What?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57610423/critics-pounce-on-rand-pauls-borrowed-language/

I thought this was big news o_O

Wait, putin, so the issue is that a racist crackpot supports the Pauls, and this somehow "exposes" them? And there's not even so much as an email from either Paul saying, "Attaboy, keep up the good work?"

This is weak even for you.

Do you ever read links, bo_sox48?


Exposed for what? People wanting to talk to them? This is click bait, and you fell for it.

Actually, the last comment isn't really merited, given that I just lauded your last thread. I retract the "even for you." This is really really weak, for anybody.

Invictus, it's called...

Wait for it...

A joke!

Nice try, bo_sox48. Not buying it. You assumed this was the plagiarism story again.

Uhh, no, if you read my first post, I'm making a joke about Republicans trying to emulate Ronald Reagan. The best way to ruin a joke is to make the person explain it because you're too dull to get it yourself.

"Wait, putin, so the issue is that a racist crackpot supports the Pauls, and this somehow "exposes" them?"

Really, that's all you got from the fact that the Pauls are having regular meetings with A3P?

Color me unsurprised that you'd consider Ron Paul meeting with neo-Nazis "weak". I dare say if Obama met with my organization you'd have a shitfit.

What exactly do the Pauls have to do to get condemned by the Semcks and Invictuses of the world - have swastika tattoos on their faces?

Politicians meet with people all the time, and most of those meetings are bullshit to make constituents or other potential voters think they care. If these emails said there were consistent, private meetings then that would be one thing. But this could easily be these obscure right wing nuts walking up to talk after a town hall and then calling that a meeting to impress their listserve.

As I said, click bait.

"f these emails said there were consistent, private meetings then that would be one thing"

That is what these emails said.

"“According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors.”

But never pass an opportunity to dismiss without investigating.

"“According to these messages, Ron Paul has regularly met with many A3P members, even engaging in conference calls with their board of directors.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/hunting-nazis-anonymous-snares-ron-paul-operation-blitzkrieg

"Really, that's all you got from the fact that the Pauls are having regular meetings with A3P? "

Yeah, what Invictus said. If you're a deadbeat with nothing better to do in life, it's pretty easy to get lots of meetings with whatever politicians you want. The "meetings," of course, will be brief, formal, and content-free, and there's zero evidence here that these meetings were anything other. We didn't even see the promised "report" from his meeting that he was planning to send back to his supporters.

This is even less impressive than the old college connections with radicals that right-wingers like to point to with Obama. There, at least some of them were actually friends.

Really, what conference call has your organization(s) ever been on with a Congressman?

"There, at least some of them were actually friends."

College connections is on par with current organizational meetings, huh?

The spin gets more bizarre by the minute.

Are you familiar with political conference calls? Scores of people can be on them. It's a big ideological circle-jerk where the ultimate aim is for the politician to get money. If I sound bitter, it's because I had to set up a lot when I was in DC. All these people probably had to do to get in on them was sign up on the website. Staffs (staves?) don't background check these people and it's unreasonable to expect them to. As for "meeting" see what I said above.


Once again, this is click bait. Nothing more. Pick on Ron Paul for the articles, that's a real story. This is just nonsense.

More on conference calls. I recently joined the Federalist Society. I keep getting emails on how they have teleconferences every other week or so. Your argument calling Ron Paul a Nazi for allegedly talking to Nazis is analogous to saying the Federalist Society is so if these same people happened to sign up on the FedSoc website and call in. OFA also had a bunch of these. Are we expected to judge the president based on who might have signed up for teleconferences?


It's absurd. You fell for click bait.

"I recently joined the Federalist Society."

Wow, you've taken an extreme turn. The Federalist Society is a den of arch-reactionaries. It's like Robert Bork's club. Might as well join the John Birch Society.

"Once again, this is click bait"

You keep saying this and yet you didn't even bother to read that there were regular meetings at all, and initially you said if the emails claimed there were regular meetings then there'd be a story. Now you've changed your tune.

Spin, spin, spin.

"Wow, you've taken an extreme turn. The Federalist Society is a den of arch-reactionaries. It's like Robert Bork's club. Might as well join the John Birch Society."

Please. The Federalist Society is widely recognized even among liberal law students as the primary sponsor and venue for worthwhile political discussion in American law schools, and it's not even close.

Often, like now, when you speak on a subject I know anything about, I find that you're talking total nonsense. It seriously undermines your credibility even when you're talking about things I know nothing of.

If arch-reactionaries means mainstream jurisprudence, then yes.

I've explained how these aren't "regular meetings." You're just ignorant of how political teleconferences work. Or maybe any teleconferences. As for in person meetings, I did the same. This gossamer innuendo is, again, just click bait so people already converted to the idea Ron Paul is some wicked right wing nut can post the link to forums while the site gets the ad revenue.

"Often, like now, when you speak on a subject I know anything about, "

You clearly don't know anything about the Federalist Society, or you're a conservative Texan whose political spectrum is severely skewed. The fact that the FS has penetrated centers of legal education speaks to their effectiveness not their lack of extremism.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/feddieSoc.html

An American communist isn't the sort of person to lecture others on a skewed political spectrum. The Federalist Society is only extreme if you think any deviation from liberal legal thought is extreme.

Click bait must be your new word of the day.

Anyway the conference calls were with the board of directors of A3P. They weren't some ordinary political teleconference that anybody could call into. Again, you just ignore the story and make up explanations without investigating.

"You clearly don't know anything about the Federalist Society, or you're a conservative Texan whose political spectrum is severely skewed."

I was a member for three years in law school, and I went to plenty of their events. Those included people from all over the political spectrum. Almost always they would include a very well-known liberal professor or practitioner, because that's what they do. The funny thing is, those professors had no problem participating, even though FedSoc is on a level with the Birch Society, according to you.

Your link is little more than a dreary partisan panic post (feddieSoc??) pointing out the obvious -- FedSoc is conservative. No, duh. That's what they were founded for. And conservative politicians tend to favor their membership, which typically includes all of the conservatives in a given law school. Amazing!

"An American communist isn't the sort of person to lecture others on a skewed political spectrum. "

I admit I'm on the far-left. You don't have the intellectual honesty to do the same.

That document demonstrates how far out of right field they are. People can read it for themselves, instead of simply taking Invictuses and Semcks self-serving statements as the gospel.

"Again, you just ignore the story and make up explanations without investigating. "

I know you complain about people asking you to post links, Putin, but in fairness, it's not unreasonable to expect that if you start a thread with a link, then the initial link will include at least SOME evidence of what you're claiming. If somebody has to go out on Google to find even a hint of anything interesting, well, why did you even start the thread?

"Anyway the conference calls were with the board of directors of A3P. They weren't some ordinary political teleconference that anybody could call into."

You think the board of directors of an obscure political faction are taking the call in their 90th floor boardroom? No. What happened was one guy signed up for a teleconference, the others were either with him or maybe did the same on their own phones, and they were part of a big waste-of-time talk with dozens of other people and Ron Paul. That's how these things really work.

If you show some proof there was anything more than this, that'll be different. As it stand now it looksl ike some nuts made their who-gives-a-shit big teleconference sound like some seekrit meeting with Ron Paul so their beyond marginal group gets some buzz.

"I admit I'm on the far-left. You don't have the intellectual honesty to do the same."

Rolling Antonin Scalia or Robert Bork together with John Birch doesn't exactly bring the words "intellectual honesty" to mind.

"Your link is little more than a dreary partisan panic post (feddieSoc??) pointing out the obvious -- FedSoc is conservative. No, duh. That's what they were founded for. And conservative politicians tend to favor their membership, which typically includes all of the conservatives in a given law school. Amazing!"

Lazy. Sheer laziness on your part.

"Those included people from all over the political spectrum."

And the ISO invites people from all over the political spectrum. Your point? Am I now to believe that Trotskyites are "mainstream" because of the type of events that they host?

The fact that their pre-law reading list is nothing but Bork, Scalia, Epstein, and Graglia evidently makes them "mainstream conservative". Right. The guy who wrote The Case Against Employment Discrimination Laws and the guy who wrote Slouching Towards Gomorroah, total mainstream legal minds.

Yeah.

"the others were either with him or maybe did the same on their own phones, and they were part of a big waste-of-time talk with dozens of other people and Ron Paul. That's how these things really work. "

Wishful thinking. The conference calls were between 3 people. Ron Paul, Bill Johnson, and Jamie Kelso.

Where does it say definitely only those three were on the call? Not in your link.

"Lazy. Sheer laziness on your part."

I'm not sure what you're referring to that constitutes my alleged laziness, so I can't confirm or deny.

"And the ISO invites people from all over the political spectrum. Your point?"

The point is not who's invited, but who comes. I can't say who the ISO invites, but looking at the local branch, I can say that no conservative, or that matter liberal of note appears to be participating. (Admittedly a small sample -- feel free to link me to somewhere else). People with status and eminence don't like participating in events with fringe groups, more often than not.

I'd say that a set of positions that's represented in the opinions of 4-5 Supreme Court justices is pretty mainstream conservative.

From the link I gave you:

"I'm going to go to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with Bill Johnson," reads an email to an A3P member dated January 2011. "Bill and I will be meeting with Ron and Ran Paul. I have a teleconference call with Bill (and Ron Paul) tonight. Much more later. Things are starting to happen (thanks to folks like you)."

"I'd say that a set of positions that's represented in the opinions of 4-5 Supreme Court justices is pretty mainstream conservative."

No, it speaks to how conservative the current court is, overturning centuries of precedent in many decisions, decisions by conservative courts.

The fact that they are in power doesn't mean they're mainstream. That hardly makes sense as evidence.

"I'm not sure what you're referring to that constitutes my alleged laziness, so I can't confirm or deny."

Your glib dismissal of a lengthy explanation and documentation of the organization's out of mainstream views.

Putin33, I don't think I could be at a more liberal law school that isn't, like, Berkley or something. At every meeting but one (which was a glorified book plug) the Federalist Society brought in a conservative or libertarian scholar or jurist and one of our liberal faculty members civilly debated with them. If the organization really were such a fringe group I can assure you they wouldn't have shown up. The professor who was at one debate has an Allende poster in his office. Not right-winger he, and no fan of Scalia or Easterbrook, to name a few.

The Federalist Society may have views you deeply disagree with, but that's different thing from it having views that are somehow outside the realm of legitimate debate.

Yeah I saw that. How do we know that's not the kind of exaggeration I was talking about?

I was invited to debate with members of an Objectivist club. Who the hell cares? Some people aren't politically intolerant.

So the best you can come up with is that the emails are lies by the A3P people. Got it.

The best you can come up with are article quotes from emails allegedly hacked by Anonymous. I gave my response based off my EXTENSIVE experience with these dreadful things called teleconferences. Take it or leave it.


And again on the Federalist Society, just because you wish it were so that they're some horrible fringe force it's simply not the case. The conservative legal movement is relevant and mainstream. Nothing wrong with disagreeing with it, of course. But that's a far different thing than what you're doing, which is demonizing any deviation from the liberal line.

a 2 year old article of a 20 year old scandal and now your asking us for excuses?

Been there done that.

Sorry, putin, but the fact that FedSoc sometimes holds conferences or talks on out-of-mainstream ideas does not mean that the bulk of their members are out of the mainstream, which is what would have to be true for your initial inference about Invictus to have any merit.

As I mentioned earlier, the bulk of the conservative law students in America are members of FedSoc. They *define* mainstream legal conservatism, though certainly they allow their members to explore ideas to the right or left of that as well.

As for your "laziness" charge -- your common tactic of linking to extremely long documents without further specification, and then complaining when somebody doesn't refute the whole thing, is laughable. This is not the academy, and we do not write papers. If that website has something to say that you feel is highly relevant, highlight it in discussion. I have no duty to refute every rambling conspiratorialist liberal screed you may feel inclined to link.

You guys are full of it.

Follow the money. The organization is bankrolled by the Scaife Foundation and was instrumental in the investigation of Clinton for Paul Jones & Lewinsky. Other big donors include the Adolph Coors Foundation - a notorious supporter of far-right groups; and the Koch Brothers, which I don't even have to get into. The group represents a tiny minority of lawyers but they get a huge proportion of the appointments and big jobs, thanks to their powerful connections. They also get money from the Olin Foundation which is set up to bankroll anti-welfare/anti-communist academic programs throughout the United States.

Mainstream my ass. The group feigns this "non-partisan" posture by pretending it's nothing but a debate club. Which speaks to the total dishonesty of the whole organization. It's a fraternity of far-right law students connected to the big money far-right foundations and politically doctrinaire conservative lawyers who will only hire those of their own ilk.

" The group represents a tiny minority of lawyers but they get a huge proportion of the appointments and big jobs, thanks to their powerful connections."

They represent a small (not tiny) minority of lawyers because a large majority of lawyers are liberal or very liberal. They get a disproportionate number of appointments because conservative administrations are looking for conservative lawyers, which are, again, a minority. This would make sense even without the Koch brothers.

" The group represents a tiny minority of lawyers but they get a huge proportion of the appointments and big jobs, thanks to their powerful connections."

If only.

Why are you taking the word of neo-Nazis desperate for any form of political relevance completely on faith when they talk about allegedly having private meetings with a well-known politician?

Besides, even if the Pauls *did* have a serious sit-down with these Nazi douchebags, it's not like Obama hasn't had talks with people who are just as evil on the other side of the spectrum.