It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Inaction will create 'Congressmen from Wal-Mart'
grayson Grayson: Fight now or kiss your country goodbyeWASHINGTON -- Responding to the Supreme Court's ruling Thursday to overturn corporate spending limits in federal elections, progressive firebrand Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) immediately highlighted a series of moves to "avoid the terrible consequences of the decision."
"If we do nothing then I think you can kiss your country goodbye," Grayson told Raw Story in an interview just hours after the decision was announced.
"You won't have any more senators from Kansas or Oregon, you'll have senators from Cheekies and Exxon. Maybe we'll have to wear corporate logos like Nascar drivers."
Grayson said the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling -- which removes decades of campaign spending limits on corporations -- "opens the floodgates for the purchases and sale of the law."
"It allows corporations to spend all the money they want to buy and sell elected officials through the campaign process," he said. "It allows them to reward political sellouts, and it allows them to punish elected officials who actually try to do what's right for the people."
Fearing this decision before it became official, Grayson last week filed five campaign finance bills and a sixth one on Thursday. Grayson said the bills are important to securing the people's "right to clean government."
The bills have names like the Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act and the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act. The first slaps a 500 percent excise tax on corporate spending on elections, and the second mandates businesses to disclose their attempts to influence elections. More details are available on the congressman's Web site.
"These bills will save us from drowning in corporate money and special interest money," Grayson said. "They should have been passed a long time ago but after the Supreme Court opened those floodgates, I think it's imperative we get these things done."
Originally posted by defcon5
Lobbyists have been buying and selling the law for years before this happened. As long as folks are focusing on fixing this issue, you might as well try and get the lobbyists removed as well.
Originally posted by ItsallCrazy
reply to post by AllexxisF1
I understand the implications I really do.. but all they'll be able to do is run adverts and stick billboards up... if the American people would vote for a president who on his campaign advert has a little McDonalds or Starbucks sponsorship logo then they really deserve what they get!
“The court's blinkered and aphoristic approach to the First Amendment may well promote corporate power at the cost of the individual and collective self-expression,” Stevens wrote in his 90-page opinion.
Originally posted by AllexxisF1
Anyone here like Ron Paul?
Well you can kiss him good bye.
Originally posted by ItsallCrazy
reply to post by AllexxisF1
I understand the implications I really do.. but all they'll be able to do is run adverts and stick billboards up... if the American people would vote for a president who on his campaign advert has a little McDonalds or Starbucks sponsorship logo then they really deserve what they get!
Originally posted by Jazzyguy
If I'm not mistaken Ron Paul is actually against McCain/Feingold since the very beginning.
Originally posted by Doomsday 2029
Fight now or Kiss our Country Goodbye?
News Flash:
WE ALREADY LOST THE COUNTRY!!!!
I don't know when we lost it, but for me personally it was upon the discovery 9/11... what really happened.
Originally posted by AllexxisF1
Originally posted by Jazzyguy
If I'm not mistaken Ron Paul is actually against McCain/Feingold since the very beginning.
The decision has more to do with laws on the books that are well over 60+ years old.
Not just McCain\Feingold.