To all those devoted to the principle that, " Greed is good," Zaid Jilani on Think Progress covered the announcement that a Maryland Corporation intends to run for U.S. Congress testing the new principle that the Roberts Court enshrined by the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission that corporations have equal rights as real persons including free speech.
The Supreme Court ended a 63 year old ban on corporate money in federal elections. This decision, Rep. Alan Grayson ( D- Fl ) said, " Opens the floodgates for the purchase and sale of the law by big corporations."
A press release on Murray Hill's website satirically notes, " Until now corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle man and run for office ourselves."
This is believed to be the first time according to the Murray Hill website, that a Corporation has used the idea of corporate personhood and used their Constitutional right to run for office ourselves."
As Lyle Dunniston on his SCOTUSBLOG noted, " If anything the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission conferred new dignity on Corporate persons," by asserting that they be accorded their First Amendment rights under the free speech clause as the equal of human beings.
Dunniston goes on further to say," The fact is that the decades old image of American Corporations as destabilizing and perhaps even corrupting influences in politics has now been thoroughly examined by the Supreme Court, and the Corporate 'person' emerges from the process, with in the eyes of the majority, a burnished image of good citizen."
The remainder of the press release notes that the company will run an aggressive and historic campaign that puts people second or maybe even third. ' We want to get in on the ground floor of the democracy market before the whole store is bought by China."
The campaign motto says it all. " The business of America is business but now its the business of Democracy too."
to contact the campaign :
Comments
Mark: Samuel Alito, Supreme Court judge, just lead a majority ruling to grant corporations unlimited power to contribute to politicians and political parties. It's just incredible, it's so hard to believe ... the concept that corporations are essentially the same as people. Anyhow, thank heavens for satire. The sad part, though, is that this satire is actually representative of the truth. It ain't funny, but we might as well get a laugh out of it. So if you have a second, check this out.
I'm really looking forward to the overnighter in Vienna Thursday. I hope the dentist keeps an extra bullet on hand for me to bite on.
Talk to you tomorrow ...
Larry
All the opposition to this decision is goofy. The Court didn't say corporations are people - it said the 1st Amendment protects speech, period, regardless of the source. Which it does. And the Court didn't overturn the ban on corporate donations to campaigns either, that's bullshit from people who don't understand this or are deliberately lying about it. And corporations could already spend money on political ads anyway, they just had to pretend they weren't political by not saying "vote for" or whatever. It's all stupid and overblown. Oh, and I'm a liberal.
Mehoo, BLESS YOU, BLESS YOU FOR THINKING CLEARLY.
I commend you for being smart on the Internet. You are automatically awesome for bringing the truth and common sense among this "corporate overlord" doomsday crud.
Thank you so much.
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