Abbott being Abbott

[gyroprotagonist 2591]

is this not the exact same thing as taking a knee?  Abbott is bailing on chance to sing the nat anthem and throw out the first pitch because of a difference of opinion.  

 

[NameAlreadyInUse 5106]

3 minutes ago, gyroprotagonist said:

is this not the exact same thing as taking a knee?  Abbott is bailing on chance to sing the nat anthem and throw out the first pitch because of a difference of opinion.  

 

Well we know it's not cancel culture, because Republicans are against that.

[mdmost 42869]

False narrative is the GOP's post-Trump "fake news" line. DeSantis was using that with the 60 Minutes reporter. 

[ChiTownDoc 21102]

Texas will not apply for any future All Star games while hot wheels runs things.  Costing your state millions to own the libs!

[Biff Tannen 45506]

Abbott also has a pinned tweet right now saying happy easter with a big cross and a bible verse.  Separation of church and state indeed.

[RPM 26236]

He had a 0.0001% chance of not 1 hopping it.

[Post Oak 20188]

No 4 wheelo in Arlingtono 

[Beau Vine 54012]

What a spineless little bitch he is.  

[bluto 4895]

The f does the Texas governor give a shit about Georgia

[yoladu 4067]

I don't think he was really looking forward to it.

[atomheartbevo 89465]

1 minute ago, bluto said:

The f does the Texas governor give a shit about Georgia

You might ask why our state leadership gave a shit about Pennsylvania.

PA's Lt. Gov still hasn't collected his check yet.

[hookemATL 11611]

Can Republican politicians do literally anything substantive?  Is it just 100% performative, reactionary, political jug music dancing to entertain the rubes?  God fucking dammit this shit is so transparent.  

 

[bluto 4895]

And better question why the mlb gives a shit what the governor has to say

[yoladu 4067]

3 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

"It is shameful that America's pastime is being influenced by partisan politics."

hahahahaha

[CBT 1281]

10 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

What a spineless little bitch he is.  

fucking this.

[Guest Lobo]

1 hour ago, ChiTownDoc said:

Texas will not apply for any future All Star games while hot wheels runs things.  Costing your state millions to own the libs!

Yeah, this.  He can not participate in the opening game to score points with the psychotic base.  But he didn't have to toss in the part about not wanting to host the All-Star game. 

First off, he can't tell ownership of either franchise in Texas to not bid on the game.  And he can't purposely sabotage it, that could result in a lawsuit against the government.  Second, it was stupid, uncalculating, and wholly unnecessary.  Most of his base won't remember Opening Day by the time the All-Star game comes around.  As stated above, hosting it could have brought tens of millions of dollars to the Texas economy at a time when tourism dollars are the shitter.  

And the "We will not participate in anything organized by Major League Baseball due to their political divide of our country."  What the fuck does he think the actual season is?  Both the Astros and the Rangers could conceivably play as many 93 home games each (regular plus playoffs).  That's 186 "MLB Sanctioned" events held on Texas soil, serving no purpose but to divide our totally sane political populace!  THEY MUST BE STOPPED!  

Seriously, Greg...What the Fuck?  Although they have separate leadership and ownership groups, they are vertically integrated into MLB governance and administration...so wait until Greg and the MAQA nation learn that in addition to a possible All-Star game here, 186 MLB games, there are also 8 MiLB franchises in the Lone Star State (all AA or AAA).  So that's another 560-600 'MLB umbrella' sanctioned events taking place in Texas.  

Thankfully, the Texas League had the foresight to cease operations last year as they saw the cancel culture writing on the wall and canceled themselves into oblivion.  

I mean, I always kinda considered baseball fans to be the brightest fanbase of the Big 4.  But MAQA nation for the mother-fucking win.  

 

[Biff Tannen 45506]

1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

PA's Lt. Gov still hasn't collected his check yet.

He really should keep pushing this.

[ChiTownDoc 21102]

They need a civil rights leader to throw out the first pitch.  He loses no matter what.  No comment and it’s bad.  And any actual comment will be an L unless he praises the decision.  Easy 

 

edit: or a surviving family member

Edited April 5, 2021 by ChiTownDoc

['stache 21778]

Abbott tries to take a stand, fails miserably.

[Beantown Express 2.0 6556]

Does anybody really give a shit if he throws out the first pitch?   Now if they had him attempting to steal second base or running out a soft grounder that may have been interesting.

[Underdog 28459]

AOC for the first pitch, she did more for Texas during power outage than all/most Rs. 

[Beau Vine 54012]

3 minutes ago, Underdog said:

AOC for the first pitch, she did more for Texas during power outage than all/most Rs. 

We all know damn well that she'd still get booed at a Rangers' game.

[Guest Lobo]

Ted Cruz threw out the first pitch today.  In the Cancun league. 

Imagine the build of Bartolo Colon, the Spanish language abilities and racism of Curt Schilling, and the arm strength/accuracy of a drunken Ryan Howard.  And despite loving baseball, after watching you hurl the ceremonial pitch, your two children hate you even more.

[Underdog 28459]

24 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

We all know damn well that she'd still get booed at a Rangers' game.

They won't if she wears a mini skirt and has a Juan Marichal windup.  

[Guest Lobo]

So Abbott bands vaccination reporting for state employees and state facilities.

But you have to show your vaccination records to enroll in public schools?  

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

18 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

What a spineless little bitch he is.  

He's finally standing up for what he feels is right!

[MonkeyDoughnut 10150]

21 minutes ago, Lobo said:

So Abbott bands vaccination reporting for state employees and state facilities.

But you have to show your vaccination records to enroll in public schools?  

Yeah, and then he also excluded nursing homes, state-supported living centers, assisted living facilities or long-term care facilities which made the whole thing feel like a complete WTH moment.

So is it people's rights or not or just some people? He's basically gone against his entire point of government staying out of the way by saying it makes sense in certain instances. Of course now, just instances he alone decides....

SMDH

[4th&Five 41461]

 

[elfenix 34189]

i suppose that means he'll stop taking their money

Edited April 6, 2021 by elfenix

[JimmyJames 12271]

11 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

 

The whole faux republican outrage is such a farce. They have no problem taking corporations money and supporting them when they agree with them and yet now want to wage war against “woke” corporations because they disagree with them. No bigger hypocrites have ever walked the earth. 
 

Maybe the republicans should just give all the corporations a copy of the Republican Party platform so they know what they can agree with or not. I can’t seem to find a copy of the platform myself but I’m sure abbot has it stuffed in his underwear somewhere. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13418]

these publics spats between big business and govt types can be WWE style fights. <insert it's real to me meme>  The corp needs to stand up to appease their customers and the politicians need to fight back to appease their constituents. Behind the scenes, they both understand the need of this charade.

Now when the MLB takes away the All-Star game, or if we see Delta mention that they're going to invest less in GA, then it's real.

I notice that Hollywood seems rather quiet about all of their filming in GA.

[Ghost of LL 15495]

And by the way, I haven't seen Democrats so keen to criticize Citizens United of late.

For the record, I have always thought Citizens United was correctly decided, and I think this past few weeks has shown why it is so important.

[Biff Tannen 45506]

4 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

The whole faux republican outrage is such a farce. They have no problem taking corporations money and supporting them when they agree with them and yet now want to wage war against “woke” corporations because they disagree with them. No bigger hypocrites have ever walked the earth. 

It is this simple.  This works for every facet of their being.  Do stuff they like that helps their political ambitions?  Welcome to the party pal!  Exact same thing in the opposite direction?

[wildcat09 29276]

8 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

And by the way, I haven't seen Democrats so keen to criticize Citizens United of late.

For the record, I have always thought Citizens United was correctly decided, and I think this past few weeks has shown why it is so important.

Citizens United was dogshit and has nothing to do with corporations speaking out against Jim Crow bills.

[Ghost of LL 15495]

2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Citizens United was dogshit and has nothing to do with corporations speaking out against Jim Crow bills.

It's not, and it does.  It holds that corporations have free-speech rights.  And with the Georgia Senate threatening to increase Delta's jet-fuel taxes, and with Mitch McConnell threatening some unnamed "consequences," I think we see how important it is that corporations have constitutionally guaranteed free-speech rights.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33851]

2 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

It's not, and it does.  It holds that corporations have free-speech rights.  And with the Georgia Senate threatening to increase Delta's jet-fuel taxes, and with Mitch McConnell threatening some unnamed "consequences," I think we see how important it is that corporations have constitutionally guaranteed free-speech rights.

sure, but maybe the people should get their rights back and access to politicians and THEN the corporations can have what's left. At least that's how it should work

[wildcat09 29276]

1 minute ago, Ghost of LL said:

It's not, and it does.  It holds that corporations have free-speech rights.  And with the Georgia Senate threatening to increase Delta's jet-fuel taxes, and with Mitch McConnell threatening some unnamed "consequences," I think we see how important it is that corporations have constitutionally guaranteed free-speech rights.

Corporations had speech rights before Citizens United, which again, was dogshit, because the majority went well beyond the remedy that had been requested to make their own political desires the law.

[Ghost of LL 15495]

4 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

sure, but maybe the people should get their rights back and access to politicians and THEN the corporations can have what's left. At least that's how it should work

People have their free-speech rights.  Just because corporations also have that right doesn't dilute the right of the people.

If anything, I would argue that it enhances the rights of natural persons by (1) allowing them to group together and form corporations for the purpose of exercising free speech en masse (as with public-interest organizations or unions) and (2) creating mechanisms by which economic boycotts can motivate corporations to advocate in the public interest.

2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Corporations had speech rights before Citizens United, which again, was dogshit, because the majority went well beyond the remedy that had been requested to make their own political desires the law.

Well, ok--you need to then identify exactly which part(s) of the decision you disagree with.  Because the critical point of that case is that corporations have free-speech rights.

[Captainant 27481]

5 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

People have their free-speech rights.  Just because corporations also have that right doesn't dilute the right of the people.

If anything, I would argue that it enhances the rights of natural persons by (1) allowing them to group together and form corporations for the purpose of exercising free speech en masse (as with public-interest organizations or unions) and (2) creating mechanisms by which economic boycotts can motivate corporations to advocate in the public interest.

Well, ok--you need to then identify exactly which part(s) of the decision you disagree with.  Because the critical point of that case is that corporations have free-speech rights.

It's not that corporations have free speech rights that the problem - it's that the CU decision also declared that money is speech, which means that they can spend as much as they want on whatever lobbying efforts they want. And if you hadn't noticed, regulatory capture was already pretty bad and the decision cranked it up to 11

[Ghost of LL 15495]

Just now, Captainant said:

It's not that corporations have free speech rights that the problem - it's that the CU decision also declared that money is speech, which means that they can spend as much as they want on whatever lobbying efforts they want. And if you hadn't noticed, regulatory capture was already pretty bad and the decision cranked it up to 11

But that's not new.  The conclusion that spending money is protected by the First Amendment because it is critical to disseminating speech goes back to Buckley v. Valeo.  If you want to overturn that conclusion, that's fine.  But that didn't come out of Citizens United--that's nearly a half-century of precedent.

[Captainant 27481]

1 minute ago, Ghost of LL said:

But that's not new.  The conclusion that spending money is protected by the First Amendment because it is critical to disseminating speech goes back to Buckley v. Valeo.  If you want to overturn that conclusion, that's fine.  But that didn't come out of Citizens United--that's nearly a half-century of precedent.

Looking at the consequences of the decision - putting aside the legalese - it's been an unmitigated disaster for the country. Large, multinational corporations have been pumping ever more cash into the political process. Our representatives don't vote according to what their constituents want - they do so according to what their largest donors want.

So the end result is that if money == speech, then more money == more speech, and our democracy is no longer one person, one vote. It's one dollar, one vote.

[Biff Tannen 45506]

1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

allowing them to group together and form corporations for the purpose of exercising free speech en masse (as with public-interest organizations or unions)

Uhh, seems like unions have been roundly rejected by corporations as of late.  I admit I know little about this, but Amazon comes to mind.  

[Biff Tannen 45506]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

Looking at the consequences of the decision - putting aside the legalese - it's been an unmitigated disaster for the country. Large, multinational corporations have been pumping ever more cash into the political process. Our representatives don't vote according to what their constituents want - they do so according to what their largest donors want.

So the end result is that if money == speech, then more money == more speech, and our democracy is no longer one person, one vote. It's one dollar, one vote.

Also this.  Well fucking said.

[wildcat09 29276]

32 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

People have their free-speech rights.  Just because corporations also have that right doesn't dilute the right of the people.

If anything, I would argue that it enhances the rights of natural persons by (1) allowing them to group together and form corporations for the purpose of exercising free speech en masse (as with public-interest organizations or unions) and (2) creating mechanisms by which economic boycotts can motivate corporations to advocate in the public interest.

Well, ok--you need to then identify exactly which part(s) of the decision you disagree with.  Because the critical point of that case is that corporations have free-speech rights.

I don't have time to write a treatise on it so I'll just give 2 brief problems. First, the procedural ratfuckery. This was a case about whether the FEC had the statutory authority to stop Citizens United from airing a movie about Hillary within a certain amount of time before the election (I think it was 30 days but I'm not looking it up). Citizens United itself argued that the statute didn't apply to its conduct, and it asked the court to rule that the statute didn't apply to its conduct. But the actual facts of the case weren't enough for what the majority wanted to do. The Court could have ruled that the statute didn't apply, or that it did but was unconstitutional in this application. This was about a fucking movie, not political contributions. There was no request to and no need to overturn multiple major precedential rulings.

I really can't stress enough that Citizens United hadn't even come close to asking for the remedy the Court delivered. Citizens fucking United, a group created for the express purpose of ratfucking, thought that would be going too far. 

The second problem is the Court's conclusory statement that independent expenditures do not give rise to the appearance of corruption. That's ridiculous on multiple levels. One, it's factually wrong. It's a statement about something that can actually be objectively measured and has been measured repeatedly, and basically every poll ever taken shows that people think independent expenditures cause corruption. Two, it was asserted with the clear purpose of transforming this nonsense statement into an actual legal principle that could be used as a weapon to strike down campaign finance laws. 

Citizens United was an exercise in legal alchemy. They had a prior case that basically said "money = speech" and they realized that if they actually treated this like alchemy they could pretend that they had no other choice.  So they took a case about a movie and made it a case about campaign spending, and they transformed campaign spending into "no corruption here!" and just like that they completely eliminated the ability of American people (at either the state or federal level) to come together and democratically decide that they want to eliminate corruption in politics. No matter how bad actual corruption gets, no matter how obvious it is to everyone, SCOTUS has preemptively ruled that it doesn't exist.

Their complete refusal to recognize any nuance in this area stands in stark contrast with their openness to time, place, and manner restrictions in other First Amendment cases.

Edited April 6, 2021 by wildcat09

[Ghost of LL 15495]

15 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Looking at the consequences of the decision - putting aside the legalese - it's been an unmitigated disaster for the country. Large, multinational corporations have been pumping ever more cash into the political process. Our representatives don't vote according to what their constituents want - they do so according to what their largest donors want.

So the end result is that if money == speech, then more money == more speech, and our democracy is no longer one person, one vote. It's one dollar, one vote.

But you can't put aside the legalese when we're talking about constitutional rights.  We have a written constitution, which means that it is going to be interpreted through legalese (ha, yeah--fuck you, Bryan Garner).

14 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Uhh, seems like unions have been roundly rejected by corporations as of late.  I admit I know little about this, but Amazon comes to mind.  

Unions are corporations.  And they're some of the biggest spenders when it comes to political speech.

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I don't have time to write a treatise on it so I'll just give 2 brief problems. First, the procedural ratfuckery. This was a case about whether the FEC had the statutory authority to stop Citizens United from airing a movie about Hillary within a certain amount of time before the election (I think it was 30 days but I'm not looking it up). Citizens United itself argued that the statute didn't apply to its conduct, and it asked the court to rule that the statute didn't apply to its conduct. But the actual facts of the case weren't enough for what the majority wanted to do. The Court could have ruled that the statute didn't apply, or that it did but was unconstitutional in this application. This was about a fucking movie, not political contributions. There was no request to and no need to overturn multiple major precedential rulings.

I really can't stress enough that Citizens United hadn't even come close to asking for the remedy the Court delivered. Citizens fucking United, a group created for the express purpose of ratfucking, thought that would be going too far. 

The second problem is the Court's conclusory statement that independent expenditures do not give rise to the appearance of corruption. That's ridiculous on multiple levels. One, it's factually wrong. It's a statement about something that can actually be objectively measured and has been measured repeatedly, and basically every poll ever taken shows that people think independent expenditures cause corruption. Two, it was asserted with the clear purpose of transforming this nonsense statement into an actual legal principle that could be used as a weapon to strike down campaign finance laws. 

Citizens United was an exercise in legal alchemy. They had a prior case that basically said "money = speech" and they realized that if they actually treated this like alchemy they could pretend that they had no other choice.  So they took a case about a movie and made it a case about campaign spending, and they transformed campaign spending into "no corruption here!" and just like that they completely eliminated the ability of American people (at either the state or federal level) to come together and democratically decide that they wanted to eliminate corruption in politics. No matter how bad actual corruption gets, no matter how obvious it is to everyone, SCOTUS has preemptively ruled that it doesn't exist.

Their complete refusal to recognize any nuance in this area stands in stark contrast with their openness to time, place, and manner restrictions in other First Amendment cases.

Well, I'm not going to argue with you on the procedural issues with the case.  I don't think you're wrong.  But at the same time, it's like the law school discussion on how Marbury v. Madison is wrongly decided because the Court should've stopped after deciding that it didn't have jurisdiction.

As to the corruption issue, you're pulling the same sleight-of-hand that the Trumpists use when they say that their voter-suppression measures are needed because people have lost confidence in the integrity of elections.  Yeah, no shit--because the Trumpists themselves are out there peddling the Big Lie that the 2020 election wasn't legitimate.

There is nothing out there to reflect that independent expenditures cause corruption.  And I don't think you're saying otherwise.  All you say is that "every poll ever taken shows that people think independent expenditures cause corruption."  No shit.  That's because people like you keep repeating that as though it were the truth.  And it's really not.

[Captainant 27481]

19 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

But you can't put aside the legalese when we're talking about constitutional rights.  We have a written constitution, which means that it is going to be interpreted through legalese (ha, yeah--fuck you, Bryan Garner).

So you're saying that we as citizens should ignore real consequences of judicial activism because it's judicial action? I didn't know you were so horny for the Roberts court to fuck up our democracy and remove our voting rights - so long as you can justify it in the supreme court. Maybe you moved into lobbying recently or something, idk.

All that to say - there was a pretty comprehensive study published in 2014 that showed through its analysis that whatever the common citizen wants has zero bearing on the likelihood of any piece of legislation passing, and if you're a top earner (read: someone with more money speech) the data shows measures are more likely to pass with your support.

The CU decision can only exacerbate that trend and further erode the representative nature of our democracy. It's no longer by the people, for the people. It's by the donors, for the donors.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Captainant

[TwiceHorn 31311]

4 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

The whole faux republican outrage is such a farce. They have no problem taking corporations money and supporting them when they agree with them and yet now want to wage war against “woke” corporations because they disagree with them. No bigger hypocrites have ever walked the earth. 
 

Maybe the republicans should just give all the corporations a copy of the Republican Party platform so they know what they can agree with or not. I can’t seem to find a copy of the platform myself but I’m sure abbot has it stuffed in his underwear somewhere. 

What's fucked about it is that the corporations' marketing departments are telling them that the majority of Americans, that is, their customers, will be pleased by these actions.  The corporations are actually responding to the will of the people.

The R pols, who are supposed to be running a democratic republic, are not responding to the will of the people.

[C-Man 27075]

On 4/5/2021 at 1:07 PM, ChiTownDoc said:

Texas will not apply for any future All Star games while hot wheels runs things.  Costing your state millions to own the libs!

I half expected the game to move to Arlington -- new ballpark and he loves bending over and spreading himself wide for companies looking to relocate.

[TwiceHorn 31311]

59 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

But that's not new.  The conclusion that spending money is protected by the First Amendment because it is critical to disseminating speech goes back to Buckley v. Valeo.  If you want to overturn that conclusion, that's fine.  But that didn't come out of Citizens United--that's nearly a half-century of precedent.

Yeah, the notion that corporations have Bill of Rights rights didn't start with either Citizens United or Hobby Lobby.  They each just took it a little bit further and made it a little bit more explicit.

[Ghost of LL 15495]

2 minutes ago, C-Man said:

I half expected the game to move to Arlington -- new ballpark and he loves bending over and spreading himself wide for companies looking to relocate.

MLB made pretty clear that it wouldn't be in Arlington from the outset, according to Evan Grant, because Arlington just hosted the NLCS and the World Series.