Outstanding ruling by the Supreme Court, and a victory for the Rule of Law.

Everyone wants to be the first to report on the hottest new politician

…so that they can mock and misquote them. I've seen it happen all too often.

It's hard to imagine the Merck IBM Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act would make less fiscal sense than the budgets we get now

It'll make great sense for Merck & IBM, for the rest of us, probably not…

“People may join and depart at any given time” and “stocks are traded on a daily basis” sound equivalent.

Stocks are traded by computer programs and can change hands on a second by second basis, not quite the same thing as a member of the NRA…

Yes, but they're not profit-making ones, you see. At least, not lately.

Yes, the government should get firmly out of the business of protectionism in all those forms, and I agree with you that doesn't look easy to do.

If it's possible at all, it starts with we the people showing less tolerance for protectionism. We send decidedly mixed messages about that today. “No subsidies for agribusiness!” we cry, but also “Oh, we must help these poor farmers being squeezed out of their livelihoods!” If you don't like the first, stop calling for the second.

That's admittedly a tall order, as it requires people to sit on their hands in the face of “unfairness” that they look to the government to correct now.

And you are right – there is no difference in the right to advocate for organizations vs. corporations.

What about newspapers and broadcasters? They are corporations. Do they and their employees lose the right to advocate specific candidates and positions using the assets of the corporation?

I see differences, but I see even more similarities. They're all groups of Americans acting collectively to pursue their interests. “People may join and depart at any given time” and “stocks are traded on a daily basis” sound equivalent.

Ah, I love a good slippery slope argument. So, what horrors would await us? Would they be worse than a war on drugs, a war on terror, or entitlement ponzi schemes? God forbid Walmart tries to create more jobs around the globe or make its corner of the economy run better.

Whatever else companies are, they're pretty good at balancing the books. It's hard to imagine the Merck IBM Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act would make less fiscal sense than the budgets we get now.

So, your solution is to take away any right for anyone and every organization, private, public, or individual, to express their views on candidates and issues?

No Sierra Club or MoveOn.org advertising? No NRA advertising? No Micheal Moore political documentaries?

Your inability to see the small and barely noticeable differences between citizen organizations such as MoveOn.org, the NRA, Greenpeace which people may join of their own free will and depart at any given time and profit making Corporations such as IBM, CitiGroup, GE, GM, Aetna, UAL whose stocks are traded on a daily basis is highly disconcerting to say the least….

the media flocks to whoever brings in viewers…they could care less about R, D, I, or ^.

But when newbies call a press conference, no one comes, when a legislator calls a press conference, the major outlets show up automatically. Also, getting 5% without party approval (which usually requires a fee), or a lot of their own money. It would, at least, give the small group of people who lead the current parties even more power, ensure that only the rich could run for office, make it even harder to build up a third party, and make incumbents even more entrenched in office.

Is that what you want?

Speech is money. This canard has been around for quite a while, but it fails within its fundamental assumption. Money is the volume of speech, not speech itself. In the proverbial movie house, I can in fact say “fire.” I can't however, yell “Fire.” Money allows me to drown out any other opinion as assuredly as any megaphone, Volume of speech is not protected. Even if volume was enshrined in the Constitution, let's consider the case for the source of a corporation's volume.

Corporations derive their existence from the individual contributions of its investors, people like you and me. The Supreme court argument is that corps have some sort of right that allows them to speak in the political forum just like human beings. To accomplish this, they may spend unlimited corporate funds to make that message heard. These funds spent come from general coffers of the business, and money spent on speech directly reduces how much return I get for my investment. The common argument has been that if I don't like what a corporation says, I can sell my stock. That argument works only if I find out before a corporation takes MY earnings and spends it on a message I do not like.

If I own stock for 12 months, and in the 12th month they produce some hit piece that I do not believe, selling my stock does not recoup me the loss of return. Additionally, what the CEO decides to produce in a political message does not have to be OK'd by me prior to the expenditure. If as is taken for granted in this general argument that money is speech, then the corporation is stealing my speech – my return investment – so as to produce its own speech. Selling my stock after the theft does not make it legal; it's still theft of my speech or my money. Why should the rights of stockholders be reduced by the rights of the corporation. If you wish to argue that the “theft” is insignificant, a few cents per share, tell me, if I steall three cents from a hundred million people, is that petty theft or theft of 3 million dollars?

Moreover, any speech that comes from a corporation is directly taken from its investors, so corporations derive their speech only by stealing it from people.