In a 5-4 ruling today, the US Supreme Court rolled back what McCain-Feingold had implemented just a couple of decades earlier. Five conservative judges voted as the majority in the decision. This opens the door for a larger role in corporations funding campaign ads.
“Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy — it is the means to hold officials ac-
countable to the people — political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority.
Which means corporations that wished for personhood not defined in Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific just got their wish.
Citizens United vs the Federal Elections Commission(FEC) regarding whether a politically charged film, Hillary: The Movie, could be defined as a campaign ad under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Act.
“height of recklessness” wrote the dissenting opinion.
“We are moving to an age where we won’t have the senator from Arkansas or the congressman from North Carolina, but the senator from Wal-Mart and the congressman from Bank of America,” said Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Sen. Chuck Schumer echoed “The bottom line is this: the Supreme Court has just predetermined the winners of next November’s elections. It won’t be Republicans. It won’t be Democrats. It will be corporate America.”
Citizens United’s so-called goals are:
* “to reassert the traditional American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security.”
* “to restore the founding fathers’ vision of a free nation, guided by the honesty, common sense, and good will of its citizens.”
Funny, I don’t recall the founding fathers wanting corporate control of elections?
Who is Citizen’s United? Bremerton native, Floyd Brown co-founded CU in 1988 along with David Bossie and were responsible for the Willie Horton campaign ads during the 1988 presidential election. He is also an ass.
“CBS Evening News reported that Floyd Brown harassed the family of Susan Coleman, a former law student of Bush’s opponent Bill Clinton. Coleman had committed suicide, and Brown was attempting to investigate a rumor that she had had an affair with Clinton. David Bossie reportedly stalked the family of a suicide victim while working for Brown. In April, 1992, 30 news organizations received “an anonymous and untraceable letter” by fax “claiming Clinton had had an affair with a former law student who committed suicide 15 years ago.” Floyd Brown attempted to investigate any connection between Clinton and the 1977 suicide of this, “emotionally distraught young woman, seven-months pregnant,” Susan Coleman.CBS Evening News, 7/13/92
In an audiotaped phone conversation with Coleman’s sister, the following exchange took place:
Brown: Was she depressed? See, you won’t even answer if she was depressed.
Coleman’s Sister: Because I—
Brown: Was she suicidal?
Coleman’s Sister: Just leave my family alone.
Brown: You’re making it so difficult for me to leave your family out of it.’
CBS Evening News, 7/13/92.
The Bush-Quayle campaign “eventually” filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Brown, seeking to distance itself from his tactics and calling Brown and his associates “the lowest forms of life”. After they were done with his services, of course.
The hypocrisy of Citizen’s United is further evident in their own complaint in 2005 with the FEC over the movie Fahrenheit 9/11, in which Bossie, who had not yet viewed the film, but stated that the movie violated McCain/Feingold as defined that ‘Moore was using “corporate money” and “foreign money” to pay for his film ads’
The bigger question is, where are all the tea bag party people in all this, including Scott Brown? Shouldn’t they be protesting Corporate america’s take over of elections or are they silently praising a victory while being shuttled around in buses by big pharma and insurance companies.
The majority opinion of the SCOTUS with decisions like this hearken back to Dred Scott, just prior to the Civil War.
Hmmm I see even the most innocuous of comments here are censored…Is Streeter in charge of what gets said about him??
The Chicago Machine rolls on…
If you’d stick to the discussion but I guess you have nothing to say according to your first post.
Might as well get used to it, Neal. Now that the Supremes have handed over the government to the corporations, expect anything you say that some corporate overlord doesn’t like to be censored.
By the way, unions were given the sane rights. So before you conservatives get all giggly about the decision, think how you would feel if WEA manages to load up the Yakima school board with people who think its ok to teach kids about homosexuality…
Hmmm… I see I thought wrongly that this was an open blog. If Streeter doesn’t like what I say about him/her, it gets deleted.
I would have thought you were the party of the ACLU…???
And Corie…Streeter is a “corporate overlord”?
I never knew…
Neal you forgot to let Drew back-slap and stroke mainstreeter ego first before making a commit.
You get one blog foul for that error
It’s the corporate world running things now, Neal. Get used to it.
Who among you are brave enough to see what Streeter censored???
I’d like a show of hands…
Oh..nobody>???
I notice the only comments of mine taken down in here have been by…you guessed it..STREETER..
At least the rest of you in here have enough backbone to handle a good argument…
You’re 0-4 Neal, it’s all about you when you come in here and if all you can do is whine about some rights you feel you have here, take it somewhere else. **You’re not even arguing**
oops..too*
Well, is see the libral book burner has been busy…
What a strugle it must be to wake up scared every morning, Streter…You are to be pitied.
And Corie…The decision would seem to favor Dimmocrats more than Republicans…As evidenced by the fact that in 2008, “Big Pharma” gave 49% to libs and 51 % to Repubs.
That same year the WEA gave 86% to libs and 14% to Repubs. Here’s a list:
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
Business is generally smart enough to want the ear of whomever is in power. Labor tends to donate 90% + to Libs.
Ohhh this just in..”Air America goes Dark”..
Neal, you seem to forget that McCain/Feingold limited the amount that campaigns can receive from a donor. Now whichever corporation has the most money can play. Do you want corporate america instead of the people running elections?
Your attitude indicates your belief that all politicians are for sale.
That’s certainly been proven true in Illinois…
Even their vacant seats are for sale.
Duck and evade Neal. McCain/Feingold placed limits on campaign donations. Yes, after today it will be easier for them to be for sale, but unlike before, to the highest bidder.
Illinois? Are you talking about Denny Hastert?
They sold out nicely to the unions on January 14th Streeter…. So I guess you’re right..They ARE corrupt.
Which is why many will be gone in November.
I wasn’t referring to mainstreeter when I mentioned corporate overlords, but you knew that, Neal.
This is not a right or left issue–this is a right or wrong issue. You have mentioned that the unions have given heavily to Dems, so, you too have much to be concerned about.
The thing is, just the combined assets of the Fortune 500 companies equals 3 trillion dollars. Now, when a politician is offered your contribution of 50$, or millions and millions from a large company, who do you think that politician will care about?
Yes, there are congresscritters with their hands out on both sides of the aisle. But there have been a lot of groups fighting to reform this process and try to rid DC of those kinds of politicians. Thanks to the conservatives on the court, that will never happen now. I expect it will get worse.
I think a better name for them now is SCROTUS..Supreme Court Republicans Of The United States..and they have just teabagged all of us.
By the way..The demise of Air America means nothing. For too long, its financial problems have fed the incorrect rumor that all of progressive radio is a failure.
This morning, KPTK in Seattle and KPOJ in Portland are business as usual. The more prominent and popular hosts have never been affiliated with Air America..they are with the Dial Global.
Remember, in a competition between a stream and a rock, the stream always wins..not through strength, but through perseverance. You guys are the rock. We are the stream.
Neal, do you know the definition when corporations and government merges?
Hint…it starts with an F
Demonizing private business seems to come so easily to you Socialist Democrats.
Almost as easily as censorship (which, by the way, only started AFTER you lost that “one little vote” last Tuesday.
You should be as graceful in defeat as you were in victory..Oh, I forgot. You are.
It’s not demonetization if the teabaggers suddenly are not needed by big business.
Neal are you saying that you think its fine for China or Saudi Arabia to own some of our politicians? Those restrictions have now been removed. Companies in the US that are owned by foreign governments can now give unlimited millions to the candidates who will promote their agendas and find jobs for non-American workers. Do you really feel comfortable handing over our government to a foreign country? If so, then why the hell are we fighting any wars?
Like I said, this is not going to be just another partisan issue. If you think big corporations have your best interests at heart and will always do what is honest and helps people…you are going to be in for a hard lesson. This decision will ultimately touch everyone.
I dont want to hear another conservative lecture us on judicial activism. Yesterday proved that its only a bad thing when it is someting the Cons don’t like.
Well, Corie…look on the bright side..
It will give you a different excuse for losing in November (other than failed policies and an empty suit at the helm)
speaking of the “F” word…here’s a book for ya to burn, Streeter..
“Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”
“Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.”
The Nazi’s were nazi’s Neal, why do you change to some far out fantasy of yours. It’s not even relevant. You never stay on topic, you seem afraid to agree that even McCain Feingold was a good thing.
Just because they called themselves National Socialists doesn’t mean that they were socialist. Socialism is the idea of a classless society. Nazi society was very class-oriented with warrior and leader as the highest class, and jews and workers as the lowest class, socialism dreams of a society without a leader– National Socialism had Hitler, one of the most “glorified” leading figures in history, if only in his own mind. Socialism dreams about a society where there are no national states anymore, and people live together without any remark on their origin or “race”, while the Nazis were the most nationalist / patriotic / race fanatic people ever. Plus the Nazi system was financed by big industrialists, factory owners and bankers, and they would be the greatest enemies of socialists. Nazis embraced socialist symbols and language to attract working class votes in Germany, but their idea of enhancing German worker’s living standards was to get rid of jews to lower unemployment. Socialism dreams of a society where only those who want to have to work and money is not necessary.
Those are the differences in theory, of course if you compare Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany you wouldn’t find much difference, but in theory socialism and national socialism are complete opposites.
Also, many communists, socialists, Marxists, and many left-leaning dissenters were also tossed in to labor and prison camps.
The word “Socialist” does not mean left-wing in the context of the NAZI party and has NO political relationship to the term Socialist as Americans think of it. They were Fascists – which is text-book right-wing, right up there beside Mussolini……and our government, if Congress is not able to mitigate the damage the SCROTUS did yesterday.
I wasn’t the one who brought up the “f” word…
The mood in here seems rather sullen since Tuesday night..
Im not feeling sullen at all. It feels good to correct misinformation!
Very hypocritical of Citizens United to try and equate a conversion to corporatacracy with family values.
Always difficult when you find your Emperor has no clothes.
neal- this had nothing to do with Obama. The Supreme Court made this decision. Bush didn’t understand that there are three branches of government either.
Bush hasn’t been in office for some time now, Drew…the sooner you and Obama start taking responsibility for the current quagmire, the quicker it has a chance of recovering.
Looks like Obama has some difficulty with “three branches” too…something he promised not to…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seAR1S1Mjkc&eurl=http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/03/13/obama-breaks-own-signing-statements-standard/
Then this from the New York Times..
“Obama Says He Can Ignore Some Parts of Spending Bill ”
“WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday issued his first signing statement, reserving a right to bypass dozens of provisions in a $410 billion government spending bill even as he signed it into law.”
How can he even keep a staight face anymore????
You really make it easy for us, don’t you? Every president has issued signing statements, and rarely has it been without a Constitutional justification, until this guy came along. He set a record that will likely never be beaten for the sheer number of signing statements issued, and usually because he kept finding out that the will of the people ran against the will of the GOP investors. Now the Supreme Court has allowed for the purchase on your “free market” of our elections. You either see the true obscenity of that (because it takes away your power as a voter and citizen), and hands it to the major corporations, or you’re accepting of it.
Oooo here’s another one from the empty suit..
“Barack Obama Goes the Full Jimmy Carter With His “New Foundation”
“In his major economic speech today, President Obama
promised to build a “new foundation” for the American economy, using a biblical parable to illustrate how his economic plans will set us up for the long term. It’s a useful phrase—it bespeaks a long process but with a worthwhile end result.
But he might have chosen a different simile. “New foundation,” you see, is a phrase previously employed by Jimmy Carter as his presidency sank into sands.
As I detail in White House Ghosts, it was the brainchild of Carter speechwriter Hendrik Hertzberg and the theme of Carter’s 1979 State of the Union address. Carter ended up mentioning the foundation concept 13 times in his speech, for once actually embracing a rhetorical device (a theme). “The problems that we face today are different from those that confronted earlier generations of Americans,” he said. “They are more subtle, more complex, and more interrelated…. The challenge to us is to build a new and firmer foundation for the future.”
If you don’t remember Carter’s “new foundation,” here’s why: While the rest of the administration geared up for a big thematic push around it, the president junked it three days after the big speech, in a press conference. “I doubt if it will survive,” Carter said. “We are not trying to establish this as a permanent slogan.”
Perhaps President Obama has different ideas.
Here’s some more food for thought..
“One year later assessing Obama: Testing the promise of pragmatism
Gallery
President Obama’s first year in office”
“The poll also shows how much ground Obama has lost during his first year of trying to convince the public that more government is the answer to the country’s problems. By 58 percent to 38 percent, Americans said they prefer smaller government and fewer services to larger government with more services. Since he won the Democratic nomination in June 2008, the margin between those favoring smaller over larger government has moved in Post-ABC polls from five points to 20 points. ”
Americans are speaking….be nice if the party in power was listening…
The constitution says nothing about corporations having the same rights as citizens. Jefferson and Madison were quite explicit in that. When the republicans are the party out of power, they choose to change the rules as in the 22nd amendment, then want to change back by abolishing it during Reagan’s term. You guys want it both ways. You feel comfortable with corporatist rule which is un american. Americans are not speaking, they don’t have the dollars to influence anymore. The corpo-republicans have more no need for bodies on the ground with the teabaggers.
Yeah, Strreter…I see what ya mean about the 22nd…
This from Wiki
“In addition, several congressmen, including Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. José Serrano,[3] Rep. Howard Berman,[4] and Sen. Harry Reid[5], have introduced legislation to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment, but each resolution died before making it out of its respective committee. There have also been proposals to remove the absolute two term limit and replace it with no more than two consecutive terms.”
Looks a lot like FOUR DEMS to me…
So your point was???
You’re the one who complained about others using wiki, so your point was…
The republicans immediately sought to repeal it under Eisenhower. Additional GOP efforts to repeal the 22nd came after Nixon’s 1972 re-election, and during Reagan’s term in office.
And Karl Rove is said to have had at least three staff meetings in the first two years of Bush’s first term, discussing which GOP congress members would be on board with a repeal of the 22nd. People more familiar with the Constitution than Rove convinced him that safeguards were in place to make sure that any incumbent would not be able to take advantage of a repeal themselves. Disappointed, Rove found new hobbies, like outing CIA operatives when they disagree with your ideals.
And about 8 times during Clinton’s
Your point is pointless…as usual
neal, that has nothing to do with the recent Supreme Court ruling, where your cons took away your democratic power as a voter, and handed it over to corporations and CEOs. You must be very uncomfortable with that, since you haven’t mentioned it at all.
Drew, it still takes votes to win an election…Dollars don’t get to vote, except of course where ACORN is concerned.
You are a fool if you really think that any candidate can run for office (state representative and above) without spending any money. It’s why shills like Dick Hastings has donations pouring in from outside of the state, from people he’s never met. It’s now just like our health care mess that Reagan and Nixon helped create: the cost of participation now dictates that only the wealthy come to play.
You cons hated ACORN because they got out into the communities and neighborhoods and helped citizens register to vote. The GOP has never been very good at that, and when new registrations are up, the GOP loses the next election, period. ACORN helped poor people from being cheated out of their mortgages by fraudulent lenders, too. For the cons, that’s a lot to hate.
Having pointed out the truth to you now, ACORN is not a corporation, neal. It’s a non-profit, which must be another thing you love to hate about them. If only they made several billion off of the working class and the poor, and then off-shored it to keep from paying taxes, and then turned some of those profits back around into GOP campaign donations, you could definitely find some love for them. But then, we could just change their name to something like Halliburton, or Bechtel.
Belonging to the party of Chicago as you do, it’s no wonder you stick up for corruption.
You really are scared that getting out the message will sink the Dimmocrats, aren’t you? Good.
Just to keep you on topic, the message the Supreme Court just sent to both politicians and corporate America alike is, “If you’ve got the money, honey, we’ve got the time”. If you are asking me if that scares me, sure it does. Your vote, my vote, any persons vote, was just devalued this week by a high court decision. We all know that when corporations funnel money into campaigns, their voice becomes louder than that of the voter. The true essence of a democracy, as the Framers had intended, was to put electoral control solely in the hands of the citizens, and to do everything possible to protect that ideal. Is the Supreme Court’s decision this week any sort of “message” to brag about, unless you and your party has to resort to the wholesale purchase of Congress to win anything?
This is slightly off topic, but a little geography lesson here for neal: Chicago is in Illinois, which is still part of America.
My vote is still worth “1″…
Funny you never complained when unions dominated elections..
Now, Drew…take a deep breath….calm down…that vein in your forehead is bulging dangerously.
Watch some football..
Your vote is worth “one” what exactly?. Now that big biz has been allowed to come in and buy the favor of politicians, that kind of trumps our vote. Just to set you straight, unions never “dominated elections”, at any time in this country’s history. At one point, a long, long time ago, they wielded more political influence than they do now, and I had no problem with that at all, since unions work for the working middle class. Since corporations work only for themselves and their shareholders (a much smaller yet more privileged demographic), they should not be considered as individuals deserving of free speech protections in the form of limitless campaign contributions. Even McCain said this week that the decision has effectively declared campaign finance reform dead in America. Sarah Palin is silent on this so far, because conservative media has nothing to criticize over the Supreme Court decision, so she has no way to form an opinion on her own.
Perhaps it will now be OK for corporations to run for office, now that the Supremes have determined they’re “people deserving…”
“Union dominated elections”…when was that an issue Neal? Unions represent 18% of the working population. Back when they were upwards of 30% there was still negotiations between employer and employee and a higher rate of living. Not so today. Which unions are flush with money that can compete with big corpo?
I asked earlier who had paid for Sarah Palin’s motorcoach- for a person running around to canceled book signings while claiming to be broke, the acquisition of a promotional tool on wheels with a pricetag between $500k and $750k smells of a campaign contribution if she finally admits she’s running for something.
Drew, Nice to watch you expend so much energy on Ms. Palin.
Keep an eye on that blood pressure…especially here in Yakima.
First, the cartoon says it best:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/anntelnaes/?name=Telnaes&date=01252010&type=c&hpid=opinionsbox1
Corporations
Current expenditures:~$3.5billion
Potential new “torrent”: ~$21 billion
Unions
Current expenditures~$1.5 billion
Potential new “torrent”: $0
The unions have less money today because union membership is down 10%
I find it interesting that some of you think that you are going to benefit from this.
It also allows foriegn corporations to influence elections to which Sen. DeMint said ” I dinnn’t know thaut”?
Union membership is down for a reason…I for one, have been a union member, then got a non-union job, I will never go back to a union job again, it sounds like 10% of former union members may feel the same way!
I find it interesting that some of you find this problematic…do you feel this gives democrats a disadvantage? Do you think that upholding a constitutional right is bad for America, or just bad for democrats?
http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/01/23/the-u-s-supreme-court-decision-corporations-and-politics/
it doesn’t look like it favors republicans to much to me… but maybe this chart is wrong.
Jason, it’s totally a bi-partisan issue if corporations control both parties. The founding fathers were against this intrusion and it is not in the Constitution that a corporation has the same rights as people. McCain/Feingold had set limits on corporate and other donations along with PAC money. 24 states that had their own rules on campaign donations now may be invalided by this.
Jason, I agree with mainstreeter..this is not a right-left issue. There is potential for this to have far reaching effects on all of us.
Not that it hasn’t already been happening to some extent. When you look at the financing behind the movement in California to overturn legalized gay marriage, it turns out that the Mormon church is funding most of it. Now, Im not asking to get into a discussion about whether or not gay marriage is a good or bad thing. What bothers me most is that a church, acting like a corporation, bought massive political influence. I don’t want any church or any corporation, or any foreign government acting through a corporation, to financially influence laws in my country. I want this to remain a country run by its citizens as a whole. The cartoon I posted above says it all for me.
Regardless of our ideologies, we should all want the same thing for our country–WE decide, through our electoral process, how we want to be governed. That means our 1$ contributions or our 100$ contributions go toward the people we think will best represent us, and will listen to us and will try to do their best for us. A multi-million contribution from one corporation, whose bottom line is profit, should not supercede what we want.
The party Streeter thought would be in power forever sure does complain a lot..
Neal we explain, you complain or at the very least, attack the poster.
Me complain?? I’m far too happy watchin’ y’all bitch and moan to complain…
BRING IT ON!!
Neal, this is why so few of us attempt to explain our side on anything. Why bother when you just dismiss it? I’m sorry I went to the trouble. I won’t waste my time again.
Corie, Jason’s last link did far more to explain the situation than any of your “doomsday projections” that haven’t yet and are unlikely to occur.
Mainstreeter
The founding fathers were against the intrusion of GOVERNMENT in our lives. People have constitutional rights and corporations are made up of people, why should we deny them constitutional rights because they belong to a corporation…the constitution does not exclude people based on the color of their skin, their religion, their sex, etc. so why should we exclude corporations, unions, or media?
No Jason, corporations are not defined as people in the Constitution as people live and die.
The Federal Constitution of 1788 did not mention corporations, thereby leaving the chartering of corporations to the states,
mainstreeter
“The Federal Constitution of 1788 did not mention corporations, thereby leaving the chartering of corporations to the states,”
I am surprised that you admitted this…the Constitution does NOT mention that the federal government has any power over corporations, and is up to the STATES to “charter” so the recent judicial ruling is returning rights to the corporations that the federal government unconstitutionally took from them.
There were no rights in the beginning, it is not a return to anything. People are people, I’m surprised you’d let a corporation take over politics given your point of view.
Despite not being natural persons, corporations are, and have been, recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like people.
The United States, HAS recognized corporations as having rights to contract, and to have those contracts honored the same as contracts entered into by natural persons, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward. Corporations were recognized as persons for purposes of the 14th Amendment in an 1886 Supreme Court Case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, our history shows that in many cases, corporations have been treated or recognized as people, more recent law has changed that until the Supreme Court decision most recently. Corporations will not take over politics…WE still VOTE for our elected officials, WE still have a say in who is representing us.
Swiftboating is very expensive. That’s why republicans like jason like this new decision.