The Roberts Court is about to do the unthinkable...
By John Amato Saturday Sep 12, 2009 5:30amThis is a pretty depressing saga unfolding right before our eyes and it's another reason why we need cameras in the Supreme Court so we can view the mockery Roberts is making out of the Third Branch of government. They are about to grant corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to attack political candidates right up until an election, which would make destroy the very fabric of our voting structure. Did you know that a corporation is an individual in Scalia's mind?
Dahlia Lithwick explains the horror that is unfolding over the hit job produced by Citizens United on Hillary Clinton.
When we first met this case, it involved a narrow question about whether a 90-minute documentary attacking Hillary Clinton could be regulated as an "electioneering communication" under McCain-Feingold. The relevant provision bars corporations and unions from using money from their general treasuries for "any broadcast, cable or satellite communications" that feature a candidate for federal election during specified times before a general election. A federal court of appeals agreed with the FEC that the movie could be regulated. Citizens United, the conservative, nonprofit advocacy group that produced the film, appealed. The issue last spring was whether a feature-length documentary movie was core political speech or a Swift Boat ad. But the court surprised everyone when it ordered the case reargued in September, this time tackling the constitutionality of McConnell and Austin.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas are already on record wanting to overturn these cases. Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts have been inclined to wait. The question today is whether we wait no more [...]
Solicitor General Kagan stands to defend the FEC, not in a frock coat but a tasteful blue pantsuit, and when Scalia pounces on her, two sentences into her opening, she scolds him as if he were an impudent 2-L: "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." Kagan is so loose and relaxed, you'd think this was her 100th argument. Which allows Roberts to dispense with the kid gloves and accuse her, respectively of "giving up" an argument she made in her opening brief and "changing positions." When she is asked, in effect, if she wants to lose this case in a big way or a little way, Kagan is eventually forced to reply, "If you are asking me, Mr. Chief Justice, as to whether the government has a preference as to the way in which it loses if it has to lose, the answer is yes."
One of the ways the Roberts Court hopes to make all conflicting case law in the campaign finance realm disappear is to blame all prior bad case law on Kagan. When everyone is thoroughly confused about what rationale the government may advance in order to limit corporate spending, Roberts can gleefully conclude that all of Austin "is kind of up for play. …" Poof. And Austin is a problem no more...read on...
It truly is a depressing read, even though we it's an excellent piece and we need to read it. With cameras in the court, Americans would be able to watch how the Roberts Court will tilt the country away from the American people and into the hands of the corporate elite.
All a corporation would have to do is merely threaten a candidate that they'll make a movie or run a gazillion ads against them and that would be enough to "buy" their vote over anything that a corporation deems unprofitable. What's sad is that corporations already funnel millions of dollars through PACs already, but that's still not enough for the activist judges of the right.
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Considering that we can lobby corporations much more easily than we can our own Congress.
that is an incredibly depressing thought...
and so far its only lasted how long? How long did it it take for the zeal for individualism and self-gratification to take down the Romans?
Sign our petition to fix the Medicare Prescription drug benefit
and
Sign our petitions for single payer health care
See our web site http://DEMOCRATZ.ORG for those links
See our blog http://blog.democratz.org
Which corporations are you going to deliver those petitions to?
If corporations rules the election process then you really don't have a country anymore.
They are the corporate government run by corporations for corporations.
That, Mussolini could call "Fascist".
"Fascism should be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Mussolini
Consider these clips from the work of the late (d 1988) Australian sociologist Alex Carey
The first and so far only scientifically drawn study of the history of the corporate war on democracy.
CORPORATIONS AND PROPAGANDA
The Attack on Democracy
Part 1 - history through WWII
Part 2 - history after WWII
Mariah Gilardian at TUC radio (user supported) here, produced the clips.
Anyone who watched the confirmation hearings of both Sam Alito and John Roberts must remember the harsh questioning that Ted Kennedy gave these two men.
Ted Kennedy understood they were lying by omission. Neither Alito nor Roberts were honest at their own hearings. They lied about what they'd do once on the USSC. They should be Impeached for their lies.
Roberts said he would honor and respect precedent and what is known as stare decisis. Ted Kennedy took a lot of criticism for his harsh criticisms of Roberts and Alito by many people in America. Kennedy was one of the few U.S. Senators who did not buy into their lies and obfuscations of the truth.
The late Senator Kennedy also understood they are members of the Federalist Society which shares many extreme views including rolling back the Voting Rights Act, Privacy rights and opposes the Miranda Ruling. One should go and become familiar with this very extreme Federalist Society, and its members who now infest all the courts in America.
The left must take note of the extremists from the Federalist Society who now infest all courts across America and not allow the right wing to say any longer there is "judicial activists from the left" on the courts. The judicial activists on the courts in America today are from the right wing and the Federalist Society. Ted Olson is another Federalist Society member and so too, is Orrin Hatch.
In closing, Roberts and Alito should be Impeached for lying before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during their confirmation hearings. This is no joke. A few years back Ted Kennedy commented on the lies of these two men after they were already on the bench at the USSC.
What you're overlooking is that every time the Court "reaffirms" the so-called First Amendment Right
for Corporations, it makes any hope of reforming the election process nearly impossible.
The only way we won't have to lobby either one is to remove big money from elections, thus removing the need for politicians to fill their campaign chests and PAC accounts.
And making the whole process more honest, both during campaigns and afterwards.
"which would make destroy" and "even though we it's"
I can't afford to give much but I'll give whatever I can.
Checks and Balances to trying to achieve balance with a check.
Who checks the power of the SCOTUS?
In theory, it's the Congress.
...We are so screwed.
To sum up, Congresscritters, Senators and the President would have to intervene and say no to unlimited corporate sponsorship.
If I may complete your thought:
"To sum up, Congresscritters, Senators and the President would have to intervene and say no to unlimited corporate sponsorship..."
...of those same Congresscritters, Senators and President.
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
What I find interesting is that these right wingers like Scalia and Thomas are always going on about the "intent of the founding fathers" at the time of the signing of the Constitution....It is obvious that the FF intended the 1st Amendment to protect individuals right to free speech.....not Corporations. But they conveniently forget their "original intent" when it suits them.
This country is killing itself. Publicly funded elections like they have in the UK are the only answer.
Isn't that what they like to call themselves? More like Strict Corporate Constructionist. How many laws have been overturned since Roberts and Alito? Nice of them to tell the Congress they would respect precedent. It would seem that Sotomayer is the willing to protect precedent. And Roberts has yet to rule for the People.
i would tend to agree with the late charles beard's POV about the intent of the founding fathers, and his evidence that went a long way in proving that the FF's intent was to further their economic interests, and any benefit to the lower classes was a beneficial side-effect.
The way the law developed was that corporations, for various reasons, were to be treated the same as an individual. And now with decades of case law maintaining that legal fiction, we're kind of stuck with it till some land mark case some how revokes that status.
As a second year law student living in America of 2009, I call bull shit on that concept.
at those around you! How many of your peers see it that way. Believe me, I know from first hand esperience. What happens when the grades are posted? Law school is designed to weed out the intellectually inferior so they end up being....doctors for example!
I wish you good luck in law school and hope you keep you're sensibilities, and if your married, your wife!
Monica Goodling had a good chuckle over your post.
Lawyers. Feh.
P.S., Aren't grammar, punctiuation, and spelling prerequisites for law school?
writing a legal memorandum! What is your point!
not a post. A post is what we are commenting on!
P.S. Shouldn't you know where you are before you start commenting?
1886 U.S. Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394) is generally cited as the application of the 14th amendment to corporations.
Although there is twist to the story.
Go to commondreams.org.
Thom Hartman has a great piece there on this trial and how the "corporations are people"
ruling was in fact a clerical error.
I read everything I can at common dreams and I believe I read that but I can't find it now. Do you have a link?
Imagine a person or persons (inside a corporation, or out) who so damage a corporation that it has to dissolve, or be sold for pennies on the dollar, or is simply dismembered by take over artists. This has been happening all too often in recent years. If a corporation as an individual is given the equivalent of a citizen's rights, then not only should a forced demise be considered murder, but the corporation should be allowed to vote! They (at least the big ones) seem to have health insurance already in the form of bailouts and the like. I don't think I'd want them on jury duty.
after all, spent the majority of her career as a highly placed, highly paid CorpoRat litigator before being named to the Bench by a Puke President, GHW Bush...
Her questions suggest she's a very weak "Liberal" voice on the Court who is unwilling to take a strong stand on principle...
I hope she surprises me, but like so much Obama has done, I suspect she'll live down to my expectations...
mistrust of former hippies and other well off persons of non-color who locate to quiet southwestern locations, turn them into avant garde communities and create the situation where the locals find it difficult to live because of the rising costs of land and goods. Especially when they then use their wordly expectations to criticize those they displace and their representatives. Its another way of maintaining the status quo!
n/t
were not disappointing. It is so very early though.
Yeah it's bad. But remember, folks, that Republicans had everything going their way with the result that they so totally screwed the pooch the Democrats took away their power. If corporations allow themselves to be as abusively stupid as the Republicans (or Fox News), they may just wind up talking the public into a new era of trust busting. Also, Scalia and some of the other older so-called conservatives are likely to die in the next seven years, thus giving Obama and the Democrats a chance to reverse things by putting in a reliably moderate-to-liberal justice.
Doesn't somebody have the swing vote here?
I hope for. I do hope scalia and thomas are the first to check it in looking for their rapture and consequential appointments by Obama. That is one of the big reasons I voted for him and against the possibility of appointments by a republican president.
Remember that SCOTUS decided a political question when it decided to put boosh in power. That was against a long standing federal doctrine!
FWIW, it is here: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/10/.... He seemed so unhappy with his education, his career, and, I suspect, his skin. So I made a proposal to buy him out for big bucks once W was out of office. Scalia enjoys the job too much to leave.
Corporations are abusively stupid, but they own Washington, so they can get away with it.
Voting with your dollars speaks loudest. Don't give the corporations your money.
Considering how we've been getting gouged by health insurance companies for a while and no one has assumed the mantle of Ted Roosevelt or William Howard Taft, and in fact, people are defending the very same corporations fucking them over. I wouldn't hold my breath over a second round of trust busting.
what I have been commenting about in the past when I say we need to stop thinking of corporations as individuals and that the Consitutional rights should only be guaranteed to natural persons.
Remember that SCOTUS decisions can also be overturned by legislative and popular reactions to them. Its happend in the past and progressives need to start gearing themselves up for those battles. If not, the death of Democracy, as Plato warned will happen again.
the road to Fascism widens.
Fascism, Corporate controlled goverment.
Democracy, people controlled government
you decide
Republic, the illusion of a people-controlled government.
But what about the economy we have now? These corporate morons have built business not upon demand, but have built business that builds demand for a product. It is backward, short sighted, and unsustainable! It is all short term greed above long term benifit.
They do the same thing with the enviroment. It won't happen before I am gone so why should I care.
republicanism is a mental illness!
Full-on government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations is no more than a couple of election cycles away. The fascist ideologues on the Supreme Court will see what they've done.
The Roberts Court wouldn't address this issue, or would uphold the constitutionality of the prior law. With corporations having all the gold, however, Roberts feels the corporations are entitled to make the rules...
line his pocket with the valuable element so he pushes for that entitlement.
If corporations start acting like that did back during the early 1900s, I would expect the resulting backlash to place more power back to the unions. A corporation can do jack shit if all their workers say "fuck you we won't unless..." The public backlash would likely reach up to Washington, since while corporations might donate hell money, they're not the ones that cast the vote, like did when the FDA was formed.
I wonder what sort of conditions need to be met to have a "French" or "Russian" revolution in the U.S.
like it's 1899, yee haw
... what you think it means.
Look, Roberts and Alito were well-known to be right-wing ideologues at the time of their appointments. They were both active in the Federalist Society, ferChrissake. So I don't see what is even remotely unthinkable, inconceivable, or even mildly surprising, in the idea that these two will team up with the hard right ideologues already on the court to trash any number of precedents that you and I might think of as fundamental, but which the Federalist Society is well-known to consider wrongly decided.
Sure, Democrats in the Senate too weak-kneed to do their jobs and vote against known idealogues, instead settled for getting assurances that Alito and Roberts would respect stare decisis. Big whoop. Stare decisis just means that for close issues, you leave settled law undisturbed. No one thinks that if you believe that settled law is just plain wrong, as I presume we all believe for, say, Plessy v Ferguson, and as the Federalist Society types believe for a wide spectrum of settled law, you just leave settled law in place.
Look, the two Bush-baby newbies rubber-stamped by the Dems in the Senate were known to subscribe to a belief system in which all sorts of settled law is thought to have been wrongly decided. But these senators didn't even press them during confirmation hearings on their Fed Society connections. Both of them bristled visibly when that connection was even tentatively made to them. Their discomfort made clear that questioning about this connection was the right track, if the questioning had actually been intended to go anywhere. But it wasn't. The Dems chose amity, comity and avoidance of the nuclear option over doing their jobs. That too was the opposite of inconceivable, unthinkable, or even mildly surprising.
Senators Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy and Russ Feingold asked hard questions and did not buy into the lies told to them by Alito and Roberts.
It was the great Ted Kennedy who put a quash on Robert Bork's nomination, so I beg to differ with you on this point. The Republicans had enough votes along with the conservative Dems to put these guys through.
Though perhaps it would be a good idea to have an actual separate Democratic Party to go along with the Corporate Sellout Democratic Party that controls the Senate and House.
I certainly appreciated the tough questioning from these three. I would have liked to see it even tougher, and specifically I would have liked to see questioning that could have served as a basis for perjury charges down the road. I don't claim to have read every word of the hearings, but my recollection is that on the question of their Federalist Society association, there was no pursuit of that assocociation past both candidates' bristling denial of any involvement beyond attending a few conferences and lectures. We already knew about political vetting of DOJ career positions at that time, (though I believe the US Atty scandal only broke later) and it was a short inference path that the candidates' sensitivity was not unlikely based on the Fed Society having been part of that illegal vetting, with the candidates themselves either involved or at least knowledgeable. At the very least, they should have been asked about this, to get their answers on the record. But even the three senators you cite didn't want to appear that they were conducting a witch hunt, God forbid.
But my point was about the Dems as a party, and our Dem legislators as a legislative party, not three Dems who were marginalized within that party precisely because of their inclination to do their jobs. Alito didn't even get 60 votes, and could have been blocked by a filibuster, if only the Dems had done their duty to keep right-wing idealogues off the Court.
... you call Ginsburg "weak-kneed" to her face. Please video-tape response, I wouldn't mind a laugh.
On the other side, Scalia isn't "weak-kneed" either. But, Thomas isn't awake enough to be weak, Roberts may be an ideologue true, but I was never impressed with him in the least. I wouldn't call either of them tough stuff. I don't see the right-side of the bench as all possessed of stronger wills, I see them as more numerous.
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