How John Roberts Orchestrated The Citizens United Decision

The New Yorker:

When Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was first argued before the Supreme Court, on March 24, 2009, it seemed like a case of modest importance.

Read the whole story at The New Yorker

Comments

[buckydumpster]

09:12 PM on 05/15/2012

After reading that Jamie Dimon says 2 billion isn't that big of a deal to JP Morgan Chase, I get to thinking about the amount of money which pours into Washington. What's a billion to Exxon Mobil? (they post about 10 per quarter) The monied intrests of the multinational corporate "people" influence law, policy, education, healthcare and have no feelings of empathy for you or me. We have the power in numbers, yet they have enough money to convince Americans who are working harder and harder for less and less to vote for an ideology which would never think twice about turning them into soylent green.

[OOOOOMY]

05:50 PM on 05/15/2012

Yup, as stated already Scalia now Roberts...Everyone is against me...Must continue to attack everything for the people of course.

[PatrioticUSGlory]

05:15 PM on 05/15/2012

The left's version of birtherism.

[RBuckley7]

11:27 PM on 05/15/2012

Perhaps the dumbest post I've ever read.

Totally devoid of reason.

[Lightoward]

03:31 PM on 05/16/2012

Really? That's the well thought out and precisely documented opinions of a winger with the resume touted in your microbio? I'm sure that all rational lawyers, Market Analysts and Economists are cringing right now.

Pray tell, where are the distortions, fantasies and deceptions? Where is the crazy leading on this, comparable to Orley? Where is the beyond the pale conspiracy website on this issue comparable to WNetD? Show us anything --ANYTHING -- that would support your ridiculous post.

[PatrioticUSGlory]

04:58 PM on 05/15/2012

No one on the Left argues how Citizen's United was a bad decision. They just say it is. Really scientific they are.

[Lightoward]

05:11 PM on 05/15/2012

Don't ever read anything from the other side then I take it. Or at least you don't allow any of it to register in your brick-walled defended consciousness.

[RBuckley7]

11:28 PM on 05/15/2012

No, he doesn't read anything, for sure. worse yet, he listens to Sean Hannity.

[joann95798]

04:02 PM on 05/15/2012

?????? Citizens United for what - robbing the poor blind to line their pockets further and make this county and it's people as poor as England was when the robbers, theives, and scroundrels came here - along with the religious nuts (pilgrims). Roberts is a fake and he loves scab man

[Craig Bovia]

02:57 PM on 05/15/2012

roberts is a full partner with scalia and his little gang of traitors of the 99%. They should be impeached for High Crimes against Humanity.

[PatrioticUSGlory]

04:59 PM on 05/15/2012

Or, -- there being a better case to be made -- hailed for preserving the US Constitution as they swore they would.

[Ladyliberal]

05:52 PM on 05/15/2012

Not hailed buy helled.

[RBuckley7]

11:34 PM on 05/15/2012

How, by sitting at the table of the lawyer that would argue the case at a fundraiser? these "Justices" are sell outs, and sell outs of the worst kind.

Their record is pathetic and inconsistent. Remember, though they said that they sided with Bush in Bush v Gore... they said it couldn't be used as a precedent in any other case..... Name another time that that has happened?

Scalia and his lap dog - and I mean DOG - Thomas, are a disgrace to a once proud institution. Roberts and Alito are just fools, and history will remember them as such.

[LJ P]

12:50 PM on 05/16/2012

Can you articulate the crimes with supporting evidence?

[Craig Bovia]

01:24 PM on 05/16/2012

You need to do your own self-education. It is public record.

[bobr3]

02:54 PM on 05/15/2012

Taxation without Representation!!!! 1 Man 1 Vote?? Bullhockey

[PatrioticUSGlory]

05:00 PM on 05/15/2012

Huh?

[bobr3]

05:23 PM on 05/15/2012

Reading comprehension an Issue Mr. lawyer?? Yes, small l..

[RepublicanDepression]

01:11 PM on 05/15/2012

More proof that American can't afford to vote for Republicans any more.

[PatrioticUSGlory]

05:00 PM on 05/15/2012

True, Obama only wants to tax you until you bleed out.

[RepublicanDepression]

08:58 PM on 05/15/2012

PatrioticUSGlory: "True, Obama only wants to tax you until you bleed out."

Prove it.

WIth facts.

Or FAIL!

LOL! See what I did there?

I restricted a supporter of the GOP (Greedy One Percent) to facts.

Get ready for a "Scanners" moment!

Oh, and prove it in light of Obama's tax CUTS!

LOL!

With a name like PatrioticUSGlory you KNOW it's got to be full of fact FAIL!

[BigLeftbowski]

11:04 AM on 05/15/2012

Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas should just come clean and wear sponsor labels from Koch Brothers, BP, etc., sewn on to their robes like NASCAR drivers.

[RepublicanDepression]

01:11 PM on 05/15/2012

Brilliant!

[Craig Bovia]

03:03 PM on 05/15/2012

F/F
Salute

[Craig Bovia]

03:02 PM on 05/15/2012

That would be closer to their Truth. Don't forget the rest of scalia's gang of traitors, kennedy and alito. They have all earned their stripes and I would love to see them wearing them. Seeing them in Arpaio's pink underwear would be priceless.
F/F
Cheers

[Pearlswan]

07:01 AM on 05/15/2012

Citizens United was a bad decision for a self-governing democracy, no doubt about it. The US government is openly up for sale to the highest corporate bidders. Have they, the five activist judges who hate activist judges, no shame? It was a despicable decision, in most people's opinion. The only people who genuinely love this decision is we the corporations and where are we the corporations in our Constitution? Individuals are people. Corporations are entities, not people. Money is influence, not speech.

[nfatt1]

11:21 AM on 05/15/2012

Corporations cant be sent to jail, but the boards and executives, as co conspirators should be.

[sdn966]

03:40 PM on 05/15/2012

Like Jamie Dimon will be?? Ha, ha, ha! Not on your life!

[LJ P]

12:55 PM on 05/16/2012

Listen, movies companies can publish any kind of documentary they want. IF they stop CU then they have to stop Michael Moore and his production company as well.

[Pearlswan]

02:04 PM on 05/16/2012

Generally, movie companies are not PACs like CU is. BIG DIFF. CU cannot pose as a movie company to skirt around campaign restrictictions based in law. Propaganda video is different than documentary video.

[Pearlswan]

06:55 AM on 05/15/2012

"...As Kennedy had in Citizens United, Roberts said that governments could never take steps to equalize opportunities for candidates in electoral contests. “ ‘Leveling the playing field’ can sound like a good thing,” he wrote. “But in a democracy, campaigning for office is not a game. It is a critically important form of speech. The First Amendment embodies our choice as a Nation that, when it comes to such speech, the guiding principle is freedom—the ‘unfettered interchange of ideas.’"

1. Marketing candidates through political advertising is not "unfettered interchange of ideas." The interchange that happens in a 30-60 second ad is one-sided & passive rather than multifarious & active. Ad speech is fettered by constraints imposed by advertising media.

2.Our form of government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. Therefore, it is the rightful duty of the people, through government, to equalize opportunities for candidates in electoral contests. Candidates with little money to purchase expensive opportunities for free speech are excluded from debates. That isn't free speech then, is it?

3. Campaigning for office is not a game, true. Yet, in formal debates, which are competitions of ideas & speech, there are rules that give all debaters equal opportunities to speak & present their arguments. There must be rules to bring order & clarity to the debate. Leveling the playing field simply means equal protection & equal opportunity under the law. That IS a good thing.

[sdn966]

03:50 PM on 05/15/2012

There are no real candidate debates at the national level. The "debates" are rhetorical reality shows sponsored by the major networks' news divisions, which are generally a part of the networks' entertainment divisions. The debates are complete with commercial breaks. The "moderators", the well-groomed talking heads of network news, do not call out the "debaters" on the veracity of their statements, but use the candidate's talking points to bait the other candidates into pie throwing reactions. It is all part of an entertainment spectacle, much like "Survivor" or some other "reality" show. And who profits from these debates? Certainly not the public, the voters, but the sponsoring corporations and the networks. We need major changes in this country; we are simply not being served well by our "news" media or our elected officials.

[alimah]

03:51 PM on 05/15/2012

Absolutely amazing post... and those by you that follow!!
(I'm taking notes ;)

Fan & Fav

[Pearlswan]

06:14 AM on 05/15/2012

"...Cameras caught Alito mouthing the words 'not true' when Obama mentioned foreign corporations. Alito had a point. Kennedy’s opinion expressly reserved the question of whether the ruling applied to foreign corporations. But, as Olson had argued before the Justices, the logic of the Court’s prior decisions suggested that foreign corporations had equal rights to spend in American elections."

No, true Justice Alito, President Obama is correct. How will we ever know if foreign or multinational "borderless" corporations are influencing elections with money when contributions are secret and donors are not disclosed to the public? Alito believes it is free speech when a corporation donates money to get a politician elected. Money does "say" I'm corporation X and I support candidate Y. But, If the corporate donors can hide their identities behind a curtain of non-disclosure, that is hidden speech, not free speech. We the people have no idea who supports the candidate with their 'money is speech' contributions and that hides important information from we the people. If money is speech than those who give money shouldn't be so afraid to speak out freely in the open where we can all see & hear what they have to say & what policy positions they support or reject. We the people need all the information we can get to make informed decisions about our democracy. There should be regulation to disclose the speakers who speak with their money. SUNLIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT!

[PatrioticUSGlory]

05:05 PM on 05/15/2012

No, it's not hidden speech. It's hidden identities. Just like a secret ballot that Obama sought to destroy in union elections. Have you given your lengthy comments any real thought?

[Pearlswan]

05:49 AM on 05/15/2012

"...Kennedy’s opinion 'would have accorded the propaganda broadcasts to our troops by ‘Tokyo Rose’ during World War II the same protection as speech by Allied commanders.'"

So Kennedy refuses to make a distinction between propaganda, mass marketing, & free speech in the political arena. This is because he accepts the fundamental premise that "Money is speech." Well, if money is speech than half of all Americans are mute! It may be true that speech is money if one is an advertiser that charges by the word like newspapers do to list a commodity for sale or if one is a magazine writer or copy writer that gets paid by the word. But, the reverse is not true. Money is not speech; money is influence. BIG DIFF! Why can't the SCOTUS see the huge divide between money as speech and money as influence? Perhaps SCOTUS has been influenced by too much speech in the form of fishing trips, hunting parties, golfing vacations, boating adventures, lifetime appointments, etc....you get my drift, don't you?

[PatrioticUSGlory]

05:07 PM on 05/15/2012

No law or case authority distinguishes propaganda. How could it? A silly proposition on your part.

[Pearlswan]

05:38 AM on 05/15/2012

"To Stevens, it [Citizens United] was the purest kind of judicial activism. Or, as he put it in his dissenting opinion, 'Five Justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.'"

Clearly, Stevens was speaking truth to power in his dissenting opinion. He is telling we the people here that conservative judicial activism is a fact and not an illusion, for better or for worse. In the Roberts Court, opinions are not generated from objective facts and a discussion of the meaning and/or effects of those facts on the American people and our Constitutional Rights or on or democratic system of self-government. The system isn't broken; it's fixed!

The government isn't limiting or denying speech in politics, it is merely regulating that speech so that it truly is free speech rather than mass marketing, aka propaganda. Marketing has one purpose--to sell something. Speech has many purposes--to exchange, ideas, principles, experience & feelings. BIG DIFF! Imho, the SCOTUS confuses political speech with political marketing. Are these really both equivalent as free speech? I think not. Buyer Beware!

[PatrioticUSGlory]

05:09 PM on 05/15/2012

There was a nothing clear about Steven's dissent. In fact, proof of my point is found in the absence of reference to it on MSNBC, CNN, CBS, the NYTimes, Obama's surrogates, ands Obama himself.

[Pearlswan]

05:16 AM on 05/15/2012

“The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” Kennedy wrote. “The Government has muffled the voices that best represent the most significant segments of the economy. And the electorate has been deprived of information, knowledge and opinion vital to its function. By suppressing the speech of manifold corporations, both for-profit and nonprofit, the Government prevents their voices and viewpoints from reaching the public and advising voters on which persons or entities are hostile to their interests."

Wait just a minute! Can money really be considered speech? And, if money is equivalent to speech it must also be true that some citizens are granted more speech than others based on their disposable income. Poor citizens don't have the same degree of free speech as wealthy citizens and wealthy citizens don't have the same degree of free speech as global corporations that earn more money than the wealthiest governments. For instance, Exxon-Mobil is granted free speech as an American Corporation but it is a global corporation that considers itself a sovereign entity, not a citizen of any one nation even though it is considered an American corporation because of its origins alone, not its scope of business activity, which transcends national borders. Those deprived of money will also be deprived of speech. How can a poor citizen in Mississippi influence a national audience without money & access to corporate media that Citizens United acquired? That speech isn't free, it cost millions of dollars.

[PatrioticUSGlory]

05:11 PM on 05/15/2012

Money is expression. Just as a loud voice is expression. The liberal attempts to silence free speech -- first, the money as an expression of it;and second, by taking those who are articulate off the air (Limbaugh, Beck, and so on and so on), Just look at today's Hollywood liberal blacklist of conservative actors.