Cha-Ching! Supreme Court ruling means Big Business can spend billions on elections
The case we've all been waiting for – and dreading – is finally here. Citizens United v. FEC started off as an insignificant case about an anti-Hillary film, but the Roberts Court turned it into a vehicle for radically expanding the influence of corporations.
Here's the bottom line to today's 5-4 ruling: giant corporations can spend as much as they please on elections to advance their agendas. The right-wing Roberts court ruled that Exxon has the same free speech rights as you and me. In other words, Exxon is a person too.
While companies still won't be able to give directly to federal candidates, they'll be able to spend billions on attack ads, robocalls, and direct mail. You know, just like you and I are free to do.
Chief Justice Roberts claimed over and over during his hearing that he would respect precedent, exercise restraint, and issue narrow rulings. Well, we got to see the real John Roberts today. He'll gladly set aside principle and precdent whenever it suits his ideology. He cares about equal rights, you see. It's just that some rights are more equal than others.
So now that the highest court in the land has privileged corporations over people in elections, what can be done? Well, we don't really have a choice. We need to fight the ruling in Congress, fight it in the courts, and fight it in campaigns this fall.
The backlash has already begun. Campaign finance champion Russ Feingold has vowed to "pass legislation restoring as many of the critical restraints on corporate control of our elections as possible." Alan Grayson will pursue legislation in the House. And a constitutional amendment could even be in the works. Stay tuned.
america is lost. it is now USA Inc.
please note time and date in the ships log.
So now Fox can run as a candidate?
the bought and paid for conservative bastard
judges on the supreme court can go FUCK THEMSELVES.
they are destroying the Constitution and moving
the laws of this great country into a large
shit hole.
..conspiracy.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
to use in removing unwanted tools in the old CC Kubuki theater.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
Grow a couple of I.Q. points you moron!
Unions are almost dead, their workers being wiped out, and the multi-trillion dollar fascist corporations can now do any damn thing they want without constraint; and you try to make a comparison?
Your not very bright, are you?
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
was when they pulled the lever on the toilet of state years ago. It's all just water swirling in the basin now.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
tell me another one. I love listening to the ill informed.
"They fail to notice how their own version of big business (labor unions and trial lawyers) will also be able to exert the same influence..."
About the dumbest, most dishonest statement I've heard today.
Not the trial lawyers and labor unions! Why not Satan himself!!!!!1!??/?
You may be Sam, but you're no centrist. Trial Lawyers, unions, housewives, even political organizations and chess clubs are people and groups of people. Natural persons. Corporations are not. And no, they are not simply the collection of investors, they are not the employees, they are entirely separate beings, legal fictions created to facilitate a type of business. They do not need and do not deserve civil rights. They only need the ability to own property, enter into contracts, etc. to fulfill their role. Free speech, not so much.
Housewives may be natural persons. Individual trial lawyers, ditto. Unions, political organizations, nonprofit corporations, trusts, universities, and so forth are not natural persons, and trying to draw distinctions between them and for-profit corporations might have some appeal to political activists but is meritless as legal doctrine. Even the dissenting opinions didn't rest their conclusions on anything so legally baseless.
Whether corporations "need and deserve" civil rights is beside the point. As legal persons, they have certain rights that are guaranteed to all persons under the Constitution--including the First Amendment (as well as the Fourth, Fifth, and others). You yourself note that they have interests separate and apart from their employees (including their officers as individuals). Yet you seem to think that this is grounds for silencing them rather than allowing them to participate in the political debate.
between wanting to survive and wanting to profit. Not to mention between needing to survive and wanting to profit. There are also no responsibilities for corporations except to make a profit. Corporations are not persons, legal or otherwise, no matter what those who make money from them say. When those who make and interpret the laws of this country are paid by the corporations, there is no justice or any real freedom.
I hate to break it to you, but without debating the meaning of "otherwise," I can guarantee you that corporations are very much legal "persons." Legal personality simply means that you can sue and be sued. If corporations weren't persons, they couldn't sue you and you couldn't sue them.
?
. . . break, break away.
Corporations are objects. They are owned. Despite the (probably) erroneous implications of "Santa Clara", they are not real persons. They need only be endowed with legal rights necessary to conduct business. Being sued is one of those. Also entering into contracts, owning stuff. That does not give them the same rights as a natural person.
"The measure of man is not the color of his skin, but his liability to be sued."
Corporations was created by our government. They are just a peace of paper. The supreme court gave them the same rights as people. That right can be taken back as it should. Remember Enron, the smartest people in the room.
Unions are Big Business now? Unions represent people; corporations represent dollars. That's kinda basic.
I'd also love to meet these Big Business "trial lawyers" who excercise more influence than the insurance companies. Let's try some math: Take the richest 1000 trial lawyers in California; take all of the political donations they have ever made or will ever make in their lifetime and multiply that number by 1000.
Compare the resulting number with the influence of State Farm, Allstate, Farmers and Country Companies or any other group of medium to large insurance companies.
An even easier thought problem: How many trial lawyers would we need to bail out to match one AIG?
After getting even a minor picture in your head of the ridiculous disparity in power, you might consider changing the descriptive in your new handle.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Corporations do have more money than most nonprofits or individuals. However, they also have far more obligations regarding what to do with it. Nationwide Insurance may have a lot of money, but it also has a lot of employees to pay, a lot of claims to pay, and so on. MoveOn, PFAW, etc. have no purpose other than to influence the public debate.
Also, how is it fair to let unions say what they want but then silence any corporate counterargument based on nothing but its source? It's like having a trial in which only the plaintiff is allowed to speak. (And yes, there are trials in which the plaintiff is poor and the defendant is rich. Guess what? Everyone gets their day in court.)
And won't they be spending what would have been profits after paying their obligations if they were not buying political influence thanks to this decision? That will be a tax write-off, right?
I'm fuzzy on the tax law here, but I'm pretty sure you only get a tax write-off as a corporation if you donate the money to a nonprofit corporation, i.e., a 503(c) corporation. Granted, that could be Heritage, Cato, etc., but they already could do that; this opinion doesn't change that. It could just as easily be Sierra Club. I don't know about some trade-specific groups (e.g, American Petroleum Institute), but those also were not at issue in this case.
We're talking about corporations with an obligation to act in the financial interests of their shareholders. Some might say a "holy obligation."
So if they are making financial expenditures on politicians, they must be doing so to advance their financial interest.
However, paying a politician to advance your financial interests is a bribe.
And please don't pretend they're voting on ideology or political belief. It's a weak cloak for individuals and worthless as far as for-profit corporations. Their only ideology, belief or purpose is "profit." That's not my slant. It's in the for-profit corporations' founding documents under "purpose."
Corruption favors the wealthy.
A bribe is money that goes directly to the politician, not to his campaign. There is a difference, though I share your cynicism with respect to the quid pro quo aspect of campaign finance. Keep in mind that this ruling maintained caps on contributions to campaigns, though. What this struck down is the ban on Huntington Bank (a big bank here in central Ohio) going on the airwaves themselves and saying "Representative Bob's policies would be bad for Huntington Bank ... down with Bob," or the Limited (a Columbus company and parent of Victoria's Secret) going on the air and saying "John Kasich would ban the Victoria's Secret fashion show. F*** that s***." In other words, this wasn't about corporations' abilities to pay candidates. It was about their ability to pay their own advertising agencies, or spend money in their own PR departments, to support or oppose candidates.
When Obama cut his deal with Billy Tauzin of PhRMA, part of that deal was pretty much what you just described. In return for spending X dollars on pro-Obamacare messaging, PhRMA was able to secure tens of billions in profits from restrictions on negotiating and drug re-importation alone.
That was a bribe. And mere subtlety should not obscure the essential nature of the transactions.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Hmmm. Well, I don't call it a bribe because that's a term with a specific legal definition, and I don't think that that lobbying success story qualifies. That said, my reaction to the story was no more positive than yours.
... is the quid pro quo, and it need not be directly to the politicians bank account.
Rod Blagojovich wasn't looking for a check with his name on it. He was looking for political fundraising (Well, he was technically looking for some #$%&ing political fundraising, but the legal consequences are probably the same).
Either Blago shouldn't be prosecuted, or a whole heck of a lot more people should be.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
You cannot base your tax calculations on tax laws that were relevant before this decision. many things will change because of this. The big one is that even more bribery is now legal.
I imagine it would come out of their "advertising" budgets, which I guess are a cost of doing business and therefore an allowable deduction. I could be wrong on that. I took tax law a long time ago and haven't done too much with it since.
We both know that.
I remember vividly all those pre-law students talking about Marx and waving their little Mao Red Books around!
I personally don't trust "trial lawyers" I prefer "fully tested lawyers" much fewer surprised and they come with a 2 year bumper to bumper guarantee too!
That's crap made up by TV writers and those who don't know any better and think no one else does, either.
I am just thrilled to know that my national union which has assets of around $13 million gets to compete with Citigroup for instance, with assets of $2 trillion or
NEARLY TWO MILLION TIMES our assets.
For each of our piddly dollars, they have TWO MILLION.
Unions are formed by people who work.
The Labor Management Disclosure and Reporting Act of 1959, as amended, requires that expenditures by unions be authorized by their members.
Their members pay work dues out of the shrunken pay checks (if they still have a job). Three per cent is not uncommon. They will not make that 97%. Even if they did it would still be chicken feed compared to the corporations.
Some 12% of the work force has formed unions and that number is shrinking.
Trans National Corporations on the other hand will have a free rein at spending as much as they want. It will be a business expense.
Anyone who even mentions that unions will meaningfully compete with corporations does not have
ONE SINGLE CLUE.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
well said, Alice.
If a drone kills a child in Kandahar, do the crying parents make a sound?
Citigroup has just under $2 trillion of assets under management. That is an entirely different proposition from suggesting that they have $2 trillion just lying around to spend (on political campaigns or anything else).
Had Citigroup been allowed to fail rather than getting bailed out (we can always dream), those assets would not have vanished, because they were not Citi's. They would have been transferred to whoever bought Citi at a bankruptcy auction, been transferred into the hands of Citi's bondholders as they became the new shareholders, or (worst case) been backed at $250,000 per account by the FDIC. The shareholders, by contrast, would have lost everything.
Also, do you know anyone who runs a business? I know several business owners in the Columbus area. I can assure you, corporations are formed by people who work, too. Some of the hardest-working (and some of the nicest) people I know are corporate owners and managers.
corporations. Apples and oranges. How much money are small corporations going to invest in DC do you think?
So should there be some magic threshold beyond which a good "small" business becomes a bad "big" business?
Also, there are some massive closely held corporations out there (see, e.g., Cargill, Bechtel, Meijer), though I know that specific exceptions don't disprove the rule.
Also, what you said really doesn't take anything away from what I wrote to Alice ... the assets he talks about are assets under management, not assets of Citi itself, and as for the other ... well, do you really thing that officers at Fortune 500 companies work less than small business owners in Columbus?
closely held corporations. Bechtel! Good example. Cargill. Just as good. Why didn't you try to find a few that don't kill people?
Um, they're the same thing, AFAIK.
And I wasn't exactly trying to pick angels.
How do I compare Cargill and John's Automotive Service, Inc.? Let me count the ways.
I could have delineated it in revenues and expenditures instead of assets but the relation of size is maintained and that is my point.
And assets are not laying around for them or my union, but the relationship is still thousands or even millions to one. It is the relative size that I am delineating.
Commercial banks are not allowed to go bankrupt. The FDIC intercedes.
It was a complex situation but I proposed nationalizing them and breaking them up, the shareholders would still have been out. The bond holders would have negotiated with as would be the case in bankruptcy.
The deposits would have guaranteed to $250k
The commercial banking side is regulated by the FDIC, the investment side by the SEC, in theory.
The greatest problem with Citigroup assets (and all of the big banks) is that they insist on marking them to model (or imagination if you like) and not to market, as would be in theory at least, required by FASB.
Some were insolvent when they were bailed out, they are still insolvent. With 6 million new foreclosures some of the banks will need to be bailed out again.
As far as knowing people who run a business, yes I do.
But the difference between a privately held Corporation and a publicly held one can be vast.
Owners and managers work very hard, but they are not working class.
Working class people form unions. Capitalists form corporations.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
I'll put my $1. that I can afford against your 13mm. I'm very working class as I've had to work 80 hours a week for years, for basically no income.
As to why I have the time to post - the city took my license away. Seems they don't like recyclers (even though they gave us a license).
A person is working class by virtue of NOT having power to determine the nature of your own work.
If you own the company you are a capitalist very much in control of your own work except for the intersection of government through laws and regulations at various levels.
You are guaranteed long hours of work but not guaranteed income.
Your problem is one of size.
If you were a huge corporation then you would be attempting to move government out of your way.
And largely succeeding.
The dominance of our country by huge corporations, the largest being transnational is bad for working class people.
It is also bad for small business owners who will be crushed by the regulations and laws that the huge corporations enact for that very purpose.
There is not a free market, there never was, there never will be.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
Good points. You had several good ones there, but let's just take one:
That's the essence of the Republican bait and switch, isn't it? They get people worked up about small businesses getting crushed by taxes and government regulations, and respond by cutting taxes are removing regulations on big businesses.
It's clever, because everyone has sympathy for the mom-and-pop diner. Of course, federal regulations and tax codes are pretty complex, so it's hard to see that what we got was pretty much the opposite of what we wanted.
First, you're factually incorrect on one point: Commercial banks are allowed to go bankrupt. See, e.g., Washington Mutual.
I would have been happy to see Citi allowed to fall in the normal course of events. That would have broken it up far more effectively than any regulator could do. Some pieces of it would have been dissolved; others would have been bought by companies that didn't become household names over the last decade because they didn't make huge, stupid bets in order to grow.
Mark-to-market was actually the rule until recently; I forget when it changed. (I like "mark-to-magic" as the converse ...)
I fear you're right about another bailout in the works. I can only hope I'm wrong. The public anger against the last one does seem to be one of the few bipartisan phenomena in the country today, but I've let myself be naively optimistic before, so I think I'll wait with cynical patience for the moment.
As for the distinction between "owners and managers" and the "working class": I am not an owner, but I am not working class; I'm a white collar employee of a midsized non-publicly-traded business. There are business owners who make more than me and business owners who make less. (Probably more making more, but I'm young ...) I'm not a member of a union and would not qualify to join one. So what am I? A capitalist because I work for "The Man" (and could be The Man someday)? A worker because, well, I'm not an owner or manager?
Life isn't so simple.
Commercial banks have not been allowed to go bankrupt since the advent of Glass Steagall in 1933 which created the FDIC.
Washington Mutual was seized by the Office of Thrift Supervision and split into its Commercial and non Commerical components. The FDIC took the Commercial side and sold it to JP Morgan. The non Commercial side was held by the bank holding company and was allowed to enter bankruptcy court.
The repeal of the other elements of Glass Steagall is largely what has gotten where we are with the Too Big To Fail Banks, which are multi component behemoth trans nationals.
As I said I would have broken them up.
The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was pressured into suspending mark to market in March I think it was. The Banks hadn't been following the rules anyway. Between that and the off balance sheet tricks that they have it is a debacle only delayed.
The size of the next debacle has been greatly increased with the bailouts.
We spend one trillion a year on the MIlitary Industrial Complex (never mind the Defense Budget, that is only part).
We will be over 90% debt to GDP by the end of the year (Obama has just asked for another ceiling increase).
Do one too many Bankster bailouts and voilá: bankrupt country.
Working class people have no power over the nature of their own work.
The Capitalist class has great control of the nature of their work which comes from their capital. The government stands in the way if they are small capitalists, it is their benefactor if they are large.
In the middle class are Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers and middle managers.
If you are a middle manager you should have a personal service agreement and some power over the nature of your own work.
I don't use the criteria of income to indicate class because income is widely skewed. Some working class people make over $100k per year, some middle class people do quite a bit worse. Even the rich can appear to have low income, at times. And the wealthiest have the greatest means to lessen their apparent income time and again. Without affecting their wealth.
Life is not simple but we talk about politics which is about the interest of this or that group, I for one mean to clarify the terms.
Those are my criteria.
The Establishment has long sought to get Americans to forget about class. One of the greatest tricks is to call everyone not obviously filthy rich or woefully poor as middle class.
It is a great trick to obscure the truth.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
The Tea Party is just getting started.With Brown and Now this,Cant wait to see what happens Next.
Corporate personhood goes back to 1886.
It was an "error" by the clerk of the court. Ha, ha!
Some might even say that "error" was downright deliberate, given the court clerk's history of employment by the railroad industry . . .
.
The Chief Executive Officerdom of America
America is over. The Supreme Court just wrote it on the wall for all to see around the world – “We are for sale to the highest bidder”. No longer do ethics matter. No longer does integrity matter. No longer does conscience, intelligence, or education matter. All that matters is the size of your wallet. This is what America has become - a land of uneducated non-thinking ditch-diggers and appliance repairmen who unknowingly do the bidding of their corporate masters by electing shills who will say all the right things, then screw the people and protect their benefactors. I am saddened, sickened, ashamed, but not too terribly surprised. And so it goes…..
let's start a new corporation that fights the other corportations.
and Firedog Lake.... I especially want the Rude Pundit & Jesus General to incorporate. Last, but not least! Doghouse Riley for President.
... is to round up the thinking people and put them in camps.
Then pass a law limiting a child's IQ.
We're doing a fine job of dropping IQs without any additional governmental regulations beyond "no child left behind".
the idiots who claim democrats and republicans are identical take a long look at who did this and who is working to reverse it.
D's and R's act the same at the exec level does not mean that there are not a few well meaning but powerless rebels out there...Kucinich and Grayson, Feingold are swell fellows but barely representative of the Democratic party in practice...
My name is Big John and I told you so...BTW Gitmo closed yet ? how about the habeas corpus thingy ? Ah, I thought so....I called it years ago,
who DIDN'T filibuster Roberts or Alito. Senators who voted FOR these obviously corrupt men. Roberts whining he didn't "make enough money" as Supreme Court Justice was hinting loudly he'd take bribes; Alito saying "Quack! Quack!" was telling us he was good pals with the people who came before the court. Sheesh.
I've never understood why the Dem.'s just rolled over on these nominations.
and what is the letter besides our new president of 1 year?
We can but hope the corporations will fight amongst themselves, and crash again, but this time this time the Gov can't bail them out because THERE IS NO GOVERNMENT.
Odd ... that reminds me of "there is no spoon". Where did I hear that?
Supreme Court like FDR. That would be Cheneyesque. And we like Cheney. Or so we said on an earlier thread.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
but if tangential nonsensical answers are your thang. By all means, knock yourself out... we all must cope somehow.
of the House had anything to do with this decision the Supreme Court came down with. It is what makes me almost as smart a person as you. But not quite.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
Obviously, it could not possibly be that the post I wrote was in response to another post and not to the headline of the thread. Clearly the fact that my post was located underneath and indented inwards from the post by FreeDUMB was just a random coincidence.
I also missed the part where I blamed Obama and the Dems single handedly for a decision by the United States Supreme Court. But what can I say, I am just a fucking idiot... luckily there are smarterer posters out there which can let me know what I didn't write but I meant to.
A lot of us wonder that, too.
Then again, I know a number of R's and former R's who wonder when their party became the John Birch Society, Redneck Chapter. That question is a little easier to answer.
until they drown. They have cliffs.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
... on Esplanade Drive in Pacifica.
those cliffs a shoreline.
I could certainly use the cash if I were to end up with a ocean front property all of the sudden...
The mafia capitol of Boston. It was literally less than 150 feet from the water. I had everything inside on cinder blocks because every time it stormed (which it does all the time in NE) I'd get 6 inches of seawater in the apartment.
It was free, I was a kid, I lived on the beach - who could complain?
as much as I am in doubling the value of my house, sell it... and buy another place a mile inland just like I have now. I could certainly use the extra cash, and parking in the beach area is crazy during weekends and summer time...
I actually enjoy the rain in California. Except the part of the numbskull Cali drivers who tend to drive faster when it rains than when it is dry. It is a sight to behold really... They almost make the Massholes drivers look good in comparison, almost. ;)
This is no time to wax nostalgic or doing real estate deals. We have to jump.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
... heavenly real state ain't cheap, else it wouldn't be divine don't cha know?
and Rapture? Well this ain't Cloud Fairies coming.
This is the Four Horsemen of the Corporapocalypse! And unions, but who cares.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
... mine will be brought forth by care bears riding in unicorns. It will be majestic and fabulous. I just need to make sure I have my credit in order so the divine party planners approve my earthly departure!
Most people plan for retirement, but few do prepare for the final check out and its price tag. Common mistake... and those divine collection agencies have been known to harass the living hell out of the surviving family members.
The Compromise Twins will bend over in a heartbeat, while President Bipartisanshit won't stand up and say BOO!
And, oh, joy - I can't wait to see what kind of mess comes out of a Constitutional Amendment in this day and age.
Obama has already come out condemning this decision... although, as with most things, it's all talk, and I want to see some walk.
He's a pretty speech, period.
I tried to get people to support the pretty hair or the pretty wife, but would they listen to me? Nooooo.
Me too.
Too bad he had a pretty love child we didn't know about.
Doh!
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
Once upon a time, voters considered issues, not just the candidates' personal lives. Didn't stop Grover Cleveland from getting elected ("Ma, ma, where's my Pa?").
Hillary Clinton that pretty, and John Edwards turned out to not be such a pretty wife after all.
..we get to hear his State of the Union. Boy, that's going to be a depressing speech. At least we aren't in Haiti.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
nor will I listen to another effing thing he says.
"The State of our Union is strong."
Corruption favors the wealthy.
But his name is Fauxbama.
as a result of Massachusettes. He will announce he is firing the Supreme Court, appointing another one without Senate Confirmation,
and convicting Dick Cheney of crimes against humanity.
Cheney will have to serve in chains confined to the Oval office desk so he can advise Obama how to ram through the REAL progressive agenda while the President waits for his pair to mature. The latter takes time, as anyone who has gronw them can tell you.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
If democrats were like republicans they would open a hearing about roberts and alito outright LYING about settled law. Then impeach the lying bastards using the nuclear option.
But democrats have no balls.
"The President has no balls," if Hillary was President.
The President needs to grow a pair!
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
.
but she will definitely need more than one pair if she
wants the Testy Oster On needed to act like Cheney in enacting the Change We Were Deceived Into Believing We Could Hope For.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
they're pretty good at ass kicking when necessary.
They just rewrote the constitution.
Substitute "We the corporations" for "We the people"
The "people" are no longer even relevent.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
We've been going here since "Santa Clara". I really can see no reason to treat a corporation as a "person".
I don't know of any way to fix this except to take it to its logical absurd extreme. Perhaps form a corporation that seeks to adopt children. It would sure suck to win, though.
I want a corporation to donate blood, a kidney, a lobe of its liver, bone marrow, etc.
THEN the corporation can be a person too.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Then how can Gays possibly be denied them? Maybe Gays should incorporate.
State sanction will lead to any box turtle issuing common and preferred stock.
Even the dumbest peckerwood like John Cornyn could tell you that.
"I mean Romney is the most conservative on illegal immigration and I don't think Ronald Reagan could get elected in California today."
Ann "Clipped" Coulter
Corporate personhood goes back to 1886.
Feingold and Grayson.
good luck, America, you were stumbling along and doing horrible even before this insane ruling... so you're going to need all the luck you can get.
while Obama put's in the next loan request/bond sale to China for 1.9 Trillion Dollars.
Whats wrong with this picture
So Goldman Sachs will spend $$$$$700,000,000 to unseat Obama, Grayson and Feingold. Should be a cakewalk.
FN 64 The majority declares by fiat that the appearance of undue influence by high-spending corporations "will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy." The electorate itself has consistently indicated otherwise, both in opinion poll ... and in the laws its representatives have passed, and our colleagues have no basis for elevating their own optimism into a tenet of constitutional law.
My stomach hurts from laughing at the absurdity of the majority opinion.
"will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy."
Well, it is true - it will not cause us to lose faith because THAT ship has already sailed.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Court, isn't it? I guess its perfectly legal, too.
New amendment to the constitution as mentioned this morning here:
Who would vote against it? I would like to see, wouldn't you?
is the rock upon which that will splinter. Now, if it's written to include the preborn--and perhaps the twinkle in someone's eye--you might get some conservative support.
..conservatives don't care any more.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
... will quibble over personhood at birth, as opposed to personhood at conception.
Like the concept but that needs a serious rewrite.
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
... if it's kept "off the table."
Corruption favors the wealthy.
So change the tax code to make sure corporate (or partnership) political expenditures are not tax-deductible as business expenses. After all, if it's about political expression rather than making money, other (individual) taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize the "speech".
Then dissident stockholders could get into the act. If the corporation is spending money for some ideological purpose, claiming that it's political and not money-making speech, whose money are they spending? It's the difference between putting out a press release compared to diverting massive sums of shareholder money to advance the political objectives of corporate executives.
I expect a gazillion teabagger march terminating on the steps of the Supreme Court.
/snark
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
hahahahahahahahahaahahahahaha
hahahahahahaha
ahahahahaha
/cry
But it's alright to cry.
:D
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
"You don't know to play the game....and you cheat and you lie"
"You make me want to cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWoD2sQ9LiU
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
because the hypocrites love it.
mesmerized by images of successful people and celebrities on TeeVee I imagine.
Hillary Clinton cited the First Amendment in defending large political donations on the David Letterman Show.
I can't hear irony anymore.
"To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And,
at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between,
plus some things I can't remember, all rolled into one big "thing."
This is truth, to me. "
-Jack Handy
I meant "ironically" in an ironic sense.
..suggesting Hillary should go iron isn't it?
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
here, starting around 6:50.
The tyranny and control of evil corporations were the cause of the American Revolution and the real Tea Party (how interesting that the right wing corporate astroturf groups chose it). Corporations were controlled by legislatures and given limited life spans and could only conduct business in certain industries. Corporations were "put to death" regularly by the people and were seen as the corrupt evils they are by the founding fathers. Of course the founding fathers fighting against the imperial powers of corporations is never discussed in the media or in school history classes. But it was as American as apple pie.
Impeach all those criminals who put Bush in power in 2000 (I've been saying that since then). They should be in jail already. Congress needs to get off its fat ass and impeach them.
LOL! Obama promises a "forceful response." I'm sure the Rethugs/Cheney party and the Supreme A-holes are just shaking in their boots over that. What happened to the magic of bipartisanship that gave us the health care bill and the ineffectual stimulus that was too watered down and didn't put enough people to work, and don't forget the great Bank bailout with no strings? How's that all working out for you? How will the next presidential election.
"If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their money, first by inflation
and then by deflation, the banks and corporations
that will grow up around them (around the banks),
will deprive the people of their property until their
children will wake up homeless on the continent
their fathers conquered.
- Thomas Jefferson
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed
corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a
trial of strength and bid
defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson, 1812
Its way more than simply a money in politics issue (like that isn't already epidemic.)
Corporate personhood and the Corporo-fascist state (No, not the poor confused Teabagger definition) has been sanctified.
It would take a constitutional amendment to throw this over.
Nah Gun Hah.
Welcome to Mussolini's America
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
Surely nobody still believes that the dems can fix anything. They are in the pockets of the corporations too, just not as blatantly as the repubs.
Campaign finance reform is the only way to fix the system, and we're clearly going full speed in the other direction.
All over Washington, politicians are practicing positions from their personalized editions of the Kama Sutra.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
Now I never have to worry about politics again. Big biz will take care of everything and all I need do is hope they continue to allow us to keep the illusion of our freedom.
I don't care about apathy.
I feel for sympathy and understand empathy but I don't care about apathy.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
The U.S. is slowly killing itself. Corruption rules!!!!!!!!
stare decisis?
yes..I think she gave me the clap.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
.
for lying to Congress? Never mind, Dems don't have the spine or the cajones.
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught
will we realize we cannot eat money.
This ruling seems to me to be an enormous over-reach by the SCOTUS. Could be the one thing that would make clear to the teabaggers that they were created by and to date controlled by corporate big money. They may be forced to confront this reality. As individuals they may hate this ruling as much as the left. I support the idea of an amendment to define "the people" as individual human beings and confine constitutional rights to such. Curious to see if this ruling might bring left and right together just this once (probably for different reasons) to stop USA inc.
Corporations exist and carry out their functions based on their articles of organization when/where they are incorporated. Most are in Delaware because that state has the most lax laws about such things.
If people really wanted corporations to change, then the laws around corporations could be changed and would be easier than a Constitutional amendment. A corporations articles of organization could, for example, prohibit the company form giving any money to politicians or for elections. The articles could guarantee the rights of employees. The articles could make the company behave according to green environmental principals.
THis is not brain surgery. But the only other way is to take the Tea Bagger anger back and make progressives/liberals into a force to fight for positive change, rather than Obama's blank and vapid 'bipartisanshp' -which is sending the country to hell.
He's made one appointment to the SCOTUS, and she was in the minority of this decision.
And if you're expecting corporations to police themselves, beware the invisible hand that's about ready to bitch-slap your silly ass back into reality.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
So stop being a silly ass.
I presented a solution and all you can do is act like a spoiled brat.
years, no?
In any case, there are some seriously fucked up issues in a society which considers an abstract entity, such as a corporation, to be a "person."
I can't for the life of me figure out how that was justified. And why such a thing has been allowed for eons now it seems.
Big money and corporations became a problem by the Civl War period. Legislatures started being run as a rich-man's club and did away with many of the controls, and people forgot what evil they are, as more money told them to. By the era of the railroads, legislatures and Congress were giving these companies huge parts of the western states in exchange for development.
As another poster said, the Supreme Court was a rich-man's club and in 1886 the Supreme Court declared corporations has the same rights as people. It's been downhill into oligarchy pretty much since then...
inception of this country...
“I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
~ Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Logan. November 12, 1816
Seems to me Jefferson's intent is pretty clear.
Only when the last tree has died
and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught
will we realize we cannot eat money.
that the country did not take Jefferson's wisdom to heart.
I got to agree with you, Tom...It was a proposal.
But Andy, it has everything to do with Obama and his "team.".
He's a corporatist. Thru and thru.
Isn't that pretty clear now....or do you need another year?
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
I'm assuming you're talking about Massachusetts- where I am not- where there was no small percentage that voted for Brown thinking that he'd force more liberal health care reform. And never mind that Coakley was just a horrible candidate, who, during a 41-day general election campaign made very few appearances- and took a vacation to the Caribbean.
And you know what's funny about your proposal for corporate restraint? It's the same goddamned expectation that the majority of the SCOTUS suggests in this vote, ya corporatist stooge.
Don't try to confuse the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.
"I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good..."
The Rights of Man (1791)
"It's easy to grin / When your ship comes in / And you've got the stock market beat. / But the man worthwhile, / Is the man who can smile, / When his shorts are too tight in the seat."
-Judge Smails (1980, Bushwood Country Club)
"I can't keep doing this on my own with these...people."
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