Let me ask you: do you feel freer after this Supreme Court decision? Do you feel, like Rush said, "that the muzzle is off the American people now?" Do you seriously feel, like he does, that "freedom is coming out of its coma" thanks to this ruling? Does anybody seriously believe, as the SC majority argued, that the American people are going to make better informed political decisions now that the cap on corporate campaign spending has been ripped off? Is there some vital information we have been lacking about the candidates that corporations are just dying to tell us, but couldn't because 100 years of legal precedent and statutory law have kept them muzzled? We'll soon find out. (Lord save us.)
Corporations have been free to make issue ads; they have been free to inform the public to their heart's content. But they weren't allowed to make the connection between issues and candidates. They were not allowed, under statutory law, to advocate for political candidates without spending and time restrictions. So this ruling is not about free speech; it is about political influence. And now, thanks to Justices Kennedy, Roberts, et al, we have less influence and rich corporations have more.
You know, the right likes to say our Founding Fathers were all geniuses and masters of the English language, so if they had meant for money = speech, why didn't they just say so? If they had meant for corporations = people with all the same rights, why didn't they say so? (Modern limited liability corporations didn't exist in the 18th century, but their forebears, called charter companies, did.)
Even arch-conservative former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist once warned that treating corporate spending as the First Amendment equivalent of individual free speech is "to confuse metaphor with reality."
This is not to mention that corporations are global; they do not have U.S. "citizenship" like you and I do. Foreign ownership of U.S. corporations more than doubled between 1996 and 2005. So now Islamist oil sheiks and Chinese billionaires will be free to play the ponies and place their bets on their favorite U.S. political candidates. (And you siwwy Wepubwicans thought Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung, Huang and Riady were a threat to our national security!)
What's more, as Justice Stevens in the minority noted, "corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires" like real human beings do; and "they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
Anyway, it's no surprise Rush is ecstatic about this decision, because it's a fact that corporations donate more to Republicans. Contributions from unions and not-for-profits are a drop in the bucket. We're all screwed.
RUSH: Freedom is awaking from its coma today because of a huge, huge, huge Supreme Court decision -- huge. I cannot tell you how big this is. It's a 5-4 decision. The decision was written by Justice Kennedy. And what it does, it removes limits on independent expenditures that are not coordinated with candidate's campaigns. Meaning corporations and not-for-profits can spend any amount of money they want running ads and there's no limit as to when those ads can be run.
So McCain-Feingold takes a huge hit today. Now, the question of campaign contributions directly to candidates was not part of this decision because it was not before the court. So the issue was issue advocacy ads by nonprofit corporations, the Citizens United in this case, but it covers all nonprofits and all for-profit corporations. I'm going to go through it here pretty much line by line just to show you how profound this decision is.
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RUSH: Now, I want you to hear this from Jeff Toobin. He is the legal analyst at CNN. The left is just agog, they are beside themselves that freedom is coming out of its coma today, is awakening from its coma with this Supreme Court decision, which I'm going to get into after the break. But I want to show you how upset that Toobin is and the left really are. Toobin is in crisis here.
TOOBIN: It's really not just the 20-year-old ruling from 1990, it's more like a hundred years of regulation of the way corporations are prohibited from being involved in the political process. It's really bigger than 20 years, it's more like a hundred years of precedent being overturned. It basically says money is speech and corporations are people, both of which are debatable propositions but both of which seem to be, you know, popular at the Supreme Court at the moment.
RUSH: What's debatable about corporations are people and money is speech? Those two things are inarguable, that's what the court said by 5-4 with Kennedy, who is the swing vote. He wrote the opinion here. That is significant. He's right, by the way. This turns over 100 years of precedent. You know how anti-corporatist the left is; you know how they hate corporations. This, folks, is causing ulcers. I can't tell you what this decision is doing today to these leftists who just a year ago, they had such high hopes that they're going to have every CEO in jail and every soldier in jail and it's just in one year, because the people of this country are not socialists. The people of this country still have roots to freedom and entrepreneurism and liberty, and nothing -- the left, Obama -- nothing can snuff that out.
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RUSH: The Supreme Court decision is a defeat. I'll tell you, it's a defeat, ladies and gentlemen, for the fascists, the statists who seek to control our property, our bodies, and our speech. It is a defeat for Senator McCain. The muzzle is off the American people now because they, in fact, can spend the money on advocacy ads prior to the general and primary elections. It is a 100-year-old precedent that has been overturned. It is solid in that respect.
Citizens United produced an advocacy commercial about Hillary Clinton, which they wanted to run before the primaries. The question was whether it violated McCain-Feingold's ban as some kind of a political commercial. The Supreme Court said such advocacy by Citizens United and other groups is protected constitutional speech, but the opinion addresses more than that. The court says, "The law provides an outright ban backed by criminal and civil sanctions, including nonprofit corporations to either expressly advocate the election or defeat of candidates or to broadcast electioneering communications within 30 days of a primary, 60 days of a general election." These would be felonies and the court struck these down. The court struck down all the limits on where you can advertise, when you can advertise, and how much you can spend on this advertisement.
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You gotta understand, folks. See, I know liberals -- I know these cockroaches -- and I'm telling you, this just has them boiling today. You add the fact that everything's falling apart and going wrong for Obama. I mean, you go back one year ago almost to the day. Hell, it is one year ago to the day. No, it's one year plus a day. Nevertheless, they thought they were in power in perpetuity. Forever. They had their messiah and it was going to change this country forever -- and now the American people have said: No way. They've learned what this was all about and they're saying: No way. This court decision has these people fuming. "The government may not impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers based on the wealth or lack thereof of speakers. The public has the right..." The court said, "The public has the right to obtain all kinds of information from the widest number of sources."
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Liberalism itself has just been struck down, this whole notion of "fairness" based on who has more than somebody else or who has less than somebody else, who's bigger than somebody else. There is no precedent for advantaging certain corporations and disadvantaging others respecting speech. Speech is speech. There's the First Amendment. It doesn't matter how much money you have or how big you are, there is no restriction permitted on it. They are really hammering away here, folks. This is pretty sweeping. This is landmark, I would call it. "The law's purpose and effect is to prevent small and large corporations, for profit and not-for-profit, from presenting facts and opinions to the public. There is no constitutional support for this." Struck down. "The law's purpose..." This is McCain-Feingold they're talking about.
McCain-Feingold's "purpose and effect as to prevent small and large corporations, for profit and not-for-profit, from presenting facts and opinions to the public. There is no constitutional support for this." You know, I think back. One of the things that Senator McCain always said was, "You know, money corrupts the system. These good people come to Washington and money corrupts them." We have perhaps the most corrupt presidential administration I've seen in a long time. What does money have to do with it? Is it not their ideas? Is it not their desires that are corrupting them? Is it not who they are that's corrupt? By the way, another reason you know this is a great, great piece of Supreme Court reasoning is that Chuck-U Schumer is livid. Chuck-U is beside himself over this. Chuck-U doesn't like the Constitution. Only his endless speeches are worthy of protection.
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There's a lot more to this, ladies and gentlemen. But the important thing here is it's a 5-4 decision, and Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion for the majority, which is significant. It's as good a decision as anybody could have hoped for. It's sweeping, and it is landmark.
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RUSH: You gotta hear this. Chuck-U Schumer is livid, livid over the Supreme Court decision which takes away all the bans on whatever amount of money corporations want to spend on advertising in political campaigns. He just hates it.
SCHUMER: The Supreme Court has just predetermined the winners of next November's elections. It won't be Republicans; it won't be Democrats. It will be corporate America. Our system of government's the best in the world due to the ability of average citizens to participate and engage their elected officials without the belief that there are corrupting influences at play. I have not seen a decision that more undermines campaign finance and is probably one of the three or four decisions in the history of the Supreme Court that most undermines democracy. We will regret the day that this decision has been issued.
RUSH: Quite the contrary, Chuck-U. Freedom is awakening from its coma today. This does not "undermine democracy." It strengthens it.
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