Massachusetts takes a stand again for liberty.

• 

I actually agree with John McCain: one vote, one campaign contribution of a limited amount, one voice

McCain must be back to being a reformer again now that he's safely back for another six year term.

McConnell supports bribery as a first amendment right

Wisconsin aftermath: Voters in disbelief over Walker victory

We need something radical like voting on a paper ballot and then counting them. How come my ATM machine doesn't seem to make mistakes but my voting machine does. I guess choosing your leaders aren't quite as important as get your fast cash from an ATM.

What does Walker's corporate money buy lies and slander.

One of best lines Barrett may not prosecute criminals as quickly as some like but Walker puts them in the government.

Citizens United Attacks From Justice Stevens Continue

Citizens United Attacks From Justice Stevens Continue:

'via Blog this'

WASHINGTON -- A day after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, retired Justice John Paul Stevens on Wednesday night backed President Barack Obama's suggestion during his 2010 State of the Union address that the Citizens Uniteddecision could lead to "foreign entities" bankrolling American elections.

He urged the U.S. Supreme Court to explicitly explain why the president's words were "not true," as Justice Samuel Alito famously mouthed on camera, breaking the justices' usual stoic appearance during the president's annual speech.

Stevens has been a trenchant critic of Citizens United since the court decided the case in January 2010. On the day the opinion was announced, he spent 20 minutes reading from the bench a summary of his 90-page dissent. Stumbling over some words that day convinced Stevens, now 92, to retire, but he continued to condemn the ruling in speeches, writings and even on the Colbert Report.

In a speech at the University of Arkansas' Clinton School of Public Service, Stevens challenged his former colleagues to defend Alito's "not true" moment by reconciling the court's sweeping language in Citizens United that the First Amendment "generally prohibits the suppression of political speech based on the speaker's identity," with its subsequent decision -- made without briefing, argument, or written opinion -- to uphold a ban on campaign spending by non-citizens.

Alito's reaction, Stevens said, "persuade[s] me that that in due course it will be necessary for the court to issue an opinion explicitly crafting an exception that will create a crack in the foundation of the Citizens United majority opinion." In doing so, he continued, "it will be necessary to explain why the First Amendment provides greater protection to the campaign speech of some non-voters" -- that is, domestic corporations -- "than to that of other non-voters" such as the Canadian Harvard Law School graduate who remains barred from making campaign contributions.

The lawsuit brought by the Canadian citizen "unquestionably provided the court with an appropriate opportunity to explain why the president had misinterpreted the Court's opinion in Citizens United. "[T]he court instead took the surprising action of simply affirming the district court without comment and without dissent."

What's behind the Walker attack.

U.S. Electoral System Wallowing in a Sea of Money, Idiocy, and Corruption

Vermont Legislature Votes to Overturn Citizens United

Vermont Legislature Votes to Overturn Citizens United: "Progressive "

'via Blog this'

Progressive activists are celebrating another victory today after the Vermont Legislature became the third in the nation late Thursday to pass resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the controversial 2010 Supreme Court ruling that allowed corporations and other groups to spend unlimited amounts of money influencing elections and gave rise to the now-infamous Super PACs. 

The resolution passed the Vermont House by a vote of 92-40 with support from five Republicans and despite a filibuster attempt by a Republican state representative. A similar resolution passed the state Senate last week by a wide margin of 26-3.

The Hawaii and New Mexico Legislatures have also passed similar resolutions.

Papantonio: The Billionaire GOP Puppeteers

This ruling could be the beginning of shedding light on the people buying democracy

Koch Brothers, Chamber of Commerce Face Possible Campaign Donation Disclosure After Ruling

WASHINGTON -- On Friday evening, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling that could begin the process of revealing the identities of secret donors to groups connected to Karl Rove and the Koch brothers.

The court ruled in Van Hollen v. Federal Election Commission that the FEC rules that restricted campaign donor disclosure are not valid and must be changed to provide for disclosure.

"We are very happy to see the judge got it right," says Paul Ryan, a lawyer for the Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance watchdog that was a part of the team challenging the FEC rules.

Those rules state that donors to groups spending money on "electioneering communications," or advertisements that do not specifically call to elect or defeat a candidate, must only be disclosed if they specifically earmarked their donation to that particular expenditure. Since few, if any, donors to these groups ever earmark their donation for a specific election expense there was no disclosure.

Oh, Super PACs! A Music Video

Excellent video.

Vermonters Vote to Undo Citizens United

Kucinich Announces ‘Game Changing’ Constitutional Amendment to Publicly Finance Federal Elections | Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich

Kucinich Announces ‘Game Changing’ Constitutional Amendment to Publicly Finance Federal Elections | Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich

H.J. Res.100 would require that all federal campaigns –all campaigns for President, Vice-President, Senator and Representative – be financed exclusively with public funds and prohibit any expenditures from any other source, including the candidate. H. J. Res. 100 would also prohibit any expenditures in support of, or in opposition to, any federal candidate, so that interest groups will not be able to influence elections. It will maintain the First Amendment “freedom of the press” and preserve the traditional role that the media have played in our electoral process.

“We must rescue American democracy from unlimited corporate money. This is the most fundamental issue facing the future of our nation. With corporate, private financing we have officials working for the interest of corporations. With public financing we have officials working for the public. And public financing will actually save taxpayers’ money, by eliminating any incentive of public officials to reward campaign contributors with taxpayer subsidies.

“We must eliminate the influence of money on our elections and on our policy-making. We must eliminate the influence of special interests on our elections and on our legislation. We must eliminate the influence of multi-national corporations and foreign corporations on the government of our country. We cannot wait. We must fight for government of the people, by the people, for the people,” said Kucinich.

Stewart and Colbert continue to make monkies out of Supreme court ruling

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Colbert Super PAC - Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Bill Moyers on Citizen's united from 2010

Bill Moyers Journal: Justice for Sale from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

"It's Viral!" The Movement to Overturn Citizens United Swamps the Internet

What a hoot.

Colbert continues to make a mockery of Supreme Court that can't tell the difference between a person and a corporation

See if you can pick out the five members of the Supreme Court that don't think Americans deserve to have the same voice as corporation (many of the them multinational corporations or other countries because really we don't have the right to know who's bribing our politicians)

I love the "cornography" with the fuzzy picture of a piece of corn. What a country? We need to teach a few more countries what democracy means.

Thomas Hartmann: I couldn't agree more

Democracy Died First in Wisconsin - Long Live the Oligarchs

Wednesday 10 August 2011

by: Thom Hartmann, Thom Hartmann's Blog | Op-Ed

The Wisconsin recall election was the first major test of the new era in American politics. That new era began in January of 2010 when the US Supreme Court ruled in “Citizens United v. FEC” that the political voice of We The People was no longer as important as the voices of billionaires and transnational corporations.

Now we know the result, and it bodes ill for both 2012 and for the tattered future of small-d democracy in our republic. A few of America’s most notorious oligarchs – including the Koch and the DeVos (Amway fortune) billionaires – as well as untraceable millions from donors who could as easily be Chinese government-run corporations as giant “American” companies who do most of their business and keep most of their profits outside the US – apparently played big in this election.

I say “apparently” because the Supreme Court has ruled that we no longer have the right to know who is really funding our election commercials, or even our candidates themselves. Thanks to an irrational and likely illegal Supreme Court ruling, we have moved into an era of oligarch-run politics. As much as $40 million of our oligarch’s money was spent in Wisconsin in a handful of local races – a testing laboratory for strategies that will now be used against Democrats nationwide in 2012.

And so now we enter the battle of the oligarchs over the next fifteen or so months. As the old saying goes, when the elephants fight, the mice get trampled. In this case, the mice aren’t just the voters. It’s democracy itself. America is now – demonstrably, as proven by Wisconsin – just a few years away from the possibility of a totally corrupted, totally billionaire- and corporate-controlled political system. Political scientists call it oligarchy.

The Citizens United election experiment is over, and the oligarchs won. Long live the oligarchy.