So what? You think this conflict didn't exist when the first Amendment was ratified? In fact, there was even more reliance on fewer major sources of "news" back then.

What in god's name are you talking about?

Well, isn't that nice. But it nonetheless leaves violation of their freedom of speech/press rights (try reading the first amendment in its entirety)

Eligibility for what?

What in god's name are you talking about? You realize that you have not managed to string together a clear and coherent thought in this thread?

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

I am pretty sure most Federalists were not media moguls. It is my opinion, that Ben Franklin didn't run for public office in much the same manner that Madison and Jefferson did not have controlling interest in media moguldom.

It is my contention, that the current candidate nomination process is Party specific. There is nothing preventing the Reform party, or a "Capitalism" party from nominating a candidate based on party specific criteria. One such criteria could be that of being the wealthiest person in the republic or having received the largest bonus.

I think these are credible criteria for any market friendly candidate in much the same manner as adherence to Party dogma is a credible criteria for nomination of a candidate by, and for, the Party.

Where is there any denial or disparagement of their Constitutionally enumerated right to redress of government?

No one is advocating that any individual citizen of the republic not be eligible to run for public office.

So fucking what? Those were personal choices, not constitutional distinctions under the first amendment. The first amendment proscribes the types of things youa re discussing.

Fine, you go form your Daniel's fantasyland party and see how much support you get, but you cannot make any of your criteria or restrictions LAW.

If you think that, then you are so utterly friggin' clueless as to what constitutes "market friendly" you are not worth having a reasoned discussion with.

Get your head out of your ass and read what I fucking wrote. Why do you keep asking me to defend a position I never fucking took.. What I said was it violates their FIRST AMENDMENTR RIGHTS and if would do as I suggested and READ THE FUCKING FIRST AMENDMENT you might notice that right to redress of government is not the only thing in the first amendment. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, try those (they aren't hard to find since the actually come BEFORE the redress clause you are irrelevantly fixated on.

No, you are suggesting that restrictions are higher qualifications (in violation of the constitution) be placed on people for exercising their first amendment rights:

You are punishing people for, in effect, exercising freedom of speech and press.

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Can you cite which parts of the Constitution deny and disparage the point of view of my argument?

We already have many laws that do what you say is prohibited by our Constitution, as a form of disenfranchisement. Your position then, was that there is some moral or ethical basis for passing forms of bills of attainder, that may have the effect of having certain media moguls either divest themselves of media moguldom or face a higher hurdle for public office. This would be not much different from any other item an ethics committee would consider.

How utterly hopelessly obtuse.

Tell me how it does NOT violate equal protection and Freedom of Speech/Press to punish individuals for exercising their freedom of speech and press by requiring greater qualifications of them for elective office?

Really, please give specific examples.

No, my position, to anyone with a second grade or above reading level, who doesn't have their head up their ass is that such rules would violate equal protection, and first amendment freedoms of speech and press.

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

I thought it depended on the nomination rules manufactured by each of the several parties?

That anyone who is nominated may be elected to public office is in keeping with the provisions of First Amendment.

How often have the Democrat or Republican parties facilitated the election of moguls of capitalism? It could be said that those individuals are also being disenfranchised in the manner you suggest should not be done to moguls of media.

Bills of attainder currently in force.

No one is advocating limiting access to petitioning government for a redress of grievances.

For the sake of argument, how many medial moguls do you think will complain that their privileges and immunities are being denied and disparaged?

Since you have been incredibly unclear and lacking in specifics, let me ask, are you suggesting merely that PARTIES impose these rules you are so fixated on, or that they legal requirements?

If you are referring to parties, then this whole conversation is an idiotice pointless exercise in mental masterbation because the parties WILL NOT.

If you are talking about formal laws, then you are talking about violating the constitution for the aforementioned reasons.

The PARTIES may have any criteria they want for who they nominate in theory (although it is an open legal question whether or not the parties must themselves comport to constitutional principles in-so-far as they accept governemnt funding for their primary processes), but government cannot REQUIRE anything beyond, or contrary to the constitution.

How about for the sake of argument you answer respond to the issues I ACTUALLY RAISED instead of being fixated on things I have not said a friggin' thing about.

When did I say it violated right to petition or privileges and immunities? I DID NOT, that is your myopic and irrelevant fixation.

I have said that it violates equal protection and First Amendment Freedom of SPEECH and PRESS rights, none of which you have addressed (because you can't)

The only thing you have even attempted by way of response was to equate it with age limitations for elective office, which is utterly ridiculous since the constitution REQUIRES said restrictions in the case of age, but there are NO such constitutional restrictions on media moguls vs. non-media moguls.

__________________
"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

I was referring to abstract concepts more than actual practice of our form of statism. I am not really sure it would matter if it were law or party rules, except that any disgruntled party member may be able to claim a denial and disparagement of their privileges and immunities if it does not have the full faith and credit of the several states.

How does requiring a certain criteria for potential candidates from certain sectors of the economy result in a violation of their privileges and immunities (equal protection) or the First Amendment power and right to petition our government for redress of grievances?

Are you implying, that a hypothetical "Capitalist" party nominating the individuals who are either the richest in the republic or have earned the largest bonus in the history of the republic, would be violating equal protection (privileges and immunities) or disparaging a private individual's power and right to petition government for redress of grievances?

well living in california can sure be exciting sometimes, especially when moonbeam wants to reverse engineer the state......

Jerry Brown's War on California Suburbs
By JOEL KOTKIN
July 19, 2008; Page A7

Los Angeles

In the 1960s, California Gov. Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown laid the foundation for building modern, suburban California with massive new highway projects and one of the most significant public water projects in history. The resulting infrastructure gave us broad, low-density developments with room for millions of Californians to have a home with a backyard and two cars in the driveway.

Those were the good old days. Today, Pat Brown's son Jerry is waging war on the very communities his father helped make possible. Why? Global warming.



Jerry Brown has been a fixture of the state's politics for more than three decades. He was elected governor in 1974 and four years later earned the moniker "Governor Moonbeam" for his interest in creating a space program in California. In 1998, he was elected mayor of Oakland, a working-class city across the bay from San Francisco. And in 2006, he was elected attorney general. Today he is mulling a run for governor in 2010, when he will be 72.

In the meantime, Mr. Brown is taking aim at the suburbs, concerned about the alleged environmental damage they cause. He sees suburban houses as inefficient users of energy. He sees suburban commuters clogging the roads as wasting precious fossil fuel. And, mostly, he sees wisdom in an intricately thought-out plan to compel residents to move to city centers or, at least, to high-density developments clustered near mass transit lines.

Mr. Brown is not above using coercion to create the demographic patterns he wants. In recent months, he has threatened to file suit against municipalities that shun high-density housing in favor of building new suburban singe-family homes, on the grounds that they will pollute the environment. He is also backing controversial legislation -- Senate bill 375 -- moving through the state legislature that would restrict state highway funds to communities that refuse to adopt "smart growth" development plans. "We have to get the people from the suburbs to start coming back" to the cities, Mr. Brown told planning experts in March.

The problem is, that's not what Californians want. For two generations, residents have been moving to the suburbs. They are attracted to the prospect, although not always the reality, of good schools, low crime rates and the chance to buy a home. A 2002 Public Policy Institute of California poll found that 80% of Californians prefer single-family homes over apartment living. And, even as the state's traffic jams are legendary, it is not always true that residents clog roads to commute to jobs in downtown Los Angeles or other cities.

Ali Modarres, associate director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University Los Angeles, believes the density-first approach is ill-suited for areas like L.A. County, where most residents and jobs are dispersed among subregional "nodes." Research by Mr. Modarres, co-author of the powerful book "City and Environment," demonstrates that people living in nodes -- Pasadena, Torrance, Burbank and Irvine -- often enjoy considerably shorter average commutes than do a lot of inner-city residents. Many of these people commute through tangled traffic to get to jobs on the periphery.

"I have no problem trying to find solutions on global warming," Mr. Modarres told me, "but I doubt these kinds of solutions are going to do anything. The whole notion that through physical planning you can get a lot of people to abandon their cars is pretty iffy."

Mr. Modarres also points out that forcing developers to build near transit lines, a strategy favored by "smart-growth advocates," does not mean residents will actually take the train or bus. A survey conducted last year by the Los Angeles Times of "transit oriented development" found that "only a small fraction of residents shunned their cars during rush hour."

There is also little punch behind the science used to justify the drive to resettling the cities -- and plenty of power behind the argument that suburbs are better for Mother Earth. Several prominent scholars -- including University of Maryland atmospheric scientist Konstanin Vinnikov, University of Georgia meterologist J. Marshall Shepard and Brookings Institution research analyst Andrea Sarzynski -- have found there is little evidence linking suburbanization to global warming, pointing out that density itself can produce increased auto congestion and pollution.

The antisuburbanites also ignore evidence that packing people together in cities produces "heat islands." Temperatures in downtown Los Angeles sometimes reach as much as three degrees centigrade higher than outlying areas. Recent studies in Australia have shown that multistoried housing generates higher carbon emissions than either townhomes or single-family residences because of the energy consumed by common areas, elevators and parking structures, as well as the lack of tree cover.

In the short run, while being "tough" on climate change appears popular, an assault on the preferred lifestyle of suburban voters may not. These voters aren't likely to appreciate being castigated as ecological evildoers, especially by people who generally house themselves in spacious splendor.

A report by the Los Angeles Weekly's Dave Zahniser -- entitled "Do as We Say, Not as We Do" -- found that a lot of prominent "smart growth" advocates in Los Angeles live in large single-family homes, some of them long hikes from mass transit. Mr. Brown himself, not long ago, moved from a loft in crime-ridden downtown Oakland to a bucolic setting in the Oakland Hills.

At a time when political trends favor Democrats, a hypocritical jihad against basic middle-class aspirations may not be the best strategy. Mr. Brown would be better off embracing telecommuting and other ideas to cut suburban commutes that accommodate the majority's dreams and preferences. He might have learned that from his father. Instead he's gone from wanting to launch people into space to opposing people who move to the suburbs.

Cross Country - WSJ.com

__________________
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile....

The weirdest part about politics in California is that you can change the constitution with half the voters, yet it takes two/thirds to conduct ordinary business like the budget.

Simple infrastructure development could be a more beneficial, socialistic use of public sector interference in the markets.

I agree with the perception that there is a need for urban renewal in the US. Infrastructure development could make that renewal much more cost effective and beneficial to the populace.

As an example, "conduits to markets" could be ensured by the appropriate department of the local government.

One specific example of a public sector business venture that provies "conduit to markets" is that of public sector ownership of the physical layer of telecommunications infrastructure.

In our federal form of government, the general government of the Union could ensure a hypothetical telecommunications trunk line to each state and all federal property.

The states could ensure the same to each county and each county to each city or individual.

In this hypothetical, the physical availability of the telecommunications trunk line is guaranteed by the appropriate pubic sector entity responsible.

The public sector can generate revenue in this manner. The private sector would be able to provide "content" at lower cost and with a higher "standard of living" than is currently available to the market.

We also, would not need to build any new fossil fuel based power generation facilities in California, if we simply had better infrastructure to deliver power from any other state in the Union, Canada, or Mexico.

What does anyone think about the several states requesting block grants to provide for the general welfare of any of the several states in our Union.

From one perspective, if states can provide better market based metrics from any infrastructure development, better use of public resources can be accomplished; and potential lowering of our tax burden by improving the efficiency of state bureaucracy.

well arnold has had to ax a whole bunch of state employees an has put like 5000 on minimum wage.......



hear that? yea...that....thats my heart bleeding for him ....


its a shame these folks have to get the axe or laid off whatever, BUT its at MY expense as to keeping them their at their jobs......if the system were more efficient not so featherbedded they would have other jobs and not be in this fix....and since this jackass took a 9 billion deficit and presto chango it became 18 billion he can as he should take the hit, not that hes going anywhere further in politics.......

oh and the obligatory state tax increase in the dem controlled state legislature...the rep's are trying to hold the line, but in the end, the dems only need 1 or 2 to cave and they can pass it........and we will now have the highest marginal rate bar no one, NYC, NJ no one...numero uno baby.........nice....

__________________
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile....

I think paying people to be couch potatoes, at rock bottom cost, wouldn't be a bad idea. At the very least, it would ensure more consistent revenue streams for local governments.

What if the general government of the Union could ensure that any promotion or provision of the general welfare by the several states could be ensured solvency?

California would be able to reduce the size of government by consolidating social services. The infrastructure already exists as state unemployment insurance departments.

This could also be viewed as complying with the letter of the law, if not the spirit in which it should have been intended.