Citizens United Exposed

[Tehon]

Personally, I do not believe the Federal government should be able to ban books or movies. THAT'S what the CU case was about.

Agreed.

Very few people bother to look up anything at all about the actual case itself.

Why do you wish to deny the people the ability to regulate our election process? The film wasn't banned from movie theaters or DVD sales, only t.v. and only within 30 days of a primary.

I don't wish to ban the public from regulating election processes. I do wish to stop the government from removing protected rights though.

They wanted to limit free speech.

Corporations should not be regarded as people with all the rights guaranteed to living breathing people. They are legal associations granted by the laws of the people and as such the people should have a right to limit corporations in whatever manner they determine to be in the best interests of the people.

They are not people. That does not change the fact that speech rights do not disappear when you are part of a cooperation.

That is correct, an individual does not lose his/her freedom of speech by being part of an artificial association. A simple fact that is unaltered by the prohibitions on the association.

 

[eflatminor]

Agreed.

Very few people bother to look up anything at all about the actual case itself.

Why do you wish to deny the people the ability to regulate our election process? The film wasn't banned from movie theaters or DVD sales, only t.v. and only within 30 days of a primary.

I don't wish to ban the public from regulating election processes. I do wish to stop the government from removing protected rights though.

They wanted to limit free speech.

Corporations should not be regarded as people with all the rights guaranteed to living breathing people. They are legal associations granted by the laws of the people and as such the people should have a right to limit corporations in whatever manner they determine to be in the best interests of the people.

Not what CU did! My God you guys just cling to the false narrative again and again!

Citizens United did NOT grant corporations and unions the same rights as persons; it simply established that persons may, if they wish, express their political views through the medium of those organizations.

Again......you are reading more into my post than is actually there.

No, just correcting the errors.

 

[Tehon]

Why do you wish to deny the people the ability to regulate our election process? The film wasn't banned from movie theaters or DVD sales, only t.v. and only within 30 days of a primary.

I don't wish to ban the public from regulating election processes. I do wish to stop the government from removing protected rights though.

They wanted to limit free speech.

Corporations should not be regarded as people with all the rights guaranteed to living breathing people. They are legal associations granted by the laws of the people and as such the people should have a right to limit corporations in whatever manner they determine to be in the best interests of the people.

Not what CU did! My God you guys just cling to the false narrative again and again!

Citizens United did NOT grant corporations and unions the same rights as persons; it simply established that persons may, if they wish, express their political views through the medium of those organizations.

Again......you are reading more into my post than is actually there.

No, just correcting the errors.

Erecting straw men is more like it. I never attributed corporate personhood to the C.U. decision.

 

[eflatminor]

I never attributed corporate personhood to the C.U. decision.

Post #53: "Corporations should not be regarded as people with all the rights guaranteed to living breathing people."

You go with that.

 

[whitehall]

The unholy alliance between angry left leaning republican John McCain and former democrat senator Russ Feingold created the mess we are living with in the poorly written "Campaign Finance Reform bill" that was signed into law by George Bush. There is no such thing as "dark money" except in the minds of the left leaning Brits who never had a freaking clue about the Colonialists who kicked their asses and later saved their ungrateful DNA from destruction in WW1 and WW2.. You almost gotta laugh if it wasn't so tragic that the Brit state run media outlet the "Guardian"seems clueless that the #1 name for male babies in London is "Mohammed" and that the poor Brit citizens are still supporting an elitist depraved monarchy.

 

[bripat9643]

From Salon 16 September 2016:
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The Guardian this week published 1,500 previously unreleased emails and financial documents leaked from a now-halted investigation into alleged campaign finance violations by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his allies. ...The leaked documents confirm campaign finance reformers’ worst suspicions about political “dark money” and the legal rulings that unleashed it into our elections. And they prove the assumptions underlying the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision were incredibly naïve.

That 2010 decision allowed corporate entities to spend unlimited amounts on elections, helping to unleash a tide of “dark money” — election spending by groups that don’t publicly disclose their donors.

In Citizens United, the justices predicted that unlimited corporate spending wouldn’t “corrupt” politicians because it would be totally independent of candidates. But the Wisconsin documents show how many “independent” expenditures are actually controlled behind-the-scenes by candidates’ campaigns.

And, although the court in Citizens United said campaign finance disclosure laws would provide citizens with all the information necessary to “see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests,” these documents demonstrate that citizens are routinely left in the dark about who is bankrolling their representatives, thanks to corporations and wealthy donors secretly funneling their contributions through phony “social welfare” groups which disguise the identities of their funders.

Most importantly these documents show “dark money” is really only “dark” when it comes to the public’s knowledge. The politicians who benefit from undisclosed election spending know exactly where their financial support is coming from.
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Collusion between political campaigns and PACs is strictly illegal. So why hasn't Walker been arrested?

 

[whitehall]

We kicked the Brits out of the United States twice in the 19th century and we saved their DNA twice in the 20th century and the freaking elitist Brit media still wants to meddle in U.S. politics even though it seems that the Brit way of life is about to be absorbed by Sharia law.

 

[bripat9643]

Personally, I do not believe the Federal government should be able to ban books or movies. THAT'S what the CU case was about.

They have some form of censorship all over the world. Some more extensive, some less but it is censorship. Even in Europe there are subjects one cannot express any opinion about without facing imprisonment. It seems like those places would be suitable for you.

What do you mean "even in Europe?" Europe is notorious for banning speech that isn't politically correct. For instance, the German government prosecutes any media outlet that even mentions the epidemic of rapes committed by "refugees." Canada is also well known for censorship.

 

[defcon4]

Personally, I do not believe the Federal government should be able to ban books or movies. THAT'S what the CU case was about.

They have some form of censorship all over the world. Some more extensive, some less but it is censorship. Even in Europe there are subjects one cannot express any opinion about without facing imprisonment. It seems like those places would be suitable for you.

What do you mean "even in Europe?" Europe is notorious for banning speech that isn't politically correct. For instance, the German government prosecutes any media outlet that even mentions the epidemic of rapes committed by "refugees." Canada is also well known for censorship.

That's what I meant...

 

[FA_Q2]

Agreed.

Very few people bother to look up anything at all about the actual case itself.

Why do you wish to deny the people the ability to regulate our election process? The film wasn't banned from movie theaters or DVD sales, only t.v. and only within 30 days of a primary.

I don't wish to ban the public from regulating election processes. I do wish to stop the government from removing protected rights though.

They wanted to limit free speech.

Corporations should not be regarded as people with all the rights guaranteed to living breathing people. They are legal associations granted by the laws of the people and as such the people should have a right to limit corporations in whatever manner they determine to be in the best interests of the people.

They are not people. That does not change the fact that speech rights do not disappear when you are part of a cooperation.

That is correct, an individual does not lose his/her freedom of speech by being part of an artificial association. A simple fact that is unaltered by the prohibitions on the association.

It certainly is altered. You are limiting the rights of groups of people for no other reason than they are exercising their rights through another legal entity.

 

[indago]

From The New York Times 19 September 2016:
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Anyone looking for more evidence that politicians pay no attention to campaign contribution limits will find it in an astonishing trove of documents leaked to The Guardian, which published a report last week about the secret money that has recently flooded Wisconsin state politics. ...prosecutors alleged that the Walker campaign had skirted state law by asking donors to send contributions to ostensibly independent conservative groups...

...Mr. Walker wrote personal thank-you notes to the donors. Other documents uncovered by The Guardian show that a top political strategist was arranging TV and radio ad spending for both Mr. Walker’s campaign and the outside groups at the same time.

...Mr. Walker, his campaign aides and the outside groups have all denied wrongdoing, saying they were simply fighting for the same cause. In 2015, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority shut down the investigation before any charges were brought. The court also ordered the destruction of the documents.

But at least two of the court’s justices who voted to end the inquiry also benefited from millions of dollars spent by some of the same conservative groups backing Mr. Walker...

...The special prosecutor handling the investigation requested that several justices recuse themselves from the case for this reason, but they refused. Prosecutors have appealed that refusal, and the court’s decision to end the investigation, to the United States Supreme Court, which will consider whether to take the case in the coming weeks.
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