This is what the End of a functioning democracy looks like

[NCVol]

Corporations (and unions) able to spend whatever sums they deem appropriate in direct support of a Federal candidate for office. 

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/21/us/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Campaign-Finance.html?_r=2&hp

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bitterly divided, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that big business can spend its millions to directly support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, a decision that sharply reverses a century-long trend to limit the political influence of corporations and labor unions. It remakes the political landscape just as crucial midterm election campaigns are getting under way.

If anyone really wants to know why "conservative" Supreme Court justices are such a big deal, this is it.  This is why campaigns matter, so the biggest money can purchase the right to do what they want.  In this case, to buy an election.  The thought that they give one damn about abortion is such a joke - THIS is what the money boys care about.  They just officially got the permission to buy the WH and Congress.  Congratulations, conservatives.  This is what you all have been fighting for. 

The "right" for a GD piece of PAPER to advocate for individual candidates using unlimited sums.  What do you think a favorable decision on health care is worth to UNH over a five year period?  They have a net worth of about $35 billion, so each percentage point of their stock price is worth 350 million.  You think they might spend $100 million to get a 350% return on their money?  Hell, what kind of actual investment can beat it?  There's your new "business" strategy thanks to "conservative" justices.

Two more things
1) I will throw up next time I hear someone explain that being conservative means standing with tradition, and that what they want from their SC is not to MAKE new law but to stay true to original intent.  These respecters of tradition just overturned a century of settled law.

2) I also hope this is the last time we ever have to respond to the question, 'Where is the right to healthcare in the Constitution?'  Yeah, where is it that a piece of paper has the RIGHT to any damn thing.  A corporation is not a person, it's a legal document, a fiction, evidence of an association of people.  But now this document has rights.  What a sad, pathetic joke. 

[Dementia_Madness]

Why is it when people are given freedom it's always a bad thing to liberals? Unions have been free to spend as much as they want for a long time...the only difference is that now corporations can do the same thing...leveling the playing field, something democrats hate because they can only compete when the field is slanted in their direction.

This has been a pretty productive week...I love it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/intro4.htm

In a similar vein, unions and other interest groups were able to spend about $70 million for political purposes – much of it on candidate-specific advertising – without adhering to public disclosure requirements. Because their ads, too, were supposedly designed to address issues, the origin and amount of cash they spent did not have to be reported to the FEC. And the groups didn't have to finance the ads from their political action committees, which, by law, could accept no more than $5,000 from any one source.

Much was written about the power of political action committees, or PACs, in the 1980s. Leveraging contributions from many individuals or companies, PACs could exert enormous clout. Their contributions, however, were limited to $5,000 per candidate, or $15,000 per national party committee.

Those numbers seem almost quaint compared to the soft money figures. Cumulatively, PACs still contributed about $218 million to federal campaigns in 1996. But in 1996, individuals or corporations that wanted to influence an election could donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to a party committee. Unions could do much more than just chip in $5,000 from a PAC. They could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on "issue" advertising targeting or supporting a specific candidate – without any reporting requirement. Next

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/01/union_plans_maj.html

A major national union supporting Democrat Martha Coakley is taking out a massive TV ad buy that slams her Republican rival, Scott Brown, for his positions on abortion and climate change.

The ad taken out by the Service Employees International Union, will begin airing statewide tomorrow. The buy size is $685,000, one of the largest of the election.

“Before you vote for Senate, here’s a few things you should know about Scott Brown,” says a narrator in the 30-second spot. The narrator then says he “has repeatedly opposed a woman’s right to choose” and he “expresses skepticism that climate change is being caused by humans.”

“No wonder Brown’s campaign is being supported by the same extremist group that backs Sarah Palin,” the narrator says. “Martha Coakley for Senate. Massachusetts values.”

It's a good thing the field is leveling...

[The One Man Gang]

I have always referred to McCain-Feingold as the "Incumbent Protection Act of 2002."

Anything that strikes at the heart of that monstrosity is a Good Thing.

Yes, I know Bush 43 signed it.  It's one the things I vigorously disagreed with him about. 

Not putting a $5000.00 bounty on the heads of liberals is another.

Justice Anthony Kenned (darling of the Liberals until he, you know, actually stands up for the Constitution) writes for the majority:

"The law before us is an outright ban, backed by criminal sanctions. Section 441b makes it a felony for all corporations—including nonprofit advocacy corporations—either to expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election. Thus, the following acts would all be felonies under §441b: The Sierra Club runs an ad, within the crucial phase of 60 days before the general election, that exhorts the public to disapprove of a Congressman who favors logging in national forests; the National Rifle Association publishes a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U. S. Senator supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creates a Web site telling the public to vote for a Presidential candidate in light of that candidate’s defense of free speech. These prohibitions are classic examples of censorship.…

When word concerning the plot of the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reached the circles of Government, some officials sought, by persuasion, to discourage its distribution. Under Austin, though, officials could have done more than discourage its distribution—they could have banned the film. After all, it, like Hillary, was speech funded by a corporation that was critical of Members of Congress. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington may be fiction and caricature; but fiction and caricature can be a powerful force.

Modern day movies, television comedies, or skits onYoutube.com might portray public officials or public policies in unflattering ways. Yet if a covered transmission during the blackout period creates the background for candidate endorsement or opposition, a felony occurs solely because a corporation, other than an exempt media corporation, has made the “purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value” in order to engage in political speech. Speech would be suppressed in the realm where its necessity is most evident: in the public dialogue preceding a real election. Governments are often hostile to speech, but under our law and our tradition it seems stranger than fiction for our Government to make this political speech a crime. Yet this is the statute’s purpose and design."

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

Governments Members of Congress are often hostile to speech, but under our law and our tradition it seems stranger than fiction for our Government to make this political speech a crime. Yet this is the statute’s purpose and design.

There, I fixed it.

[NCVol]

Why is it when people are given freedom it's always a bad thing to liberals? Unions have been free to spend as much as they want for a long time...the only difference is that now corporations can do the same thing...leveling the playing field, something democrats hate because they can only compete when the field is slanted in their direction.

This has been a pretty productive week...I love it.

Once again, your facts are just wrong.  You really should find better sources.  Unions and corporations have been under identical limits, and they are also under the same limits now. 

And I don't know how this is "freedom."  Just as one simple example.  If a Congressman is to cast a vote for, let's just say opening the borders, what can YOU do?  Well, you can promise not to vote for him.  You can promise to withhold your $50 contribution.  You can promise to give $1,000!!!!!! to his opponent.  That's quite enough to have them shaking, but how about Tyson Foods?  If Tyson foods wants the border left wide open, given their heavy reliance on those workers, what can THEY do now.  They can call Congressman and say "A vote to close the border means we will run $2 million in ads against you in the primary, and if that's not enough, $5 million in the general.  If you vote our way, we will reverse that and you'll not need to raise another dime this year.  What do you say?" 

Do you think $7 million is a heavy lift for a company with $26,700,000,000 in revenue last year?  No, and Tyson just got themselves a vote, in almost all cases. 

That's what you call "freedom."  It's not.  It's the end of the democracy, where the only check on Tyson foods is, what, some OTHER piece of paper with that kind of money laying around or several thousand individuals donating $1,000 apiece.  Who do you think wins that contest most of the time?  The "grassroots?" 

BTW, nice of the "conservative" jurists to cherry pick some non-profits.  Gosh, that's great, I wonder which sector spends more money on political advocacy, for profit corporations or non-profits begging for donations, often from those same corporations in many cases for funding.  It's really insulting to expect us to think THAT was the issue, whether ACLU can advocate and not GE, Exxon Mobile, Tyson, Microsoft, ADM Supermarket to the world.....

And it's NOT censorship to deny some piece of paper the right to spend an unlimited sum to push a position.  It's censorship to deny the right of the actual person head of NRA to speak in 1000 different forums if he wants in defense of whatever.  The SC said not only does the human being heading up NRA have the right to express his opinion, but for the piece of paper called NRA to spend millions if needed broadcasting those opinions to the world.  Me and you?  We can talk in those different forums but have NO right to have them broadcast. 

That's just not freedom.  It's a purchased democracy, and you all are just arguing that all sides have the right to purchase their share, ergo a piece of paper with a $billion in deposits in its name has the same "rights" as someone who can't spend even one MILLIONTH of that ($1,000).

[Dementia_Madness]

really NC?

hmmmmm and yet we have this story I posted above...

A major national union supporting Democrat Martha Coakley is taking out a massive TV ad buy that slams her Republican rival, Scott Brown, for his positions on abortion and climate change.

The ad taken out by the Service Employees International Union, will begin airing statewide tomorrow. The buy size is $685,000, one of the largest of the election.

“Before you vote for Senate, here’s a few things you should know about Scott Brown,” says a narrator in the 30-second spot. The narrator then says he “has repeatedly opposed a woman’s right to choose” and he “expresses skepticism that climate change is being caused by humans.”

“No wonder Brown’s campaign is being supported by the same extremist group that backs Sarah Palin,” the narrator says. “Martha Coakley for Senate. Massachusetts values.”

And regardless the REAL issue here is FREEDOM of speech. Why are you liberals so afraid of freedom? Do you not understand that FREEDOM is fundamental to America and our way of life? Perhaps I was a little off with Unions (though they were able to shift their funds in ways corporations could not to skirt the law) but YOU cannot deny that there was a distinction and that NOT ALL CORPORATIONS were subject to this act. Which Corporations were immune? Why Media Corporations.... for what ever reason it was deemed that media corporations were not held to the same standard as other corporations...so this still levels the field as now the Media does not have a monopoly on the crap they can spread...and it is deemed that all individuals and entitys has the same protected rights to freely express themselves, by the CONSTITUTION...which libs hate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeGlzEavpTM&feature=player_embedded

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/21/opinion/main6125542.shtml

WINNER:

-Voters. Not sure where a candidate stands on an issue? Not sure how to vote? Need more information to make a wise decision? Never fear. Corporations and unions are likely to tell you their version of things now that they're freed from restrictions. But buyer beware: It's still up to voters to separate fact from fiction.

LOSER:

-Voters. Had enough of campaign ads? Too bad. People probably will have to endure even more now that corporations and unions can spend as much as they want from their general treasuries right up to the moment of an election. Voters will have to discern the motivations behind the ad campaigns as best they can. And more ads will only boost the potential for more salacious spots and negative campaigning.

WINNER:

-Corporations and unions. These high-dollar entities can now can spend freely to support or oppose named candidates for president and Congress. By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling barring such ads.

LOSER:

-Political parties and many candidates. More voices in the mix means candidates and parties will have even less control of the message. And they won't be able to do anything to stop groups from running ads they don't like. Still, cash-strapped candidates could welcome such independent spending that attacks an opponent. Political parties now face more restrictions than outside groups on election-time communications.

WINNER:

-The First Amendment. The ruling was clearly a victory for this pillar of democracy. Critics of the stricter limits had argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority agreed. There certainly will be even more of a marketplace of ideas. Corporations and unions can now advertise what they please.

LOSER:

-Civility and truthfulness. Watch out candidates: You may not like what you hear. And there will be little you can do about it. Both Republicans and Democrats say ads are likely to get tougher now that outside groups can expressly advocate for or against candidates. And it will be up to voters to sort through the clutter.

WINNER:

-Media companies, TV and radio stations. They already see a financial windfall every two and four years during congressional and presidential campaigns. Paydays could be even bigger now. A flood of corporate and union money for ads in federal campaigns is expected as early as this fall's midterm campaigns.

LOSERS:

-Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis. They are the fathers of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that sought to restrain the influence of money on elections. The justices struck down the part of the law that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

march on NAZIS invite me to your next book burning please. (oh and if we are getting all hung up on semantics let us note that your first article said this was a reversal of a century (hundred year) long trend to limit blah blah blah...this only overturns part of about 10 or 20 year old legislation.)

Either way I am very happy with this ruling....freedom is a good thing, even for rich people and corporations...and unions when they are not engaging in criminal activity.

The fact of the matter is that you libs are openly hostile to liberty and freedom, and human rights. The case of Abortion underscores this, for if you do not believe we have the basic right to life, then every other right we have, because we are alive, is subject to dispute.. inalienable rights...not transferable to another or capable of being repudiated, one of those rights is freedom to express your beliefs...political, religious, or what flavor ice cream we like.

"The First Amendment is overrated"- Rahm Emmanuel (and apparently NcVol)

http://bigjournalism.com/cmulder/2010/01/21/the-big-losers-in-todays-supreme-court-decision-the-msm/#more-9686

Lost in most of the coverage of the decision (and conveniently ignored by President Obama, former “senior lecturer” at the University of Chicago Law School), is that, as Justice Kennedy points out, the ban on electioneering speech never applied to one type of corporation. And what type of corporation would be exempt from laws and regulations that chill the speech of all its corporate brethren? Why, the media corporation, as Justice Kennedy points out on page 35 of the opinion:

   Media corporations are now exempt from §441b’s ban on corporate expenditures. Yet media corporations accumulate wealth with the help of the corporate form, the largest media corporations have “immense aggregations of wealth,” and the views expressed by media corporations often “have little or no correlation to the public’s support” for those views.

The law drew a line between two types of corporations: media corporations, and everyone else. Intentionally or not, it tilted political power toward the media and away from every other type of corporation (many of which, as Justice Kennedy observed, have limited resources, unlike, say, CNN.)

[NCVol]

And regardless the REAL issue here is FREEDOM of speech.

Do me a favor and take a piece of paper and make it talk on video for me, and post in on Youtube.  Freedom of speech for a type of organization is lunacy.  It's like saying a contract has freedom of speech.  A corporation sets out the rules of how a group of individuals pool their resources and invests.  It's made up of, ultimately, PEOPLE, and PEOPLE have rights, not a contract. 

It would be like referring to the free speech rights of a MARRIAGE.  No, my wife and I have rights as individuals and our responsibilities to each other are spelled out by our marriage contract and state law.  It's idiotic to contend that our MARRIAGE has rights. 

That's what a corporation is, the statement of rights and responsibilities.  It's not an entity that can have rights.  It doesn't die, can't be arrested, cannot be defined, can't even be seen.  Draw me a picture of this corporate person called GE, what does this corporate person look like and how does the it feel about climate change.  What is GE's opinion on torture?  Which district does GE reside, who is GE's congressman?  Where does GE set out the corporate person GE's beliefs.  Can I write the GE or just some person that works for the real GE?  What if different people that work for GE have different opinions, how does the GE decide which opinion it should spend money pushing.  Does GE favor the opinions of executives, the office maid in the satellite office in Jersey, or the engineer in India?  Or maybe it's the majority shareholder who is better off with lower marginal rates on the last $100 million of personal income and a bump up in the SS tax rate that actually is not the best option for the 401(k) investor with 10 shares of the GE.  Which position does THE GE support and how doe THE GE decide? 

[NCVol]

Another little benefit.

A foreign national can't contribute to a campaign since we're smart enough to figure out that the interests of a foreign national might NOT align with those of American citizens.  I think we'd agree that allowing King of Saudi Arabia to buy ads in the Texas Senate race is a BAD idea.

So why do you "conservatives" support the right of a foreign corporation to buy ads in the Texas Senate race.  Do you think the King could form a corporation and use that vehicle to contribute? 

[LTC]

Freedom of speech?  That is a cop-out....corporations ARE NOT citizens in the true sense of the word....and unless they are organizations that actually qualify as "the press" they should not be covered by the First Amendment...we have bastardized our Constitution.....
 

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.

cit?i?zen??/
–noun 1. a native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection (distinguished from alien ).
2. an inhabitant of a city or town, esp. one entitled to its privileges or franchises.
3. an inhabitant, or denizen: The deer is a citizen of our woods. 
4. a civilian, as distinguished from a soldier, police officer, etc.
 
Press
 
30. printed publications collectively, esp. newspapers and periodicals.
31. all the media and agencies that print, broadcast, or gather and transmit news, including newspapers, newsmagazines, radio and television news bureaus, and wire services.
32. the editorial employees, taken collectively, of these media and agencies.
33. (often used with a plural verb) a group of news reporters, or of news reporters and news photographers: The press are in the outer office, waiting for a statement. 
34. the consensus of the general critical commentary or the amount of coverage accorded a person, thing, or event, esp. in newspapers and periodicals (often prec. by good or bad): The play received a good press. The minister's  visit got a bad press.

[Jeremy Roenick]

You'll NEVER get corporate money or special influence out of DC.  It's rotten and corrupt to the core.  I don't care how many laws you make.  Even their bailouts and TARP was a form of political bribery.


Hooray for Freedom!

[LTC]

 

[NCVol]

You'll NEVER get corporate money or special influence out of DC.  It's rotten and corrupt to the core.  I don't care how many laws you make.  Even their bailouts and TARP was a form of political bribery.


Hooray for Freedom!

I hope I'm missing something or are you saying since we can't get it out of D.C. make it officially legal?  Isn't that like legalizing bank robbery since people will always rob banks? 

How do you limit the influence of foreign nationals?  Since KBR moved to Bermuda, can they now buy ads for House races to make sure the right guy heads up appropriations?  What about the Bank of China?  Seems like they'd have a neat little interest in the Finance committee, or the committees dealing with trade.  I suppose they'd have to launder the money thru a non-profit or U.S. sounding entity, but that shouldn't pose too big an issue.... 

BTW, if money = free speech, then this makes it a constitutional RIGHT for the piece of paper with the most money to have the most speech.  Not the human being head of the corporation but the piece of paper itself has a RIGHT.  If they'd said the CEO of GE could buy all the frickin ads he wanted on his own dime, I'd think that's a bad decision, and a dangerous decision, but at least we'd be talking about a human being having rights.  Instead, the activist corporatist judges decided that the founders wanted intangible assets to have rights.  Intangible assets with pieces spread all over the globe. 

Really, to what does a "corporation" owe its allegiance.  The country, the community, the neighborhood, "his" fellow citizens, our own national security, what?  By law the corporation has an obligation to maximize profits, period, at any cost, and that means if it destroys the U.S. but maximizes profits, it must do that.  It must lobby for the policies that maximize shareholder values wherever they may be.  If BofChina is the largest shareholder, what it advocates for may be detrimental to our national security and long term prosperity.  Does that matter?  NO.  Not if it has rights like each of us to influence U.S. political races.

This intangle thing called a corporation with no face and no home and no actual opinions, no life or death, no family, no job, no neighborhood, no retirement to worry about, no worry about security or personal dangers, can't get ill or need medical care, and in fact has no country has, according to the activist judges, a RIGHT to influence our Senate races, oppose Jimmy Duncan, etc.  It's Orwellian.  1984 didn't even imagine this argument, as I recall. 

[ben stein fan]

Justice Kennedy is one of my favorite jurist...he is for freedom plain and simple...sometimes I disagree with him on the law but he is as consistent has they come.