Taking on Citizens United

"Hawaii just made history, becoming the first state in the nation to effectively ban dark money in elections. The new law takes a novel approach: rather than trying to restrict corporate speech, it redefines the powers corporations have in the first place — and political spending is not among them. The strategy, known as the “Corporate Power Reset,” was developed by Tom Moore of the Center for American Progress. And at least a dozen states are now working toward passing similar laws."

Video news from MS Now

How simple. States grant corporations power to operate in their borders, states can decide what powers corporations are granted in their states. SuperPacs can still operate, but they can only accept money from individuals, and they have to publicly name those individuals.

Interestingly, the law passed unanimously in one house and 52-1 for it in the other.

Expect legal challenges against it.

Killing ourselves

 

Karl Marx is vindicated

 

A picture worth a thousand words

Corporate profit: Gold
Corporate income tax: Blue

A break from ICE...

That was to protect the company from future lawsuits over possible birth defects.

In 1978, women production workers at the American Cyanamid chemical plant in Willow Island, West Virginia, learned that they would soon have to make a distressing choice. In a series of meetings with small groups of women, company officials announced a “fetus protection policy.” They were told that doctors and lawyers at American Cyanamid’s headquarters in Wayne, New Jersey, had long been at work on a plan to protect any potential fetus from exposure to a range of chemicals produced at the factory, located on the southern bank of the Ohio River. After May 1, 1978, any woman between the ages of sixteen and fifty “whose ability to become pregnant has not been precluded by surgical means” would be “out the gate” and unemployed, in the words of Glenn Mercer, the superintendent.1 Some of the women cried. Others angrily demanded an explanation. A few offered to sign waivers freeing the company from liability if they should give birth to a disabled child. Some volunteered elements of their sexual and medical history, bargaining that birth control pills or a husband’s vasectomy might exempt them from the edict. It did not.

Four women ultimately underwent tubal ligations. Two others refused sterilization and were demoted to janitorial positions at a lower pay rate.

[...]

Ultimately, the fetus protection policy applied only to the lead pigments department—though one woman who worked in another division underwent the procedure after the plan was articulated in an early, expansive form.

[...]

After enduring a year of abuse from coworkers and supervisors alike, the women who opted for sterilization to maintain their jobs in the pigments once again found themselves buffeted by a cruel corporate calculus: In late 1979, American Cyanamid shut down its Willow Island pigments department.

  Labor

It's always about "investment" possibilities

 

I remember when they planned the same thing on the heels of George W's invasion of Iraq.  How'd that turn out?

So we just take an entire country and steal their resources.

Yeah.

America has fallen

 

Can she rise?

Creative thinking in politics

Ever since the Supreme Court shattered campaign finance law with its decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010,1 Americans have been told there are only two ways to stop corporate and “dark” money in politics: Amend the U.S. Constitution or wait for the court to undo what it has done.

[...]

Citizens United held that government may not regulate a corporation’s right to spend money independently in elections. But the court did not say what a corporation is—it could not. That question lies beyond even the Supreme Court’s reach.

[...]

Corporations are creatures of statute, not of nature. And for more than two centuries, the power to build them—to define their form, limits, and privileges—has belonged to the states and only to the states.

[...]

[T]he underlying authority to define and limit corporate powers never disappeared. It simply went quiet: unused, untested, and unmentioned [...] .This report names that authority, explains it, and shows how states can reclaim it to, in effect, undo Citizens United by executing a reset of their corporations’ powers. The sovereign authority to decide which powers states grant to the corporations they charter includes the authority to not grant their corporations the power to spend in politics.

[...]

The legal strategy developed by the Center for American Progress—the “Corporate Power Reset”—will, state by state, drain corporate and dark money from American politics. It does not overturn Citizens United; it makes it irrelevant.

  American Progress

That would be great. But I can imagine Red states offering more lucrative conditions for corporations, including allowing them to continue their political power via dark money. Blue states would have to allow the same in order to compete. This is something to think about, though. If you're interested, read the long article in totality.

Fascists on the march

 

Outright extortion

 

UPDATE 08/25/2025:

UPDATE 08/29/2025:  But wait. There's more...

Here comes another one for SCOTUS

 

And, speaking of SCOTUS...

In an extraordinary and unusual dissent on Friday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a stark warning to the nation: The Supreme Court is favoring “moneyed interests” over all other parties, contorting the law to favor big business while locking the most vulnerable out of court.

Jackson’s remarkable opinion was a protest against the court’s decision in Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA, a case brought by the fossil fuel industry to weaken environmental protections. [...] [G]asoline companies [argued] that they had constitutional standing to sue because they suffer economic harm when people buy less gas.

[...]

The court’s newest justice assailed the majority’s reliance on “commonsense intuitions” to establish standing, arguing that the court’s musings about the economics of the auto market are not borne out by facts in the record.

[...]

But Jackson went much further, castigating her colleagues for twisting the usual rules of standing to benefit fossil fuel companies and corporate interests more broadly. “Our ruling will no doubt aid future attempts by the fuel industry to attack the Clean Air Act,” the justice wrote. “I worry that the fuel industry’s gain comes at a reputational cost for this court, which is already viewed by many as being overly sympathetic to corporate interests.”

  Slate

Because it is.

Both sides

 

Has Charlie Kirk gone Commie?

 Read your labels.

Oh, whew.  He pulled it out there in the last half.  

But Charlie, the fall of American manufacturing happened a long, long time ago.  The world now operates on a global economy.  

Also....

I don't know if any country is going to experience an economic boom with Trump's policies, but it won't be the United States.  Not in Charlie's lifetime anyway.  Unless it's when he's a very old man.

Jeremy at The Quartering is a noodlehead.  You can tell by his use of the term "prolly".

Have they not watched any mob movies?

 

Prophetic Lincoln

It just took a little longer than he thought it would.

”I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.”

Abraham Lincoln - November 21, 1864

Bold move by US Chamber of Commerce official

Somebody is about to be doxxed and attacked.  And perhaps forced to bend the knee by the Chamber's corporate funders.  Watch your back, John Murphy.

US Chamber of Commerce is the largest lobbying group in the US.  Go get 'em!

Bold move.  We need more people willing to put their bodies on the wheel.

You think Fox will carry this?  Rhetorical question.

Fast tracking fascism

Gonna be a huge spectacle.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's the economy

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Corporate America endorsing Harris

Eighty-eight current and former top executives from across corporate America have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president in a new letter shared exclusively with CNBC.

Among the signers are several high-profile CEOs of public companies, including Aaron Levie of Box, Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp and Michael Lynton, chairman of Snap.

[...]

They include James Murdoch, former CEO of 21st Century Fox and an heir to the Murdoch family media empire, and crypto executive Chris Larsen, co-founder of the Ripple blockchain platform.

Other notable signers are philanthropist Lynn Forester de Rothschild, private equity billionaire José Feliciano, Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, and D.C. sports magnate Ted Leonsis, owner of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s Mystics and the NHL’s Washington Capitals.

[...]

More than a dozen of the signers made their fortunes on Wall Street: Tony James, former president and COO of Blackstone and founder of Jefferson River Capital; Bruce Heyman, former managing director of private wealth at Goldman Sachs; Peter Orszag, CEO of Lazard; and Steve Westly managing director of the Westly Group and a former Tesla board member.

[...]

Considering how long the list of names runs, the endorsement letter itself is relatively short.

“The best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy” is by electing Harris president, the writers say.

[...]

The reason for the long list and the short letter is because the letter itself was not written to convince the general public to vote for Harris.

Instead, its purpose is to serve as a well-timed political show of force for Harris, who is locked in a very tight race, with the first presidential debate just four days away.

[...]

[Harris] proposed lifting the top capital gains tax rate to 28% for people making more than $1 million a year — up from the current 20% rate, but far lower than the 39.6% level that President Joe Biden has proposed.

Harris said she dialed back Biden’s top rate, in part, because her goal is to encourage more private sector investment.

  CNBC

And perhaps to get 88 corporate endorsements.

At any rate, SOME corporate owners at least realize that their future depends on global stability and a middle class, two things that will not exist if Trump is elected. Those who are pushing Trump perhaps are only concerned with their short-term profits.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Labor Day 2024