Korean Job Discussion Forums

[RufusW]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34822247/ns/politics-supreme_court/

Uh oh.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I agree. Uh oh.

From Stevens' dissent: "While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

It's on issues like this one that I agree with Jefferson and Jackson.

[Fox]

The stupidest thing about this is that when things like Medicare are up for discussion, Republicans say things like, "One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children�s children what it was like in American when men were free." When a genuine issue that impacts our political freedoms comes up, though, they say nothing of the sort.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[mises]

Terrible decision.

[mises]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRn3s9BSQzs

Greyson discusses the decision.

[Kuros]

Four reasons not to fear

[mises]

[bacasper]

[Fox]

[Fox]

[Kuros]

I haven't read the decision, but its on my to do list. From what little I've gathered, it looks like the Conservatives waved aside all the relevant case law and exceptions to get to this result.

In the meantime, I just don't see the practical effects being that dire. The situation was bad with McCain-Feingold, the situation will be just as bad without it.

I really don't have any of the spleen for this as you all seem to have.

[ontheway]

[Ya-ta Boy]

While money does not equal political control on a clear one-to-one basis (if it did Bloomberg would have won a far more decisive victory in NYC), there has long been far too much influence by corporate interests: Wall Street over Main Street, as it were.

I think this is right: �Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, who drew this pithy comparison: Under the old dispensation, which prohibited direct corporate expenditures on elections for nearly a century, Exxon Mobil could spend only what its political action committee raised from executives and employees. In 2008, said Waldman, that was roughly $1 million. Under the new order, the world's biggest oil company can spend as much as its management cares to siphon from its earnings -- which in 2008 amounted to $45 billion.�
http://www.salon.com/news/tea_parties/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/01/21/citizenstea

The heart of the problem has been that politicians must fund-raise almost nonstop to pay for election campaigns. All too often they have to make deals to get money. Of course they need to reflect the interests of their district, but they shouldn't be bought and paid for. How can you stand up to someone who has the money to spend what it takes to defeat you?

The other day Kuros said he sees madness in the American political situation. I agree this Court decision is madness--it may be the clearest and best example of the madness yet. This decision did not have to be made on First Amendment grounds. Corporations have been restricted since 1907--when T. Roosevelt was president. Corporations should not have 'double rights' and that has been established law for a century. Dahlia Lithwick wrote: "Even former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist once warned that treating corporate spending as the First Amendment equivalent of individual free speech is "to confuse metaphor with reality."

From the NYT editorial: "This issue should never have been before the court. The justices overreached and seized on a case involving a narrower, technical question involving the broadcast of a movie that attacked Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 2008 campaign. The court elevated that case to a forum for striking down the entire ban on corporate spending and then rushed the process of hearing the case at breakneck speed. It gave lawyers a month to prepare briefs on an issue of enormous complexity, and it scheduled arguments during its vacation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/opinion/22fri1.html?hp

Usually the Court refrains from making far-reaching decisions like this unless there is a decisive majority: Marbury v Madison (5-0), Brown v Board of Education (9-0). A 5-4 majority on an issue of this magnitude is just too political.

To paraphrase what someone said: The Dred Scott decision turned some people into things. Now the Court has turned some things into people. It just feels so wrong.

[thecount]

http://www.campaignfreedom.org/blog/detail/how-the-fec-lost-citizens-united-or-so-we-think

At the heart and soul of this, you have a political commentary, being banned by the government. Period.

Here's why the FEC lost: it equated ALL FORMS speech as equally prohibitable under the McCain/Feingold.

Excerpt:

"I'm not asking what the statute says," Justice Alito stated, going on to ask, "The government's position is that the First Amendment allows the banning of a book if it's published by a corporation?"
...
To this, the Deputy Solicitor General was backed against the wall, and did not retreat from his earlier pro-government regulatory position. "[A] corporation could be barred from using its general treasury funds to publish the book and could be required to ... raise funds to publish the book using its PAC" with contribution limited by campaign finance law, Stewart insisted.
...
Then the Chief Justice chimed in, asking whether that would be true if the book contained only "one use of the candidate's name"?
...
"That's correct," Stewart responded a few interchanges later, further explaining, "Yes, [the government's] position would be that [any] corporation could be required to use PAC funds rather than general treasury funds."
...
"And if they didn't, you could ban it?" the Chief Justice made crystal clear.
...
"If they didn't, we could prohibit the publication of the book," Stewart agreed.


That is what the government was arguing for. The position gets deeper and quite disturbing: