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The extreme right is lying again. I know, I know. What a shock!!!!!
Anyway, they are saying that the 5-4 Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to buy elections does not allow foreigners to influence US elections because "foreign corporations" are not allowed to pay for campaign ads.This is an obvious crock of shit if you keep two central facts in mind:
1) Most "US corporations" have major degrees of foreign ownership.
This means that the Saudi royal family, which has ties to Al Qaeda, will be able to use "US corporations" to influence US elections. It also means that the murderous, fascist dictatorship in China will be able to do the same. There is no way that any patriotic American can even condone this ruling, much less support it.
2) Many "US Corporations" Have Foreign CEOs.
This allows foreign CEOs to get around laws against making campaign contributions in US political races. All the foreign nationals in this case have to do is to have the corporation pay for "independent" ads on behalf of the preferred candidates. This loophole also allows all CEOs, foreign and domestic, a way to get around limits on the amounts on campaign contributions.
The ruling itself was based on the fictional doctrine of "corporate personhood." In fact, corporations are not persons. Therefore, it is literally impossible for those entities to have any constitutional rights whatsoever.
This is another attack on democracy from three of the five "justices" who brought the country the scam ruling, Bush v. Gore.
There definitely should be an FBI investigation into this ruling, and each judge who made this ruling should be facing impeachment.
Psycho Woman Throws Knives At Children
13 years ago
This ruling didn't come about out of a vacuum. The Corporations already rule in Washington. They own our politicians, they spend more than the GDP of some countries on lobbying, and they give to both parties.
AT&T is one of the biggest contributors to the 2010 elections, they have given about a million dollars to Democrats and about a million to Republicans. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why. They don't want net neutrality, so they can control all of the information that goes across their network, and who looks at what, and who shops from where. And they want the politicians to do their bidding to accomplish this. They also don't want to be broken up again as monopoly like they were in the mid 80's. And they're not alone. They're just one example.
And I dare say that about 80% of the people in this country don't have the critical thinking skills to grasp exactly what is going on here. They watch TV all day and believe whatever the talking heads tell them they should believe.
It's all so surreal, isn't it? The 7-Eleven store near my home isn't a person, and neither is the corporation that owns 7-Eleven. If, in a conversation with my neighbour, I referred to 7-Eleven as a person, he would like at me as if I were crazy. Yet the SCOTUS has turned common sense on its head and said Yes, corporations are persons. I'm stunned by the logic, or lack of it. I'm stunned by the detachment from reality. I'm stunned.
And to think these fuckwits will be running the show for years..nee decades to come.
In principal, I completely agree with you. In practice, impeachment may be much more difficult, because being mistaken is not an impeachable offense. To impeach, it will be necessary to document a conspiracy that extends beyond the fascist five Justices. While that appears obvious, proving it is another matter.
And then they will still have the gaul to complain about judicial activism, as if that pernicious phrase had any meaning to begin with.
At the very least, we need legislation to end the corporate personhood-not that it will happen when our politicians are owned by the same corporations.
I really don't think these idiots will be ruling "for decades to come."
I think this ruling sped up the death watch on the US by at least 5 years. Eventually, variations of the "teabaggers" are going to emerge that the corporations can't own. When they come (and they will,) secessions will come right behind them, and rightly so. No way should any of us have to suffer the tyranny of a totalitarian corporate dictatorship.
JR, you do not think Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Scalia will be sitting on the SCOTUS bench for the next fifteen to twenty years?
Roberts is in his 50's, Scalia, now in his 70's might not be around and Alito is in his 60's now but could still be around in 15-20 years. The biggest douche of all, Thomas is 68. Why would you think that most of those asshats will not still be on the bench? They are allowed to sit on the bench until they croak.
John Paul Stevens is in his 80's and still on the bench.
Dusty: Looking at any given rightist justice, you are correct in thinking that they are likely to be around for a decade or two. However, there is a good chance that at least one of them will retire or die in the next few years.
Libhomo, there is a better chance that the left-of-center judges will croak as they are the oldest ones on the bench. Except for Sotomayor of course.
Dusty: True, but the trend is for any judge to be replaced by another centrist judge, not a rightist.