Hes on the far left of your screen, seated to the right of Sotomayor. Politicos calling it his Joe Wilson moment. When you hear the president of the United States demagoging the First Amendment, you sit there and you take it, son. Update: CBS screwed up the embed code initially. If youre seeing the bit about Afghanistan, try refreshing. You should see the Supreme Court clip then. If not, click here. That should do it.
I'm proud that the Imperial Federal Government can no longer silence corporations and individual groups while letting the unions and ACORN say and do anything they want. The playing field is still not level though, unions and other statist organizations can still put their thugs on the streets to physically threaten and harm their opponents. That right needs to be either taken away from the unions or granted to the corporations and other groups not Party Central approved.
I'm proud that the Imperial Federal Government can no longer silence corporations
The Congress has the power to regulate corporations when they engage in commercial activity AND the Congress has the power to regulate the airwaves. Corporations are not people and your contortions of logic underscore the typical fascist philosophy that you have long espoused.
The law that was struck down limited ACORN and the AFLCIO in the same manner, btw. So that strawman won't think.
ACORN & The Black Panthers and the unions have no limits, they've stolen elections and sent their thugs into town halls, polling places, rallies, etc. across this nation.
So are school busses. The purpose of a corporation is commerical activity. A corporation cannot vote. A corporation is not subject to the same tax code as a person. You want to put corporations on the same legal plane as people? Fine. Then subject a CEO to arrest for murder when his corporate policy kills someone.
Where is the authority in the constitution to limit a corporations speech
When has Exxon ever uttered a word?
...or anything else to do with a corporation.
Article I...
A corporation is simply a legal entity...
Yepper...that is ALL it is... and what is CREATED by law can be LIMITED by law...it has no protected political rights
President Wrong on Citizens United Case [Bradley A. Smith]
Tonight the president engaged in demogoguery of the worst kind, when he claimed that last week's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, "open[ed] the floodgates for special interests including foreign corporations to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."
The president's statement is false.
The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making "a contribution or donation of money or ather thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election" under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any "expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication... ."
This is either blithering ignorance of the law, or demogoguery of the worst kind. Bradley A. Smith is Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law at Capital University Law School
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Where does it say that speech has to come from an individual?
There is the word people to peacefully assemble. A corporation that is peaceably assembled is made up of people. People is plural. They have a right to petition the government. They have the right to speak.
Your not a constitutionalist.
Why do you hate the constitution? What has it ever done to you.
Where does it say that speech has to come from an individual?
You're looking at it incorrectly. People have inherent, or "natural" rights at birth. They can exercise those rights individually or through associations.
Corporations are a legislative creation. As such, they have privileges granted only by law. What a law has the power to create, another law has the power to destroy.
Your [sic] not a constitutionalist.
Actually, I am. Read the first three words of it...
When Obama said that the court had reversed over 100 years of precedent, this is the case that he was referring to:
But the Court answered that corporations are not citizens within the meaning of the clause [of the 14th amendment]; that the term "citizens," as used in the clause, applies only to natural persons, members of the body politic owing allegiance to the state, not to artificial persons created by the legislature, and possessing only age such attributes as the legislature has prescribed; that the privileges and immunities secured to citizens of each state in the several states by the clause in question are those privileges and immunities which are common to the citizens in the latter states, under their Constitution and laws, by virtue of their citizenship; that special privileges enjoyed by citizens in their own states are not secured in other states by that provision; that it was not intended that the laws of one state should thereby have any operation in other states; that they can have such operation only by the permission, express or implied, of those states; that special privileges which are conferred must be enjoyed at home unless the assent of other states to their enjoyment therein be given, and that a grant of corporate existence was a grant of special privileges to the corporators, enabling them to act for certain specified purposes as a single individual, and exempting them, unless otherwise provided, from individual liability, which could therefore be enjoyed in other states only by their assent.
In the subsequent case of Ducat v. Chicago, 10 Wall. 410, the Court followed this decision, and observed that the power of the state to discriminate between her own domestic corporations and those of other states desirous of transacting business within her jurisdiction, was clearly established by it and the previous case of Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet. 519, and added that
"as to the nature or degree of discrimination, it belongs to the state to determine, subject only to such limitations on her sovereignty as may be found in the fundamental law of the union."
You're looking at it incorrectly. People have inherent, or "natural" rights at birth. They can exercise those rights individually or through associations.
Corporations are a legislative creation. As such, they have privileges granted only by law.
What part of "congress shall make no law....free speech" don't you understand.
No law means no law. It doesn't mean corporations are a legislative creation so they can make a law pertaining to it.
You're looking at it incorrectly. People have inherent, or "natural" rights at birth. They can exercise those rights individually or through associations.
Corporations are a legislative creation. As such, they have privileges granted only by law.
Well it is true. Be honest. The plain reading of the text says that they can't make any laws limiting free speech.
Now if war opposes this decision and thinks it is immoral. That is ok. His position should be the constitution needs amended. The supreme courts job is supposed to be to interpret the constitution truthfully as to what the text actually says and means. They did that job correctly.
What part of "congress shall make no law....free speech" don't you understand.
What part of "corporate personhood did not exist until 1888" don't YOU understand? This is not an extension of an individual right. A person cannot just declare himself a corporation. He has to go through several legal steps to create one and when that process is over, the corporation is an entity SEPARATE from the individual. Corporations are created BY LAW...my rights are INHERENT to my BIRTH.
How many times is "corporation" in the constitution?
What does it matter.
The constitution doesn't limit speech to just people. It doesn't say the congress shall make no law respecting free speech except if you form a corporation and da da da da da. It says they can't make any laws restricting free speech period. If they make a law concerning corporatoins and make them jump in this hoop and that hoop whatever the outcome one things is for sure. Because of the constitution they sure can't put any free speech restrictions on anybody anything anyhow period checkmate.
If folks have a problem with that then they should amend the constitution and not try to usurp power that isn't given to the govt.
According to you and wars view the president doesn't have free speech. He is president of a corporation.
Yeah but your the same way on other issues. Such as the fourth amendment and your suicide pact argument. I on the other hand am consistent and support the constitution in both instances.
Because what the US knows to be a "corporation" did not exist when the USCON and B/R were ratified. It is a legal creation.
I don't understand the point that you are trying to make here in defending this ridiculous decision. What if a corporation declares itself to be, in fact, a religion? Hey, people believe in its products and support and promote them just as any preacher or follower does and, well fuck political speech, our corporation with the trillion dollar market cap is now tax exempt. While we're at it, since a corporation is, in fact, solely a money making enterprise, taxing it is cruel and unusual...
First off all, I have no view that is remotely similar to that fucking asshole if only because I'm not insistent on being obstinately stupid . Secondly, the POTUS is NOT the head of a corporation. He's the head of the government.
Thirdly, your argument fails on any number of levels not the least of which is that the Uniform Commercial Code of the United States is the main body of law that creates and governs a good portion of corporate existence [Law of Contracts is another, and in fact, was the FIRST aspect of law to recognize a limited right of citizenship for a corporation so that it could enter into contracts.] Just as members of the military are subject to a different set of laws, restrictive in nature, e.g. you have no right of free association in the military, so, therefore, are corporations because they are wholly created and governed by legislation.
Can the Congress legislate a person out of existence? No. It CAN legislate a business out of existence.
Let's say that the SCOTUS upheld the law...tell me WHAT PERSON's speech was abridged? Name him or her. Name the person who could not dig into his own pocket and make that film or advocacy commercial.
The fact is...not one person's speech was abridged by that law. Not one.