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Virginia Thomas earned over $680,000 from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation over 5 years, a group says. But the Supreme Court justice did not include it on financial disclosure forms.
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Between 2003 and 2007, Virginia Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, earned $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, according to a Common Cause review of the foundation's IRS records. Thomas failed to note the income in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years, instead checking a box labeled "none" where "spousal noninvestment income" would be disclosed.
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The allegation comes days after Common Cause filed a letter requesting that the Justice Department investigate whether Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia should have disqualified themselves from hearing a campaign finance case after they reportedly attended a private meeting sponsored by Charles and David Koch, billionaire philanthropists who fund conservative causes.
Writing in the March 11 Wall Street Journal, Steven J. Law, a bigwig lawyer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, turns reality on its head by claiming working people and their unions were the BIG winners in the 5-4 Supreme Court "Citizens United" decision.
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The big business group is calling for draconian, and probably unconstitutional, limits on workers' ability to collectively have an impact on politics, to elect people that they feel will represent their interests. The Chamber of Commerce proposed anti-worker, anti-union restrictions include: require secret ballot elections to approve political spending; prohibit public sector unions from participating in elections of politicians who "will oversee their labor contracts" and prohibit the government from allowing automatic union dues payments from employee paychecks.
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The LA Times reports that the Chamber of Commerce is getting "record-setting amounts of money raised from corporations and wealth individuals."
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The US Supreme Court’s treatment of convicted Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling is an object lesson on the social interests upheld by the US judiciary and the class divisions that dominate every aspect of American life.
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With the Supreme Court Ruling, Citizens United v. FEC, the government of the United States has, in effect, become a subsidiary of Corporate America.
"Now corporate managers can in effect buy elections directly. The U.S. Supreme Court has just handed much more power to the small sector of the population that dominates the economy. "
"With the recent Supreme Court ruling [Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission] that allows unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, the public relations firm Murray Hill Inc. announced that it was filing to run for U.S. Congress."
"Sensible, intelligent Americans are furious over the recent Supreme Court 5-to-4-decision referred to as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that struck down limits on corporate spending in presidential and congressional elections."
"Today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission—giving corporations the ability to spend money directly to influence federal elections under the Constitution’s First Amendment—was inevitable."
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The expansion of corporate rights and privileges under the law has been deliberate, beginning nearly two hundred years ago with the Dartmouth decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that private corporations had rights that municipal corporations—governments composed of “we the people”—did not.
So your courts finally and unapologetically sold your democracy out to the corporations. Are you truly that surprised?
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Your democracy has been a farce ever since your corporations started being considered “persons” in the late 19th century. Your politics and your government and your justice system and your enforcement agencies have always worked for the benefits of the rich only. Whatever crumbs of wealth and illusions of democracy you received were only to prevent you from realizing the truth of your situation. But you’ve been so pathetic lately that they know they can get away by spitting at your illusions directly.
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Only deluded fools with naive beliefs in the efficiency of common law or due process can still expect that there’s some objectivity in the legal system that appropriately balances the interest of the poor to the interests of the wealthy. That the process by which laws and rules were created ensures their fairness. That rich judges with a constitution and politicians making laws skewed towards the wealthy, would create legal precedents that went contrary to the spirit of your “justice” (i.e. protect the rich from the poor).
"Shed a Tear for Democracy: Supreme Court’s Citizens United Will Unleash Flood of Corporate Money in Elections; Public Citizen Calls for Constitutional Amendment to Reverse Decision"
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Today, in the case Citizens United v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes.
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In one sense, today’s decision was a long time in coming. Over the past 30 years, the Supreme Court has created and steadily expanded the First Amendment protections that it has afforded for-profit corporations.
"In today's Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as "natural persons", i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President."
"Following is Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on the recent supreme court decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts in election campaigns on their preferred candidates."
"January 21, 2010, a statement from Doris "Granny D" Haddock in response to the Supreme Court's decision Thursday to kill campaign finance reform."
"On January 21, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations are entitled to spend unlimited funds in our elections."
"The latest SCOTUS ruling is a travesty, a violation of all founding principles on which this nation was built, and a goal set forth in the Powell Memo"
"The Court's 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC., issued Thursday morning, opens the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending in elections. "
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Until Thursday, corporations and unions were prohibited from getting directly involved in elections. Now ExxonMobil can theoretically run ads urging voters to support Sarah Palin's 2012 presidential campaign, and the AFL-CIO can run ads urging people to re-elect Barack Obama. "It's like 100 years of precedent being overruled," CNN's senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, said on air shortly after the decision came out.
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since longstanding court precedent says that corporations are legally people, deserving equal protection under the 14th Amendment, they must be accorded the right to free speech. The Court's conservatives also believe that spending money in elections is a fundamental free speech right; thus, the government cannot restrict corporate spending in elections.
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"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
Plato, ancient Greek philosopher
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“The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.”
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"The Supreme Court, in its Jan. 21 decision, replaced the principle of "one person, one vote" with "one dollar, one vote" by allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose political candidates. "
"it is not as if corporate interests were not already deeply involved in the electoral process."
"Dozens of current and former corporate executives have a message for Congress: Quit hitting us up for campaign cash."
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