Political Randomness

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 5:54 pm

Doesn't the government maintain foi legal departments for this purpose. Why on earth would a lawsuit be the best way to determine legality?

Need a building permit? Government sues and now the courts determine whether you get that permit or not.

Totally noxious as noted.

Skinypupy · Post by **Skinypupy** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:08 pm

Didn't know where this belonged, so I guess I'll put it here. At the Utah football game last night, they showed this spot on the jumbotron a couple times. I thought it was good, safe way to send the message that the U is more than just the 100% straight, white population that it has the reputation of being. And that they are accepting of all students, regardless of whatever characteristics or backgrounds they may have.

The Trumpster Ute fans (of which there are many) are absolutely up in arms about it today. Furious that the university is "promoting a political agenda" and that they have become "overly PC". Angry that they aren't standing up for the majority of their white student population (whatever the hell that means). Lots of "I'm seriously considering cancelling my season tickets" talk...which, of course, will never happen.

The fact that we've reached the point where an institution simply stating that they do not discriminate is worthy of anger and derision is utterly baffling to me. Honestly, how does a person get so fucked in the head that they can be angry about that message? I just don't understand it at all.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:11 pm

The message of Trump's campaign was that diversity oppresses whites.

Reactionary backlash is a helluva drug.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Sep 17, 2017 8:15 pm

They came out for the Other Side of the culture war. That's betrayal to Trumpelos.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:02 am

GreenGoo wrote:Doesn't the government maintain foi legal departments for this purpose. Why on earth would a lawsuit be the best way to determine legality?

Need a building permit? Government sues and now the courts determine whether you get that permit or not.

Totally noxious as noted.

Well, I can see an agency wanting a court ruling on an exemption. If they just deny the FOIA request, that's just the agency's position (man), but if they can get a court ruling, then they have binding law that they can use and rely on in the future.

That said, it's still obnoxious to sue people over this stuff, and the better position is to adopt clear positions on the various FOIA exemptions and just apply them as consistently as possible, and then if someone decides to sue you eventually over your position, *then* you'll get case law out of it.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:11 am

Exactly.

If there is confusion over a request, and any government official willing to pro-actively sue should not be in charge of determining if there is confusion, the answer is to simply refuse the request and then get sued. Not to sue the requester. How backasswards is that?

Your job is to provide information that is legally required to be provided, and deny the rest. Not sue people for asking for information.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:16 am

GreenGoo wrote:Exactly.

If there is confusion over a request, and any government official willing to pro-actively sue should not be in charge of determining if there is confusion, the answer is to simply refuse the request and then get sued. Not to sue the requester. How backasswards is that?

Your job is to provide information that is legally required to be provided, and deny the rest. Not sue people for asking for information.

I imagine the other big upshot for the agencies is that by suing the agency effectively gets to pick its adversary in the proceeding, so could pick one that is less likely to have the resources and inclination to litigate the question aggressively.

I do wonder, though, if you're seeking a declaratory judgment (just a statement that the agency does not need to produce X records), would a court still grant it if the defendant defaults? Wouldn't that basically deprive the court of a live 'controversy'?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 11:21 am

I would think the goal is not providing the information. Whether the "defendant" simply withdraws or the court rules in your favour, they achieve this goal.

Any civil servant not acting in the interests of the citizens of the government should be removed immediately. You can't even blame this on partisan politics. These guys are just employees. At least I assume they are. Are these requests for information being denied/sued by the appointed department head? That's not their job.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 11:27 am

GreenGoo wrote:I would think the goal is not providing the information. Whether the "defendant" simply withdraws or the court rules in your favour, they achieve this goal.

Any civil servant not acting in the interests of the citizens of the government should be removed immediately. You can't even blame this on partisan politics. These guys are just employees. At least I assume they are. Are these requests for information being denied/sued by the appointed department head? That's not their job.

I'm not 100% sure that I understand your question, but generally departments themselves manage the FOIA / sunshine law requests that they receive, including determining whether a request asks for information that is covered by an exemption from the law (and thus should not be produced).

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 11:47 am

Right. I assume that work is done by civil employees. These are just guys doing a job, typically. It would be like a sewer guy not working on the clog on the corner of 5th and maple because it contains "sensitive" clog stuff.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 11:51 am

GreenGoo wrote:Right. I assume that work is done by civil employees. These are just guys doing a job, typically. It would be like a sewer guy not working on the clog on the corner of 5th and maple because it contains "sensitive" clog stuff.

Well, not really. There are good reasons why some types of records should not be subject to FOIA / sunshine law requests. Law enforcement records should not be produced during the pendency of law enforcement investigations, for example. Some records genuinely are 'sensitive' and harmful to the public interest if produced, and civil servants would not be doing their jobs or serving the public interest if they produced it.

The affirmatively suing people requesting records is bad, though.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 12:17 pm

Yes, really.

Exemptions would be the exception and would be covered by policy, typically. How complicated are these requests for information that they require a court to figure out? I'm not saying exemptions don't exist, but requests for information should default to "yes". Standard stuff like personal data can be redacted as a matter of policy. Courts don't need to be involved.

As I said, exemptions such as the examples you mentioned are denied by policy, not by suing the requester. If the requester wants to sue for access after being denied, that's their right, see you in court.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 1:08 pm

GreenGoo wrote:Yes, really.

Exemptions would be the exception and would be covered by policy, typically. How complicated are these requests for information that they require a court to figure out? I'm not saying exemptions don't exist, but requests for information should default to "yes". Standard stuff like personal data can be redacted as a matter of policy. Courts don't need to be involved.

As I said, exemptions such as the examples you mentioned are denied by policy, not by suing the requester. If the requester wants to sue for access after being denied, that's their right, see you in court.

FWIW under established law requests for information do default to a 'yes' (agencies are supposed to err on the side of disclosure).

That said, some requests for information do present complicated issues. The federal FOIA exemptions include exemptions over records that is "classified to protect national security" or which is subject to attorney-client privilege, or which "Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings", among others. Those could be subject to reasonable dispute depending on the facts of the case.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 1:21 pm

How is that in conflict with anything I've said?

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 1:22 pm

GreenGoo wrote: How complicated are these requests for information that they require a court to figure out?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 5:07 pm

This is ridiculous. The vast, vast majority of these requests are straight forward.

Are there exemptions? Yes. I said so multiple times. Are they sometimes going to be complicated? Again, yes.

If those were the cases being discussed (we're talking 0.1% of requests or less), suing the requesters still wouldn't be appropriate.

ANY concession to the justification used to support suing the public is misplaced.

99.9% of requests are covered by policy. That sometimes, rarely, a request's validity is unclear is self evidently true. This is not a revelation. At no point is this a rationale for suing the public.

This is like a guy speeding on his commute to work every day using the idea that sometimes you need to speed because your wife is having a baby, then arguing over whether there are times when it might be appropriate to speed or not.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 5:18 pm

I mean, I've never disagreed with you that the agencies should not be suing the public over records requests. You just asked how complicated can these be such as to merit court involvement, and I'm saying (as someone who applied the Massachusetts state FOIA equivalent while at the state AG there), the answer is, there is often significant ambiguity in whether particular records are properly subject to FOIA exemptions, and in whether it is in the public interest to produce particular records in response to a request. In particular, there was significant ambiguity on whether we could share records with our federal government counterparts without exposing them to state-level sunshine act disclosure, which impeded to a degree our ability to conduct joint investigations on matters of public interest. It would have been great to have good and clear court guidance on that point.

So, take that for what it is worth to you. However, the other reasons why agencies should not be going around suing people who request public records are pretty compelling, and as such I agree that the proper course is for agencies to decide how they will apply the FOIA exemptions and approve / deny requests accordingly, and wait to get sued (or not).

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:29 pm

While re-reading what I wrote I see I wasn't perfectly clear, my point was not that information requests are always easy to comply with, only that they mostly are. Presumably as a lawyer they didn't bring you the easy ones. As a former guy who gathered data for some requests, I saw the easy ones. Perhaps our views are skewed by our experiences.

In any case, since we both agree that an appropriate response to a difficult request is not to sue the requester, maybe we can just let this one go.

Considering the point of the article was that suing the requester was a way to avoid having to process the request, and the justification that some requests are hard was being used as an excuse to pass the buck to the courts even on requests that were not hard, only embarrassing in some way, I think focusing on the challenging requests in light of this outrageous approach to avoid serving the public is a disservice to the goal of prompt responses and an open government.

Anyone who instigates a lawsuit against a requester of public information is an enemy of open government. Anyone who is an enemy of open government is an enemy of democracy, imo. Fuck those guys.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Sep 19, 2017 4:28 pm

San Antonio Current

An incredibly popular Texas secessionist Facebook page has been shuttered by Facebook — on the suspicion it was being run by Russian group potentially tied to influencing the 2016 U.S. election.

According to a September 6 press release, Facebook shut down some 470 "inauthentic" accounts and groups that were "affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia." These accounts were allegedly all linked to Russian accounts that paid some $100,000 for political Facebook ads preceding the presidential election.

Business Insider confirmed this sweep included "Heart of Texas," a page that had over 225,000 followers in summer 2017, and featured a steady stream of aggressively anti-Hillary Clinton, anti-immigrant, pro-Texas, anti-LGBT and generally nationalistic memes.
...
The poor grammar, spelling, and general weirdness found on the page hinted to Russia experts (and, it seems, Facebook) that the page was likely run by Russians.

Former Russian journalist Casey Michel, who had been following the page's developments for months, wrote on his website that the page had "aggressively strange typos — often complete with Russian grammatical structures." But, alas, posting bad grammar and cringey memes on Facebook isn't necessarily illegal. Before Facebook pulled the plug, Michel said the page had begun organizing actual pro-secession rallies in Texas and urging its followers to attend. It even tried to recruit Daniel Miller, the president of the Texas National Movement to help host the events. Miller told Business Insider: "We said 'thanks, but no thanks.'"

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:24 pm

Effing energy lobbyists!

Many of the FPL (Florida Power & Light) customers who are living through dangerous heat without power now have solar panels on their roofs that could keep them going while FPL repairs its infrastructure. Except doing so is illegal, thanks to FPL's lobbyists, who literally ghost-wrote much of Florida's dreadful solar rules.

So yeah, in case of power outage it's illegal to use your own solar power and the power company has the right to physically lock the switch to prevent you from doing so.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:35 pm

What do you think "power" is about?

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:05 pm

Not Austere Enough: Tajik Authorities Seize Wedding Feast

Final preparations were in full swing at Zaidullo Khudoyorov's home in southern Tajikistan as the family got ready to celebrate the marriage of his eldest daughter.

Just hours before the party, however, a group of local officials raided the house and confiscated most of the food the family had prepared for the banquet.

The officials deemed the quantities of food "wasteful" and in violation of a newly amended Tajik law that regulates and limits how much families spend on weddings, funerals, and all other private functions.

"We managed to prevent a lawbreaking in the village," said Kholmurod Ibrohimov, an official who took part in the August 26 raid, in Dahana, on the outskirts of the city of Kulob.

"During the raid, we established that the family prepared a wasteful amount of food, such as special flatbreads and halva for the banquet at the bridegroom's house," Ibrohimov said on September 18, after reports of the seizure emerged. "We seized the food and handed it over to the Kulob psychiatric hospital."

Good job preventing all that lawbreaking.

Scoop20906 · Post by **Scoop20906** » Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:27 pm

Skinypupy wrote:Didn't know where this belonged, so I guess I'll put it here. At the Utah football game last night, they showed this spot on the jumbotron a couple times. I thought it was good, safe way to send the message that the U is more than just the 100% straight, white population that it has the reputation of being. And that they are accepting of all students, regardless of whatever characteristics or backgrounds they may have.

The Trumpster Ute fans (of which there are many) are absolutely up in arms about it today. Furious that the university is "promoting a political agenda" and that they have become "overly PC". Angry that they aren't standing up for the majority of their white student population (whatever the hell that means). Lots of "I'm seriously considering cancelling my season tickets" talk...which, of course, will never happen.

The fact that we've reached the point where an institution simply stating that they do not discriminate is worthy of anger and derision is utterly baffling to me. Honestly, how does a person get so fucked in the head that they can be angry about that message? I just don't understand it at all.

Just watched the vid. Incredibly mild and actually kind of positive portrayal of different students. I'm baffled as well.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 8:54 am

El Guapo wrote:
Holman wrote:
El Guapo wrote:
Holman wrote:Maybe, but Moore alone got more votes than the entire Democratic field. The turnout ratio for the two primaries approached 3:1.
Yeah, although as someone pointed out on the internet yesterday, in the 2010 Massachusetts special election the democratic candidates got 664,000 votes, while the Republicans got 162,000, but Scott Brown still won.

Alabama is still incredibly conservative, and the democrats are a very very long shot in the race, but Moore widens the democratic path to victory a bit. Basically it would have to be something like Moore does something incredibly crazy / offensive on tape (a "macaca moment", essentially) + Jackson runs a strong campaign + Trump continues to collapse and becomes a major dead weight (bear in mind that it's possible that senior Trump people will be indicted before the general election).

Of course, that also assumes that Moore wins the GOP run-off, which right now seems likely but not a sure thing.
But while Moore supports Trump, Trump chose Strange for his endorsement. Bad news for Trump won't necessarily rub off on Moore, and it's very hard to believe that anything will demoralize Alabama Republicans enough to give Dems a majority on election day.

Even in 2008, a great year for Democrats, Jeff Sessions won 63-37. The last time senate races in Alabama were close was in the 1980s, when party realignment was still ongoing and both candidates (D and R) were usually deep conservatives.

I think Moore's lead in the polls and the votes is a case of all politics being local. This is Alabama. Moore really came in first through his Christian Right bona fides, not because of Trump. The never-Moore Republicans in AL won't outweigh those willing to choose any Republican over every Democrat.
An unpopular / radioactive president drags down the entire party to some degree. Plus if Moore pushes back against Trump too much then he would risk losing the Trump base.

The Republican candidate (probably Moore) is a virtual lock, but I'm just saying it's possible if the national environment for Republicans gets toxic enough and a few other things happen (Moore needs to do something public and crazy as well). Not that it would suddenly turn Republicans into democrats, but it could be enough to get Republicans to stay home in droves, energize democrats, and get a few Republicans to vote democratic as an FU to the party.

Again, not going to happen, but possible in a "coming back from down 3-0 in a 7 game series" way.

Moore has this in the bag. Trump is going to campaign for Strange this weekend from what I hear but it will be for naught. The old guard establishment republicans are trying to leverage Trump to maintain the status quo but there is little to no chance they will be successful.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 10:21 am

Wait... so Donald Trump is now part of the old-guard establishment fighting to preserve the status quo?

Life comes at you fast.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 11:07 am

Holman wrote:Wait... so Donald Trump is now part of the old-guard establishment fighting to preserve the status quo?

Life comes at you fast.

No, he is just being manipulated by them in the false hope that people will start liking him. They have him believing that changing a few stances will bring the never-Trumpers back under the tent and that the base that got him elected will be ok with it. They are wrong on both counts.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 11:50 am

"GOceaniaP has always been at war with Eastasia."

Whatever else is going on, Roy Moore represents nothing so much as Alabama indulging its mania for Christian Supremacy.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 5:19 pm

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has publicly vowed to have his own son killed if rumors about his involvement in drugs turned out to be true.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 5:22 pm

Chile

A bill announced on Wednesday by president Michelle Bachelet will make Chile the only country in America to ban the usage of plastic bags in coastal cities.

“We are going to present a bill that will ban the usage of plastic bags in coastal cities within the next 12 months”, Bachelet said during the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, where she ratified her commitment towards the environment.

“It will allow citizens to contribute in terms of ocean protection. Thus, we will be the first American country to implement a law of this nature”, added.
...
In light of Bachelet’s announcement, the minister of the Environment, Marcelo Mena, stated that 60 cities have already taken measures of this nature and that the bill will be sent to Congress in October, with few or no impediments to assure its approval.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Thu Sep 21, 2017 5:51 pm

Moliere wrote:Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has publicly vowed to have his own son killed if rumors about his involvement in drugs turned out to be true.

One suspects the courts and the secret police will determine the rumors to be false.

Those who've reported on it will discover that they are guilty of sedition.

dbt1949 · Post by **dbt1949** » Fri Sep 22, 2017 5:50 am

I think that one of the problems with people today who criticize the past is the in the past people had a different mindset then and we of today need to think of that before criticizing them.
By the standards of today almost everybody of the past was a barbarian.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Fri Sep 22, 2017 6:49 pm

Erdogan's thugs beat up more Americans, this time in New York.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Sep 22, 2017 7:26 pm

Don't Americans outnumber these thugs? Time for some street justice.

Edit:. Private property. Never mind then.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:26 am

Merkel gets a fourth term but German voters deliver far-right surge

Angela Merkel has won a fourth term as German Chancellor, but with her party's lead in parliament cut and the country facing a surge in support for the far right.

Exit polls predicted the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would become the third-largest group in the national parliament, the Bundestag, as German voters delivered a stinging blow to the traditional parties.
Merkel's center-right CDU and its sister CSU had their share of the vote slashed. Germany's oldest party, the center-left SPD, which had been in a "grand coalition" with Merkel, was consigned to opposition.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 10:44 am

Hey, let's talk about Roy Moore pulling out a gun while speaking at a political rally in Alabama. This really happened. In America. In 2017.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 10:50 am

Hey, I am ALL FOR Moore doing all sorts of crazy shit between now and the election. The more crazy shit he does, the more likely he is to strike on the right type of 'macaca moment' that makes the general election competitive (assuming he wins the primary tonight, which seems likely).

I mean, I figure the odds of democrats winning the AL seat are 1%, but if he crazies out in just the right way, that could jump up as high as 5%.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 11:10 am

Alternative theory: Moore surges in the polls because of his gun antics. This leads Trump to hip-fire an M60 at his next fundraising rally, invoking inevitable comparisons to President Camacho.

PLW · Post by **PLW** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 11:15 am

El Guapo wrote:Hey, I am ALL FOR Moore doing all sorts of crazy shit between now and the election. The more crazy shit he does, the more likely he is to strike on the right type of 'macaca moment' that makes the general election competitive (assuming he wins the primary tonight, which seems likely).

I mean, I figure the odds of democrats winning the AL seat are 1%, but if he crazies out in just the right way, that could jump up as high as 5%.

Yeah.. I've quit hoping for a terrible Repub candidate ever since Trump. I hoped he would win the primary, too, at some point, because I figured he would get blasted in the General. NEVER AGAIN.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 11:20 am

PLW wrote:
El Guapo wrote:Hey, I am ALL FOR Moore doing all sorts of crazy shit between now and the election. The more crazy shit he does, the more likely he is to strike on the right type of 'macaca moment' that makes the general election competitive (assuming he wins the primary tonight, which seems likely).

I mean, I figure the odds of democrats winning the AL seat are 1%, but if he crazies out in just the right way, that could jump up as high as 5%.

Yeah.. I've quit hoping for a terrible Repub candidate ever since Trump. I hoped he would win the primary, too, at some point, because I figured he would get blasted in the General. NEVER AGAIN.

I'm not rooting for Moore to win tonight (though I admit that I would be tempted if I thought that it would improve democratic chances sufficiently). I'm just saying that Moore is probably going to win tonight, and given that him doing crazy shit is in the national interest (up until the election) because that's the only route to the general election being remotely competitive.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Tue Sep 26, 2017 11:28 am

sigh...My hardcore right, Trump supporting coworker has taken to sending me weekly emails about American made IT products we should be using. Today he sent me an exclamation filled email about why we should switch to PC Matic for our antivirus solution. Long story short, they bill themselves first and foremost as the American made antivirus solution.

I'm evaluating laptops for the next fleet rollover and when he found out I was looking at Lenova, he immediately asked why we would even consider a Chinese manufacturer over Dell or "some other American company".

He really does follow the dog whistle.