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>In any other branch of government and any other court with the federal judicial branch, he would at minimum be required to disclose those gifts.
I believe that SCOTUS justices are also required to do these disclosures, FTA:
>His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said.
It's not relevant or insightful unless you and your buddies have a shared conflict of interest, and are influential in public life. This is corruption at the highest level.
Absolutely. Gavin Newsom has signed into law a bill to ban ads for firearms. Google and Facebook already ban that as well. If you have no problem with that then why should you have a problem banning ads against guns?
More right-wing personalities than I can even remember have been banned from various media, not least being a sitting President of the United States. The same platforms also have policies against certain "disinformation" that target anyone discussing some issues or events like the Hunter Biden laptop which were later determined not to be disinformation at all. As for it being Democratic policy, there was (briefly) a White House office under a Democratic president to coordinate these policies.
That bill allows ads that say things like "Vote for X, because he will pass a law that all Californians be given a free pistol". It just doesn't allow ads that say "Glock is the best pistol".
Similarly, you cannot advertise cigarettes with cartoon characters, but can advertise a political candidate wanting to make that legal.
Meanwhile, right-wing people aren't being deplatformed because they are right-wing. It's because of other things they say and do.
> It just doesn't allow ads that say "Glock is the best pistol".
Until, well, yesterday (edit: not yesterday, that says "June." My mistake), it was illegal in Germany to advertise where you can get an abortion. Abortion was and is legal there, but the doctors providing them weren't allowed to tell anyone that that's where they could go to get one.
This is a pretty analogous situation to what Newsom / his party want in California: guns legal (after a fashion) but for anyone part of the gun industry to be excluded from the public square.
Do you think that Germany changing their law is a step backwards, since you support an equivalent law in California? Or do you have a double standard between free speech applied to one kind of ad versus the other?
>> More right-wing personalities than I can even remember have been banned from various media, not least being a sitting President of the United States. The same platforms also have policies against certain "disinformation" that target anyone discussing some issues or events like the Hunter Biden laptop which were later determined not to be disinformation at all. As for it being Democratic policy, there was (briefly) a White House office under a Democratic president to coordinate these policies.
> Meanwhile, right-wing people aren't being deplatformed because they are right-wing. It's because of other things they say and do.
I'm no fan of that right-wing nonsense (e.g. Hunter Biden, etc.), but your apologia isn't really compelling. The impermissible "other things they say and do" can be defined in slanted ways to deliver an ideological result that can be described in faux "neutral" terms. To flip things around, for instance, how would you feel if (hypothetically) some social media company de-platformed pro-choice advocates under a rule that bans advocacy of violence (because they're interpreted as advocating violence against "the unborn")? You probably wouldn't be satisfied with a "nothing to see here, they're just enforcing their policies against advocating violence."
> You probably wouldn't be satisfied with a "nothing to see here, they're just enforcing their policies against advocating violence."
I kinda would, though, but I'd phrase it more along the lines of "Nothing to see here, just a garbage website doing its trashy thing."
Cancel culture types don't seem to understand that refusing a platform to other people based on their beliefs is a right, which comes along with the right to free speech. I'd prefer if pro-choice positions weren't banned, but if a website wants to ban pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-gay, or non-QAnon positions, then they have the right to become a cesspit by doing so. Likewise and in exchange, other websites retain the right to ban anti-choice, pro-gun, anti-gay, and QAnon/neo-nazi views.
>> You probably wouldn't be satisfied with a "nothing to see here, they're just enforcing their policies against advocating violence."
> I kinda would, though, but I'd phrase it more along the lines of "Nothing to see here, just a garbage website doing its trashy thing."
Even if it was major one with influence; like Twitter, Youtube, or Facebook/Instagram?
I should have been more clear, but I was specifically thinking of major social media sites like those when I wrote that sentence, not some marginal social media site like thedonald.win that's easy to ignore.
Also the main thing I was commenting on was defining things in such a way that describes a slanted result with faux-neutral language (e.g. "when it happens to us it's censorship, when it happens to you it's just enforcing the rules").
Those are examples, but not sources. Can you provide actual sources to these examples?
And is the action of large corporations that regularly donate to Republican candidates (as well as Democrats) really “part of [Democrats’] playbook for years”? Or are they just (perhaps selectively) enforcing their TOS in a way that they believe provides them the most value?
I always wonder about these sorts of comments. Do you think sources for these easily-googleable facts don't exist, or that the pretty uncontroversial events I'm talking about didn't happen? Am I supposed to somehow be argued down by having to post a couple links? Or is this just a way to shift the conversation to discrediting the particular links I reply with, instead of engaging with the actual issues I'm bringing up?
As for it being just the unrelated actions of large corporations and not Democrats per se... Well, the White House part kind of disproves that, as does the California law. Yes, large corporations do act independently of the Democratic party, but the question here is does the Democratic party want this sort of censorship against other people, and they self-evidently do. And the WH Disinformation board shows that they're happy to use the large corporations as their tools to get it.
You claim deplatforming has been in a Democratic playbook "for years", then cite the introduction of a WH DGB which opened and closed this year, after being open for less than a month
>Do you think sources for these easily-googleable facts don't exist
>does the Democratic party want this sort of censorship against other people, and they self-evidently do
People ask for these "easily-googeable facts", and your response is 1 link to something not really relevant, and an assertion that it is "self-evident". Apologies if not everyone finds this to be a convincing argument
Source? That sounds like a law to regulate advertisements, not a deplatforming
>Google and Facebook already ban that as well
This is irrelevant - these are not Democratic organizations, and they do not have Democratic policies. Are you somehow implying Google and Facebook are run by Democrats, and so supposedly Hulu is run by Republicans?
> Are you somehow implying Google and Facebook are run by Democrats
Again, there was a White House office made specifically to coordinate these platforms banning "disinformation" content. It was later shut down, but its creation in the first place shows that the Democratic party wants to censor discussion it doesn't like. Or are you somehow implying the White House is not run by Democrats?
> That sounds like a law to regulate advertisements, not a deplatforming
Which is exactly what we're talking about here: these are advertisements, Hulu doesn't want them on their platform. You're fine with Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, banning advertisements from gun manufacturers and retailers, presumably pro-gun, but you have a problem with Hulu not wanting advertisements that are anti-gun.
>Or are you somehow implying the White House is not run by Democrats?
Of course not, this is obvious?
>You're fine with Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, banning advertisements from gun manufacturers and retailers, presumably pro-gun, but you have a problem with Hulu not wanting advertisements that are anti-gun.
I may or may not be fine with either of those things, why do you assert something you don't know?
So far you've demonstrated an inability to source the information in your original claim, "this sort of deplatforming hadn't been part of [Democrat's] playbook for years."
I really don't think you're arguing in good faith here. This is a very common tactic for people of your political alignment, at least on HN: to nitpickily demand sources for completely obvious facts, and then if provided, shift the argument to discrediting those sources instead of engaging with the actual philosophical points being made.
I could probably write everything else you're going to say in this thread myself, so, I'm not going to bother continuing to argue with you. If you'd like to respond to the core point, which is why are Democrats justified in complaining about their own ads being refused while they celebrate Republican content being deplatformed, then we can continue.
> If you have no problem with that then why should you have a problem banning ads against guns?
Are you really asking "if you want to ban advertising murder weapons, why should you have a problem banning adverts telling people not to murder"?
In this case, of course, Hulu have the right to carry any adverts they like. It turns out, they don't want adverts for either side of the argument, as is their right.
If Hulu decided that they wanted to ban adverts for guns, and promote the hell out of adverts for psychiatric services for people who want to own guns so they can get the mental health treatment they clearly need, then that is also something they have a right to do.
Plato's Crito[1] deals directly with this question, after Socrates has been found guilty and sentenced to death for 'Corrupting the youth', his friends offer to help him leave the city rather than die.
To paraphrase, Socrates says "Though not explicitly, I have by my actions agreed to be ruled by the laws of Athens by carrying out my life here and not choosing to move away to somewhere with a different set of laws"
I believe Plato will say they consented to be governed by this state, not at birth, but throughout their life by choosing to stay in a place that is governed by this state and enjoying the benefits.
I think that's somewhat different because in Ancient Greece there was extreme decentralization. Cities were sovereign entities with an extreme diversity of ideological and other values. Compare Athens and Sparta, for instance. And so in this system, if one stays in a city then there is a strong argument to be made that they are implicitly supportive of the laws and rules of said area.
In modern times this isn't really the case. There tend to be immense legal restrictions on movement, let alone living + working in different areas. And the differences that do exist between even nations within the same "sphere" tend to be relatively negligible compared to, again, the sort of monumental differences you'd see just between different Greek city-states like Athens/Sparta.
> There tend to be immense legal restrictions on movement
There were extreme legal restrictions on movement in Ancient Greece, too. You couldn't just pack up your bags and move to Spara or Athens and become part of the citizen class.
And as a non-citizen, there were a lot of different ways that you could be abused by citizens, with little recourse.
Just because despotism and abuse was decentralized, doesn't mean that it wasn't despotism and abuse.
> There were extreme legal restrictions on movement in Ancient Greece, too. You couldn't just pack up your bags and move to Spara or Athens and become part of the citizen class.
In your belief, from what comes Plato's link between place and state? Places exist before states and often afterward. Can a state exist without place? If a place can exist without any particular state, can a person have a link to a place independent of a state?
Not op, but I can imagine it would be easy to be in the 'bottom' tier of an industry by revenue/sales/etc - if I want to be credited, just make a tiny barely functioning company and collect the credits
A well operated implementation would probably be in the form of reduced taxes, not a check as the point is to help grow smaller competitors, not create zombie companies.
"Nearly Died" yes, because the leadership guiding the riot wasn't particularly competent. If they had control of more institutions, it would likely have been more successful.
When saying "any other show of power other than that they managed to break through a few weakly-secured doors" you downplay the fact they the rioters interrupted a session of Congress and succeeded in their purpose of delaying the certification of election results.
> Political theater by Democrats trying to make Jan 6th "The Day That Democracy Nearly Died" or something.
I agree there's been a lot of political theater around Jan. 6th, but if democracy does in fact die in the US, those events will have been an important milestone. Basically, the point where the breakdown of the respect for the institutions of democracy became in-your-face obvious. It also set some precedents/put options in people's minds that will be hugely destabilizing.
That said, I'm really disappointed that Democrats are basically making only small tactical responses (e.g. party-line voting rights legislation, some justice dept. unit to combat "extremism") to a strategic problem, which is that a large fraction of the population is losing/has lost respect for the system. The Democrats really need to get their act together and, being the less-degraded party, do their duty and make whatever sacrifices are necessary to fix that [1].
[1] As in when some asshole trashes some common area, you have the duty to spend your time and effort clean up after them. You don't have control over their behavior, but you have control over your own, and it's wrong to leave the common area trashed even though it's not "fair" you're the one sacrificing your time to clean it up.
We have a chain of command in our government for when people die. First the President, then the Vice President, then the Speaker of the House, then the Secretaries in a predefined order, and so forth. Plus, the Secret Service (which protects the president) includes considerations for, say, Nuclear Bombing of the capitol and who would take over leadership if such a disaster should happen.
If the rioters had succeeded in murdering every single person in the capital building, there would have been a protocol in place with the leader already determined. The only way this would have been successful is if the rioters killed every single elected official and secretary in the building, followed by having the support of the Army. They were absolutely nowhere near that.
The president (and president-elect) weren't anywhere near the building and their safety was not at issue.
There is no federal procedure or "chain of command" for replacing individual Representatives and Senators -- that goes back to the states they represent, with either elections or appointments.
The way I like to explain it is that Jan 6 was a Denial of Service attack which would have shut down a critical service COV (Certification_Of_Vote). The COV service was designed to bring a new process online while initiating the shut-down sequence of a lame-duck process. But a rogue script in the lame-duck attempted to shut down the COV service, which would have resulted in a privilege escalation and caused the lame-duck to continue running past its expiration date. Thankfully the DoS attack subsided in time and the COV service resumed its normal operation.
Many people in the populace would have supported it, look at how many now even today deny that it was a riot aimed at disrupting the peaceful transition of power of the government.
If they didn't do a good enough job at it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Around 75% of republicans believe Trump won the 2020 election, and that number has been substantiated by multiple polls at this point. I'd like to say that the coup attempt didn't have the support of the populace, but frankly I'm not sure.
You are missing the most important point C) the outgoing president refuses to leave
The rioters wouldn't have ended democracy, but if they caused enough commotion to prevent certification there was a significant risk Trump would have taken advantage of the situation.
Kind of, yes. The people voted democratically to elect Joe Biden as President in November. The Constitution and laws say that he becomes President Elect on Jan 6. That's the law. People vote -> President elect on Jan 6, President on Jan 20.
What happened on Jan 6 was that the transition of power was, for a number of hours, prevented through violent means. Thank God two things happened on Jan 6: (1) Mike Pence refused to leave the Capitol and (2) Mitch McConnell refused to entertain the 10 objections that they wanted (which would have delayed proceedings for at least 20 hours). If either of those two things happened, we'd be in a political situation uncovered by the Constitution and law. That's when things get bad, because either side is just making things up at that point. It becomes a battle of wills and political power; whoever has the most power to reify their will, wins.
The plan on Jan 6 was to delay certification as long as possible, because there was a pressure campaign ongoing in which states were being pressured to "decertify" their votes, and Pence was being pressured to consider alternate slates of electors for Trump.
I think everyone needs to start getting clear on the facts here:
(1) Jan 6 was about stopping Biden from being certified as President Elect by any means, because that's a write only operation. There's no undoing that. Once he is certified by the House, Senate, and VP, the deal is done. Not even the Supreme Court can overturn that: separation of powers and all.
(2) The legal way to do that was spelled out in the Eastman Memo [1]: It argued Pence could just unilaterally refuse to consider slates of electors and cause a contested election, which favored the Republicans electorally. But Pence would not go along with this plan.
(3) Pence was aware of fraudulent certificates of the vote that had been submitted by various states, which purported to be legitimate votes for Trump. Pence could not go along with accepting those without a pretextual reason given by the states themselves. This was the last piece of the plan which was, supposedly according to Trump's lawyer, coming together at the last minute while the Capitol attack was ongoing.
Think of it this way: On Jan 6 the situation was that every state had certified their votes, Trump lost 62/63 court cases and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the AG had said he found no fraud. There was no pretext for Pence to accept the alternative electors.
However, that could have changed very quickly had the pressure campaign continued. If Pence had left the Capitol on Jan 6, then the joint session would not have reconvened for several days while the Capitol was secured (actually the Capitol was correctly deemed insecure by Secret Service the day of Jan 6, so there's as open question as to why Pence was there in the first place). At this time, there was a pressure campaign going on to get one or more states to "Decertify" their certificate of the vote. Had one or more states done so, it would be very easy to see how this would have ended up at a contested election where Republicans would have all the votes needed to install Trump as President.
Didn't the certification end up taking until January 7th anyways? IMO the bulk of the impact was purely symbolic. Even though Congress didn't declare Biden president-elect on the assigned day, his inauguration still happened on schedule.
In fact they reconvened in the evening on Jan 6, and finished the proceedings by 3:30 am on Jan 7. And it's true they managed to get the confirmation done, but that's not quite the point -- the point is why they had to be doing it that late in the first place. The reason is, that this purely symbolic event is anything but; it transmutes the winner of the election into president elect. It marks the beginning of the transition of power, when the president elect begins assuming the powers of their future office. This preliminary title comes with real powers like the ability to see classified information, and increased protections.
It's also completely irreversible. It turns out, the easiest way to prevent a president from being inaugurated on Jan 20 is to prevent them from becoming president elect on Jan 6. There's a real question as to who would ever have the Constitutional authority to undo that, because all the objections are assumed to have been settled through the process on Jan 6. After that it's a done deal. I would say Jan 20 is the more purely symbolic event of the two dates, because by then the authority of the new executive is more firmly established.
And we can't brush past the fact that there was a delay, no matter how brief. The few hour delay could have easily been multiple days if Pence had left the Capitol, and it could have changed the political calculus in terms of states deciding to decertify their elections. Multiple days could have easily turned into multiple weeks as the Justice system moves at a snail's pace, and then suddenly it's Jan 20 without a decision on the election.
If that were to have happened, the House would have voted and with a majority of delegations Republicans would have chosen Trump.
How many people do you think were actually there to delay certification of election results? The overwhelming majority of people who stepped onto the Capitol grounds are charged only with simple trespassing. Even most of the people who entered the actual building were just trespassing and did not take things further. There were nearly 10000 people who marched from the earlier Trump rally to the area outside the Capitol. A few hundred entered the Capitol grounds, and my guess is that most of the rioters were intending to be peaceful protesters and got carried away.
> If they had control of more institutions, it would likely have been more successful.
Isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black? The political left does control most of the institutions, including most mainstream press outlets, virtually all academic institutions, and all notable tech companies. The one thing I can take away from January 6th that is about the security of our elections doesn’t relate to the security of physical buildings. One political side was able to compel all these institutions to take up their political cause, and have engaged in state-motivated censorship of political adversaries. Hiding behind the legality of whether a private organization can censor is not really meaningful. Democracy begins a lot earlier than when we line up to vote. That to me is a much more direct threat to the stability of our country than anything else.
> The overwhelming majority of people who stepped onto the Capitol grounds are charged only with simple trespassing
The overwhelming majority are being charged with class A and B misdemeanors (I assume by "simple trespass" you probably mean class C), but that's not the only charge that many of them have.
About half of those arrested so far have felony charges as well.
