Senator Chuck Schumer: Citizens United Worse than Racial Segregation Case Plessy v Ferguson

reply to post by xuenchen


When everything has to be publicly disclosed, and SuperPacs can't run ads or do anything else, all you essentially need is a watchdog to keep track of the campaign contributions, accounting for all money spent and donated. Any discrepancies would be the result of an immediate investigation.

No more fancy dinners. No more catering to lobbyists. Small single donations. That's it, and make a requirement that all who give contributions have to be American Born legal citizens, NO dual citizenship, and currently be residing in the United States unless in the military.

Mitt Romney bought this nomination. You all know it. At least Obama had grass roots support on his way through the ranks.

Originally posted by MiddleClassWarrior
reply to post by xuenchen

 

When everything has to be publicly disclosed, and SuperPacs can't run ads or do anything else, all you essentially need is a watchdog to keep track of the campaign contributions, accounting for all money spent and donated. Any discrepancies would be the result of an immediate investigation.

No more fancy dinners. No more catering to lobbyists. Small single donations. That's it, and make a requirement that all who give contributions have to be American Born legal citizens, NO dual citizenship, and currently be residing in the United States unless in the military.

Mitt Romney bought this nomination. You all know it. At least Obama had grass roots support on his way through the ranks.

Again, it sounds logical.

Now, which current laws are allowing this and what needs to be re-legislated ?

reply to post by neo96

Obama rasied 1 billion dollars to become potus not seeing the problem by the way how about getting him to disclose his doners?

I am all for it. I like the guidelines I just posted better. You don't have to worry this election about money when it comes to Obama.

Romney will blow him out of the water. Wall Street, corporations, and the banks are now completely behind him. We know this by looking at regular campaign contributions.

We don't know who is funding the SuperPacs though. I don't understand how that cannot bother some of you to the point where you defend the entire thing.

For all you know, Chavez, Putin, Iran, China, anyone really could be throwing millions of dollars at Presidential candidates.

reply to post by MiddleClassWarrior

Ha. Do you think your speech is equal to that of Mitt Romney or Obama?

I know it is, and no amount of laughing is going to undo that knowledge. An unalienable right is universal and all people everywhere have the same right regardless of their station, or as you would like to frame it, their class. Anyone with half a brain gets that you salivate at the idea of a class warfare, and anyone with just a little more than half a brain gets that their speech is equal to all.

Power of speech is dictated by money.

Power of speech is dictated by vocal chords, or failing that some mechanical device to simulate the vocal chord process. The crying infant does not care how much you fawn over monied people with such envy and will wail and wail until they're satisfied, and they will not even bother to check with the Bill of Rights to make sure they have this right to speech before hand, the crying infant will just cry because they instinctively understand they have the right to do so.

Money controls speech and can stifle or silence it.

I keep highlighting these words of you just to emphasize how truly pathetic you seem to view yourself. If you want to view yourself as some pathetic slob who doesn't have enough money to control his own speech, this is your business, but attempting to impose the pathetic reality on others is something else.

I can turn on the television everyday, i don't see poor people or middle class people dictating their views on the news.

Then turn off your television set and walk outside your home and start talking to poor people. Television is escapism, and always has been. Reality will not be found on a television set and if you actually need that explained to you, this might explain why you think your right to speech is controlled by money.

Do you have your own media empire? How about an unheard of 30 min show? Anything? Can you run hundreds of thousands of ads promoting any idea you want?

This post right here will make 5,334 more posts than you've made in this site. You are free to dismiss that number and declare that my audience is too small and not enough to make a difference, but all you will be doing is dismissing the hundreds of friends I've made on this site who have actually made the effort to let me know that my words have mattered to them...they are just the ones who've reached out to me. There are, of course, many, many more who've read my words and appreciated them and just never bothered to tell me so. Dismiss all of them if you choose. Indeed, it is your right to do so...unless you don't have enough money to exercise that right, then I guess you're screwed and will have to remain silent.

In a capitalist country, power of speech (and freedom to use it) is far greater for those who have more than those who have nothing.

Well, at least you're not insisting you're not a Marxist and feigning offense at my accusation that you were.

Poor people get heard all the time Democrats make their living off it so they can make their living off their Government checks.

reply to post by xuenchen

Now, which current laws are allowing this and what needs to be re-legislated ?

Citizens United needs to be reversed to get rid of the SuperPacs. Of course, that won't happen with this conservative stacked court, that is why many are proposing a Constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood. We need campaign finance reform. It's debatable on how to do it, trusting the current sitting Congress and Senate to do it would be laughable though. Anything is better than what we are doing now though.

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It's not stifling speech, and Democrats (as usual) often do a terrible and pathetic job of making their argument. This is about money stifling speech. This is about the little guy losing their voice simply because they don't have wealth. They are losing their speech.

Pelosi and Reid can be such idiots. Bernie Sanders needs to be the Senate Leader. Someone who is loud, boisterous, and fights for the common man. Not a wiener poser like Harry Reid. How many times did he actually make the GOP go through with a filibuster? As far as I know, zero.

reply to post by neo96

Poor people get heard all the time Dempcrats make their living off it so they can make their living off their Government checks.

Poor people are never heard, they are spoken for. They are nothing but the casualty of society in the minds of those at the top. Survival of the fittest. One man's garbage is another man's treasure. Less for him, more for me.

reply to post by MiddleClassWarrior

Citizens United needs to be reversed to get rid of the SuperPacs. Of course, that won't happen with this conservative stacked court, that is why many are proposing a Constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood.

Apparently you lack the necessary amount of money to exercise your right to be well informed. The Amendment being proposed will not bring an end to corporate personhood, and that data doesn't cost a whole lot of money to find. You can, in fact, just use Google to do the research, but if you lack a critical mind, then I suppose even using Google would just be an exercise in conformation bias instead of actually attempting to inform yourself.

Here is the actual ruling to Citizens United v FEC

No where in that ruling is their any declaration by the Supreme Court that corporations shall now be seen as "persons". Of course, you would actually have to read the ruling to know that, but then what of your agenda? No, better to just ignore it and keep posting falsehoods in some odd belief that these falsehoods will somehow be seen as truth.

Here in New York many of us are becoming wise to Mr. Schumer. He never met a camera that he didn't like. Any time that something happens, there he is on camera, always with the same tired line. "I'll get to the bottom of this", Same schlock, different day. The thing people here are starting to realize is that he's all talk no action. He spouts off and then nothing ever gets done about whatever the problem really is.

My suspicions about him are that he spouts his normal retoric about "getting to the bottom of this" then a little money from some lobbyist changes hands and he forgets all about the people he is supposed to represent. Typical MO for a crooked politician. I'd love to see him and his finances get investigated.

reply to post by xuenchen


Citizen United has done more damage to democracy and US politics than any other individual decision...so comparing it to something horrible like segregation isn't all that far off. It essentially ensures that people's opinions are worth less than that of giant corporate conglomerates. It's really quite sad...

"Corporations are people my friend!" should make people puke...

question...why do corporations require political free speech? they are a business entity. if you look at the original reason why corporations were even allowed to form, the idea that they have ANY say in political elections is nonsense. the constitution and the bill of rights grants inalienable powers to all human individuals equally. the original reason for the very development of our way of government, was too seperate ourselves from the massive economic power of a few wealthy individuals that controlled the church, and the wealthy few of royal familes, that controlled land and armies.

reply to post by MrXYZ


Segregation was actually a product of democracy and if it weren't for the republic established to reign democracy in segregation would likely still exist. Your precious democracy has done more damage to the rule of law than any single tyrant could ever do.