Today’s Supreme Court ruling scares the hell out of me. Michael Waldman:
The decision portends an even more deregulatory thrust in campaign finance. Another big campaign finance case soon likely to reach the high court would test the ban on large “soft money” contributions to political parties, last upheld by the court in 2003. Just days after John McCain’s presidential campaign ended, the Republican National Committee sued to overturn the provision that was his proudest legislative accomplishment. That would mark a true plunge into partisan wars. Explaining the case, the RNC’s political director was blunt: To have a chance of matching Obama’s small donations, “we need to be on an equal footing, and we think that law [McCain-Feingold] keeps us from doing that.”
What will this mean for Obama’s broader agenda? Health care, climate change, financial reregulation, the auto bailout — all heighten government’s role in the economy. The Citizens United ruling suggests the court may smile on even the most audacious conservative legal theories, such as those alleging that regulations are an improper taking by the government. And it shows an unsettling eagerness to overturn precedent in line with ideological predilection. The five votes may be fleeting, depending on who leaves the court next, but the Roberts majority appears ready to use its power while it has it. The Supreme Court and its role may well become a contested issue in this and upcoming elections — as it has been through much of American history. This time it will be progressives demanding an end to judicial activism.
The Bush era was foisted upon us by the Supreme Court. And the Roberts Court is just another instrument of Republican obstruction.
Kryptik
What’s even more terrifying is that we’ll lose the GOOD justices we have before the truly awful ones. Of the ones under 70, we have….Thomas, Alito, Roberts, and Sotomayor.
….fuck, I didn’t need to depress myself even more tonight.
Will
I am feeling so god damn crushed by this ruling today. It’s like the Supreme Court came and stomped all the life out of the progessive movement for at least a generation. “Fuck you and your elections” is really what they’re saying. I feel completely powerless now as a citizen.
I know I’m being a bit emotional…
Citizen Alan
Oh, now people get it. Just weeks ago, people outright laughed at me here when I said the Supreme Court would probably find a universal mandate unconstitutional. This is what I was talking about. Constitutional now means “whatever the Roberts 5 agree is constitutional,” and the Roberts 5 will seize any opportunity to create new precedent for the sole purpose of undermining the Democratic party. Did people not read Bush V. Gore when it came out?
General Winfield Stuck
He’s not the only one, however Michael Waldman is.
this is the wingnut world with 5 of it’s robed members telling you libtard, times up with this namby pamby liberal shit, welcome to the coming fascist Oligarchy
r€nato
A fucking men.
Maybe Obama should propose adding a few justices to the Supreme Court to correct its runaway judicial activism.
wmd
The prospect of foreign powers contributing is the scariest part of the ruling, at least for me.
DougJ
Oh, now people get it. Just weeks ago, people outright laughed at me here when I said the Supreme Court would probably find a universal mandate unconstitutional. This is what I was talking about.
If I laughed at you, sorry, I was wrong, you were right.
Yutsano
@r€nato: Yeah, except that worked the last time it was tried really well too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Reorganization_Bill_of_1937
General Winfield Stuck
What dems need to do pronto is start a movement for a
Constitutional Amendment to ban private financing for elections. It won’t pass anytime soon, but it will gain favor with voters over time when they are bombarded with psychotic ad wars and coming GOP governance. Maybe even many current goopers will sign on that aren’t fully assimilated by the rage virus of tea bag types.
Alex S.
Just like Roe vs. Wade was the last delayed glimpse of the Great Society, the Roberts court will continue to execute the Bush agenda for several more years.
General Winfield Stuck
@Citizen Alan: Not me, I have expected just what happened. But have mostly blocked it out of my mind since we discussed it here back in the summer.
Alex S.
By the way, that quote from the RNC is so cyncial it hurts. They need to repeal McCain-Feingold to match Obama’s donations? Well, it seems that Obama actually had more support than the RNC…. the RNC is basically asking for a disolution of democracy. And that’s exactly what they got. It’s a plutocracy now.
Comrade Kevin
and, of course, over on the GOS, there are people calling for the 5 SCOTUS members to be brought up on treason charges, dragged out and shot, etc.
SGEW
Remember, everyone:
“Original Intent” is to be taken literally, viz., a racially and religiously segregated slave-holding oligarchic Republic.
All this “founding fathers” talk should be taken at face value.
Eljai
I kept breaking into tears during Keith Olbermann tonight. Okay, I did drink a bottle of wine, true. But this is bad. During the Bush years I came dangerously close to turning into a wild-eyed creature stopping people on the street to implore “Can’t you see what’s happening, people? Don’t you see what they’re doing to us?” Jesus on a Junebug, I thought last year’s election bought us some time.
Citizen Alan
@General Winfield Stuck:
I would go even farther if possible:
Amendment 28
Section 1: The word “person” as used in this Constitution shall refer exclusively to natural persons and not to corporations or to any other type of fictitious person. Any legal or judicial precedents which purport to suggest otherwise, including but not limited to Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, are hereby null and void.
Section 2: As all corporations and other similar fictitious persons are creatures of statute, no corporation or other similar entity shall be presumed to have any rights, privileges or immunities other than those expressly granted by federal or state statute.
Section 3: The several states shall have the power through legislation to define the rights, privileges and immunities of corporate entities operating within their borders, except that any state law granting such rights, privileges and immunities which conflicts with any federal law is preempted by such federal law where Congress has clearly expressed its desire to preempt the laws of the several states.
Kryptik
@Eljai:
Last year’s election should’ve been the catalyst to right the ship.
Instead, it’s hastened the sinking.
SGEW
@Citizen Alan:
Na. Ga. Happen. Good stuff tho’.
Anyway, if we were to have a successfully ratified amendment, it’ll be probably be more along the lines of codifying the right to have grenade launchers, or denying evolution, or something. To tell the truth, I’m kind of glad that amendments are so practically difficult to pass.
General Winfield Stuck
@SGEW: Probly not gonna happen, at least anytime soon. But when the sewage hits the air waves, and it will be something to behold, it will begin to change minds, and thus it is a good political issue for dems to hawk, and at least perform some political theater of holding votes and such.
The Raven
Hi, Doug!
Croak! & lots of scolding noises to the Senate’s conservative Democrats, who let the Bush II administration create a conservative majority on the Court.
drillfork
Just watched Olbermann’s comment on this.
This time, we are truly fucked…
mogden
Oh no! People can speak! Even people with money! How horrible!
General Winfield Stuck
@mogden: Money ain’t people, unless your a wingnut.
edit- and I have never heard a dollar bill utter a word.
BeccaM
Our side is partly to blame: Our Democratic Senators refused to filibuster these SCOTUS reactionaries.
Think Obama could get anyone even vaguely left of center on the bench today, with 41 GOP votes in the Senate? Yet Thomas, Scalia, Alito, and Roberts all got through with less than a 60 vote GOP Senate majority.
Cain
I think it’s time for plan c, I will lead an army of cats that will swarm over the SCOTUS and have them lick the skin of their collective faces!
Where is underdog when you need him?
cain
Mari
@Comrade Kevin:
Declaring Scalia and enemy combatant and sending him to Gitmo would have a nice ironic ring to it…
MikeJ
@General Winfield Stuck:
http://www.movetoamend.org/we-corporations
mogden
Government financing for elections is just such a horrible idea. It seems pretty obvious that the system will immediately be manipulated for the benefit of those in office.
The Republic of Stupidity
@General Winfield Stuck:
Well… according to Bob Dylan, money doesn’t talk… it swears.
The Republic of Stupidity
@mogden:
If you want to be taken seriously, and not just laughed at, you better explain that very, very well…
Me?
I’m betting you can’t.
mogden
It seems very obvious to me so we probably have pretty different world views. I see politics as being operated for the benefit of the politicians. Giving a strong public financing role and restricting private contributions to political campaigns will strengthen incumbents and weaken electoral checks on them (which are already woefully weak).
MelodyMaker
Calgon take me away!
Ancient Chinese secret, huh?
We’ll all be slaves to big detergent in a month or so.
And for context, I was mortified when Unilever sucked up Ben and Jerry. oh, fuk. Amy “Medtronic” Klobuchar– I’m not into it. I’m moving to Googlefornia. NOT evil. mhm. It’s in their constitution!
CalD
I was just trying to think of some of the most prominent examples of how politics had really become cleaner, saner, more representative; or how policy had become substantially fairer or more progressive, or how regulation of business had really grown some sharper teeth since those laws went into effect…
…I got nothing. Anybody?
The Republic of Stupidity
@mogden:
Sweet… presupposing I see… that’ll work well here.
Of course, nothing you said here explains why public financing is a bad idea. Incumbents rarely lose as it is. Right now elected officials are basically up for sale. For someone who claims he, or she sees “politics as being operated for the benefit of the politicians” you seem determined to support the status quo you claim to dislike.
Not a particularly lucid view of things, huh?
mogden
It’s a bad idea because it puts more control in the hands of those who benefit from the system – incumbent politicians. They rarely lose because they know how to manipulate the laws to favor themselves. This problem is made even worse by public financing. Look at how the parties conspire to keep any third party from rising up.
I agree with you that there is a “politicians for sale” problem. I just think the proposed remedy is worse than the disease. The only real solution is an aware and motivated citizenry.
MelodyMaker
@CalD:
didn’t work that way yesterday; now it’s out the window, heading for the sidewalk. But I like to be up-beat. (??)
The Republic of Stupidity
@mogden:
Soooooooooooorrry… you STILL haven’t made a credible point. And it also sounds like you’re backing up now, too.
Saying somethings a ‘bad idea because it puts more control in the hands of those who benefit from the system’ doesn’t say anything.
HOW… does it do that? If you can’t explain credibly how that works… you don’t have a point.
After today’s horrendous SCOTUS misfire, corporations are going to be free to dump ENORMOUS amounts of money into elections… make that MULTINATIONAL corporations, to boot.
Speak Chinese? If not, mebbe it’s time to learn…
J. Michael Neal
Big money goes around the world
Big money underground
Big money got a mighty voice
Big money make no sound
Big money pull a million strings
Big money hold the prize
Big money weave a mighty web
Big money draw the flies
Sometimes pushing people around
Sometimes pulling out the rug
Sometimes pushing all the buttons
Sometimes pulling out the plug
It’s the power and the glory
It’s a war in paradise
It’s a Cinderella story
On a tumble of the dice
Big money goes around the world
Big money take a cruise
Big money leave a mighty wake
Big money leave a bruise
Big money make a million dreams
Big money spin big deals
Big money make a mighty head
Big money spin big wheels
Sometimes building ivory towers
Sometimes knocking castles down
Sometimes building you a stairway
Lock you underground
It’s that old time religion
It’s the kingdom they would rule
It’s the fool on television
Getting paid to play the fool
Big money goes around the world
Big money give and take
Big money done a power of good
Big money make mistakes
Big money got a heavy hand
Big money take control
Big money got a mean streak
Big money got no soul…
Texas Dem
I actually think the ruling is good news, over the long run. Corporations already have effective control over our government–any idiot can see that. But now they can really rub our faces in it. There is no question (as Howie Fineman was saying on Olberman Thursday night) that corporations will abuse this new power they’ve been given, and that there will be an ugly populist backlash. It’s only a matter of time. I mean, it’s not like the corporations have done a good job of running the country. Piss on someone long enough and he’ll eventually get up off the mat and punch you in the face. Heighten the contradictions, my friends, heighten the contradictions. It’s the only way.
Anne Laurie
@Mari:
How about charging Opus Dei under the RICO codes for a persistant pattern of criminal behavior? From the Vatican’s behavior when the child-rapist-priest-shuffling scandal exploded, if a federal prosecutor can find an argument to look at the account books, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas & I think Alito would suddenly develop an interest in spending more time with their fellow flagellants…
J. Michael Neal
@Texas Dem: Heightening the contradictions gets you the Bolsheviks. That’s not an improvement.
MelodyMaker
bah. Led Zeppelin.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Anne Laurie:
Awwwwwwwww… don’t get me started…
I’m sitting here right this instant reading Joe Pistone’s third book about his time undercover as Donny Brasco and the major RICO trials against the Mafia he testified in.
I’ve been screaming for YEARS now about RICO charges against the GOP/RNC…
mogden
The way it works is that the people who write the laws, in this case the public financing laws that hypothetically could be passed, put in clauses that benefit themselves. Didn’t I say that already?
Mayken
@mogden: A corporation is a legal construct, not a person.
The Republic of Stupidity
mogden
Nooooooooooooooope… you did not.
You’re also talking about hypotheticals.
Sorry… but that’s NOT a convincing argument.
Anonsters
It’s just another pro-corporation opinion. It didn’t surprise me in the least. Roberts has passionately argued that corporations are just like people (like the you and me kind of people, not fictional legal personhood). Roberts and Alito both are profoundly skeptical of anything that would trench on corporations. And now we find that they have First Amendment rights, just like you and me. Next thing you know, they’ll have a right to vote:
(Stevens’ dissent at 33-34).
Stevens’ dissent is pretty powerful, I thought. And I’ve never seen Stevens so pissed off in an opinion as he is in that dissent.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Mayken:
Don’t overwhelm him/her w/ too much information. mogden is having a hard enough time as it here.
Anonsters
And BTW, the trend that should disturb you more isn’t the Roberts’ court willy-nilly overturning precedent. They’ve actually been relatively modest about that.
They have, however, been extremely aggressive in gutting precedents without explicitly overturning them.
So don’t be surprised if you hear “empirical studies” showing that the Roberts court has been fairly conservative in the number of precedents they’ve overruled, because they don’t often step out and explicitly say that’s what they’re doing. Even if that’s what they all but do in other cases.
Mari
@Anne Laurie:
Even if somebody did RICO Opus Dei, Scalia et el will just sit there even if they’re directly and personally implicated in illegal activities. They lack the integrity to step down voluntarily and the Senate would never vote to convict on impeachment.
America will not survive another 20 years with five wingnuts on the Supreme Court but there is also no entirely constitutional way to fix the problem. At this stage I’m more confident that the United States will break up than confident that the USSC problem will be corrected.
Bob L
@ mogden: did you get the point the according the the Supreme Court in this ruling “citizens who have a voice” now include CityCorp and the People’s Republic of China?
Anonsters
@Bob #51:
Well, to be fair, they didn’t actually explicitly reach the question about foreign-owned corporations, though Stevens’ dissent does argue that the majority’s logic would naturally extend to them.
NYT
The Democrats control the Executive and Legislature and do nothing with them.
The Republicans have control of the Judiciary and they make sure to use it.
What a contrast.
Anne Laurie
@Mari:
Scalia and his buddies don’t respect the rule of law but they claim to deeply, deeply respect their Vatican masters. If charges were bought requiring the Vatican to open its American accounts to legal scrutiny, given the precedent of the LA County priestly child-abuse coverups, the Vatican will immediately order its loyal Opus Dei minions to get the heck out of public service with a swiftness. It might not work for Scalia, because he’s a vainglorious blowhard, but I think Roberts & probably the Me-Too Twins would prefer a “principled” retreat & a cushy aferlife to possible public ignominy and certain punishment in the mooted afterlife.
J. Michael Neal
@Anonsters: It isn’t just that the majority’s logic would naturally extend to them. It’s that anyone can own a US company, in all sorts of ways that don’t make them foreign. If there are no restrictions on what a US company can spend on campaign advertising, there can’t be any restrictions on what a US company that’s constructively owned by foreign interests can spend.
Say, for instance, that a foreign interest buys 51% of a publicly traded company. It could be a really tiny shell company; that’s sufficient to be a conduit. Under this ruling, it’s unconstitutional to treat that company any differently than any other publicly traded company.
Anonsters
@J. Michael Neal:
Except that Congress can perhaps craft regulations to reach foreign-owned corporations. There are already expenditure and contribution bans for foreign nationals, and the Court declined to reach the constitutionality of a regulation designed to prevent foreign-owned corporations from influencing elections. (See the majority opinion at 46-7).
(Which little bit of judicial restraint is ironic, given that they fell all over themselves to render this decision on as broad a ground as possible. For which Stevens tears them a new one. I <3 Stevens.)
J. Michael Neal
@Anonsters:
They may have declined to do so explicitly, but there’s no way that their logic holds together if they permitted exceptions for foreign-owned corporations. The nationality of a corporation isn’t determined by who owns it; it’s determined by where it’s incorporated. Beyond that, there are all sorts of ways of constructively owning a corporation without holding the shares yourself.
What happens if an American employee of a foreign corporation holds the shares of a corporation? So long as he is employed by the foreign company, they contract with it for services. Oddly enough, the company proceeds to use most of its revenues to purchase political advertisements.
Or, a foreign owned company doesn’t purchase political advertisements directly, but contributes to a non-profit organization that is run by Americans it controls, and they buy the ads.
If a foreign interest can’t figure out how to take advantage of this, they should sue their lawyers for malpractice.
Ravi J
You’re still stuck in Bush v. Gore 2000?
Emo Pantload (fka Studly)
♪Who are the corporations in your neighborhod?
In your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
Say, who are the corporations in your neighborhood?
They’re the corporations that you meet,
As you’re walking down the street,
They’re the corporations that you meet
Each day!♫
Xenos
@Ravi J: The passage of time does not make the decision look more sound. In any case it has no precedential value, right? So we are supposed to forget about it?
Napoleon
Thank God the Dems have balls and blocked the appointment of Roberts and Alito who were obviously far right apparatchiks. Oh wait, they didn’t.
Well at least in the majority the Dems will pass their own agenda. Oh wait, they didn’t do that either.
Bill E Pilgrim
Just when you thought maybe we’d muddle through even the usual Democratic self-inflicted dissaray. the hand of George W Bush reaches out from the nightmarish decade past to strangle Democracy once and for all.
Or something.
It’s been absolutely amazing to watch. In particular watching President Barack Obama take office on a wave of enthusiasm, then extend his hand to the Republicans– and have it promptly bitten off.
Now, he says, he will extend the other hand.
It’s really almost admirable in some sort of weird way, I mean the commitment to his themes outlined in that convention speech in 2004, which is after all what caught everyone’s attention.
It’s also utterly flawed, failed, and destroying everything, right now. As many have pointed out, George W Bush had no such illusions, he smiled and pushed through whatever he damn well wanted, including the gang of five who now set about dismantling our levees against the coming Disneyfication of “democracy”, in which corporations are people, and you’re not.
Lisa K.
Just another reason to say fuck it. We are being taken over by Wal-Mart and BOA.
NovShmozKaPop
I always said that ‘conservative’ Republicans were unable to distinguish between real and imaginary persons, but this…(in Sylvester The Cat’s voice) is ridiculous!
Corporations aren’t people and money isn’t speech.
Lisa K.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Where are Huxley and Orwell when you need them…?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Lisa K.:
They’ve both become corporations, and in fact I must demand that you cease and desist using those names unless accompanied by the appropriate ®, ©, and TM symbols, a list of which you can find in your new corporate citizen-employee handbook, “Ask not what your corporation can do for you. In fact, just ask not. We’ll let you know.” by Roberts, Scalia, et al.
New rules for this Blog will be included in the next ruling. Dress codes will be involved, just to give you a heads up.
arguingwithsignposts
Am I the only one who found this sentence out of place? I mean, thank goodness we haven’t plunged into those wars yet, eh? /sarcasm
now back to read what all the other wise BJ M-Fers said upthread.
Lisa K.
What I would reeeeaaaaallllly like to know is, why are aaaaalllll the conserva-libertari-turds and teabagging fruitcakes who say they do not want government involvement in the affairs of business are for some reason not howling in the streets in protest of this abomination today? I mean, how does this not further entangle the interests of government and private enterprise? Isn’t this exactly what they have been screamin about for a year now? Is complete special interest takeover what they meant when they sobbed, “I want my country back?”
Bill E Pilgrim
@Lisa K.: Supporting the very people who are duping you into paying them for the privilege of keeping you impoverished and powerless is not a bug for the tea bag right, it’s a feature.
kay
I think it’s going to have an anti-democratic effect. Corporations don’t want legislatures to do anything. They spend most of their lobbying time blocking regulation. But regulation really is necessary, if only so consumers have some protections, and access to a forum to enforce a contract they sign with a corporation.
If ordinary individuals can’t compete on access to a legislature, they’ll look to one of two places: an administrative agency action, so an agency head appointed by the executive, or a court.
Lisa K.
@Bill E Pilgrim:
No doubt. To paraphrase Tommy Franks, these are the SFPOTFOTP (Stupidest Fucking People On The Face Of The Planet)
Wilson Heath
The Roberts Court’s conservatives appear incapable of overturning a law or regulation without leaving a policy nightmare in their wake. I’m beginning to think that this is a feature and not a bug.
Was there a Somalia “road movie”? ‘Cause we’re on the road there.
El Cid
The big problem in democracy these days is how tied the politicians still have to be to citizens and voters. This ruling goes a bit more of the way to have an efficient, direct relationship between the nations’ largest, wealthiest corporations and the people they hire to make the policies they prefer.
Unfortunately, for the moment there seems to be little way of getting around the Constitutional ‘elections’ barrier, but I’m sure the Chamber of Commerce and the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Federalist Society are working on legal theories of how we could substitute corporate voters for natural voters, and finally speed up this process.
Remember November
Why do the SCOTUS hate freedom?
I think the Apocalypse will have a smiley face and rollback prices as it’s corporate logo.
bob h
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the principled John McCain to speak out against the gutting of his one legislative accomplishment and lifelong crusade.
Wilson Heath
@Anonsters:
Brilliant. Many of the Pig F-er’s did inversions 5-10 years ago so the U.S. corporations are branches of foreign “parents” that in many cases are a post office box in the Caymans. The conservatard judiciary may be enamored with Bork’s 1st amendment minimalism, which is that the 1st amendment speech protection is just for political speech and little else. What does it matter, then, if a foreigner gets to speak? It’d at least take a hell of a time in court to get that thrown out.
Unfortunately the votes aren’t there to add justices or to reasonably threaten to do so. A shame. Saving nine isn’t worth it 5/9-ths of the time.
tomvox1
But, but, but…both parties are the same, right?
The Grand Panjandrum
Elections have consequences. Had W not been elected this decision would have been 6-3 the other way. Ponder that the next time you decide to sit out a Presidential election.
Constitutional amendment? The Senate could barely pass a modest HCR package, but I guess you have to start somewhere.
Anon
“The Bush era was foisted upon us by the Supreme Court. And the Roberts Court is just another instrument of Republican obstruction.”
The Supreme Court doesn’t foist, it reviews and rules. Do you *really* believe that the Supreme Court is an arm of the Republican party?
The Grand Panjandrum
BTW this could get much uglier. The same lawyer who brought this case is now suing to upend donor disclosure legislation.
Chuck Butcher
Oh I think there are ways to play this that, if they don’t fix it, may mitigate it. Attribution could be required to occupy, say, 1/3 of the display space. Not a real problem for campaigns, name prominence is the idea, could suck badly for Halliburton or…
Corporations are already under a different tax code – there’s some room for real disincentive there. Not taxing the speech, taxing its removal from the income stream, quite punitively in for profit corps.
It may be a bit simpler, I’m no Constitutional scholar, but as corporations are a creature of statute it might be possible to attack that “personhood” right there. That would require states to do it, I don’t want to guess how that would play out.
For years I’ve been urging my friends in campaign finance reform to find better ways than this because I was scared of it and I’m real unhappy to have been right. I knew how much trouble we were in with this Court when they got the Haller – DC right on such shitty grounds. The minds on display were pathetic and the reasoning was worse.
Despite KO, all is not over. You can’t really plan on how to fix this fix until you actually know the language and some really good minds are going to go after it hammer and tongs. Hey lawyers, a good time for some pro bono research…
jfxgillis
DougJ:
Don’t forget to send Ralph Nader an extra special thank-you note for that, too.
I suppose he thinks yesterday’s decison vindicates his candidacy rather than being the cause of it.
jenniebee
The future of American politics may be moderated debates to settle the burning question: tastes great, or less filling? We’ll never again have scandals about a candidate’s designer jackets because you won’t be able to see the jackets under all the endorsement patches. “Position papers” will never be the same. Candidates’ remarks will end with “Thank you and may God bless the United States of America. Drive safe and remember that Dominos is the Taste that Delivers.” We might be talking about a certain fella’s future attempts at higher office as “Code Red State” and “Erick Erickson: Fueled by Mountain Dew” without irony.
On the plus side, Stephen Colbert may finally be able to run as the Doritos candidate. So there is that.
Bill E Pilgrim
@tomvox1:
No, but they might as well be, at this point.
The Democrats just had a super-filibuster-proof majority, with which someone like George W Bush would have remade the entire constitution in his image. Even with far less than that, he just pulled off a gutting of campaign regulations, and he’s not even President anymore.
The idea is that the Democrats would do different things from the Republicans, I know. But what difference does it make what they “would” do, if they don’t?
Mattsky
Why do you hate freedom of speech?
The First Amendments most basic free speech principle is that the government has no business regulating political speech.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now go out and buy some toilet paper and stop wiping your asses with the Bill of Rights. Shame on you people!
Don’t you just hate it when your political agenda gets stuffed up by the Bill of Rights? Don’t you just hate James Madison for writing it? Madison was just another no good tea bagger you know. :)
Wait till some of Obama’s new Bank Bill turns out to be unconstitutional too. Some here will really go unhinged.
Bob In Pacifica
The Corporate State.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Mattsky:
I really enjoyed the last assembly of the people, Mr. General Electric and Mr. Haliburton had some really good points to make in particular.
Later we all had a drink and Mr. Disney joined us and did all these great impressions of cartoon characters, what a hoot.
beergoggles
On the plus side, this should help stomp the theocracy right out of the republican side.
I for one welcome our non-theocratic, corporate overlords.
Lisa K.
@Anon:
To a large extent, yes…at least the Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas lackeys are.
Lisa K.
@beergoggles:
Like using malaria to cure syphilis.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Color me unimpressed by the fear this ruling is inducing in progressives. All this ruling does is take us back to the late 19th Cen, which last time I checked was when the last big progressive movement got going. If people circa 1900 can fight the malefactors of great wealth without McCain-Feingold and the other recently constructed instruments of campaign finance reform, we can too.
As for the vast amounts of money that corporations will pour into campaigns – what exactly is that money going to do? For the most part it can’t buy volunteers. Mostly it will go to making TV commericials and supporting astroturfing campaigns. Big deal. We are already close to saturation on both of the latter, which means that the marginal utility of more corporate money is small. The bigger threat is that big money already owns the news media, and get free political advertising every time Brian Williams and his ilk go on the air to announce the news. Yesterday’s ruling didn’t change that reality. The SCOTUS just gave big business the right to pay vast sums of money to get a little bit more of what they are already getting for free anyway.
TenguPhule
Fuck you moron. Corps are NOT PEOPLE.
Remedial History for you.
Mattsky
TenguPhule go back and read the Bill of Rights again before you take your next shit and wipe your ass with it. Your reading comprehension seems to be lacking. I’ll even post the First Amendment for you again in case you used up your last copy of it and have resorted to using your hand.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Trying to maneuver around the Bill of Rights to try and silent groups or people you disagree with is a dangerous thing. One day you may find that you’re the one being silenced. It is why Jewish lawyers have defended the rights of low life scum from the KKK.
Chris Johnson
I’m with the ‘…and?’ camp. This is effectively not a change. If anything this will embolden corporations to throw their weight around more obviously which is preferable.
You can’t trust them to ‘sign their names’ like Halliburton, changing names is trivial and they’ll probably buy up and lay claim to everything that sounds trustworthy and reassuring.
What you CAN trust is that they will continue to poison the well and lead very directly to a state (that we already approach) where it’s literally true that you can’t believe anything anybody says, can’t trust that a medicine or foodstuff won’t just flatout kill you, where it’s a totally ridiculous world that’s quite dangerous and unsuitable to human life, where we are the RATS in the maze and really FEEL that status.
I think to some extent the corporations are trapped into the need to pursue this- unless they really are familiar with their stockholders and identity (like Unilever/Ben & Jerry’s?) they’re compelled by fiduciary duty to be as evil as the law allows them to be, so they CANNOT back off even when they overplay their hands.
This is overplaying the hand. It can’t end well for them. Infinite access to propaganda can only go so far- you have to protect the masses so they don’t wise up and turn on you, and while governments can be smart enough to do that, ours isn’t because it’s controlled by corporations which by design cannot avoid that trap.
The social key is helping the rightwingnuts understand they’ve been played. Lots of them are Southerners with a higher valuation on personal honor, less likely to break faith with an ally but full of vengeance if they must.
Class warfare? “Yup. Exactly. Here’s why.” Sometimes you’re handed the weapon you need because your enemy wanted to grab the weapon they least wanted to face…