Leaked Debate Agreement Shows Both Obama and Romney are Master Debaters
 

Leaked Debate Agreement Shows Both Obama and Romney are Sniveling Cowards

Time's Mark Halperin has made himself useful for once by obtaining, and publishing, a copy of the 21-page memorandum of understanding that the Obama and Romney campaigns negotiated with the Commission on Presidential Debates establishing the rules governing this month's presidential and vice presidential face-offs. The upshot: Both campaigns are terrified at anything even remotely spontaneous happening.

They aren't permitted to ask each other questions, propose pledges to each other, or walk outside a "predesignated area." And for the town-hall-style debate tomorrow night, the audience members posing questions aren't allowed to ask follow-ups (their mics will be cut off as soon as they get their questions out). Nor will moderator Candy Crowley.

Most bizarrely, given the way the debates have played out, the rules actually appear to forbid television coverage from showing reaction shots of the candidates: "To the best of the Commission's abilities, there will be no TV cut-aways to any candidate who is not responding to a question while another candidate is answering a question or to a candidate who is not giving a closing statement while another candidate is doing so." The "best of the Commission's abilities" must be rather feeble, seeing as how almost every moment of the two debates so far was televised in split-screen, clearly showing shots of a "candidate who is not responding to a question while another candidate is answering a question."

Which means some of the rules below that both campaigns stipulated to in a desperate attempt to wring any serendipity out of the events may be honored in the breach:
"The candidates may not ask each other direct questions during any of the four debates."
"The candidates shall not address each other with proposed pledges."
"At no time during the October 3 First Presidential debate shall either candidate move from his designated area behing the respective podium."
For the October 16 town-hall-style debate, "the moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate...."
"The audience members shall not ask follow-up questions or otherwise participate in the extended discussion, and the audience member's microphone shall be turned off after he or she completes asking the questions."
"[T]he Commission shall take appropriate steps to cut-off the microphone of any...audience member who attempts to pose any question or statement different than that previously posed to the moderator for review."
"No candidate may reference or cite any specific individual sitting in a debate audience (other than family members) at any time during a debate."
For the town-hall debate: "Each candidate may move about in a pre-designated area, as proposed by the Commission and approved by each campaign, and may not leave that area while the debate is underway."

Here's the full document:

The 2012 Debates - Memorandum of Understanding Between the Obama and Romney Campaigns

Here's more - a contract that they won't debate any 3rd party candidates.

Secret Debate Contract Reveals Obama and Romney Campaigns Exclude Third Parties, Control Questions

How does that make them sniveling?

The rules make total sense to me, and seem to be aimed toward fairness. I would screen audience questions before hand, and follow up questions would be the candidates arguing with an audience member, not each other. The TV shots rule makes sense too, the point is to listen to the candidate's response, not hope for a weird face from the other.

You've gone and made me break my rule of staying the fuck out of this section.

The rules seem to be aimed toward avoiding situation which require junior high level debate skills or even general intellignece. Both of these "candidates" are so bad they cannot even engage in a dialogue, nor a worthy opponent.

I'd like to address this but it's neither an approved post nor am I acknowledging follow-up questions. Sorry.

You people do realize that agreements like this are incredibly common in political debates right?

zing..




I mean... I understand how this could have been implemented to begin with.. but honestly, after reading this... it gets way to restrictive to the point that it's no longer a debate, it's a planned, categorized discussion. Facts have already been drawn up for the candidates, they are warmed up for the questions (which were idiotically cupcake status) and any sort of movement by any of the candidates to put either of them into a mental checkmate was squashed. (Although... as an observationalist... I'd have to say Romney is a more dominate force on the debate floor... even if he's spewing factually inaccuracies)


I say feed them poisioned dildos and eliminate the electoral college (although that honestly... won't change much)

And these backpocket networks need to stop too...

I would like to see Katie master debate the candidates.

Best thing to come of the last couple debate things was the Free Pizza offer.

I really struggle with apathy when it comes to elections, I have not felt my vote counts since I came of voting age. As I get older... I feel that even more.

Must... break... the... cycle...

Vote for someone you genuinely believe is right. An informed vote matters... and setting the example will simply lead others to be better informed on subjects and policies.

Romney definitely asked Obama a direct question last night. Maybe twice.

Katie does hilarious shit to people in arguments, lol. She cannot attend my office social gatherings, lol. "Why did that girl with the rainbow hair make me argue with myself?"

My informed vote is to not vote. I can't support the crappy candidates being once again foisted upon us by the money driven 2 party system. I swear I'm not a conspiracy person.... I just see the money driving this and the puppets that keep running.

The one person I found myself aligning with viewpoint wise... backed one of the idiots recently and is really a lost vote. This isn't helping me.

and here's how they wont:

Green Party candidate arrested outside debate site

At least some of them probably do. But the ones who post things like this thread in an attempt to concoct discord and confusion are hedging on the assumption that most people are probably unfamiliar with the process.

It's the same fundamental tactic which candidates themselves employ to create artificial fear / conflict and steer conversation away from productive vectors.

Eg:
I was really floored by a brief segment I heard on NPR about a week ago. They were interviewing a couple of women on the subject of "women's rights" (whatever that means) and one of them, who self-identified as being pro-murder (aka pro-choice), actually said "Look, these people who are claiming that Romney will overturn Roe-v-Wade... The president simply can't overturn a court decision."

NPR is one of only three broadcast news agencies which I actually sort of trust a little bit, and this is coming from a broadcaster.

Good to know nothing's changed. I'll just keep doing what I do and they can keep doing....whatever it is they are doing. Where's the remote?

BS. Romney has selected Robert Bork as his chief Judicial and Constitutional Advisor. That guy in his own book has basically stated Roe v. Wade should be overturned. He has distorted views of the 14th amendment and many other things it can be seen that he belives in government bans on contraception apposes civil rights, fair voting, right to privacy, and anti-trust laws. He supports the notion that Corporations are people.

Mitt Romney’s next Supreme Court nomination could quite possibly really fuck this country over for a very long time.

Thomas Edison like to steal ideas, and had hired thugs to make sure they were now his ideas.

A) That would be his nominee... that has to clear Congress*... not Romney.

B) That assumes a number of other justices agree with Romney's nominee's stance on any given issue.


In summation: in no way will any one individual be able to overturn Roe vs Wade or any other Supreme Court precedent.


* Ya know, like Bork didn't.

Id rather not rely on a trust of congress to stop the Romney team from fuckign over the country.

1: That's fine. I have no problem with someone being of the opinion that a certain supreme court case ought to be overturned, even if that person is the president or his judicial adviser. Neither of those people actually have the ability to overturn a court case, or even to influence the opinion of the present court. They do not control the court in any way, aside from being able to nominate replacement justices when a sitting justice voluntarily decides to retire.

At present, no sitting justice has indicated that they are planning on retiring any time soon. And if the nomination of one justice is enough to bring down the whole country, then we're pretty fucked regardless of whether abortion is legal.


2: You seem to presuppose that, if the court were to overturn Roe-v-Wade that this would be both inherently wrong and would also have a greatly negative impact on America as a whole. I have seen no evidence to support such a conclusion. Neither permitting abortion nor denying abortion will seriously affect the security or economic well-being of the United States, and THAT is what the President's job is.


3: You seem to be ignoring (or at least hand-waving over) the fact that one of the principle duties of the court is to re-evaluate prior decisions in the light of present-day social attitudes and constitutional interpretations. For instance, a prior ruling which supported the rights of slave-owners might reasonably be expected to be overturned by a present-day court. A judgement which lays forth the guidelines for when it is and is not acceptable to terminate the life of a human is also likely to be reviewed from time to time, regardless of whether said human has been convicted of a capitol crime (what we call the death penalty), or has not been born yet.



The question of "wrong" is, of course, a matter of opinion. It hinges greatly on whether one believes that it is desirable to promote infanticide. Obama has, of course, made his own position on this quite unambiguously clear. In 2003, he was the only member of the Illinois state legislature to oppose a state bill which would guarantee medical care for babies born alive despite failed late-term abortion attempts. (And that wasn't just some trivial little rider- that was the whole bill.)


But in the end, it simply doesn't matter. It's certainly not an issue worth electing a president over. I don't care whether the president personally enjoys performing late-term abortions with a coat hanger out of the back of a van on weekends. It's not relevant to his day job.




You are entitled to hold this opinion.

I would have to contrast it against:


A: The fact that the sitting president has demonstrated through his actions that he opposes civil liberty, supports statism (centralized government control over economic planning and policy), opposes domestic energy independence, supports the expansion of socialist-style controls over / the encroachment of the Federal government into areas of life (healthcare, education, tax policy, etc) which have heretofore been private matters, matters of free-market exchange, or matters of policy reserved for the States, and has done nothing at all as a matter of international affairs to learn from the Euro-Asian style of protectionist trade policy, and how it might be economically beneficial in the long-term to the US in the same way that it has benefited Germany, France, Japan, China, etc.



B: The reality that, while concepts such as "civil rights" and "fair voting" sound great in a fourth-grade student report, the practical reality of the situation is that America, as a whole, would likely be much better off in an environment in which voting was treated as a privilege that must be earned, and in which "civil rights" did not include the right to demand free services from the state, the right to demand that other people's freedom of expression should be curtailed, the right to demand preferential treatment, etc.

I'll give you an example. Right now, Wells-Fargo has just paid $175m to settle a case brought against them by a group of African-Americans who claim that Wells-Fargo discriminated against them BY GIVING THEM LOANS! Specifically, that the bank offered mortgage loans to borrowers who would not otherwise have qualified for them, on the grounds of their race.

Got that? Wells-Fargo wasn't DENYING loans to people because they were black, they were GIVING LOANS to black people, whereas they would have DENIED the same loan to a WHITE PERSON.

AND THE BLACK PEOPLE WHO WERE GIVEN THE LOANS ARE NOW CLAIMING THAT THIS UNFAIRLY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST THEM!


That's the kind of civil rights protection that does not make us better as a nation.





In the end, presidential elections are usually about choosing the lesser of two evils. No single individual can, by definition, be perfect or have acted in a way that pleases every single member of the electorate at every point in their life.

The current president has, quite simply, demonstrated by his actions that he is "more evil" than the republican nominee, insofar as matters which are relevant to the authority of a president.





Please explain, specifically, how this would happen.

9.5/10

On one hand, we have a split SCOTUS and the next president will be appointing one, possibly two Justices. In that way, it's entirely possible for a voter's choice of president to alter that particular decision.

On the other hand, expecting a voter who claims that "ROMNEY WILL PERSONALLY OVERTURN ROE V. WADE" to actually understand the nuances of the President-SCOTUS connection is far-fetched at best. :hustler:

I heard romney was going to get up in there, pick up roe vs wade, and flip it over.

I'm curious, Bob -- if it's not a matter of life and death, then why should there be a federal law? Why doesn't it fall under the purview of states' authority?

Fixed that for you.

abortion is a tax, therefore is constitutional.

Benjamin Franklin said it best: "The only things certain in life are death and taxes."

It is a cival and constitutional right to privacy.

Ban money!

+1

No it isn't.

You have the right to be secure in your person and property against unlawful search and seizure by the government.

So if you're preggers and you don't want the government to know about it, you have the right to deny a government agent from entering your home without your consent, and the court may not grant a search warrant of your home for the purpose of discovering whether or not you are pregnant. You also have the right to wear baggy, loose-fitting clothes, the right to stay inside your house all day watching Oprah and eating ice cream while refusing to go outside, etc etc.

That's it, dude.

Well, you're right. I was trying to speak narrowly to whether the issue of abortion constituted an actual matter of human life (in which case, a federal ban would be warranted) or simply another medical procedure (in which case, there's no reason it shouldn't remain a state matter), I ended up being more imprecise in my language rather than less.

I understand what you were saying. But there are two key things to consider:


1: Matters of human life or death ARE customarily handled at the state level, not the federal level. For instance, laws which "ban" murder (eg: kidnapping someone and beating them to death with an axe) are state laws, and if you are arrested for murder, you are prosecuted by the state attorney's office and then sentenced to a state prison. The federal courts are not typically involved in such mundane affairs.



2: The principle problem with the question of abortion lies in the fact that there is not general agreement as to whether it is or is not a matter of human life or death in the first place.


Those who are "pro choice" would tend to support the argument that it is simply a medical procedure which affects no person apart from the mother, and thus not even worthy of consideration by the courts.


By contrast, those who are "pro life" would tend to argue that an unborn human is alive, and has the same civil rights and protections (eg, the right to not be murdered) as a human who has been born. While there is not universal consensus as to exactly when the transition between "not being alive" and "being alive" occurs, there is a general consensus that it does not occur at the arbitrary boundary of "birth."

This position is not unsupportable by logical analysis:

If I was born as a result of full-term, natural delivery, then by the standard of a "pro choice" argument, it took between 39 and 40 weeks from the time that I was first fertilized until the time that I became "alive".

But what if I was born prematurely or delivered early via caesarian section? Given present-day medical technology, roughly half of all babies born at 24 weeks survive.

Here is a baby who was born at 29 weeks:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350511583

Does she (the baby) have to wait an additional 10 weeks until she is legally recognized as being alive?

If so, then it should be perfectly legal for the lady in the picture (or the nurse in the background, or anyone else for that matter) to drop the baby into a bucket of water and then go get a sandwich. That would not be murder.





I'm not taking a stance here which is pro or anti-abortion, I'm simply explaining why the question is more complex than you made it out to be. You need to at least acknowledge the fact that not everyone makes the same underlying assumptions as you do. For some, the question of abortion has nothing at all to do with the rights of the mother- it is about protecting the rights of what they consider to be a living person inside of her.




FURTHERMORE: Overturning the Roe v. Wade decision would not, as some assume, cause abortion to become illegal. It would merely return TO THE STATES full authority to regulate it.

Thus, a "states rights" supporter (regardless of what name they give to themselves) must, by definition, be opposed to Roe v. Wade and support its overturn, as the very nature of this decision is to take away the authority of the states to create and support their own criminal codes.





FURTHER-FURTHERMORE: It's still irrelevant to a presidential debate.

Actually, I think you're making my case for me, just more clearly than I did.

When I said

I'm arguing along the same lines as you -- that the issue of when life begins ultimately boils down to the legal question of whether an unborn fetus can have rights which must be protected by the court.

If that's true, then it may be appropriate for the court to rule on it.

If that's not true, then there's no matter appropriate for the court to consider, and should be returned to the states' authority.

That's my point -- I recognize that the assumptions on each side of the debate vary -- but I reject that either set of assumptions can properly lead to a situation in which the Supreme Court could possibly rule in favor of protecting the right to abort.

I don't know if I've cleared up what I was trying to say in the first place or not (or if it was already clear and I simply misunderstood your response), but there it is.

No, I think it was I who did the misunderstanding.

I read your previous post as implying that there was no debate about whether or not abortion constituted the taking of a human life, and that the only issue being debated was whether or not state laws prohibiting abortion constituted a violation of the 14th amendment.

That, incidentally, was the core issue at hand in Roe v. Wade. I must tip my hat to whoever originally came up with that argument, as it's an exceedingly clever interpretation of the due process clause.


My point was simply that, regardless of due process, it is universally held that the protection of life supersedes the protection of liberty. If I attempt to take away your life, then the court will take away my liberty by throwing me in prison. This concept is not generally a controversial one.

So for those people who oppose abortion in general, their argument is quite simply the following:

1: Yes, women have a right to control their own bodies.

2: People, in general, also have a right not to be murdered.

3: An unborn child is alive, and thus, has a right not to be murdered.

4: Abortion is murder, and thus:

5: Preventing abortions from occurring outweighs the interest of protecting the woman's right to control her body, insofar as such rights conflict with the rights of the child to be alive.


#5, in particular, must be read and understood comprehensively and in context. It does not deny that the woman has rights, it merely assigns a priority to those rights in comparison to the more significant right of the child to be protected against murder.


Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which I am driving a car. We'll say that I'm in Germany on an unrestricted section of the Autobahn, to make things simpler.

Assuming I am insured and hold a valid license, I have the right to drive my car. This is a protected liberty.

HOWEVER, there are some restrictions on this liberty. I may not drive on the wrong side of the road, nor may I drive in a manner that causes pedestrians to be killed.

The rights of pedestrians and other motorists to be safe from being hit and killed by my takes priority over my right to drive a car however I want to.

The same argument applies here.

Nice exposition. And yes, as someone who has personally argued along those lines, it's frustrating when someone thinks an appropriate counterargument is to accuse me of not caring about women's rights.

Ironically, my fiance was born at 29 weeks, and is currently a nurse in the NICU you see above (well, one like it).

It goes far, FAR beyond just "half of babies survive after 24 weeks". Most are quite literally dropped at the door of the NICU and left to die by their crack whore mothers who have no business getting preggers in the first place.

If they were all picturesque births like the mother pictured kangarooing her baby, I'd be pro-life.

Thankfully, the way the laws are now, all babies, because they're literally the most innocent people in the world, are medically covered. A case like a 24 week baby is a guarantee 16 week minimum stay, generating ~$10,000 a night for the hospital. It goes down for the babies my GF describes as needing "really expensive babysitters", but their unit can hold 46 babies. Good money. Some of them are really, really sad cases though, and you wish they didn't have to suffer through it.

When I get out of the military and move back to SoCal.. I want to mind-suck the ever living knowledge out of Joe Perez, I'll drive down to SD and pay for his vodka espressos.

I'll be honest, on the subject of abortion. I never put much thought into it as far as you guys have. For me, abortion is a non-issue as previously stated. It's such a mundane issue to be concerned over, and should never take time away from a presidential debate. (which, is what I'm doing now... whatever).

The only thing that I have questions about from this past debate are Romney's statements in regards to taxation. He spoke about his 5 point plan, and after factchecking it, many are in consensus that the numbers don't add up. There is literally no way for him to do this. Now I don't know why he keeps purporting that this will cut costs since all of what I've read (very possible I've been reading the wrong shit) says he will be upping military spending (which, although I'm military, am against increasing the size of).

As far as I'm concerned, Obama hasn't said much to clinch my skepticism (might be missing something obvious), I just don't like the way he's been running things, and his paper trail (money wise) shows a negative trend. His stats regarding unemployment are incorrectly represented.

I'd also rather avoid looking this as a race between two candidates... =\

I should have been more clear re: "Given present-day medical technology..."

You already know this, but for others:

The limit of viability for preterm infants is, at present, considered to be 24 weeks. That is the age at which, assuming competent medical care, the infant has at least a 50% chance of long-term survival. It is considered a cutoff point, after which the hospital will generally provide aggressive treatment, resuscitate as needed, etc., but before which, they generally will instead say "the child was just too under-developed, there was nothing we could do, etc." (Obviously, the incidence of severe long-term disability is extremely high at this age, but they will plow forth anyway, determined to ensure that yet another human being gets to enjoy a lifetime of epilepsy, cerebral palsy mental retardation and blindness.)



A purely objective person might, at this point, observe that on a per-individual basis, the amount of money expended to preserve the doomed lives of the extremely young, and to briefly extend the lives of the very old, is extraordinarily high as compared to the cost of providing normal medical care for those between the ages of 1 and 70.

In other words, it's an inverse bell-curve, in which the most money (per individual) is spent on those at the very outside fringes of the age range, and who are "least valuable" to society.

The elderly can, to some extent, be defended. They may be grandparents or great grandparents whose passing will be mourned, they are conscious of their own existence, participate in their environment, and have social interactions with others. Or, put bluntly, they are normal human beings who just happen to be getting on in mileage.

Infants, in particular, can be said to be of no value at all. They have not yet formed social bonds, they are unaware of their existence, and they do not participate in their environment in a meaningful way. Extremely premature infants, in particular, are much more likely than anyone else to never be able to participate meaningfully in society, either as a result of death or of severe developmental disabilities, both physical and mental. In other words, we spend the MOST to protect the lives of those whose lives are "worth" the LEAST, and who are the MOST LIKELY to lead a life of comparatively low quality and high suffering.



So, yeah. We have some pretty fucked up priorities as a society.



I predict that Godwin's Law will soon be invoked.




And it is STILL an irrelevant topic vis-a-vis electing a president. (Well, Abortion, I mean. We've drifted into general healthcare at this point. Bring on the Obamacare Death Panels.)

Re the old, who have, in our country spent a lifetime paying tax that covers medical bills.....your country insurances etc...(more or less the same thing, just s different model). infants not so much.....

Interesting discussion, don't stop!

I'm kinda bummed out the title was changed to "debaters" instead of 'baters

I also forgot to point out one other thing, which I think is fundamental to an objective discussion of the "value" of life at the extreme ends of the medical-costs bell curve.

An elderly person is a unique commodity. They have spent a lifetime accumulating knowledge and experiences, and while the practical application of this may be the subject of debate, the fact of it is irrefutable.

Even if I had the power to clone a human body, I could not re-create my grandmother. The essence of her being is gone, and it can never be replaced or re-created. So beyond any obligation owed to her (in return for a lifetime of work and insurance premiums), her death can be postulated to have some measurable negative effect on society. (I am presupposing, of course, that my grandmother was not a serial murderer, a child molester, etc. I'm pretty sure she wasn't any of those things, even though she was a democrat...)



Newborn infants, by comparison, are a completely fungible commodity. If we accept the fundamental tenet that "we are all created equal" (or any re-wording of same which is functionally equivalent) then aside from the notional value of hereditary inheritance (eg: the child is special to its parents because its DNA is slightly more similar to theirs than to the rest of humanity) any one newborn infant is freely exchangeable with any other. (see: Duke, Mortimer and Randolph, 1983)

Or, put in a slightly less Heinleinesque-sounding way, it really doesn't matter if your newborn dies, because you can very easily make another one*. (This also satisfies the hereditary inheritance objection.) In fact, if your newborn infant is significantly premature, then you are doing a dis-service both to society and to the newborn itself by expending extraordinary effort to prevent it from dying. The probability is greatly increased that that child will experience a lower quality of life and impose a greater financial and social burden on both its family and on society as a whole (by way of increased insurance and social-service payouts) as compared to a "normal" child. As such, the best thing to do, for all partied concerned without exception, is to just let it die naturally and then make another one.
I mean, this is what we do at work. If we're doing a production run of the cast aluminum end-panels for a console, and one of them comes out of the mold with a huge void in it, we don't expend large amounts of time and effort trying to "save" the part. It just gets chucked into the recycle bin and we pour another one. The direct cost in time and materials to make another end panel is quite small as compared to the costs (both direct cost and opportunity cost) of attempting to repair the defective one.



It is a despicable crime to willingly cause the needless and unjustifiable suffering of a child.

^ These are eastern ideologies that most people in the west do not share with you(and me). I once spoke about this in my ethics classes and people looked at me like I was crazy. I got an A though.

[quote=Joe Perez;940518].[/ quote]

How dare you bring logical rational thought into a conversation about killing babies.

+1 I agree even though I'm closer to pro-choice.

Ditto regarding SS Medicare and welfare - they should be moved from the Feds to the States.