Free speech, Inc. (Times-Union)

[struggle4progress]

... The special interests won. Everyone else lost.

Wall Street, the health care and health insurance industries and big oil companies will be able to wield more political influence than ever. Corporations -- and labor unions, too -- can spend all they want pushing for the election of candidates they sponsor and attacking, even distorting, the records of those they're out to defeat.

About the only thing the court didn't do in Thursday's ruling was throw out the century-old ban on direct contributions by corporations to political candidates. Perhaps that will be next, in another assault on the regulations of modern democracy by an increasingly conservative court.

What prevailed is the hollow argument that even reasonable restrictions on political expenditures undermine free speech. The barest majority of the court badly misunderstands the nature of the constituencies that enjoy free speech rights ...

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=892653&category=OPINION

[Hekate]

1. KnR