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US Supreme Court Expected Political Ad Transparency
T Murphy writes "The Supreme Court, when ruling that corporate and union political donations were allowed under free speech, assumed the source of the donation would be disclosed immediately under current donation laws. Due to loopholes, this has not been the case, eliminating the hoped-for transparency the Supreme Court ruled to be vital to democracy. Justice Kennedy, who sided with the majority on the ruling, has been called naive for his expectation that there would be greater transparency. In the meantime, campaign spending for House candidates alone is expected to reach $1.5 billion."
Kennedy has always attempted to be a fair mediator between the left and right impulses on the Court. But he really blew it on this one. His attempt at moderation in this case has taken an already out-of-control problem and made it much worse. This ruling will ensure that individual citizens are forevermore completely and totally drowned out in our government by corporate interests and their puppet foundations/non-profits. It was almost that way *already*, but now the big interests won't even have to *try* to hide their bribery. And, thanks to this, nothing short of a Constitutional amendment will ever stop corporate control of the government now (and good luck getting a 2/3's majority in a Congress owned by those corporations). Thanks Anthony!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The Supreme Court doesn't make mistakes!
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I fail to understand how SCOTUS could be so short-sighted. When they made the ruling, I agreed with their judicial logic, but that was a case where very clearly the ruling was not in the good of the general population. I don't know how much transparency matters; if you can buy an election, you need not bother with appeasing the populace - you can just ignore it.
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
We are the naive ones is we believe Kennedy.
We're sorry that we accidentally killed democracy because we failed to do our homework. We'll try not to do that again.
--The Supreme Court
We're a shadow plutocracy.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
get back to your rocking chair on your porch so you can yell at me about being on your lawn. stop trying to run things.
I call bullshit. The court knew exactly what it was doing and knew that loopholes big enough to drive a dump truck full of money through were in place.
Who cares whether loopholes exist or not? You do NOT make laws that depend upon OTHER laws to be complete.
If you believe that existing law X will handle the "loopholes" in new law Y that is no reason to support Y.
Because you cannot depend upon X always being ruled as "Constitutional" or even enforced or not contradicted by new law Z.
This goes beyond "naive".
...they would have named him Cmdr Spellright...
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
With lobbyists, campaign contributors, secret donors, 2-party stranglehold, disinformation, barriers to entry and messed-up electronic voting machines...this is absolutely the best 'Democracy' money can buy!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
The problem is not corporate/union donations to individuals, the problem is one of transparency. Focus on that and on closing the "loopholes" mentioned in the summary, rather than beating your chests about the supposed unfairness surrounding the act of individuals joining together to pool their resources for political change. Anything else is merely a red herring.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Unter Gleben Glauben Globen !!
Contributions may only come from registered voters (and with the current $2000 limit)
That would exclude money from corporations.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Every US election cycle, I get more proud of Canada. My latest warm fuzzy? There was a nice article in Maclean's (our Newsweek) a few months ago about Beverly Mclachlin, our Chief Justice for the last 10 years, and the various notable decisions of the Mclachlin court. It's only because of that article I know her name, and I can't name any of the other eight.
Whereas, just from news spillover, I can probably name most of the SCOTUS, because every confirmation and a dozen decisions every year are so politically charged. Polarized pitched battles seem to infuse every branch of the US governments, at every level. Quite frankly, it sounds exhausting.
You and I both know what happens when you assume...
The court upheld mandatory disclosure laws, 8-1. The Court was telling Congress that Congress can't restrict the donating, as there was a constitutional right to speech, but that Congress could require immediate disclosure of the source of every donated penny when it is received. The Court was not saying that it believed that current laws required that disclosure of the type that would be desirable.
Congress' failure to enact a law requiring that disclosure is the problem... and not that no senator or representative, in either party, authored such a bill to do so. They are all equally guilty.
if you can simply buy candidates directly, you don't need to work through a brand or party powerbrokering. and so the republican and democrat hierarchies and names become redundant and unnecessary
as much as you hate the two big parties, you have to agree that no political party structure, just whoring mouthpieces for shadowy corporate interests, is far worse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
SCOTUS deals with the law. That's it. They are the final word for the Judiciary. Did they forget what the hell it is they exactly do? How can it be assumed that the moral and right action would be taken, by the parties the ruling favored, when it was explicitly not legislated that it must be taken?
I'm not buying this. What was it? They went against a 100 years of case law to favor w/ Corporate donations, yet they fell asleep on pretty much the last check and balance in the system: tracking the money? The whole lot of them are past their due at this point. However, I still have no faith in whoever replaces any sitting member. The next lot will stink the same if not more than the present.
This Republic is bunk. From shell to core. Bunk.
Democracy can only function properly when it's a one man-one vote system where every man and vote has the same bearing on the outcome.
This level playing field is seriously out of balance because of the present donations by companies, organisations and rich individuals.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
"...In the meantime, campaign spending for House candidates alone is expected to reach $1.5 billion."
So what was the spending for the House candidates in the previous election cycles?
That said, in close elections, money could buy it. There are 4 tossup elections (as per the New York Times data) that are close neough for a reasonable amount of cash to buy the election.
Colorado: Buck (r) ahead of Bennet (d) by .3%. Here money could buy the election with less than double
Illionis: (r) ahead of Giannoulias (d) by 1.3%. Could buy the election for 2 times the money
West Virgina: (Manchin (d) ahead of Raese (r) by 1.9%, for a bit less than 4 times the money
All other elections are more than 2.5% difference in voting, which would require about a at least a sixfold increase in cash - and that assumes your opponent can not keep up with your spending. It is simply too expensive to buy any other election.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
was that is was not 9 to 0.
Any restriction on political speech should not exist. It would have only been a matter of time before the only groups allowed to make political speech are approved wholly by the people they are electing. People form groups, corporations, unions, non-profits, and the like, to give more weight to their voice. The individual long lost their ability to sway the politicians, but a group of them, regardless of how they are formed, still holds that power.
What CU did was strike down the ability of government to define acceptable groups. As in, the politicians saw the power that these groups had over them and reacted to prevent anyone not in their pocket from exercising influence over them. As in, they wished to not be held accountable to the people regardless how the people formed.
There will always be a special interest group with more money and influence than we like, that is part of the process. Some are better setup than others, it doesn't mean they have to win.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The fundamental problem is people actually paying attention to TV political ads. What we need is voting reform in the form of massive civics and logic education. Teach people to cast a vote based on their own research & conclusions and not an error laden, buzzword filled TV ad that plays on people's emotions.
That was basically the law before it was struck down. Free speech doesn't apply to only Citizens or Registered voters, and there is no current limit on donating since it was struck down as well as they saw it limited free speach. If you had 1 million to give to a candidate you could since there is no limit at this time. You're probably thinking of the old limit that was 2500. A real solution and probably the only one that would work is to go the route Japan did and ban ALL political ads during the election season. Force them to get votes by rally and in person hand shakes alone. It would require an amendment though and who in congress today would go for it.
It's time to seriously get behind passing a constitutional amendment requiring all political races be funded by public money, and restrict the ability of outside sources to campaign for officials or for parties.
It's a race to see if we can fix the flaw in the Constitution before the government is completely corrupted by corporate interests. The only way it'll stand in the courts it to change the rules that Supreme Court has to play by. I.e. Change the Constitution of the United States with an Amendment passed by the state legislatures.
Transparency may be "vital to democracy" but it's not explicitly in the First Amendment or in other parts of the Constitution. Until the Constitution is amended, transparency isn't really the Supreme Court's overriding concern.
Allowing free speech to be abridged by Congress for "transparency" reasons is a flat violation of the Congressional and Supreme Court oath of office. Only 4 of the 9 justices chose to break that oath.
see now, we are all free to vote, free to become candidates, right ? right. but, it takes phenomenal amounts of finances to make yourself known, right ? riiiight. so, in case you dont have a big media conglomerate you own, you need to find cash somewhere. even then, even if you find the cash, big media companies, who can reach the voters you want, may not allow you to give ads in their networks or give you air time, in case your policies and ideas dont suit them. ooook, right. so, that makes it so that, you can not get elected EVEN if you have the money. you need to either own a big media conglomerate, or, get one behind your back.
and the result is what ? in the capitalist system, your freedom goes only as far as your cash goes. can anyone define that as being 'free' ?
for any idiot who would venture down the path that is 'you can make cash', i would like to remind the 2004 statistic of income and wealth distribution in u.s. that comes up as 7% top of society owning 72% of the pie, and bottom 80% having to do with 15%. http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
actually its much worse, top 1% has 52% or so of the pie.
and that basically means, 1% of the american nation is ruling over the rest, despite all being 'free'. and anyone's chances of getting into that 1%, without being born into that class, is, practically nil. even our much applauded tech stars are not in that segment. serfs in middle ages had more chance to be made a baron due to bravery in the wars they were conscripted to fight in for their lord.
Read radical news here
SCOTUS = GOMER PYLE: "Suprise, Suprise, Suprise!" [sic] How naieve can a group of (theoretically) smart people be?
note the "e"
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Corporation were already dumping money into elections. Citizens United basically told the government that they didn't get to pick and choose which groups get to speak.
Previously, an editorial in the New York Times (a for-profit corporation) on how great Hillary Clinton is would be allowed, but a video by the Citizens United group on how much she sucks wouldn't be. How was that "good for democracy"?
Just think! That's 1.5 billion going to television networks and local cable stations that would've otherwise just sat idle! Suddenly thousands of people will have jobs as actors playing concerned parents, or concerned homosexuals, or concerned churchgoers. Not to mention the voiceover performers and special effects guys. I mean, can you imagine how many synthesized ominous thunderstorms 1.5 billion could buy? A lot! That's how many.
Frankly, I think the US needs to move to a lobby-based economy. Have elections every single year! Get more talking heads on TV to really polarize that debate and get those funds flowing! It's the patriotic thing to do!
When the ruling was made, the outcome was predictable! The only thing that was unpredictable was the extent was far more than expected.
You would have to believe that the court was indeed not knowledgable on the existing legal loopholes. Which would require you to believe that none of the supreme court justices, or their clerks, knew of this problem. If that is the case, then indeed the people who sit on the highest court in the land are not the most knowledgable people in the land with regards to the laws of the same land.
Which may well be a good argument against lifetime appointments to that bench. Of course, if you believe instead that they were aware of the problem, and ruled as they did with indifference to it, then that may be an argument in the same direction.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is what we get when the Court takes up a case just because Roberts wanted to. The case was not ready for the Supreme Court, and the judges rules on arguments less mature, as well as with less standing, than should have been. Activist judges!
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
Back in January 2010, Obama gave the State of the Union right after the Court handed down the Citizens United decision. Obama told Congress, with several of the Supremes sitting in the front row, that the decision would allow foreign corporations to influence US elections, which most Americans still realize is a terrible development. Justice Alito, who had just decided in the majority to allow corporations "free speech" by spending unlimited money in US political campaigning, was mad: he angrily mouthed "not true". The corporate mass media attacked Obama for "picking on the justices" by warning Congress and "embarrassing" the court, but of course failed to examine whether it was true.
Less than a year later, we see it was totally true. We see that foreign corporations have invested huge amounts of money campaigning in the 2010 election. Republican candidates have gotten hundreds of $millions spent to elect them, sponsored by corporations including many foreign ones. The "US" Chamber of Commerce (Inc.) collects money from lots of foreign corporations, especially Indian ones that want US jobs shipped there, foreign banks like Credit Suisse and HSBC that want financial reform repealed, and even corporations owned by foreign kings, like the Emir of Bahrain. Foreign kings are spending more in US election campaigns than US citizens.
Whether you think that's OK or not (it is very not OK), Alito was totally wrong. And a jerk about it. Not surprising, since Alito was installed by Bush. Alito swore in his Senate confirmation hearings that he would respect established law, but his Citizens United decision overturned lots of established law, went against the basic understanding that corporations are not people, and recklessly unleashed foreign corporate power on US election campaigns.
He should be impeached. Then he'll be free to skip the State of the Union the way he plans to from now on because he can't stand criticism of his abominable rulings.
--
make install -not war
The law should be really simple. Senate campaign contributions shall originate in the State the Senator is running in. Meaning *any* private donations must come from citizens of that state, held to the standard that they filed taxes in that state. Any corporate donations must originate from corporations incorporated within that state. Any of the so called 501's or Political action committees donations must come from political action committees registered within that state who can only accept donations from individuals who are citizens of that state, or incorporated withint that state. There can be *NO* nationalized money pool from outside the State Party. Same for Governor, same for congressmen.
Campaign fundraisers in California should be prohibited to Candidates running in New York.
Agreed, the real problem here is corporate personhood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood).
Businesses have something approaching the full rights of a human being, except, as the quote goes "They (corporations) have no soul to save and they have no body to incarcerate."
Combine this with the ideas of limited liability, proprietary knowledge, and the common practice of boards of directors being friends with the executives they appoint, and what you have is a class of corporate management run amok with little or no accountability to shareholders. Management has access to billions of dollars to spend towards their own interests, which in many cases are not the interests of the shareholders.
That said, I believe the government does have the authority to dissolve corporations, so a repeat felon corporation could be dissolved or fined into non-existance, although I don't know of any time this has happened before. The US guidelines to sentencing organizations (http://www.ussc.gov/2009guid/CHAP8.htm) mention fining an exclusively criminal organization of all its assets, but I see no mention of dissolving repeat offenders. Maybe someone else can chime in here.
who ever votes supports that system and is the real traitors
US is such a fucked up place ^^ can't believe the population has forgotten about the bush years and leaning on GOP again because of misleading and negative ads and fails to see the attempt Obama administration to fix the problem that previous administration has left behind (2 wars, Economic depression, huge deficit and national debt) . We're seeing the fall of the American empire in front of our eyes i can see China controlling as the rising super power once again controlling most of the rare earths and rising economy.
Welcome China Goodbye US.
US Supreme Court Expected Political Ad Transparancy
Okay, first of all, that headline is totally incorrect. Those on the Court who voted IN FAVOR of allowing this MIGHT have laughably expected "transparency" from politicians IF they were under 8 years old.
The grownup Justices who dissented KNEW that the most cynical view is ALWAYS the correct one in U.S. politics and so voted against it. Along with the majority of citizen spectators.
Had the adult Justices prevailed, I might not have to cart a wheelbarrow full of slick slimy bullshit from my mailbox every day.
This trend has been obvious for years with increased spending on presidential level campaigns to billion dollar levels. As I see it, the real problem is simply that the federal government has transformed over the past few decades into a giant feed trough, not just for corporate interests (of the business sort), but for everyone.
Want the 7.5% of your money that you put into Social Security over your lifetime? Better play ball with government. Want help with the massive education or health care costs? Government is there, not only to help make the problem worse, but to lend you a helping hand, assuming you knuckle under and go along.
Somewhere on the internet is the story of some anti-tax citizen who gets up in the morning and uses a zillion government services just on his way to work. The moral of that story was that being anti-tax (or libertarian, etc) was a hypocritical stance since the guy used government services every step of the way.
My view is that the story teller got it wrong. The pervasive power of government throughout that story was disturbing. It touched everything. Do we really need government to help lift our asses out of bed? I don't think so.
The same government that does all these wonderful things for us, even if we don't want them or do better on our own, is the same government that is such a tempting revenue center for business, labor unions, and academia.
The disagreement over the Citizens United court case is misdirected. As I see it, one could not be compatible with the First Amendment and rule any other way. Sure, the band aid was misapplied, but no matter how the courts ruled, it'll still have been a band aid on a deep wound.
To be very blunt, if an off year election cycle is worth $1.5 billion just in House elections, then we're at the point where legality is a poor obstacle to corruption. That much money will find its way into the election, whether it is legal or not.
At worst, the group in question just needs to break the contribution down into, say $50 pieces, and mail them under the regulatory radar (we might have already seen this take place with elections where small contributors are alleged to have a big impact such as Howard Dean's campaign in 2004 and Obama's in 2008). Giving $10 million to a campaign is just 200,000 pieces of mail (or worse, 200,000 visits to a website). You think a big corp or labor union (or even a foreign power like a multinational or foreign intelligence agency) can't figure out how to do that?
Ultimately, these entities spend money on elections and politicians because they get much more out of it. Nobody spends a million dollars to get a hundred thousand in value. My view is that if you want to remove the rats from the cupboard permanently, you need to remove the food. That means a smaller, more transparent government that doles out less good things.
The Supreme Court of the United States has been singularly inept in anticipating the consequences of its decisions for quite a long time. Consider this statement by Judge Stevens in the Court opinion in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997):
"...it appears to us highly unlikely to occupy any substantial amount of petitioner's [Clinton's] time."
This case of course led ultimately to Clinton being impeached in the House, only the second such event in U.S. history, and disrupting national governance for the better part of a year.
Having some sense of how the outside world works is very important in properly deciding a case. Unlike some posters here who seem to believe that court decisions are the mechanical application of immutable principles, a major part of any court decision is balancing competing considerations against each other and unless you understand the true costs the appropriate balance cannot be achieved.
Alternatively - we may suspect that at least some of the justices do have a good idea of how things are outside the marble walls, and approve of the mischief that results, but choose to pretend ignorance to escape responsibility.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The answer to why political campaigns cost so much is simple, but most voters won't ever realize or accept it. When a group "donates" $1 million to a political campaign, is it because they honestly believe in the politician's ideals? Is it because they honestly want to make their state or country a better place? Is it because they are truly interested in the workings of government and want to improve it?
No, of course not. In the real world, when a group "donates" $1 million to a politcial campaign, it is precisely because they are expecting a return on that investment of more than $1 million. Probably much more (as in multiples). This is carefully calculated and ultimately measured in cold, raw dollars. The "donation" is not a gift; it is the principal on investment. The "kickback" is not a gift either; it is the return on investment.
Limits on campaign financing will do nothing to change the nature of the business of politics (and government itself). After all, time and effort is easily converted to dollars. If they can't "donate" raw cash, they will simply hire somebody to "donate" time and effort. If the return on investment is lucrative, it will be done.
The only way to stop this corruption is to strictly limit the boundaries of government (quite ironically, as the founders of the US intended). Of course, that will never happen either, because government itself is a business and benefits from expansion of revenue, not downsizing. Government and its investors in the "private" sector are business partners.
Misspelled title.
"No organization granted incorporation shall be regarded as a human being for the purposes of this Constitution. All privileges and immunities secured by this Constitution, explicitly, shall apply to incorporated entities for the purposes of the laws of the United States. The 9th amendment shall not be interpreted as to convey any implied privileges or immunities to incorporated entities under United States law. No rights or immunities secured by this Constitution shall be incorporated against the several states through the 14th amendment or any other means. No court of the United States shall have jurisdiction to hear any case arising over state regulations of incorporate entities excepting such situations as there shall be a clear matter of interstate commerce. No activity that occurs primarily with a state's borders shall be construed as interstate commercial activity, even if it has an impact on interstate commerce. It shall be assumed in all matters involving United States judicial oversight of state regulations that the state possesses sovereign prerogative to regulate, alter and/or abolish the activity and existence of any incorporated entity chartered under its statutes or operating within its borders."
Going beyond "naive" in this instance was not (I think) by Justice Kennedy.
Going beyond "naive" in this instance for some Justices/Lawyers may have been a crime against Democracy (not the law), IMO, probably in spirit and with intent "The US Constitution" was circumvented with great plutocratic hubris and gross intent to harm US with political/legal treason (but that is not against the law).
The Corporate States of America (CSA) is a plutocracy not a democracy. The CSA economy is corporate-welfare institutionalism not capitalism. The CSA justice system protects the few from the public many. The CSA religion praises wealth as proof of the gods will and favor.
Democracy is governance for the People, Tyranny is governance of the people.
As corporate states, are EU and US any better than CN or RU? I think maybe not, but EU and US still have great expectations (or delusions) to be far better for The People.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
The problem isn't that the hypothetical "Citizens for More Freedom" is actually funded by corporation X (and viewers don't know it) to criticize candidate Y. The problem is that corporation X now has unrestricted power to spend as much money as they want attacking candidate Y. The debate is now overwhelmed by big-dollar interests that me and my neighbors simply cannot match by getting together 2 times a week to knock on doors.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The PRESS has always been a group until this blogger thing in recent times. However, the modern corporation was born after the civil war and a lot of our problems at their hands have happened since their birth. Before that time, corporations were of a different nature and were not that common. A real person was in charge of the group and could be held liable etc but with the birth of the modern corporation during a time of increased corruption the liability and accountability was removed and has been eroding ever since... as they gain more and more power without anything to hold back the gradual rise to be the dominant form power in the world today.
This will likely be the long term legacy for the USA; as the birth place of the mega corporate oligarchy that will plague global humanity for generations to come. Not democracy (Rome gets credit) and its constitution may be remembered to a degree but will likely be viewed as a failed system and its virtues downplayed by the powerful (as they are ignored today.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
FREE PRESS / FREE SPEECH are closely related, not to mention they are in the 1st together... Clearly the PRESS is not the same as a corporation... well apparently that is not clear to you.
Corporations are not citizens. They have no rights under the constitution (and any they claim to have need to be removed from them.) Someday machines who are smart enough will manage corporations, possibly better than humans do and then it will get interesting. Software tools help manage things today but this is just the beginning.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The problem is, they actually don't do that. They rubber-stamp the inversion of the commerce clause; they support restrictions on free speech; they endorse laws made in violation of the "shall make no law" restriction; they allow government establishment of religion; they support laws that infringe in the face of the "shall not infringe" restriction; they let ex post facto laws go in the face of explicit and unequivocal restrictions at both the federal and state level; they allow invasion of papers, effects and person in direct violation of constitutional instruction to the contrary -- in short, there is little evidence that they even understand what their job is.
It's really too bad that the constitution has no teeth. When I look at what the SCOTUS has done, the first thing that comes to mind is that some of them should definitely be punished for both violating their oaths and for grossly harming the country with malice aforethought.
Anon due to mod points
People without a vote, to include foreigners, resident aliens, corporations, non-profit organizations, trust accounts for granny's dog, and any other legally identifiable person, should have the right to protection under the 14th amendment, which I quote in relevant part below:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
If you tie the ability to monetarily contribute to campaigns to registered voters, then people who are affected by the laws and votes of their elected officials don't have any say in the process, many times through no fault of their own. A person who was born outside the US, wants to live here, and got here as soon as they could and wants to be naturalized still has to wait for the process to take effect. In the mean time, if he's mugged, he is afforded the full protection of the laws and government of the USA because of the 14th Amendment. Why should his right to free speech through monetary donation be infringed upon because of no fault of his own? (Notice: this doesn't include felons who lost their right to vote, but could still donate money to candidates.) The same rights to speech have to apply to people who are legally persons but not citizens of the country or we do a disservice to human kind.
Equal protection is a pretty easy concept to understand. If a corporation has more money than an individual, that person is just as free as that corporation to band assets together for a common cause. This is not as distinct from Bob being rich, Joe being poor, and both wanting to donate money to their candidate. We should punish Bob for being successful and limit his ability to speak through money? What if Joe has the ability to cast a ballot but Bob does not? Is this still a uneven playing field?
Don't give me unrealistic excuses of Asperger's-influenced social theory by saying "If they're not registered when they could be, we don't want them voting anyways, whether it's with dollars or ballots!" or "Take the vote away from old people and other groups I don't like!" or comments to that effect. Think fair, not "what I want" which is exactly the problem predicted in so many of the Federalist papers.
And in a Slashdot specific rebuttal, if I have the right to "vote with my money" by boycotting a corporation because they don't open up their code, release their swiped program under the GNU license version I prefer, or whatever, I also have the right to vote with my money by giving it to people I do support, like random non-profit or for-profit corporation.
Slashdot rebuttal #2: If posting anonymously is so important, why can't I contribute anonymously to anyone I choose? What if i fear reprisals from the same types of personalities (whether they're just legal persons and not natural ones)?
I can just see him standing there with an innocent look on his face, pinkie held to the corner of his mouth while saying, "Oops, did I goof? Or did I?".
Rule of thumb: If it CAN be abused (especially by politicians where money or power are involved) it WILL be abused.
I can say it on every political thread, and you folks just don't get it. Hundreds of posts about how broken our democracy is, and nobody with a realistic plan to genuinely, actually fix it in the near term.
If you want to really do something about the terrifying erosion of democracy, join the one group of people who are actually working on a viable, real-world alternative to representative democracy: http://metagovernment.org/
This seems to me to be a direct response to the Democratic party outspending the Republican party in the 2008 elections. Because of the larger number of people donating small amounts of money to the Obama campaign the Democrats were able to outraise and outspend the Republicans who depended on small numbers of wealthy people contributing the maximum. Nobody knows the intent of SCOTUS in deciding this, maybe it was oversight, maybe they didn't like the move to the left that would eventually leave Democratically nominated Justices in power, nobody knows but them. But the effect of this ruling is to allow the wealthy to skip past the restrictions they were under in 2008 and give them the fund raising advantage in 2010 and beyond.
I sure wish that I had money to 'donate' so that I could perhaps have a chance at reverting any law that the entertainment industry pushed through to squeeze more money out of the people. Sadly, money is apparently "free speech," and it's apparently a good thing that you're able to bribe the government! What a good decision!
http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/27/pity-the-poor-rich-incumbent
Democrats are still outspending Republicans in nearly every race. So for all the fear mongering by progressive groups, none of their fears have come true. Once again, people with no real understanding of an issue completely failed at predicting the outcomes of it.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Wow... Can you get any more "Right Wing Conspiracy"-esque? Seriously dude, put down the Obama pom-poms. It's not JUST the Republicans, it's ALL of the politicians. Look at the shpae the country as a whole has been left in since the 60's. Rediculously mounting Debt, almost constant conflict somewhere on the globe, increasing unrest of the people, a wear down of national pride, etc. FYI, look at the history books. If you do the math since counting Kennedy, there has been almost equal party representation in the white house during the beginning of the computer age and on into the information age. You really think that only one party knows what the people want? And/or will actually follow up on that? Crying foul only for one side is the most short sighted view of all. To parody Nixon, "They're ALL crooks!"
With an expected voter turnout of 37% ( http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html ) , isn't all this analysis too much bellyaching over nothing? The reality is, most "Citizens" don't seem to care. Core partisans, who are generally loyal to their party or philosophy won't be persuaded by any kind of ads. I don't think the Citizen's decision, bad though it might be, is not all that harmful. In fact, from a Libertarian viewpoint, what is the harm in ads that don't reveal donors? An intelligent voter should be able to recognize the third party sponsor and filter the ad appropriately. I think the citizens who do vote are generally capable of keeping their skepticism & cynicism threshold high. (At least I am, I generally ignore all 3rd party ads, unless it points me to something I can independently verify)
WTF? They are either totally gullible or emitting audible porky pies. Either way, get them out.
Anything without a consciousness, or at least a conscience, should not be allowed to speak at all.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I guess they should've used PNG, then.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
You stole my joke.
I'm usually not an end-of-the-empire cynic, but really? $1.5B just for the House? Think I read somewhere that it's like $3B when you add in Senate and Governors races. This seems to me to be the fakest of fake economy.
"Abortions will not be that common" was the cry. Yes, the SCOTUS does make naive rulings sometimes.
Dude, if you can't see that the GOP is a front for people who literally don't care if you live or die except where that choice results in revenue in the current quarter then you're not paying attention.
"Put your mouth where the money is." he said, as they watched the value of the dollar diminish in size while proceeding into the future. Another article vaguely remembered declared that the current price of cotton was lower than that of Civil War times. My, how things change when adapted to. No adjustment required.
The Supreme Court doesn't make laws, period.
Wrong. Look up "case law" in the dictionary. That is the kind of law that courts make, as opposed to "statute law" which is what legislatures (i.e. Congress) makes. Why does "case law" have the word "law" in it? Because it's LAW, that is why. It is binding on other courts and on Congress.
The Supreme Court bloody well DOES create law and that's why its actions are so significant and why they fucked up this case so badly.
What's to stop the Pirate Bay from collecting money and 'donating' it to a couple of senators?
Woops. There I opened a can of worms...
Wow... you posted this twice and you still couldn't manage to spell "ridiculously."
Quote: "A corporation is not the same as "your money". A corporation is an artificial, legal entity created by a state that has its own assets and its own liability. Most particularly, it can sue, be sued, own property, even go bankrupt, but the assets of the owners of the corporation are protected (snip) This is an extraordinary protection. And has absolutely no constitutional basis (but you're welcome to look for it yourself). Thus, the rights of a corporation are completely arbitrary, created by government and therefore changeable and may be regulated by government for any reason. (end of quote)
In fact the US Supreme Court ruled otherwise in Dartmouth v Woodward (1819); corporations and other groups or associations, as artificial persons, possess many of the rights of individual natural persons, and these are rights that a government agency can not take away.
Most of these rights predate the Constitution; they were found in English common law and even in Roman law.
While the Citizens United case overturned parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law (2002), it affirmed the basic rules that have applied to corporations for hundreds of years. It absolutely did not overturn 100 years of established corporate limits on campaign donations. Corporations cannot give to candidates, then or now, nor to parties, though they have always been able to create PACs.
Lastly, why should media companies have rights that all other corporations do not?
Voters believing Obama's claim of greater transparency is no different.
But this is a stimulus plan at its best.
The money much of which is from multi national companies where normal Tax does not reach gets spent here on US air and cable networks. It then trickles down and fertilizes the masses.
The big concern is that the trickle down does not burn yellow spots in the lawn or turn white socks yellow.
Folks just need to make it clear to voters to vote where the honest information is (fat chance).
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
It should be noted that the millions are being spent through agencies. Think tobacco and watch "Mad Men.
The marketing engines are spending money on marketing to preserver their business.
How does one out market many marketing organizations that are intent on preserving themselves? Like you cannot hire a marketing group without funding the marketing group.
What is it that the UCSD p-System documentation says about recursion?
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Corporations as people is the root of very much that is evil in the USA today. It is bad enough that a rich person gets more 'free speech' than a poor person (because money=speech), but at least a person can be held accountable for what they say. Corporations are not just vastly more wealthy than the individual (thus increasing the disparity between those with the least power and those with the most), there are also many fewer ways to hold them accountable, and it is much easier for them to hide their affiliation with the 'free speech' for which they pay.
Completely publicly financed campaigns would do a lot to correct the cancer that is in american politics today, not only neutering corporations, but also reducing the control of politics of the ruling rich. It is hard to see how this could come to be, because it would disenfranchise those who currently are in control, and why would most of these 'individuals' voluntarily give up power?
Over the last 30 years, those with money in this country have used their power to write laws that enrich themselves at the expense of the public, corporations being the richest and most guilty participants. The ideal politician is one that is working for the common good, but the reality is that they work for those who pay to elect them, because they would not be there without that money, and they cannot stay there without more money. This means the rich get to write the laws, and over the last several decades, they have been writing them selfishly in their own interests, not in those of the public. Of course there are many, many exceptions to this, but that does not change the overall effect, which is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who already have it, and impoverish and disempower those who have little. If you look at the demographics of wealth in the USA over the last 30 years, you can see how effective they have been in this endeavor.
In addition to publicly financed campaigns, corporations need to be severely limited from their current incarnation. Monopoly laws should be extended so no corporation is so large that it's success is vital to the national interest that public money has to be used to prop up its failures. That is just one of the many ways the power of corporations needs to be limited to reduce their power and influence. At a bare minimum, everyone who buys a Widget(TM) from ACME Corp. should be informed how the money they spent on that Widget is being used to promote a particular political agenda.
While the free speech argument is compelling, and I certainly do not want the government controlling what people can and can not say, the reality is that things are broken, and there is a way we can fix the problem while still allowing the individual to speak out and express an unpopular view without fear of repercussions. To me, the key aspect of free speech that must be preserved is my ability (as an individual) to publish an unpopular opinion, organize a march, to speak out against what the government may be doing at the moment without fear that the government will punish me (say with imprisonment). It is when this notion of free speech is perverted by those in power to mean that they can use their power to drown out all lesser voices that something has gone wrong. Free speech is at its best when it is enabling those who have less power to voice their opinion without fear of repercussions, it is at its worst when it is enabling those in power to consolidate their power and silence all challengers.