Isnt Frank supossed to have a bill out today?

[halsted]

I thought today was the day he was pushing the new bill?

[LA_Price]

don't know if he's done it yet but you can check whatever legislation he introduces at www.fantasycongress.com (http://www.fantasycongress.com)

[whangarei]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought today was the day he was pushing the new bill?

[/ QUOTE ]
Gambling 911 article: IG Strategy meeting in D.C. tomorrow (http://www.gambling911.com/internet-gambling-041807.html)

The article is not signed by Christopher Costigan so I can't vouch for its accuracy /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Uglyowl]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I thought today was the day he was pushing the new bill?

[/ QUOTE ]
Gambling 911 article: IG Strategy meeting in D.C. tomorrow (http://www.gambling911.com/internet-gambling-041807.html)

The article is not signed by Christopher Costigan so I can't vouch for its accuracy /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Not perfect, but for rumors these guys do have a pretty good batting average.

[NhlNut]

LVRJ article (http://www.lvrj.com/business/7096536.html)

[whangarei]

Barney Frank is my hero:

[ QUOTE ]
"One argument for it ... was this activity adds nothing to the GDP (gross domestic product). That's a chilling principle; that if something doesn't add to the gross domestic product we can ban it. That's a kind of ... corporatism that is very troubling to me.
...
I believe that people should be allowed to read and gamble and ride motorcycles and do a lot of things that other people might not want to let them do.

[/ QUOTE ]

[wax42]

[ QUOTE ]
Barney Frank is my hero:

[ QUOTE ]
"One argument for it ... was this activity adds nothing to the GDP (gross domestic product). That's a chilling principle; that if something doesn't add to the gross domestic product we can ban it. That's a kind of ... corporatism that is very troubling to me.
...
I believe that people should be allowed to read and gamble and ride motorcycles and do a lot of things that other people might not want to let them do.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]Who is trying to make reading illegal?

[jschell]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Barney Frank is my hero:

[ QUOTE ]
"One argument for it ... was this activity adds nothing to the GDP (gross domestic product). That's a chilling principle; that if something doesn't add to the gross domestic product we can ban it. That's a kind of ... corporatism that is very troubling to me.
...
I believe that people should be allowed to read and gamble and ride motorcycles and do a lot of things that other people might not want to let them do.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]Who is trying to make reading illegal?

[/ QUOTE ]

He didn't exactly word that well, but I assume he means banning certain books/publications.

[halsted]

Maybe he meant certain publications. Not being allowed to read them..


I want to know about all these new bills that are "coming out".....

[jschell]

Ha, I win.

[frommagio]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Barney Frank is my hero:

[ QUOTE ]
"One argument for it ... was this activity adds nothing to the GDP (gross domestic product). That's a chilling principle; that if something doesn't add to the gross domestic product we can ban it. That's a kind of ... corporatism that is very troubling to me.
...
I believe that people should be allowed to read and gamble and ride motorcycles and do a lot of things that other people might not want to let them do.

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]Who is trying to make reading illegal?

[/ QUOTE ]

He didn't exactly word that well, but I assume he means banning certain books/publications.

[/ QUOTE ]

Be nice to Barney. Being on the correct side of an individual liberties issue is a fairly new thing for him, after close to 3 decades in Congress - largely spent seizing other peoples' hard-earned cash, restricting the economic liberties of the most productive members of society, and attempting to censor any speech he disagrees with.

Nice to see him on the correct side of an issue for once, but it would be even better to see him get the boot - even at the price of losing the ongoing humor that this bumbling hack has unintentionally delivered so consistently during his undistinguished career.

[Skallagrim]

You say you are being nice but even you are a bit unfair to the Honorable Mr. Frank, frommagio. He has been a very consistent libertarian on issues of social dimension. I have long admired him for that. I would like to see evidence that he has supported some anti-speech legislation.

He does have a habit of voting for taxes for social programs, but since almost no one in congress these days is for less spending (its all about spending on what) I still give him an overall plus.

[Emperor]

[ QUOTE ]
don't know if he's done it yet but you can check whatever legislation he introduces at www.fantasycongress.com (http://www.fantasycongress.com)

[/ QUOTE ]

All of 2+2 should go there and voice our opinion on the bill when it gets listed.

Cool idea for a site also.

[frommagio]

Well of course, all of this leads into the heated area of personal political beliefs - but I'll respectfully toss in my own two cents. Hopefully folks will take my comments in a friendly manner, but it's always risky.

[ QUOTE ]

You say you are being nice but even you are a bit unfair to the Honorable Mr. Frank, frommagio. He has been a very consistent libertarian on issues of social dimension. I have long admired him for that. I would like to see evidence that he has supported some anti-speech legislation.



[/ QUOTE ]
As a libertarian myself, I would consider him to be a leftist on social issues. The difference, from my perspective, is that libertarians believe strongly in allowing others to live their lives as they see fit, as long as they do not violate the rights of others. Leftists tend to insist that others not only fund, but also celebrate their alternative lifestyles or otherwise preferred behaviors. And of course, conservatives also get social issues very wrong, but in completely different ways.

On speech, the left is very happy to pressure speech that it doesn't agree with; what was once amusingly referred to as "politically correct speech" has now evolved into substantial speech codes, which are in evidence in mainstream media, and very strongly in force in leftist bastions, such as college campuses and many other publicly supported institutions. And again, the political right also misses the mark on speech, but they are at least upfront in their opposition to the speech that they dislike. In contrast, the left will happily shut down speech while claiming to be its chief defenders. And of course, libertarians such as myself are unequivocal defenders of free speech, even speech that we detest; we encourage it, and we look forward to the open debate of ideas via speech.

Now, I have no quarrel with Frank individually on his sponsorship of any particular piece of anti-speech legislation. It's more a matter of Barney being a mainstream leftist, and I simply disagree with that philosophy.

After all that, I have even greater disagreements with his stands on private property and economic liberty.

[ QUOTE ]

He does have a habit of voting for taxes for social programs, but since almost no one in congress these days is for less spending (its all about spending on what) I still give him an overall plus.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, it's sad but true - not only on taxes, but the entire redistributionist mindset, and the movement of economic rights and property from the private sector to the government. Yes, the battle has been largely lost in this area. But unfortunately, Frank isn't just one more guy who went along to get along; he was a leader (in the wrong direction), an active fighter back in the day when the battle had not yet been lost.

Skal, I have the sense that you might have a libertarian streak in you, and we would probably agree more than we would disagree. Sometimes our strongest likes/dislikes turn on how we personally have been gored by our government. As a long-term hard working professional, I've felt it mostly in my wallet. If I were a young gay man just starting off and in search of my first real job, I might have a different emphasis.

Anyway, I think we can both agree that Barney Frank is far from an ideal member of Congress. But even the broken clock is right twice a day, which means that we may even see him do another intelligent thing in the next 30 years.

But for now, I thank Barney for taking one small step in atonement for all the damage he's helped to cause during his painfully long career.

[Skallagrim]

The only beef I have with you frommagio is that you are lumping Frank into the leftist category (your disagreement with I generally support) but that is not really fair to him specifically. I think if you were to actually look at the man's record (I am familiar with it because I live near his district) you would find that what I have said is true: he IS a damn good libertarian on most social issues (except guns - but hey, he is from Massachusetts).

He is also a big-spending democrat (as you note) who talks fiscal responsibility but does nothing about it. Since virtually all of his opponents are republicans who talk fiscal responsibility and do nothing about it - I consider that a wash - at least until there are real alternatives.

As someone who is older, married and self-employed, but not rich, I would love it if there was a political party that actually tried to make MY economic life better.....wait there is:

http://www.lp.org/

Skallagrim

[whangarei]

Nice debate /images/graemlins/grin.gif

The reason I posted his quote was mainly for the first half, where he ridicules the argument against internet gambling because it does not contribute to the GDP. He called this a dangerous form of corporatism. I believe that this GDP argument is symptomatic of the unhealthy power corporations wield in this country. This argument always seemed quite bizarre to me, so I was happy to see a senior member of Congress give voice to my opinion.

[whangarei]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, it's sad but true - not only on taxes, but the entire redistributionist mindset, and the movement of economic rights and property from the private sector to the government. Yes, the battle has been largely lost in this area.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm terrible at debate, and this clearly belongs in the Politics forum, so you can have the last word on this. But how can the anti-redistributionist battle be lost when the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, has never been greater?

[frommagio]

[ QUOTE ]
The only beef I have with you frommagio is that you are lumping Frank into the leftist category (your disagreement with I generally support) but that is not really fair to him specifically. I think if you were to actually look at the man's record (I am familiar with it because I live near his district) you would find that what I have said is true: he IS a damn good libertarian on most social issues (except guns - but hey, he is from Massachusetts).

He is also a big-spending democrat (as you note) who talks fiscal responsibility but does nothing about it. Since virtually all of his opponents are republicans who talk fiscal responsibility and do nothing about it - I consider that a wash - at least until there are real alternatives.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I also lived near Frank's district - for a full decade, back in the 80's. Admittedly, he was far more crazy back then. This was back in the day where he was caught allowing a gay prostitution ring to operate out of his DC townhouse, a scandal that would be impossible for a Congressman to survive today. That's not the reason I dislike him, although it really does call into question his judgment as a member of Congress. He does seem to have matured a bit since then.

But I've followed him closely (I follow all politics closely), and I feel that my opinion would be fairly hard to shake at this point. He's not some random guy that I'm just ignorantly lumping in with other Democrats. He's a guy who has amazed me for years with spectacular rudeness, loudness, wrong-headed thinking and general fuzziness on facts.

Anyway, it's not a general opinion based on party. It's a specific opinion based on the man.

[ QUOTE ]

As someone who is older, married and self-employed, but not rich, I would love it if there was a political party that actually tried to make MY economic life better.....wait there is:

http://www.lp.org/

Skallagrim

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, if only it could happen. The two-party system has such a stranglehold on our political process, and for so long ...

But if history teaches us anything, it teaches that social and political structures do change when a sufficient critical mass builds. The mounting political tensions we have seen in the past 10-20 years may well be leading to realignment. We can only hope.

[frommagio]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, it's sad but true - not only on taxes, but the entire redistributionist mindset, and the movement of economic rights and property from the private sector to the government. Yes, the battle has been largely lost in this area.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm terrible at debate, and this clearly belongs in the Politics forum, so you can have the last word on this. But how can the anti-redistributionist battle be lost when the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, has never been greater?

[/ QUOTE ]

You also need to consider redistribution from the private sector to the government sector. Government spending as a percent of the economy/GDP is now astronomical.

Also, I would strongly disagree that the "gap between the haves and the have-nots, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, has never been greater". That statement has been repeatedly consistently throughout my entire adult life - for three decades, now. The fact is that statistic has continued to fluctuate, and much depends on how it is measured. Right now, it is really hard to argue that we are anywhere near an all-time high - the late 90's were the most recent counterexample

[jj_frap]

There are a lot of authoritarian interests that still get things like 1984, Harry Potter, and To Kill a Mockingbird banned in the U.S. And there was a recent law nearly passed in Alabama that would ban state-owned institutions for carrying, lending, and selling books in which the protaganist is not heterosexual. Anybody who can tolerate the religious conservatives and PC [censored] who enable this [censored] is probably in desperate need of mental help.

[kidpokeher]

[ QUOTE ]
There are a lot of authoritarian interests that still get things like 1984, Harry Potter, and To Kill a Mockingbird banned in the U.S.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who and where?

[Jack Bando]

I'm guessing grade and high schools Kid.

[spatne]

I think he means that they're trying. And while there may not be a clear and present danger that our public libraries will be overrun by book banners, the libraries do get enough complaints that the American Library Association has a multi-step formal challenge process (http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=dealing&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=77094)

People have been trying to get Harry Potter yanked for years because the books "promote occult practices." When I was a kid, they went after Madeline L'Engle on similar grounds. Even the outer fringe of the PC crowd gets in on the act every so often; they just recently went after either Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer (can't remember which) because of the abundant use of the n-word. Never mind context or intent. Some people have no critical faculty.

And for kicks, here (http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/challengedbanned/challengedbanned.htm#mfcb) is the American Library Association's page on recent book challenges. Among the most challenged authors since 1990 are such dangerous perverts as Judy Blume, J.K. Rowling, John Steinbeck, R.L. Stine, and Maya Angelou. It doesn't look like very many challenges came close to success, but there are individuals and groups out there who try to limit what I can and cannot read at my local library. That was the only point that Frank was trying to make.

[Berge20]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, it's sad but true - not only on taxes, but the entire redistributionist mindset, and the movement of economic rights and property from the private sector to the government. Yes, the battle has been largely lost in this area.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm terrible at debate, and this clearly belongs in the Politics forum, so you can have the last word on this. But how can the anti-redistributionist battle be lost when the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, has never been greater?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably does, but since this is a civil discussion I'm going to leave it here. You guys are actually debating substance, which doesn't happen too often in the politics forum /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[BozMan82]

Getting back to Frank and his bill...

Is there a number yet for this bill? Something like HR xxxx. I ask because it is best to reference a specific piece of legislation when contacting members of Congress. If there was a bill number, it would make communication with Congress much more effective and easier.

[halsted]

Good question? Or a ETA on the date of release?

[frommagio]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yes, it's sad but true - not only on taxes, but the entire redistributionist mindset, and the movement of economic rights and property from the private sector to the government. Yes, the battle has been largely lost in this area.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm terrible at debate, and this clearly belongs in the Politics forum, so you can have the last word on this. But how can the anti-redistributionist battle be lost when the gap between the haves and the have-nots, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, has never been greater?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably does, but since this is a civil discussion I'm going to leave it here. You guys are actually debating substance, which doesn't happen too often in the politics forum /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, I'm used to the zoo - as for civility, spelling and grammar, this forum is a dream come true! I may never go back ...