Feingold Criticizes Citizens United Decision

So if we give Obama a 2nd term, he can...maybe...overturn Citizens United. Okay...can't he do that now?

The courts have final decision. The presidents check on the courts are that he can appoint new ones providing that the senate approves. This case for ultimate untracable cash in campagins were won by republican appointed judges and if they win the presidency again, you can accept more of the same their big money will have voice while actual people will have less and less of it. That is just one reason to elect democrats, more accuratly not vote for republicans. OBAMA 2012 !!

Obama can't overturn CU on his own...He needs Congress & as long as the Republicans control the House they will NEVER agree to overturn CU because it gives them an enormous advantage! They will say it is even but that is pure BS! If Obama loses this election & the Republicans take over full control of Congress then it could be decades before Democrats have the power to do anything about it! It is harder to buy the Presidency but when it comes to Congress money can buy Congress!!

15 out of the 20 biggest political contributors are actually Unions and not Corporations. But you barely see this mentioned anywhere. Unions out over $60 million towards Obam a's election - no one raised an eyebrow. This whole witch hunt against rich people and corporations has achieved nothing. In fact the more regulations like this one you pass - the more you prevent private citizens from participating. Corporations are not affected, they simply set up Superpacs to get around the laws.

Makes sense.

So, because unions that don't represent my point of view influence elections with their money, it's okay that rich people who also don't represent my point of view influence elections? Great, two positions that aren't mine get tons of influence. Sounds like a real good compromise.

What is your point? You act as if $60 Million is a lot when corporate bundlers blow that total out of the water for Republicans & that is why NO ONE RAISE AN EYEBROW! 19 out the 20 largest spenders on lobbying were all Corporations! From 1998-2011 $6-$8 BILLION were spent by Corp. only $200 Million by the one union AARP & it is not even a labor union! The largest spender on lobbying was the US Chamber of Commerce the most anti-worker organization in the country spent almost a $BILLION!

Wisconsinite here... I miss Feingold... Now we just have dipshit Ron Johnson.

my point is that you cannot get big money out of the elections, and trying only makes it more difficult to private citizens to voice their opinion.

I wasn't talking about lobbying, I was talking about elections. I oppose the lobbying industry too, but you have to look at the root of the problem. When Government sticks to its limited role, there is no point in lobbying it. But when the Govenrment decides to regulate and control all aspects of the economy - this invites lobbyists from all forms of industry to make sure they get their voice heard. If you want to stop lobbyists - stop the incentives for them.

"If you want to stop lobbyists - stop the incentives for them." Stop incentives for special interests legislators on influencing legislation? What a laughable proposal! If those pesty GOP nuts won´t obstruct any sensible sollution with absurd regulation regulation would work. Simple as that. GOP strategy= if you can´t stop regulation make it as absurd and difficult as possible so you have talking points later on. You´re nuts!

True, all we have as evidence for or against any ideology is proxy data.

Feingold is either lying or he hasn't read the decision.

why?

It does not touch the Tillman act. I find his comments disturbing, because I lean towards the lying part, I mean he has to have read the decision, he can't be that uninformed.

There's an unfinished conversation between you and me. There are some unanswered questions. Why did you leave?

There have been Lobbyist since before the Constitution was ratified & they will always be here. There MUST be responsible regulations on the economy or it flies off the rails hurting everyone...Too much reg is bad too little is even worse!

It's about the size & scope of Government. Pastic surgeons for example don't lobby politicians becuase plastic surgery isn't regulated / controlled by politicians and not covered by medicare / insurance. Plastic surgery is getting better and more affordable all the time. Regulations harm small businesses and individuals and make monopolies stronger. SO I don't see why you seem to be such a big fan of them.

where?

Can you give me an example of how regulations have improved any industry over the long term?

the majority of special interest groups & unions are associated with Democrats. Obviously they are bigger fans of this out of control lobbying industry. The GOP isn't that much better, but in recent years they've started to see the light and see that central control isn't working and that entire departments need to be shut down and industries need to be dregulated. If congress is regulating industries to death, obviously I'd want to lobby them to keep my business alive.

The relevant ethical distinction is that you shouldn't be able to contribute SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY to a campaign or political PAC/super-Pac or whatever. That applies to both corporations and labor unions. The 'Citizens United' case is manifestly 'reversible error' ... as is 'Roe vs. Wade', and should be overturned in the fairly near future. And the whole issue should be obviated by enacting 'Voluntary Public Funding of Elections' ('Clean Elections Law').

YES, that is very easy...The Automobile Industry! Once regulations for safety were imposed it became so popular that many Companies went further than the regulations to sell cars. Regulation on the banking industry like "Glass-Steagall" prevented a collapse of the banking industry from 1933-1999 when it was repealed...9yrs later the banking-financial industry nearly collapsed if it were not for government stepping in to save it. There are many more examples!!

It's clear that we have a new sort of facism in this country, more "corporatism", because that is pretty much all that is left. Americans are not interested in politics, they are just interested in either making money, or arguing, or complaining, no one understands history or politics and there is no coherent point of view - so the corporate point of view is the only thing that is left. I'm not saying it's right, but the American "empire" has to survive for those corporations to survive.

How does corporate money someone else's money, or labor unions?

Safety statndards were improving on their own before the Government intervened in this. There were once 2000 car makers in the US, now there are 3. So it's hard to call these safety regulations an overall success. Over regulation crushed the small companies, while the big ones simply hired compliance advisors. GSA was in place to prevent problems that the Govenrment itself created by printing too much money and giving easy credit to banks. So I doin't see how this counts as an "improvement".

Not sure where you get the "2000" number from but regardless "regulations" had NOTHING to do with most dying...The Great Depression did! By 1959 when the US first began requiring certain safety standards like the seat belt basically only the Big 3 were left. In 1970 the US created National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began crashing cars & publishing the results to encourage industry to make safer cars. Your idea of the GSA is beyond ridiculous...

Continued...The GSA "limited commercial bank securities activities and affiliations between commercial banks and securities firms" Basically banks should not be allowed to gamble with our deposits...It separated commercial banks from investment banks...It had NOTHING to do with printing money. Your comments seem to be based on want you wish to be true rather than reality. I am not advocating that all regs are good but responsible regs are a MUST or the free market will eat itself!

all that to support their current president who is no better than the last ? american politics, deeply partisan, lacking common sense

Sounds like I do need to research the auto industry more, as I was not aware of those figures. My main problem with regulations is that there is no clear incentive for the regulators to be impartial, and plenty of incentives to favour large corporations. In a free market, problems correct themselves in the long term. Also people tend to behave more responsibley when they are not promised a (government) safety net.

If you want to know what a society looks like & how efficiently it operates with little to no regulation just read about the American economy post Civil War to 1930s. We have run that experiment & we had rivers on fire in several locations, parts of the ocean dead, kids in coal mines, 80hr work week no time off, no work safety at all, lead in everything, elderly left to die on streets, rigged stock market, etc, And it all CRASHED! RESPONSIBLE regulations & a safety net are a MUST!

You can't just lump everything that was bad in the past together and say it was a result of lack of regulations. Economies emeging out of poverty have to work hard, there is no other way to do it. You can't just go into a place like Somalia or Sudan and think that simply throwing some rules around will create prosperity. Social security has been around for 80 years and has convinced an entire population to be dependant on a broken system that's got 5-10 years left in it.

YES, we can! We were never a "Somalia or Sudan" we were the largest economy on the planet since roughly the 1880s! The Father of Capitalist Philosophy, Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations argued that bank regulation was as "necessary as fire codes on urban buildings". He was also for heavy-handed government regulation to prevent financial and corporate powers from manipulating government policy for their own ends. It is UTTER FOOLISHNESS to think capitalism would work better with no regulations

Well this is where we disagree, and you have yet to explain what gives you such confidence that the regulators will do the right thing. For years the regulators themselves were pushing easy credit out through the Fed, and not realising they were fueling a bubble. And somehow the conclusion is always to give more power to the same regulators that screwed things up in the 1st place. If you remove the moral hazard of a Government regulator / guarantour, investors will behave more responsibly.

@LibertyDownUnder Who said social security was a right to sit on your arse and do nothing, there is nothing wrong with social security it is how it has been implemented that is at fault. People should work for what they get and give something back to the society that’s helping them. There is a lot wrong with society so lets blame it all on the poor, fuck'em AY they don’t have lobbyists bribing politicians corrupting the political system.

Too much regs? Really? Alan Greenspan despised regulation he was Ayn Rand Business & Banking can self regulate mindset & he ran the FED that way. It had nothing to do with regulators forcing him to provide easy credit...Curious where you get that idea? It was due to regulatory forbearance especially in the derivatives market where ZERO regs existed & this foolish idea housing prices would continue rising forever which was driven by unhealthy greed...That is where the "moral hazard" broke down!

explanation here: /watch?v=E1KwkScA540

so don't buy the damn gas if you don't like the corporation. . ps: obama got massive moneys from oil companies, you hypocrite!

How does getting money out of elections make it harder for you, as a private opinion, to voice your opinion?

People can get fined even for posting up signs in their front yard if they don't follow the guidelines of what can be said. This has happened already. Private citizens will not go to the expense of legal compliance, but Superpacs can do this easily.

"People can get fined even for posting up signs in their front yard if they don't follow the guidelines of what can be said. This has happened already." This is somehow connected to getting money out of politics? Or it is a cannard meant to distract while not answering the actual question?

The regulations passed in order to get big money out of politics are so broad that they make something as simple as a yard sign illeagal in many cases.

You're making that up.

Nope: /watch?v=QeHxSW52Hmc

Well, look at that, clearly reform is needed. But all your video shows is that money has already influenced politicians to create a cycle of influence. It's classic John Stossel; he doesn't pay any attention to how these laws get passed; he doesn't pay any attention to the role private citizens and industry played in getting them passed or supporting their passage. He just blames "government"

He says its impossible to get big money out of business, and that when the Government tries to do so - it ends up actually favouring big money and hurting the smaller candidates that cannot afford the compliance costs. If you have a better solution that doesn't involve thousands of pages of regulations - I'm all ears.

There is absolutely no doubt that Citizens United v. Federal Electoral Commission was nothing more than an egregious exercise of 'judicial activism' on the part of the Supreme-(ly Political) Court of the United States. indeed, the United States Senate still needs more Senators like Russ Feingold.