Supreme Court rejects limits on corporate spending in electoral campaigns

Supreme Court rejects limits on corporate spending in electoral campaigns

www.washingtonpost.com

By Robert Barnes and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 21, 2010; 1:40 PM

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday swept away decades of legislative efforts to restrict the role of corporations in election campaigns, ruling that severe restrictions on corporate spending are inconsistent with the First Amendment's protection of political speech.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Perhaps the clearest sign that the changing political landscape due to voter dissatisfaction and citizen discontent can be seen here today in this decision by the Supreme Court to bar limits on Corporate Spending and Donations on Federal Election Campaigns.

As Congressmen and Senators on both sides of the aisle are finally beginning to take notice of a groundswell of unhappiness amongst independent and constitutionally minded voters in ways that are beginning to shake up the status quo and put it on notice, it becomes apparent through this decision that it’s not just the politicians that are worried.

As Democrats and Republicans as well as citizens are screaming louder and louder that Corporate interests have a strangle hold on both parties in Washington and the political process, clearly the Corporations aren’t too interested in giving up that control.

This huge decision on the part of divided but partisan appointed Supreme Court now opens the door more than ever for huge corporate sums of money to influence the political races by shoveling unlimited funds into their favorite candidates campaign for media coverage and staffers.

The fight for who will in fact rule America, the citizens who want to take it back, or the Corporations that have all but turned the Congress, Senate and the Whitehouse into paid subsidiaries is heating up and rapidly heading to a showdown.

Can unlimited Corporate Financing of Federal Campaigns turn the tide of citizen discontent and end up silencing their voices to deaf and well paid for ears in Washington further still, or are the people rapidly approaching the point where no amount of corporatism corruption can save a system that more and more citizens are decreeing broken and demanding be fixed?


www.washingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The court split 5 to 4 over the ruling, with its conservative members in the majority.

"When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," the court said in a decision written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. "This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."

President Obama sharply criticized the decision, saying it gives "a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics" and represents "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans."

Clearly all three branches are totally corrupted by Corporate Interests, even as a vast number of the politicians still desperately try to put on the Dog and Pony show, blame game, and misdirection shell game as evidenced by President Obama’s criticism of the Court’s decision.

With his White House and Administration almost entirely run by Wall Street Big Wigs, and his own decisions to shovel Wall Street wheel barrels of money at the Taxpayer’s expense that have used it to manipulate the markets and make record profits and pay record bonuses exactly who does the President think he is kidding especially considering he ran a 2 Billion dollar, 4 year long Presidential Campaign flush with Wall Street money and advisors?

How long will Washington try or be able to make it look like this is all a comedy of errors? When in fact it is shaping up to be a tragedy for the American people of Shakespearean proportions?

There is an already existing thread on this topic here.

Please contribute and further questions and/or comments to the above linked thread.

Thank you.

Thread Closed.