core of everything that is wrong.
The gov't is for sale to the highest bidder.
What exists is an oligarchy.
If you don't see the Fascism of the 1930s in the USA of the 21st Century, your understanding of the state of things is extremely poor.
Until the underlying problem is fixed (undo Citizens United), we don't have a Democracy and anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
You need to switch off Lamestream Media.
It's stopping you from seeing things as they are.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @05:24PM
This isn't Athens of c. 500 BC, or a small town discussing an issue with zoning, this is the Internet age. When it comes to major public policy issues, to a large extent people get their opinions for the media, from TV news channels (real or "faux"), talk radio, web sites and YouTube videos, and commentators with outsized personalities.
The Supreme Court ruled [wikipedia.org] that Congress can't restrict PAC expenditures, even those which specifically target political candidates. What's Lessig going to do about that? He can't do anything about it, except promise to appoint justices with different views than the conservative Republican appointees. Hillary or Bernie would do the same.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @08:44PM
The Democracy (not "republic") of ancient Athens had massive citizen involvement. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [dissidentvoice.org]
("Jury size" will be a real eye-opener for you.)
Your attempt to construct a metaphor falls flat here.
.
[Lessig] can't do anything about [the injection of money into politics], except promise to appoint justices with different views
First, you missed the appointment of appellate judges who can rule on stuff.
If SCOTUS decides not to take a case, that lower ruling stands.
...and, in thinking that tweaking the membership of the judicial system after someone quits|dies is the -only- power a US president has, you are showing your ignorance once again.
Thomas Jefferson said that there should be a constitutional convention once a generation and the founding documents should be rewritten if found to be lacking regarding the current state of
the republic.
(That dude was actually pretty radical.) [google.com]
A small but meaningful tweak that a president could get going, as leader of his party and leader of the nation, would be an amendment to put a term limit of let's say 12 years on federal judges instead of the originally-specified "during times of good behavior" (i.e. lifetime appointments).
Lessig's campaign is all about fundamental change to the governmental system via significant constitutional amendment(s).
He's about putting the influence of the Chief Executive behind the position that Money is not speech; corporations are not people.
http://www.wolf-pac.com/the_plan [wolf-pac.com]
https://movetoamend.org/ [movetoamend.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2015, @04:42PM
To shut out Presidential candidates with unconventional platforms like John McAfee.