So now an American Company that is partially owned by a foreign corporation

[madinmaryland]

can donate money to the American Political process and influence America Elections?

Please, someone tell me this cannot happen.

[tekisui]

1. Multi-national corporations are allowed to donate billions to

US political campaigns. We, the people, might as well not even bother trying to compete.

[madinmaryland]

4. Multi-national corporations are allowed to donate,

but non-american people are not allowed to donate.

Shouldn't there be a law specifying that a corporation is wholly owned by americans?

[Hello_Kitty]

2. I swear to god I had a facebook friend lecture me that this was not a bad thing.

With the vague insinuation that I was isolationist for not wanting other countries to have influence in U.S. elections.

[Ganja Ninja]

3. Or foreign governments that own private companies. n/t

[madinmaryland]

5. Yes, that too.

The ramifications are truly scary.

[Ganja Ninja]

14. I guess it hasn't dawned on the Teabaggers yet. n/t

[madinmaryland]

15. Funny how the teabaggers don't trust at all the government, yet

completely trust corporations (Exxon/Mobil, United Healthcare, etc) to look out for their personal welfare.

Just completely boggles the mind.

[WeDidIt]

9. Dubai World WILL get our ports one way or the other. n/t

[tridim]

6. And as far as I know, they're also allowed to lie about the politicians they support or oppose.

The propaganda that is coming is going to be unbelievable.

[LuckyTheDog]

7. Make THIS your Facebook status

"Money is not speech and human beings -- not corporations -- are persons entitled to constitutional rights. If you agree, copy this into your Facebook status and encourage others to do the same."

[madinmaryland]

8. Thanks, Lucky.

[jobycom]

10. No.

First, nothing in that SCOTUS ruling changes how a corporation can donate money. The ruling allows a corporation to run an ad that the corporation creates, but it does not allow the corporation to have any coordination with any campaign about the ad. That would still violate federal election laws. An American corporation can still donate to a PAC, but they could do that before.

Second, foreign nationals, including foreign-owned corporations AND American divisions of foreign corporations, cannot spend money to influence an American election, and that includes donations to campaigns or candidates, as well as running issue ads (something American corporations have never been forbidden to do) during or involving an election. You may remember one of Clinton's fundraisers getting in trouble for taking Chinese money for the DNC--he had to give it back and several people were convicted over it. You may also remember Obama having to give a ton of donations back to foreign nationals who donated to him.

So if the corporation is foreign owned or partially foreign owned, they could not "donate" money to anything involving our elections or political process, just as before, and they are still forbidden from running ads supporting a candidate or campaign, just as before.

This ad only allows American corporations to use their general funds to run political ads for individual campaigns as long as they don't coordinate with that campaign--if they did coordinate, btw, it would be considered a donation, and then FEC laws forbidding corporations from donating to campaigns would take effect.

[KittyWampus]

12. can you post this as a separate thread please.

[GoCubsGo]

11. Y'all keep that point in mind when...

...you encounter a gloating freeper. That should shut them up. And, hopefully, it will also get them to join us to help counteract this monstrosity of a decision.

[DBoon]

13. Make that state-owned foreign corporations

We will have corporations substantially owned and run by the Chinese or Saudi government buying our elections outright.

[OneBlueSky]

16. now now, children . . . we all know that corporations have our best interests at heart . . .

and that they wouldn't do anything as crass as pumping millions into a House or Senate campaign in order to buy influence . . . they're good citizens, these non-human persons, and the sole purpose of their existance is to make life just a little better for average Americans . . . making a profit, if it happens, is simply a nice little by-product of their commitment to the public welfare . . .

:rofl: