April 20, 2015

People keep trotting out this argument

and it is moot.

It became moot when the Vichy Democrats REFUSED to filibuster Clarence Thomas and allowed him to have Thurgood Marshall's seat on the court. Thomas was as bad an ideologue as Bork, if not worse, and he was demonstrably, professionally unqualified for the position. Instead of filibustering and holding firm for a more qualified and less partisan nominee, the Dems quickly caved and pissed all over Marshall's legacy.

Without Thomas, Bush v. Gore would almost certainly have gone the other way and the last 15 years would have played out differently.

With the Citizens United ruling, it became game, set and match for the ruling oligarchs. The government, specifically elections, were now for sale to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder sure as Hell wasn't going to be us.

HRC will win in 2016, but it really won''t matter since the Koch's are buying the Congress. Even if she appoints a genuinely liberal justice to the court (as opposed to continuing the policy of appointing justices politically to the right of those they replace), that appointment will not be confirmed by the Koch senate.

Our one chance to roll all this back was that Obama would have lived up to his promises and been a real reform president. Instead he was just another center-right Democrat who sacrificed our liberty on the altar of of pragmatism to the god of bipartisanship. He reaffirmed the Bush police state, propped up its imperial war, and refused to punish Wall Street ghouls feasting on the poor and middle class.

People are now using the SCOTUS as a reason I, and others like me, MUST support a candidate who is well to Obama's right, who voted for Bush's illegal war, and is an absolute tool of Wall Street.

No, not happening.

April 17, 2015

Leaked Sony emails show MPAA’s opposition to fair use, confirms users are viewed as thieves

Source: ExtremeTech

Yesterday, Wikileaks announced that it had compiled a searchable archive of the emails that leaked from Sony last fall. That effort is already bearing fruit. The uncovered paper trail offers a window into the difference between what the MPAA says it believes, and what it espouses behind closed doors — and how the organization has launched an all-out offensive to re-write US trade law to favor its own pocketbook.

The tone of the MPAA’s public piece is unambiguous. The organization may disagree with others about whether certain uses of content are or are not fair use, but it clearly supports the concept. This makes the following email between Chris Dodd and Ambassador Froman (head of the United States Trade Representative) particularly interesting. The relevant paragraphs are reprinted below:

I am concerned about your suggestion that previous free trade agreements’ copyright provisions were unbalanced and that USTR has addressed this lack of balance by including “fair use” in the TPP…

As I know you are aware, the inclusion of “fair use” in free trade agreements is extremely controversial and divisive. The creative community has been, and remains, a strong and consistent supporter of free trade, but the potential export of fair use via these agreements raises serious concerns within the community I represent…

I am hopeful that I can report back to my members that that US trade policy has not changed, that USTR is committed to securing strong copyright provisions in the TPP. But, there is no question Wednesday’s speech is reverberating in the content community, and I would be remiss if I failed to raise these concerns to you personally….I realize you will be traveling, but this is a sense of urgency surrounding our concerns.

So, according to Chris Dodd, the head of the MPAA, the discussion of fair use at a session of the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty is “extremely controversial and divisive.”

Read more: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/203654-leaked-sony-emails-show-mpaas-opposition-to-fair-use-confirms-users-are-viewed-as-thieves

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Chris Dodd is another Vichy Democrat happy to sell out the America public at the behest of his corporate masters. Again, this is a look into the secret deals being cut of how to use the TPP to gut "fair use" in current copyright law.