The consequences of Citizens United vs. FEC

[Henry Hawk]

And thus those people who represent the corporations are "double dipping" if we give corporations the status of people.

Okay, explain....how is it double dipping?

If a corp. breaks the law...the CEO, goes to jail....

What do Jeff Skilling, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, John Rigas, Sanjay Kumar, Walter Forbes, Joe Nacchio, Richard Scrushy, Sam Waksal, and Martin Grass all have in common? They were all CEOs of prominent public companies, convicted of big-time corporate fraud and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

[The Troll]

Okay, explain....how is it double dipping?

If a corp. breaks the law...the CEO, goes to jail....

What do Jeff Skilling, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, John Rigas, Sanjay Kumar, Walter Forbes, Joe Nacchio, Richard Scrushy, Sam Waksal, and Martin Grass all have in common? They were all CEOs of prominent public companies, convicted of big-time corporate fraud and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

  You sure got that right.  They were the largest contributor's to the Republican Party.  Old Ken Lay died before he went to jail for 45 years.  Sure fine group of Republicans. 

[Exterminator]

Okay, explain....how is it double dipping?

If a corp. breaks the law...the CEO, goes to jail....

What do Jeff Skilling, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, John Rigas, Sanjay Kumar, Walter Forbes, Joe Nacchio, Richard Scrushy, Sam Waksal, and Martin Grass all have in common? They were all CEOs of prominent public companies, convicted of big-time corporate fraud and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

If corporations are going to claim "human" status based on their being a group of people and the entire group's monies are going to be used to influence political races, the entire group should be held responsible for any wrongdoing.  You can't have it both ways.

For the record, Jeff Skilling was never the CEO of Enron.  Kenneth Lay, a huge Republican contributor who died mysteriously days before he was to begin his jail sentence and who was conveniently cremated before anyone of any importance saw the body (read: rich and retired on a private tropical island), was the CEO of Enron but it doesn't surprise me in the least that you wouldn't understand the difference.

In any case, expect that pressure for a constitutional amendment will continue to build since it's obvious that the mental midgets amongst us will never get it unless and until it is succinctly spelled out for them in language that even their little pea-sized brains can grasp.

[Henry Hawk]

or you can just do what Obama has done, and ignore the constitution and do what ever you want.

[Exterminator]

or you can just do what Obama has done, and ignore the constitution and do what ever you want.

Please tell us specifically what Obama has done that ignores the Constitution?

[Henry Hawk]

easy, for starters he appointed people to lead the CFPB and NLRB with a recess appointments...when there WAS NO recess.
Article I, section 5, plainly states that neither house of Congress can recess for more than three days without the consent of the other house...yet he ignored it and did what he wanted to do.

[Exterminator]

easy, for starters he appointed people to lead the CFPB and NLRB with a recess appointments...when there WAS NO recess.
Article I, section 5, plainly states that neither house of Congress can recess for more than three days without the consent of the other house...yet he ignored it and did what he wanted to do.

You might want togo back and do some more research because you're wrong.  Want to try again with something else?

[Henry Hawk]

You might want togo back and do some more research because you're wrong.  Want to try again with something else?

Nope, not wrong at all....you might want to try again if you want.

[Exterminator]

Department of Justice opinion on recess appointments.

[Henry Hawk]

and that is BS...and YOU know it....

Article I, section 5, plainly states that neither house of Congress can recess for more than three days without the consent of the other house...

I think it is QUITE clear as to what it means...The DOJ is in the backpocket of the POTUS....Eric Holder is also crook (subject for another day and thread)...

the bottom line is this....we are no longer a nation governed by laws, but by regulations, composed by Czars, appointed by an insatiably power-hungry President.

[Exterminator]

I'm thinking that when my choice of whom to entrust with interpretation of the Constitution is between the U.S. Department of Justice and some whiney redneck parroting what he heard on Fux News, I'm going with the former.  The fact of the matter is that Republicans intentionally tried to circumvent the intent of that clause with their childish little pro-forma sessions and it didn't work out for them; take your Midol and move on.

[Henry Hawk]

you hate it when I am right and you are clearly wrong....dontcha!...  

[Exterminator]

Seriously?   

[Locutus]

The Citizen's United Catastrophe

We have seen the world created by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, and it doesn't work. Oh, yes, it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn't happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy.

Two years ago, Citizens United tore down a century's worth of law aimed at reducing the amount of corruption in our electoral system. It will go down as one of the most naive decisions ever rendered by the court.

The strongest case against judicial activism — against "legislating from the bench," as former President George W. Bush liked to say — is that judges are not accountable for the new systems they put in place, whether by accident or design.

The Citizens United justices were not required to think through the practical consequences of sweeping aside decades of work by legislators, going back to the passage of the landmark Tillman Act in 1907, who sought to prevent untoward influence-peddling and indirect bribery.

If ever a court majority legislated from the bench (with Bush's own appointees leading the way), it was the bunch that voted for Citizens United. Did a single justice in the majority even imagine a world of super PACs and phony corporations set up for the sole purpose of disguising a donor's identity? Did they think that a presidential candidacy might be kept alive largely through the generosity of a Las Vegas gambling magnate with important financial interests in China? Did they consider that the democratizing gains made in the last presidential campaign through the rise of small online contributors might be wiped out by the brute force of millionaires and billionaires determined to have their way?

"The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy." Those were Justice Anthony Kennedy's words in his majority opinion. How did he know that? Did he consult the electorate? Did he think this would be true just because he said it?

Justice John Paul Stevens' observation in his dissent reads far better than Kennedy's in light of subsequent events. "A democracy cannot function effectively," he wrote, "when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold."

But ascribing an outrageous decision to naivetéis actually the most sympathetic way of looking at what the court did in Citizens United. A more troubling interpretation is that a conservative majority knew exactly what it was doing: that it set out to remake our political system by fiat in order to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy. Seen this way, Citizens United was an attempt by five justices to push future electoral outcomes in a direction that would entrench their approach to governance.

In fact, this decision should be seen as part of a larger initiative by moneyed conservatives to rig the electoral system against their opponents. How else to explain conservative legislation in state after state to obstruct access to the ballot by lower-income voters — particularly members of minority groups — through voter identification laws, shortened voting periods and restrictions on voter registration campaigns?

Conservatives are strengthening the hand of the rich at one end of the system and weakening the voting power of the poor at the other. As veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew noted in an important New York Review of Books article, "little attention is being paid to the fact that our system of electing a president is under siege."

Those who doubt that Citizens United (combined with a comatose Federal Election Commission) has created a new political world with broader openings for corruption should consult reports last week by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo in the New York Times and by T.W. Farnam in The Washington Post. Both accounts show how American politics has become a bazaar for the very wealthy and for increasingly aggressive corporations. We might consider having candidates wear corporate logos. This would be more honest than pretending that tens of millions in cash will have no impact on how we will be governed.

In the short run, Congress should do all it can within the limits of Citizens United to contain the damage it is causing. In the long run, we have to hope that a future Supreme Court will overturn this monstrosity, remembering that the first words of our Constitution are "We the People," not "We the Rich."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-citizens-united-catastrophe/2012/02/05/gIQATOEfsQ_story.html

[The Troll]

  Remember how the Republicans cried about activist judges.  Well look what the 5  Catholic Republican Supreme Court judges did.

                                                                      CITIZEN UNITED