House Democrats Challenge Citizens United v. Federal Election Commision
One of the most pressing fights for Progressives to restore America to all Americans is overturning the ungodly Citizens United v. Federal Election Commision that gave Corporate America the power to buy elections. In the last election cycle that resulted in a flood of money and corruption in an already troubled voting process. Of course, with a tainted voting process there is no possibility for true Democracy no matter what country you live in.
As most of you know, this ruling is so dangerous for Democracy because it allows Corporate America a loophole in disclosing their spending on elections:
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The Citizens United decision did not strike down any rules that require disclosure of political spending, but loopholes in the tax system and lax campaign finance rules allow corporations to give money in ways that are very hard to track, disclosure advocates say.
According to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics in the 2010 election 67 percent of all outside (non political party) spending came from groups that had been freed to contribute by the Citizens United decision with non-profit 501(c) groups dominating spending on election ads.
IRS rules state that 501(c)(4) groups don't have to name their contributors as long as electioneering is not their primary purpose, but this can be difficult to enforce in a meaningful way. Groups can form and carry out campaign work and then later switch to other activities so that political projects don't appear to dominate their activities.
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Luckily today at least someone is trying to do something about it. Although it will die in the corporate-controlled House of Hypocrites, John Conyers and Donna Edwards have introduced legislation to overturn that terrible decision:
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Sponsored by Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the proposal would amend the Constitution to empower Congress and the states to limit corporate spending on political activities.
"Last year, the Supreme Court overturned decades of law and declared open season on our democracy," Conyers said in a statement. "It is individual voters who should determine the future of this nation, not corporate money."
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At the time, the priorities of those on both sides of this argument were summed up nicely by the justices themselves:
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The majority argued there is nothing in the First Amendment to indicate that corporations shouldn't be afforded the same constitutional protections as individuals.
"Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker," wrote the conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
Writing in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, representing the court's liberal wing, argued that corporations and individuals often have very different interests. The decision, he warned, "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation."
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Which boils down to a simple question to Americans. Are corporations as important as people and is money considered "free speech"?? It seems to me that money cannot be considered as "speech" in our society as created by the founding fathers quite simply because it gives those with more money more "say" in what will happen in our country. When elections can simply be bought and paid for the eventual result will be huge majorities of people whose interests aren't represented as politicians bend to the monied interests to try and be reelected. Only a blind person cannot see that has already happened.
Even with the eventual result of this legislation carved in stone we should all let our Congressfolks know that we support overturning this travesty that moves our country away from Democracy and into Oligarchy.
This fight has just begun.
One of the most pressing fights for Progressives to restore America to all Americans is overturning the ungodly Citizens United v. Federal Election Commision that gave Corporate America the power to buy elections. In the last election cycle that resulted in a flood of money and corruption in an already troubled voting process. Of course, with a tainted voting process there is no possibility for true Democracy no matter what country you live in.
As most of you know, this ruling is so dangerous for Democracy because it allows Corporate America a loophole in disclosing their spending on elections:
-----
The Citizens United decision did not strike down any rules that require disclosure of political spending, but loopholes in the tax system and lax campaign finance rules allow corporations to give money in ways that are very hard to track, disclosure advocates say.
According to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics in the 2010 election 67 percent of all outside (non political party) spending came from groups that had been freed to contribute by the Citizens United decision with non-profit 501(c) groups dominating spending on election ads.
IRS rules state that 501(c)(4) groups don't have to name their contributors as long as electioneering is not their primary purpose, but this can be difficult to enforce in a meaningful way. Groups can form and carry out campaign work and then later switch to other activities so that political projects don't appear to dominate their activities.
-----
Luckily today at least someone is trying to do something about it. Although it will die in the corporate-controlled House of Hypocrites, John Conyers and Donna Edwards have introduced legislation to overturn that terrible decision:
-----
Sponsored by Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Donna Edwards (D-Md.), the proposal would amend the Constitution to empower Congress and the states to limit corporate spending on political activities.
"Last year, the Supreme Court overturned decades of law and declared open season on our democracy," Conyers said in a statement. "It is individual voters who should determine the future of this nation, not corporate money."
-----
At the time, the priorities of those on both sides of this argument were summed up nicely by the justices themselves:
-----
The majority argued there is nothing in the First Amendment to indicate that corporations shouldn't be afforded the same constitutional protections as individuals.
"Its text offers no foothold for excluding any category of speaker," wrote the conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
Writing in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, representing the court's liberal wing, argued that corporations and individuals often have very different interests. The decision, he warned, "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation."
-----
Which boils down to a simple question to Americans. Are corporations as important as people and is money considered "free speech"?? It seems to me that money cannot be considered as "speech" in our society as created by the founding fathers quite simply because it gives those with more money more "say" in what will happen in our country. When elections can simply be bought and paid for the eventual result will be huge majorities of people whose interests aren't represented as politicians bend to the monied interests to try and be reelected. Only a blind person cannot see that has already happened.
Even with the eventual result of this legislation carved in stone we should all let our Congressfolks know that we support overturning this travesty that moves our country away from Democracy and into Oligarchy.
This fight has just begun.
What withdrawal? Obama wants $100 million prison in Afghanistan
As the Obama administration announced plans for hundreds of billions of dollars more in domestic budget cuts, it late last week solicited bids for the construction of a massive new prison in Bagram, Afghanistan. Posted on the aptly named FedBizOps.Gov website which it uses to announce new privatized spending projects, the administration unveiled plans for "the construction of Detention Facility in Parwan (DFIP), Bagram, Afghanistan" which includes "detainee housing capability for approximately 2000 detainees." It will also feature "guard towers, administrative facility and Vehicle/Personnel Access Control Gates, security surveillance and restricted access systems." The announcement provided: "the estimated cost of the project is between $25,000,000 to $100,000,000."
In the U.S., prisons are so wildly overcrowded that courts are ordering them to release inmates en masse because conditions are so inhumane as to be unconstitutional (today, the FBI documented that a drug arrest occurs in the U.S. once every 19 seconds, but as everyone knows, only insane extremists and frivolous potheads advocate an end to that war). In the U.S., budgetary constraints are so severe that entire grades are being eliminated, the use of street lights restricted, and the most basic services abolished for the nation's neediest. But the U.S. proposes to spend up to $100 million on a sprawling new prison in Afghanistan.
Budgetary madness to the side, this is going to be yet another addition to what Human Rights First recently documented is the oppressive, due-process-free prison regime the U.S. continues to maintain around the world:
Ten years after the September 11 attacks, few Americans realize that the United States is still imprisoning more than 2800 men outside the United States without charge or trial. Sprawling U.S. military prisons have become part of the post-9/11 landscape, and the concept of "indefinite detention" -- previously foreign to our system of government -- has meant that such prisons, and their captives, could remain a legacy of the 9/11 attacks and the "war on terror" for the indefinite future. . . . .
The secrecy surrounding the U.S. prison in Afghanistan makes it impossible for the public to judge whether those imprisoned there deserve to be there. What’s more, because much of the military's evidence against them is classified, the detainees themselves have no right to see it. So although detainees at Bagram are now entitled to hearings at the prison every six months, they're often not allowed to confront the evidence against them. As a result, they have no real opportunity to contest it.
In one of the first moves signalling just how closely the Obama administration intended to track its predecessor in these areas, it won the right to hold Bagram prisoners without any habeas corpus rights, successfully arguing that the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision -- which candidate Obama cheered because it guaranteed habeas rights to Guantanamo detainees -- was inapplicable to Bagram. Numerous groups doing field work in Afghanistan have documented that the maintenance of these prisons is a leading recruitment tool for the Taliban and a prime source of anti-American hatred. Despite that fact -- or, more accurately (as usual), because of it -- the U.S. is now going to build a brand new, enormous prison there.
One last point: recall how many people insisted that the killing of Osama bin Laden would lead to a drawdown in the War on Terror generally and the war in Afghanistan specifically. Since then -- in just four months since bin Laden's corpse was dumped into the ocean -- the U.S. has done the following: renewed the Patriot Act for four years with no reforms; significantly escalated drone attacks in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan; tried to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki with no due process; indicted a 24-year-old Muslim for "material support for Terrorism" for uploading an anti-American YouTube clip after he talked to the son of a Terrorist leader; pressured Iraq to keep U.S. troops in that country; argued that it has the virtually unlimited right to kill anyone it wants anywhere in the world; and now finalized plans to build a sprawling new prison in Afghanistan. If that's winding things down, I sure would hate to see what a redoubling of the American commitment to Endless War looks like.
In the U.S., prisons are so wildly overcrowded that courts are ordering them to release inmates en masse because conditions are so inhumane as to be unconstitutional (today, the FBI documented that a drug arrest occurs in the U.S. once every 19 seconds, but as everyone knows, only insane extremists and frivolous potheads advocate an end to that war). In the U.S., budgetary constraints are so severe that entire grades are being eliminated, the use of street lights restricted, and the most basic services abolished for the nation's neediest. But the U.S. proposes to spend up to $100 million on a sprawling new prison in Afghanistan.
Budgetary madness to the side, this is going to be yet another addition to what Human Rights First recently documented is the oppressive, due-process-free prison regime the U.S. continues to maintain around the world:
Ten years after the September 11 attacks, few Americans realize that the United States is still imprisoning more than 2800 men outside the United States without charge or trial. Sprawling U.S. military prisons have become part of the post-9/11 landscape, and the concept of "indefinite detention" -- previously foreign to our system of government -- has meant that such prisons, and their captives, could remain a legacy of the 9/11 attacks and the "war on terror" for the indefinite future. . . . .
The secrecy surrounding the U.S. prison in Afghanistan makes it impossible for the public to judge whether those imprisoned there deserve to be there. What’s more, because much of the military's evidence against them is classified, the detainees themselves have no right to see it. So although detainees at Bagram are now entitled to hearings at the prison every six months, they're often not allowed to confront the evidence against them. As a result, they have no real opportunity to contest it.
In one of the first moves signalling just how closely the Obama administration intended to track its predecessor in these areas, it won the right to hold Bagram prisoners without any habeas corpus rights, successfully arguing that the Supreme Court's Boumediene decision -- which candidate Obama cheered because it guaranteed habeas rights to Guantanamo detainees -- was inapplicable to Bagram. Numerous groups doing field work in Afghanistan have documented that the maintenance of these prisons is a leading recruitment tool for the Taliban and a prime source of anti-American hatred. Despite that fact -- or, more accurately (as usual), because of it -- the U.S. is now going to build a brand new, enormous prison there.
One last point: recall how many people insisted that the killing of Osama bin Laden would lead to a drawdown in the War on Terror generally and the war in Afghanistan specifically. Since then -- in just four months since bin Laden's corpse was dumped into the ocean -- the U.S. has done the following: renewed the Patriot Act for four years with no reforms; significantly escalated drone attacks in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan; tried to assassinate U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki with no due process; indicted a 24-year-old Muslim for "material support for Terrorism" for uploading an anti-American YouTube clip after he talked to the son of a Terrorist leader; pressured Iraq to keep U.S. troops in that country; argued that it has the virtually unlimited right to kill anyone it wants anywhere in the world; and now finalized plans to build a sprawling new prison in Afghanistan. If that's winding things down, I sure would hate to see what a redoubling of the American commitment to Endless War looks like.
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