US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

There's nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment to say we can't discriminate against legal 'persons' based on their being corporations and there's nothing inherent to free speech that says you can outspend everybody else based on the depth of your pockets. This is corproate dick-sucking at its most obvious and unbecoming to anyone who wants to call themselves a republican. Limited-liablity is a powerful and useful tool for development but God help me if I can find a compelling reason why such nebulous groups should trump flesh and blood citizens.

Because they...generate more revenue?

was gonna start reading the opinion(s) but they're 183 pages....maybe later

http://www.paulwilson.ca/pw_books/covers/skvorecky_republic_sm.jpg

like does this mean that, say, the pro Corp candidate in a given election can now a) directly receive funding or b) indirectly receive support in the form of advertising and campaign support paid for entirely by corporate interests?

I see no one answered this (the answer is "b", btw) What's different is that corporations can now do this directly (ie, they don't need to underwrite some other amorphous PAC, they can just say "paid for by Exxon/Mobil or whoever), and previous restrictions (amounts, timing, etc.) are lifted.

really i'd prefer it said exxon/mobil than americans for clean energy or whatever front group name they come up with, but i don't imagine this is going to change that.

but see prior to this ruling there were limits on how much money they could give to their chosen front group, and limits on how/when/on what that money could be spent. those limits are now gone.

conservative classmate just told me that he thought I'd be excited because now unions can pay for whatever they want too! unions with their actual hundreds of billions of dollars! unions whose influence is derived almost solely from their ability to determine the voting habits of their members! unions the equally positioned and powerful opponent of corporate freedom!

even playing field guys!!!!!

basically, now Exxon/Mobil can operate their own, totally unregulated political action committee arm, the same way they would run any other division of their company. they can dump as much money into it as they want, and they can spend it however they want.

and fwiw obviously corporations' funding pool completely dwarfs the unions'
x-post

so would i in that i wish that loophole re: front groups and issue ads had never existed in the first place but iirc it came out of the earlier BCRA case mcconnell v. FEC? not sure about that though xpostss

its kind of mind-boggling that any single individual could think this is good for the country.

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/usa/images-2/president-camancho-idiocracy.jpg

I can't wait who get's the naming rights for the Republic first.

Walmart's United States of America!

™

DFW OTM

Of course, if they're smart they'll action off everything:

Smith and Wesson's United States Army

Proctor & Gamble's U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Could be fun, no?

The Roche Center for Disease Control

The Goldman Sachs Department of Treasury has a nice ring to it

I worry that the former Klansman from West Virginia has taken up a lot of the good real estate in his home state. Maybe he can sell his interest.

The Johnson & Johnson Department of Health and Human Services

srsly guys, Jennifer Government is coming true

but see prior to this ruling there were limits on how much money they could give to their chosen front group, and limits on how/when/on what that money could be spent. those limits are now gone.

yes and no. 527 contributions were still unlimited, weren't they? they have more restrictions -- have to be about "issues," can't coordinate their campaigns with the candidates, etc -- but those were already pretty fictitious. i'm not saying this ruling isn't terrible, both as law and in its practical effects, it definitely is. it means every election from here on out will probably set new spending records. but it's also true that we've already kind of been on that path.

Maybe it will take something like obscene amounts of corporate ad spending to finally wake this country up to public financing of elections.

Water rolling downhill, etc.

There are various dodges that go way beyond funding advertising. The junkets still exist in one form or another, and those are actually far more nefarious.

xpost

yeah, just like it took spending twice as much as most countries on health care to wake us up to the need for a single-payer system...

anyway, the only real solace i can see is that a lot of corporations are run by idiots. they're as likely to blow themselves up as rule the world.

the taxpayers will always be there to bail them out.

well yeah. obviously. and then we get back a tiny bit of it on our 401k's. until the market collapses again.

yeah we're basically screwed, is i think the deal here. probably more productive to argue about animal collective.

some lines should not be crossed imo

can we sue an animal collective?

i'm in

it can be a class action

AC is the one thing that's more tiresome than cable pundits

Ahem.

50 years from now history will look back on this as the founding moment of the AntiAC party

also the idea of corporations as slaves is kind of fascinating!

AnitAC isn't as catchy as Teabagger

The Supreme Court justices have proven to be superb novelists in the last hundred years.

AnimalBagger

also the idea of corporations as slaves is kind of fascinating!

yeah that turned my head a little

"It is mathematically impossible for Democrats to pass legislation on our own." -Senate Democratic memo.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/dem-talking-points-were-screwed.php

I mean, reading Kennedy's stirring language you'd think he was Holmes or Black defending the sacredness of free speech until you study it and think, "Uh, what?!"

so much headdesk

Wonder if Nader is having a moment of consideration about helping give us Alito and Roberts.

Probably not, but...

piss off x 1,000,000,000

parrots like you have made the donkeys what they are.

morbs that is a pretty ambitious piss off plan, do u think we can compromise and bring it down to 100,000 with an individual mandate 2 pick up the slack?

morbs you've certainly relished the last couple of days, needling all of us benighted saps, nobody's told you to piss off.

I didn't repeat some pathetic shart of an Al fucking Gore excuse.

but he's right. Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader Nader