Politics Nobody Cares

[praktik]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_ro...itz/index.html

[Boss Hog]

this may have been posted before but it's kind of funny... or scary.

[atbell]

Originally Posted by Boss Hog

this may have been posted before but it's kind of funny... or scary.

so sad.

so fat.

so dumb.

[Boss Hog]

I see great things for the future of corporatism!

Supreme Court ruling a landmark for corporate political cash | Reuters

[Puma]

Originally Posted by Boss Hog

I see great things for the future of corporatism!

Supreme Court ruling a landmark for corporate political cash | Reuters

things in the US are on a downward spiral. Looks like they decided that they will push the system right over the cliff and what ever happens happens.

[Boss Hog]

we'll show you, hope!

[Hi i'm God]

The United Corporations of America.

God bless the home of the employee.

[praktik]

This could almost be a good thing though. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

Hoping for a backlash after the effects of this settle in..

[ChrisD]

Originally Posted by Boss Hog

I see great things for the future of corporatism!

Supreme Court ruling a landmark for corporate political cash | Reuters

Interesting move, you think this was done to combat the massive infusion the Obama campaign recieved from individuals? Thus they were able to push their message out, and use market domination across all mediums?

[praktik]

Methinks this may prove to be a major handicap for Dems in the mid-terms, especially if Obama pushes harder on banking reform as it appears he is gearing up to do.

He might be pushing some of the deepest pockets around into the arms of the Republicans, with a newly minted ability to use those pockets with much more freedom.

The markets took a hit with his moves this week on that front and it has me thinking two things:

#1: If investors were smart they'd realize reforms are needed for stablilty, serious reforms, that may reorganize some capital and break some down into smaller pieces and lower the amount of risk at play but which nonetheless are in everybody's long term interest, including bankers.

#2: he might push them to the republicans. But given the penetration of the bankers into this admin it may be this move from OBama is more bluster than real.

[praktik]

So I've been debating this and reading discussion over at JREF (here and here).

I guess part of me has kind of reacted with a bit of cynicism to people hailing this decision as the beginning of a "corporate takeover". Beginning? - maybe because Im not a lawyer and not well-versed in campaign finance beyond the big contours I've had trouble understand just how this is all going to play out and how it could make this bad situation worse. Isn't money already finding every crack and crevice? Isn't the real issue these centers of stupendous power that have all this money, and not so much the rules affected by this one SC decision?

And a poster over there mentioned the following:

But my point is that it wasn't a big handicap to the (possibly hypothetical) Big Evil Corporation that is willing to blow huge chunks of its treasury to influence elections. It would be an obstacle to smaller organizations. If some JREFers wanted to form Skeptics Against Quackery and run some ads against woo-promoter Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, or Citizens for Science and take on some creationists in their state legislature, these would be pretty meaningful restrictions.

Which sounds like something of a silver lining...

I guess the other issue I have with it is how a corporation, made up of thousands of employees, shareholders, etc - can advocate for a policy or politician when the people all working to improve the company's bottom line are not monolithic and you will end up with some people toiling away and having the fruits of that labour directed towards a candidate or policy they oppose. The retort to this of course is: unions, taxes, the New York Times - individuals end up contributing to ends they might disagree with all the time (union dues going to dems, taxes going to abortions or wars, NYT workers not agreeing with an editorial).

[praktik]

The Citizens United decision
By Glenn Greenwald
link | Friday, Jan 22, 2010 13:23 EST

The Supreme Court yesterday, in a 5-4 decision, declared unconstitutional (on First Amendment grounds) campaign finance regulations which restrict the ability of corporations and unions to use funds from their general treasury for "electioneering" purposes. The case, Citizens United v. FEC, presents some very difficult free speech questions, and I'm deeply ambivalent about the court's ruling. There are several dubious aspects of the majority's opinion (principally its decision to invalidate the entire campaign finance scheme rather than exercising "judicial restraint" through a narrower holding). Beyond that, I believe that corporate influence over our political process is easily one of the top sicknesses afflicting our political culture. But there are also very real First Amendment interests implicated by laws which bar entities from spending money to express political viewpoints.

I want to begin by examining several of the most common reactions among critics of this decision, none of which seems persuasive to me. Critics emphasize that the Court's ruling will produce very bad outcomes: primarily that it will severely exacerbate the problem of corporate influence in our democracy. Even if this is true, it's not really relevant. Either the First Amendment allows these speech restrictions or it doesn't. In general, a law that violates the Constitution can't be upheld because the law produces good outcomes (or because its invalidation would produce bad outcomes).

One of the central lessons of the Bush era should have been that illegal or unconstitutional actions -- warrantless eavesdropping, torture, unilateral Presidential programs -- can't be justified because of the allegedly good results they produce (Protecting us from the Terrorists). The "rule of law" means we faithfully apply it in ways that produce outcomes we like and outcomes we don't like. Denouncing court rulings because they invalidate laws one likes is what the Right often does (see how they reflexively and immediately protest every state court ruling invaliding opposite-sex-only marriage laws without bothering to even read about the binding precedents), and that behavior is irrational in the extreme. If the Constitution or other laws bar the government action in question, then that's the end of the inquiry; whether those actions produce good results is really not germane. Thus, those who want to object to the Court's ruling need to do so on First Amendment grounds. Except to the extent that some constitutional rights give way to so-called "compelling state interests," that the Court's decision will produce "bad results" is not really an argument.

More specifically, it's often the case that banning certain kinds of speech would produce good outcomes, and conversely, allowing certain kinds of speech produces bad outcomes (that's true for, say, White Supremacist or neo-Nazi speech, or speech advocating violence against civilians). The First Amendment is not and never has been outcome-dependent; the Government is barred from restricting speech -- especially political speech -- no matter the good results that would result from the restrictions. That's the price we pay for having the liberty of free speech. And even on a utilitarian level, the long-term dangers of allowing the Government to restrict political speech invariably outweigh whatever benefits accrue from such restrictions.

I'm also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering corporate control over the political process. My skepticism is due to one principal fact: I really don't see how things can get much worse in that regard. The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: "banks own" the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions -- their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold -- and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can't imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There's not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday's issuance of this ruling?

I'm even more unpersuaded by the argument -- seen in today's New York Times Editorial -- that this decision will "ensure that Republican candidates will be at an enormous advantage in future elections." What evidence is there for that? Over the past five years, corporate money has poured far more into the coffers of the Democratic Party than the GOP -- and far more into Obama's campaign coffers than McCain's (especially from Wall Street). If anything, unlimited corporate money will be far more likely to strengthen incumbents than either of the two parties (and unlimited union spending, though dwarfed by corporate spending, will obviously benefit Democrats more). Besides, if it were the case that this law restricts the ability of Republicans far more than Democrats to raise money in election cycles, doesn't that rather obviously intensify the First Amendment concerns?

Then there's the always intellectually confused discussions of stare decisis and precedent. It's absolutely true that the Citizens United majority cavalierly tossed aside decades of judicial opinions upholding the constitutionality of campaign finance restrictions. But what does that prove? Several of the liberals' most cherished Supreme Court decisions did the same (Brown v. Bd. of Education rejected Plessy v. Ferguson; Lawrence v. Texas overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, etc.). Beyond that, the central principle which critics of this ruling find most offensive -- that corporations possess "personhood" and are thus entitled to Constitutional (and First Amendment) rights -- has also been affirmed by decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence; tossing that principle aside would require deviating from stare decisis every bit as much as the majority did here. If a settled proposition of law is sufficiently repugnant to the Constitution, then the Court is not only permitted, but required, to uproot it.

Ultimately, I think the free speech rights burdened by campaign finance laws are often significantly under-stated. I understand and sympathize with the argument that corporations are creatures of the state and should not enjoy the same rights as individuals. And one can't help but note the vile irony that Muslim "War on Terror" detainees have been essentially declared by some courts not to be "persons" under the Constitution, whereas corporations are.

But the speech restrictions struck down by Citizens United do not only apply to Exxon and Halliburton; they also apply to non-profit advocacy corporations, such as, say, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, as well as labor unions, which are genuinely burdened in their ability to express their views by these laws. I tend to take a more absolutist view of the First Amendment than many people, but laws which prohibit organized groups of people -- which is what corporations are -- from expressing political views goes right to the heart of free speech guarantees no matter how the First Amendment is understood. Does anyone doubt that the facts that gave rise to this case -- namely, the government's banning the release of a critical film about Hillary Clinton by Citizens United -- is exactly what the First Amendment was designed to avoid? And does anyone doubt that the First Amendment bars the government from restricting the speech of organizations composed of like-minded citizens who band together in corporate form to work for a particular cause?

What is overlooked in virtually every discussion I've seen over the last 24 hours is how ineffective these campaign finance laws are. Large corporations employ teams of lawyers and lobbyists and easily circumvent these restrictions; wealthy individuals and well-funded unincorporated organizations are unlimited in what they can spend. It's the smaller non-profit advocacy groups whose political speech tends to be most burdened by these laws. Campaign finance laws are a bit like gun control statutes: actual criminals continue to possess large stockpiles of weapons, but law-abiding citizens are disarmed.

In sum, there's no question that the stranglehold corporations exert on our democracy is one of the most serious and pressing threats we face. I've written volumes on that very problem. Although I doubt it, this decision may very well worsen that problem in some substantial way. But on both pragmatic and Constitutional grounds, the issue of corporate influence -- like virtually all issues -- is not really solvable by restrictions on political speech. Isn't it far more promising to have the Government try to equalize the playing field through serious public financing of campaigns than to try to slink around the First Amendment -- or, worse, amend it -- in order to limit political advocacy?

There are few features that are still extremely healthy and vibrant in the American political system; the First Amendment is one of them, and the last thing we should want is Congress trying to limit it through amendments or otherwise circumvent it in the name of elevating our elections. Meaningful public financing of campaigns would far more effectively achieve the ostensible objectives of campaign finance restrictions without any of the dangers or constitutional infirmities. If yesterday's decision provides the impetus for that to be done, then it will have, on balance, achieved a very positive outcome, even though that was plainly not its intent.

[praktik]

So watching fox news this afternoon this was the phrase they had above the ticker:

"What enrages taxpayers more - Gov't spending or Gov't lies?"

while some kind of panel was apparently debating the subject.

LOL!!

[Lurker]

hahaha I really hope she runs in 2012. The more I see stuff like this, the more I really want to watch that trainwreck


LINK


Critics mock Palin's 'helping hand' at Tea Party speech

Sarah Palin appears to read from notes written on her hand

Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been criticised for having crib notes written on her hand during a speech on Saturday.

Mrs Palin was shown reading from her hand and displaying the scribbled words at a Q&A session after the address.

She had spoken in the speech of a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter", apparently meaning President Obama.

Mrs Palin received a standing ovation for the speech as she called for a "return to conservative principles".

But a photo taken during the question-and-answer session after the Tea Party speech showed her left hand with the words "energy", "budget cuts", "tax" and "lift Americans' spirits". The word "budget" had been crossed out.

'Cheat sheets'

Also, video footage showed her seemingly reading from her hand when asked what top three things a conservative-led Congress should do.

The footage prompted NBC journalist Andrea Mitchell to say that the "cheat sheets" were damaging in view of her attack on Barack Obama during the speech.

"If [senior Republican] Mitt Romney had notes on his hand, wouldn't we take it pretty seriously?" she said on MSNBC's Daily Rundown show on Monday.

There was controversy at the convention over Mrs Palin's appearance fee, reported to be as much as $100,000, although she said she would not financially benefit from it.

Some activists have also complained about the $500 (£317) registration fee for the Nashville conference.

The year-old Tea Party movement draws together opponents of Mr Obama's healthcare reform, his economic stimulus package and other aspects of his agenda.