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Colbert's Run For President May Be Criminal
eldavojohn writes "Some of you may know about Steven Colbert's fake presidential campaign... although are you sure it's fake? Well, it had better be because if it is taken too far — such as if he actually gets on the Republican and/or Democratic ballot in South Carolina — his use of corporations & advertising to back his campaign could get the attention of the Federal Election Commission. Doritos & Comedy Central could be facing some problems as well, funding a man running for president." A million Facebook users have signed up for the "1,000,000 Strong for Stephen T Colbert" group in the last week — though the group could be read as a satire of Barack Obama's similarly-named group, which has fewer than 400,000 members after 9 months.
When laws violate the Constitution, it means they must be challenged. This may be the perfect case for such a challenge.
He's being sponsored to cover the election. He's not a candidate promoting a product, just a man who really enjoys Doritos in his spare time.
If a comedian wins president with a fake campaign and gets "in trouble", I'm moving to Canada.
Well? Is it? They might not donate money but they donate 24/7 spectrum to the Reps propaganda, which has to be worth quite a lot ...
He pretty much said so on the show. He joked that Doritos couldn't fund the campaign directly, so he would have to find some other excuse to accept their money. He has said in an interview (off his show) that he doesn't want to be President, he just wants to run for it. He is a smart guy, and he is backed by smart lawyers. I'm sure he'll stop before he crosses the line from legal to illegal.
Insert self-referential sig here.
Wouldn't Jon Stewart be a better choice if you want one of the clowns to become president?
The other night Colbert talked specifically about this. He said that under election law he can use the corporate sponsorship money to produce the Colbert Report but he can't use it for his campaign. So he took the opportunity to satirize the law and point out that as Colbert the show host he is saying "eat the chips!" but as Colbert the presidential hopeful he is simply saying that he enjoys a nice doritos chip.
In any case he and his show lawyers aren't as stupid as they pretend to be and they will make sure they stay on the right side of the law in case this does get taken seriously.
We are lucky we live in the United States of America. We have a Constitution that guarantees that congress can make no law "abridging the freedom of speech". Errr....wait.....ummmmm. Well, I mean... except POLITICAL speech. I'm sure when they wrote the 1st amendment they didn't really mean political speech. I wonder why the supreme court just ignores this ?
Given that more money has been raised in this presidential election than any other up to this point, I would honestly hope the FEC has better things to do than worry about prosecuting a comedian.
My advice is to relax, and if you can't do that, worry about the people you don't like who might actually get elected president. (Hillary, Romney, Ron Paul, surely anyone can find an ACTUAL candidate to hate).
That group has only 18171 members. 18172 is on his way though.
Did you watch the episode where he clearly differentiated between himself as the host and the candidate. He even drew a line in the middle of the screen :).
He will not cross said line.
I honestly hope Colbert wins in SC. The only better guy for president would be Jon Stewart!. Either of them would spank those Dem/Rep around in a debate until they cried.
Politics in the US is outright pathetic. That may sound crass - but really, where is the candidate that doesn't have a stick up his ass and his hand in the cookie jar.
Pete/Petri "damn, my chainsaw is clogged with 1's and 0's again." --clyde
Yeah, I'm sure striking down laws allowing rich people to automatically win the election is for the good of the nation, and exactly what the Founders intended.
right now it is all "speculation" about his rather obvious "sponsorship" by DORITOS.
But what if they are not actually doing anything except "playing along" and agreeing to let him "pretend" to have a corporate sponsor?
And if they are indeed paying "something", what if they are paying it to THE COLBERT REPORT?
Why can't the media be this interested in real shenanigans going on in politics?
is it because "real" politics does not have TASTY DORITOS? They are delicious.
I like microcars
Are you seriously suggesting that laws barring corporations from funding candidates should be overturned?
The system is corrupt enough as it is. We don't need Pfizer/Mobil for 2012.
I'm in Kaffiristan so I don't know how things work in the USA. But is possible that he might be sent to Guantanamo Bay for this?
In my country someone made a joke about running against our President and he was sent the toxic waste mines. We love our President and do not want his good name to be besmirched by hoodlums. From what I can tell Mr Colbert has made many jokes about your President yet he has evaded the Secret Police.
Do such things happen in America now too? I don't know much about your country. I do know from watching American TV that crime is very bad there and people hire vigilantes like Robert McCall to scare off drug dealers who are menacing them. Here in our country we have no crime, since undesirables are worked to death in the mines. Why doesn't your President hire more policemen using aid money from the decadent imperialist west?
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
i had suspected that the colbert group would easily have more users than the obama group. sad that our choices for president are so fucking awful that a joke candidate gets more support. obama is a chump.
We know where his money came from.
Where is Hillary getting all that dough?
Where is twit romney getting all that dough?
Where is cross-dresser Judy Guiliani getting all that dough?
obviously not from "People".
Those "People" who support the republican candidates usually can't afford to feed their own family.
Corporations and the military industrial complex get republicans and hillaries elected.
They're using their grammar skills there.
If he isn't wearing pants during the run or McCain-Feingold is a pile of unconstitutional crap.
Yeah, because we didn't get Halliburton/Enron in 2000? Hell at least Doritos isn't stealing peoples pensions to buy enormous yachts (that we know of).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I've been down on that fascist, John McCain, ev er since he decided to stomp on our First Amendment rights. So, good for Steven Colbert. Let him violate every damn financing law there is and get the FEC to hell and gone out of our political process.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
>his use of corporations & advertising to back his campaign
Erm, what about the millions of $$$ provided for the Corps for the Reps and Dems ?
Please don't tell me you forgot that. The parties would not survive without commercial $.
Borat is that you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Paulsen
Pat Paulsen ran many times for President and even got some write-in votes. It's conceivable that Colbert could get a lot of protest votes.
I don't know the law well but there are some places where write in votes count. If that were the case here, Colbert could win without being on the ballot. That would be really funny. If you're not on the ballot, how can you be charged with campaign violations?
(Yes, I know about the Electoral College etc. etc.)
If the FEC tries to charge Colbert wih anything, they'll have a higher liklihood of succes if they jump headfirst into a chipper shredder. Making a criminal case out of a clear cut case of satire = insert M-80 of first amendment up ass and light fuse.
If he wins, then it does not matter what illegal actions he has taken to win. The last two elections have established this sufficiently in legal precedence.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I thought taking money from corporate sources was okay, big oil, defense contractors, etc, it's taking money from average Americans that's illegal? If he's taking money from Doritos all that will happen is instead of former oil men running the EPA we'll get junk food reps running the FDA.
What's the big deal? Wasn't George Bush's victory considered to be illegal by many?
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." - Douglas Adams.
No sig today...
How can it be criminal to run for a position for which every previous holder has to some degree or another, with cognizance, committed violence against the US Constitution?
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Another Rovian conspiracy denied Pat Paulson the US presidency in 1968......and in 1972, 1980, 1988, 1992 and 1996! Not this time!
Vote for Pat Paulson!
http://www.paulsen.com/
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
He could further disrupt a nation already in trouble.
I've already written a full opinion on the matter in my blog
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
What I really want to see him do is show up for a debate in South Carolina with so many sponsor patches on his dress suit that he looks like he races in NASCAR. He should invite the other candidates to do the same.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not that I'd endorse what the GP said, but how is this all that different from what we have now?
The Farewell Tour II
In a Free Speech Zone.
Which, BTW I consider one of the most tragic things to happen to America in the last 100 years. The First Amendment is already dead.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
i missed the show, but i'm also missing the gist of the problem here....was he touting doritos as the national chip? nationalizing the production and distribution of doritos for the betterment of American society? will he bring the doritos top brass into his administration and hook them up with high paying, tax funded jobs if he gets elected? no, because that would be criminal....
huh....sounds an awful lot like hillary and the health care industry to me....so is her campaign illegal? why not? because she goes out of her way to hide the fact that much of her campaign contributions come from those in health care instead of getting on national TV and being truthful about it?....sounds bass ackwards to me....
Hillary was on the board of directors for Wal-mart. Romney was the CEO of Bain & Company. Giuliani founded Giuliani Partners, a security consulting business and is a partner of Bracewell & Giuliani, a law firm.
Someone save me from this sanity.
That's a really good point. How many non-rich people have been elected president in the last 50 years?
There is a big difference between 1,000,000 people and 1,000,000 Americans.
Just in case anyone should happen to not have a delicious bag of tasty doritos in their posession at this moment, I looked at one that I have. My yummy bag of doritos are made by the ever-benevolent "Frito-Lay North America" corporation.
Of course, one could also conclude the same by looking at their ever-wonderful website, which shows that their home on the intarwebs is owned by Frito-Lay.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Glad I'm not the only one who remembers his campaign - has it really been 40 years now???
Then again, Nixon said "Sock it to me?" on Laugh-in.
The Brotherhood of Bearded Liberals (BBL) have released a new video, delivering ransom demands for the safe release of a cleverly purloined copy of Stephen Colbert's "I am America (and so can you)." Take heed!
How many non-rich people have been elected President in the last 250 years? The same people that succeed in their private endevours are the same people that succeed in politics because they have the connections and the ability to make them.
In a Republic, it is the business of every free citizen to participate. Most, however, do not. If you don't like it, participate. But that means more than just voting, and that means starting early. If you don't have a record of success, if you don't have the connections, you'll never make it. You can't blame people for succeeding when you don't.
Its tempting to think that some "normal" person can become President, but I'm not going to vote for a random IT worker or the town druggist for anything more than town council or congressman. Why? Because if they had the chops that it takes to be President, then they would have done more with their life than that. Everyone has to start somewhere, but you can't jump straight into the big game.
When I first heard of Colbert's run I thought it was a brilliant way to stage a protest vote. I believe (like apparently Steward and Colbert do) that the majority of Americans are much more in the reasonable middle than either the Democrats or the Republicans. If he were to get a "significant" vote in both the Democratic Primary AND the Republican Primary in South Carolina then hopefully the parties will realize how far on the fringe they BOTH are.
Unfortunately, even if Colbert is successful at this I do not believe the Dems or the Repubs(?) will have any sort of awakening. Regardless though... this seems to be a protest vote. Is there any sort of legal president for protest votes? If so, is it possible that protest votes may run afoul of the FEC?
For all their crimes, that's one thing Enron and Halliburton haven't done. They didn't offer a pension, just a retirement account match. In Enron's case, workers lost whatever they put into Enron stock, plus their match (which was given in stock).
If you want to complain about pension funds getting raided to pay for yachts, I'd like to direct your attention to:
-American car makers
-American steel makers
-American air carriers
-every state and local government pension fund
-the US Social Security system (I know, getting way off topic here)
All private companies listed above offered long-deferred compensation that they never bothered to fund in advance to actuarially-accurate levels, making them vulnerable to those expenses in the future. Because they got cheaper labor (by deferring part of workers' compensation) they were supposed to set aside a fund, but instead it was spent on dividends and bonuses. It is exactly as if I took out a giant business loan, paid it out as a dividend, and then complained about "legacy interest costs". Until recently, that was all with the blessing of the SEC.
In the case of the government agencies above, they take money that should be used to fully fund the obligations and instead spend it on present fads.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Coluche (1944-1986), a cult French Comedian, tried to pull this off in 1980, for the 1981 French presidential elections. Everybody started to get freaked out when he actually showed up with 16% of intended votes in the polls...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coluche#Presidential_bid
They didn't offer a pension, just a retirement account match. In Enron's case, workers lost whatever they put into Enron stock, plus their match (which was given in stock).
Even if Enron didn't offer a pension, they did cheat their employees out of their retirement. I say this because the big wigs at Enron knew about their impending collapse, and did not warn the employees. The executives knew that the company was horribly overvalued and heading for ruin, and let the employees take the fall.
So while in the most strict interpretation of the term "pension", you may be correct, the power players at Enron were certainly aware that they were screwing their underlings, and seemed to have no qualms about it.
Frankly, I'm just disappointed that the biggest of the big wigs died mysteriously (and quite conveniently) not long after being found guilty by a jury of his peers. Amazing how of course that meant his money was distributed to his family rather than to those from whom he cheated it out of.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
My gut tells me it is not illegal.
I hope he runs. It will drain the pool of idiot voters.
it's a shame when we can't take a joke.
Reminds me of Chaosium's Lovecraftian Miskatonic University memorabilia. I have a good selection of their stuff from the alumni mug, degree kit with "student id", notepad, etc., windows stickers including the parking permits. At a conference a speaker once asked me whether my U actually had a department of astrology when she read my polo shirt logo. Even though they never provided transcripts and the like, the rumor I heard was that Chaosium was informally told that they should tone it down or they could be in trouble for running a diploma mill.
Darn shame. But, like Colbert, you can't really blur reality and fantasy _too_ much or they'll come after you. Makes such things more of a one-off artist's stunt.
Only in america...
Even if Enron didn't offer a pension, they did cheat their employees out of their retirement. I say this because the big wigs at Enron knew about their impending collapse, and did not warn the employees.
Wait, Enron screwed over its employees because it didn't assist them them in illegal insider trading by dumping their stock onto some sucker before the financial weakness was public information?
No, Enron's employees fared much better than if their employer had offered a conventional pension. For one thing, if they chose to divert their 401(k) funds to any investment other than Enron stock (i.e. followed rudimentary diversification advice), they would have kept everthing short the company match (i.e. most of it). In a convetional pension, they either would have gotten nothing, or what the PBGC chose to award them from *other* workers' premiums.
The point is not that Enron's management was blameless, but that raiding a pension fund (i.e. withdrawing dedicated investment funds) is one crime they did not commit. And while I do feel for the the employees, we need to quit pretending they were passive bystanders in all of this. They thought they could make fast money and so ignored the boring diversification advice. Claiming that executives should say their own stock is overvalued, even if true, is unrealistic.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Here's my rebuttal: George W. Bush. Having a rich and powerful family is the only reason he is where is.
And as a european/world citizen I'm dreaming of An American President, someone with integrity. Michael Douglass did fit the bill.
Bert
Who thinks that the previous time the US had an actor as president he did as well as Bush does now, so why not give Michael a shot? It can't get worse, can it?
I honestly hope Colbert wins in SC. The only better guy for president would be Jon Stewart!. Either of them would spank those Dem/Rep around in a debate until they cried.
Heh, I'd love to watch this as well. I was curious about what the requirements were to get into the debates, so I did a little googling. I can't find the criteria for the 2008 Presidential election (which are presumably pretty different, considering a number of the candidates in the debate don't meet the criteria below), but for curiosity's sake here's the criteria used in the the 2004 election debates:
http://debates.org/pages/candsel2004.html
* Evidence of Constitutional Eligibility: yup, Colbert's >35 years old and is a natural born citizen (born in DC, actually)
* Evidence of Ballot Access: he needs to get on enough state ballots to be able to theoretically win the election (270 electoral votes). I'm not familiar with the requirements for each state, but I imagine this could be tricky.
* Indicators of Electoral Support: He needs to poll at least 15% nationally. He's already polling ahead of Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich. He also got 13% in polls which pitted him against Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.
He's running to get at least one DELEGATE to one of the conventions.
His lawyers do need to look into this though.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Well then, Mr Coward, how is it any different from all the other self-serving bills put forth by various government officials "on behalf of" the deep pocketed corporations that lobby them ?
I mean, Halliburton is a nice, community-focused, law-abiding facilitator of world peace... rrright ?
What I like about Canada is up here, we have sponsorship scandals. In the states, it's just business as usual. I'm not saying the Canadian government is devoid of corruption, geez, we've got a bunch of asshats too! The thing is, when any law prohibits some activity, people find ways around that law. People with money are typically better equipped to find, establish and employ those workarounds. Me, law or no law, I couldn't get any TV show to promote my campaign because I'm a broke ass geek.
Most everything follows the same pattern... copy-protection: no-cd patches, DVD CSS: decrypters, Laws: loopholes. The reason they all fail is because of the human factor. People make them, and people will break them.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Campaign finance reform is a barrier to entry to keep the parties in control of government.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7406420086
seems not to show up in the normal search.
Bender screams through the door: "He sucks....! Booo we want Bender. Bender's great! BOoooooo we want Bender!" Calculon says to the hopeful robot actor: "I thought he was good, but sorry the fans have spoken! Where is this Bender, I keep hearing about? Can we get him?"
Any opinions to offer about Russ Feingold?
I'm sure striking down laws allowing rich people to automatically win the election is for the good of the nation,
..." groups. If campaign reforms worked at all the way they were intended, why have the candidates become ever less trustworthy and inspiring?
Actually the laws have the inverse effect. Instead of a potentially good leader being backed by (and owe favors to...) one or two super rich people, we have been left with poor leaders who are excellent fund raisers and who owe favors to many many people.
One of the most appealing things about politicians like Bloomberg or Perot is their freedom to do the job without oweing any special favors. The same or better could be said about a candidate that was sponsored solely by a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Everyone would know that the was a connection between the two and special favors would be glaring obvious and embarrassing.
The way campaign funding works now, I have almost no idea who the candidates really owe. Sure I could track down the long lists of info if I so desired, but it's a very long list for each and every candidate. I also have very how to direct my daily purchasing in regards to political spending, ie. If I buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's is the profit fro that going to go into a Democratic election coffer? What about Snapple, I heard somewhere that they donate Republican. Regardless the politicians owe more favors because the must collect from more sources.
The rich people still give lots of money, and still have disproportionate political influence, but now it is filtered through a dozen different "Friends of..." and "Citizens for
We are all just people.
Enron had been cooking the books for some time before they collapsed. The powers in charge were concerned only about their own profits. If they'd have been forthcoming with their employees that the world was not all roses, they could have had a chance to get out without needing "illegal insider trading". Hell, some of them may have even had better chances at finding better jobs for companies that weren't morally and financially bankrupt, had they had even a slight amount of notice ahead of time.
They thought they could make fast money and so ignored the boring diversification advice.
They also followed the advice and hype that came from the Enron executives. They were told that their company was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sure, they could have sought advice from outside, but why should they expect their employers to be giving them a load of BS?
Claiming that executives should say their own stock is overvalued, even if true, is unrealistic.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then on whether or not executives are morally obligated to make decisions based on morals.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So? It still worked better than what they have now.
So? It still worked better than what they have now.
Who said that? Post a link.
If you cannot, then you're beating a strawman. Which means you've already lost the discussion.
So? Saddam couldn't even travel his own country without a body-double. He was constantly in danger of assassination.
So why are you defending the plight of the average Iraqi now
Saddam was executed. He's dead. Isn't it time you moved on instead of trying to blame him for the anarchy and warlordism that is Iraq today?
He's dead. He was executed. Yet the situation did not improve. Are you going to keep blaming Saddam for the current situation?
Then we should just wait until the "their younger populat" becomes the government in 20 or so years.
They can ship all they want. Without Iraqi support, it would go no where.
The problem you don't want to face is that the Iraqi people do not seem to want our troops there. They're happy to attack them.
Again with the strawman. Is that all you have?
No matter how bad Iraq was, our invasion fucked it up even worse.
No matter how much the Iraqis hated Saddam and/or Iran, they prefer them to us.
No matter how much we spend (lives and money) in Iraq, when we leave it will be a civil war.
No matter how we re-define "victory", Iraq will end up with a Sharia-based legal system and strong ties to Iran.
You can blame anyone you want to. But all you're doing is trying to hide from the fact that you supported a fucked up invasion and the result is a lot more death and misery than Saddam inflicted. Yes, it is possible to say Saddam was a vicious 3rd world tin-pot dictator
Right it is just that simple, and how much did each get in honorarium (speaking fees) which are a great way to funnel money to prospective candidates. How many of those Romney business deals over the years were because Romney's dad was politically connected and they assumed Mitt would be running for political office someday? How much money got funneled to Hilary because her husband was governor, president, or because people were saying she would someday run for office and even president 20 years ago? What did Giuliani know about security besides putting his political name to use in another one of politics revolving doors?
You describe just a couple of the ways these people got their money, at least more recently, but your list doesn't explain why people gave them money. "Favor" is a big part of business, but when it crosses over into politics it is corruption.
He's broken character a lot of times. Go to mtp.msnbc.com and see
That's pretty much the definition of insider trading.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
For those not in the know, Clinton served on Wal-Mart's board for six years prior to her husband's run for the presidency.
I am no too concerned about Hillary Clinton being on Wal-Mart's board of directors in 1991 and earlier. I am rather a bit more concerned about Rumsfeld and the FDA, Cheney and Halliburton, George Bush, the bin Laden family, and the oil industry. But, you know, things that get thousands of U.S. soldiers killed concern me. Things that lead to lessening of safety and health standards at the national level concern me. Being on the board of directors of Wal-Mart in 1991 and earlier, not so much. Particularly when the democratic party actually cares about safety, health, and livelihood (minimum wage) standards for workers. Which Congress weakened all the safety laws that led to mining disasters and miner deaths?
Yes, the US-initiated sanctions did not do any service to the people of Iraq.
Neither did the US-initiated bombing of the poorly-maintained water treatment plants, swewage treatment plants, bridges, power stations, roads and airports.
Then posting tanks and armed personnel outside, and allowing the looting of hospitals to go on undisturbed did not help the under-funded health care of the country.
Then clamoring loudly that billions were being spent to rebuild that infrastructure, but actually giving those billions to friends of the administration who went about embezzling it and only doing a show of rebuilding anything did not help the matter.
Letting those incompetent nepotist lose countless arms and ammunitions in Iraq did not help the security of the country.
Losing billions of dollars in cash must have helped whoever got their hands on it, but it helped no nation.
And now saying that country next to it against which the US supported a coup to remove their democracy in the 50's, then giving chemical weapons to Saddam to use against Iran's troops did not help. And moving on to the next scapegoat is not helping anything.
You can't take the sky from me...
So I guess this means no one who is a movey star or actor can run....
How bourgeoisie... tell me, do you think laws written by those with money and power serve the interests of those with money and power, or the interests of those without money and power?
IAALS.
I'm kinda with the parent on this one. I have zero respect for GWB but being rich and/or powerful does not automatically make one evil. Is Warren Buffett evil?
I'll grant you that GWB wouldn't have made it past college without his family connections. To me that's somewhat anti-American. Americans aren't supposed to condone or support the concept of a permanent nobility. We fought a revolution to free ourselves from it. That's one of the reasons why I'm always amused when people whine about the estate tax.
People like Paris Hilton are rightfully despised because they've never accomplished anything on their own and the only reason they are famous is because of their parents. I doubt I'll ever be rich but should I happen to make the right choices in life and wind up rich and/or powerful I won't be leaving millions of dollars to my kids. They should find success on their own.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I don't see how that differs from lying to your employees so that they think the stock is worth much more than it really is. They were certainly part of the PR machine that lead their employees to think they were getting in on a good thing. But it would seem that lying to promote your own interests is fair game, but being forthcoming and releasing your lies is "insider trading".
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Hate to be the one to break it to you, but that's exactly what they intended. It's not like the Senate wasn't selected by state legislators or that voting rights were to be originally extended only to property owners, or anything like that, perish the thought.
If the submitter actually watched the show, he would know they've already covered this.
or else!
Um, no.
Publically traded companies have an obligation to present accurate financial information. Not only to their employees, but to everyone.
Insider trading would be if they only gave accurate information to their employees. 'Not lying' to everyone is not insider trading.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
In the case of the government agencies above, they take money that should be used to fully fund the obligations and instead spend it on present fads.
What do you mean by present fads? Are you saying that every government run pension fund and the SSA is corrupt? That the fund managers (including the state treasurers in most cases) are buying yachts? Or that they are investing in more risky investments for higher returns? I don't seem to recall anyone off the top of my head that's been arrested recently for stealing from a government pension fund, nor do I remember there being a recent scandal in the Social Security Administration involving missing funds of some magnitude.
So if you're referring to risky investments, that's one thing. But I wouldn't lump it in with Enron, seeing as Enron's management intentionally misled all of its investors and employees to cover trading losses whereas the government would just be plain inept. But millions of people get their social security checks on time every month, so I don't know how you could point to that.
"They were told that their company was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sure, they could have sought advice from outside, but why should they expect their employers to be giving them a load of BS?" -- I don't mean to speak out of turn, but have you ever worked in any sort of industry that has any sort of sales, marketing, or human resources department? I'd guess not, if you'd ask such a question... The entire world these days is spin management. Optics internally and externally are key focus items. BS is just an unappealing characterization of the typical activity performed by many parts of corporate infrastructure - marketing, legal, communications, HR, etc. Caveat Emptor applies to any corporate pronouncements. Only the terminally naive expect anything different and they habitually end up on the short end of the stick.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I'm not worried, I'm sure Viacom's lawyers know exactly how far they can take the joke.
Unless of course they were all too busy suing someone for a billion dollars.. hmmmm....
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity. -Isaac Asimov
How can it be criminal to run for a position for which every previous holder has to some degree or another, with cognizance, committed violence against the US Constitution?
Violence? Did they rip it or set it on fire?
It's nothing more than trite cliches.
IAEBAEY (I Am Employed By An Enormous Yacht)... And really, not everybody who owns an enormous yacht gets there by stealing people's pensions.
It's another case of a select few ruining it for the rest.
For years, Canada had a satirical party, known as the Rhino Party. At their height, they gained over 1% of the popular vote. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party quashed the party in 1993 by changing the election laws so that candidates had to put up $1000 to run. However, the party is being revived by the Neorhino.ca Party. They ran in a couple of by-elections recently. Interestingly, Bill "Spaceman Lee" (a former professional baseball player) ran for the Rhino Party on the 1988. Colbert's run continues in a Rhino-esce tradition.
Pat Paulsen for President And I don't care of he is dead.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
No, I'm talking about the good old fashioned line-'em-up and shoot 'em in front of the ditch while the bulldozer is still idling nearby. That stuff happened, and continued to, YEARS after the slaughters farther north. And in fact, it's still going on right now.
You can't take the sky from me...
No thats wrong. Paris Hilton is famous because we all saw her get it in her "promo" video.
Reading all these comments makes me want to eat some Doritos
Deleted
Although I could have sworn that he once said $640,000 ought to be enough for anybody...
You can't take the sky from me...
Could anyone enlighten me as to a detail in the US law? Do you HAVE to be nominated to run, or would a simple majority of voters writing your name on the paper be considered a legal vote?
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
People like Paris Hilton are rightfully despised because they've never accomplished anything on their own and the only reason they are famous is because of their parents.
Do you really think the rich pay the estate tax. I have a friend that I went to high school and college with. His grandfather built a poultry business into a national company. My friend's father and uncle sold the business. They took the money and set up a trust (actually, I suspect that the trust owned the business). My friend receives a regular "allowance" from the trust. This is the same sort of set up that the Dupont's, Kennedy's, Rockefeller's, and Bush's have.
The fact of the matter is that the estate tax actually increases the establishment of an aristocracy. If it wasn't for the estate tax, fewer wealthy parents would set up trust funds for their wealth. The trust fund decreases the chance that a child of wealthy parents will squander the wealth.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Just checking.
:-)
And no we're not related
Harald
Enron had been cooking the books for some time before they collapsed. The powers in charge were concerned only about their own profits. If they'd have been forthcoming with their employees that the world was not all roses, they could have had a chance to get out without needing "illegal insider trading".
Trading based on information you have privileged access to, would violate insider trading laws. If OTOH you believe they should have just publicly said that the stock sucks and you should sell it, see below.
In any case, Enron unraveled because a few people actually dissected Enrons *public* filings and saw how shaky it was. What Enron did was more like disclosing "source code" which they jumbled up but which achieved the same thing while being harder to read.
They also followed the advice and hype that came from the Enron executives. They were told that their company was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sure, they could have sought advice from outside, but why should they expect their employers to be giving them a load of BS?
In other words, why shouldn't they accept self-serving statements at face value, in contravention of universally-known advice to diversify one's investments?
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then on whether or not executives are morally obligated to make decisions based on morals.
Morals? Okay.
Each and every person who commits any crime (for robustness, let's only take laws we believe are just) is morally obligated to confess and turn himself again.
Do you agree?
Okay, then let me see where you've spoken in favor of repealing the fifth amendment.
Asking that executives tell people not to buy their stock because it's overvalued is basically the same. How about instead, we just require executives to *reveal through their actions* whether they think the stock is overvalued by disclosing their purchases, sales, and options exercises? Oh wait, we already do.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
"For all their crimes, that's one thing [stealing peoples pensions] Enron and Halliburton haven't done."
What about the pensions of the people lied into investing in Enron - including individuals, 401K and IRA mutual funds, and other pension plans - or the retirees paying outrageous electricity costs due to Enron's illegal market manipulations.
Those "People" who support the republican candidates usually can't afford to feed their own family.
Why do you feel the need to single out republicans in that statement? You even mentioned Hillary "thousands of chinese immigrants working for minimum wage spontaneously donated the maximum to me" Clinton.
if only the raving loony party had won in england during the 80's, we might not be in such a mess now :(
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov
Could anyone enlighten me as to a detail in the US law? Do you HAVE to be nominated to run, or would a simple majority of voters writing your name on the paper be considered a legal vote?
I'm not an election-law lawyer or expert, but: You do not have to be nominated to run, but it can be difficult getting your name on the ballot in states without a party backing you. It doesn't have to be Republican or Democrat; Libertarians regularly get their candidates on most state ballots as far as I am aware. I don't think Perot had a party backing him the second time.
As to the second part: If, in 2008, 51% of people in states making up at least 270 electoral votes voted for, say, Bill Gates, then he would be the legal winner, on a ballot or not. A vote is legal regardless of if the person has a party backing them. The person may not be legally eligible to be president however; you have to be 35 years old and a natural born citizen (plus a few other requirements, like spending the last five or ten years with the US as your primary residence, or something).
Anyone can run, and anyone over 35/natural citizen can actually be put in office. And I can legally vote for anyone I want, and the vote counts.
I always considered McCain-Feingold to be "incumbent protection."
When, in this election, they say you need 100 million to matter, it's pretty clear CFR failed miserably...
Are the kinds that don't vote anyhow. I was amazed in the last election how many people who really hated Bush, who would spend hours and hours and hours slamming him online then later admitted that they couldn't be bothered to go out an vote. Well, I suppose that'd be a reason he won right there.
I have a feeling the large amount of Ron Paul supporters are similar. I see his support mostly online, and mostly in the form of people who rant on message boards. I'm going to guess that only a very tiny fraction of these people will actually go out and vote.
As such, he isn't likely to win. He's got a fair bit of support, but not from a useful base.
So Might Hillary's! it's funny cause it's true
Almost none of what you say applies to the Presidential election, though, since you have to find a slate of electors -- as in "Electoral Vote" -- to put on the ballot, so there can't be a write-in candidate.
In his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, the English author George Orwell wrote: "Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".
Except that they were hyping the stock to their employees, knowing that it was garbage. They knew that what they were doing with the business was wrong, and did it anyways, and made lots of money in the process. They knew that their house of cards was due to collapse, and yet they intentionally gave deceptive information.
Sure, if insider trading is only insider when you are doing something based on privileged and accurate information, then of course they were doing no such thing. Because they were willingly and intentionally giving a line of bull to their employees.
In other words, why shouldn't they accept self-serving statements at face value, in contravention of universally-known advice to diversify one's investments?
One would hope that your employer is not aiming to deceive. They expected that their employer was encouraging them to buy the stock because it was a good investment, not because it was garbage and the executives wanted to expand their golden parachutes before plummeting down to earth. Obviously its wrong to take the statements of anyone with that much money at face value, but that doesn't excuse the executives from doing what they did.
Asking that executives tell people not to buy their stock because it's overvalued is basically the same.
No, it isn't. I ask that executives not willingly and intentionally lie to their employees about the value of their corporation. These guys intentionally crapped all over their employees for their own fun and profit. They were hyping the stock while the company was starting to unravel. Even worse, they were hyping the stock the whole time while they knew of the company's impending demise. In a corporation, why should the risk fall almost entirely on the employees, and the reward almost entirely go to the executives? Aren't the people who start a company supposed to be responsible for the risk? They basically pulled off a horrible pyramid scheme and made off extremely well financially in the end.
But if you're OK with that kind of behaviour from executives, and believe that is the correct reward for them, then again we will just have to agree to disagree.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
We might even need an online marketplace for the aforementioned political favours...P-bay, anyone?
Our elections are no more rigged than your choice of buying Coke or Pepsi at the local supermarket are rigged. People latch on to this stupid everyone gets a vote idea, and that the founding fathers were racists and bigots when they prevented votes to various groups. The fact of the matter is they never intended everyone to vote, not for racist or bigoted reasons, but for the reason that has happened today. I know a guy that voted for Bush based soley on a talking fucking cartoon donkey in a snickers commercial saying he invented the internet! They wanted educated and productive citizens voting, not every whackjob fundie crackpot that couldn't pass a science class to save his life, nor some deadbeat welfare case begging for government handouts. What we have now is a leadership elected by the masses that can't be bothered to do research and just believes whatever insane story they see on Fox, MSNBC, or whatever. The problem is everyone gets to vote, and the vast majority of the populace are brainwashed TV watching jackasses that can't do their history for anything. People have no idea that BOTH of Gates and Rumsfeld serving as SecDef in the current mess were heavily involved in things like the Iraq-Iran war, or the Iran Contra business. People barely understand Cheney's roll with Halliburton, or Condi Rice's involvement with Chevron. Britney Spears and K-Fed get more media attention than the fact that our government just apologized to a canadian for grabbing him, shipping him to a foreign country, and torturing him...and then realizing "shit, not a terrorist". Its pathetic...
Incidentally..."It's been like 60 years" would put us back at the end of WWII and JFK was most certainly not assassinated then...if he had been it would have made it terribly difficult to be President when he was actually assassinated about 44 years ago.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
If the laws written by those with money and power are meant to benefit that same class then they must also, by necessity, benefit those who are making them wealthy and powerful. I was poor and non-powerful once, and still spent some of my Earned Income Credit on Doritos. Food Stamps too.
I'm actually warming up to the idea of corporate sponsorship of political candidates. "The Stephen Colbert Presidential Candidacy, brought to you by Doritos". Yeah, that has a nice ring. Political candidates have to seek approval, at most, once every couple of years. But Americans are voting with their dollars several times every day. They vote for who will be rich and powerful several times a day based not on what's philosphically agreeable to them, but on what they actually want - with a direct negative impact to their bank account. Political votes are free and voluntary. Capitalist votes (with dollars) are also voluntary, but not free. That's the beauty of capitalism - when a transaction is finalized, both parties say "Thank You" - because I wanted the Doritos more than I wanted the dollar, and they wanted the dollar more than they wanted the Doritos.
Mutually agreeable is a good thing, no?
So why not let those whom we've already voted into power have a large impact on elections?
Oh, I don't know, a socialist without the stones to run for full-fledged communist dictator?
A Democrat, at any rate, and therefore a small-minded power-worshipper with a little power. Nothing more dangerous, really.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Hillary's a Democrat.
And she gets most of her campaign contributions in $2k chunks from illegal immigrant Chinese dish washers. They like her that much.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I think it will be quite the opposite. He will drain the pool of intelligent voters.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
yet somehow bush's wasnt :|
back in the day we didnt have no old school
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
The founding fathers did not envision that there would be political parties at all; they basically imagined every congressman, senator and the president being factionless independent candidates -- choosing what to vote for via debate and discussion instead of ramming through the policy of the majority party. That didn't quite work out (though it should be noted that congressmen still vote more independently in the US than in parliamentary democracies), but the Constitution still doesn't say a word about party nominations or whatever. So the answer to your question is the latter.
...that Colbert is doing something right.
Look at how much people are arguing over the legality of this that and the other. Colbert's entire "candidacy" has already brought to light the absurdity of campaign finance laws. As it goes on, he'll continue to toe the line, all the while mocking the laws and illustrating just how convoluted presidential races have become. I may not always agree with him, but I think this is a brilliant move.
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
Damn it all, the only reason your "real bosses" get things their way is they participate. Organize your asses and get out there and get it done. I'm positive there's already an organization that is fighting the good fight right now if you don't want to DIY.
American history has swung from political machinery back to the citizens a couple of times now. Why not start now?
That goes for you and the slackers that modded you insightful.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
yay, thought and consideration, not dumb flamebait, thats it!
Does suggesting that you put a cross on a piece of paper every half decade mean that you have even the slightest understanding of democracy or what representative government might mean? I would suggest that it does not!
Do you really think that you have a handle on the folk that seem to have control of your country at the moment, er I mean for the last fifty or so years, i.e. corporate, oil and other big business interests?
Your willfully ignorant attitude provides consent for the abhorrent and murderous regime that has managed to take hold of the US, and makes you as responsible as anyone else for what they've carried out thus far, never mind what they might have planned for the future.
This isn't about flamebait you f_cking retard - you c_nts are doing your best to wreck this planet, one way or another, and its high time you woke up to it!
and, according to the general ./ consensus, that's why the situation is so bad.
Vote for Ron Paul. Call all of your friends and explain to them why the should vote for Ron Paul. Get them all to go to a caucus meeting and hijack the caucus. You'll make a tiny difference by the convention. By the third convention, you should have the party in a full-blown crisis because you won't toe the line. American history is full of this kind of thing.
I know it's more ironic to vote for a non-candidate, but the process doesn't work if you don't have the courage to get involved. Then you only have yourself to blame.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
This isn't rocket science. If the employer selectively confesses its lies to its employees, it is unquestionably insider trading for them to sell their stock. If the employer publically discloses its lies, although the employees may sell their stock, this does not help them because they will be in no better position than the other stockholders trying to unload their stock. The very purpose of insider trading laws is to ensure that insiders are not put in a better position than the general public.
It is of course criminal to defraud your stockholders, including employee stockholders, about the company's financial information. However, the solution is not to do that in the first place. Having done so, it is not legal to help your employees avoid the consequences at the expense of others.
Right, but your grandparent post claimed that they could have given the employees a "chance to get out" by being forthcoming. Publicly disclosing massive fraud in your prior financial statements does not give employees a chance to get out in any real sense. The reasonable assumption by the parent was that the grandparent was not talking about public disclosure.
You could hardly be more wrong on your guess. One of many jobs I've held over the years was a 2-year stint at a CompUSA (circa 1997-1999). From the sales floor, we could literally see the company falling apart even then. We the workers were constantly victims to the idiotic decisions made by the upper management, but it was so obvious to us how far their collective heads were up their own collective asses that we knew to steer clear.
There was, however, one guy at the same location as I that did choose to buy stock in the company not long after that store opened (I remember when they were publicly traded, and even proudly showed their ticker symbol in the store). He lost his shirt on that one, but he was retired from the Navy and already had a decent pension so I think he still did alright. I never heard of any Enron employees who could say the same.
I also remember working there when the Palm VII came out - the first PDA with mobile wireless internet. We joked that we could watch our stock price fall in real-time from the floor. Not too much longer after that, the company was bought out by Carlos Slim (the richest man in Mexico). More recently, the store I worked at, and all the other locations in that area, were closed down by the corporation.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Cat got your tongue?
...At least until the Electoral College gets ahold of it...
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Incidentally..."It's been like 60 years" would put us back at the end of WWII and JFK was most certainly not assassinated then...if he had been it would have made it terribly difficult to be President when he was actually assassinated about 44 years ago.
Please don't present facts to conspiracists. It only makes them irritable and confused. Just close the door and walk away very quietly...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
He would be the winner of the popular vote and thus could select a majority of electors. The electors are still free to
choose anyone they wish. Including someone who wasn't voted for.
For, instance if 12% of the population voted for Stephen Colbert, 44% voted for Pat Buchannan and 44% percent voted for Hillary Clinton, and Colbert sent a bunch of Democratic insiders to the Electoral College and they, along with the rest of the democrats, voted for Bill Clinton. Then since the Constitution would override any law passed by Congress Bill CLinton would become the Elected President even though Congress passed a law that disallows a person from serving a third term as President. Which might lead to a Constitutional crisis and certainly a Supreme Court case. Which would likel lead to an recall of the electors to choose someone else, which could then be Stephen Colbert. Electors are normally chosen by the political party of the candidate.
When you cast a vote in a presidential election you vote only to send an Elector. It is the duty of the Electors to choose the best candidate. Unfortunately, the purpose that our forefathers sought to implement with this hasn't worked out. The electors have for almost all elections
fallen in line with the party and not chosen based who would be best. It has also backfired in that a person could win the popular vote and still lose the election, which has happened twice, IIRC.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
Hate to tell you this but everyone knew who Paris Hilton was before that video also.
The only problem is that we've had a lot of Pennywises lately...
Stop Koolaid Politics
If they'd been "forthcoming" with their employees in a way that would satisfy what you seem to expect of them, they'd have given their employees privileged information about the prospects of the company which enabled them to act on it before it was reported to the public at large. Guess what the name is for this? Yup, insider trading.
Of course the reason that the Enron execs didn't tell anybody about the company's real state is because they were selfish. But what you're suggesting they should have done is illegal, and rightly so.
Because their employers have a conflict of interest, of course!
The ethical quandary you're talking about here is completely moot. Executives of publicly traded companies have the obligation to release truthful information about the company to the public at large, and to not act or enable others to act on that information before they release it. These guys were crassly lying to the public about the company's finances. The right thing to do would have been to stop lying, and publically admit to having lied. Or even better: to not start lying at all.
Are you adequate?
Frankly, unless something unlikely happens between now and the election, I think I will be voting for Colbert, even if I have to write in his name. Like you say, it's partly out of protest, but also because through his humor, he's been more honest than any politician will probably ever be.
Besides, the government we have now is such a joke that only a professional comedian could hope to do anything with it.
Less trustworthy and inspiring than what? Politics hasn't changed much, though I think political duels (with guns) would be nice to bring back
Armistead Thomson Mason (1787-1819)
Robert Brank Vance (1793-1827)
Spencer Darwin Pettis (1802-1831)
Just imagine the TV ratings bonanza that a Gore vs. Bush duel would be.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
"You can't blame people for succeeding when you don'"
,etc?
Yes you can since people's judgement is not very good. There are plenty of people we all know that could run the country better, but do not have the looks, charms, or willingness to bend their principles and lie (i.e. pretend to be something they are not).
Let's face it, most people are too stupid to make an intelligent choice, and those that are, are most either 1) Not interested or 2) Don't know how to get there.
Success is not this pure - responsibility of only one person kind of BULLSHIT american dogmatists like to spout - success depends on a number of factors beyond your control. Would Winston Churchill have been president/PM of the UK if he was born to bad parents, or in another country? Or had a crappy time at school, etc
There are innumerable unchangables depending on where somewhere is born and raised and how that effects them, people are not these god like creatures that have total control over their fate, it's a bunch of horse-shit and I'd hope to find better at slashdot.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
It doesn't matter if you think your company can make 100% profits and double its stock every year.
You should NEVER... EVER... have more than 20% of your retirement in anything. And 20% is if you are a wild eyed gambler or have less than $100k.
Otherwise, you limit your exposure to any given area to 5%. If you have "small" amounts of money (under $500k), you get that diversification by using mutual funds or ETF's.
Otherwise, you are not investing- you are really just gambling. And in many cases with worse odds than they will give you in Vegas.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You should ALWAYS assume that ANYTHING your employer tells you is a big pile of stinking bullshit. ESPECIALLY if it pertains to the company itself.
You will never be disappointed.
Case in point, several months ago the company I work for (which is, in its field, iirc still the largest in the world..) undertook some procedural changes to streamline things. This resulted in production *only* dropping 8% from the previous quarter.. which was heralded as a success.
Less production via a massive investment in equipment and retraining, and it's a success. That's pretty much how it goes in any large corporation. So.. yeah, trust what the clowns in the suits tell you about your company at your own peril.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
I hate to tell you this also, but LOTS of people make sex tapes. Yes, some of them even become public. Are they famous today? No.
The Paris Hilton sex tape is known because it was the sex tape of a famous person. It's not the other way around.
then who will be left to tell the kings the truth?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
A christian/secular humanist symbol many did not want. In fact, most want to be represented by someone who looks like a male of their ethnicity, from the higher castes or classes.
However, the next person who calls Barack "Osama" should probably be shot on aesthetic grounds alone.
Anti-Globalism
Ooh...didn't think of that. I was just making another example of the people can't do history thing :) To be fair, there are quite a few problems with the whole JFK assassination thing. Conspiracies in general are easy to untangle if you follow the money, it only gets difficult when noname crazy people are involved in events, its hard to distinguish the acts of a lone crazy from something bigger. It is no secret that people in power will do things to remain in power, often illegal and immoral things that they will try to hide because revealing them would get them removed from power. It isn't some vast conspiracy, its just a bunch of greedy fools working "together" while trying to stab each other at the same time. Human greed is such that some super conspiracy group could not exist, their own individual motives would eventually cause it to collapse anyways. If, however, such a group DID work past that ugly bit of human nature, then quite frankly, they would probably be more qualified to run the world anyways.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Who is Paris Hilton?
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Ok Morris, I will reconsider my decision of firing you just because you slapped my daughter's ass. You now can marry her if you want, and I am hiring you again as my chief PR. Cordially, Paulo Maluf
Your ad could be here!
I've got a conspiracy for you:
A lone gunman with an outdated rifle that he was not an expert at using shot three shots at incredible distance that created 12 different trajectories, including one that assassinated a president. The "fatal" shot (there were probably more than one) was a head shot that somehow blew the president BACKWARDS, and blew out the entire back of his head, even though the shooter was allegedly from behind. Before any facts could be determined though, the "shooter" who clearly had no knowledge of the incident, and even loudly claimed on arrest that he was a patsy, and looked honestly confused, was gunned down by a second shooter with mob and CIA ties.
So here's my conspiracy: THAT ludicrous story is what happened. Give me a fucking break. I am not a physicist, but even with the limited experience I've had using guns, that scenario is preposterous, to say the least.
And if you follow the money, it's pretty clear that Johnson, Nixon, and George Bush Sr. all directly benefited from the heinous crime. Lee Oswald (who was an out of work loser, by the way), however, did not.
Further, while we're on the topic of "conspiracy" and physics, I'd really like an explanation of what happened to World Trade Center building Seven, which fell down at free fall speed, and was NOT hit by a plane. Especially when the accredited physicists who have studied it have found evidence of pyroclastic incendiaries. Not that the aforementioned media hacks (in this case specifically Popular Mechanics) would bother with actual science, in favor of computer models that ignore the primary structural supports of the main two buildings, and ignore the additional 57 story building (THAT WAS NOT HIT BY A PLANE) altogether.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
So it "seems" to you that people have as much control as they want to have... where do you get this from may i ask? it is of course shit, and you can justify the behaviour of any regime or government with.
truth is that the apathy and ignorance that you yourself demonstrate so well has been carefully crafted over the years, with the skilled use of tools such as mass media.
you have ignored this point a few times now but once again i'll state quite clearly that the big business interests that control your country are leading you into aggressive wars to protect their interests, killing millions along the way, and perhpas more importantly are also doing a great job of f_cking the environment up.
now while your country is not the only nation that is guilty of this kind of thing, its just that its the worst, and its getting worse all the time.
it also sets a rather bad example to others; if you're as greedy and as thieving as you can possibly be, then you can get away with it, as long as you have the military power to control the places that matter to you by military fiat.
this might be a bit sophisticated, but see how you do; collectively, not personally, people in your country who are observant and smart enough to notice this are failing to face up to what is being done in your name and/or refusing to take responsibility.
i'll wait for your next sarcastic answer. of course you'll probably miss the point completely and crap on about the moderation system some more, but never mind eh!
All you Bush-haters don't need to resort to an [illegal] comic fool like Colbert to make a mockery of the U.S. Presidency, just look at how the country views your CONGRESS (10% approval), your "Barrack Hussein OBAMA" candidate (a "pffft" weenie), and Mrs. Hillary Clinton (a screeching megalomaniac). LOL!!
I'm fairly sure there are write-in candidates in presidential elections, all the time. Generally, the electors vote the way the popular vote in the state went. The presidential ballots list the candidates, not a list of electors.
Until a write-in wins more than 50% of a state's population, we won't know for sure how that situation will play out.
Yes, I know about the electoral college. But it's very rare that electors don't go the way the state vote went. My point was, my vote counts towards deciding which electors are chosen.
Attempting to have a law stricken down by a Judge during a Presidential Election to try and benefit your candidate? LOL, sounds like what Al Gore attempted in 2000. Creepy as it was, it failed.
Try this, you Colbert people: just cast your vote for a candidate who will work to repeal this law you don't like. Next time around, if you are in the majority, you will have your way -- circus clowns and porn stars will be able to run for President, as they did for Gov in CA in '04. And Colbert too.
BUT BE ADVISED:
In the meantime, foolishly breaking the law to make a statement about your disliking of it only benefits your enemy.
At last the American election process has found it's Screaming Lord Such
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Monster_Raving_Loony_Party.
It's a sign of maturity really - now see if you can get a cat to run for office.
Is socks available ?
Nullius in verba
A lot of people knew who she was before that video, but at that time most people who had heard of her would have told you she was "just another heiress". The release of that first sex video was the launching point of her current fame.
Your puny candidate shall kneel before Zod http://www.zod2008.com/
The difference is they lied to EVERYONE. That's illegal, but it would have been MORE illegal for them to lie to the public and tell their employees the truth, that gives the employees an advantage due to insider information. And yet that's what you want them to have done, told their employees the truth so they could "bail out" while still telling the public everything is great. That's insider trading.
The only good solution would of been for them to be honest to EVERYONE, but that wouldn't of helped their employees any as by being honest, the stock price still would have plummeted before employees could get out, but at least that's the legal and ethical thing to do.
At the end of the day, employees shouldn't of been 100% invested in just their own company.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
And yet that's exactly what the person I was responding to wanted them to do, tell their employees the truth so they could "get out". The proper thing to do would have been no to lie to ANYONE.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Welcome our new Overlord: Emporer Colbert
Right, and it's better for our presidential wannabes to be sponsored by big oil, private investors and corporate moguls who do it under the table? At least Colbert's pointing out that all these jerks are just the same, he's simply putting it out in the open. Everyone running for president now, or who has in the past, has money coming from investors who are doing just that, _investing_, in order to get what they want, how they want it, and with who they want it. Get over it, people.
brian botkiller "Condensing fact from the vapor of nuance" - Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Have you left the Mists to settle in Kaffiristan ?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Warren Buffet is Satan himself! No, no, I kid. No human being is entirely good or evil. Even Hitler was sweet to his dogs. And as mega rich guys go, Buffet is one of the better ones, by far. I admire much about him, but let's not quite give him sainthood yet. While I certainly applaud many of the public stances he has taken, I think it's accurate to say that Buffet has been primarily motivated by desire for profit, and not by improving the life of his fellow human bings.
And in the quest for that profit, Buffet has been a part of some business ventures that aren't exactly wonderful. Buffet made lots of his money in insurance. My experience with insurance companies, and the overwhelming majority of anecdotal evidence that I've encountered, is that they are complete and utter bastards. The goal is always to deny the claim, not matter what. The insured then typically has to endure a bureaucratic nightmare trying to get the money that they rightfully are owed. So is that not evil?
Buffet also made a lot of money by owning Coca-Cola stock. I consider them to be pretty evil. They use a massive marketing budget to promote a product that is unhealthy and contributes massively to making the world overweight. So what's evil, if not profiting from the suffering of your fellow humans? Yeah, they're not exactly a tobacco company, but they're not really far off in my mind. To me, the Coca-Cola corporation exemplifies everything that is bad about American culture - fantastic marketing, no nutritional value.
And, to somewhat tie this rant back to the Colbert story, it's not like Buffet is a self-made man. He has far more in common with George W. Bush than he does with Colbert. Buffet is a child of privilege, like so many other rich people. His dad was in Congress. That's a nice head start in life. My dad is a meth dealer. So yeah, the playing field was not quite level there. Buffet had enough money to buy a gas station when he was 21. Did you? Me either. The Buffet worshipers should keep that in mind.
But to get back to the original poster's question: yes, rich people are all evil. As you get more and more rich, it's harder and harder to stay away from evil. I'll just quote my main man JC here: "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God".
What is so wonderful to me about Colbert's candidacy is how he is lampooning the system by becoming part of it. Yes, he faces some serious legal issues. And that's wonderful. He's gone into Andy Kaufman territory, where a big part of the joke is the fact that no one can be exactly certain where the joke ends. Colbert likes to say that he's in now way qualified, but is he really any less qualified than Fred Thompson? Or for that matter, Dubya? I'd bet a kidney that Colbert would beat Dubya on a teast covering basic knowledge of current events. Colbert a really sharp guy. Bush is not. So who is qualified?
One thing I could respect about Clinton was that whatever you could say about him, good or bad, he wasn't born with silver spoon in hand... he wasn't no Senator's son, no, no...
Except if they'd have been honest in the first place, then their employees wouldn't have invested so heavily in the company. The company was built on lies, and perpetuated by lies, until the executives knew that the shit was due to hit the fan - at which point they bailed themselves out and pretended to be innocent.
Of course, that kind of honesty would place the burden of risk on the executives, which clearly we don't expect in this country any more.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
ResidntGeek
He wants his kids to have enough money to do anything but not enough to do nothing.
George Washington didn't envision political parties. But given that several of the other Founding Fathers actually started political parties, I'd say it's pretty disingenuous to try and claim that they, as a group, didn't plan on them.
Meet thePress man Meet the press
"Claiming that executives should say their own stock is overvalued, even if true, is unrealistic."
Only if you accept executives who lie.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I can't remember who said it, but there is a line that goes something like "you should leave your children enough money to do anything but not enough money to do nothing".
I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
It depends on how the state has it set up. Generally, when you are voting for "Candidate A" or Candidate B", you are actually voting for which set of electors are sent to the Electoral College. So there is a slate of electors pledged to vote for "Candidate A" and another slate to vote for "Candidate B". The key thing is these are different people, there isn't a single set of electors that vote however the state vote went, a different set is sent depending on who won. That is actually what you are voting for on election day by the way. Ballots typically make it look like you are voting for a candidate, but you are actually voting for slates of electors pledged to a candidate.
It's non-compulsory voting. If everyone voted, and actively concentrated on a wide variety of potential political issues, then no business interest would stand a chance. As it stands, people are happy as long as the government is run semi-competently, and yes, the US is being run (at least) semi-competently.
I still don't see why it's shit, and I still don't see the the connection between justifying the US government's behaviour and having some faith in the democratic system. I believe I went over this last post. If anything, you, with your empty outrage and your overwhelming cynicism, are being the problem here. I have the balls to actually do something about the things I don't like. You are just content to give up and yell from the sidelines to an unsympathetic internet forum.
I'm not ignoring that point. (Did you even read my post?) It is conjecture. You're providing no evidence for it. I presented you with an alternate scenario, where the people control as much as they want, and fringe political groups/corporations can squabble over the rest, and I explained why it happens, and why it can look like the scenario you're presenting. I pointed out that that point of view is often put forward by people who don't understand that their opinion is not shared by the people around them. People actually were in favour of the war. It wasn't some sidelined political issue that no-one cared about. It was a hot-button issue that often was the deciding factor in a person's vote, and still people wanted it.
Wake up. All countries are competitive. If a war will help protect their citizens, and they have the economy to pull it off, then they will go to war! It's not just the US, but every damn country out there! Of course, some countries have adopted policies that make the decision to go to war harder to reach, but I would argue that the US can't afford to adopt that kind of policy. The reason being that they have a country full of neo-cons and religious types who see the US as enormous power that must do good in the world against the forces of evil (read: terrorism, Saddam Hussein). Any government that shirks that responsibility would be voted out quick-smart.
Now we agree! We should be taking responsibility, rather than just giving up on the system! The first way to do that is to spread hope that the system will work, so that people will stop giving up and actually do something about their problems. I do that by explaining why the system is how it is, and how people can personally help usher in change. I explain that people are responsible for their government (as you seem to be saying). Again, you make me wonder if you actually read my posts.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
"Yeah, I'm sure striking down laws allowing rich people to automatically win the election is for the good of the nation, and exactly what the Founders intended."
Why does your post sound sarcastic? Are you saying that the "Founders" were plutocratic and/or oligarchic? Are you talking about Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, et al? While most were somewhat wealthy, they also mostly made that wealth themselves. More than a few, including Franklin, came from humble beginnings. How do you prescribe to know the intent of the USA founders who lived and died over 200 years ago? The Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights certainly don't seem to favor the rich.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
William Jefferson Clinton. Jimmy Carter. Richard Nixon. Dwight Eisenhower. Need I go on? While many, many Presidents have been rich, either through birth or through their own earnings, it is not a requirement.
yay, thats it. balls. i lack balls.
oh dear.
errrrr balls- yes maybe you should try using your head a bit more, if you're going to set yourself up as a cheerleader for democracy, it might help you to formulate arguments that aren't so jumbled.
i'm going to try to make this as simple as i can for you - one last effort you might say.
i would suggest that what you have in your country is a particularly sorry travesty of democracy, and its getting worse. you choose to see this as a suggestion that we should give up on democracy. but nope, i didn't suggest that. you can only get so far when cover the weaknesses in your own position by misrepresenting the opposing view. this is a good example.
anyhow, its interesting that the bottom line in your argument turns out to be that we should all "Wake up...If a war will help protect their citizens...they will go to war! It's not just the US"
so any other thug would do the same if they had the power to?
this betrays just how bereft your position ultimately is; i have to ask is there any room for morality or respect for international law in your pig-headed little world view?
and when you say "protect citizens" might you include economic interests? would you care to show me a situation where a country cannot justify declaring war on another using your version of foreign policy!!!!
of course i'm making the assumption that you believe war isn't a good thing?
a couple of times i've wondered whether you're morally or logically deficient in your thinking but to be honest i think that you're stupid rather than bad.
and who said anything about giving up and yelling from the sidelines? once again your efforts to misrepresent the opposing view cannot help you here i'm afraid. you're wide of the mark in that i'm actively involved in politics.
and so to "I do that by explaining why the system is how it is"; i wish you had some idea of how this kind of talk appears. you really are a very funny little man. and of course, most of what you say is balls, which doesn't help either.
still you've given me and a few others a laugh. nice talking to you buddy.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
I'd have to disagree with you here. I've previously worked for an insurance agency. Not all companies are "complete and utter bastards" looking to deny claims. My personal experience is limited to a collision loss. Never had to fight them on that. None of the companies that my agency sold ever gave insureds a hard time with claims either. I even got to see a fire loss in my time in the business. The company wrote a $300,000 check on the spot like you or I would write a $20 check at the grocery store. The insured didn't have to do anything more then file her claim. I've also seen flood losses that were handled as quickly as, "Here's your check".
It would be more fair to some outfits are complete and utter bastards. All evidence I've seen suggests that GEICO (owned by Berkshire Hathaway, whose majority shareholder is Buffett) is one of these. Rate-jacked premiums after they buy because the company "missed" things on the quote, denied claims or non-existent claims service, fees for mid-term cancellation, etc, etc.
Yeah, they're not exactly a tobacco company, but they're not really far off in my mind. To me, the Coca-Cola corporation exemplifies everything that is bad about American culture - fantastic marketing, no nutritional value.They aren't even remotely close to a tobacco company. Come back to mind when we find scientific evidence that Coca-Cola has deliberately engineered their product to be addictive. I find soda disgusting and refuse to drink it, but many people enjoy it and I don't see a problem with that. Then again, I'm Libertarian-minded with these things and I don't even see a problem with people who enjoy tobacco as long as they are educated as to the risks of doing so.
Buffet is one of the better ones, by far. I admire much about him, but let's not quite give him sainthood yetEh, I didn't advocate sainthood. I just needed to throw out the name of a well known philanthropist and this being /. I couldn't very well use Bill Gates as my example of someone who isn't evil ;)
I'd bet a kidney that Colbert would beat Dubya on a teast covering basic knowledge of current events. Colbert a really sharp guy. Bush is not. So who is qualified?The whole thing about "qualifications" is just a smoke screen to scare people away from voting for candidates (republican, democrat or third-party) who aren't establishment and mainstream. What does "qualify" you for President? I'd make the argument anyone smart enough to listen to others for advice and surround themselves with intelligent people in the right positions (State, Treasury and Defense come to mind as the most important ones) is qualified to be President. Lincoln went from a seat in the House (where he made quite a few glaring mistakes in retrospect), to being a lawyer, to being President of the United States. Think that would happen in this day and age with the focus on "experience" and "qualifications"?
One thing I could respect about Clinton was that whatever you could say about him, good or bad, he wasn't born with silver spoon in hand... he wasn't no Senator's son, no, no...My problem with Bush lies less with the silver spoon and more with the way he does business. A better comparison would be that Clinton was smart enough to surround himself with the right people and wasn't afraid of listening to dissenting opinions in his administration. He even had a Republican has his Secretary of Defence. Contrast that to the insulated world of the Bush administration, the paranoid secrecy, people chosen more for loyalty and/or kickbacks then competence (your doing a heck of a job Brownie.....), etc, etc, etc. I miss Bill Clinton :(
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
but, they did freeze employee's rights to sell stock once the news started coming out and their employees lost about 75% of their investment during that freeze while executives continued to sell their stock. So they did fuck the employees royally. At least they could have liquidated at far better levels rather than after all the bad news had finally come out and NO ONE was a buyer of the stock. but of course, you have given many many more examples of possible corporate impropriety. It is uncertain at best whether their costing of the pensions is incorrect. I've never seen any hard evidence, only certain examples of how dependent they are on accounting rules.
I have to say, and this will probably sound heartless, but there is zero chance of me doing that for my kids even if by some fluke I become a billionaire. I'm not even inclined to pay their expenses while they go to school, because it's been my experience that the kids going to college whose parents have paid for 100% of their expenses don't have a whole lot of respect for education or the process. I will pay for their tuition, books, etc during undergrad, but none of their other expenses and they are on their own for their graduate degrees should they decide to get them.
The fact of the matter is that the estate tax actually increases the establishment of an aristocracy. If it wasn't for the estate tax, fewer wealthy parents would set up trust funds for their wealth.
Well, the sad reality is that no matter what tax scheme you come up with, the rich will find ways around it. I was just saying that I find it funny to hear people bitch about it and call it the "death tax". During the original tax debates there was even an amendment introduced to provide an exemption for the first ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS of an estate. This was voted down because the Republicans wouldn't settle for anything less then a complete elimination. Yeah, I feel real bad for people who stand to inherit estates that are valued high enough to be subject to the tax in the first place (generally over four million bucks). That tax burden must be crushing them.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
What I'd like to know is, if Colbert has to go to court over this, would he have the balls to stay in character?
I generally don't condone war (WWII being an exception - I see little choice in that circumstance), and I don't condone what the US has done, personally. I never said anything to that effect, I never implied it. All I was doing was showing a little empathy and a little intellectual understanding. You not only misrepresented me, but you continue to, unperturbed by what I'm saying. In fact, for you to have the chance to make the connection that I've been waiting for since your first post, you've had to wait until I changed tack, and even then the connection couldn't be made. I'm forced to conclude that you're full of shit.I was saying (please refrain from straying from what I explicitly said; it's obvious you can't be trusted to comprehend anything else) that it was a mix of having lots of power and wealth, and having a population saturated with zealots who are convinced they know what's right and what's wrong, and who insist that everyone abide by their rules. These zealots are the usually ones to support these sorts of wars because fighting Evil(tm) is always Good(tm). You know the people I mean. Religious nuts, neo-conservatives, and you. You may not condone war, but you certainly are trying to stir up conflict.Yes, of course. Countries have morality. It's just whatever morality the people give it.People can justify whatever they want however they like depending on their morality. It's really not for me personally to decide what everyone else can justify.Perhaps if you weren't so pig-headed as to think that everyone who doesn't share your opinion is stupid, you would gain a little insight into the world.
It's kinda funny that we're arguing like this. You may not be from the same country as me, but we are trying to accomplish the same thing: we trying to get people to take responsibility for their government. You do it by shoving your morality down people's throats and using petty insults, while I do it with rhetoric and encouragement.You've shown others? Oh well, any publicity is good publicity. Here's my advice to them: speak your opinions nice and loud! Speak them to others and to strangers. But while you advocate change, don't be over-bearing like this guy here, or else you may well end up accomplishing the opposite.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I respect you and anyone else who has that opinion - right up to the point where it crosses over from your opinion of how to live your live to how you think everyone should live. I'm also quite certain I'll never be rich, but the single biggest motivation for me to make money is to provide for my kids. When I'm gone, they get what I earned because it was mostly for them in the first place. The sense of entitlement & other traits the we so dislike in the rich comes not from getting their inheritance when their parents die but from what they were given & how they were raised while they were alive.
Vote Quimby.
That and three terms away from Regan. Tenuous as that connection may be, Regan was strong enough a president to have a palpable influnence on putting the current doofus behind his desk.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
...and he doesn't care..
{I can't think of any other forum where the odds of people getting this references are sufficiently high}
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Its that way *everywhere* if you're connected and rich you get some advantages but that does not squareness's success, if you're poor and not well connected you don't get such advantages but that does not guarantee failure. The last election feature two presidential candidates neither of whom got there solely on merit, the same was true of 2000 (Al gore field out of law and divinity school). Who got there starting from poverty? Well Regan and Clinton (to appease the left and the right reading this) both come to mind. Both were rich(ish) and powerful when they ran for the white house but both had earned that power and wealth themselves. You don't have to start life in a rich powerful family to be president, but it sure helps.
Despise her??
I'd like to sleep with her...but, I don't despise her....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Everyone pays 10% of their income in taxes.
You can't get around that. It's the loopholes that rich congressmen put in the tax code that allows rich people to not pay taxes. Bush used that exact same logic in his 2004 campaign (that you can't tax the rich). I mean it's not the government could change the law or anything.
No to all.
My complaint was this: state/local/federal governments promise benefits in the form of pensions, which pay out later.
That obligation has a present (discounted) value today. For example, $3000/month till death, for a then-70-year old, starting twenty years from now, would cost some amount to fully fund today. As a rough estimate, let's say that's $60,000 (the present actuarial value). If the government has the obligation *now* to pay that benefit *later*, it should count that liability on its balance sheet today, and should set aside money today (in an investment portfolio) to even out that obligation -- the $60,000 so the money is there when the pensioner needs to draw on it.
They don't do this. Instead, they take current tax revenues and use it, basically to buy votes and re-election (i.e. the present "fads" that win votes). If anything, they only cover a small portion of the actuarially-accurate value, risking that future taxpayers won't be able to pay for it.
In the case of the SSA, the government takes the surplus and "loans it to itself", an accounting fiction rivaling what Enron did. I can't fund my retirement by writing an IOU to myself, sticking it in my mattress, and "withdrawing" it later, yet that's exactly what government pension funds do.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
CP as AC: My bad, that's what I meant to say.
Sounds great. Now try to nail down "income" and try and collect 10% of it. Hint, look at US tax law. Taxing *income* is the problem. Try taxing something that isn't made by people and is relatively easy to measure. One good (IMHO) candidate is land. Some guy in the 18th century figured it all out. His name is Henry George. BTW taxing sales, bank transactions or flat taxes all have serious unintended consequences. Taxing land isn't perfect but it is about as equitable as you can get and it would *stimulate* productive activity. The other popular tax options *stifle* economic activity. Too bad it takes serious study to "get". Also, it is a very unpopular idea with wealthy and powerful people. I wonder why...
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
I voted for Kodos!
They were hyping their stock to everyone. They crapped on everyone. What about the billion's lost by everyday investors which were invested in Enron?
Honestly, the employees screwed themselves. The #1 advice for investment is diversify. If someone was stupid enough to put 100% of their money into Enron, well, sorry, but they made a really bad decision, they will have to live with it.
Q.
"Why? Because if they had the chops that it takes to be President, then they would have done more with their life than that. Everyone has to start somewhere, but you can't jump straight into the big game."
Well I would follow that line of reasoning, but if your logic had any chops you would have been able to make a name for yourself and your reasoning before an AC post buried in a post on slashdot.
Of course, if Bill had consulted anyone outside than the Vista QA team, he'd have realized the true value:
$640k = $655,360
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Lee Harvey Oswald was an ex-Marine, and evidence points to his rifle recovered from the depository to actually being the murder weapon. If there were other shooters, they got off free simply because ballistics all matched to Oswald's rifle.
On Building Seven; two massive burning buildings next door fell over right next to it. Debris fell on Seven, and started multiple fires. The fires didn't get put out due to the sprinkler system electrical failure and the FD having no water pressure. Two buildings next to building Seven sustained damage from THAT collapse. Controlled demolitions don't tend to cause that kind of collateral damage (a community college that is being deconstructed now and Verizon building that cost over $1bn to fix). Also, who with the power to blow up the building benefited from blowing it up?
Trying to control how a candidate is funded ends up squelching free speech. Colbert may be a fake candidate, but what if he turned out to be someone lots of people wanted to be President? What, a TV station can't back him? As politicians make new rules for getting elected, the rules favor the encumbents more and more, it's inevitable, because they feel the effects of any restrictions first and ensure that the bugs in the system that affect them are eliminated, but problems for their opponents? Oh, well.
Currently hooked on AMP
>>> GWB wouldn't have made it past college without his family connections George Bush would not have GOTTEN IN college without his family connections - unless maybe he had a chimp take his SAT ...
"It's not how many people I've killed - it's how I get along with the ones that are still alive."
Last night Colbert announced that he would be filing his papers for the Democratic primary but not for the Republican. He also mentioned that he has to keep his total campaign spending under $5,000 or else he will risk breaking election laws. So there is his plan. He can raise and spend $5,000 on his campaign and still keep his TV show. We will find out tonight on his show if the Dems accept him for the primary ballot.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Fixed that for you.