I'm wondering whether this is the worst term in Supreme Court history. Could be, although I guess it's not worse than 1857's Dred Scott. Certainly a very strong candidate for worst term post-1937. And I actually think Citizens United is defensible, although I disagree with it; this opinion is simply not.
Good lord, how fucking depressing.
I was going to mock Halford for not recognizing that Citizens United was the harbinger of disaster, but 1 took all of the fun out of it.
Uggggh.
I never expected anything good from the Roberts court, but I did expect that they would confine themselves to the realm of the plausible.
I'm just trying to figure out how this is not an extremely broad restriction on government funded speech. (The answer is of course because other speech helps rich people.)
This is the like the worst Supreme Court decision in years and years, right? I can't think of a decision in my lifetime that struck me as immediately stupid.
Oh, you'd be surprised. But this is pretty bad. It's really the combined effect of all the various bad decisions this term that's so striking -- it's the biggest free reign for total corporate domination of US life (of which campaign finance is not even close to the most important part IMO) that I can remember. And we clearly haven't seen the bottom yet, unless Thomas's RV topples off a cliff this summer or something.*
*I swear I am not wishing for this to happen.
Because you wish for Thomas to resign over his conflict of interest (something or other money to his wife's political non-profit) problems?
Ok, I've actually read the holding now. The government can't subsidize speech, if that speech is in opposition to privately funded political speech, because doing so will convince the private groups to engage is less speech, because engaging in more speech won't be guaranteed to advance their cause.
The thing is tons of government money goes to speech that is opposed by someone, and one suspects if those opposition groups spend more money, then the government does too. Is that illegal? Or is it only that there is an actual matching formula?
You know what the problem is with campaign finance law? No analogy ban. All the cases holding that money is speech come down to a banned analogy. Money is not speech. Money can be used to pay for speech, but that doesn't make money the same thing as speech. Which means that a law regulating the expenditure of money on political speech should not be regarded as a per se violation of the First Amendment, but only as the sort of thing that must scrutinized to see if it actually does have the effect of preventing speech.
I wish for the Hand of God to smash Thomas into bits.
The thing is tons of government money goes to speech that is opposed by someone,
Yeah, I think the FDA's nutritional guidelines are unconstitutional now because they reduce the incentive to advertise Oreos.
Yeah, I think the FDA's nutritional guidelines are unconstitutional now because they reduce the incentive to advertise Oreos.
That's not political speech. (Or were you joking?)
That's not political speech.
What?! It's precisely what the foot soldiers of the Wicked Witch of the West chant as they go. "Oreo! Re-Oh! Oh!"
Pledging fealty to a tyrannical overlord strikes me as pretty blatant political speech, urple.
Well, the old saying is that SCOTUS usually follows instead of leads, confirms and facilitates existing conditions, or slows down changes far in advance of society. If America were truly ruled by numbers/voters instead of and in opposition to big money, SCOTUS couldn't stop it with a ruling. For God's sake, the law doesn't lead the people.
This country is so fucked.
So, whatever. IIRC, Obama didn't take marching funds in 2008, and he is out there raising money from billionaires and corporations as if it were his true job description. Yet...he will also get your vote.
At the lowest level, councilperson or Mayor of medium city, I still believe boots on the ground can overcome corporate money, with a lot of work and at very concrete costs.
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OT: I tried to post this in the glancing thread, but my internet connection died during the attempt.
Anyway, Barney Frank as introduced a bill to repeal marijuana prohibition. The Drug Policy Alliance has some more details at this link as well as a way to contact your Congressman.
I don't expect it to pass now, but I think it's still worth the time to send a note or at least use their form.
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Well, but the SCOTUS is also undermining the distinction between commercial and noncommercial speech.
Thinking back at what left-wing anti-corporate actvism used to look like, and Debs, Goldman, Bill Haywood, the Pankhursts paid a price, you know? Lose your job, home, family, have to move, get your head busted, go to jail, go crazy.
Roberts is supposed to help, make it easy and comfortable?
In a better world, instead of protecting persecuted wealthy corporate interests, the Supreme Court would be remedying shit like this:
U.S. Justice System Disparity Spelled Out In Two Headlines
Ex-Mortgage CEO Sentenced to Prison for $3B Fraud
The CEO of what had been one of the nation's largest privately held mortgage lenders was sentenced Tuesday to more than three years in prison for his role in a $3 billion scheme that officials called one of the biggest corporate frauds in U.S. history.
The 40-month sentence for Paul R. Allen, 55, of Oakton, Va., is slightly less than the six-year term sought by federal prosecutors.
Homeless man gets 15 years for stealing $100
A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
Roy Brown, 54, robbed the Capital One bank in Shreveport, Louisiana in December 2007. He approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told her that it was a robbery.
The teller handed Brown three stacks of bill but he only took a single $100 bill and returned the remaining money back to her. He said that he was homeless and hungry and left the bank.
The next day he surrendered to the police voluntarily and told them that his mother didn't raise him that way.
Brown told the police he needed the money to stay at the detox center and had no other place to stay and was hungry.
In Caddo District Court, he pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison for first degree robbery.
I kept wanting to bold various sentences in the second story, but I just ended up wanting to put all of them in bold. And to punch someone. So I left it mostly as is.
I kept wanting to bold various sentences in the second story, but I just ended up wanting to put all of them in bold. And to punch someone. So I left it mostly as is.
That gets it exactly right.
As an early commenter says in the LGM thread, it really does look like Ginsburg should resign so that her seat can be filled under Obama's watch. She's, what, 75?
She's 78, I see.
Why think that Senate Republicans would let anyone--and I mean that; absolutely anyone to the left of an expected Republican appointee--come up for a floor vote, at least until the election's decided?
Possibly, but it seems quite likely that Ginsburg will retire in the 2012-16 Presidential term anyway, and that can't be a better scenario (if Obama loses).
How do Supreme Court retirements work? If the Senate refuses to approve any replacement candidate, would Ginsburg just have to stay on until they do? Would Republicans effectively shut the S.C. down?
I'd be sorry to see Ginsburg go, but better she go when she has a chance at a decent replacement. I have kind of a schoolgirl crush on Ginsburg.
I mean, they *might*. But why would they? Obstructionism fires up their own base (== funding), demoralizes that of their opponents, and I have yet to read any convincing evidence that it imposes electoral costs from the center. And remember: 20 (22, w/ Sanders & Lieberman) D to 10 R Senate seats are up for re-election. If I were McConnell, I'd make whatever pious noises seemed appropriate, but why *wouldn't* I let the 40 most hardcore of my caucus filibuster for a year in the hopes of a Republican president or at least a Republican Senate?
I suppose there's no reason for her *not* to do the "I'm retiring, effective when my replacement is confirmed" thing, which itself was, I had thought, something of an innovation. But we're certainly near the point, if not already past it, when the pivotal 40th Senator must be thinking, "fuck it, if we just stand fast, we might be able to deny that kenyan socialist this appointment entirely."
Yeah, well. I know. Waiting until 2013 or 2014 doesn't seem any better, and arguably very much worse.
I think she should retire now. Let Obama's people come up with a short list of passable-seeming candidates for nomination.
The "retiring effective my replacement's confirmation" gambit does seem the right move to make. However, there's a very real possibility that Obama loses, and the Republicans hold the line and filibuster until 2013, at which point we'd all regret Ginsberg not simply holding on until 2017.
It will surprise no one to learn that I have a solution for all this supreme court malarkey, and that it involves random lot.
You people. I'll worry about Obama's re-election when the Republicans field someone who doesn't trip getting out of the clown car. Obama is still tall and handsome; his opponents are punchlines.
It was awful, here in California, waiting for Jerry Brown to decide to campaign in, like, the last two months of the race. But he was completely right, and the obvious holds true in the presidential race as well. Yes, yes, people vote in strange ways in depressions. But they're still utterly shallow. Obama looks more like a president than the others; he's going to destroy anyone but Huntsman in debates; we should save our breath and anxiety.
You favor random lots for Supreme Court Justices? I'm not seeing that.
What I dread is the possibility that a replacement S.C. Justice might become a bargaining chip in negotiations over the fucking debt ceiling and budget trading:
Dems: Alright. We'll give you a bunch of these budget cuts (or, agree to extend the Bush tax cuts yet again) if you approve our S.C. nominee.
Republicans: Deal.
We've already seen that as corporations make more contributions, it drives opposition speech- protests, counter-ads, etc. Clearly all that opposition is now unconstitutional, right?
Only if it's government funded, SP. From what I understand.
Those campaign finance laws are the reason that Arizona's been passing so many immigration laws that have been unpopular with employers.
"You favor random lots for Supreme Court Justices? I'm not seeing that."
picking random people to decide legal issues would never work!
This one is special to cheer up the lawyers and also McManus.
Good lord I hope Cuban buys the Dodgers, even if ngh.
Everyone I know in person that follows sports seems to think Mark Cuban's an asshole. Why do they think that?
7: I can't think of a decision in my lifetime that struck me as immediately stupid.
Bush v Gore.
19: all very well to play the internet firebrand, but what have you done lately? Or ever?
39.2: It's not like Japanese cinema can watch itself, you know.
Oh I don't know. Damn clever these Japanese. OTOH, in Soviet Union, Japanese cinema watches you.
39: That's true. But at least they made clear it was a one-time theft of an election. Now the court has announced that this time the crime will be ongoing.
The end times are starting to look better and better.
Maybe this can be interpreted to mean that no private company or individual who receives any public money whatsoever can engage in political speech.