Bachmann advocates using RICO against critics of Koch Bro.

[Kitsune]

Thought this was pretty wacked
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article ... e_RICO_Act

I just thank God that there’s a billionaire or two on our side. All the billionaires seem to be on the radical left, so I’m glad that we have a couple on ours. I hope we get a few more that are willing that come out but realize also this is an intimidation movement, I’m sure that the donors on our side don’t like to have their names vilified and that’s what this is about, intimidating people from giving money to our cause, that’s it. There’s something called the RICO statute, the racketeering law, that should be applied against them for doing this.

[Crown]

How can she stand upright and talk at the same time? Like for real?

[Mr Bean]

I just thank God that there’s a billionaire or two on our side. All the billionaires seem to be on the radical left, so I’m glad that we have a couple on ours. I hope we get a few more that are willing that come out but realize also this is an intimidation movement, I’m sure that the donors on our side don’t like to have their names vilified and that’s what this is about, intimidating people from giving money to our cause, that’s it. There’s something called the RICO statute, the racketeering law, that should be applied against them for doing this.[/i]

Hmmm...
Racketeering
Racketeering refers to criminal activity that is performed to benefit an organization such as a crime syndicate. Examples of racketeering activity include extortion, money laundering, loan sharking, obstruction of justice and bribery.

Wiki?

A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, will not be affected, or would not otherwise exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering.[1] Particularly, the potential problem may be caused by the same party that offers to solve it, although that fact may be concealed, with the specific intent to engender continual patronage for this party. A prototype is the protection racket, wherein a person or group indicates that they could protect a store from potential damage, damage that the same person or group would otherwise inflict, while the correlation of threat and protection may be more or less deniably veiled, distinguishing it from the more direct act of extortion.

Okay that second definition is more useful. So what Bachmann is purposing is that the liberal left is intimidating people from donating to Republican causes and to stop them from doing that they should be charged under the RICO act...

So since I missed the email what activity should I as a payed mercenary of the left be doing to suppress donations to Republican causes?

[Darth Nostril]

It's quite amazing that a creature that possesses a head made entirely of solid bone is able to breathe due to the lack of even a functioning brain stem.

[Kitsune]

It's quite amazing that a creature that possesses a head made entirely of solid bone is able to breathe due to the lack of even a functioning brain stem.

If you look at her Wiki page, she is not uneducated.
What I don't understand is if she is a True Believer or if she is just pandering
Could be a mix of course

[Zaune]

This interview is either a false-flag operation by Communists or an elaborate work of satirical performance art.

Or fake, because I've never heard of Little Green Footballs before and for all I know they're a crowdsourced version of The Onion.

[Darth Nostril]

Wiki article describes the blog author as centre left, so pretty right wing to us in the UK. For the past few years he's been launching attacks on the increasing insanity of the Tea Baggers. "On November 30, 2009, Johnson blogged that he was disassociating himself with "the right", claiming that "The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff. I won’t be going over the cliff with them." He has been heavily critical of conservatives and libertarians since then"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Green_Footballs

Obviously Wikipedia isn't the best source of information but it's the best I came up with after a mere thirty seconds of google-fu.

[Simon_Jester]

Little Green Footballs is at least real, they've been around for years. I can't speak to their actual views. From what I dimly recall, yes, that was a more right-wing blog ten years back.

I think there's this weird resonance effect whereby pandering to the voters and True Believer status reinforce each other. The Republican base promotes those who tell it this sort of crap, and it's easier to do that if you believe it, because you don't have to try as hard.

Until you get people who genuinely, in their heart of hearts, believe that there is a massive illegal liberal conspiracy to stop the billionaires from donating mountains of cash to the Republican Party... rather than having a situation where a relatively small number of billionaires are trying to make the Republican Party their creature.

[Lord Relvenous]

This interview is either a false-flag operation by Communists or an elaborate work of satirical performance art.

Or fake, because I've never heard of Little Green Footballs before and for all I know they're a crowdsourced version of The Onion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in- ... -the-week/

Looks like she actually said it. Then again, are you really that surprised? The Tea Party will say whatever they feel like will discredit in the eyes of their voters anyone who disagrees with them, whether it's ridiculous or not.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Thankfully, this discredits them as well.

God I can't wait for the GOP to flush the crazies, and for the Democrats to split into one faction that merges with sane-GOP and one that is actual leftists. I know, non-American and all, but I'd rather see sane people jockeying for so much power over the world.

[Simon_Jester]

It's arguably more likely that the crazies will flush the GOP- this is already beginning to happen, but so far it's mostly the party intelligentsia that's being flushed.

[Borgholio]

It's arguably more likely that the crazies will flush the GOP- this is already beginning to happen, but so far it's mostly the party intelligentsia that's being flushed.

This can only be a good thing, yes? I mean if they're already too conservative to win and they get even MORE conservative...

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't find the radicalization of our political system a good thing.

[Borgholio]

I don't find the radicalization of our political system a good thing.

Right now I see the most radicalization coming from the GOP. If their decent into madness opens the door for an actual moderate party that has a chance to win, how can that be bad?

[Grumman]

This can only be a good thing, yes? I mean if they're already too conservative to win and they get even MORE conservative...

...then the Democrats will get even worse than the current "actively supports imprisoning innocent people without trial" standard.

Nobody should want a de facto one party system.

[Borgholio]

So you think that the Democrats will become even more liberal if the GOP gets even more conservative?

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't find the radicalization of our political system a good thing.

Right now I see the most radicalization coming from the GOP. If their decent into madness opens the door for an actual moderate party that has a chance to win, how can that be bad?

Extremists may decide to use force. And having little reasonable opposition to the Democratic Party isn't good either. I don't have so much faith in it that I want it to be the only viable party.

[Zaune]

They might, but then again they might carry on with their current policy of talking a good game and then fobbing liberals off with pious platitudes and token gestures because the status quo benefits the people who write the big campaign cheques. If anything this is an opportunity for a new and relatively radical left-wing party to get a word in edgeways.

[Simon_Jester]

It's arguably more likely that the crazies will flush the GOP- this is already beginning to happen, but so far it's mostly the party intelligentsia that's being flushed.

This can only be a good thing, yes? I mean if they're already too conservative to win and they get even MORE conservative...

There's a wide band where they're too conservative to win everything and gain a dominant position... but still not so conservative that they lose everything. They occupy that band right now in my opinion, and frankly they're already too right-wing to govern effectively.

So long as the Republicans occupy this band, they are a major obstacle to any kind of real public conversation about reform of the system- because they're so radicalized they won't/can't compromise on anything, but are still large and powerful enough that the changes can't happen without them.

We've seen this with the budget: the budget-making process has effectively failed entirely, because the Congressional Republicans and the Congressional Democrats will not make a mature compromise. And frankly, most of the obstinacy here has come from the Republicans, who tend to dig in and say "we wouldn't accept ten dollars of spending cuts if the cost is a one dollar tax increase." You can't actually negotiate a budget in anything like a timely or effective way in the face of that sort of attitude, except by completely surrendering to it.

But clearly the Republicans have not (yet) lost so much popularity in this way that they wind up reduced to complete political impotence. It might happen yet, but until it does, the ship of state is firmly aground on a sandbar.

This can only be a good thing, yes? I mean if they're already too conservative to win and they get even MORE conservative...

...then the Democrats will get even worse than the current "actively supports imprisoning innocent people without trial" standard.

Nobody should want a de facto one party system.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans are ripe for a split; the key is that they're likely to split into three factions rather than four.

Removing the pressure by having the Republicans effective self-destruct might actually cause the Democrats to crack up and realign too. Their current political structure pretty much boils down to "an alliance of everyone who doesn't want a coalition of Paul Ryan and Rick Santorum running the country." That's inherently unstable, given how many different reasons there are NOT to want such a coalition in power.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So if I understand you right Simon...both parties are essentially in a MAD situation, defining themselves as "against the other guys." And if one of them breaks first, the other side no longer has an actual platform to stand on and also breaks up.

That would be...interesting to see I think.

[Simon_Jester]

No. The Republicans have a well defined platform, it's just nuts. Any problems you perceive with the Tories in Britain, plus some more.

It is, however, a (mostly) internally consistent worldview ascribed to by over a hundred million people, which makes definite prescriptions about how to run a country.

The Democrats, by contrast, consist of most of the groups who perceive problems with the Republican agenda. Some of them are sensible, others not, and they want a lot of different things, ranging from corporate donors who just don't want as much deregulation as modern Republicans, to people who actually want major change in the status quo.

The "undecided" voters are those small minority in the middle.

So it's not a MAD thing, it's just that the real political struggle in modern America is between "neoliberalism" (the de facto political and economic doctrine of the Republican party) and... well, everyone else.

[Zaune]

The Democrats, by contrast, consist of most of the groups who perceive problems with the Republican agenda. Some of them are sensible, others not, and they want a lot of different things, ranging from corporate donors who just don't want as much deregulation as modern Republicans, to people who actually want major change in the status quo.

So... Occupy $CITY_NAME with fancy suits, no homeless people who just happened to be passing through*, and a sub-faction with some unpleasantly authoritarian tendencies currently calling the shots.

We're all doomed, aren't we.

* This is not intended as any kind of insult, because they actually talked more good sense than some of the full-time activist types. Besides, I was one of them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Fascinating. So, if the GOP collapsed, there is a reasonable chance that the Democrats would fragment as well. But there is not a corresponding chance of the GOP collapsing after a hypothetical Democrat party-explosion.

How very one-sided. Does that mean then the Democrats are largely a protest vote based party? At present anyway. As in "vote for us because we aren't Republicans."

[DarkArk]

How very one-sided. Does that mean then the Democrats are largely a protest vote based party? At present anyway. As in "vote for us because we aren't Republicans."

In terms of my personal political stance, that's what I've ultimately done. The Republicans lost me with their reaction to Obama getting elected, and their actions about the budget. Their economic policies are even more terrifying, and I think have the real potential of tearing the country apart. They're small minded children who are only still in power because of gerrymandering. Which is not to say that I like the Democrats, but they at least are willing to present logical ideas on solving the major issues facing the country. So for my own political beliefs I would say Simon was spot on.

For the country as a whole I think it is a harder thing to say. Both parties have their core constituents that usually only change every 50-70 years as a part of a broad strategy shift from one of the major parties. Obama won commanding leads in both of his elections, but how much of that was reaction to terrible policies of the Republicans is I think somewhat hard to say (though Palin certainly did help him).

Really any time one of the parties controls most of the aspects of government they're a broad coalition. The Republicans were the same way in the 80s, having many diverse conservative and some not so conservative groups. I wouldn't say what the Democrats have now is particularly unique.

[Simon_Jester]

This is true- basically, instead of having a multiparty system we have a two-party system in which each party is de facto a coalition. In a parliamentary state we'd probably have at least three or four major political parties in play.

However, what's unusual right now is that the Republicans have been relatively successful in creating a large 'base' that votes in ideological lockstep... and with a wide gap between that and the rest of the American political culture. Almost like two groups of people living in alternate versions of the same country. Thus, there's a stronger element of "one big bloc against everyone else" this time. Granted, the Republicans are a coalition too. If you ask me, though, it's more a case of all the different factions within the coalition having been shaped to think more or less the same way, while caring different amounts about different portions of the party line.

So while it's still an alliance of religious fundamentalists and Wall Street capitalists, the fundamentalists have been pushed into a state where (unlike, say, William Jennings Bryan) they sincerely think that capitalism is king and Wall Street's actions are for the best, and are unwilling to criticize powerful economic interests out of populism. Instead their populism gets shifted into know-nothingism, and is directed at perceived 'liberal' bastions like academia and perceived 'liberal' support groups like African-Americans.