President Obama Not Backing Down Against Supreme Court

The question is if the Supreme Court decision was based on Constitutional Law. If it was the President can try to change the Constitution instead of attacking the messenger.

I think the president was spot on. That law was authored by Theodore Roosevelt to prevent the “whole sale of the government” to, among other things, foriegn governments, and in this age of Saudi Arabia not wanting us to go green fuel, and China not wanting us to keep jobs in this country, it is absolutely crucial that big foreign money does NOT have any place in our politics because both of those forces can spend infinitely on legislations that is good for them, and will cost us jobs and hurt our economy. In Teddy R’s time it was Europe, England, France who wanted to put their hands in the American pie of politics, but even though the players have changed, the danger is still very real and the necessity of preventing it will ALWAYS be essential. That Roberts would be behind this just shows how poor the choices for Supreme court had been under Bush. They are legislating their politics rather than making good law that supports this country and protects the constitution and our form of government.

Of course the decision was not based on constitutional law. It is a result of the worst sort of judicial activism, taking a law that was passed in order to insure recognize the personhood of former slaves and attempting to say its purpose was to grant personhood to fictitous entities.
More to the point here, however, is that there is no such thing as a ‘domestic’ corporation, since US subsidiaries of foreign corporations are exempt from the restrictions as well.
The greater issue is the fact that corporations have no loyalty to the US at all, irrespective of where they are incorporated.

I think most people would consider something like Toyota spending millions of dollars running ads supporting a specific candidate as foreign influence. And that is what this ruling has opened up. The President’s assessment of it was accurate and his mention of it was entirely reasonable. And perhaps on this narrow issue, Congress can actually work in a bipartisan fashion to address the issue of Unions and Corporations being given carte blanche to swing elections.

I am sorry to see that the result of this decision overturns McCain Feingold and previous law. However, BO has no right to ever again pout when he is called a LIAR.

j011254 | Feb 2, 2010 7:38:36 PM
The question is if the Supreme Court decision was based on Constitutional Law. If it was the President can try to change the Constitution instead of attacking the messenger ………….This post is absolutely correct! The SCOTUS majority properly interpreted the Constitution. The 1st amendment says, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” There is no reference whatsoever to whom or what does the speaking. This amendment deals only with speech. If Obama and Congress want to discriminate against speakers (read corporations) let them amend the Constitution…… To those who argue that corporations are not individuals and therefore are not entitled to 1st Amendment protection, I say take another look at our legal system and you will see that corporations have indeed enjoyed the protections of our Bill of Rights ……. Would anyone argue that corporations are not entitled to protection from unreasonable search and seizure (4th Amendment protection)? Would anyone argue that corporations aren’t entitled to due process and just compensation for a govt taking (5th amendment protection)? Would anyone argue that corporations cannot sue or be sued? Or are not entitled to a trial by jury? Etc. Etc. Etc. ………In short, even though corporations are business entities set up by the state – they are, in reality, groups of individuals whose rights are not waived by incorporating…….To those who argue that prior law was overturned, I say the prior law deserved to be verturned. It was patently discriminatory and unfair. That law allowed some corporations to enjoy free speech while other corporations could not. Why should GE Corp (owner of NBC)or Disney Corp (owner of ABC) for example be allowed to voice its views while others had to remain silent? The law also would have allowed the govt to ban books under certain circumstances …… The overriding principle behind the 1st Amendment is that the public is best served when it gets information..esp political information …….And yes, it was inappropriate and rude of Obama to criticize SCOTUS at the State of the Union address. They (SCOTUS) were guests of Congress and they should have been treated as such. Obama chose the wrong venue to voice his dissatisfaction.

A few points:
1. The main issue is that the federal government, Congress, MUST NOT be in a position where they must be petitioned for permission to voice an opinion. The case involved a group of citizens that wanted to share their sentiments about a sitting Senator (Clinton), and that freedom of speech was denied because of this law. Government power mongers like Mugabe or Chavez would find such a law convenient, but it has no place in America.
2. President Obama should grow out of his habit of mad-dogging pretty much any handy target, from Las Vegas to the Supreme Court to the evil dentists. Good Lord, grow up.
3. Obama’s people went to some trouble to disable the automatic tracking of credit card information during his campaign. They have admitted that the action caused him to gain unknown numbers of (illegal) foreign campaign contributions, and unknown violations of maximums from wealthy contributors.
So it is hideous to see him scolding anyone about foreign or corporate shenanigans in our campaigns.
Why hasn’t that been investigated? Mr. Tapper?

“at the time the amendment was written, there were no “corporations” and therefore no consideration of such.”
………..This post is inaccurate……
Corporations did in fact exist when the 1st Amendment was written. They were not as prevalent as they are today, nor were they held in high esteem by some in power. But they existed

The issue is one of whether the President of the United States should use the state of the union speech in an attempt to intimidate the Supreme Court to their face in front of the country and in front of the world.
Those who howled about Obama being called a liar should also be howling at this breech of decorum.
This is part of the Obama intimidation tour.

Posted by: langston jones | Feb 3, 2010 12:48:21 AM
Langston, your post commits a fallacy.
You assume -improperly – that those who support the Supreme Ct decision do so out of a hatred for Obama. This simplistic attempt to dismiss the rationale arguments of others by impugning their motives only shows that you have no valid counter arguments to offer. In the future, you would be well served if you stick to issues, and not name-calling.

The problem is treating a corporation as a person. Corporations are more like machines designed to generate the most profit. Unlike a person (at least non-sociopaths), corporations have no conscience. If the most profitable thing to do is hijack the political system and rig the game so they never have to clean up their own mess, that’s exactly what they’ll do. Giving them unlimited spending power in elections makes it a hell of a lot easier to do.

Thanks to Alito and other conservative Supreme court justices, China, with its growing ownership or controll over US companies, can now support their favorite conservative, pro- business, pro-china republican. Wake UP! There is little difference between communism and conservatism. They are all about control, using hatred, intolerace, and fear.

Some commenters here don’t understand that the decision wasn’t about corporations donating directly to campaigns, it was about corporations spending their money to have ads or even entire movies made to influence an election, under the guise of freedom of free speech.
This should not stand, as corporations should not have all the rights of an individual.As a previous poster stated, the Constitution was written long before we had corporations. Corporations are owned by individuals and those individuals, if they are citizens, have free speech rights. Corporations exist to make money for stock holders, they do not have birth or death certificates, can’t be drafted or vote. Corporations are not a person.
We need an amendment to straghten this out. All of us, Dem or Repub should be dismayed by the idea of any corporation having such influence on our elections and therefore our democracy. The idea that a foreign government or foreign citizens if invested heavily in any corporation should be influencing who is elected should strike outrage in anyone calling themselves patriotic. Think about it.
And let’s see which politician in the Senate or House is brave enough to push for an amendment correcting this atrocious Supreme Court decision.

“All of us, Dem or Repub should be dismayed by the idea of any corporation having such influence on our elections”
I agree with you, but the problem with this equation is as corporations approach actually being the Republicans “dismayed” approaches zero.