Suing ObamaCare -- Hail Mary (State Count Up To 14)

Judge Napolitano on State of the Union Address: Obama Should Apologize to Supreme Court

Justice Clarence Thomas Comes Out Swinging!

 

WASHINGTON — In expansive remarks at a law school in Florida, Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday vigorously defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision.

[...]

“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.”

The part of the McCain-Feingold law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials. But Justice Thomas said that reflected a legislative choice rather than a constitutional principle.

He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907. 

“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.” 

It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.” 

Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process. 

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

“But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?” Justice Thomas asked, suggesting that the answer must be the same.

Asked about his attitude toward the two decisions overruled in Citizens United, he said, “If it’s wrong, the ultimate precedent is the Constitution.”

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 (link out - below)

Justice Alito Says "Not True" To Obama During Speech -- Obama: 0 Alito: 1 (Mark Levin: "He [Obama] Lied!")

Adam Winkler: "Alito Was Rude (But Right)"

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made headlines last night when he nodded and mouthed "It's not true" in response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. Facing six of the nine Justices, who were sitting right up front, Obama criticized the recent landmark Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate political speech.

Alito was right. The president was wrong about the Supreme Court decision. Obama said, "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections."

[....]

There are a lot of grounds to criticize the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision. It will allow corporations to spend shareholder money to influence the election of candidates many of those shareholders don't support. And it does open up a loophole that allows foreign corporations to influence federal elections through their U.S. subsidiaries.

But the Court did not overturn "a century of law." The provision upended by the Court was only seven years old. It was a novel innovation of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law adopted during the Bush Administration.

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New York Times

....This time, Justice Alito shook his head as if to rebut the president’s characterization of the Citizens United decision, and seemed to mouth the words “not true.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise. He said the court had “reversed a century of law.”

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election. It is true, though, that the majority wrote so broadly about corporate free speech rights as to call into question other limitations as well — although not necessarily the existing ban on direct contributions.

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Sam Alito Mouths "Not True" When Obama Lambasts the High Court -- It Was Not a Century of Law -- Obama and Dems are Wrong When They Say That, Alito Is Right

POLITICO's Kasie Hunt, who's in the House chamber, reports that Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words "not true" when Obama criticized the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision. 

• "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong." 

 The shot of the black-robed Supreme Court justices, stone faced, was priceless. Chuck Schumer stood up behind the justices and clapped vigorously while Alito shook his head and quietly mouthed his discontent.

Charles Krauthammer on Supreme Court, Massachusetts, and Air America (the Conservative Trifecta)