Montana, and now North Carolina:
The North Carolina Judicial Coalition is a new tax-exempt organization, known as a super PAC, supported by wealthy conservative Republicans who are determined to make this year’s race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court ideological and expensive.
A Federal District Court in North Carolina last month, citing a 2011 Supreme Court ruling that rests on Citizens United, struck down a state law that provided additional matching funds to judicial candidates who accepted public campaign money if they faced greater spending from privately financed opponents, including independent expenditures.
By the Supreme Court’s upside-down logic, matching funds violate the free-speech rights of independent groups because their spending triggers additional money for a publicly financed candidate.
The North Carolina Judicial Coalition was set up to re-elect state Justice Paul Newby, who has opposed adoptions by same-sex couples and disallowed a lawsuit challenging alleged predatory lending. He gives conservatives a 4-to-3 advantage over liberals on the State Supreme Court and is being challenged by the more liberal state appellate judge, Sam Ervin IV, a grandson of the senator and son of a federal appeals judge.
As of last week, each candidate had collected about $82,000 and each had qualified for public financing of $240,100. Now, because the state is prohibited from reducing the spending gap with public funds, Judge Ervin’s supporters may have to form a super PAC of their own to keep up with the unlimited spending of the conservative super PAC. This is yet another example of the devastating harm caused by Citizens United.
McCain: And corporations are people, which is certainly [laughs] a phenomenal thought. And of course, that, that unlimit, that money does not really matter in elections. That unlimited amount of money will not affect elections. You know, today we’re watching a Republican primary where a Las Vegas media, gambling mogul has given over $20 million to one campaign, and a lotta that money comes from his earnings in a casino in Macao. So we now have, clearly, some Chinese money entering into the American political scene. And consider this one: We have a Senate race in Arizona. Suppose that ten people got together and put in $10 million each in a campaign. I guarantee you that would affect the outcome of that election. I mean, $100 million, a Senate race in the state of Arizona, which is a larger than normal-sized state, or Wisconsin. I mean, so what they’ve done is that they have unleashed the worst aspects of money in politics, and that’s what Russ and I tried to address, and we did address, and could I just finally say—and Russ, you might want to talk a little bit more about this—the phony suit, they, they’d, they shot a movie for the express purpose of going to the United States Supreme Court, for, that was the only reason why they made that film about our now Secretary of State.
That’s—Feingold: If it—
McCain: —unbelieve… Go ahead, Russ, I’m sorry.
Feingold: No, it feels like, you know, the whole thing was engineered, and you know, the fact is in 2004 and 2006 and 2008, there couldn’t be these unlimited contributions from corporations and unions. Because of McCain-Feingold, the money couldn’t go through the parties, and, you know, people started turning to the internet, and I think we actually were moving in the direction of, of real change, need to do more, I think we need public financing, I think, you know, John and I both think we need to have a, a real enforcement arm, not the Federal Elections Commission. But the trouble with this issue—and I think John would agree with this—is people have gotten so down about it, they think it’s always been this way. Well, it’s never been this way since 1907. It’s never been the case that when you buy toothpaste or detergent or 5 a gallon of gas, that the next day that money can be used on a candidate that you don’t believe in. That’s brand new. That’s never happened since the Tillman Act and the Taft-Hartley Act. And so people have to realize this is a whole new deal; it’s not business as usual.
I wonder about the effect of Citizens on ordinary political speech, over time. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m helping a local candidate run for the Ohio legislature. Right now, we’re planning a spaghetti dinner at the Eagles. The tickets are eight dollars. People are being generous, and they’re sending 50 dollars for two tickets, but it really does start to seem ridiculous to even bother holding one of these tiny-donor events looking at the absolutely massive amounts of money that the very wealthy are bringing to federal elections and now, presumably, state races. I hope ordinary people aren’t intimidated or cowed or discouraged and thus chased out of the political process by the near-daily media reports of the BILLIONS that will be thrown at us here in Ohio in federal races, but I think eventually they will be if all these state campaign finance laws fall.
Ben Franklin
Forget it, Kay. There is nothing to fear. The dominoes didn’t fall in SE Asia, either
Davis X. Machina
The ME’s report:
Decedent: United States of America
Cause of death: Two GSW — Buckley v. Valeo and Bush v. Gore.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Fetzer has a new project, I see. Feh,
Safe bet where most of the money is coming from.
Stuck in the Funhouse
It is rapidly becoming a huge fork stuck in the road of the American Experience. Citizens United. Before the industrial revolution, it didn’t much matter, cause nobody had all that much money. But when that beast started to roar a century or so ago, the healthy reaction from the pols and their voters, was to curb that beast and its interface with democracy.
Now, a hundred years later, the money monster has been let loose again, and it will make the early 1900’s seem like a bake sale.
Yutsano
I dunno. The socialist state of Seattle is a pretty tough nut to crack. It’d take a lot of money to change minds and votes there. And the liar McKenna is still winning. I have no idea what the hell the rest of the state is thinking.
beltane
We are rapidly becoming very similar to Putin’s Russia, a “democracy” run by the oligarchs for the sole benefit of the oligarchs. But really, if Americans are so stupid as to be dazzled by TV ads they are too stupid to govern themselves anyway. Bleat like a sheep, expect to be fleeced.
The Other Bob
A few things – comments and questions:
If we accept that spending is free speech, are we also accepting that lying is free speech? The benefits of having a ton of campaign money is being able to swamp your opponent in real and false claims that cannot be rebutted becuase they have less money.
The question at the Presidential campaign level – Is it possible that there are limits to the impact of Citizen’s United becuase during a Presidential Election, the commerical time is completely purchased? At some point there are no more commercials to buy.
Kay
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
What they’re really advertising is conservatism. If you watch the Superpac ads in Ohio, they’re “issue ads” but below that it’s just this constant barrage of libertarian-conservative dogma. NO TAXES. NO SPENDING. FREELOADERS. GOVERNMENT IS BAD. JOB CREATORS ARE GOOD.
That has to influence people, outside a particular candidate or campaign.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
It’s all so self-feeding and snowballing that any attempt to fight back amounts to Sisyphean tasks. There really does seem to be no fucking way back from this. Money talks, the rest of us shitty proles will just have to make do with being mutes and eating shit sandwiches all day.
Just how Real ‘Mericans want it, apparently.
EconWatcher
Citizens United not only gave corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of cash to get their message out. Just as importantly, it also gave them the power to threaten (explicitly or implicitly) to withold those vast sums of cash from any media organization with the temerity to contradict their message. I’ll think we’ll see that power used more freuqently and effectively as the years go by, if nothing is changed.
The only countervailing force I can think of is the cheap publishing enabled by the internet, but I don’t see how that will get a counter-message out to the great masses of people. That medium really only speaks to those who are seeking it out.
If Kurt Vonnegut were still alive, he’d be able to spin the trajectory of this much better than I can. But I think our world has been transformed, in ways we can’t yet even imagine.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Good God. Both McCain and Feingold are charging that the entire Citizens ruling was a setup from the start.
Wow.
That’s some long-term thinking from the oligarchs and GOP. Again, why is our side getting repeatedly blindsided by this shit?
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@The Other Bob:
Lying is free speech by law. I mean, fuck, Fox News won in the courts where the case basically said they had no real duty to tell the truth ever.
The only way to beat lies is to lie louder and more often, because the truth is so easily made incredulous through fucking repetition.
beltane
If I were a sadistic billionaire I would flood the airways with ads urging people to eat their own poop for freedom’s sake, just because I could.
Southern Beale
Yes. Yes it does seem ridiculous. That’s why I said this morning, we need to figure something else out. It’s going to have to change, it just will, because this isn’t going work. Eventually people are going to wake up. You just can’t hand all of your power over to Sheldon Adelson and Donald Trump and not eventually notice that your drinking water is poisoned and your pay hasn’t been raised in 30 years. This isn’t going to work for anyone. It won’t even work for rich people.
And again I remind everyone that one of the biggest immediate beneficiaries of this Citizens United thing is the fucking corporate media, the people who sell the air time and the ad space. That’s where most of this money goes. It’s been a fucking windfall for them. No wonder our discourse is so messed up, when the people pushing the news benefit from a messed up political climate.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@The Other Bob: That’s already settled law.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Democrats play to win at best. GOP plays to kill always.
SatanicPanic
I’ve thought about this myself. It’s small comfort, but at some poin they have to run out of advertising time. And I think people tune it out long before that.
shortstop
@The Other Bob: Dunno about buying all possible airtime, but the CW seems to be that political advertising in presidential races reaches the saturation point pretty early, and people start to tune it out. The real danger in Citizens United is in state and local races.
AliceBlue
In my mind, Citizens United has become this century’s Dred Scott case. Not in the particulars, but just the fact that it is completely, utterly, morally wrong. A few days ago, former Justice Stephens said that he did not think it would stand the test of time. I hope he’s right.
Kay, thank you for posting here and for slogging it out in the trenches with your candidate. I guess the only thing we can do is keep on keeping on.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Kay:
But how will it influence people? It is the same dogma the wingers have been pounding for 30 years, and the only difference being, they aren’t bothering to dress it up with the usual compassionate conservative qualifiers. It seems all in with the wingnuttery, or nothing, and I have always had the belief that most middle class people have a limit to pro corporation policy. And will rebel more and more, as those policies drain their bank accounts. Unless the wingers make the claim that baby jeevus will pay their home mortgage. or rent.
I am just glad that NM has moved beyond swing state status, into the cat solid blue, for the time being. I might even buy a teevee, if the national ads not run.:)
Kay
@AliceBlue:
It was a great speech. He calmly and methodically tore the decision to pieces, using plain language that anyone can understand.
Haydnseek
@beltane: I have to agree. I never quite believed the “we get the government we deserve” meme, but I’m changing my mind as more and more Ameridiots let political advertising influence their thinking. If some billionaire decided to spend 50 million dollars telling Americans to eat shit, Turd Helper would be flying off the shelves of every supermarket in this pathetic land.
Gozer
US of A, brought to you by these sponsors…
EconWatcher
@Gozer:
A wholly owned subsidiary of the RAM-JAC Corporation….
Nellcote
We get relatively few political/issue ads around here so when something is obviously flooding the zone it feels suspicious or at least worth taking a look at why. But that might just be me.
Kay
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
I think it’s somewhat legalistic and deceptive to put these ads into boxes: “an issue ad that doesn’t coordinate with a candidate campaign”.
They’re selling hard Right dogma, basically. That bleeds into other races and other candidates. It can’t be restricted to this election or that candidate. That’s how a court might view it, but that isn’t how people are going to perceive it.
Svensker
If you have more money you get more freedom. Why is that such a difficult concept? I think the Bible and the Constitution both agree with that idea.
Nemesis
The notion that small individual donors could help, say, Obama in the national, is beyond its sell by date. Them days be gone. For sure, pols like Obama and others will continue to talk openly about individual donors as if the wee folk around the US have an actual say in 21st century politics. Nope. Things are different now. When November rolls around, we wont know what hit us.
Between Crossroads at $600,000,000 and “others” at $400,000,000 in negative ad buys this summer/fall will be like no other in political history.
We do get what we deserve. Thers hardly any other way to look at it (realistically). Until we, left and right, decide to work toward a different America, like by hitting the streets armed with pitchforks, well, then, we aint serious bout nuttin.
AliceBlue
@Haydnseek:
You not only win the thread, you win the day. Thanks, I really needed that laugh.
tomvox1
The Other Bob:
@
Well, first off that is a pretty thin reed. I mean, what is the percentage of time each candidate is purchasing? Is it equal? Or because there is unlimited corporate cash is it 2-1 spot buys for the side with more Super PAC bucks and does that then crowd out the amount of available time to the less well-funded candidate?
Second, if corporations have the right of free speech, what is to prevent the evolution of this concept to include broadcasters and cable networks themselves so that they can just give the FCC the bird & set aside an hour of programming here and an hour there for the candidate that they are supporting?
The Citizens United ruling is so broad and sloppy that taken to its logical extreme, it could trump any kind of “Equal Opportunity” rules put forth by the FCC because their very attempts to enforce the concept of a level playing field for all candidates violate the “free speech” of the networks themselves!
In short, we are well and truly fucked pending new legislation or a new SCOTUS ruling (ha).
I for one do not welcome our new Galtian overlords…
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Kay:
Oh, I misread your comment. sorry. and agree with you. :)
beltane
@EconWatcher: I agree. We are living in the very early stages of a post-capitalist dystopia where people’s thoughts, dreams, and fears are all dictated by the shiny images they see on their TV screens (note: the larger the screen the more powerful the images are). Unlike the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, which all featured physically unappealing men shouting on the radio, the new corporate totalitarianism will be sold by luscious porn star lookalikes cooing the language of the new Fascism of Desire. Freedom lies in not watching their shit.
The reign of the corporatists will not last forever, but it will take a whole lot of ugly to dislodge it.
handsmile
@Davis X. Machina: (#2)
As elegant and incisive a comment as I have ever read on this website. Well done.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@beltane:
Ha!, agree, and well put.
Yutsano
@beltane:
It can’t last forever. The 1% can only squeeze so much money out of the rest of us before the well runs dry. After that, they either have to prey on each other or let some of their wealth go back into the system. We are coming back to where we were in the late 19th Century, but we have few if any economic populists to get us back on course. There may indeed be general strikes in the near future. At any rate it will get worse before it gets better.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: I post foaming at the mouth screeds about this every day, but have never said it the way you have. Your way is much better.
Dems better learn to like the taste of blood, or get the one party state I’m starting to think we so richly deserve.
The GOP is not playing politics with anything like a shred of human decency. Why are we?
WereBear
@AliceBlue: I made that same comparison; a Supreme Court decision so breathtakingly wrong that it created an extreme counter-reaction.
amused
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Because we’re fighting for common decency?
EconWatcher
Is anyone going to comment on the fact that McCain acknowledged the existence of the “vast right-wing conspiracy”? OK, I just did.
It doesn’t make up for Caribou Barbie, but I gotta give the guy big points for that. Say what you will, you’ll never hear that from Olympia Snowe.
Southern Beale
@Yutsano:
Exactly. Pretty soon it’s their ox that’s gonna get gored.
runt
Thinking of Americans and elections and recalls and things, I can’t help thinking of this bit by Dylan Moran. Money quote:
You are a very strange people. I can’t imagine any amount of money that might make Norwegian voters behave like that. But maybe I’m just naive/hopelessly arrogant.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@amused:
Unfortunately, I’m convinced the electorate really doesn’t give a shit about common decency anymore. Or at the least only uses it as a convenient excuse for rabid hippie punching.
Roger Moore
@The Other Bob:
That’s not how the market works. If the media companies think there’s a ton of money sloshing around in the campaigns, they’ll crank up their prices. If somebody puts a big enough stack of money in front of them, they’ll cancel their shows and sell the time for 30 minute infomercials. I sincerely wonder if the value for selling political ads right before the election every other year is a major part of the value of the Major League Baseball contract.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
I’ve read this perhaps 20 times, and still don’t understand how it makes any sense.
Because money is speech, equal speech(money) is a violation of the first group’s free-speech?
To be truely free speech, you MUST dis-allow equal access of someone elses speech?
Does this mean all those years of the fairness doctrine were unconstitutional? Including when it was ruled the FCC had the right to enforce it 1969?
It’s these stories, about how local communities and states make laws that try to level the “speech” playing field that are struck down, seemingly without Logic or Reason or Precident, that are the most stomach-churning for me, giving me the sneaking suspicion that our society really has no moral or structural basis, and we’re just pretending it does until things fall apart.
Steve in DC
The left needs to wake up and pick one, social liberalism and fuck economic equality or economic equality and fuck social liberalism. When it made economic gains it screwed over social liberalism… when it made social gains it screwed the economic weak.
PICK ONE AND FIGHT!
Till then, your average liberal is as much an enemy of social security as the Kochs… heck donated to the HRC, join Goldman Sachs!
I for one am sick of it, the HRC is right by here and I get a kick out of watching those rich white bastards that are now goldman sachs sponsored talking about being liberal, they aren’t… nor is the HRC anymore. Next fuck I see with one of those shirts on I’m going to clobber!
Haydnseek
@AliceBlue: Thanks AliceBlue–Ya gotta laugh to keep from crying sometimes.
piratedan
you say there is only a finite amount of ad space…. well gee, I guess we’ll have to raise those prices then won’t we because we’re now dealing with a limited commodity ooooorrrr we can expand your ad profile to reach consumers you never thought about before… say you want your “brand name” to be a long term affair, don’t worry, we can put your message on Nickelodeon and Disney channel and start reaching these soon to be voters to ensure that your franchise has new customers!
Applejinx
There is no ‘the electorate’. There’s just people, lots and lots of people.
Lots of them aren’t idiots. Some of them, at least 27%, are.
Some of them are about ready to fight in the streets. Others are scared shitless that whatever shred of a life they have will be destroyed.
I think the mechanisms for how things are done, are more important than the weight of propaganda- because propaganda is not automatically successful. It’s being used to make people act against their own interests in a BIG BIG way. It’s one thing to racebait and another to go “Now we’ll get all the poor people to cut rich people’s taxes, and heck, let’s have them raise their own taxes too- we can do that, right? Tell them it’s virtuous”.
It’s dangerous to assume the electorate is monolithic and stupid.
Roger Moore
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:
It doesn’t. It’s a tissue thin excuse for gutting a law the judges didn’t like. But this isn’t judicial activism because it went the way the Republicans wanted it to.
Ben Franklin
@Steve in DC:
Indeed. Noblesse Oblige is tiresome when the elites feather their nests and throw some change at the guy in the Mall. Obama’s individual donations are crashing and so he becomes more dependent on their largesse. I’m beginning to wonder how that’s trickling down to us.
Jebediah
@amused:
Extremism in the defense of decency is no vice!
Herbal Infusion Bagger
” I hope ordinary people aren’t intimidated or cowed or discouraged and thus chased out of the political process by the near-daily media reports of the BILLIONS that will be thrown at us here in Ohio in federal races, but I think eventually they will be if all these state campaign finance laws fall.”
What it did was stymie the revolution in political fundraising that the internet was accomplishing. McCain-Feingold meant you had to raise little bits of money from a lot of people. That’s why Obama could do what he did.
Now? It’s 100 hyper-wealthy people treating former speakers of the House as personal retainers.
It’s bad enough already that only the very affluent or wealthy can contemplate running for congress. Now, if they don’t have a billionaire who’ll answer their calls, it’s almost pointless.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
Here’s the difference. Capital is transnational. Labor (with a small and big L) isn’t. The days when the hyperwealthy had to support the social infrastructure of the country to make sure there were enough healthy, educated people to make and buy the products of the corporations they owned are gone.
Hey, with private equity, they don’t even have to back the stock market, ‘cos the stock market is for retail investing chumps who don’t have the wealth to buy into the elite private equity or hedge funds.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in DC:
I find it amusing that people have pointed out to you over and over and over again that the socially conservative/economically liberal voters you dream about don’t actually exist anymore because they were taken over by the libertarian borg, and yet you still think they exist.
If Huey Long were alive today, he would be taking money from the Koch brothers and extolling the virtues of the rich.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Never mind that economic populism also supports social liberation because lifting minorities out of poverty also increases their social standing. Somehow Stevie Boy misses that point over and over again.
Patricia Kayden
Is the US the only country in the world which allows corporations and rich people to buy elections (outside of 3rd world dictatorships, of course)? As a former foreigner (now US citizen), I find this whole Citizens United ruling very strange.
Rob in CT
That’s a really shitty choice Steve offers. Even if you grant that it’s a path to victory, the victory is pyrrhic.
Ben Franklin
GOP state Sen. Van Wanggaard said this morning he will weigh his options after the canvass is complete in his narrow loss to Dem John Lehman, citing reports of voting irregularities, outstanding absentee ballots and problems in the unofficial tally.
“People across the state and country have asked that I immediately ask for a recount. However, we all know that the best decisions are made when well-rested and after consideration of all options,” Wanggaard said in a brief statement. “We will closely monitor the canvass of votes with legal representation. We will evaluate our options regarding recounts following the official count of ballots.”
Wanggaard’s campaign said the statement was the only comment it would have at this time.
they never quit…relentless energized dust bunnies. Us?
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Well, no, he’s not “missing” it — he wants to return us to the New Deal days where the best parts were reserved for White Men Only, and everyone else had to fight for the scraps that were left over.
jc
@Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac: I agree completely. That is totally insane. And a complete joke.
trollhattan
Thin end of the crazy wedge emerged yesterday in California, represented thusly.
For US Senate: Orly Taitz–113,563 votes. That’s a small city of crazy, all, presumably, from the non-instutionalized population cohort.
Rob in CT
@Patricia Kayden:
People have the right to free speech.
Corporations (and unions) are “people” (groups of people joining together to accomplish a goal or goals) and, therefore, have the right to free speech.
Political/issue advertisements are speech (aka “money is speech”).
That’s how we got here. And you know… I think each one individually is defensible (certainly the first!). But put it all together and the whole is much greater (in the meglomaniacal tyrant sense of “great”) than the parts.
Ben Franklin
@trollhattan:
Orange County soccer moms
Ben Franklin
@Rob in CT:
It’s working for Republicans, pyrhhic or empiric.
CardinalRed
@Haydnseek: Yet you have the Grammys
becca
@Forum Transmitted Disease: See? This is why I am not a tinfoil basher. Ever since I realized the PTB do not have the peeps best interest in mind, but are, in fact, fucking psychopaths.
becca
@Forum Transmitted Disease: See? This is why I am not a tinfoil basher. Ever since I realized the PTB do not have the peeps best interest in mind, but are, in fact, fucking psychopaths.
Suffern ACE
@Patricia Kayden: Well, there was that story about Sarkozy recieving $50 million euros for his campaign as a contribution from Khadaffi when he first ran. (Obviously, that’s not the best example, since it is unlikely that it would be common practice to kill your large donors. Unless of course, you were worried about the favors that they had asked you.) I don’t know what happened with that story or investigation.
Comrade Dread
I think the chief danger is that this will force the Democrats to become even more beholden to corporate and special interests in an attempt to elicit donations from these interests. I shudder to think of having a majority of Democratic politicians essentially behaving like Blue Dogs to please their corporate masters.
Except we live in a global economy now and these parasites are not exactly patriotic. So the locusts can move to a new field and start the cycle fresh. Eventually they might exhaust the whole system, but that point could be very far off in the future.
Mike E
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: When Dems do it, they get hammered over style points. When Repubs do it, they get praised despite the body count.
WereBear
It might be wishful thinking on my part, and there are College Republicans. But I do wonder how long this particular run can last, birthed as it was from the turmoil of the Sixties; a revolution that, for better or worse, has come and gone and mostly won.
Environmental consciousness, women’s equality, racial harmony; we have made tremendous strides in these very areas that get a winger’s blood up and the spittle flying. For the love of pumpkin cheesecake, they are still ranting about Communists and fluoridation!
When the crampasses who get all worked up about this die off… what buttons do they have left to push? That’s some demographics I haven’t seen addressed.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
I dunno. China and India don’t seem to have come online as residence alternatives yet, but Europe’s infrastructure is going downhill almost as fast as the US’s.
The oligarchs’ illusion always seems to be that there will be a first world country for them to retreat to, but they’re simultaneously doing their level best to destroy all of them. They’re busily ensuring a near future where they have to live in guarded compounds 24/7 without the escape hatch of going to London or Paris or New York City.
cat48
Sorta ironic that Citizens United just gives the Media one more thing to rag on Obama on? Are you aware that he has fundraised at least 153 days since he announced his reelection? Also2, “8 of his last 24 weekdays” have been spent fundraising.
This is considered a failure I guess that he doesn’t have a sleazy Rove character to run ads from unknown $$ sources at his pitiful PAC. MittFlop has 20 Billionaires funding his campaign & PAC. It’s so much more “presidential” the way MittFlop does it.
Rob in CT
@WereBear:
There is that. But then divide and conquer is a flexible tactic.
I mean look at the anti-union stuff: that teacher is stealing part of your cookie (nevermind my 19 cookies). This works. The object of demonization can change as needed.
RalfW
I don’t know if Move to Amend is the right specific campaign in terms of people, backing, etc. But some wort of major push needs to happen to undo the travesty of Citizens United and it’s state-level impacts.
I’m thinking I need to check them out – friends have been recommending ’em.
David Koch
but, but Glen Greenwald, the leading legal scholar of our time, is on the record strongly supporting Citizen’s United both on legal grounds and policy grounds. Glen specifically said flooding the system with unlimited dollars and political commercials would have no effect on policy outcomes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Of course, when it came to a law that would at least mitigate CU, McCain voted against the cloture motion that failed by one vote.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh, God, I didn’t know that. What a jerk he is.
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Kay: I think it was because it wasn’t his proposal, so he wanted it killed. Petulant old fuck he is.
Kay
@Yutsano:
Jesus.
I do love how McCain mentions in every single interview how he does not appreciate Scalia’s sarcasm. I love that.
I hate Scalia’s sarcasm, too. It has such a mean edge and then all the fawning that follows over his (alleged) “sense of humor” makes me ill.
rikyrah
thanks for the information, Kay. I just don’t believe regular people should stop giving.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yutsano: Major General Paul Eaton (ret’d) was on Tweety a week or so ago to discuss Syria. Asked about McCain, Eaton didn’t even get in to the substance of McCain’s stance, just said flat out, John McCain is bitter about 2008 and that colors everything he says, and that’s sad. And he was done. It was beautiful. Would that someone besides me and Tweety had noticed, and that Tweety had an attention span longer than the caged birds that gave him his name.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
okay, I both over- and understated Eaton’s remarks. So to be fair:
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought Ambassador Rice was a she, but I’m just being pedantic. Grandpa Walnuts has been bitter for much longer than 2008. He never got to admiral like his father and grandfather. He doesn’t have full use of his arms. He got shafted by Dubya in 2000 and never got over that. The man is a case study in bitterness and petty actions.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Oh boy. Orangeman & co. are going after the OMB.
Apparently the GOP is sick of being told what to do by godless accountants and actuaries.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I’m going to have the OFA organizer (who is about 19 years old) meet with the cynical, worldly union thugs at this spaghetti dinner thing, so even if we don’t make a lot of money those two factions can bond :)
burnspbesq
Oh, the horrah!
Look, y’all, the rules are what they are, and they’re not going to change between now and November. You can either play by them, and win, or whine about them, and lose. Pick one.
gene108
@Haydnseek:
We all let various types of advertising influence our judgment. For many voters, even educated types, they aren’t political junkies. Outside of what they hear on CNN and ads, they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about policy or the history of American government or what a far-rightwing court could accomplish by overturning Griswold v. CT or that there was ever an important case like Grisswold v. CT in the first place.
For most people the thinking is simple, things were ‘x’ degrees good/bad, when President Obama (or other elected official) took office and now they are ‘y’ degrees good/bad, which maybe better or worse for you personally.
If worse, people will vote the incumbent out, because change for change’s sake is needed.`
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
God, I just….
Fuck, I need to get away from political news or something for a full week or month or something. Everywhere else I go, or whoever I talk to, it feels like it’s all “FUCK YEAH, KILL THE FUCKING UNIONS, YOU ALL FUCKING DIE, GOP WINS FOR FUCKING EVER, FUCKING LIBBY FUCKER COMMIES, DIE DIE DIE”. Like 10-to-1 exultant ‘Kill every single Union dead!’ rhetoric from every corner.
And it feels like this is just gonna explode further closer to November, just…………fuck it all.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@David Koch: Awww hell, well, if Greenwald’s down then I’ll stop worrying and accept my oligarchical sodomization without any whining.
Thank God Greenwald’s walking that wall, our heroic warrior on the front lines of Democracy.
Caz
No matter how much money is spent or donated, the elections still ultimately come down the votes of the people, so as long as people stay informed and continue to vote, there is no chance of massive donations drowning out the voice of the people.
In any event, there are equal amounts of donations across the nation coming from both sides, so neither side has the advantage in the campaign donation battle.
The bottom line is that people don’t lose their constitutional right to free speech simply by virtue of their coming together to form a group, association, company, etc. Just because people have come together to form groups doesn’t mean they shouldn’t, as a group, be entitled to free speech.
And that’s exactly what campaign donations are. It’s dangerous to start limiting what counts as speech – that’s a slippery slope we don’t want to start playing with. So groups of people, like companies, are entitled to free speech via donations to political campaigns.
There is nothing damaging or improper about allowing groups of people to donate to campaigns.
But like I said, you’re reading way too much into this Citizens United issue – elections are decided by the voters, and no amount of money spent on campaigns is going to change that. You will vote for who you’ll vote for, and it probably doesn’t matter if Acme, LLC donates $1000 or $1 million – you’ll still vote the same way. So all that money does nothing when voters have made up their mind.
I dare say that nearly everyone poster and commenter on here is going to vote for Obama, and no amount of spending by anyone is going to change that. Your voice won’t become all of a sudden irrelevant or less effective.
Citizens United was the right decision, and voters still have the ultimate say.
Rita R.
@Mnemosyne:
They’ll have their guarded compounds in Manhattan, London and Paris too, and in the countryside and by the shore, which they’ll travel among on their private jets, while the rest of the world lives in poverty and misery. It’ll be a dystopian vision made real — look at what’s already befallen the people of Greece while the bleating goes on about more austerity so the banks can get paid — and these sociopathic, well-described “locusts” won’t blink twice. They. Do. Not. Care. It’s a zero-sum game to them, and they will not rest until there’s no marrow left to suck out of the bone. As for democracy, well, they think that’s for suckers, but it can be inconvenient, so they’re doing their level best to get rid of it in anything but name only.
kay
@Caz:
It’s nonsense Caz. It’s not fucking reality.
The truth is one millionaire can be solely responsible for electing a state Rep where I live.
If my state campaign finance laws fall, and they will, I can hold spaghetti dinners every night for a month and I’ll still get crushed, on name recognition alone.
They’re getting ready to buy a judge in North Carolina. Deal with it.
Campaign finance laws weren’t put in to level the playing field. They were put in because of massive corruption.
You’ve just deregulated campaigns. You’re going to see massive corruption.
Kay
@Caz:
You don’t get it, because you swallowed the conservative argument whole. Think about corruption, and influence-buying.
Do you really not see a difference in the potential for corruption between 500,000 people donating 1 dollar and 1 person donating 500,000? How can you NOT see this? Why do you think they put the limits in? Why do you think North Carolina went to a public finance match? Because they were worried their judges would be corrupted.
We already know this will happen. It happened 100 years ago. Hence, campaign finance law. Is there some reason conservatives are bound and determined to make us prove things over and over and over in each and every conservatives lifetime? Do you have to SEE it to believe it? It happened. Now it will happen again.
Xenos
You are thinking about it the wrong way. When you talk someone into donating 50$, or 20$, or even 5$, you are locking in their vote. No commercials will sway someone who has come to break bread with you, made that small investment, and felt involved. We need love, and we need ways to give love. One spaghetti dinner at a time, we can change the world.
The Kochs will never, never have that kind of power.
Arm The Homeless
I try not to engage with you, because you’re either Doug J, or a sad attempt at his oeuvre. But, when you say something so glibly nonsensical, do you have to manually stimulate yourself, or is it automatic?
KS in MA
@Xenos:
This.
Thanks, Xenos!
Bmaccnm
@Yutsano: It’s a global economy. After they bleed US dry, they’ll find somewhere with another pile of money to be extracted. Build up another 4th world nation to 3rd world status by extracting all the resources. A 3rd world nation becomes middle class through factory labor, the former factory to the world becomes wealthy- while the plutocrats skim off the top. Repeat ad infinitum. I wonder how long it will take for the US to go through the cycle? We’ll be back on top in another 200 years- or maybe longer.
Yutsano
@Bmaccnm: In order to build up said country they have to invest in it and play the long game. There is very little evidence they are interested in anything but the instant payoff.
Bmaccnm
@Mnemosyne: They’ll always have Dubai.
Bmaccnm
@Yutsano: The long game is being played on a far away field. Look at the changes in VietNam in the last ten years- it’s gone from an agricultural economy to an international fabrication economy. Look at the labels in your cheap tee shirts- they’re made in places you hadn’t heard about ten or twenty years ago. International investor types are building infrastrucure in Africa- soon you’ll have crap made in Uganda flooding your markets. Sierra Leone could be next, after they pull out the raw materials. The Sierra Leoneans will be glad to get those factories. There’s an endless supply of dollar a day peasants to be exploited.
Bmaccnm
150 years ago, North Carolina was the same as Sierra Leone today. 150 years from now, who knows. The plutocrats will remain the same.
burnspbesq
@Arm The Homeless:
Shorter Arm the Homeless: he’s right, but I can’t concede that, so I’ll just make an ass of myself.
IrishGirl
I’m afraid the result in Wisconsin will have that effect. As soon as I heard that Walker had won and he’d outspent Barrett 7 to 1, I thought “why bother even trying if the GOP will always be able to gin up that much cash?”
someofparts
If I had time and a decent computer at home I would be making pictures of the conservative Supremes where their heads sit atop the bodies of kangaroos. Then I would have those pictures put on t-shirts and make some money selling them to my friends in the hippie part of our town. Mainly I just want a t-shirt like that for myself.