HIGH COURT UNLEASES POLITICAL AD SPENDING
YOUR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES WORKING FOR YOU
THIS HAS BEEN AN UNPRECEDENTED WEEK of exciting reversals for individual liberties in the political annals of our country's history: Not only did Massachusetts's Scott Brown win the U.S. senate seat they said couldn't be won by a conservative thereby putting passage of the fallacious Democrat healthcare boondoggle in jeopardy, but yesterday the Supreme Court handed down its monster decision declaring McCain-Feingold basically unconstitutional thereby dismantling most restrictions on campaign finance giving and advertising. First Amendment attorneys Ted Olson and Floyd Abrams successfully argued the case.
Brown's election victory and the SCOTUS decision are gargantuan victories for conservatives and First Amendment freedoms both within and outside of political campaigning. And it opens up campaign advertising to both political parties and interest groups. (Unfortunately big investment banks didn't fare so well as the Obama administration announced re-doubled efforts to clamp down in ways that will only dampen hopes for economic rebound. As ever, feds are trying to solve the wrong problems with the wrong medicines rather than get to the root causes. Again, such unconstitutional meddling will only come back to haunt the administration in more ways than one. It will also create more problems than it solves. Steve Forbes writes eloquently on the issues.)
For now, conservative proponents of free speech and limited government have much to be thankful for. I don't know about you, but frankly in this age of out-of-control federal government spending and meddling, I'll take every concession I can get and be extremely grateful. It's been a very, very good week for our side.
Below is a clip of the movie that started it all and that Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign objected to and sued:
Friday, January 22, 2010
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The ignorance here is truly stunning.
Let me start with a quote:
“I am disappointed by the decision of the Supreme Court and the lifting of the limits on corporate and union contributions.” — Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
If you are a CEO or corporate official, you are now free to hit the corporate ATM and spend whatever it takes of your shareholders’ money to elect the candidates of your choice.
The Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling today to open our political system to unlimited sums of corporate money is a reckless and dangerous piece of judicial activism. It will create havoc in our political system and greatly undermine the legitimacy of the court that Chief Justice John Roberts leads. Supporters of this decision say it is about free speech. It’s not. Corporations are not individuals, as Congress recognized when it first limited the role of corporate money in politics back in 1907.
This SCOTUS decision legalizes bribery and fraud on the largest scale imaginable. Corporations now rule America, they can BUY any politician they want and sell him to the masses just like Pepsi. And guess what… corporations that NOW run America, thanx to GWB’s court, may not even be AMERICAN! There are plenty of international interests in large US corporations, or aren’t you smart enough to consider this?
As Justice Stevens warned: "“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case. Under today’s decision, multinational corporations controlled by foreign governments would have the same rights as Americans to spend money to tilt U.S. elections… The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.”
- Senior Justice John Paul Stevens
Lot’s of these corporations are heavily staked in America represent NON-US interests (hint China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai!!??)
These judges just overturned over 100 years of settled law. The most stunning failure of a court since Dred Scott.
This is devastating for small business entrepreneurs who hope to compete in the market place with corporations whose bought and paid for politicians will act in the interest of corporations to crush competition.
Does the court’s majority really think that the problem with our politics is that corporations have too little power? Is it really a part of conservatism to inject more money into politics???????
Welcome to the Corporate States of America. And you were afraid of socialism? HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
You don't have a clue what this decision takes from you.
This is not about a Hillary movie or Michael Moore, this is about handing the American political system to corporate America… for example, the banking industry – the same entity that caused America’s lending crisis, got bailed out by Bush, and was never held accountable for anything. Now THEY can choose their politicians to serve THEM, not the people.
Goodness gracious Ellen, from where did you cut and pasted this hysterical rant?
Pipe down a bit. Corporate monies will flow from both sides for political ads, as do individual monies. What that means for you that's probably good news is that George Soros too will be able to spend more advocating for causes and candidates that I might not care for.
I guess that we dumb and dumber voters will now have to fend for ourselves more discerning who the best candidates are without the heavy hand of the nanny federal government doing it for us.
BTW, big corporations already give untold amounts of money to mostly liberal candidates.
Bradley Smith in the WSJ writes today:
Thursday's Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the Court struck down a blanket government prohibition on corporate political speech, is a wonderful decision that restores political speech to the primacy it was intended to have under the First Amendment.
To truly appreciate the stakes in Citizens United, one must remember the government's legal position in the case. Implicit in its briefs but laid bare at oral argument, the government maintained that the Constitution allows the government to ban distribution of books over Amazon's Kindle; to prohibit a union from hiring a writer to author a book titled, "Why Working Americans Should Support the Obama Agenda"; and to prohibit Simon & Schuster from publishing, or Barnes & Noble from selling, a book containing even one line of advocacy for or against a candidate for public office. As David Barry would say, "I am not making this up."
The Court said "no," and the only shocking thing about the decision is that the four liberal justices said "yes."
Hopefully, this ruling marks an end to 20 years of jurisprudence in which the Court has provided less protection to core political speech than it has to Internet pornography, the transmission of stolen information, flag burning, commercial advertising, topless dancing, and burning a cross outside an African-American church.
etc. etc. etc
This is not about political money from "both sides". This decision basically, in the words of Bush lawyer, Ben Ginsberg, could make political parties 'obsolete as we know them.' As he put it, "we have a problem now because candidates' political party ideology are now 'soft voices' compared with the billions of influence that corporate influence will buy." No longer right and left, conservative and liberal, future parties will be Walmart, Exxon, etc... Walmart producing wonderful infomercials extolling the virtues of one political candidate because he represents the corporate interests of Walmart and their biggest communist China.
How wonderful, a nice way to bring the world together. Now communist and socialist nations that have a stake in American industry can fund unlimited advertisement of their selected candidates. Since these corporations like Chinese product -peddler Walmart and Chavez's Citgo oil company, have a stake in American politics, they should have a vote! Advertising is a powerful tool, you tell someone something enough times, with a well produced message, they'll begin to believe it.
Now that corporations have a First Amendment right, they should also have a 2nd amendment right and be allowed to arm their employees and form militias and security forces. Seeing that Walmart greeter with an assault rifle sure will make me feel safe.
Thanks Justice Roberts, your court's decision will bring together the world. Now our communist, socialist, and Muslim neighbors will be able to influence our elections... just as your fellow justice John Paul Stevens had said. This is a great step in building a one-world community.
Now that it has been confirmed by the USGS that Hugo Chavez controls the world largest oilfield and has an American corporation, Citgo, I look forward to his campaign infomercials promoting the candidate of his choice.
Can you imagine how good those political ads from SONY will be with all of their technology?
And...the Saudi government owns Houston’s Saudi Refining Company and half of Motiva Enterprises. Lenovo, which bought IBM’s PC assets in 2004, is partially owned by the Chinese government’s Chinese Academy of Sciences. I'll bet they'll have a candidate in the Senate asap.
Brave new world.
Gosh, William and Ellen, you're worried about the Chinese with the president we now have in Washington? I'll let you worry about foreign governments making political puppets out of those ultra-liberals the Waltons, while I'll just keep worrying about the bailouts and takeovers Mr. Obama is salivating over.
BTW Ellen, both political parties were becomg somewhat obsolete long before this but I doubt either will disappear anytime soon.
William, why aren't you worrying about the billions and billions of debt the current administration is selling the Chinese who, even as we speak, are getting very nervous about our falling dollar.
I'm a bit amused that you think Americans who are far more conservative right than you can't make up their/our minds when it comes to political propaganda. Like we need the federal government to protect us from ourselves and keep us on the straight and narrow. This reminds me of the fox in the hen house.
There's more here that I'll post when I get my router fixed hopefully soon.
I'm a bit amused that you think Americans who are far more conservative right than you can't make up their/our minds when it comes to political propaganda.
Is that why - 4 yrs after 9/11, 47% of Americans (mostly conservative) believed that Saddam Hussein planned and executed the attack on the WTC?
FACT
The fact is, people will believe something if they are told enough times, particularly conservatives ... i.e. 'death panels', 'Obama not a citizen'... need I go on?
Just wait til those slick infomercials start running...
Well fortunately, Ellen, we have you and William etc. around to keep us dumb conservatives from tripping over ourselves and being hypnotized by the Commmunist Chinese and those sorry Saudis. Since I watch about three hours of television a month and I just watched 7 hours of football, I guess I'm in no immediate danger of being mesmerized from repetetive messages, however, I could be lured into watching the Super Bowl and especially Tim Tebow's pro-life ad....be afraid, Ellen, be very afraid....
William this post is about the Supreme Court decision and dredging up some silly example about some nut case as if it is the norm misses the point completely.
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