[jobim]

Citizens United is no friend to Conservatives. It has enabled
the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove, and other power brokers in the GOPe to raise unlimited cash to maintain
power. This is the contention of Sundance at Conservative Treehouse, and as I have
pondered it I agree. Now why Seig Heillary speaks against it is more than likely
grandstanding against "big money in politics", always popular in the Left Hive. But of
course she knows it is here to stay, and only is aiming for rhetorical points.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Citizens United is no friend to Conservatives. It has enabled the Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove, and other power brokers in the GOPe to raise unlimited cash to maintain power. This is the contention of Sundance at Conservative Treehouse, and as I have pondered it I agree.

We should hope that at this very minute, people – in unions, in corporations, in any kind of organization – are busily working on more advocacy movies: Hillary: The Movie II; The Donald: The Movie; Bernie: The Movie; Carly: The Movie, and so on. They should be free to make and show them without restrictions – such speech is at the very heart of the First Amendment.

Amendment 1:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

does not establish a ceiling over the rights of the people. Rather, as

Amendment 9:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

makes plain, it is to be understood only as a floor under our rights.

The fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform censorship is that everyone understands that it cannot apply to newspapers. And all CFR does is to proclaim that the membership of the AP (de facto if not de jure) is 100% of the press, and nobody who is not in the AP has freedom of the press.

And yet everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that journalism as we know it - wire service journalism - is not objective. That would be fine in a competitive journalism market, but the wire services - the AP and others - have homogenized and unified journalism so that there is no effective ideological competition within, or among, the wire services. Suppressing competition with/among journalists is what CFR is about; it is precisely what we do not need.

Article 1 Section 8.:

The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .

Logically, the radio, TV, and Internet are not novel to the Constitution but have been called into existence by the Constitution. They represent “progress of . . . [the] useful art" of the printing press. Thus even without appeal to the Ninth Amendment, protection of the right to make political movies or other argumentation is squarely within the bounds of the First Amendment.

The conclusion is that were I on SCOTUS not that that is going to happen - My opinion in Citizens United would be a concurrence, pointing out that the core mission of the FEC is to violate the First Amendment. And calling for its abolition.