The Supreme Court has opened the corporate money floodgates for the next election:
In a ruling that radically reshapes campaign-finance law, the Supreme Court has struck down a key provision of the McCain-Feingold measure that bars corporations and unions from pouring money into political ads.
I’m not sure how that will play out, but it sure will make it more difficult for a reformer to win any seat up against unparalleled corporate dollars. On the other hand, this may be a bigger threat to Democracy (via Jamison Foser):
The deep political sophistication of NBC’s static display of Beltway nepotism, Luke Russert.
I’m done with the internet for a while.
Brian J
Maybe I am hallucinating, but did I just see Scott Brown on MSNBC claim that the Massachusetts plan is in place without new taxes? If so, did I miss something?
Brian J
Perhaps this can be something on which the Democrats can campaign for 2010.
Skepticat
Given the SCOTUS ruling, I’m pretty much done with this country’s politics for a while. If you need me, I’ll be the one whimpering in the corner.
Trinity
This little democratic experiment we tried was quite fun.
Morbo
Luke Russert: Professional Serious(TM) Journalist
Uriel
I think Russert makes a sophisticated and trenchant argument regarding the unfortunate political realities and hurdles that face the Democratic party in trying to establish it’s presence in a center right nation.
Also, Edwards had shiny hair, which hurt him in the primaries, I’m told.
eastriver
“Remember the force, Luke.”
Stroszek
Well, I think we know who is going to win the “Shittiest Week Ever” contest.
General Winfield Stuck
No surprise. The horrow show of the 2010 midterms will be Dantes Inferno times 10. I am just glad I hardly watch teevee anymore. Obama is the devil will be primetime, all the time.
The wingnut baby jeevus is gurgling with delight.
slag
Maybe Luke Russert is being sarcastic. Those two things are totally something I would tweet (if I tweeted any longer, that is). Of course, I would be tweeting those things in the process of making fun of the media. And possibly Luke Russert. So, on the otherhand…
Why does my generation have to be the one in which parody dies?
Demo Woman
Hmmm.. Because of Supreme court rulings Corporate can now control elections. A previous ruling personified corporations.
Hmmm.. Now what do we call this.
Douche Baggins
Fuckity fuck fuck. The best gummint money can buy.
Pasquinade
Now political candidates can have wardrobes and vehicles like NASCAR.
GReynoldsCT00
<blockquote Now what do we call this.
fucked
Riggsveda
You’re not fooling anyone.
GReynoldsCT00
“Now what do we call this.”
Fucked
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
I’d have less problem with it if candidates were required to wear snazzy uniforms with the names of their sponsors in big print, like NASCAR.
slag
@Stroszek: Didn’t we just come off the “Shittiest Decade Ever”? Now we’re parsing our shittiness into weeks. Then, does that, on the aggregate level, add up to more or less shittiness at the end of this decade than the last?
ajr22
Having luke on TV just sets a bad precedent. I’m young, and the thought of turning the news on in 20 years and seeing Hannity’s or any other fox assholes kids reporting fair and balanced news makes me want to cry. At least we know Rush’s kid wont be serious journalist derp.
Brian J
@Stroszek:
Every time it seems like that will be the case, we manage to see a new low.
Robin G.
Honestly, I never thought the legislation was that good to begin with. There was always tons of ways to get around it.
Realistically, until we compel television stations to provide X number of commerical slots for free to candidates (and then no more), there’s very little reform that will really have an impact.
Demo Woman
@GReynoldsCT00: Your correct. I was actually looking for that other F word but it’s all the same isn’t it.
arguingwithsignposts
Wait, don’t tell me. It was 5-4. I wonder which justices were the 5?
Gus
@Riggsveda: Exactly. Be prepared for a flurry of posts.
Jim
I, of course, blame Obama, and would like to take this moment to point out once again that there was no difference between Gore and Bush.
And where do Zucker and Ebersol fit into the decision to higher not-so-little Luke?
Kryptik
@ajr22:
The saddest thing is that, as bad as Luke is…it could be worse.
We could have Doocy Jr.
Jim
@arguingwithsignposts:
I was running through the justices in my head, counting on my fingers, and could only come up with eight. When I reached for a pen and paper to work it out, I realized I had been counting “Scalito” on one finger.
Damn snarky intertoobz broke my brayne.
Mike in NC
Plus, this is Very Good News for John McCain, because that fraud was never really in favor of campaign finance reform, he was just trying out his mavericky schtick for the media stenographers to gush over.
Sly
Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito in favor. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. Starts on page 8. Concurrences by other justices follow.
Stevens, Breyer, Ginsberg, Sotomayor against. Stevens wrote the dissent. Same link, page 88.
And Luke Russert is further evidence that I took the wrong career path.
PeakVT
The “heightening the contradictions” crowd will be pleased. But they’ll be fucked along with the rest of us.
zzyzx
Damn activist judges. I look forward to seeing National Review’s rant against this decision…
Zach
Translation:
Thomas’ dissent is hilarious. Lots of mystery left in how he’ll rule on the Prop 8 disclosure stuff. So, privacy from other people: OK. Privacy from government: No way!
And the logic behind ignore stare decisis appears to revolve around the overturned decision being recent… it’s justified with quotes from minority opinions.
General Winfield Stuck
Hah! thanks for the morning chuckle.
batgirl
@arguingwithsignposts: Yes and in a system where there are only two parties that can win, the crappy (Democrats) and the very crappy (Republicans), this is why I will not throw away my vote. I will continue to vote D for one reason only, the Supreme Court.
By the way, did you notice that Thomas alone thinks disclosure rules are unconstitutional? In other words, corporations should be able to buy everyone without the terrible, intrusive eyes of the public. Poor corporations.
Thomas clarification: From scotusblog:
** Disclosure requirement: Any corporation that spends more than $10,000 in a year to produce or air the kind of election season ad covered by federal restrictions must filea report with the Federal Election Commission revealing the names and addresses of anyone who contributed $1,000 or more to the ad’s preparation or distribution.
** Disclaimer requirement: If a political ad is not authorized by a candidate or a political committee, the broadcast of the ad must say who is responsible for its content, plus the name and address of the group behind the ad.
Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter as the Court upheld those requirements.
Senyordave
Maybe I am hallucinating, but did I just see Scott Brown on MSNBC claim that the Massachusetts plan is in place without new taxes? If so, did I miss something?
Brian J,
Because obviously that has worked so well, and actual costs are only about 100% higher than original estimates. Brown sounds like a true dolt (a JAG lawyer who doesn’t believe waterboarding is torture – I guess the museum in Cambodia should remove their exhibit showing totrure under the Khmer Rouge since it includes waterboarding). do wonder if that shitbag ever apologized for questioning whether Obama was born out of wedlock. Maybe we should question whether Brown’s daughters sleep around. Below is some Wikipedia info about the Mass Health Care plan. No new taxes but the plan costs a billion a year, guess it depends on how you define new taxes.
From Wikipedia
In February 2008 the Boston Globe reported that Commonwealth Care covered 169,000 people and had a projected cost of $618 million for the fiscal year. By June 2011 enrollment is projected to grow to 342,000 people at an annual expense of $1.35 billion. The original projections were for the program to ultimately cover approximately 215,000 people at a cost of $725 million.[43] Enrollment in the Commonwealth Care Health Insurance Program reached approximately 170,000 by April 1 of 2008. Enrollment in the Commonwealth Choice Plans, offered through the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector, was almost 18,000 by the same date. Enrollment in the Commonwealth’s Medicaid program, MassHealth, was up by 50,000 by January 2008. Data from the Massachusetts Association of Health plans suggest that enrollment in employer-sponsored health insurance was up by 85,000, but the number of people with individual coverage increased by less than 10,000.[44]
In March 2008 the Boston Globe reported that some “safety-net” hospitals serving low-income individuals in urban areas were facing budget shortfalls due to the combination of reduced “free-care” payments from the state and low enrollment in Commonwealth Care. The reduced state payments anticipated that by reducing the number of uninsured people Commonwealth Care would reduce the amount of charity care provided by hospitals.[45] In a subsequent story that same month the Globe reported that Commonwealth Care faced a short-term funding gap of $100 million and the need to obtain a new three-year funding commitment from the federal government of $1.5 billion. The Globe reported that a number of alternatives were under consideration for raising additional funding, including a $1 per pack increase in the state’s cigarette tax. Health care costs in the state were rising at an annual rate of 10 percent, and the state budget deficit was $1.3 billion.[46]
In April 2008, a dissertation by a student in partial completion of his PhD requirements was published analyzing the impact of Massachusetts approach to health financing reform, insurance mandates, on the rate of new business starts was completed.[47] The study found that new business starts were reduced in Massachusetts by 16%, and that this reduction included displacement of new firm starts across the state line into New Hampshire. In addition, the study found some evidence that this effect did not vary based on the size of the firm, but may have had a more negative effect on new businesses owned by women. The study’s author suggested that were this approach to become a model of national health finance reform, that it would have an especially profound impact on physically small states such as those in New England where jurisdictional arbitrage is potentially a practical consideration for entrepreneurs. The study does not appear to control for other economic factors such as the start of a global recession; the new business data driving the study was collected in summer and fall of 2007 from a direct marketing database that takes up to 9 months to update.
Massachusetts’ problem of overcrowded waiting rooms and overworked primary-care physicians (who were already in short supply) has been exacerbated by the influx of patients now covered.One criticism of the program is that it has done nothing to realign incentives for MDs to provide primary care.[48].[49]
arguingwithsignposts
@Sly:
I was joking, of course. But while I would never pray for someone’s untimely death, I would pray that three of those f**kers would decide it’s time to retire and go fishing at some point during the next three years.
Yes, I’m looking at you, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy. (Alito and Roberts are too young, unfortunately.)
Oh, and just another chance to raise a big middle finger to GWB. You manage to keep f**king our country over, even in retirement.
Woodrowfan
another 5-4 RW SC screwing of the people. With concurring opinion written by Ralph Nadar and his voters in 2000. Fuck the lot of them (at least those in Florida and NH).
Jim C
I guess we should be thankful Last Russ Standing has never heard of Preston Brooks or Strom Thurmond – he might have cited them.
maya
And which finger was that, exactly?
chopper
well, democracy was fun while it lasted.
arguingwithsignposts
@batgirl:
Yes, Thomas is an idjit. I actually had the chance to meet Thomas once during a 90-minute q&a session. He was actually very affable, funny, generous with his time, and had an interesting life story.
But Ronald Reagan broke his brain, and he never recovered.
Leelee for Obama
@Demo Woman: I’m not sure…I think Mussolini said it was FASCISM, which, according to him, was better described as CORPORATISM. Yup, that’s it! What do I win?
DougJ
Those Luke Russert twitters really made my day. So dumb.
Waynski
@General Winfield Stuck
Indeed. JC is as committed to going Gault on the Internet as I am with cigarettes and booze. Expect a flurry of one-handed posts to follow.
Admiral_Komack
Luke Russert:
Affirmative Action, meet Nepotism.
“How ya doin'”
nancydarling
John,
Maybe it’s time for a constitutional convention. Under Article V of the constitution, if two thirds of the state legislatures call for it, it can be done. To my knowledge, this provision has never been used.
If we don’t get the money influence out of Congress and our elections, there is no hope for us. Congress and the corporate elite are addicted to it. They need an intervention!
“Money talks. But it can’t dance and sing and it don’t walk.”
Demo Woman
@Leelee for Obama: Because of recent Supreme Court rulings and Fox news proselytizing and we can all pretend to be living in Italy in the 1930’s.
We all lose.
Glocksman
@DougJ:
I dunno.
Speaking as one who frequently creates Palin Word Salads™ himself, Russert could be making a ham handed attempt to be sarcastic.
The problem with twitter is that you simply don’t have the space to make it clear what you’re doing.
If John started twitting about his love for Sarah, all of us here would know he’s fucking with us.
Those who just stumbled on his tweets for the first time would probably believe he was serious.
mcd410x
At least we now know for sure what we all suspected: Political parties only represent big biz.
Fuck it — I’m going out to enjoy the day before working for a company which can tell me what to do/think/feel/vote for 24 hours a day. Yay!
gypsy howell
Well, this will save me the few pennies I used to throw at campaigns. No point trying to compete with Goldman Sachs and UnitedHealth.
Zach
The thing that amazed me about the MA campaign was that no on in the Coakley campaign bothered to calculate and communicate the extent to which health care reform would benefit the state of MA. It seems obvious that since MA already has a mandate, it would be immune from the negative impact of reform and benefit hugely from the Medicare expansion and subsidies. The average resident would save money.
This actually isn’t the only thing that amazed me, I guess, but it’s up there as the most important. A close second is why Coakley’s campaign didn’t exclusively consist of airing ads of Brown praising Palin’s VP candidacy. That alone would guarantee a win.
gypsy howell
Just one question — will the trains run on time?
Waynski
@Glocksman — I think JC tweets unless I’m unhip to current intertooby lexicon this week. Twitting, however, seems to be a perfect description of what Luke Russert is doing.
arguingwithsignposts
@Glocksman:
Apparently, there’s a company that’s produced a sarcasm punctuation mark: SarcMark. Problem is, it costs $1.99.
ETA: and naturally, it’s not available yet for the Mac. Because us Mac users are Very Serious People(tm) who would never be sarcastic on the Internets.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Glocksman: Does anyone know what the XM in Little Russert’s Twitter handle mean? I hope it’s not that he has a show on satellite radio.
Jim
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
He and Mr Matalin had sports talk show years ago on XM. Don’t know if it’s still on, but it was long enough ago that his pop-eyed Poppa used a couple of minutes on MTP to do an oh-so-adorable promo of it with Mr and Mrs Matalin. Even Lady McBotox managed to rearrange her frozen sneer into a shit-eating grin for it. God, I hate those people.
Glocksman
@Waynski:
I guess I just demonstrated that Meghan McCain is more ‘hip’ and ‘with it’ than I am.
Then again, I really don’t follow popular culture much and even made a point to tell (at the time) Cingular to turn off texting on my new cellphone.
Not because I’m a luddite but because I didn’t want to pay for spam texts that might show up.
JenJen
OMFG, Luke Russert. I mean, Jesus.
This is why I’ve avoided the blogs and “Morning Joe” since Tuesday.
Leelee for Obama
@Demo Woman: I would say that Italy in the 1930’s might have been better. At least the people KNEW they had Fascists running things-here and now, not so much. Toobin is talking about this decision right now.
I am not surprised, just depressed.
Damn!
Oh, John, you know you can’t quit us. Good on ya, if you manage it, but I’ll be checking in, just in case!
Why does Luke Russert have a presence in my life? Inquiring minds want to know.
Xenos
Stick a fork in us. We are done.
I am moving to Europe for a few years for business reasons. Now I don’t know if it will be worth coming back. I suppose I ought to keep my 401(k) here, because Wall Street is going to run the country.
What a fucking waste of a perfectly good country.
Sentient Puddle
Sense of doom ‘n gloom is limited with me because honestly, who didn’t see this coming? Once it was (moronically) held that corporations count as people, it seems to be a given that a ruling like this would eventually slide along. I’ve already mustered out about as much frustration I can out of it.
I’m also thinking that somebody somewhere is going to figure out how to game these new rules to our benefit. I mean, the last round of campaign finance reform was supposed to totally fuck up Democrats because they were the party more reliant on big donations. I just don’t yet know how to go about exploiting this ruling…
Glocksman
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
IIRC, he’s done a sports show on XM in the past.
That said, XM has a political channel called POTUS that I listened to for a while back during the 08 election season.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that the total headcase from the right that I kept hearing snippets from during panel discussions turned out to be our beloved Erick Erickson.
slag
@Glocksman: I often say “twitted” because it’s grammatically more explicable than “tweeted”. They don’t call the service “Tweeter”, after all. Plus, I’ve determined that “twitted” is an accurate representation no matter who’s doing it.
jayjaybear
@Sly:
You mean that your father took the wrong career path, don’t you?
scav
ditto on whimpering in corner and request for big print sponsor uniforms. Although I don’t know where Senator Beefcake is going to put his. Tattoos are kinda permanent and that would get in the way of truly free enterprise and speech as now mandated by the SCOTUS ruling. really really ditto on the whimpering. we could reaching chorus stage here.
4tehlulz
The obvious solution to this is for everyone to buy a PO box in the Caymans and incorporate.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Sly:
Good thing we wised up in 2000 to the “fact” that both parties are the same and Gore-Bush were just tweeddledee and tweedledum. Oh, and 8 years of one party or the other picking SCOTUS nominees has no lasting consequences.
/headdesk
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Glocksman: I feel for you re: Erick Erickson. I’d rather stick my head in a blender then read or hear him.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Jim: Now that you mention it, I do remember about his talk show with Mr. Matalin. Did anyone ever listen to that? Was Little Russert as bad on sports as he is on politics?
Corner Stone
Honestly, I don’t know why anyone is freaking out about this ruling. It changes nothing.
Tell me again where Tauzin works? Evan Bayh’s wife? Tom Daschle? And on and on.
chopper
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
apparently elections have consequences.
Xenos
@scav: It is not whimpering when it is a very real, possibly fatal wounding of the Constitution. This changes the ground came quite significantly. The next generation, shut out of jobs and social security, is going to be very heavily radicalized.
bayville
Uh oh!
Last time I read that here someone followed that up with six rapid-fire prolific posts in a four hour span, eventually culminating in a frantic 24-hour candidate fundraising drive.
Fasten your seat belts.
Drew
So, can the president now order a corporation to be waterboarded?
scav
@Xenos: you think I don’t know that? I’m whimpering in that key, or at least was trying to do so. and I lack your faith in the radicalization of the unemployed, they may just go randomly violent and usually go xenophobic.
Michael
“Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Federalist Society” should be a question at every confirmation hearing from now on.
Maybe I can emigrate to France.
tomvox1
It could be argued that Edwards was emulating JFK’s style and maybe a little too much in his off hours…
ABS
He is to political reporting like Kenny Albert is to sportscasting
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@ABS: I was thinking that Little Luke could be more like Marv Albert. Then I remembered Marv had to take a year off and has been on TV ever since.
liberal
@nancydarling:
Given the rank stupidity of a large fraction of the American public and their servants, I think this is actually a very bad idea.
Mithras
Clearly, this is all Obama’s fault.
Waynski
@Drew
FTW!
slag
@Mithras: And excellent news for Hillary.
Chad N Freude
I hope this isn’t a dead thread now, because I would like to ask if the SCOTUS will next rule that corporations have the right to marry.
Waynski
@Chad N Freude — I think they already do with mergers and acquisitions.
ron
idiocracy is prophecy.
http://happyvalleynews.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/camacho.jpg
BombIranForChrist
James Carville once said that he thought there should be no limits on campaign contributions whatsoever, the theory being that it would essentially level the field.
This sounds preposterous to me, but I do wonder … if, as a thought experiment, we gave competing politicians one trillion kabillion dollars to run their campaigns, there would quickly be diminishing returns, right? I mean, you can only put up so many TV commercials or staff so many small towns with GOTV campaigns before you reach a saturation point.
In some ways, our current system may make the super rich even more powerful, because they are the only ones rich enough to hire lawyers to circumvent the entire system. If the money floodgates were open, I still think a reform candidate could win.
Or am I just high? Again. On glue. Cheap glue.
Douglas Watts
If you were an advantageous sort, you’d start giving $$$ to unions and others to run ads.
Chad N Freude
@Waynski: I believe that those are domestic partnerships.
Vance Maverick
Does Russert know that JFK upset America by dressing casually too — in his case, by not wearing a hat? Rhetorical question.
Chad N Freude
@Vance Maverick: Scandalous at the time, but he liberated us from having to wear hats as business dress ever again.
Will
I don’t know. I’m drinking about as heavily as I possibly can these days. This is going to be a challenge…
Vance Maverick
@Chad — right. My point is that JFK is not an example of conservatism in dress (even if literally dressing like him, today, would be conservative).
Chad N Freude
@Vance Maverick: 21st century conservative dress = Not wearing pants-on-the-ground.
Sentient Puddle
@BombIranForChrist:
That sounds about right. What will happen instead, I think, is costs will go up. Media markets will charge more for advertising, staffers will demand higher salaries, etc.
So yes, it will correct itself. Just probably not in the way we hope.
trollhattan
Why does the Supreme Court hate America? Oh wait, that was by design. Freaking Kennedy–some “centrist.”
Chad N Freude
@Sentient Puddle: You are describing the Free Market in Action(tm).
Chad N Freude
@trollhattan: I suppose now we’ll have to let megacorporations move into the house next door, too, and not use derogatory language when talking about them. Next: Special parking spaces reserved for corporations, to be known as Incredibly Unhandicapped Parking.
Mike G
Luke Russert: like a child pretending to be a journalist.
Ailuridae
@Senyordave:
Not sure what you are arguing re: the Massachusetts plan. Yes, a lot more people are being covered than anticipated but they are being covered at the anticipated rate. Its not really the fault of the designers of that health care system that the world wide economy assploded.
Unless I am missing something they are providing pretty good quality medical care at < 4K per.
Ailuridae
@Zach:
There was no Medicare expansion in either the Senate or House plan.
medicare medicaid.
Wealthy heavily blue states like MA are likely not going to benefit much from reform. They are more likely to already be working towards universal coverage through state systems (and taxation) and as they are net creditors to the federal government they are likely to pay more of their share of any attempt to create national universal coverage. One of the unmentioned challenges for Democrats is that as more of these states address coverage it’ll be tougher to address this as a national issue. Basically its a problem of federalsim.
Ailuridae
@Corner Stone:
Per usual expert analysis! Nothing will change at all as its not just already bad, its already so bad it can’t get worse!
No, actually, this is a big fucking deal.
Xanthippas
If I hear another conservative bitch about “judicial activism” I’m going to print out all 183 pages of this decision and shove it up their ass, one page at a time.
Chris
Well, since his dad was a shameless hack who couldn’t help providing constant lip service to Republicans, why should he be any different?
Judas Peckerwood
What Chris @#104 said.
Bill Walker
For the reference of all discussing this issue. There are two methods whereby the Constitution can be amended by proposing amendments. Both methods require ratification of the states of the amendment proposal for it to become part of the Constitution. The first is by Congress, the second an Article V Convention. Article V mandates Congress call a convention if 34 states (2/3rds) so apply.
The Congressional Record shows all 50 states have submitted 750 applications for an Article V Convention call. The texts of the applications can be read at http://www.foavc.org.