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7 comments:
While I have no beef with the Citizens United decision, I've also got no beef with attempts to regulate campaign financing in such a way that BCRA attempted (past tense since a lot of it has no teeth anymore).
Free speech is one of the most important rights in our country and key to a democracy, but a voting public depends on accurate information to guide its voting behavior.
Seeking to regulate campaign financing is just one attempt (out of the many that have been, could be, and probably will be made) to ensure that corporations, for-profit or otherwise, are honest in what they're portraying about candidates when there's no easy way for the viewing public to make that determination on their own.
Free speech aside, I'm okay with that.
Take a look at this sentence again:
"Seeking to regulate campaign financing is just one attempt (out of the many that have been, could be, and probably will be made) to ensure that corporations, for-profit or otherwise, are honest in what they're portraying about candidates when there's no easy way for the viewing public to make that determination on their own."
That's one loaded sentence. I'm no match for that.
What I will say is I think there is way too much made of this campaign finance issue. That dude is right -- if we can survive with news outlets feeding us their opinions, then we can survive any corporation feeding us their own opinion du jour.
SBVT.
We really need more of that.
HONEST is what I believe Chris is saying.
Fabrications are the problem.
I'll throw an Excel sheet together next time. :) Words are my craft now, B. I'll leave the numbers to you MBA types who have the luxury of multiple offers.
The difference is that editorials in newspapers endorse candidates off the front page in a manner that's clearly not "newsy." The type of campaign ads that are trying to be regulated are ones where it's not clear except for fine print who's financing the ad and are out of the candidates' control.
It fouls up the way that the candidates themselves can report their expenditures and can lead to private interests promoting or besmirching a candidate under the guise of something that looks official.
When a candidate says something in his or her ad that's bogus, they get called out for it in "debates" and in the press. When a special interest group says something in an ad, the candidate has no real way to address it that does anybody any good.
That's the sort of campaigning that detracts from what we can salvage of an honest campaign and an informed electorate.
I would appreciate some numbers every now and then. :)
C-what's your take on how BHO lambasted the judges with a ravenous senate seated behind them? Cool? Appropriate?
Inexplicable move, really. You're not showing them who's boss because they couldn't care less what the president or any other politician says about what they do.
You're no making a statement to Congress, really, because a bipartisan House and Senate approved the bill and they can try to write another one any time.
You're not making a statement to the liberals because liberals are usually all for judicial activism. You're not making a statement to conservatives because conservatives probably didn't like the law's restriction on free speech.
You're not making a statement to the plaintiffs, because the plaintiffs consisted of political action committees all across the political spectrum. And they won.
"With all due deference to the separation of powers," the president politicized and invited into the forum of party politics the Supreme Court. (Insert SB's or Adam's comment about how the Supreme Court is already a highly politicized body)
So to answer your question, not cool. Not appropriate. Not helpful to anyone except himself for two reasons, one simple and one not. 1) Score cheap applause when he already was concerned to not have as much as he'd hoped. 2) Stroke his own ego for not worrying about etiquette and protocol.
P.S. I'll make the obvious cheap shot and point out that the judiciary was the only group he hadn't alienated since his inauguration, so why not make a clean sweep? Way to be, Uniter.
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