By Gary Starr for American First Principles
January 23, 2010
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Free speech and the basic laws of free market capitalism and economics prevailed this week as liberal talk network Air America and the vastly unconstitutional McCain-Feingold campaign finance law restricting corporate campaign contributions were both thrown on the ash heap of history.
In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court ruled that big business can spend its millions to directly support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, a decision that sharply reverses a century-long trend to limit the political influence of corporations and labor unions. With the crucial midterm election campaigns just over the the political landscape has been remade.
The opinion affects laws dating back to the turn of the century when Congress passed the Tillman Act in 1907. The law banned corporations from donating money directly to federal candidates. Though that prohibition still stands, the same can't be said for much of the Progressives' century-long effort that soght to separate politics from corporate money. Someday the Court will go the distance and overturn the Tillman Act and Buckley v. Valeo, the 1976 decision that put limits on campaign spending.
Deciding for the majority opinion were Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy (). Deciding for the minority opinion were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor (our wise Latina woman) and John Paul Stevens.
The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute movie that was very critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign. Federal courts said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote yesterday's 5-4 majority opinion, emphasized that laws designed to control money in politics often bleed into censorship, and that this violates core First Amendment principles:
"If the First Amendment has any force it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech. The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach. Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy-it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people-political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence." The ban on corporate expenditures had a "substantial, nationwide chilling effect" on political speech, he added.
The Court's opinion also tore down the firewall between media and non-media corporations. McCain-Feingold had created an arbitrary exemption for media corporations. Now any corporation that owns a newspaper-News Corp. or the New York Times-retains its First Amendment right to speak freely.
"At the same time, some other corporation, with an identical business interest but no media outlet in its ownership structure, would be forbidden to speak or inform the public about the same issue," wrote Justice Kennedy. "This differential treatment cannot be squared with the First Amendment."
Naturally there is a great gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes among the Ivy League intelligentsia and the NY Times' David Brooks' 'educated class'. Obama was especially ungracious in defeat (when is he not?) donning his post Massachusetts Massacre populist facade to call it "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies" and other "special interests."
The landmark decision will lead to a "stampede of special interest money in our politics," Obama warned. He pledged to work with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to come up with a "forceful response" to the high court's action. How does one exactly get around the Supremes...fashion another unconstitutional censorship law?
What Obama conveniently failed to mention is that, for his union pals, another one of those "special interests" the democrats are always warning us about, political spending will also be protected by the logic of this ruling. Free speech...it's not just for liberals anymore.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer is also mad and he is vowing to hold hearings. The Naderite Public Citizen lobby is already calling for a constitutional amendment that bans free speech for "for-profit corporations." The tolerance of the Left on full display...NOT!!!
Meanwhile Air America, launched with much NY Times fanfare in 2004, ceased operation on Thursday filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy. This time the Left's sugar daddy, George Soros, will not be riding to the rescue.
Citing the "difficult" economic climate that led to a drop off in local and national advertising revenue Air America Chair Charlie Kireker wrote: "[O]ur painstaking search for new investors has come close several times right up into this week, but ultimately fell short of success. With radio industry ad revenues down for 10 consecutive quarters, and reportedly off 21% in 2009, signs of improvement have consisted of hoping things will be less bad. [O]ur company cannot escape the laws of economics. So we intend a rapid, orderly closure over the next few days."
One can only wish that Democrats in general would realize that their unsustainable deficit spending "cannot escape the laws of economics" either.
The other reason for the bankruptcy that Kireker failed to address is that no one was listening to the daily, snarky, self-satisfied trashing of our country, conservatives, George Bush, Christianity and the War on Terror. Ultimately it was good old fashioned market forces that drove the putrid Air America into the ground. Lack of audience caused the ad revenues to dry up. That kind of programming never worked and never will work.
Since Air America's original 2006 bankruptcy some of the on air "talent" has found notoriety elsewhere…Al Franken stole an election and became a U.S. Senator; Rachel Maddow, is a host on the incredibly low rated MSNBC; and Randi Rhodes was briefly suspended for her profanity-laced description of Hillary Clinton.
All in all, a terrible week for progressives...they lost a key Senate race in Massachusetts all but putting a stake in the vampire known as ObamaCare, they can't censor free speech prior to an election anymore, and the one outlet they had all to themselves in the arena of talk radio went belly-up.
But they will be back...they never quit. Look for more attempts to censor conservative talk radio (Obama's man inside the FCC is Hugo Chavez fan Mark Lloyd), look for continued but futile attempts to jam down Obamacare and look for more profligate spending schemes as the libs start angrily acting out...like the children they are.
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