You're supposed to be seeing SiCKo.

Whatever happened to that guy who used to blog as the "Bull Moose" or some such thing? He was quite the "true believer" and I had heard he was working with the McCain campaign. Does anyone know if he's still on board?

Manual of Style alert: the correct usage is

'_self-styled_ "Straight Talk" Express'

if you please.

Cranky

Now it is up to McCain to realize that he is too old and needs to get out of the race.

I hope he endorses Romney.

McCain blows a gasket at staffers over campaign expenditures just as he returns from wasting mega taxpayer bucks protecting him on his weekend jaunt to Iraq. There you have the man's essence in a nutshell.

The reporting seems to imply that Salter is basically staying on the campaign. It sounds like he is shifting to unpaid status as a means of helping the campaign reduce its expenditures.

Cranky: The scare quotes are assumed in any reference on this blog.

Kerry's campaign was in pretty rough shape at this point in 2003. You may recall he was so hard-up for cash that he eventually hard to start spending Theresa's dough. So I wouldn't write off McCain as done yet. However, the Kerry example suggests that even if McCain wins the nomination, his campaign troubles could persist into the general election.

Even though I'm a Democrat, this really saddens me. MCain is obviously toast at this point, but on the issue of torture alone, none of the other Repub candidates are fit to shine McCain's shoes. When their debates were held (in May? when this came up), McCain was eloquent as he described his being tortured by the North Vietnamese, and how the knowledge that we would never do such things sustained him.

the man's essence in a nutshell. shortstop at 2:34 PM
The nut in the nutshell, as it were.

Who are these people who ever thought McCain was ever anything except a deranged blowhard?

"Straight Talk" my pink tuchus.

I prefer "Straight Jacket" Express, myself.

You may recall he was so hard-up for cash that he eventually hard to start spending Theresa's dough. So I wouldn't write off McCain as done yet.

Ah, but McCain has no Teresa, and his support among Republicans flamed out early and isn't coming back. He's toast. Burnt.

Hope the dude enjoys his twilight years thinking about what pathetically ass-kissing the Bush Crime Family got him.

I've gotta agree with MaxGowan. Say what you will about McCain, he's the sanest of this Republican bunch...for what that's worth. Until he became a Bush lickspittle, I thought he'd at least make a president I could respect and live with, despite my disagreements with him about policy.

Maybe if he gives up his presidential aspirations he'll finally start giving (to use shortstop's phrase) the Bush Crime Family a little well-deserved payback.

When their debates were held (in May? when this came up), McCain was eloquent as he described his being tortured by the North Vietnamese, and how the knowledge that we would never do such things sustained him.

Amen. I'd like to hate McCain, for crawling into bed with Bush as often as he has over the last four years. However, when I think of that speech I just can't quite do it. It says everything I believe about BushCo's atrocious torture policy.

Put it this way: if McCain won we'd probably stay in Iraq, and that's obviously bad. But at least we'd be fighting smarter and we wouldn't look like a bunch of transparent oil whores while we did it.

McCain rendered great service to his country once, and deserves to be honored for it. His utter contempt for the First Amendment, however, results in me being quite satisfied to see his campaign fall apart. Gee, if only he could have had Congress pass a law prohibiting certain people from criticizing him, maybe he would have had a better chance.....

I will take the opposite stance as Will Allen and say that McCain-Feingold is the one shining reason I still had any respect for McCain. First Amendment my ass. This country was not founded so that big money corporations could buy the presidency or any other elected office for favorable treatment of their interests. Our founders walked away from a system of government where the church and the aristocracy chose leaders based on their interests and the people be damned.

Hope the dude enjoys his twilight years thinking about what pathetically ass-kissing the Bush Crime Family got him.

Ouch.

>Whatever happened to that guy who used to blog as the "Bull Moose" or some such thing? He was quite the "true believer" and I had heard he was working with the McCain campaign. Does anyone know if he's still on board?>Whatever happened to that guy who used to blog as the "Bull Moose" or some such thing? He was quite the "true believer" and I had heard he was working with the McCain campaign. Does anyone know if he's still on board?

Marshall Wittmann, I believe is his name. He actually gave up his blog to become a press guy for Lieberman; lotsa lefty-blog speculation that he was hoping to bring about a McCain-Lieberman ticket (he'd worked for McCain for years before going to the DLC, from which he wrote the blog).

Well, jimBOB, the guy did bring it on himself. He abandoned all dignity, particularly after Rove slimed him and McCain continued to publicly adulate the Bushes like a kicked dog thinking this time he'll get a little love. Can anyone ever forget The Hug?

Message to McCain:

Schadenfreude, muthafukkah!!!!!

His utter contempt for the First Amendment, however, results in me being quite satisfied to see his campaign fall apart.

That's right, Will, stretch the hell out of the First Ammendment so that it somehow covers donating money to a political campaign, but remain silent on direct violations of the Fourth Ammendment. Do you realize what a fool you are?

I would never vote for him, but I used to at least respect him. But that all evaporated after he rolled over and spread 'em in 2000 after the S.C. primary.

Shadenfreude-express:

So much fun when bad things happen to BAD PEOPLE.

Who did McCain support in 2004? Did he hug Bush and support his candidacy or did he hug Kerry and support his candidacy? He hugged Bush and supported him even after Bush put out rumors about McCain during the 2000 campaign and even after Bush brought disrespect to Kerry's military medals.

Thanks to Bush and the fact that he got elected despite this, I no longer value medals awarded to military personnel.

And about McCain's defense of the Geneva convention and prisoners' rights. That certainly is a good thing. But it appears that the only reason McCain understands them is because he had first hand experience as a prisoner of war. I expect presidential candidates to be a bit more wiser than that -- they don't have to have first hand experience to understand the value of something. They have to be able to think based on human values, law, fundamental freedoms, etc and formulate their positions based on such thinking. No single person can live long enough to experience first hand everything they are called up to legislate. They need to be able to think a bit more in the abstract.

Sorry to see Walnuts descendant. His administration would have been the least bad among the lot of tax cutters. Now, since a GOP fix will be on in 2008, we have to worry about all becoming Mormons.

He's a whore. His whoreness is obvious to all. That's why he is losing, and will never be president.

First Amendment my ass. This country was not founded so that big money corporations could buy the presidency or any other elected office for favorable treatment of their interests. . .
Posted by: arteclectic on July 10, 2007 at 3:56 PM | PERMALINK

Since a Corporate Charter is a legal fiction, I (and any reasonable human being) could argue that the First Amendment does not apply to a Corporation. They're not Created By God, and therefore NOT endowed with ANY natural rights.

As a financial instrument (or ANY human tool), the concept of the Corporate Charter should be subject to refinements and fine-tuning, up to and including tax or legal liability, life-span and sunset, and IP ownership.

As it stands, within US law today - the Corporate Charter is way overdue for a massive overhaul. It no longer serves the Public Interest to offer such open-ended tools of fraud and skullduggery. However, it does serve the interests of corrupt politicians to preserve the current order.

That's why McCain-Feingold (or any campaign finance reform) is not even remotely a First Amendment issue.

. . . now I call on Gen. David Petraeus to come back and tell us whether his strategy is working.

Bush set Petraeus up for the fall and absolves himself by lying about whose strategy is in play.

What a pathetic coward of a boy we have as a president.

Truman is rolling in his grave every time Bush passes the buck down.

President Bush said military commanders, not politicians, will show the way forward.

What a bald-faced lie.

Bush and Cheney have trumped military commanders since before the invasion and have never stopped trumping them.

Bush is the epitome of an intellectual and spiritual slug.

Not a single vertebrae down his backside.

"President Bush said military commanders, not politicians, will show the way forward."

So where is Lute? Ain't it his job now to show us the way forward? Just goes to show Cheney still pulling the levers behind the curtains.

For those ignorant of McCain-Feingold, it actually regulates that content of political speech made by certain assemblies of citizens, at certain times prior to an election. Anybody who supports this is holds the First Amendment in contempt.

I lost all respect for McCain when, without a whimper, he let Bush and Rove steamroll him with lies and rumor in Bush's first run.
He has persistently sucked up to them, attached himself to the war policy tar baby and stood alongside the immigration totem pole.

I too am a Vietnam Vet and one thing I took away from that war was a healthy skepticism when politicians start talking about a "necessary war"
when it stinks of being an "elective" one instead. Did McCain learn nothing in Vietnam?

"Until he became a Bush lickspittle, I thought he'd at least make a president I could respect and live with, despite my disagreements with him about policy."

Yep. Sigh.

For those ignorant of McCain-Feingold, it actually regulates that content of political speech made by certain assemblies of citizens, at certain times prior to an election.

Artificial juridical persons—to whom the McCain-Feingold limitations apply—are creatures of the state that exist solely through the exercise of its regulatory power, not “assemblies of citizens”.

But, I guess your devotion to the "rights" of such creations of law just goes to prove that "[t]he caricatures of libertarianism that frequently appear in this forum are really very silly."

Right, cmdicely, citizens who gather under an organizational umbrella, for a common purpose, do not constitute an assembly of citizens. Maybe we should call them only a gaggle of citizens. Congratulations, you have enough contempt for the First Amendment to fill in for Justice Stevens when he wants to take a rest.

It was perhaps naive of Jose McCain to confess that he is a traitor who favors giving the country away to Mexicans. That way you can't even fool some of the people all of the time, like the ones who are bought by corporations or seduced by Latino bloc vote but still pretend to listen to the people.

Right, cmdicely, citizens who gather under an organizational umbrella, for a common purpose, do not constitute an assembly of citizens. . .
Posted by: Will Allen on July 10, 2007 at 6:40 PM | PERMALINK

Let them do it out from under the government-granted artificial auspices of "Corporation". Nobody prevented them from assembling. Only from abusing their Corporate Charter as a means to hide from the law, and commit fraud and bribery of public officials.

Right, cmdicely, citizens who gather under an organizational umbrella, for a common purpose, do not constitute an assembly of citizens.

Citizens who so gather have the same freedom of expression as any other natural persons under McCain-Feingold.

The artificial juridical persons who are creatures of law—which entities are distinct in their control of property and legal accountability for their actions from the persons who sought the government action which created them, and from the persons who direct or are employed by them, and from the persons, if any, who own equity instruments that convey certain legal privileges relating to the government and claims against the property of the artificial entity, any of which persons, incidentally, may themselves not be citizens or even natural persons—have restrictions imposed on them by McCain-Feingold.

Now, if you are merely complaining that groups of persons (natural and artificial) that have certain relations to and influence over these creatures of the state do not gain as much additional and special privilege with regard to the political system as they formally derived from their association with these state-created entities, well, that's true, but a rather odd thing to complain about.

After returning from a trip to Iraq — something hardly likely to have lifted his spirits —

This is the prepared text of McCain's speech to the Senate today. Despite the pipe dreams of many in the media, apparently there will be no new Republican surrender monkeys today.

Have your fun shooting down McCain. He doesn't look like he's going to be the candidate, and truth be told, I'm not that unhappy about that. But he craps bigger than the entire Democratic presidenial front line combined, and you all know it.

but on the issue of torture alone, none of the other Repub candidates are fit to shine McCain's shoes.

He talked good on that issue for a while, but then caved in to the torturers. Just another guy who decided he'd rather be president than right, and got neither for his pains . . .

The link is screwed up. Go to McCain's home page and click on the "Senator McCain Statement on Defense Authorization Act" story.

After a long day at the office it is always a great thrill to come home and put the bad-mouth to republicans. So let me start. Remember this big contradiction by McCain captured in Feb. by Nico:

McCain Flip-Flops In 47 Seconds: Claims Success Is Not Realistic In ‘A Few Months,’ Then Says It Is

On ABC’s This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said it is unrealistic to expect the escalation strategy to change the situation in Iraq in “a few months�:

MCCAIN: Took us a long time to get in the situation we’re in, and to say that — and somehow assume that in a few months, that things are going to get all better I think is not realistic.

Just 47 seconds later, McCain said we’ll know whether the escalation strategy is working “in a few months...

monkeybone: But he craps bigger than the entire Democratic presidenial front line combined, and you all know it.

if anyone knows about turds...

its a bush defender...

McCain = Pink Sugar 2008

McCain fixates on what is politically expedient to a fault. And given his age,
those repeated lengthy trips to Iraq could not be healthy for him. You almost feel badly for him.
He sided up to Bush way too much, even after that mean-spirited and racially charged insinuation in 2000 courtesy of the Bush campaign's push polling in North Carolina.

And I am happy to report this lawsuit against the corrupt Bushies filed a couple of weeks ago:

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against Gregory Jenkins, a former high-level White House staffer who enacted a policy that unlawfully excluded individuals perceived to be critical of the administration from public events where President Bush was present. The policy is laid out in an October 2002 “Presidential Advance Manual� obtained by the ACLU.

The ACLU filed today’s lawsuit, Rank v. Jenkins, after obtaining a heavily redacted version of the Presidential Advance Manual from the Justice Department. This manual is the Bush administration’s guide for planning presidential events around the country, and it repeatedly instructs organizers about “the best method for preventing demonstrators,� “deterring potential protestors from attending events,� “designat[ing] a protest area . . . preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route,� and the like.

The lawsuit names as plaintiffs Jeff and Nicole Rank, who were arrested at a Fourth of July presidential appearance at the West Virginia State Capitol because they were wearing T-shirts critical of the president, and Alex Young and Leslie Weise, Denver residents who were thrown out of a town hall meeting with President Bush because they had an anti-war bumper sticker on their car.
ACLU

Yes, cmdicely, Congress passed a law stating that citizens could only assemble in a certain way if they agreed to not say certain things about elected officials at certain times prior to an election. You're fine with this, because fundamentally you hold the 1st Amendment in as much contempt as many Supreme Court justices.

Yes, cmdicely, Congress passed a law stating that citizens could only assemble in a certain way if they agreed to not say certain things about elected officials at certain times prior to an election.

No, they didn't.

None of the citizen involved are prohibited from saying anything they want (barring defamation that meets the rather high bar for slander/libel of public figures) about public figures, whether elected officials or otherwise, at any time.

The creatures of government—which may not have any any actual citizens associated with them at all, and may in some circumstances have no natural persons, citizens or otherwise, directly associated except as employees—are prohibited from using their resources to influence the electoral process in certain ways, and moreso at certain times than was previously the case, but any natural persons, citizens or not, face no additional restrictions on their personal actions, alone or in concert with others, than they would if they were not associated with those creatures of government.

The question that should be asked is why such creatures of government are allowed to participate in the political process to the extent they continue to be allowed to.

cmdicley, please show me such a creature that has no association with any citizen, unless you are being your typically pedantic self, and are now referring to creatures formed solely by foreign nationals. The law states that citizens may not assemble in a certain fashion, the fashion of the creature you mention, and make certain political statements at certain times prior to an election. Of course, who knows which denotative meanings of words you have chosen to ignore, so I can't really be sure what you are saying now, can I?

"The law states that citizens may not assemble in a certain fashion, the fashion of the creature you mention, and make certain political statements at certain times prior to an election"

Well, no, actually it doesn't, which is why you haven't actually quoted the law in question and why cmdicely is, as usual, correct.

Well, yes, actually it does.

Will Allen: For those ignorant of McCain-Feingold, it actually regulates that content of political speech made by certain assemblies of citizens, at certain times prior to an election. Anybody who supports this is holds the First Amendment in contempt.

The federal government has always had the right to regulate the time and place of speech and falsely characterizing a time and place restriction as a content restriction is simply dishonest.

But that is par for the course for you, Will.

In any event, a corporation as cmdicely points out is an artificial person, wholly a creature of law, not an assembly of persons, your false characterization notwithstanding.

In your bizarre definitional existence, a country is a natural person that enjoys civil rights, a collection of countries bound by treaty is a person that enjoys civil rights, as is a governmental entity, or any other artificial collection (not assembly) of people.

Somehow you seem to confuse "collection" with "assembly".

Your confusion is self imposed.

Anonymous, the law prevents the actual use of of a candidate's name at certain times. It regulates content, along with time and place. You operate under the fiction that when a collection of citizens organize themselves via a means sanctioned by Congress, that collection of citizens somehow, perhaps through you waving a magic wand, is not an assembly of citizens.

cmdicley, please show me such a creature that has no association with any citizen, unless you are being your typically pedantic self, and are now referring to creatures formed solely by foreign nationals.

There is nothing pedantic about that when you make the deliberate and significant choice to specify that they are assemblies of citizens, but corporations whose only stockholders are foreign nationals aren't the only ones where the people making up the "assembly" (presumably, the stockholders) of the corporation are not themselves citizens.

Corporations can have only the government as a stockholder (e.g., the Tennessee Valley Authority), or government and other artificial persons (e.g., Amtrak), or a single corporation (any subsidiary corporation), or many corporations, or, for that matter, many governments, or other combinations where the direct stockholders are not "citizens", or even natural persons.

The law states that citizens may not assemble in a certain fashion, the fashion of the creature you mention, and make certain political statements at certain times prior to an election.

No, it doesn't. It prevents the creature from making those statements or using its property—which it holds by virtue of a direct exercise of the coercive power of government&mdashlfor those purposes. It does not prevent any "citizens", or any other natural persons, whether or not they happen to be attached to such a creature, from independently making those statements.

You operate under the fiction that when a collection of citizens organize themselves via a means sanctioned by Congress

Corporations are, generally, creatures of state law not Congressional action; the exceptions are generally the clearest examples of corporations not being controlled by citizens except through government.

that collection of citizens somehow, perhaps through you waving a magic wand, is not an assembly of citizens.

An assembly of citizens is an assembly of citizens. A product of the exercise of government power of government—such as a corporation, which is legally distinct from its shareholders—is an exercise of government power. The shareholders, citizens or not, individually and collectively, lose no right to participate that they have without being associated with the corporation when they become associated with it, and the corporation itself actually can participate in ways beyond those available to the individual members (or at least, in certain areas, in degrees in addition to those that are available to the individual members).

So where, exactly, is anything lost, except by everyone who does not have power to influence the actions of a corporation through stock ownership or management role?

Months ago, several of us posting on this particular blog said the McCain Campaign was finished. Not a single blogger challenged us at the time. That pretty much says it all.

Yes, cmdicely, and if the collection of citizens assemble in the form of the creature you describe, Congress regulates the content of their speech.

The 1980 Election settled one area of the issue of unfettered free speech: Networks do not have the right to throw elections, through their extremely accurate exit polling.* In the contest between the two, fair elections won out, as it had to (the last two elections notwithstanding). The networks backed away after that debacle in '80, where they called the election even though the West Coast hadn't nearly finished voting.

*OK, OK, somehow not in Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004.

cmdicely: Suppose the "artificial juridical person" happened to be called, for example, "The Washington Monthly, Inc." This organization spends money to promote political opinions, sometimes mentioning candidates by name, and sometimes close to elections. Would restricting them from doing this be OK with you? As you're well aware, there's an exemption in M-F for news media - but if there's no First Amendment issue, why an exemption?

"he fired Nelson and Weaver then resigned"

I had trouble parsing this sentence. I guess you mean "he [McCain] fired Nelson, and Weaver then resigned," but I first read it as "he fired Nelson and Weaver, then resigned," i.e. that having fired them, McCain then resigned from his own campaign.

If only.

Will Allen,
Under McCain-Feingold, the entity known as Microsoft Corporation is prohibited from purchasing ads that specifically mention a candidate's name at certain points during the election cycle.

Now, point to me the person whose own personal property is being restricted.

No, it's not Bill Gates. He owns a majority of stock in Microsoft, but he does not own one dime of Microsoft's physical property or bank accounts. Those things belong to the entity known as Microsoft Corporation.

No, it's not Steve Ballmer. He's the CEO of Microsoft Corporation, but he doesn't own Microsoft Corporation either.

Nor is it any of the board of directors, nor the board of directors taken all together, nor any of the tens of thousands of employees, nor any of the millions of other stockholders, nor any group thereof taken together.

The correct answer: no one.

There is not one single actual person on the face of the planet that owns a single dime of Microsoft's resources. Those resources belong to a legal entity known as Microsoft Corporation. And that legal entity is not a person. It has no right to vote, and its right to spend its money may be restricted as the government sees fit.

McCain is an interesting and authentic statesman when he's not runnng for office. Gore is another who is so much more appealing and effective when he is just being hmself dong what he thinks is right. But when these honest leaders start trying to mold themselves and their positions to win votes they lose their identities and their appeal. I look forward to supporting a candidate who can just be him or herself and let go of the craven desire for higher office ahead of all else.

I wonder if Bush is getting nervous about McCain's meltdown. Recall that McCain trounced Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, prompting the Bush campaign to pull some filthy tricks against McCain in the S. Carolina primary. McCain reportedly confronted Bush about the filth, to which Bush replied, "It's just politics, John."

If this is the end of McCain's dream, I wonder how Bush will deter McCain from finally publicly revealing his true feelings about Bush and Co.

"He's a whore. His whoreness is obvious to all. That's why he is losing, and will never be president."
________________________

Senator McCain is nobody's whore. He is stubborn, irascible, and cranky, but he remains a Republican, which is why he backed President Bush in 2004. "Whoring" had nothing to do with it.

Despite his own military service and the obvious mutual respect between him and the military at all levels, there is no other person in Congress who pokes, prods, and otherwise harasses the Department of Defense as much as Senator McCain. He is forever questioning some favored program, insisting on studies, blocking some weapons system if he is not satisfied about its effectiveness or necessity. Compared to Senator McCain, Representative Murtha is a pussycat who only demands his slice of the pie to shut up and play ball. McCain routinely takes positions that ultimately hurt his own state, if he is convinced that the country as a whole will benefit. My office has written more papers defending DOD aircraft programs in response to Senator McCain's inquiries than for any other legislator in either House. And that is for programs that he generally supports. I can only imagine what he does to programs he is against.

Ironically, his own independence might be hurting him now. His current fund raising problems probably result more from his unpopular position on illegal immigration than from his support for the war. One thing you must say abou the man, when he believes something, he doesn't waiver much.

It's an interesting psychological question how Senator McCain's experience as a POW has affected him as a public official. Having suffered so much, facing death for so long, Senator McCain, like many other former guests of Uncle Ho, is impatient with nuance, disdainful of compromise, and angered by obfuscation and misdirection. These characteristics might make him a great Senator, yet prevent him from ever becoming President.

But he's nobody's whore.

But he's nobody's whore.

Except for 1) the Bush family's with his devoted servitude (far beyond simple Republican solidarity) after they smeared him, 2) Jerry Falwell's with McCain's sudden decision that Falwell was "no longer an agent of intolerance" and 3) the entire religious right's when he needed their votes after having repeatedly criticized their hold on the Republican party.

But hell, all that could happen to anybody. No whoring there.

osama_been_forgotten, right-on ! The corporate charter must be overhauled, *and* anti-trust law must be strengthened and prosecuted vigorously. We've *got* to cut these overgrown, out-of-control conglomerates down to a reasonable size. (

Huge corporations will be the ruin of America, if left unchecked.

Will Allan, don't mess with dicely. I've read this blog for years and cm is right, by objective standards, at least 99% of the time.

probably a physicist or chemist....

trashhauler: Having suffered so much, facing death for so long, Senator McCain, like many other former guests of Uncle Ho, is impatient with nuance, disdainful of compromise, and angered by obfuscation and misdirection.

Then you would think he would just hate the Bush administration and its diehard winger supporters like you, all of whom are fine with nuance, compromise, obsfucation, and misdirection in every aspect of its existence (while of course criticizing, sometimes falsely sometimes honestly, these characteristics in others), but he just keeps on sucking up to Bash and you wingers like a hungry baby sucks on his mommy's titty and he continues to lie on their behalf.

And yes, that is the definition of a political whore.

Will Allen: You operate under the fiction that when a collection of citizens organize themselves via a means sanctioned by Congress, that collection of citizens somehow, perhaps through you waving a magic wand, is not an assembly of citizens.

You operate under the fiction that every collection is an assembly.

A corporation is not an assembly. Indeed, it really isn't a collection, although it represents in the abstract a collection of people. It is an individual entity unto itself. Just like a nation is an individual entity unto itself, not simply an assembly or collection of people, an entity that enjoys separate and quite different powers and duties that are absent from any individual or assembly or collection of individuals. Your inability to recognize the legal nature of corporations as being distinct persons, not a true collection or assembly of persons, does not change the legal or constitutional landscape one iota.

As usual, however, you are being obtusely dishonest in order to further your own hatred of everything not in furtherance of the interests of Will Allen.

He blew up at his underlings for "out-of-control" expenditures? It seems the problem is Mad Jack's anemic fundraising.

It seems to me that the problem is Mad Jack is, well, Mad. (Hi darlin' - good post this morning!)

From shortstop we get:

"But hell, all that could happen to anybody. No whoring there."

and from anonymous, we get:

"And yes, that is the definition of a political whore."
_________________________

I didn't say Senator McCain was not a politician. He most certainly is and all politicians make accomodations within their party or they quickly become something with even less respect: pundits. Of course, for the more critical among us, it only takes one or two such accomodations to airily dismiss an entire life and career, simply so we can exercise our sneering muscles. For such folks, the only things that matter are those which allow us to condemn or to express our disdain and hatred. How brave, how noble, we are while doing so.

Of course, it is particularly easy when doing so from anonymity, with our own accomplishments, or lack of them, safely removed from comparison.

He lost the respect I had for him when he acquiesced to the little idiot and his Atwater-esque attacks in the S.C. primary. That, to me, went beyond party accommodations, and sapped my respect for a man that previously I had disagreed with on much politically, but at least I felt he was honorable and respectable. Now, no. Sadly, I have to agree that there is an element of whoring involved.

Mithrandir, the collection of citizens who have assembled in the form of Microsoft, just like the collection of citizens who have assembled in the form of Planned Parenthood, are having the content of their speech regulated, and Congress will not allow them to assemble in those forms and engage in speech with unregulated content. Meanwhile,as someone noted above, the collection of citizens who have assembled in the form of FOX News or the New York Times, the same legal form of assembly as Planned Parenthood or Microsoft, do not have the content of their speech regulated. This is nothing less than utter and complete contempt for free speech, along with equal protection under law, for that matter, and people who support it can't be trusted with political power.

The 1st Amendment does not just protect the rights of individual citizens to engage in unregulated political speech, it protects the rights of citizens to assemble in the forms they wish to disseminate such speech. If the state is going to create a type of legal assembly, and then say that such an assembly can't be used for the purpose of political speech with unregulated content, the right to assemble for the purpose of disseminating unregulated political speech has been harmed.

Just to make it clear for folks who don't get the notion of what limits were wisely placed on the state's power when this nation was formed, I'd be happy to write a new amendment which simply stated, "Congress shall make no law which regulates the content of political expression in the form of language or images, by any entity, or the content of any form of expression by any entity involving that entity's legal property, which does not endanger other citizens' physical safety or property.

Of course, anonymous, I never once stated that a corporation was only a collection or assembly of people. That was something you made up in the space between your ears, for the typically dishonest purpose of arguing not with something I actually wrote, but with something you wish to disingenuously ascribe to me. Oh well.

Through the dishonest denial of the meaning of language, you also state that a number of citizens who have voluntarily organized themselves for mutually agreed upon purpose or purposes, in a form recognized by the state, somehow does not constitute an assembly. In other words, they have assembled themselves, but when you jump up and down, and wave your hands or something, a number of citizens who assemble themselves are not an assembly, nor have they actuallly assembled. Or something.

Congratulations, you are qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.

Of course, it is particularly easy when doing so from anonymity, with our own accomplishments, or lack of them, safely removed from comparison.

Now that was weak. Even from trashhauler, I'd have expected better than the elementary-school "I suppose you think you could do better!" line.

Look, trash, your original post fell apart because you couldn't exercise a little restraint. We'd have spotted you McCain's willingness to argue with Smirky about military policy--even with Mad Jack's seemingly endless capacity to believe this war can be resolved satisfactorily, and even with your entertaining use of "Despite" instead of "Because of" in the first line of your second paragraph.

But you just couldn't be realistic enough to leave it at that. You had to go on to righteously maintain that "when he believes something, he doesn't waiver much" (patently untrue--again, see my reminders re Falwell and the religious right, a McCain 180 that left skid marks) and "he whores for no one" (you seriously think The Hug and various "George is da man!" statements made around that time are instances of McCain giving only cursory backup to the people who viciously slimed him?).

So what could have been a fairly reasonable post defending McCain's legislative record on military affairs became a silly love letter ascribing an utterly false nobility to McCain. Dude, the guy is, in the end, a whore. Deal with it.

Yes, cmdicely, and if the collection of citizens assemble in the form of the creature you describe, Congress regulates the content of their speech.

No, it does not. It restricts the use of the property of government creation, which is not "speech" by the citizens. Even under the Buckley v. Valeo your money = your speech rationale (which I, unlike some liberals, generally agree with), there is no rational basis for considering the money of some legally independent juridical entity to be the Constitutionally-protected "speech" of any particular citizen, or any combination of citizens.

You are trying to extrapolate a right to speech by an "assembly" independent of the actual natural persons in it from the right to speech and the right to assemble peaceably. This is improper; the right to speech belongs to individuals, not to assemblies distinct from their constituents. The right to assemble does not create other rights inhering in "assemblies" as independent entities.

Further, you compound this error by confusing a Constitutionally protected assembly by the citizens with the government exercise of power represented by a corporation. A corporation is not an exercise of first amendment assembly rights—the right to assemble is not the right to the various protections, privileges, etc., associated with the ability to form a corporation and the subsequent exercise of the rights derived from association with it through stock ownership or otherwise.

A corporation is not the assembly of its stockholders. It is not the assembly of its managers. It is not the assembly of its directors. It is not the assembly of its employees. It is not the assembly of creditors. It is not the assembly of its customers, vendors, or other people with which it contracts.

It is a separate entity created by government and with respect to which the law creates various claims by and against the constituents of each of the members of those collections. But none of those collections (nor any combination of them) is the corporation.

Suppose the "artificial juridical person" happened to be called, for example, "The Washington Monthly, Inc." This organization spends money to promote political opinions, sometimes mentioning candidates by name, and sometimes close to elections. Would restricting them from doing this be OK with you?

Depends what you mean by "OK".

Would it be Constitutional? If applied to all similarly structured corporations (e.g., if the McCain-Feingold rules applied to all corporations of whatever type, or if a less-restrictive version of those rules applied to the class of non-profits that includes the Monthly), sure, probably.

Would it be good policy? I would think not.

There is no necessary connection between something being good and desirable policy and it being Constitutional: a good policy can require a change to the Constitution to be legal; an perfectly Constitutional use of (or decision not to use) the power of government can nevertheless be bad policy.

As you're well aware, there's an exemption in M-F for news media - but if there's no First Amendment issue, why an exemption?

The question you ask makes no sense unless one assumes that the contours of McCain-Feingold actually follow exactly the contours of the limits of Constitutional power. But if one assumes that, then one must, of necessity, accept not only that the limits M-F does not impose are beyond the Constitutional power of government, but also that the ones it does impose are, contrary to your argument, within the power of government.

If one assumes, as you have been arguing, that McCain-Feingold was imposed without respect for Constitutional limits, then one cannot infer the existence of a Constitutional limit from an exemption in M-F as you try to suggest with this question; instead, one must read the exemption as being a response to political, policy, or other concerns aside from Constitutionality.

Yes, cmdicely, it does. It allows the assembly to say thew word "x" via the use of it's property, but not say the word "y". Certain combinations of letters or sounds are banned, but not other combinations of letters or sounds. That is content regulation.

It allows the assembly to say thew word "x" via the use of it's property, but not say the word "y".

No, it doesn't do either of those, because, again, there is no "assembly" that has property. There is a creature of government that is not the "assembly" of any group of citizens (or even natural persons).

And even if there was an "assembly", assemblies don't have rights, people do. And no person loses any rights that they had without being associated with a corporation by becoming associated with a corporation under McCain-Feingold.

You keep failing to address those points.

That is content regulation.

So what? That's not the point in dispute.

No, cmdicely people who choose to join together and incorporate are most certainly an assembly, unless you want to deny the meaning of the word "assembly". Congress has in this case decided to regulate the content of speech of individuals who assemble in a certain way. This doesn't comport with "Congress shall make no law...", in that there is no qualifier in the Amendment which says "Unless people have assembled in a certain way". Of course, the denotative meanings of words is only occasionally a concern of yours.

Will, when you have a little itch, say, on your forearm or your knee, do you scratch it and scratch it and scratch it until it bleeds, staring at it with a slack-jawed, bovine expression the whole time? Then, when people point out this odd behavior, do you indignantly claim that you weren't scratching at all and doggedly start scratching another part of your body until it bleeds? And do you keep this up for a day or two at a time?

I'm betting you do. Honey, it's time to get help. And if by some remote chance you already have, well, then, double the appointments.

"So what could have been a fairly reasonable post defending McCain's legislative record on military affairs became a silly love letter ascribing an utterly false nobility to McCain. Dude, the guy is, in the end, a whore. Deal with it."
______________________

Okay, so McCain's a whore. Bush is a criminal. And the GOP in general is made up of corrupt, evil people. In some way, believing that is supposed to make it easier to deal with them and the rest of the electorate at large? Why not just go all the way and start making plans for actual civil war, right now?

The tendency to think of your opponents as one dimensional enemies is a trap. If you don't want to consider the totality of you opponents out of common humanity, perhaps you should do it out of a sense of self-preservation. Because in the end, that's what's required to make democracy work. (It's understood, shortstop, that you don't intend to accomplish anything yourself - we're speaking in general terms, you see.)

Senator McCain's strengths and weaknesses will have more to do with the success of his campaign than any opinion stated here. But even if he simply remains a Senator, the purposes of the Democratic Party might better served by not calling him a whore. But you do what you want - you will, anyway.

Okay, so McCain's a whore. Bush is a criminal. And the GOP in general is made up of corrupt, evil people. In some way, believing that is supposed to make it easier to deal with them and the rest of the electorate at large? Why not just go all the way and start making plans for actual civil war, right now?

Shhh, little one, right now we're talking about Senator John McCain of Arizona, presidential candidate. Try to focus. Your "Fine! Just hate everyone then!" melodrama is as juvenile as your previous "Fine! Let's see if you can do better!" silliness. Are you 15 years old?

The tendency to think of your opponents as one dimensional enemies is a trap.

It certainly can be. The tendency to review all the evidence, good and bad, and conclude that someone is, in one's overall estimation, a jerk, is something else, however.

Now, you make take issue with us judging McCain a whore after measuring those conflicting behaviors, and that's your prerogative. You'd have a little more credibility if you hadn't just claimed that the man's will is unwavering and he is prostitute to no one. That's one-dimensional, guy. Again, you should have stopped with "I like his stance on military affairs," because you surely didn't back up the rest of your starry-eyed Jack worship.

That's your typical content-filled post, shortstop, and everyone here is better off for having read it. Now, are you going to castigate me for engaging in a hostile tone?

No, cmdicely people who choose to join together and incorporate are most certainly an assembly

People do not "join together and incorporate", since a corporation is not the joining of people. And, even if they did, I never said the people are not an assembly (since that's not relevant to the issue here), I said the corporation is not an assembly.

Try not to invent irrelevant points to argue against.

Congress has in this case decided to regulate the content of speech of individuals who assemble in a certain way.

Wrong, none of the individuals associated with a corporation has any different right to speech, or to use their resources to fund speech, than any individual not associated with a corporation. So, no, those individuals' right to speech has not been restricted as a consequence of their association with the corporation.

Your claim here is, as has been explained to you repeatedly, completely factually inaccurate. Asserting it over and over isn't going to change that.

Now, are you going to castigate me for engaging in a hostile tone?

No, Will, I never have and never will castigate you for using a hostile tone. I mock you for engaging in hysterics, repeating the same discredited arguments long past the final frontier of sanity (cmdicely's got you dead to rights, as usual), continually moving your goalposts, fixating on irrelevant or ancillary points in an attempt to save face, and pretty much constantly crying like a little girl.

I wasn't very nice in the way I urged you to seek professional help. But I was serious. Really serious.

Really, cmdicely? Do tell! Maybe random molecules, bouncing through the ether, form what we call "corporations". This bears further investigation......

..... But you do what you want - you will, anyway. Trashhauler at 3:59 PM

One would be hard pressed to find anything in McCain's voting record that would lead a democrat to support him or his agenda. There is nothing in his predilection for pandering to almost every radical Republican interest group that would lead me to respect him as a man. There is nothing in his personality as illustrated by his hair-trigger temper and lack of understanding of complex issues that would lead me to admire him as a politician.

Really, cmdicely? Do tell! Maybe random molecules, bouncing through the ether, form what we call "corporations".

No, as has been pointed out many times in this thread already, government actions (in the US, usually state government actions) form corporations, generally through (largely ministerial) executive acts as directed by local statutes.

Golly gee, cmdicely, I'll have to look out for the government corporation squad card, randomly rounding up citizens to become officers and shareholders of corporations! Who knew?! Or maybe there is government incorporation agency, cranking out corporations like so many sausages, for no apparent reason! End the mystery, cmdicely!

I'll have to look out for the government corporation squad card, randomly rounding up citizens to become officers and shareholders of corporations!

Sure, corporations are formed by government on the request of other people (often, themselves, corporations, but lets leave that aside for now.) So what? Many government actions are in response to request by persons outside of government (or outside of their capacity within government). That doesn't make them any less government actions.

Or maybe there is government incorporation agency, cranking out corporations like so many sausages, for no apparent reason!

That a government action has an "apparent reason" doesn't stop it from being a government action, as opposed to the action of a group of individual persons outside of government.

But I see that you've stopped even the pretense of response to actual points, and resorted to merely spouting irrelevancies. If you'd like to continue this discussion, please try to make some relevant comment.

What's this cmdicely!? Are you telling me that people come together, that is, ASSEMBLE (!), for a common purpose, and a corporation is formed, via a request submitted to the government? Wow!

Are you telling me that people come together, that is, ASSEMBLE (!), for a common purpose, and a corporation is formed, via a request submitted to the government?

No, I'm not telling you that.

I'm telling you that people may or may not assemble prior to the request to the government, the government action forms the corporation, not any act of assembling, and the corporation, whether or not an act of assembling preceded it, is not an "assembly" of any group of people, but an independent creature of government with which various people have differing relationships.

It is not an assembly of:

• the incorporators,
• the initial stockholders,
• the initial directors,
• the initial employees,
• the present stockholders,
• the present directors,
• the present employees, or
• the present creditors.

It is a creature of law, of government, with which each of those groups of people have some legal relationship, but is not an assembly of any of them.

Wow!

Are you expressing amazement at your own persistence is misrepresentation? Or...what, exactly?

Are you telling me that people come together, that is, ASSEMBLE (!), for a common purpose, and a corporation is formed, via a request submitted to the government?

No, I'm not telling you that.

I'm telling you that people may or may not assemble prior to the request to the government, the government action forms the corporation, not any act of assembling, and the corporation, whether or not an act of assembling preceded it, is not an "assembly" of any group of people, but an independent creature of government with which various people have differing relationships.

It is not an assembly of:

• the incorporators,
• the initial stockholders,
• the initial directors,
• the initial employees,
• the present stockholders,
• the present directors,
• the present employees, or
• the present creditors.

It is a creature of law, of government, with which each of those groups of people have some legal relationship, but is not an assembly of any of them.

Wow!

Are you expressing amazement at your own persistence is misrepresentation? Or...what, exactly?

Golly gee, so people who agree to meet, pool capital, form bylaws, among other activities, and submit a request to the government, aren't an assembly of individuals? Ya' don't say!

Golly gee, so people who agree to meet, pool capital, form bylaws, among other activities, and submit a request to the government, aren't an assembly of individuals?

No, they are three separate assemblies of individuals (the incorporators, the initial board of directors, and the initial stockholders).

None of which, however, are the corporation.

Once again, I never said the various groups of people involved aren't assemblies (since that's not relevant to the issue here), I said the corporation is not an assembly.

Somehow, with all your "golly gees", all you manage to do is keep demonstrating your inability to read simple English sentences.