Apparently big Wall Street bank bonus's have nothing on the supreme court.
Our nations highest court has just screamed, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" to corporations and campaign finance reform.
Zachary Roth from TPM posts...
In a ruling that has major implications for how elections are funded, the Supreme Court has struck down a key campaign-finance restriction that bars corporations and unions from pouring money into political ads.
The long-awaited 5-4 ruling, in the Citizens United v. FEC case, presents advocates of regulation with a major challenge in limiting the flow of corporate money into campaigns, and potentially opens the door for unrestricted amounts of corporate money to flow into American politics.
Place your bets now for the 2010 mid-term and 2012 presidential election. Maybe we should let Vegas in on the whole politics endeavor.
The reasons our highest court has let us down are simple:
1) In a time of tight budgets, high unemployment, and financial struggle for most Americans...we are sending personal invitations written across Andrew Jackson's forehead to corporations begging them to spend more of their money even more unwisely than they already do. If you thought big bank bonuses on wall street were bad...wait until a mega corp that just cut a few thousand jobs and outsourced a few thousand more spends millions on a campaign add for their favorite goon in a power suit.
2) This is an equal opportunity screw up. Does this benefit the Conservative organizations that typically have the most money? Most likely. But it will make both left and right feel the pressure to throw money in the wrong direction. Think of all the cash the losing candidate will squeeze out of their "supporters." Labor unions haven't a chance to compete. But they will be forced to try and further damage the job security of their employees and the industry they protect.
3) The individual will once again drop to the bottom of the value assessment stack. We would care about our drop in health coverage for our employees..but we've got to win this election first! We might explore more sustainable practices in our product development and look toward a real equitable future for the planet...but we just wrote our last check to Dick Mudraker.
The McCain-Feingold era is over and done. Get ready for corporatocracy at it's worst! Katy bar the door. This will get ugly.
Ivan L
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