The Insidiousness Of Citizens United & The Vampire Elite: Report From 20 Paws Ranch
competition with the essential rights and liberties of the rest, and
of millions yet unborn? ~ GEORGE WASHINGTON via ZEPHYR
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2009 Citizens United decision was a perfect storm. As in the destructiveness of a Category 5 hurricane.
In one fell swoop, the court’s conservative activists put a stake through the heart of our most cherished civil right — freedom of speech — in a ruling that conflated spending with speech and was easily the most twisted in 150 years. In doing so these justices tacitly acknowledged what I and other clear-eyed observers of of our society have come to understand: America is now ruled by a corporatocracy that in some respects is even more powerful than the federal government, and at its head is a vampire elite represented by Mitt Romneys who thanks to Citizens United can use corporations and so-called Super PACs to buy elections.
And you’re naive if you don’t think that the Republican Party and its extraordinarily wealthy supporters won’t try to buy Romney’s way into the White House since Citizens United allows them to raise as much money as they can. Or to fall back on the Supreme Court, which has become a de facto arm of the GOP, if dirty pelf doesn’t do the job.
A five justice majority ruled in Citizens United that the First Amendment prohibited government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations (and by unions, as is less well known) and bestowed on both the free speech rights of individuals.
The insidiousness of Citizens United was on display during the Republican presidential primary season as billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson kept Newt Gingrich’s cash-starved campaign alive with a $5 million donation through a super PAC that was 1,000 times the $5,000 he could legally give directly to Gingrich before the ruling.
And this insidiousness was on display again when the Montana Supreme Court upheld a tough state campaign finance law designed to put an end to rampant political corruption in the form of corporate mining and ranching interests packing the state legislature by bankrolling candidates sympathetic to their interests.
Opponents of Montana’s campaign finance law screamed blue blooded murder, declared that Citizens United voided the law and appealed the state Supreme Court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, 22 other states and the District of Columbia are siding with Montana as the high court reviews the case.
A striking difference between the Montana law and Citizens United is that the law was upheld by the state high court after a review determined that political corruption was indeed rampant while Citizens United was conjured out of thin air with no evidentiary record whatsoever.
This brings us in a roundabout way to the vampire elite who run the corporatocracy. These include the banksters who drove the U.S. into deep recession and the private equity gurus who run firms like Bain Capital, where presumptive Republican president candidate Romney got filthy rich by buying and then gutting companies, most of them community-oriented mom and pop operations, stripping workers of their pensions and then selling the companies for obscene profits. (Oh, and trickle-down economics, a favorite of Republicans, still doesn’t work, and Romney’s new best buddy, Donald “Birther” Trump, makes me want to vomit.)
The first people to make a fuss over Romney’s tenure at Bain were not Democrats.
They were Gingrich, who declared that “The Bain model is to go in at a very low price, borrow an immense amount of money, pay Bain an immense amount of money and leave. I’ll let you decide if that’s really good capitalism. I think that’s exploitation.” He was seconded by Rick Perry, who called Romney as a “vulture capitalist” and said that “There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business. I happen to think that that is indefensible.”
It is indefensible, but not when President Obama and his surrogates raise the issue and are accused by Republicans of wanting to destroy capitalism. In fact, there is nothing wrong with capitalism, let alone private equity or so-called free markets. It is the excesses of capitalism such as insider trading that are wrong as several million out of work Americans can attest to.
Obama is spot on in noting that just because Romney was a buyout king doesn’t make him fit to the run the American economy. Nor does the fact that he became wealthy because the system is rigged, allowing him to pay lower taxes by exploiting Mack truck-sized loopholes.
A president cannot maximize profits for shareholders. He cannot create jobs with a wave of a hand like Romney destroyed them. And by the way, when Romney finished his single term as governor of Massachusetts the state was ranked 47 out of 50 in job growth.
As noted near the top, Republicans will stop at nothing to try to buy Romney’s way into the presidency.
Just the other day, The Politico reported that a confederation of prominent Republicans including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is another de facto arm of the GOP, plan to spend $1 billion to make that happen with the Koch brothers alone dropping $400 million into the bucket.
By comparison, John McCain raised $375 million for his presidential campaign while Obama raised $750 million.
What we have here, folks, is a political system with national elections that are quickly becoming cage matches between rival billionaires with the GOP continually ratcheting up efforts to suppress the non-white vote.
All of that must stop.
Shaun Mullen is an award winning journalist and blogger. “Report From 20 Paws Ranch,”
which is the name of his mountain hideaway, usually appears on Mondays.
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SM, Vampires are so popular (movies, TV, books) that even Romney’s NEW best pal (sorry Don), Clinton, the male, have complimented them.
I wonder how many speeches Bill gives to vampire groups. Hmmmm.
The notion that Pres. Obama & Democrats aren’t equally corporate is absolutely preposterous.
It’s not just William Jefferson Clinton, as the Cory Booker contingent proved.
In fact, if Obama wasn’t president he would have joined the Booker contingent, seconded everything they said.
I would not say equally corporate, but I would say more hypocritical on the issue.
Sean, that quote is Washington’s, not Madison’s.
As for elections “quickly becoming cage matches” between members of the elite, what are you imagining they were before? It used to be party nominees were picked by quiet consensus among party elites; now the GOP primary has been more of a public brawl. It’s not clear to me that’s worse.
So fast forward to November. If the GOP outspends Obama and Obama wins anyway, will that prove that money doesn’t buy elections and that voters’ judgment plays a significant role? Or will you continue to claim the sky is falling?
Why should any Dem or Rep with $200 piss it away by sending into the maws of the campaign funding business. Nary a burp will it cause when swamped by the billionaires buying America. Your voice will not be heard, it will only be throwing money down a rat hole.
Jeez, how many ads can they run, anyhow?
This has been repeated a lot, but is mostly wrong. The ruling that said that spending was speech is actually Buckley v. Valeo which occurred back in 1976.
“The ruling that said that spending was speech is actually Buckley v. Valeo which occurred back in 1976.”
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Though I agree with you that the Supremes have long had the habit of conflating spending with constitutional rights. See also for example, Gideon v. Wainwright, forcing taxpayers to pay for the right to counsel [no such scheme is expressly in the constitution].
This form of judicial activism – conflating rights with money or spending – has been going on since the mid-20th century, and was a staple of the Warren Court. The Roberts Court is not breaking new ground in that regard.
Well, I agree that the concept proposes problems with efforts to control campaign spending whether is was caused by Citizens United or Buckley v Valeo. OTOH, I think focusing on the wrong cause is not a good way of coming up with good solutions (and serves mostly a tool to generate partisan outrage).
In the end you need to overturn not just the Citizens United ruling, but decades of law, to be able to restrict spending. (And, in fact, once you start to restrict, you enter a “slope of unknown slipperiness” on where you draw the line of permissible restrictions on free speech).
Outrage won’t do it and a constitutional amendment is hard even when politics aren’t polarized. So in the end if one really wants to do something one should be working to develop a consensus on public campaign funding (which would make private money less necessary) rather than shouting outrage at how evil Republicans are.
DPS,
What’s odd to me is that CU found that the $2500 limits on “direct contributions” to campaigns were fine. It was only contributions to “Independent Expenditure Groups” that somehow ran afoul of the constitution. That distinction did require some mental gymnastics as I recall.
Don’t forget, btw, that we routinely limit spending on speech in the public interest. Think cigarette advertising, alcohol advertising, billboard placement, etc. Certain restrictions on spending would also not precedent spending. Seems to be acase of who’s ox is being gored.
My objection is not that CU is “Republican leaning”. My issue is that it skews the process in favor of moneyed interests, be they R or D, and away from the average citizen.
Geez, I wish we had the edit function back. Do the best you can with the jibberishly typing. Thanks for your understanding.
My objection is not that CU is “Republican leaning”. My issue is that it skews the process in favor of moneyed interests, be they R or D, and away from the average citizen.
That’s it in a nut shell (no offense, TB).
What Shannon Lee said.
Founding Father quotable fixed.
Gideon vs. Wainwright is indeed an appropriate citation in the context of my post.
The dissenting opinion in the CU decision was the sane, moral, and well-reasoned opinion. The majority opinion? Corrupt and ideological. Unfortunately we live in a society whose standards for behavior are increasingly being made by fools and greed-mongers – from the voters right up to the movers and shakers. Until people start waking up and begin demanding accountability this state will continue. Given the current level of apathy, knowledge (awareness), and sense of responsibility among the voters I’m not holding my breath. (I wish I was)
Citizens United are about one thing and one thing only as regards our Constitution and the political/judicial process – F A C I S M ! ! !
What is unfolding before us has already happened in the recent historical past. America is rapidly in the process of setting the game board pieces in place for a Corporatist state to choke State Capitalism down the workers and small businesses throats of this once great nation.
You who recollect the history of the 1920′s through the mid 1940′s will note that only when Mussolini and Hitler were able to get their high courts to rule in the favor of corporatist interest as opposed to the constitutions then in place, were they able, with impunity, to roll out their facist systems, and we all know where those ideologue driven corporate crony loaded efforts landed Italy and Germany in the end. America’s own unique take of facism will result in the same downfall since facism is a ‘renter seeking,’ ‘resources stealing,’ ‘elitist exclusionary based’ system of gevernance, or more correctly stated, system of dictatorship favoring the elite few to the exclusion of the backbone and muscle of a country.
Remember folks history will show that, ‘Citizens United’ is really a code word for ‘Corporatist Facism.’
The courts have never seemed bothered by restrictions to direct contributions. They allowed them before CU and after.I’m not sure why.
Well, political speech has always had a special status. The point I made wasn’t so much that we never restrict speech, but that the line isn’t as clear as one would think. Someone who prints up flyer, or buys a bullhorn, get a bus ticket to a rally, or even gets a soap box, is using money for speech. Protecting it all is clear. I’m not saying it is the way to go, but it means not having to draw a line.
Well, it was Buckley v. Valeo that (or earlier, that is as far back as I’m aware of (that set the stage). Technology has, so far, only worked to magnify the effects and so I personally would potentially be in favor of public financing.
The Governor of Montana had this op-ed about CU in the NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/opinion/an-invitation-to-keep-money-out-of-politics.html?_r=2
States like his have had previous troubles with money in politics and their laws were passed to address their very real issues and problems.
The dots don’t quite connect, Isilwath. Montana had a wealthy individual over a century ago who tried to buy his way into the senate through direct bribes. He failed. Therefore we need to control political advertising by corporations?
Anyone can get face time with Montana legislators, probably due to the sparse population, the distance to Helena from anywhere, and their attitude of openness. The governor claims all that is in jeopardy now, but why–a population boom, a geographic shift, or are they changing their attitude?
I don’t think it’s too much to ask for sounder reasoning than this before we take away people’s right to air political opinions.
“States like his have had previous troubles with money in politics and their laws were passed to address their very real issues and problems.”
Like to see other states try this.
I’m sorry, but the dots line up very well for me. The governor states very clearly that Montana recognized a problem with money in politics. They passed laws to restrict the money and reduce the chance for corruption. They did this over 100 years ago, so it shows you that nothing has really changed in the last century.
Now after CU, big money is pouring into the state from anonymous groups who are supporting candidates that will vote “their” way. He is seeing bills come to his desk that have been written by corporate interests because the legislators who were supported by those interests have been elected and now they are repaying the favor.
This has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with big money gaming the system to get legislators who will vote their way elected. That is not democracy no matter how you paint it, and it shows exactly the type of corruption big money causes.
Isilwath, you’re drawing very broad dots. Sure, you can lump an individual directly bribing legislators together with citizens’ groups lobbying voters as “money in politics.” For that matter, you could call it “troublemaking” and claim that any example of it justifies curfews and dress codes and whatever else you please that plausibly prevents troublemaking. You may end up trampling some important rights in the process, though.
As for out-of-state groups supporting causes in Montana, I’m curious about the details. Montana is not as isolated as it was a century ago, and some decisions it makes will affect people outside the state. It isn’t necessarily alarming and may actually be appropriate for outsiders to have some means of influencing their politics.
Or here’s a different angle on the same issue: how far could the state go in its fight against money in politics? How about not letting anyone making more than $100K per year vote? Would you agree that infringes someone’s rights?
Dr. J. The issue at hand is not how much money a voter makes. It is how much money a voter/corporation/superPac gives to ensure the candidate they prefer will be elected.
No one is saying there should be a salary limit on VOTING. We are saying there should be a limit on spending.
As I have heard numerous times, donors consider these “gifts” to be investments, thus they expect their chosen candidate to vote in ways that benefit them, regardless of how it will effect the rest of the populace.
I think you’re missing my question, isilwath. If your guiding principle is getting the money out of politics, how does that permit taking ads away from interest groups but not also permit taking votes away from the rich?
“This has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with big money gaming the system to get legislators who will vote their way elected. That is not democracy no matter how you paint it, and it shows exactly the type of corruption big money causes.” – isilwath
Bingo. Is there any way this couldn’t be more obvious? Good lord…
Seriously. What we used to call bribery we now call free speech.