CAN YOU SAY…PRESIDENT PALIN?

The Supreme Court of the United States has just ruled that corporations, both foreign and domestic, can SUPERFUND their candidate.  If you live in London, you can’t vote here.  But if you’re a multinational corporation based in London, welcome to the voting booth.  Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is perhaps the most devastating and JUDICIAL ACTIVIST RULING the K-RATS (Kennedy, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia) have ever made.  

How hard did corporations have to march and fight and die for the right to vote?  Oh wait, they didn’t.  Today’s ruling is an activist decision that all freedom loving Americans-including Tea Baggers-ought to be up in arms over.  This is exactly what happens when elections are stolen (TWICE) and the fascists are able to appoint corporatist activist judges like John Roberts and Samuel Alito. 

Roberts added his two cents in the majority opinion: 

 CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, with whom JUSTICE ALITO joins, concurring.

The Government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern. Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations—as themajor ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.

 

The Court properly rejects that theory, and I join its opinion in full. The First Amendment protects more than just the individual on a soapbox and the lonely pamphleteer.

 

 Statement from President Obama:

With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans. This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington–while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates. That’s why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision. The public interest requires nothing less. 

Here is a summary from the AP: 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states. 

It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions. 

Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority apparently agreed. 

“The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues. 

However, Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting from the main holding, said, “The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.” 

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens’ dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom. 

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns. 

Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as this year’s midterm congressional elections. 

Now, The Corrupt Bastards Club would be legal!  I guess they could call themselves The Bastards Club because buying candidates would no longer have to take place in room 604.  It could happen in the halls of the capitol in the light of day.  Pete Kott has been trying to get out of jail since before he headed to Sheridan.  Perhaps his lawyers should argue that he did nothing wrong in light of today’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling. 

We’ll be talking about this on The Shannyn Moore Show today from 11am-2pm AST/3pm-6pm EST.  Call the show 907.569.1080.  Listen live here!