Friday, July 30, 2010

Shyster President Lies Again

Our faux lawyer, phony President has done it again. He has again lied about a major holding in the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. This makes the second time. Once in the State of the Union Address, and again last Monday. The first time could have been a mistake. The second time was a lie. Oddly, it's a lie that is aimed at bringing those awful nativist, xenophobic Republicans and Independents into the suppression of free speech camp.

Just in case you've forgotten what the Supreme Court ruling was, the court found that massive restrictions on corporate campaign and political ads are unconstitutional. Putting corporations which receive their funds from voluntary investments from free Americans on a level field with unions that extort their funds from unwilling forced members is not acceptable to the Obamacrats. So Obama lied at the State of the Union address, ultimately prompting Justice Sam Alito to mouth the famous "not true." The alleged Constitutional law professor and Harvard Law editor has had plenty of time to correct his mistake (if it was a mistake), but has chosen instead to repeat the lie. "The Supreme Court campaign-finance ruling allows foreign entities to pour money into US elections."

This time the lie supports his agenda of getting the corporations off the field so the unions and leftist Democrats can win by default. It was made in a Rose Garden speech touting the union-beloved DISCLOSE Act, which effectively requires so much disclosure from corporations in a political ad that there's no time left for the politics. Says the legal genius: "Because of the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in the Citizens United case, big corporations--even foreign-controlled ones--are now allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on American elections." For a grandiose President who considers himself a "citizen of the world," that's a pretty strange argument along with being a lie.

He also used the populist expression "special interests" several times to describe corporations, even though he is convinced that big labor is not a special interest. Remember that the "I" in SEIU stands for International. But that's OK, because unions represent the workers of the world united in losing their chains. How can that be a special interest?

Hence, the DISCLOSE Act. The Senate was scheduled to pass the bill on Tuesday, but Republicans and a few moderate Democrats were able to prevent a successful cloture vote on the bill, scoring a victory for free speech and the rule of law. Beside being union-friendly, the Obamists had managed to carve out a few exceptions for ads produced by formerly patriotic corporate organizations. As I've mentioned before, that's the danger inherent in single-issue organizations--throw them a bone on their special issue, and they'll sell out their fellow patriots in a hot New York minute.

One of the juicier provisions of the Act is the requirement of personal appearance in the ad of the CEO of the corporation sponsoring the ad to say that he or she "personally approves of the message." And it required as well that the top funder of the commercial also appear. Then there's the long list of contributors that must be disclosed in the ad if they fit into a certain level of monetary contribution to the message. By some mysterious calculus, the union members whose forced dues go into paying for political ads of which they likely disapprove do not rise to that monetary level, so there's no list of contributors required for union-sponsored ads other than the name of the union itself. Unions also regularly cook the books to show that the percentage of union dues used legally for political purposes is dramatically lower than the true percentage.

The Supreme Court ruling kept in place the rule that neither unions nor corporations can contribute directly to a candidate's campaign, but pretty much everything else is fair game. It also left in place the rule that blocks direct foreign contributions to candidate political campaigns, and changed nothing--absolutely nothing--in existing legislation regarding foreign involvement in issue campaigns. Still, lest some furriners become involved, the DISCLOSE Act specifically aimed its guns at corporations by not only keeping foreign corporations out of American politics, but also American corporations in which 20% or more of the shares are owned by those nasty foreign folks. If the same rule were applied to the SEIU, it would be the political death of the union, considering how many of their members are not American citizens and are often illegal aliens.

The rules that the Supreme Court left untouched include FEC Regulation 11 CFR 110.20(i) which says "A foreign national shall not direct, dictate, control, or directly or indirectly participate in the decision-making process of any person, such as a corporation, labor organization, political committee, or political organization with regard to such person's Federal or non-Federal election-related activities . . . . and 2 USC 441-Section 441(e) prohibiting foreign donations to political campaigns. The restrictions were left untouched, Mr. Obama. Untouched. And you bloody well know it.

The Court went out of its way to stay out of the political arena in the decision, stating per Justice Kennedy, "we need not reach the question whether the Government has a compelling interest in preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation's political process." In case the great Chicago professor of constitutional law doesn't understand what that means, the Court was making it clear that the participation of foreigners in elections is a matter solely for the political branches, and not for the Court, and therefore the Court will not rule on the issue. So quit lying, Mr. President.


26 comments:

Joel Farnham said...

So, how does George Soros get away with influencing our elections?

AndrewPrice said...

Nice cartoon! What a coincidence!

The fact is that Obama is anti-capitalist, that is all there is to it. He can pretend he's not, but he is.

Pittsburgh Enigma said...

The specifics have helped me understand this proposed bill a lot better. Thanks! Can we count on this thing being dead for good?

Also, you mentioned that unions and corporations couldn't donate directly to candidate's campaigns. How then do unions get around this restriction and donate anyway?

StanH said...

Say it ain’t so Lawhawk! …our Barry lies, oh know…say it ain’t so.

If these bastards had to play on a level field they’d be voted into oblivion… I guess they know that, therefore the lies and obfuscation!

Tam said...

Didn't someone once say that if you repeat the lie long enough...something, something...?

Unknown said...

Joel: The old fashioned way, he lies and the Democrats swear to it. He has been an American citizen since 1961 (I think), and he discloses at least some of his personal contributions. He uses others as surrogates, the most obvious among them being the DailyKos, the Huffington Post and MoveOn.org to disseminate "political opinion," but so far has not been caught using any illegal methods for funding candidate campaigns or using corporate funds for issue campaigns. He can afford plenty of lawyers and payoffs, so I don't expect him to get caught any time soon.

If Soros actually wanted to play fair, he would support a court decision that allows him to use corporate funds for political ads, but a level playing field is not the goal of America-hating ideologues.

Unknown said...

Andrew: Two great minds run in the same gutter. LOL

Obama is clearly a Euro-weenie social democracy type. That's in part because he actually is not intelligent enough to understand how wealth is created. He thinks money arrives like manna from heaven, and he's the messiah who can call it down for the masses.

Unknown said...

PittsburghEnigma: Dont' feel bad, most of the Democrats who vote for these jokes have neither read nor understood them. They know only the Cliff Notes version--"power for us, taxes for everyone else."

Logic, history and good governance say that this is dead for good. But the last two years have shown us that we can't count on that. Socialized medicine was dead until they revived it. The Democrats know the hammer is about to fall in November, and rather than try to fulfill the will of the American people, they're going to continue to use every trick in their arsenal to punish Americans for disagreeing with them. If they can't succeed, they'll at least keep trying to get revenge. I won't think any one of their socialist programs is dead, until I see the corpse with a stake driven through its heart (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Unknown said...

Stan: I know it's hard to believe. I'm sure there must be some mistake myself, and Obama will walk out on the Potomac and tell us the truth that will make us free.

Unknown said...

Tam: Well, I don't quite put Obama in the league of Hitler, Mao or Stalin. But even bush-league demagogues know the trick.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, I agree... we must be in the same gutter! LOL!

Seriously, his instincts are clearly anti-capitalist based on his choice of words. He seems to view profit as "unfair" and something to be avoided.

But he doesn't seem to have the intellectual rigor to really have any sort of competing philosophy. In other words, he's just anti-capitalism, he doesn't appear to be pro-anything else.

Unknown said...

Andrew: The lack of intellectual rigor is right on the money (pardon the pun). He's anticapitalist because that's what he was raised to be, and it has moved him up the ladder his entire life. So he has to leave it to his advisers to come up with the plans, since he's a redistributarian by rote, and they know how to implement it.

He has exactly one thing he is for--himself.

HamiltonsGhost said...

Lawhawk--In all fairness to Obama, he did say one thing that was absolutely true and consistent: "America is the greatest nation on earth, and I'm going to fundamentally alter it."

Unknown said...

HamiltonsGhost: As I've said once or twice before on this blog, even Satan tells the truth from time-to-time when it suits his purpose.

Writer X said...

Isn't it time for him to take another vacation? It's sad when even Biden is starting to make more sense (to the extent that he can) than Obama.

Unknown said...

WriterX: Biden's another one who grossly exaggerated his legal credentials, and when he got caught, the MSM yawned. Beside being a victim of Tourette's, Biden is just as likely to lie or completely misunderstand a simple Supreme Court decision as Obama. The only difference is that Obama has somehow managed to convince the American people (for awhile) that he's not a legal idiot.

And you're right, the Republic has reached its nadir when Biden makes more sense and tells more truths than the President.

Unknown said...

LawHawk. I know it's cliche, but every time Obama speaks I'm reminded of the old joke about how do you tell he's lying? Answer: His lips are moving.

Unknown said...

CalFed: I'm not even sure I see his lips moving anymore. He does that "look to the left, look to the right" Mussolini chin thing, and I hear a voice that sounds like his, but there's a lot more dropping the g's at the end of words ending in "ng" and a strong hint of a Southern twang, unlike Mr. Harvard during the campaign. His lips seem permanently pursed.

BevfromNYC said...

It's interesting that HuffPo did not really put this front and center since they wrongly believe that the S.C. decision allows foreign corporations to give money for political campaigns. They are saying that the Repubs blocked the legislation because they hate small business. Apparently one of the amendments to the bill was to eliminate capital gains taxes for investments in small businesses - REPUBLICANS HATE SMALL BUSINESS!

[[[[Shhhhhh....help me...I am being held hostage by Huffpo and they are trying brainw.........]]]

Tennessee Jed said...

"power for us, taxes for everyone else." A great quote, Hawk. It distills the entire leftist dogma down to seven words. The only thing I would grant them is that many of them probably actually believe they really do use the power to do good and fight the evil capitalists.

Unknown said...

Bev: The last few months the Democrats have gotten really good at propagandizing in a way that makes the Republicans look like they support positions which are exactly the opposite of the truth. Take that tirade in the House calling the Republicans dishonest and uncaring about 9-11 victims. It makes Republicans look heartless while disguising the fact that the Republicans were against the bill because of all the crap that was thrown in that had nothing to do with 9-11 victims, and seemed to provide money for illegal immigrants as well. I do think that the public is starting to see through it.

Unknown said...

Tennessee: We have to remember that there are two generations which have been imbued with anticapitalism and no instruction in analytical thinking. They learn mantras and slogans, and little about what's behind them. "We help the little guy." They don't know the proper response is "How--by making him permanently dependent on the government?" They punish success and reward sloth, and call it "equality." They stir up racial animosity and call it "post-racialism." They print worthless paper money and call it "wealth creation." They rape the law and create phony rights out of whole cloth, and call it "the living Constitution." And the whole package is wrapped in a fabric of lies. Obama is merely the Liar-in-Chief.

LL said...

Once all business is nationalized (government owned and operated), all business will be on a level playing field. --so speaks the utopian socialist poltroon in the White House.

Unknown said...

LL: How come you can sum up Obama's agenda in such a short sentence and he can't explain it in a year and seven months and 100,000 words?

Individualist said...

So when do they appoint a commission to approve all political ads before they are aired.

Oh wait that is the executive board of NBC, CBS et. al

Unknown said...

Individualist: I only wish that weren't so accurate.

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