Politics And Current Events

[Kaiser]

Texas:

[CBear3]

"We will notify Trump if you haven't voted. You can't afford to have that on your record."
Sounds intimidating to me.

[DigitalGypsy66]

I think this is a no-brainer, bipartisan issue:

The Department of Justice is calling for concert and ticketing giant Live Nation to be broken up, a remarkable claim in an antitrust lawsuit the department filed in New York Thursday morning, a day after a source familiar with the matter confirmed the suit with Rolling Stone. The DOJ is joined by 29 states as well as the District of Columbia.

“We are not here today because Live Nation-Ticketmaster‘s conduct is inconvenient, or frustrating. We are here because as we allege that conduct is anti-competitive, and illegal,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a press conference Thursday morning. “We allege that Live Nation has illegally monopolized markets across the live concert industry in the United States for far too long. It is time to break it up.”

Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter said in a statement on Thursday that “the live music industry in America is broken because Live Nation-Ticketmaster has an illegal monopoly. “Our antitrust lawsuit seeks to break up the Live-Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly, which will restore competition to the benefit of fans and artists alike,” he said.

A DOJ suit has been one of the most anticipated potential legal actions in the live music industry since news of the regulators’ investigation first surfaced in 2022. Live Nation and Ticketmaster have faced significant scrutiny from fans, competing concert and ticketing companies, and regulators since the two companies merged in 2010, with critics saying the merger has made it difficult for other companies to compete in the live music space.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 235012538/

Hopefully, Rolling Stone isn't too biased a source for music industry reporting.

[Nuge]

[NTP66]

**** hell Mikey’s glasses are huge

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

@Shyster genuinely curious as to this


I know you’re a free speech defender and I understand why: constitution is up for interpretation and your interpretation is consistent and valid.

My question particularly relates to lying by corporations or news agencies (aka “fake news”). Do you think the government has any role in trying to curtail this so that consumers don’t get mislead (such as a company claiming something falsely to sell product or a news agency stating a falsehood, such as a Fox News host saying that Obama is Kenyan or a MSNBC person lying about Trump)? or is it a “let the market sort it out” kind of a thing?


question is open to anyone but I’m interested in Shyster’s take because I feel like we’d all agree he’s probably the most “unique” in his takes on here

[Kaiser]

You're asking if the government has a role in making sure that the people that vote for them hear the truth? If we were half the species we think we are, this would be an easy "Yes".

Since we're absolute scum and can't do a good deed without two horrible ones, no.

[NTP66]

Actual voter suppression.

[Troy Loney]

Good thing the Supreme Court is concerned about states removing candidates from the ballot

[count2infinity]

Trump is going to win Ohio anyways, GOP doesn’t need to stoop to keeping Biden off the ballet to make that happen.

[Shyster]

Shyster, please list all unbiased news sources that we have in this country. I’ll hang up and listen.

There aren't any. New organizations just represent the opinions of the people that work for them, and people are loaded with biases. But the fact that everyone has biases does not prove anything about whether anyone is correct or incorrect on a certain subject.

Like in my world, accusations that a lawyer or litigant is biased would be a complete non sequitur. Of course lawyers is biased; we're all being paid to argue a certain side's views. And every litigant wants to win. The only one who is supposed to be unbiased in the judge. But the fact that lawyers and litigants are biased as heck doesn't prove anything about whether their arguments or assertions are incorrect or incorrect. Bias is not any sort of logical fallacy. It's a cognitive bias. Cognitive biases might make someone more likely to fall victim to a logical fallacy, but they are not logical fallacies.

[Shyster]

My question particularly relates to lying by corporations or news agencies (aka “fake news”). Do you think the government has any role in trying to curtail this so that consumers don’t get mislead (such as a company claiming something falsely to sell product or a news agency stating a falsehood, such as a Fox News host saying that Obama is Kenyan or a MSNBC person lying about Trump)? or is it a “let the market sort it out” kind of a thing?

I believe the government has no role. It's not the government's role to take sides on debates or questions of fact (no matter how stupid they may be or how obviously false they are) any more than the government would take sides on whether, say, Christianity or Hinduism represents the "true" religion.

[tifosi77]

[Troy Loney]

Please Marco, don’t expose McKinsey! That would really hurt me and my liberal friends.

[shafnutz05]

Cue the onion article about the worst person you know making a great point

[Freddy Rumsen]

Harriet Miers would have been a way better choice

Seriously? An article from the biased lefty New York Times. Come on man, try posting something that isn't from an organization that makes it plain as day that it has a strong bias towards a certain way of approaching things. Add in that the reporter used to work for Slate (another biased lefty site) and graduated from both of the lefty crapholes of Harvard and Columbia, and you have a source that no one would ever rely upon. Do better.

The difference, Brainiac, is the Times article is news reporting not an opinion piece.

It was established in the LPG days, I think by EPP, that we wouldn't post editorials/opinion pieces ITT but you do that constantly.

https://archive.ph/RVXcb

The flag that was up in San Francisco in 2023?

https://x.com/LoganDobson/status/179417 ... JTV0g&s=19

[Morkle]

I love this blurring of church and state. Really gets the blood going.

[count2infinity]

Trump got booed all to hell at a libertarian party rally. He suggested they nominate him and was met with quite the response. Who says libertarians aren’t good for anything?

One of the comments on a Reddit post made me laugh:

“When [Ayn] Rand fans are booing you, you've either messed up bad as a conservative or you've just raised the age of consent“

[DigitalGypsy66]

Some video game/comic book guy I follow on Threads (who loathes Musk/Tesla and the GOP) was praising Libertarians last night, and I almost reported his account as hacked. Now I know why.

[Freddy Rumsen]

Trump got booed all to hell at a libertarian party rally. He suggested they nominate him and was met with quite the response. Who says libertarians aren’t good for anything?

One of the comments on a Reddit post made me laugh:

“When [Ayn] Rand fans are booing you, you've either messed up bad as a conservative or you've just raised the age of consent“

[Shyster]

Trump got booed all to hell at a libertarian party rally. He suggested they nominate him and was met with quite the response. Who says libertarians aren’t good for anything?

One of the comments on a Reddit post made me laugh:

“When [Ayn] Rand fans are booing you, you've either messed up bad as a conservative or you've just raised the age of consent“

It's the Libertarian Party national convention. All other presidential candidates were invited to speak. Trump and RFK Jr., for their credit, showed up and spoke, even though both got a hostile reaction. Biden did not.

Libertarians aren't conservatives.

[Kaiser]

Cred

[faftorial]

It's the Libertarian Party national convention. All other presidential candidates were invited to speak. Trump and RFK Jr., for their credit, showed up and spoke, even though both got a hostile reaction. Biden did not.

Libertarians aren't conservatives.

Both are making a play for the libtard vote so of course they showed up.

Trump won't get any but I bet RFK Jr will pull in a few.

[faftorial]

Playing a Vince McMahon heel:

[Shyster]

Congratulations to Chase Oliver for winning the 2024 Libertarian Party presidential nomination.

A sample of Chase Oliver's views:

Return to an Ellis Island style of processing immigrants and create a simpler path to citizenship for immigrants who are already here.

Expand both the HB1 visa and startup visa.

End qualified immunity for federal law enforcement.

End Federal mandatory minimum sentencing .

End the prosecution of victimless crimes.

Immediately abolish the death penalty for all Federal crimes.

Have Federal prosecutorial officials look for alternatives to life without parole.

Immediately act to remove all federal laws criminalizing cannabis.

Issue full pardons for persons who were convicted solely for non-violent drug offenses.

Repeal the Controlled Substances Act and decriminalize possession and use of all drugs.

Abolish the Patriot Act and repeal the FISA Amendments Act of 2008.

End the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Close all overseas bases and immediately return active-duty personnel to domestic bases.

End aid being directed to nation-states currently at war.

Immediately end all tariffs.

Abolish the Department of Education, block grant those funds back to states to be returned to taxpayers, and get the government out of the student loan business.

End the Federal backing of student loans by asking Congress to make all current loans interest-free, while simultaneously ending all future government-guaranteed loans.

Repeal gun restrictions that exist today.

Nominate judges committed to protecting the right of all persons to defend themselves from aggression.

Reduce Federal spending to pre-pandemic levels, balancing the budget.

End the practice of evergreen patents, which create artificial product monopolies that keep prices high.

Significantly reduce the money supply, which is a necessary supplement to the fiscal consolidation strategy of budget reduction.