OK, I'm very scared now: SCOTUS 5-4 ruling on Citizens United

By -
If what I'm hearing is correct, I'm very scared of the latest supreme court ruling. Here's digby:
A century of campaign finance law was thrown in the trash today and that is going to be the result. These corporations have virtually unlimited money to spend on this --- ad campaigns are chump change by their standards and well worth every penny if they deliver politicians who will represent them in the congress. The deal is now explicit and it will be very difficult to unseat them if their elections are financed entirely by special interests.
Meteor Blades on DailyKos is similarly gloomy:
With this ruling, the concentrated big media will now be a megaphone for even more of the oligarchs' points of view. As if we weren't already inundated. As if they didn't already have us by the short hairs. As usual, the class war will be blamed not on the guys who started it, but on those who resist.
Here's a brief blurb in The Atlantic's online politics section:

Citizens United Decision: Republicans Like It, Liberals Don't

That seems to be the emerging trend as reactions to the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision roll in. As the pro-business party in U.S. politics, Republicans have held a closer relationship with business than have Democrats; business-backed coalitions like the Chamber of Commerce--through which businesses have channeled their political spending--back Republicans, not Democrats. That's changed a bit since Democrats have come into power, as corporations have started giving more to Dems. Nonetheless...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) likes the decision.[...]
Seems to me this decision tilts the balance of power in our political system further in favor of those with lots of money, which is not surprising given who is on the bench. This empowerment of the already powerful hardly seems conducive to an increase in human happiness or the strength of our nation. Maybe a coalition of pissed off liberals and anti-corporate populists can fight against this. The Republicans will back it and use it, though. Keep fighting.

Comments

bill in minneapolis said…
This is a terrible, ridiculous decision. Corporations are entities created by legislative laws; now the Supreme Court says that these legal fictions are protected by the Constitution ?

Next thing these five justices on Supreme Court will do is give Constitional rights to robots (if they think that will help the Republican Party)!

This is totally shocking to me and even more so because this case was brought by the ACLU of all people.

It totally changes the political landscape. There is no way to change it except wait until one of these five retires/dies and have a Democratic President appoint a justice so the vote will go the other way 5-4.
8:37 PM, January 22, 2010
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Snarking The Odyssey (with AD&D)

By -
Image
WARNING: Those of you who are accustomed to pithy political remarks here on Internal Monologue should brace yourselves for a major dose of gaming geekitude. Here's a link to one "Jamie R." who does a very snarky close reading of Homer's The Odyssey (HT: Mad Latinist via email). I've only read book 1, but it's pretty funny so far. An excerpt: Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men… Sooooo, he’s in charge, and everybody dies. Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero and his colossal failure. What? … for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever rea...
Read more

Where is 56th and Wabasha? "Meet Me in the Morning" Dylan Mystery Solved

By -
Image
Short version The lyric is not "Fifty-sixth and Wabasha", it is actually "Fifty-six and Wabasha", referring to the intersection of old Minnesota Highway 56 and Wabasha Street in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If you listen, you can hear Dylan sing "fifty-six", rather than "fifty-sixth", particularly on the take that was released as the B-side to "Duquesne Whistle". Minnesota Highway 56 no longer intersects Wabasha Street, but from 1963 to 1974 it did intersect Wabasha Street, at what is now (in Feb. 2021) the intersection of George Street and Cesar Chavez Street in St. Paul, or possibly South Wabasha & Cesar Chavez.  Long Version "Meet Me in the Morning" is the first song on side two of Bob Dylan's celebrated 1975 album  Blood on the Tracks. In the opening lines of the song, according to the lyrics on Bob Dylan's official site (https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/meet-me-morning/), the narrator invites the listener to a rendez...
Read more

Victim or perpetrator? How about both!

By -
Remember in the movie Adaptation , the main character's brother has this idea for a screenplay called The Three? It's about a detective trying to track down a serial killer before he kills his next victim. Pretty standard, right? The twist is that the detective, serial killer, and victim, are all actually the same person . Whoa, dude. Fight Club 's got nothin' on that one. Well, this isn't quite that weird. But apparently, Utah legal authorities are somewhat perplexed by a situation in which a 13-year-old girl and her 12-year-old boyfriend are both simultaneously the perpetrators and victims of the same crime: having sex with each other (HT: Feministing ): Utah Supreme Court justices acknowledged Tuesday that they were struggling to wrap their minds around the concept that a 13-year-old Ogden girl could be both an offender and a victim for the same act - in this case, having consensual sex with her 12-year-old boyfriend. The girl was put in this odd position be...
Read more