Posted on 05/10/2010 4:18:18 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
(CNSNews.com) - Solicitor General Elena Kagan, nominated Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama, told that court in September that Congress could constitutionally prohibit corporations from engaging in political speech such as publishing pamphlets that advocate the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office.
Kagan’s argument that the government could prohibit political speech by corporations was rejected by a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in that case, and in a scathing concurrence Chief Justice John Roberts took direct aim at Kagan’s argument that the government could ban political pamphlets.
“The Government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern,” wrote Roberts. “Its theory, if accepted, would empower the Government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations—as the major ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.”
Justice Kennedy described the law Kagan had defended as an illegitimate attempt to use “censorship to control thought.”
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Kagan’s nomination, and likely approval, is a testament to all the NITWIT conservatives out there who found that Romney wasn’t perfect enough, or that McCain wasn’t perfect enough.
Well, because they weren’t perfect enough, we got Obama. And now for 40 years or so, we’ll have Kagan.
Thank you, all you highly principled conservatives who thought that Romney wasn’t conservative enough. Or that McCain wasn’t conservative enough.
Is Obama conservative enough for you? How about Sotomayor? How about Kagan?
Elections have consequences.
This is unlikely to end well.
McCain, Rino-vich, Snowe, Collins and Graham?
Commie Law 101: the Hatch act doesn’t apply to the WH, but it does apply to private companies.
I agree with her that corporations are not people. I would support a ban on corporations engaging in politics.
I don’t know. Normally I would agree with you about the “good ole boys, politics as usual RINO club”. But the licking Bob
Bennett just took in UT is still fresh. Odds are that she will be confirmed...but the stage is set for some interesting debate and procedural tactics.
No wonder Zero nominated this woman.
On Sunday, Barry gave a speech where he rails against different points of view on the Internet and then on Monday he nominates a woman who thinks certain type of political speech can be banned.
Why is Obongo so freaked out about that SC ruling? He’s really worried about it.
In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling on Thursday, every American should be worried when the president of the United States starts threatening the highest court in the land.
Barack Obama’s Justice Department. During argument, the Obama administration’s lawyer, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, made extravagant claims about the extent to which government can censor its critics, outlawing books, movies, and other methods of informing the public.
The vote to confirm will be at least 98-2 every Republican voting to confirm and maybe two Democrats desening if the past is ny judge of the future of confirming votes for Democrat appointees.
President Bush’s apointees had a different outcome.
She will get her marching orders from the same source as the MSM traitors. It is just a living breathing constitution ya know.
I recall the Pretender in Chief got all hissy and started lecuring the Supreme Court during the State of the Union. It was on the same issue that this woman argued before the Supreme Court. Bit of payback for ruling against his administration? Don’t rule against me! I’ll show you, I’m sending Kagan back to the court, this time as a justice.
We need a whole lot more of those to really change minds. Many are two-faced, one for the cameras and one to reach across the aisle.
Nothing would please me more than seeing backbone and total turn arounds in the Pubbies. But the Dems still have the votes regardless.
Unless some Dems are running scared, but I think they have given up for a last harrah.
She did this the Solicitor General, no? That is not really damning IMO. She was just doing Obama’s bidding. That is going to be the response to any questions people have of her work during the last year or so.
What the Republicans (or, if not them, at least a coalition of decent minded men who fear, rightly, about the course this nation is taking) have to do is string this nomination out for as long as possible, and then flush it down the toilet where it belongs.
We need to buy time to get us to January, if we can.
CA....
That is a very tiresome argument that has nothing to do with the real world. I don’t know a single conservative who voted for Obama or who refused to vote for McCain for not being “conservative enough”, so you don’t need to preach.
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