You sir, are a troll.

No, actually, commercial speech recieves less protection from the USSC.

It looks like subby is blogging for Arse Technica.

cchris_39: And BTW, it IS the Democrat Party and the Republican Party. I can't believe things are so dumbed down that is even being seriously questioned.

I'll alert DNC.org - apparently they're not even using their name correctly.

Moran.

Cyberluddite
you can't use a noun to modify another noun

It's called a noun adjunct and is quite common.
"flower pot"
"tomato sauce"

That being said, I think it was you who pointed out that members of that party have the right to declare the name and not the other party. But it is entertaining to see one of the talking head from one party (in this case, Rush) get under the skin of the other.

ExtremeModerate: It's called a noun adjunct and is quite common.
"flower pot"
"tomato sauce"

penis gourd...

This has to be one of the most retarded threads to appear on Fark recently.

muck4doo: This has to be one of the most retarded threads to appear on Fark recently.

It doesn't help that it's appeared TWICE, either ;)

Oh christ, we just went over this at Slashdot.

Note: there's a word for trying to stir up grassroots support: astroturfing.

Step 1: Congress requires astroturfing firms to disclose who is paying them.

Step 2: Large conservative firm wants to be able to pay other firms to astroturf for them in secret, so they hire a firm to astroturf against the bill.

Step 3: Profit!

Honestly. Do some research. The press release was released by an organization called GrassrootsFreedom.com. The founder of this organization is Richard A. Viguerie. Check his wikipedia bio. He's a conservative activist who "pioneered political use of computerized mass mail," which was a good thing because it allowed "conservatives to get around liberals' dominance of the mass media." Does that add up to you?

This is a great explanation of exactly why this legislation is needed.

This is not a first amendment issue. This is a disclosure issue requiring astroturfing firms to disclose who's paying them.

Update

S.1 has passed the Senate on a vote of 96-2 with most of its teeth intact. It did lose a molar, though, as the Bennett Amendment passed 55-43. This amendment removed the controversial section 220 from the bill, which means that federally-focused grassroots political campaigns will not be counted as lobbyists and can continue to raise and spend money without disclosing its source.

The Blogger Registration Act? Isn't this what Magneto warned us about? I wouldn't want to be on the Golden Gate Bridge anytime soon.

Bandersnatch: S.1 has passed the Senate on a vote of 96-2 with most of its teeth intact. It did lose a molar, though, as the Bennett Amendment passed 55-43. This amendment removed the controversial section 220 from the bill, which means that federally-focused grassroots political campaigns will not be counted as lobbyists and can continue to raise and spend money without disclosing its source.

So I'm reading that as "major corporations or political parties can continue to funnel money into organizations that call themselves 'grass roots', and the 'grass roots' org doesn't have to say squat about it" ?

Where's this guy when you need him?


/Ack!Ack!Ack!

Lovelight
Oh christ, we just went over this at Slashdot.

Yeah, but I was an Anonymous Coward over there.

/The one that made all those insightful comments, not the one that got modded down for trolling.

Corvus

I will wish we could Troll points to people on here when they do things this underhanded and why do things like this get green lighted when they are so false?

That is a great idea! Seconded! That would be really interesting to see the results of that.

What about this goddamn peice of paper:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Smitty needs to retake elementary grammar, looks like they failed it a few times and finally got a "passing" grade out of pity.

Snarfangel, I'll say what I said over there:

(re: The word "free" in "free speech" doesn't mean "non-paid". It means free as in, uh, speech. Paid speech is still free speech.)

Nope. Money is a form of coersion. Paid speech = coerced speech, antithetical to free speech.

Of course, does this have any bearing on the artist recipients of Macarthur fellowships I saw on Charlie Rose last night?

I, for one, welcome our new libtardian overlords.

Let my bloggers go.

Let me know when the left gets us into a pointless quagmire costing thousands of lives and countless more injuries.

Like Vietnam?

How about making any blogger with over 500 readers shut down, instead?

say "Blogosphere" again.. I dare you. I double dare you motherfarker

Ok, since this is the third time this has come up, lemme clear a couple things up. Bloggers don't have shiat to worry about. What this is trying to prevent is lobbying under a grassroots cover. Yes, there is such a thing. The difference between grassroots orginizations, PACs and lobbying firms all has to do with tax classification, and this law is trying to round them up better.

If I hired someone to lobby for me, and they went out and went to constituents to urge them to write or call their congressman and tell him what you feel, thats "grassroots lobbying." Usually the lobbyists will even include a form letter so that all the constituents need to to is to put their name on the bottom. The group I hired does not need to register as a lobbyist because they didn't physically go to a Congressional Office to try and persuade a Congressman. Its annoying as hell, and terribly inefficient.

Oh, and I think the sponsor is good old Harry Reid (D-NV) your very own majority leader. Its his law, and he wrote it, with the exception of a couple amendments here and there.

For all the people getting all pissy when "Democrat" is used as an adjective, I laugh at you. None of you have ever had older brothers, I'm assuming. You know, doing little annoying things just to see you fly off the handle. Get a grip. And even if you did start calling the GOP the "Republic Party" you would just sound retarded and no one would pay attention to you. As long as you go ballistic over that little -ic, its going to happen.

RTFA, then biatch.

"...the bill was actually cosponsored by Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the top Republican leader in the Senate. What's more, the bill appears to be an exact reintroduction of last year's S.2349, which was introduced by Trent Lott (R-MS) and actually passed the Republican-controlled Senate, complete with section 220.

Call it what you will, coddle and couch it in the nicest terms, say it requires big business to disclose and therefore it somehow protects us, the little guys. Say that all you want. It is still another ax-chip on the tree of our freedoms. The lumberjack says to the tree "I have to chop you one more time. This might hurt just a little, but it will be good for you in the long run." The tree replies "Okay, but you sure have chopped a lot away already, and I don't feel any better. In fact I'm afraid I might fall if you chop any more." Lumberjack: "Don't worry, everything's fine. And just ignore that big noisy sawmill over there." More laws = fewer freedoms.

Section 220 of the bill "would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K. Street lobbyists," said Viguerie in a statement, but the truth isn't that simple.


and

One of the Democratic priorities for the new Congress was passage of a lobbyist reform bill

Why do Democrats hate teh Internets?

well.......so much for a right to privacy.

Ideologues are impractical theorists.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Honestly, there isn't much a difference between the two parties in terms of the politicians.

who's the last left leaning politician who cost this country billions in an unwarranted war?

/suck it GOP

pixeled

Honestly, there isn't much a difference between the two parties in terms of the politicians.

who's the last left leaning politician who cost this country billions in an unwarranted war?

How much did Kosovo and Yugoslavia cost?

How much did Vietnam cost?

Weren't those both under a left leaning politician?

/with inflation adjustment I think they are around a billion or so.

DEMOCRAT is a NOUN, dipshiat.
Nouns do not modify other nouns, unless the two words together are an extended compound word, which this is not.

Democrat Senate makes you sound like an idiot (shoe fits?)

It's Democrat lead Senate or Democratic Senate. Take your pick.

/ Irritated by talking points.
// Enraged when they're also bad grammar.

TypoFlyspray

/ Irritated by talking points.
// Enraged when they're also bad grammar.

What gets you more, the new bad grammer or the talking point?

2 months ago this wasn't a problem for people.

FlashLV, your point is taken, but two month ago I really didn't have time to be surfing Fark. Now I have some time, and this is bugging the snot out of me. (It bugs me even more when I hear it on NPR - from people who generally know better.)

TypoFlyspray

FlashLV, your point is taken, but two month ago I really didn't have time to be surfing Fark. Now I have some time, and this is bugging the snot out of me. (It bugs me even more when I hear it on NPR - from people who generally know better.)

I see what you are saying.

I just don't think this is really an issue with intelligence as some people on fark make it to be, because they know they did it before it was hip to correct people using it wrong.

It all stemmed from an article written and posted on Fark, before that article no one on Fark cared or even knew, now they act likc scholars if someone used the wrong word.

It doesn't say all bloggers over 500 will be prosecuted, it says any bloggers with under 500 are automatically discluded. And the prosecutable party must be an individual receiving an aggregate of $25k per quarter, QUARTER (= $100k per year) by a single entity in order to commission bloggers to put up a website that calls itself grassroots in order to stimulate political action for that entities interests. And it's specifically targetting the industry middle-man behind it, not the bloggers themselves. You can read that in the bill yourself.


A group guilty of this very thing?
http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=1496165

Consumers for Cable Choice, who is a group that solicits petition signers claiming to be a grassroots group working for more cable tv competition, when really they are commissioned by At&t and Verizon and work toward skirting having to negotiate franchising agreements in new cities where they want to provide service.

All it requires is disclosure of (and registry by) people who are being paid by an industry to work for their interests, instead of being able to deceive us by claiming to be grassroots.

It is a perfectly reasonable bill if you go in and read it. And now of course there are websites popping up all over, like grassrootsfreedom.com, run by this man, using this very tactic as a front to misrepresent this bill and get people angry and signing petitions to take it out.

This sort of practice should absolutely be tracked.

Fortunatley a few Democrats joined with most of the Republicans and voted to strike down this provision:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?c ongress=110&session=1&vote=00017

absoluteparanoia: Commercial speech or not, they are equally protected.

Wrong. I can claim my car can hit Mach 5. Toyota cannot.

Kevin C.: Fortunatley a few Democrats joined with most of the Republicans and voted to strike down this provision:

Thank god. I like my astroturfing anonymous. Now if only we could do the same for overt political ads as well.

/Sarcasm

I am easily offended by submitters.

Simple Solution to the "ic" problem:

Just change Repub with "Child".
Child-lican party. Seriously say it aloud.

Child-Lickin' party.

See? It's a good way to insult AND it's descriptive of what the Grand Old Pedo party is all about. Child Lickin'.

I work for the Department of Hypocrisy and Bad Grammar (DHBC), so I'm really getting a kick out of some of these responses...

ColdFusion
Simple Solution to the "ic" problem:

Just change Repub with "Child".
Child-lican party. Seriously say it aloud.

Child-Lickin' party.

See? It's a good way to insult AND it's descriptive of what the Grand Old Pedo party is all about. Child Lickin'.



OMGZZZ!!1! ROFLMAO!11!! D00D!! THAT IS SO AWESOME!! IM GONNA TELL TLHAT TO EVRY1 I KNOW!1 IM GONNA BE SO COOL IN SCHOOL NOW!!! THX!1!!

serutan

The real dumbass here is anyone who thinks that lobbyists won't find ways around anything that passes into law. Too many people have too much to lose by going quietly into the night.

I'm willing to predict that you'll see a massive increase in the number of cases of Federal politicians flat taking cash bribes (no messy electronic trail, no long reports to fill out or shadow organizations to act as false fronts to create), which if you're a Democrat still gets you re-elected....

Interesting note -- although the bill was originally introduced by Republicans during the Repub-controlled Congress, all 48 Republican senators voted yesterday to remove the blog provision. The 43 who voted to keep it in were all Democrats.
/politics looks more like Professional Wrestling all the time.

MWeather: Wrong. I can claim my car can hit Mach 5. Toyota cannot.

That's not true. Toyota can claim that their car does that too. Believe it or not, there 'truth in advertising' is a recommendation, not a law.

They have the right to say whatever they like about their cars. But if it isn't true, the public will find out, and their profits will go down.

Also, that is a very poor example. A better one would be a blog that makes advertising revenue, and says Toyota can do Mach 5. It doesn't matter.

FlashLV:
I can see where mentioning this on Fark when there was an article on Fark might seem like bandwagonism. And it seems whiny to say that, well, I didn't read that article. However, that does explain why this seems to be showing up with increasing frequency. I expect to see it paired with "suck it, grammarians" (more likely grammar nazis) in the none to distant future. Nevertheless, even knowing it for a troll (and thank you for pointing that out), I still find it irresistable. Maybe the Republics will get a chuckle out of it, but so be it.