Political Irony

Rupert Murdoch (the dark lord of Fox News) tweeted the following:

Obama facing enormous opposition in accepting refugees. Maybe make special exception for proven Christians.

Seriously? Proven Christians?

Of course, the best part is all the responses to his tweet. Here are just a few:

• ‘proven’ Christians. Lolz. Some sort of bible quiz on the borders, then? That’ll be a hit with Passport Control.
• a religious test for citizenship says the Sith Lord
• How to find ‘proven’ Christians? Splash them with holy water? Or maybe some sort of heathen dunking stool? #SimpleDarkAgeFixes #DrunkTweeting
• isn’t that the logic isis employs when deciding whether to kill someone. Works SO well for them.
• how about a Saturday night reality show? Live or Let Die with Simon Cowell? Viewers could vote on who looks the most muslimy
• “Can you prove you’re a Catholic?” “Sure. But how?” “See this 8-year old boy?” “Yes?” “Fuck him.”
• Refresh my memory, I forget how it works – if they float, they’re a witch, and if they sink they’re a Christian? #buffoon

UPDATE: More Twitter responses to Murdoch:

• This is about the least Christ like thing i can imagine
• Is Rupert Murdoch a Christian? If so, prove it.
• I’m not even sure he’s human!
• wish we could get rid of proven arseholes like you
• what’s the test for “proven Christians?” A recent case of stigmata? Able to show documented proof of slave ownership?
• I would have thought a “proven Christian” would make no distinction between people in dire need
• Conservatives okay w/ selling AK-47s to people w/o asking if they have criminal or mental issue but refugees must prove they’re Christians.
• yeah because Christians don’t shoot up schools or do anything else bad !!!

Actually, Murdoch gives me an idea. I think we should only allow people to own or run TV broadcasters, radio stations, and newspaper publishers if they are natural born Americans.

A woman in Massachusetts won the right to wear a colander on her head in her driver’s license photo:

Lindsay Miller is a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Also known as Pastafarians, members are encouraged to wear a colander in official identification photos as a public expression of their belief.

I think this is actually a very serious issue. Religious extremism is a very real problem in this world. People like Kim Davis think that the constitution gives them the right to violate other people’s rights (and the law) because of their “sincerely held beliefs”. But this puts the state in the position of deciding what is a religious belief (and thus what is a religion) and what is not (even though the First Amendment “prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion”).

People react in horror at what ISIL is doing in the name of religion, but Christianity had their “crusades“. Shouldn’t Christians practice what they preach: that only people without sin should cast stones?

Where do we get the moral authority to condemn ISIL? Note that I am not defending ISIL – we definitely need authority to condemn ISIL and their atrocities. But that authority can not come from a religious disagreement between Christianity and Islam. If judging a belief as “sincerely held” is the only requirement for violating the law, is there anyone who thinks that ISIL’s beliefs are not sincerely held? They are clearly willing to die for their beliefs.

No, our moral authority can only come from our being a nation of laws that follows the rule of law. I believe (sincerely!) that the Constitution intends that government keep out of the religion business. That means that everybody has to follow the law, regardless of their religion.

Otherwise, I sincerely believe that I should be allowed to deduct 18% of my federal taxes because funding war is against my religion.

I’ve complained about “dark money” – unlimited money coming from 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) organizations that don’t have to disclose their donors, and who can use that money for political campaigns. Because they don’t have to disclose their donors, their money can come from foreign enemies, even criminal or terrorist organizations.

Well, it is getting worse. According to PolitiFact, the amount of dark money that has been spent so far in the 2016 election (almost a year away) is ten times as much as was spent at the same point in the 2012 election cycle.

In the 2012 election, the total amount of dark money spent was over $308 million. Not surprisingly, 86% of dark money was spent by conservative groups (including groups headed by Karl Rove and by the Koch brothers), and only 11% by liberal groups.

Of the $4.88 million of dark money spent so far on the 2016 election, more than 98% was spent by conservative groups.

Does that mean we will see over $3 billion of dark money (the vast majority of it from conservative groups) spent on this election before it is over? It is both possible and likely. Already in some elections, spending by dark money groups has surpassed all money spent by traditional political action committees, both PACs and “Super PACs”.

That is a very scary thought.

While the Citizens United decision and the rise of big money and Super PACs had a huge effect on the 2010 midterm election, they don’t seem to be having as much of an impact on the current presidential primaries. Don’t get me wrong, there is even more money being spent this time, but it doesn’t seem to be having as much of an effect.

Exhibit A is Jeb Bush, whose Right to Rise Super PAC has aired a stunning $15.5 million in TV ads while his polling numbers sank.

Likewise, candidates who focused completely on raising lots of money through Super PACs, including Scott Walker and Rick Perry, have mostly dropped out of the race. The exception to this is Marco Rubio, but his rising star was largely fueled by two strong debate performances.

There are two, somewhat related reasons why Super PACs aren’t helping as much as they used to. First is because Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with the campaign directly. So they cannot be used to build ground operations, pay employees, or organize campaign fundraisers. Which leaves them mainly paying for TV ads. Once upon a time, TV ads were the things that broke or made campaigns.

Which brings us to the second reason, which is that TV ads aren’t working as well as they used to. Part of this is because of sheer fatigue – right now, roughly half of all TV ads in Iowa are political. The advertising law of threes says that somebody has to see an ad three times before it has any effect on them, but after they see it three hundred times? But the main part is probably because of media changes. The rise of the internet means that people are watching more video online, rather than on broadcast TV or cable. Super PACs have been slow to adapt to this change. And finally, political campaigns get steep discounts on advertising, which are not available to Super PACs. A Super PAC typically pays four times as much per commercial as a candidate’s campaign does.

So, does this mean we shouldn’t worry about Super PACs? Not at all. Super PACs can still be a huge accessory to the main campaign, they are just not as effective on their own. When they are used as the campaign’s center of gravity (as they were for Walker or Perry) they fail. But they are still good at keeping a candidate alive in the lean times.

However, the main reason we should worry about Super PACs is because of their lack of accountability or transparency. The form of Super PACs called 501c4 do not have to disclose any information about their donors, and is now the second biggest overall TV ad spender. This means that our political candidates could be bought off by our country’s enemies and there is no way we would even know.

Maybe they already have been.

© Joel Pett

Special interests want you to be apathetic. The less you know, and the less you vote, the more power they get.

Everyone is given the right to vote. If you don’t, you’re just throwing your power away.

It takes less time to vote than it does to complain about how corrupt and dysfunctional our government is. And if you don’t vote, you don’t really have the right to complain.