WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is defending the court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case that helped fuel hundreds of millions of dollars of spending by independent groups in the just-concluded campaign season.
Alito told roughly 1,500 people at a Federalist Society dinner last week that the First Amendment protects political speech, whether from an individual or a corporation.
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It's not "free speech" if the contributors are anonymous. Why should a billionaire get much MORE SPEECH protection from the government than an ordinary citizen? Is speech "property" also, so some one can pay for some one else to voice it? I think that the Supreme Court is supremely wrong on this issue.
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The justice made clear his political bias. Also, that he equates free speech with spending unlimited amounts of money to influence an election is wrong.
Sure, the Justice can use the technical letter of the law to defend his ideology. But he's long forgotten the intent of our Constitution for equality and rights. Corporate spending defeats citizens' rights by removing the balance of 'one man one vote.' And those who defend anonymous donations are no better than traitors conducting espionage: using secrecy to impair another's rights should be treated with sanction, not public support by a Supreme Court Justice. Alioto, Scalia and Thomas have all been public and have all made a mockery of the solid, objective and law-abiding history of their office. They're a disgrace.
While it is always enlightening to get these glimpses into the reality of exactly how much our Supreme court justices are political hacks, it still amazes me that they can be so open about it. This guy, Thomas and Scalia are so partiasn that only two or three picks by Obama will make a difference. Hopefully Obama will pick Justices that are at least as politically biased as W's picks. Roberts health-care decision not withstanding.
And go ahead and call Obama's picks political hacks too, that's fine. In todays political environment that's all anyone can do. You have to fight.
Alito along with his four other republican justices, which seems to me to be a oxymoron based on their non-objective responsibilities to the country are idiots and "make law"when their role is supposed to be interpreting conflicts over existing law created in the Congress.
The United decision has set back our country's election process at least decades and is totally without any practicable merit.
Shame on those four justises (ugh!).