Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

The “Citizens United” Decision – and the Kochtopus

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The scariest article I have read recently deals with corporate spending run amok, and may explain where the Tea Party got its start and its money.

This is a must read.  I want to hear what you all think about this.  Essentially, while George Soros operates in the open, and not to support his businesses – the Kochtopus is, in fact, one of the top ten polluters in the world, and using its clout to kill the government to pollute in peace.  Again read all about it.

Their idea seems to be if you cannot make it on your own, please die and improve the race.  What Jonathan Swift wrote as a satire appears to be close to what the Koch brothers and Grover Nyquist believe, as proponents of social Darwinism.

Again, the path of honor, the path of the Warrior, is that the strong take care of the weak.  

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  1. …where others had already pointed out George Soros, et al…

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    As you well know, Citizen United didn’t just apply to businesss groups, but to labor unions and other groups as well.

    NOW – if Alec Baldwin and Norman Lear tire of using their front organization, People for the American Way, to channel money to Democrats they can simply use their own production companies to channel money from ’30 Rock’ or ‘All in the Family’ residuals directly to candidates.

    In fact, all committed Hollywood liberals can.  And there are more of then than Kochs.  As this happens (unless they are too shallow to put their money where their mouth is, just like they never did move away?) we will see less and less protest from the left about CU.

    • those “Hollywood liberals” were neither (1) billionaires like the Koch brothers nor (2) particularly numerous. As hard as it is for Fox News-watching conservatives to believe, corporations have a lot more political money and political influence than Hollywood liberals, ACORN, the “New Black Panther Party” and leftist university professors combined.

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      p>And where exactly is your evidence that you will “see less and less protest from the left about CU” if “Hollywood liberals” start donating to Democrats? AmberPaw didn’t make that suggestion. Rather than throwing out red herrings like the Kochs’ pass out anti-Obama money, you could address the actual issue at hand — how Citizens United is just another step toward the wealthy gaining more power and in turn severely limiting equality of opportunity in this country. That’s the real problem with CU, and one that I think most liberals are actually concerned about — whether the money comes from rich “Hollywood liberals” vying for influence or the much more prominent problem of ultra-wealthy corporations using it to dominate the political process.

    • No organization should be treated as if it is a flesh and blood person.

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      p>And all paid political activity should be transparent and state who/what organization/entity paid for it, and how much, and preferably, where that money ‘came from’.

          1.  The “corporation as a legal person” legal fiction resulted from a reporter to the court’s footnote.

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          p>2.  Corporations, unlike natural born folks, are immortal.

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          p>3.  Corporations can neither marry nor be made to pay child support.

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          p>4.  Corporations have agents, and the law of apparent agency – a far cry from personal legal responsibility.

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          p>5.  The extent of the “legal fiction”* of ‘corporate personhood’ is still not fully defined as to which aspects of “personhood” apply to a corporation; I consider that the United Citizens reasoning is not flawless, and I disagree with it, albiet my analysis doesn’t carry the clout of a justice, but I note that not all the SCOTUS justices agreed, either.

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          p>2.  Corporations, unlike citizens, do not die and are immortal, able to accumlate assets forever under the law.

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          p>* Definition of legal fiction

          • It’s still the law.

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            p>On RMG, you said that it was a fiction, and ‘not all justices agreed’.  That’s like saying gay marriage is a fiction because not all justices agreed.

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            p>A majority affirmed corporate personhood and it is the law because of it, just like gay marriage.

            • Unlike same sex marriage, “corporate personhood” impacts many areas of law, and is not at all fully defined or static or fully predictable in its effects, and unlike same sex marraige, “corporate personhood” does not result from due process or equal protection or the 14th amendment, but rather a single comment to an old decision – so the “last inning” on just what “corporate personhood” means, and how the CU decision will play out has not been written as of today.

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              p>Further, these so-called “corporate persons” have neither bodies, passions, mortality, or consciences – now what will THAT turn out to mean as a “form of person” and does that mean, Peter, that you can marry a corporation?  Just asking.

        • the view in CU rests upon a questionable reading of legal precedent, not to mention a severely twisted reading of the original intent of the 14th Amendment.

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          p>But because this is a false reading of the 14th Amendment that benefits conservatives, we don’t hear much from that crowd about “keeping true to the original intent of the Framers,” do we?

      • So you’re a lawyer right?
        If the Constitutional rights apply to corporations and they are to be treated as people….

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        p>Isn’t it illegal for people to own others as property?
        Are the stockholders all slaveowners?

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        p>FREE THE CORPORATIONS!!! FREEEEEEDOM!!!!

    • …and it appears that any individual can now spend whatever without a front.  I don’t know what you’re getting at here.  We know it applies across the board, but in practical terms the corporate side has quite the advantage in most cases.

      • So much energy is put on demonizing business in ‘progressive’ circles (one thread recently had comments about how business and corporations should just go away, prusumably so we can all return to an agrarian culture where we eat what we raise).  This was a very wide decision, and I again predict that progressives will drop all but pro forma opposition when they realize how many new sources of revenue they can tap.

        • …even though I was one who initially questioned why the free speech argument wasn’t a reasonable one.  Don’t lump business and corporations together necessarily either.  I’m tempted to say business-good, corporation-bad; the former is entreprenurial(sp?) and provides a good or service which the market demands, (A good business IMO also has something of a social conscience) while the latter is so concerned with the bottom line and fat shareholder checks that it starts to shirk it’s responsibilities to a truly free market, especially when what it provides is very necessary such as access to health care.

            • I believe in universal adult suffrage, though I must admit it is tempting at times to require even native-born citizens to be able to pass a citizenship test before being allowed to vote.  I’m not sure what I said to suggest that suffrage should be based on judging how “good” a person is.  Voting is different from what we’re talking about because the vote itself is still one-person-one-vote whereas advertising comes closer to one-dollar-one-vote.

      • …what I’ve often said is a key difference between conservatives and liberals:

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        p>A conservative asks, “What’s in it for me?”
        A liberal asks, “What’s in it for us?”

        • Libertarians (who are usually fiscally conservative and socially liberal) ask “what’s in it for me”

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          p>Social Conservatives (who might be fiscally liberal or fiscally conservative) ask “what will it do to us?”

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          p>That’s the new split: libertarians on one side and social conservatives on the other.  The real news of this New Yorker article is that the mask is slipping off the Libertarians now, it turns out they are funded by anarchist playboy billionaire oil company scions, and are hijacking the Tea Party, which started out as a demand for responsible government action against wall street and globalist tycoons, but has been manipulated into a libertarian anti-government force (or at least that was the intention, but now maybe we can reject that influence).

            • since you are probably one of the paid operatives of the Kochtopus, you’re paid to say that…

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              p>But I’m trying to figure out which sentence you’re objecting to.  Hmm, not all Libertarians are funded by the Koch scions, that’s true, but the ones that aren’t are chumps who have been manipulated into being Libertarians by the Koch brothers.  And they are certainly hijacking the Tea Party and injecting Libertarianism into it, and trying to marginalize the responsible government social conservatives.  There is nothing paranoid about it, that stuff is documented.

              • Your history of the tea party is completely backwards.  
                Ron Paul supporters                 and other libertarians were the early tea partiers.  Later the social cons jumped on board, along with the Palin-birther-nut job crowd.  I wish the libertarians would take it back.  

                • Here is a good history of the Tea Parties, and it doesn’t mention Ron Paul supporters.

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                  p>They started around the time of the stimulus and financial bailout, and later health care reform, but I think that the health care part happened after the Libertarians got involved.  At first it was against bailouts for the banks and wall street, which you don’t have to be a libertarian to oppose.  I think the socons were there in the beginning, even though they were there protesting high taxes and big government and not abortion or gay marriage.

                • Check out my link- it’s a Globe article from Dec. 2007.  Your source cites 2009 as the origin of the tea party and that’s just factually wrong.  It’s hard to get a straight account of the movement without doing your own research… everyone has an agenda.

                • That Ron Paul Boston Tea Party Day protest was a different group of people than the people showing up at the tax day Tea Party protests a couple of years later.  I don’t think the people showing up at those later ones even heard of Ron Paul, and I don’t think Ron Paul or his people organized those later ones.  I’m willing to consider evidence I’m wrong, but that’s my impression anyway.

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                  p>Remember when most people started hearing about the Tea Partiers, was when they were being called “tea baggers” by MSNBC, and the joke of that was that the Tea Partiers are all homophobic hicks so socially conservative that they won’t even know what “tea bagging” is.  

                • Even after the election, the Ron Paul folks had a bigger presence at the Boston events than any other group.  That’s something that had noticeably changed by the time Palin showed up on the Common.

  3. Read this front page story in today’s NY Times about Paul Singer and how he and other Wall Streeters are throwing huge sums of money the GOP’s way.

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    Mr. Singer, professorial and soft-spoken, used a gathering of business and government leaders at the conservative Manhattan Institute to lash out at “indiscriminate attacks by political leaders against anything that moves in the world of finance.” Government efforts to “take over and run” the economy through more regulations, he warned, threatened to ruin the United States’ standing as the world leader in finance.

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    p>Or in other words, how dare they even throw a speed-bump in the way of his making tons of money. For all of the complaints on the left that the reform didn’t go far enough and how Obama’s financial team is nothing but a bunch of Wall Street insiders, the Wall Street insiders are even more pissed – and willing to throw their money at the problem.

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    p>So if the GOP takes over Congress, we know what to expect. Something else we can expect was expressed by Lanny Davis, former White House Counsel for President Bill Clinton, on Ed Schultz’s radio show yesterday and covered in this Politico article. Remember what things were like when Clinton was President and the GOP held congress?

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    If President Barack Obama needed any more incentive to go all out for Democrats this fall, here it is: Republicans are planning a wave of committee investigations targeting the White House and Democratic allies if they win back the majority.

    Everything from the microscopic – the New Black Panther party – to the massive — think bailouts – is on the GOP to-do list, according to a half-dozen Republican aides interviewed by POLITICO.

  4. I think I will have to buy ten copies and pass them out.

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    p>By the way, Bill McKibben speaks about his new book “eaarth” tomorrow at 7:30 at Cary Hall in Lexington.

      • Were it not for SLOT BARNS and the Gambling Vultures stroking the weak egos on Beacon Hill and promising the moon, I’d be writing about the mindless lack of sensible ENERGY POLICY on Capital Hill.

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        p>I guess NO HILL is immune in my book! I hope you don’t live on one. (Please email me offline and I will remove your hill from targeting if you do.)

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        p>Exploitation of stupidity and gullibility seems to prevail, along with generous campaign contributions and well funded lobbyists.

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        p>Experts tell us that 50% of our energy use is WASTED and could be reduced with little or no cost. Doesn’t that tell you something about your monthly bills or your municipal real estate tax bill? Never mind issues of national security and a military defending energy companies around the world, or global warming, or CO2, are we so dumb or blind that retaining more $$$ in our pockets escapes us?

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        p>Middleboro, after much inertia, finally appointed a ‘Green Committee’ that recently determined the Town Hall Building was consuming 5 times the energy of comparable buildings – met with yawns by the BOS.

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        p>We have remained silent as a nation as 500 mountains have been destroyed, waste blown downstream into rivers, destroying communities, polluting water. Check out Mountaintop Removal

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        p>or how about Coal Ash

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        p>After the TVA Coal Ash spill that destroyed Harriman, Tennessee, it quickly faded from view.

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        p>We ignore that the risk remains in the Commonwealth —

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        p>

        There are no state statistics available that I’ve been able to find that indicate that air quality is being monitored locally, but on the hot, muggy days, you don’t need statistics to tell you there’s a problem.

        Doesn’t Brayton Point, operated by Dominion Energy NUGs burn DIRTY COAL?

        Brayton Point (zip 02725) has 95,000 TONS OF COAL ASH.

        If I got my zeroes right, that’s

        190,000,000 POUNDS

        Doesn’t Somerset Station operated by NRG Energy burn DIRTY COAL?

        Somerset Station (zip 02726) has 30,050 TONS OF COAL ASH.

        If I got my zeroes right, that’s

        60,100,000 POUNDS

        [Salem Harbor zip 01970 has 70,400 TONS OF COAL ASH.]

        If I got my zeroes right, that’s

        140,800,000 POUNDS

        [West Springfield zip 01089 has 20,000 TONS OF COAL ASH]

        If I got my zeroes right, that’s

        40,000,000 POUNDS

        [ Mount Tom Zip 01040 has 36,700 TONS OF COAL ASH]

        If I got my zeroes right, that’s

        75,200,000 POUNDS

        Maybe Massachusetts isn’t the pristine environment we pretend.

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        p>This goes far beyond the subversion that Koch is promoting to what we, as intelligent people are willing to support.

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        p>Did anyone notice that the great ‘Green Communities’ legislation passed on Beacon Hill contained the oxymoron “CLEAN COAL”?

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        p>Beacon Hill can’t even step over the lobbyists to pass an updated version of the Bottle Bill.

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        p>We have some bright, articulate elected officials on Beacon Hill. They conduct their own due diligence and they possess the integrity and the courage to oppose leadership, in spite of threats of losing staff, office space and extra pay, to support what’s truly right and correct for the future of the Common Wealth.

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        p>Regrettably, they are too few.

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        p>Most behave like Bobble Heads and have convinced me that “Those who can’t, run for office.”  

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        p>Each time Koch gets me really PO’d, we do something to further reduce our carbon footprint!  

    • We have enough money to make MoveOn.org and George Soros look pathetic.

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      p>9 more weeks until the general elections. We have momentum, we have energy and it looks like we gots plenty of mulah. Sweet!

      • Yup billionaire ideologues – sweet for you JohnD but not for the health of democracy at least in my opinion, especially given this ruthless backstory – and warping of the Constitution, at least as I view it.

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        p>On this one I view the majority of SCOTUS were the wrong variety of judicial activists, creating a doctrine that can be found no where in the constitution.

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        p>At least legislation should be passed so that the “paid for” and “money came from” should be made obvious.

        • “paid for” and “money came from” should be made obvious.

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          p>It should be transparent no matter who contributes, individuals, corporations and unions…

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          p>The health of democracy has been biased forever by special interests groups so why is this any different? What effect did George Soros and MoveOn.org have for Obama and the Democrats in 2006 and 2008?

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          p>I’m sorry but I think people seem to only get disturbed by issues when they effect them. SCOTUS is held to high esteem on issues when they side with abortion supporters but then they go against those people and they “get it wrong”. People whine about “rich” people running by using their own millions these days but nobody questioned the Kennedy’s, KErry or other rich people who they supported.

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          p>But again, I would agree with you that support and funding of all issues/bills should be transparent to the public.

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          p>From WIKI…

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          p>

          He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, “if someone guaranteed it.”[33] Soros gave $3 million to the Center for American Progress, $5 million to MoveOn.org, and $10 million to America Coming Together. These groups worked to support Democrats in the 2004 election. On September 28, 2004 he dedicated more money to the campaign and kicked off his own multi-state tour with a speech: Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush[34] delivered at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.
          …
          but according to the Center for Responsive Politics, during the 2003-2004 election cycle, Soros donated $23,581,000 to various 527 groups dedicated to defeating President Bush. A 527 group is a type of American tax-exempt organization named after a section of the United States tax code, 26 U.S.C. § 527. Despite Soros’ efforts, Bush was reelected to a second term as president.

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          p>PS Can you elaborate on this… Yup billionaire ideologues – sweet for you JohnD

  7. That “avoided” almost $20 million in MA personal income tax back in the 80s when some of the brothers bought out the other brothers. William Koch lived in MA, but he set up DE corporations to sell off all his stock. The MA SJC actually bought his arguments and he never paid MA personal income tax on his gains. This article makes passing reference to these two brothers buying the other brothers out, but the original and appellate decisions go into some detail describing the machinations that went on at the company leading up to the sale.

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    p>This is from the ATB decision: “The appellant described his relations with Charles as good, as long as he did what Charles said.”      

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