Roberts Court Overturns Yet Another Precedent in Favor of Corporate Campaign Cash

BTW back in the 1980's if I recall Buckley vs. Valeo was the beginning of the S. Ct allowing the corporations and thereby the corporate elite to muscle the rest of us around electorally which led to Reagan-Bush and a decreased lving standard for many Americans and an increased disparity of wealth between the middle and lower classes and the elite.

 

god you're an idiot

 

Wow. Sentiments like yours are why the US is on the decline.

 

Looks like Roberts has repaid those he is beholden to by "fixing" the campaign fundraising game so that the GOP can now compete with Obama's fundraising.

 

I've spent a few years here saying that control of the Presidency was vital more for Supreme Court appointments than for any other reason, short of war and peace. When the idiots were voting for Shrub's second term, or staying home, saying it didn't make any difference, they were busy bringing this upon us. Now the fools, if they deign to pay attention, have that difference square in their face and soon to be on your local TV/cable/ radio/ media outlets across the country, brought to you by your "dear friends," Corporate America. Enjoy, and may you choke on it.

 

Rashmon, compete? Oh lord, watch 2012. Think wallstreet, big pharma or insurance will give $1 to Obama? But yes, definitely, this is the repayment and the fulfillment of a now very obvious plan. Makes me wonder about the whole Meyers nomination now, as if GW was trying to thwart the awful plan he was part of.

Deckard, Mrs. B-Bob just mentioned the ultimate irony. Ralph Nadir spends his entire life fighting for the little guy, trying to give the little middle-class consumer a voice in government. Then he does what he does and literally leads to a supreme court that can take the radical move against average joe citizens in every corner of the land. Just an amazing and sad narrative.

 

It is beyond me to understand how ANYONE can think this is a good thing ... this is ****ing horrible.

 

It's freedom baby. Our Founding Fathers would've wanted it.

 

As you've no doubt noticed, I possess an ardent dislike of Nadir the politician, a completely different animal from Nadir the Voice of the Consumer and incredibly, totally, even criminally incompetent. Putting the rodent aside, however, this act of insanity by the Republican Supreme Court is exactly the kind of act I feared all these years. It took a long time for that party to remake the SC, filled now with young fools with no respect for precedent, despite the cooing and simpering before Congress, yet now they have done it. The irony of this particular idiocy is that there are quite a large number of wealthy liberal independent and Democratic titans of industry who may bedevil the GOP because of this ruling. The Republicans and their mouthpieces, the Limbaughs and so on, will squeal like stuck pigs when it happens, but that will bring me no joy. The electorate will be bombarded by a flood of ads of every despicable type, for every corporate interest, and for every interest of members of Congress, so they can insure their vote for the further rape of the body politic by Corporate America.

I hate to be vocal and outraged about this decision, but believe me when I say it is not nearly enough to reflect just how warped this decision is going to make American politics. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now, short of a miracle, this decision will be looked upon with a grim reflection of when America finally took that wrong turn we've feared for so long. A wrong turn that may go on until the bitter end, the end of the country as we have known it and the complete ascent of what Eisenhower spoke against as he was leaving office, the military/industrial complex writ large.

A dark day for America.

 

Let's start worshiping Google and hope they will save everyone with its all-encompassing digital bosom.

 

Sarcasm? I guess not.

Got to luv em. As they talk of "freedom" they merrily give their freedom away to big brother corporations that make no pretense at demcoratic governance; they cling to their guns and and the ideologies fed them by corporate think tanks and media.

Brainwashing is much more effective than brute force. Thanks for the example.

I guess.

 

Below is an excellent (and short) article on this subject by George Will at the Washington Post. I am posting this just in case anyone around here is still open-minded enough to consider the real reasons why the Supreme Court made this decision, and not just engage in the small-minded, leftish bleating that has constituted most of this thread so far.

[RQUOTER]The Supreme Court's Radical Defense of Political Speech

For almost four decades now, what has been done in the name of “campaign finance reform” has constituted the most dangerous assault on freedom of speech since the Alien and Sedition Acts. This is because the government, by regulating what can be spent in order to disseminate political speech and when political speech may occur, has asserted the astonishing right to dictate the quantity, content and timing of speech about the government.

On Thursday, however, the Supreme Court, in a gratifyingly radical decision, substantially pushed back the encroachments that the political class has made on the sphere of free political speech. This was radical only because after nearly four decades of such “reform” the First Amendment has come to seem radical. Which, indeed, it is. The Supreme Court on Thursday restored First Amendment protection to the core speech that it was designed to protect -- political speech. There will be no more McCain-Feingold blackout periods before primary and general elections -- periods during which political advocacy was restricted, just as public attention was most intense.

The court’s decision will be predictably lamented by people alarmed by the prospect of more political money funding more political speech. The Supreme Court has now said to such people approximately this: The First Amendment does not permit government to decide the “proper” quantity of political speech.[/RQUOTER]

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of freedom of speech today. This is a right we have in this country that is truly radical, and far reaching in its effect. It does not make sense to allow the government to selectively exclude certain elements of our society from participating fully in our nation's political discourse. Who is the government to decide who should be limited in their expression, and who should be given free reign? Today, the Supreme Court decided that free speech is a right that is inviolable in this country.

The real problem is not that special interest groups try to influence the political process, but that the politicians are so easily moved from serving the interests that they were elected to represent. The level of corruption in Washington is currently out of control. If our elected leaders were committed to standing up for what is right for their constituents and for our country as a whole, and refused to be bought by the various interests that lobby them, then campaign contributions, lobbying and political advertising would not be much of an issue.

Freedom of speech is not the problem here, it is a lack of transparency. There should be full and prompt disclosure requirements for the providers of all political contributions over a nominal amount and for all campaign advertising. These should be extremely clear and timely disclosures with no loopholes. That would enable everyone to see who is paying the freight for our politicians. The answer to these issues is a heavy dose of sunlight, and better accountability for all elected politicians by their constituents.

 

Finally! There was just not enough special interest influence in Washington. I'm glad this finally happened. Elections should be bought. Who would be crazy enough to think otherwise.

I'm glad mojoman is smart enough to support the idea that dollars equal free speech, and the constitution was always there to protect huge wealthy corporations.

 

I hate the break the news for you, but elections have been bought for decades. All this has done is channel money through a more open and less resistant path.

The idea sounds great of course, but it is an infringement on speech.

 

Well Jorge is correct about one thing; it is radical.

shockingly so

But please, can we no longer hear any more whining about "activist judges ligislating from the bench?"

As someone said earlier, if the tea baggers were true to their principals, they would be storming the steps of the SC.

 

This was not an incident of "activist judges legislating from the bench."

It was a principled Supreme Court ruling based on the Constitutional merits and considerations of the case. This was a ruling that clarified the pure and undefiled importance of the Constitutionally articulated right to freedom of speech in our country for everyone, including organizations, associations and corporations. The Supreme Court ruled that the right to free speech, as stated in the U.S. Constitution, is inviolable.

For those of us who continue to celebrate our fundamental rights to speak freely here in this country, this is is a banner day.

For those people who are proponents of having the government restrict this right according to whatever the prevailing wisdom of the day is among the people who are presently occupying the seats of power in this country, this decision will generally be regarded as a big setback.

 

Will this open the floodgates to corporate and union money in elections? Well, it never really left. The restrictions in the BCRA and other campaign-finance “reforms” just forced the money into less-transparent channels, creating mini-industries of money laundering in politics. This ruling will just allow the money to be seen for what it is, rather than hiding behind PR-spin PAC names and shadowy contribution trails.

The best campaign finance reform is still transparency. If burning a flag in the street is free speech, then so are political contributions, especially when made in the open. If the reformers in Congress want to clean up elections, then force immediate reporting on the Internet of all contributions to all presidential, Senate, and Congressional races, and full weekly financial reports on expenditures. That will do more than all of the speech-restricting, unconstitutional efforts made since Watergate, and make the entire system a lot more honest.

link

 

I've been praying at the altar of Google. My poor heathen child, would you like an evite to Wave?