Worse Than Shittizens United - The BCE Felonious Five Strikes Again!

[Satan]

[Satan]

And who's supporting this dragonshit? Why, it's Bitch McTurtle, of course!

[Satan]

[Satan]

[Satan]

(upside down cross posted from the Bill Moyers thread)

[FORD]

Worse Than Shittizens United - The BCE Felonious Five Strikes Again!



Supreme Court lifts ban on aggregate campaign donations
Richard Wolf and Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY 12:21 p.m. EDT April 2, 2014

The decision represents another step toward easing decades-old restrictions on political contributions that were designed to combat corruption


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court took another step Wednesday toward giving wealthy donors more freedom to influence federal elections.

The justices ruled 5-4, in a decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, that limits on the total amount of money donors can give to all candidates, committees and political parties are unconstitutional. The decision leaves in place the base limits on what can be given to each individual campaign.

"The government has a strong interest, no less critical to our democratic system, in combating corruption and its appearance," Roberts wrote. "We have, however, held that this interest must be limited to a specific kind of corruption — quid pro quo corruption — in order to ensure that the government's efforts do not have the effect of restricting the First Amendment right of citizens to choose who shall govern them."

The decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which came nearly six months after it was argued at the beginning of the court's term in October, marks the latest round in the bitter national debate over the role of money in American politics.

More immediately, it alters the political landscape ahead of November's midterm elections and could transform state contests as well. Legal experts said the ruling also erodes aggregate contribution limits imposed by the District of Columbia and 12 states, ranging from Connecticut to Wyoming.

It's the most important campaign-finance ruling since the high court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts independently to influence elections.

The court's four liberal justices dissented vehemently from Roberts' ruling. Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the minority, said the decision "understates the importance of protecting the political integrity of our governmental institutions."

"Taken together with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, today's decision eviscerates our nation's campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve," Breyer wrote.

The case pitted the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech – which the justices previously have equated with spending money in elections – against the government's interest in preventing political corruption.

"Today, the court made clear that restraints on the political speech of those whose views you don't like must fail," said Dan Backer, the lawyer who brought the case. "Free speech is the right of all Americans, and not a revocable grant from the government of the day."

The decision was a victory for the Republican National Committee, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, and Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon, who challenged the $123,200 cap on contributions an individual can give to all federal candidates, parties and political action committees in a two-year election cycle.

McCutcheon's challenge did not extend to the $2,600 limit a donor can give to a federal candidate in each primary and general election or the $32,400 limit that can go to a national party committee, because of concerns about corruption that are at the root of the federal law. In his ruling, Roberts reiterated the importance of those limits in protecting against political corruption.

"Our cases have held that Congress may regulate campaign contributions to protect against corruption or the appearance of corruption," he said. "Congress may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others."

Under the court's ruling, donors will have to stick to that $2,600 limit but can give to as many campaigns as they want without worrying about the previous $123,200 ceiling. The decision also could jeopardize separate contribution caps in at least a dozen states, from Arizona to Wyoming.

"While I understand some base limits on the dollar amount of single contributions, limits to the overall number of candidates, parties and committees are nothing more than unnecessary limits to First Amendment freedom," McCutcheon said in reaction to the ruling. "The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the unconstitutionality of aggregate limits."

McConnell, perhaps the nation's leading opponent of campaign finance limits, noted the ruling doesn't lift restrictions on the most corruptible contributions.

"Let me be clear for all those who would criticize the decision: It does not permit one more dime to be given to an individual candidate or a party," he said. "It just respects the constitutional rights of individuals to decide how many to support."

The limits on campaign contributions had stood for nearly 40 years. The high court drew a distinction between those contributions, which it said could lead to corruption, and money spent independently in its landmark 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling. Independent spending was expanded in the Citizens United case to include unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions.

While four of the court's conservative justices joined the Roberts ruling, the fifth, Justice Clarence Thomas, went even further and said he would have voted to strike down Buckley. Thomas said there should be no difference in the regulation of spending and contributions.

"This case represents yet another missed opportunity to right the course of our campaign finance jurisprudence by restoring a standard that is faithful to the First Amendment," Thomas wrote. He agreed only with Roberts' decision, not its rationale.

Defenders of government limits have warned that so-called "joint fundraising committees" now will be able to funnel up to $3.6 million from one donor to any vulnerable candidates.

"With its Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, the Supreme Court has turned our representative system of government into a sandbox for America's billionaires and millionaires to play in," said Fred Wertheimer, president of the public interest group Democracy 21. "The court's decisions have empowered a new class of American political oligarchs."

But other campaign finance watchdogs took solace in the court's decision to leave intact limits that cap individual donations to $2,600 for a primary or general election. "The base limits do not appear to be under immediate challenge," Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, said.

Nearly 1.3 million people donated more than $200 to federal candidates, party committees and PACs last year, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money. Only about 600 hit the maximum donation limit to federal candidates in the 2012 elections, the center found.

McCutcheon and his allies also argued that lifting the cumulative cap on contributions might help candidates and national parties counter the rising influence of new "super PACs." Those entities, ushered in partly by Citizens United and a separate lower court decision in 2010, can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money independent of particular candidates.

[FORD]

[Nickdfresh]

Fucking awful! It's tough for us to criticize cunts like Putin and that douchier version of Chavez in Venezuela when our "democracy" is nothing but a plutocratic free-for-all...

[jacksmar]

The Supreme Court held that Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they join together to form businesses and individuals making campaign donations already face disclosure rules.

You guys are nothing more than typical liberal Democrats and commie libs predicting doom if they and their special interest allies are required to follow the Constitution.

[FORD]

And there goes jerksmear, carrying water for the KKKoch brothers again......

[FORD]

Merged with earlier thread, with videos that explain this hideous piece of shit case and what it will do to this country.

[jacksmar]

............and Turd sides with John McCain and..................

(oh my)

Senator Benjamin Tillman

That maKKKes you a first class racist.


TURD, you continually show yourself to be nothing more than a useless simp; nodding, parroting, bleating. Try to grow past your ideology. As a socialist ideologue you're not worth much to yourself.

Again; know your 'liquid worth'.

[FORD]

Campaign Finance was one of the few things John McCain was ever correct about.

And the law which existed until Shittizens United killed it was called "McCain-Feingold", of course.

Russ Feingold was correct about 98% of the time. And sure enough, thanks to Shittizens United, he lost his seat in 2010, and the KKKochs put a goddamned pedophile in his place. Along with a bunch of other useless pieces of shit that they put in Wisconsin.

Among other states, but their takeover there was one of the worst, given Scott Walker and the assault on unions, etc.

[ODShowtime]

We all knew there would be days like this. Just about 10 years ago, when that shitstain was re-elected. We knew he'd stock the supreme court with his boys and this and the other terrible fascist decisions is the end result. Our government is a joke. I guess I should be happy because I really thought the nuclear war would have happened by now.

[jacksmar]

Campaign Finance was one of the few things John McCain was ever correct about.

And the law which existed until Shittizens United killed it was called "McCain-Feingold", of course.

Russ Feingold was correct about 98% of the time. And sure enough, thanks to Shittizens United, he lost his seat in 2010, and the KKKochs put a goddamned pedophile in his place. Along with a bunch of other useless pieces of shit that they put in Wisconsin.

Among other states, but their takeover there was one of the worst, given Scott Walker and the assault on unions, etc.

Well, not quite. The Citizens United decision stated that Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they join together to form businesses.

The defamation of this fact is a political lie. The never tried a case, fat, gun-hating oompa loompa didn't know what she was talking about in her own dissent.

ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLEE GENERAL KAGAN: Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court:

I have three very quick points to make about the government position. The first is that this issue has a long history. For over 100 years Congress has made a judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections and this Court has never questioned that judgment.

Number two -

JUSTICE SCALIA: Wait, wait, wait, wait. We never questioned it, but we never approved it, either. And we gave some really weird interpretations to the Taft-Hartley Act in order to avoid confronting the question.

GENERAL KAGAN: I will repeat what I said, Justice Scalia: For 100 years this Court, faced with many opportunities to do so, left standing the legislation that is at issue in this case — first the contribution limits, then the expenditure limits that came in by way of Taft-Hartley — and then of course in Austin specifically approved those limits.

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don’t understand what you are saying. I mean, we are not a self — self-starting institution here. We only disapprove of something when somebody asks us to. And if there was no occasion for us to approve or disapprove, it proves nothing whatever that we didn’t disapprove it.

GENERAL KAGAN: Well, you are not a self-starting institution. But many litigants brought many cases to you in 1907 and onwards and in each case this Court turns down, declined the opportunity, to invalidate or otherwise interfere with this legislation.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But that judgment was validated by Buckley’s contribution-expenditure line. And you’re correct if you look at contributions, but this is an expenditure case. And I think that it doesn’t clarify the situation to say that for100 years — to suggest that for 100 years we would have allowed expenditure limitations, which in order to work at all have to have a speaker-based distinction, exemption from media, content-based distinction, time-based distinction. We’ve never allowed that.

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Many of the the Roth Army faithful have never read nor gave any consideration to the Taft-Hartley Act.

Considering current events, Taft looks like a prophet. He wasn’t perfect, but his reluctance to tie the US to the ball and chain of this permanent entanglement (Russia) sure looks prophetic after the loss of lives, wealth and freedom of the last twenty years.

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"McCain-Feingold" defined : The world will be a better place when the only political speech allowed is speech that has been reviewed by, and censored if necessary, by the government.