Reader Brian sent a link to a story about New York State legislators who want to outlaw anonymous comments on the Internet. Not gonna happen, but they got the headlines they were looking for.
Commenter Raven sent this story about private schools scholarship money being redirected to donors to pay for their own kids’ tuition, probably by some invisible hand or other.
Here’s an open thread for anything you find interesting.
beltane
See, if rich people didn’t have to pay taxes they wouldn’t be forced to engage in money laundering via the use of bogus scholarships.
Zifnab
My god, this Dick Johnson guy is an absolutely prolific forum poster. Probably want to keep an eye on him.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m sure George Tierney, Jr. of Greenville, South Carolina wishes he’d been an anonymous internet commenter.
bill
I’m just wondering why, if a guy’s worth a billion dollars, he’s got such a hard-on for you or me or my Aunt Fannie getting an extra thousand bucks a month in Social Security from Uncle Sam. How is that going to hurt him? Meaning, unless he’s stupid or really, really crooked–which could easily be the case–he’ll probably always be worth a billion dollars, while you and me and Aunt Fannie could really use the extra thou.
I guess I just don’t get the psychology behind it.
yopd1
Catholic Church doesn’t give a shit about the mother, including when she is a 9 year old girl raped by her step-father and not old enough or big enough to carry twins to term without risking her life.
Oh yeah, while the mother and doctors were excommunicated, the step-father is still considered a good Catholic (he must have confessed to his priest every time he raped the girl and her older disabled sister).
burnspbesq
In case further evidence is needed that Kathleen Parker is an idiot, here it is.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-put-john-roberts-on-trial/2012/05/22/gIQAijq8iU_story.html
Villago Delenda Est
@bill:
These people cannot enjoy their good fortune unless they know that others are suffering.
If they go to an expensive restaurant, their food doesn’t taste good unless they know others are starving.
deep
@arguingwithsignposts:
You forgot the link. Google gives more weight to a search if there are links to a topic from diverse websites.
George Tierney, Jr. of Greenville, South Carolina.
Violet
From the anonymous posting article:
Yeah. Since it’s New York, it doesn’t seem that far fetched.
And what’s up with the Facebook debacle. I only really care if it means rich people get hosed.
NancyDarling
mistermix, The story Raven linked was linked on ATblog a day or two ago. One of the commenters there said the scheme would not pass muster with the IRS. Are there any tax lawyers out there who can comment?
eric
@burnspbesq: it is not needed.
Jeff Spender
Such a law wouldn’t even pass constitutional muster. There is case law at the federal level which stipulates that posting anonymously on the internet is akin to passing out anonymous fliers, and is therefore constitutionally protected free speech.
Legalize
@bill:
It’s a zero-sum game to them. Any prosperity enjoyed by regular people = prosperity that is LOOTED from our Galtain betters.
dmsilev
@yopd1: A nine-year-old, carrying twins? The odds of that working out are basically zero. So, basically the Vatican is saying “it’s really bad to abort two fetuses who never would have developed normally, and the fact that the nine year old girl forced to carry them won’t run the huge risk of crippling health issues is irrelevant”.
Nice.
eric
@Jeff Spender: not if the Roberts Court gets the case. (See Burnsie, I did at least look at the topic of Parker’s piece)
Forum Transmitted Disease
@bill: The psychology is pretty simple; very few people become billionaires without being sociopaths. The sociopath’s view of money is quite simple as well – and I’m not being funny or exaggerating here – they deserve it all, and you can go die in a ditch.
j
Here’s a good one. A white supremacist group was having a Midwest regional meeting in a restaurant They posted the date and time of the meeting on Stormfront for all to see.
What could possibly go wrong?
A group of anti-hate vigilantes showed up and beat the crap out of them, sending at least 3 to the hospital. That’s what.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8673587
chopper
@yopd1:
jesus, fuck that shit.
Corner Stone
@bill:
Because he wants those cumulative “extra” thou. Not because he sees it as money, because he doesn’t. It’s just chips stacked in front of him that can’t be stacked in front of anyone else.
karen marie
It seems to me the NY State Legislature doesn’t know how the internets work. Perhaps George Tierney Jr. of Greenville, SC has learned enough in the last three days he can explain it to them?
(Fixt, for posterity)
Corner Stone
@j:
I’m pretty sure there’s a word in the dictionary that sums this up.
SatanicPanic
@yopd1: How much does anyone want to bet that if a priest had impregnated that girl they would have a different (obviously unannounced) policy?
SiubhanDuinne
@Zifnab:
Aptly named, wouldn’t you say?
Mark S.
@NancyDarling:
Oh god no. You can’t take a charitable deduction on something your getting a benefit from. It’s no longer charity.
It remains to be seen if Georgia will do anything about it.
Jeff Spender
@eric:
I don’t think even the Robers court would rule such a law constitutional. And that’s beside the point: if you comment on a blog from New York located in another state, how does that work?
It wouldn’t. There would be basically no way for them, aside from compliance with websites (which I doubt would stand for this nonsense), to enforce such a law.
Corner Stone
Personally, I found Peter Orszag’s (vice chairman of global banking at Citigroup) incredibly not self-serving op-ed in Bloomberg interesting.
History Shows U.S. Can Stimulate Now, Cut Later
“It’s also what makes the ongoing jobs-versus-austerity debate so frustrating. What we really need is to be bolder on both jobs and austerity, by pursuing a combination policy.”
I’d like to force Orszag and Goolsbee into a match to the death ala Kirk v Spock. And then feed the winner to some hungry lions somewhere.
Raven
@Mark S.: Do anything about it? They invented it. Combine this with the horseshit grades-based hope scholarship and they are laughing all the way to the bank.
joes527
Anonymous speech is dangerous to the republic. Look at all the havoc that the Federalist Papers wreaked.
As an aside, just exactly how would a NY law about who does what on the internet work out? Is the goal to drive hosting out of the state?
MattF
@Violet: Back in the good old days, it was pretty much taken as a fact that anyone who was very rich was either a thief or a descendant of a thief. The Facebook business should remind us that facts remain true, even when they’re forgotten.
Raven
“NEW YORK — Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney is proposing a voucher-style system that could fundamentally change public education in the United States.
The former Massachusetts governor was expected to outline the plan during a speech Wednesday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.
A Romney aide said the candidate wants to let low-income and disabled students use federal funding to attend public schools, public charter schools and, in some cases, private schools.”
Brachiator
The April 27 BBC Radio 5 Film Review podcast (also available as an iTunes download) featured a great interview with Robert Redford, in the UK to promote a variation of the Sundance Film festival.
Redford told a story about an encounter with the press corps when he was promoting The Candidate. The Watergate break-in story was just beginning to be covered and all the wise hands with knowledge of The Village told him that “both sides do it,” nobody was going down and, most telling, that since it was clear that Nixon was going to demolish McGovern in the election, everybody, including the press wanted to be on the good side of those in power in Washington (the break in happened in June 1972).
In short, nobody thought what Woodward and Bernstein were sniffing out would ever be uncovered or amount to anything big.
But Redford thought there might be something interesting in these two guys trying to figure out what was going on.
The other parts of the interview, touching on Redfords acting and directing career is quite fun.
Bonus: Redford tells a very amusing story about his teen-age years, and a chance meeting with Dick Nixon.
Oh, yeah, there is an Avengers review included.
ETA: if you are into film, the May 11 podcast with Julie Delpy and Chris Rock is quite charming.
burnspbesq
@yopd1:
I’m sorry, were you expecting some other outcome?
This thing is going to play out beautifully for those of us who are trying to change the Church from within. The doctor is a martyr who did the right thing regardless of the consequences. The hierarchy looks ridiculous. Cardinal Re sounds an awful lot like Bull Connor. You’ll recall that Bull Connor didn’t win in the end. The process will take time (probably far too long, because it requires a whole generation of leadership to die off). But we’ll get there.
And in a couple of months, the folks who were excommunicated will be quietly restored to the Sacraments, under the radar, by parish priests who understand how foolish the hierarchy has been.
Jeff Spender
@Raven:
These people are downright determined to destroy public education, aren’t they?
Jeff Spender
@burnspbesq:
That sounds like the plot to a Dan Brown novel. Sorry, but it does.
Raven
@Jeff Spender: yup
NancyDarling
@Mark S.: Is it possible for someone outside GA to act as a whistle blower to the IRS?
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq: Shorter bbq:
“Generational bygones, bitchez!”
burnspbesq
@eric:
I spared you the link to Randy Barnett at Volokh, fawning over Parker’s brave expose of the fiendish lefty plot to overturn his impending and richly deserved win in the Supreme Court. Nauseating.
The Red Pen
[I’m reading the a birther think linked from here.]
Boss: I didn’t vote for Obama or anything, but this whole birth certificate thing is just plain stupid.
Coworker: There are people with valid questions about Obama’s eligibility to be President.
Me: Yes, they are called idiots.
Coworker: No, they are not called idiots.
Me: Is there a different word for people who believe stupid conspiracy theories long after they’ve been debunked? I don’t think “genius” works in that context, do you?
Coworker: I guess we’re just not going to agree on anything.
Me: We OUGHT to be able to agree on the facts.
Boss: Maybe you two should talk about this elsewhere.
Me and coworker: You brought it up.
Me: See, we agree on the facts.
eric
@Jeff Spender: I was being snarky, though i do not think that you can say anything is out of bounds in light of the oral arguments in the ACA case. Plus, the ruling in Citizens United shows that the practical implications of the decision are unimportant. I am not saying it is doable, just that I put NOTHING past the present Court.
Corner Stone
@Jeff Spender: There is absolutely no doubt. From the cuts in funding to the voucher BS to attacks on teachers’ unions to forcing a fundie curriculum, etc., etc.
They’d defund the Dept of Ed today if they could.
gene108
@bill:
The whole idea that someone actually needs money to buy basic things that are tangible, rather than deal with money as an abstract idea probably befuddles many of the super rich.
To want to amass a billion dollars in wealth, you develop a different relationship to money than someone’s Aunt Fannie, who will be helped by an extra thousand a month.
For Aunt Fannie money buys basic services such as shelter, clothes and food and if there’s something left over at the end of the month she could either save it or spend it on nicer clothes or food or a movie.
To have a net worth of a billion dollars you no longer possess that sort of relationship to money. Money doesn’t just buy you the necessities of life and few indulgences, it becomes an abstract concept that can be used to do abstract things like invest in private equity firms, in order to make more money by having the private equity firm buy an undervalued company and sell its undervalued assets at market rates, for example.
When you start making decisions about your money based on EBIDTA multiples, versus “boy, I wish I had some money to buy something nice”, you just can’t grasp how the other 99.9% of humanity lives.
chopper
@burnspbesq:
this sounds like good news for mccain.
JPL
@Jeff Spender: Yup. In GA we like to spend less on public education because then it proves that public education is failing.
Brachiator
@joes527:
I blame Ben Franklin, ya know, Poor Richard, Silence Dogood, etc.
@Raven:
Couldn’t the kids just borrow the cash from their parents?
PurpleGirl
Back when I was attending NYU, I worked in the Dean’s office doing general clerical work. One time I overheard conversations about someone who wanted to donate money to fund a scholarship for a particular student. IIRC, it was the owner of the company the student’s parent worked for. The man was told that he and the school couldn’t do that. I don’t remember the reason(s) they gave him but clearly NYU wasn’t going to do as asked. I don’t know how the situation turned out and what was done for the student. (This circa 1972.)
grandpa john
Has any one else checked out the latest FL poll by quinnipac
that has Rmoney up by 6 . their last poll had Obama up by 7 sure is a big change, in reading over their summary I found some things that raised my eeybrows
These certainly are some strange numbers compared to national polls
Also although their were pages of breakdown of the polling to different questions,
So how honest is Q? I really know little about them, but wow a 13 point swing in 6 weeks?
Jeff Spender
@eric:
The ACA questioning was political theater. I’m really not so sure this would generate the same level of notoriety. Smaller stage.
@Corner Stone:
I meet people all of the time who complain about government spending while signing the forms to get government loans for college.
I mean, I really don’t think they understand how it will effect them, and when it does, they’ll complain about how something good was just taken away by the “ebil gubmint.”
JPL
The GA law was passed under the guise that it would help the needy. Unfortunately, they didn’t put income caps in place that would achieve that purpose. I’m sure it was just an oversight. But, let us worry about Sharia law.
handsmile
Given that its recorded history dates back more than 5,000 years, the fact that Egypt today is conducting an election in which the country’s leader will be freely chosen by its citizenry (and the outcome not already determined) seems worthy of mention.
Voting is to be held today and tomorrow, with Egyptians selecting from among 13 presidential candidates. Unless one candidate wins 50% of the vote (unlikely), a run-off election between the two top vote-getters has been scheduled for mid-June. The ruling military has pledged to relinquish power, held since Mubarak’s ouster last spring, once Egypt’s Election Council announces the winner at the end of June. Fingers crossed on that one.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/22/egyptians-choose-a-leader-presidential-election?intcmp=239
[Personal Doofus Confession: do readers/commenters here actually email FPers with links to news stories? I never occurred to me to do that. Would have seemed to be unwelcome or intrusive. Or is sifting through emails part of the “duties and responsibilities” of being a FPer here, thus justifying the handsome remuneration.]
eric
@grandpa john: no gender gap and low hispanic percentage suggest outlier to me. Unless there is some state specific reason for those two numbers to break from national numbers, then i ain’t buying — not because dont fit with my desired narrative, but they dont fit with the actual narrative nationwide.
Jeff Spender
@grandpa john:
I don’t know, but I took a communications class by an expect on political opinion polling, Michael Traugott (author of such books like “Presidential Polls and the News Media”).
He would ask us to write an essay outlining criticisms of this poll and why it isn’t very valid. I’d call it an outlier and call into question the method of gathering the data.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@burnspbesq:
if they were committed to form, they would call it soetorocare. i award them no points.
BigSouthern
Apparently the Republicans would like to defund the American Community Survey.
I know this may not seem like a big deal, but the ACS generates a lot of high quality, useful data on everything from poverty to transportation mode choice. Taking it away wouldn’t quite kneecap any given agency, but it would make the work of figuring out who needs and isn’t getting aid in this country a whole lot harder. This is set to go before the Senate within the month from what I understand, so if possible please call your Senator and ask them to keep the ACS fully funded.
This quote from Republican Representative Daniel Webster shows exactly how stupid these people are:
“We’re spending $70 per person to fill this out. That’s just not cost effective,” he continued, “especially since in the end this is not a scientific survey. It’s a random survey.”
swearyanthony
Good lord. Via popehat, this: http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/summarypreview-of-my-post-how-brett.html – some folks on the more left hand side of the US political blogosphere could probably do with a little judgement(*). And yes, it’s been turned into a campaign by Malkin and the like, stopped clock twice a day and all that, I guess. This stuff is just creepy and wrong.
(*) I speak as someone whose political sensibilities would probably end me up on one of Allen West’s “I have hear in my hand a list” lists.
Kay
@JPL:
The New York Times article is very sad. I cannot believe we did this again. I cannot believe we deregulated education, with all that taxpayer money at stake, and never anticipated that thieves and liars and grifters would be lining up for their cut. It’s so disheartening.
How many times do we have to learn this lesson? How many times can we afford to learn this lesson?
Origuy
@burnspbesq:
The story is from 2009. How did that turn out?
yopd1
@Origuy: woops, did not notice that. Sorry.
j
@SatanicPanic: It happened in my grade school. An 8th grade girl suddenly put on A LOT of weight. The church gave her and her parents an all expense paid month long trip to visit the Holy Shrines in Mexico. When she returned to school she was nice and slim, and didn’t have much of a tan to show for all her time in the sun.
This was in the 1960’s.
While she was gone one of the priests was suddenly transferred to another parish (5 miles away). It turned out another 8th grader went on a vacation a few months after he showed up there.
Cris (without an H)
I’m starting to see a connection between opposition to social support programs (welfare) and opposition to same-sex marriage. In both cases, the privileged class believes that they got theirs by playing by the rules, and if somebody else gets the same thing by a different means, well they’re cheaters, and so it diminishes their own accomplishments.
grandpa john
@Jeff Spender: Yes that was my thinking also. Having read a greatseveral articles by Nate Silver at 538 during the 2008 election about polling and how polls can be manipulated by the way in which those polled are selected, he stated that looking at polls with out having the cross tabs is useless. Rasmussen is a prime example that he used. Rasmussen changes its method and demographics right before the election right before voting occurs so that it FINAL poll comes out almost on the money, but its earlier polls are manipulated so at to drive an agenda. We are seeing this now in the way that Rasmussen is using favorability pollsthat are outliers to drive down Obamas aver. Gallup is polling a higher percentage of white voters than is predicted by previous election. The media wants a horse race and some of the polling organizations are willing to help them. Money is more tangible than integrity
JoyfulA
@yopd1: That’s the most appalling thing I’ve read in a long time.
chopper
@Origuy:
HAH! that’s awesome.
handy
@grandpa john:
Something’s not right, that’s for sure. Then again, this is Florida we’re talking about.
The Red Pen
@burnspbesq:
You may be right, but the “under the radar” status is a problem.
The Catholic laity needs to repudiate the vocal and powerful Bishops. They can look like fools outside of the Catholic Church, but they will stay where they are until they lose their authority WITHIN the Church. I have no idea how this would come about, but if there isn’t a populist Catholic movement to stop these guys, we won’t be rid of them.
JoyfulA
@MattF: And a good person who became rich through no fault of his own would give his money to the destitute and thus remain good.
SiubhanDuinne
@handsmile:
I always kind of thought that was why all the FPers’ email addresses were provided. (Well, and to send garden pictures/pet blegs/recipes to Anne Laurie.)
James Hulsey
@bill: Said billionaire has obviously *earned* the money (even if it was inherited), but the Social Security recipient (nor any other social program beneficiary) has not.
Said billionaire then gets upset, because all these moochers are receiving his/her hard-earned money without having earned anything themselves.
Meritocracy in action!
geg6
@burnspbesq:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
geg6
@PurpleGirl:
We get these kinds of requests from scholarship donors all the time. We pat them on the head and send them on their way after telling them that this is not how scholarships work and that once the University has accepted the donation, we do the choosing of the recipients based on the scholarship criteria which must be vetted by our development office and general counsel and signed by the donor and the University/campus.
I always counsel them to simply make a gift to the student if they want to donate to a particular student. Once the funds are in the University’s coffers and the paperwork signed, we have to follow the rules.
Of course, MOUs are not usually very familiar with “rules.”
geg6
@Jeff Spender:
I explain it to them. Whether they like it or not. I let them know, in a nice and polite and firm way, exactly who is screwing with college funding. I had one on the phone the other day who started with something about how she’s going to get screwed on the PLUS interest this year because of…wait for it…Nobama. And I very nicely and politely gave her the reality of the situation, explained that NASFAA (professional organization for student aid administrators) supports the president’s initiatives on college aid and that it was the Republicans in Congress who were the source of her pain. She likes me A LOT because I’ve helped both her and her kids navigate the federal, state, and University aid systems for several years, gotten her kids (she has more than one that attends/ed here) and have displayed endless patience with them. She just shut up and didn’t bring it up again.
Mark S.
@NancyDarling:
It’s a tax credit for taxes in Georgia, so the IRS wouldn’t be involved.
Perfect Tommy
Abandoned female Pit Bull puppy available in Laurel, MD.
My mechanic found it in a park this morning.
[email protected]
catclub
@Mark S.: “Oh god no. You can’t take a charitable deduction on something your getting a benefit from. It’s no longer charity.”
Well, if it is all one transaction, then yes.
But one donation is made in december and the tuition scholarship in january for the young genius offspring is _totally_ unrelated.
As a note, examine carefully any donation that ends up benefitting: 1)Millionaires, 2)Children of Millionaires
Donations to Harvard, most Opera companies, and rich churches come to mind. these should not be tax deductible.
Yes, I still give to my very rich college. But I also give to Habitat for Humanity – the local one.
karen marie
@Raven:
It’s really sporting of Rmoney to suggest that he will “let low-income and disabled students use federal funding to attend [school].”
So the middle and high-income kids (??? – does Rmoney not understand most kids don’t have incomes?) will all pay their own way? I’m assuming the kids who aren’t “low income” or “disabled” and don’t have ready cash will receive loans to pay their tuition?
Hob
All y’all who keep posting George Tierney links to try to influence Google: that won’t work. Comments in this blog, like most blogs, have all their links flagged in such a way that Google ignores them (the idea being that these links weren’t actually posted by the person running the blog, so they shouldn’t count as links from this site).