GOP Primary Megathread!

[DGuller]

When I told them I'm 26, they protested, saying I couldn't be so young and also be balding.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Freemasons are responsible for a lot.

[HisMajestyBOB]

It's true!


Also,

[garbon]

I like Santorum's comments on Puerto Rico...not.

[The Minsky Moment]

While I was peeling potatoes today, I had to listen to one of my coworkers wax at length about how the U.S. government went bankrupt in 1933 (factually untrue), did away with the gold standard permanently in 1933 (factually untrue, it was in 1971), illegalized the private ownership of gold and silver (factually untrue, based on a misinterpretation of some similar if less ridiculous facts, but in any event we're well down the yellow brick road to crazy town), it had something to do with the Freemasons (unverifiable, but I'm gonna say factually untrue, also this man has a knife made of a far more valuable metal, steel), that money isn't real (it has no intrinsic value, but that is true about everything), but that gold and silver are the only "real money" (have value for the same reason fiat currency does), and he kept referring to a contract he appears to be disputing as a "bill of exchange" (a term I have never heard before).

There are  few half-truths buried in there.
The government did require all monetary gold (coins and bullion) to be turned in for conversion in 1933 and that wasn't reversed until the 1970s.  In 1934, Roosevelt devalued the dollar against gold to $35; although since most countries had gone a gold standard proper at the time (and the rest would by 1936), effectively this had little meaning.  After WW2, Bretton Woods created the gold exchange standard whereby the developed countries all fixed their currencies to the dollar and the dollar fixed itself to gold at the $35 price.  That was a true gold standard to the extent that the US honored convertibility at the central banking level until 71.

A bill of exchange is just a written instrument that instructs a bank to pay the bearer.  These days, we call it a "check" - which is form of BoE that allows the authorized bearer to get the funds on demand.

[garbon]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rick-santorum-wants-ban-hardcore-pornography-222833811.html

Rick Santorum wants to ban hard-core pornography

Rick Santorum wants to put an end to the distribution of pornography in the United States.

"America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography," Santorum's official website reads. "Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking."

The former Pennsylvania senator states that, "as a parent, I am concerned about the widespread distribution of illegal obscene pornography and its profound effects on our culture."

Santorum criticized the Obama administration for turning "a blind eye ... to the scourge of pornography" and for refusing to enforce obscenity laws.

"If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so," Santorum writes. "While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration."

Santorum is not the first presidential candidate to take up the obscenity issue. In July, Michele Bachmann signed a pledge vowing her support of a constitutional amendment that, among other things, called for a ban on all pornography. (It also effectively called for a ban on same-sex marriage.)

The Atlantic wonders if Santorum's wide-scale crackdown on porn could actually work.

The Daily Caller found someone who thinks it could. "If the government wanted to aggressively move against Internet pornography, it could do so," UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh told the site.

Wonkette's Rebecca Schoenkopf pointed out it's just another example of Santorum positioning himself as the extremely conservative choice for president.

"It seems that Rick Santorum has found time in his busy schedule of condemning 'radical' women for working outside the home and using birth control, and nagging English-speaking Puerto Ricans to speak English, and now is turning his hot, penetrating gaze to manfolk-bizness," she wrote.

Sorry Rick but women don't even feature in my porn, so why would it encourage people to be violent towards women?

[Phillip V]

Only one post-Tuesday poll so far (besides two other recent ones), but it looks like Romney may be carrying a stable lead for this Tuesday's Illinois primary.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/il/illinois_republican_presidential_primary-1593.html

[Valmy]

Sorry Rick but women don't even feature in my porn, so why would it encourage people to be violent towards women?

Just glad to know violence against women and misogyny was so much lower back before internet porn.

[Eddie Teach]

He's inviting womyn to form an evil alliance with prudes to destroy pornography.

[The Larch]

Rick Santorum wants to ban hard-core pornography

He just lost the San Fernando Valley vote.

[Barrister]

A bill of exchange is just a written instrument that instructs a bank to pay the bearer.  These days, we call it a "check" - which is form of BoE that allows the authorized bearer to get the funds on demand.

Reading between the lines of what Cal wrote, the term "bill of exchange" is a popular one amongst the various free man/sovereign citizen/de-tax wingnuts.

[The Minsky Moment]

Reading between the lines of what Cal wrote, the term "bill of exchange" is a popular one amongst the various free man/sovereign citizen/de-tax wingnuts.

Bills of exchange were a dominant tool of finance in the 19th century.  Much of banking activity, including central banking activity, revolved around discounting private Bills, and they were used by all sorts of business concerns to finance operations and trading activities.  Nowadays much the same function is performed by the bond and CP markets.

I have no clue why the tax protest or freemen cultists would be interested in the concept other than its association with a time period in which the gold standard was the norm.

EDIT- one did occur to me.  Bills have to be "accepted" (acknowledged) by the drawee - so if some sort of debt or contractual obligation is analogized to a BoE, the purported drawee in that instance could refuse to "accept" and thus not pay.

[Phillip V]

I like Santorum's comments on Puerto Rico...not.

Romney is half-Latino. Hopefully, Puerto Rico is a big win for him this Sunday.

[Barrister]

Freemasons are responsible for a lot.

You wish.

[Ideologue]

While I was peeling potatoes today, I had to listen to one of my coworkers wax at length about how the U.S. government went bankrupt in 1933 (factually untrue), did away with the gold standard permanently in 1933 (factually untrue, it was in 1971), illegalized the private ownership of gold and silver (factually untrue, based on a misinterpretation of some similar if less ridiculous facts, but in any event we're well down the yellow brick road to crazy town), it had something to do with the Freemasons (unverifiable, but I'm gonna say factually untrue, also this man has a knife made of a far more valuable metal, steel), that money isn't real (it has no intrinsic value, but that is true about everything), but that gold and silver are the only "real money" (have value for the same reason fiat currency does), and he kept referring to a contract he appears to be disputing as a "bill of exchange" (a term I have never heard before).

There are  few half-truths buried in there.
The government did require all monetary gold (coins and bullion) to be turned in for conversion in 1933 and that wasn't reversed until the 1970s.

Yeah, but iirc it went largely unenforced and had a lot of exceptions, including permission to continue to transact with gold if you could demonstrate a good reason.

In 1934, Roosevelt devalued the dollar against gold to $35; although since most countries had gone a gold standard proper at the time (and the rest would by 1936), effectively this had little meaning.

Silly billies should have floated it.  Or maybe not.  It didn't work out well for the UK, I suppose.

After WW2, Bretton Woods created the gold exchange standard whereby the developed countries all fixed their currencies to the dollar and the dollar fixed itself to gold at the $35 price.  That was a true gold standard to the extent that the US honored convertibility at the central banking level until 71.

A bill of exchange is just a written instrument that instructs a bank to pay the bearer.  These days, we call it a "check" - which is form of BoE that allows the authorized bearer to get the funds on demand.

Hm.  I might have heard of it, and forgotten it.

Anyway, I told him to get a lawyer who did contracts (or whatever; I never inquired what the underlying factual issues were, because--well, you know, and also there's no meaningful advice I could give even if I wanted to since it's out of my field even such as it is--and he was nice enough to be vague, I think he just wanted to vent).  Still, from what it seemed like, it 1)involved a fair amount of money and 2)he'd already fucked up trying to do it pro se.