Saturday, January 23, 2010

Foreign Citizens United v FEC

The case name I distorted in the title of this post is actually Citizens United v Federal Election Commission.

But my "made up" name in the title of this post may be just as accurate as the original case name, if not more so.

That is because my title above does not hide the reality that foreign nations can control the election this November, and the presidential election in 2012 as well.

How? By funding corporate ads, movies, publications, and all manner of other media surges, not to mention more "citizen" lawsuits.

I mean do you think middle class "citizens" sued to make sure more "citizen corporations" could spend more money on American political campaigns?

I point this out because the Supreme Court majority of 5 conservatives specifically held:
We need not reach the question whether the Government has a compelling interest in preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation’s political process. Cf. 2 U. S. C. §441e (contribution and expenditure ban applied to “foreign national[s]”). Section 441b is not limited to corporations or associations that were created in foreign countries or funded predominantly by foreign shareholders. Section 441b therefore would be overbroad even if we assumed, arguendo, that the Government has a compelling interest in limiting foreign influence over our political process.
(Citizens U. v FEC, page 46-47, PDF, emphasis added). Oh they could have "reached", since they "reached" many questions that were not part of the case in the courts below anyway.

But they could not "reach" just a little further, just far enough to protect the integrity of our elections from foreigners, some of which are enemies, in the upcoming elections?

Did they really want to risk that?

Now it is possible that even foreign enemies can control the next election because the most patriotic people on earth, the few, the proud, the neoCons, have gone all mavericky rogue on us and have become activist judges of the beyond the beyond type.

Remember that cases take years to "reach" the Supreme Court. Years.

So, now it will take years before the Supremes can "reach" the issue about whether foreign owned U.S. Corporations or foreign owned Foreign Corporations can spend all the money they want to on U.S. elections.

These Supreme Hypocrites are part of the party who loudly castigate "activist judges", but in a completely brain dead way, as we have pointed out on this blog.

They have violated the new code of judicial conduct, not just by becoming political, but by opening the doors of foreign influence on our politics while at the same time condemning such practices for others.

This gives new meaning to free markets.

There is some discussion about 2 U. S. C. §441e (contribution and expenditure ban applied to “foreign national[s]”) still prohibiting foreign political influence.

Since it is dependent on the interpretation of the text, it is dependent on another lawsuit. It may very well allow foreign influence or it may very well not allow it.

The Supremes did not "reach" that, so off to litigation which will not be decided until the next two elections are over.

What the naive are missing is that foreign interests influence money in the U.S., through multinational corporations like AIG and the like.

These multinational corporations (e.g. Haliburton with its headquarters in Dubai, UAE) know how to find loopholes with their cadre of lawyers, and they can influence the next two elections before the issue is decided.

4 comments:

  1. The foreign aspect will tweak the ire of many that ulitimately don't understand the larger, more serious charge. That being, with this bill, the highest court in the land, has knowingly and with malice aforethought, sold the citizen into fascism. Let that sink in. Without a system to fairly elect, we have no political voice. No voice is no representation. No representation is tyranny. Flesh and blood people:: please listen to those that may sound a bit radical. They were the ones that were asking you to fight this. . . and have been warning you of where the trends were. Ironically, the beneficiaries of this ruling are the ones that provide most with the very thoughts and beliefs they then take to the polls. . .we're screwed!

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  2. Anonymous,

    Agreed.

    The dissenters (Ginzburg, Stevens, Sotomayor, and Breyer) in the case pointed out that it is not as if there is too little money already being spent by corporations on elections, or that they were hurting by not having an influence already.

    Corporations already own the media and the process, now they have political influence on steroids.

    Some are even going to call those dissenters "radicals", but as it turns out, they are the patriots in this case.

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  3. Beg to differ, at least as far as foreign influence is concerned. I'm far more concerned with domestic corporate influence than I am by any hypothetical foreign influence, corporate or otherwise. I view the Supremes' latest "greatest hit" as another step in the accelerating trend at officially stealing the government for the corporate cabal. I seriously wonder if Obama is not merely a political puppet, meant to throw off the public by his quasi-"liberalism," while actualy facilitating the silent coup humming along smoothly in the background. Nothing I've seen so far refutes that suspicion.

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  4. disaffected,

    Well I will agree to the point we may not be able to detect foreign influence going through the roof, since it is difficult to tell whether the influence is domestic or foreign anyway.

    One example is AIG, which this blog has followed through the mire back to nations who do not have our best interests at heart.

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