Supreme Court Gets New Robes After Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission

Scalia and the other champions of "original intent” showed their colors.  They praise and cite strict construction to deny basic rights to some poor soul and castigate the "activist judges" below who tried to uphold those rights.  Yet, they don't hesitate to overturn established law to advance their own  ideological  & political agendas. At least Carl Rove and his ilk don't hide behind black robes as these hacks do  I'm embarrassed for them and our judicial system.    Thanks for trying Jim. 
"This year showed us that a republic periodically has to save capitalism from itself. Corporations are creations of the republic, not its equals or superiors. We citizens charter them, protect them legally, subsidize them, and even bail them out - and punish them when, as with Pfizer Chemical, their profit-maximizing violates drug-safety rules.

We couldn’t do that if a level playing field of “robust speech’’ were overwhelmed by corporate speech, which isn’t free because corporations, unlike individuals, are not full-fledged members of the community. As inanimate entities, they are incapable of what the political philosopher Michael Sandel calls “a willingness to sacrifice individual interests for the sake of the common good, and the ability to deliberate well about common purposes and ends.’’

That’s why corporations can’t vote - and shouldn’t be able to use the wealth we let them amass to inundate our deliberations. TV ads telling us how deeply oil companies care about the environment aren’t part of open give-and-take; they’re efforts to cash in on a consensus that might not have emerged at all had corporate money dominated our elections and debates more than it does.

That’s what’s at stake in the Supreme Court’s worrisome readiness to consider overturning restrictions the republic was wise enough to enact. If Olson’s business clients want to smear Clinton, let them do it openly, not from behind the façade of a corporation claiming First Amendment rights. The amendment’s framers intended those rights for others; Justice Scalia and other champions of “original intent,” call home!"

Except from Corporate free speech? Since when? By Jim Sleeper September 5, 2009