Roll Call Take Two

Reading through Fox news and I've came across titles such as, "Michael Moore Beats His Socialist Chest", "Palin: If Obama Is Re-elected, You Will No Longer Recognize the Country You Love ...", and "Obama Taunts Romney After Ruling" I can't help but laugh at Fox News.

Oh. Well, campaign finance has been a big topic. Frankly I don't care that much about Obamacara. I think it was a stupid way to try and solve our health care problems. It was originally the Republicans' plan, but as soon as Obama picked it up, they decided they didn't like it after all.

To me the more important issue is Citizens United which the Supreme Court forced down the states' throats earlier this week with nary a whimper. As far as I'm concerned the U.S. government is now for sale to the highest bidder. My 15 bucks will make no difference against the billions that special interests have to buy up politicians. And my vote will be drowned out by voters who are being systematically misinformed by the media.

That's how I see it anyway.

Yeah it's actually really weak, isn't it. And very classically Republican.
What is Citizens United?
The thing that always scares me about voting is that my vote counts as much as that of idiots who don't care to educate themselves and believe any crap they hear . . . or idiots who (for some unfathomable reason) believe they're rich and the Conservative Party will do good things for them.

Yeah, I saw those. I don't think Fox is funny anymore, because so many people believe the nonsense they put out. I don't know if it's true, but I heard Rupert Murdoch couldn't expand into Canada, because Canada actually requires you not to lie on television.

I don't know about Rupert Murdoch in particular, but it's true you can't broadcast false/misleading news in Canada
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/r...age-3.html#h-5

That's why we must make it an obligation to vote. If you don't vote than well that's one less vote towards the desire party.

I don't know much about Canada but from what I heard from a friend who lives in the UK that news television is ran by the government such as BBC.

CU is a 2010 Supreme Court decision which said that corporations are people with free speech rights. Since money is considered speech (per an earlier decision), this means we can't curtail or limit corporate campaign spending. That would be stifling free speech in violation of the constitution.

U.S. law also allows contributions to be made to super PAC's without disclosing the donor's identity. So extremely wealthy people and corporations are pouring huge quantities of money into organizations which are theoretically separate from the candidates themselves. They use this money to bombard us with advertising - which often contains lies. And we don't get to know who's behind the ads.

It's very frightening IMO.

Earlier this week they extended CU to strike down a century old Montana law which was designed to deal with political corruption from copper barons at the turn of the 19th/20th century. The Supreme Court has assured us that money doesn't corrupt politics.

So, it's a race to see who can collect more money. And most of our politicians spend a lot of time fundraising. And, of course, the guys writing the big checks want something in return.

I'll vote, but it makes no difference. Kansas is a red state.

True... as for me I live in Ohio which is neither a red or blue state so it could go either way here.

You're probably seeing a lot of political ads, aren't you? I always say the only good thing about living in a non-swing state is you get fewer tv ads from politicians.

I've never understood why we don't just do a normal vote count. I don't think it makes sense anymore.
But I've given up on following politics. It's one area where understanding doesn't seem to equate any ability for me to actually do something about it.

Yeah, there are a lot of political ads. I typically ignore them and not think much on them. I get a lot of my news online as well. Actually, I don't watch much TV. Friend from the UK came here he mention them.

Al Gore did win popular vote. I always wonder how thing would of turned out if he was president instead of Bush, especially with 9/11. Then again, I'm not a big Gore fan.

Exactly my point! (although, I was a Gore fan)

No, only the BBC is run by the government -- technically it's a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation. It receives tax money through the TV licensing system, and therefore it has an obligation to be neutral and present programming that represents the entire UK population -- and not to run advertisements or allow sponsored programming.

There are other news agencies that make their money through advertising - Channel 4, ITV and Sky are the big ones.

It's legal personality gone mad

We had a so-called Labour (centre left, roughly slightly more left than your Democrats) Prime Minister when 9/11 and our equivalent, 7/7 happened. We still ended up with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the batshit crazy racist "terrorism" laws (but in a slightly less extreme form).

Another thing I recall him saying is that when you buy a tv you have to pay for license. That one shocked me.

I find TV ads for politicians hilarous. There is a famous one of a former Canadian prime ministerial candidate, Stockwell Day, in a wetsuit on a skidoo.

And the MP for my old riding has the same name as the president of Focus on the Family (American v. religious conservative). He would come on telly and be like, "HI! I'M FRANK DOBSON! I'M SUPER LIBERAL!" but I never believed it because ANYBODY named Frank Dobson must be scary.

Typically when attacks like that happen people crave blood. After 9/11 loads of people were screaming war.

You buy one every year, like a subscription fee for watching live broadcasts. It's about £100 and it pays for the Beeb.
I don't buy one, because I can watch the stuff for free on the internet (legally, similar to Hulu) without a license.
I also break the law every year to watch the live broadcast of Eurovision, which I love but do not think is worth the £100

I think any president would have gone to war in Afghanistan at that point. Even though the eventually caught the dude in Pakistan, which is a kind-of ally.

I don't think just any president would have gone to war in Iraq, though.

That's funny. Our political ads tends to center on claiming the other party is corrupt and inept for office.

I don't think you're allowed to do that in the UK. You have to talk about how great you are OR why the other person's policies failed/aren't good. You can't accuse them of corruption unless you can prove it, at which point you're supposed to go to the police.