From worldnetdaily article: The 300-page ruling also upheld a ban on political advertising by special-interest groups 60 days before Election Day. The court struck down, however, a provision that barred minors under the age of 18 from making monetary contributions to political campaigns, calling it an unconstitutional restriction of free speech. The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public-interest law firm, called today's decision as "an enormously important First Amendment victory" for minors, but a slap in the face for adults. ACLJ represented six politically active teens from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida â between the ages of 13 and 17 â who argued the law prevented them from exercising their First Amendment rights. "While it is encouraging that the high court acted to protect the constitutional rights of minors, it is unfortunate that the court turned its back on protecting the constitutional rights of advocacy groups," said ACLJ's chief counsel, Jay Sekulow. "By upholding the constitutionality of the law's advertising ban, advocacy groups will be effectively shut out of being able to express their opinions and views on the moral and cultural issues that play a key role in elections. The free-speech rights of minors were protected, but the free-speech rights of other Americans suffered a serious setback with this decision." The majority opinion dispelled free-speech objections raised, ruling the government's interest in preventing political corruption outweighed limitations on free speech. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy offered forceful dissent to the decision. "The first instinct of power is the retention of power, and under a Constitution that requires periodic elections, that is best achieved by the suppression of election-time speech," Scalia wrote. ******* So the "living constitution" that some of you are so in favor of protects flag burning, nude dancing and all sorts of non-verbal "expression" but allows a bunch of incumbent congressmen to pass a law outlawing criticism of them for 60 days before an election. "To prevent corruption." How does running an issue ad contribute to corruption? If this is not a core First Amendment protected expression, what is? nude dancing I guess.
AAA doesn't like the Supreme Court's decision because it upholds a law Congress passed that goes against the grain of his beliefs, citing the constitution, but he excoriates the Mass. Court for denying a law, which abides by his creed, saying the court is writing law. For AAA, the court is wrong for ruling against him, but he dresses his criticism up in formalism and legal philosophy. 167 pages of opinion in the majority decision, and many more from the dissenting troglodytes stilletto Scalia and his stepinfetchit acolyte, probably none of which AAA has read yet.
C'mon Dgab, you need to be more cautious in how you word your posts. It almost seems as if you mean to imply that AAA is politically biased. I know you wouldn't want anyone to infer such an outrageous concept. AAA? The personification of open-mindedness! Am I missing something? Peace, RS
I don't see the inconsistency you are accusing me of. In both cases I want the court to interpet the actual constitution. I don't see that as a particularly difficult concept. Both courts instead ignored the plain wording of the constitution and long historical precedent to arrive at decisions they felt were socially or politically desirable. In both cases the issues are actually quite simple. The campaign finance law struck a death blow at what has always been considered a core protection of the First Amendment, namely political speech. Of course incumbents would prefer that no one criticize them for 60 days prior to an election. Why not 180 days or a year? Why not just outlaw all criticism of incumbents? Such criticism undermines people's faith in their government and their representatives. Surely a little thing like freedom of speech shouldn't stand in the way of that? There are other aspects of campaign finance that are complicated. Should a rich candidate be allowed to circumvent the limits by spending his own money? That happens to be the law. Why is it proper for GE, Disney, Viacom, Fox and a host of big newspaper publishers to be allowed to say whatever they want at any time but ordinary citizens, interest groups and non-media companies cannot? Is that fair? Who has the bigger conflict? GE, with hundreds of billion s of dollars of business in non-media sectors or Joe Public? Those issues are a bit complex. Banning campaign ads by independent groups is not. The First Amendment was not adopted to protect nude dancing. The core value it protects is political speech, and now the Court has held that the very fact that it is political speech warrants greater limits on it than condom ads. The Mass court decision requires no lengthy analysis. It was judicial legislation, pure and simple. Just as Ann Coulter said, something that is deeply offensive and repellent to a majority of voters, something they would never vote for, is shoved down their throats under the myth that it is required by the constitution and therefore is "the law" and must be respected. I repeat her question: where do we draw the line? Is there no decision so ourageous that we don't accept it, even though it is plainly inconsistent with the constitution? And what happens then?
"They have two strategies. The first is the totalitarian gambit: perverting the Constitution through the Supreme Court's misinterpretations, thereby concentrating powers in the national governmentâ¦[Also] the elitists have turned to a second strategy: transferring America's sovereignty piece by piece through treasonable treaties and other international agreements" http://www.fgmr.com/crashmkr.htm in "Crashmaker" by "Trader Vic" or Victor Sperandeo
The Constitution and the World are highly in danger since at least Kissinger - (who is still very active today in international arena) : http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/1203/11nixontapes.html The National Archives has released 10 batches of Nixon recordings totaling 2,109 hours since 1980. In all, there are about 3,700 hours of Nixon White House tapes. Nixon installed a secret taping system in the White House. Some of those tapes later showed a White House cover-up in connection with the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building. The release of those tapes, which Nixon fought all the way to the Supreme Court, eventually led him to resign in 1974 rather than face almost-certain impeachment and conviction. Also on the tapes, Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said they wanted to get some sort of peace agreement with the North Vietnamese before Election Day 1972. "The advantage of trying to settle now, even if you're 10 points ahead (in the polls), is you ensure a hell of a landslide, and you might win the House and increase strength in the Senate," Nixon told Kissinger in September 1972. "The question is, 'How can we maneuver it so it can look like a settlement by Election Day, but the process is still open?'" Kissinger said. "This could finish the destruction of McGovern." Kissinger later announced "peace is at hand" in October, but an agreement was not signed until the following January, after another U.S.-led bombing campaign against North Vietnam. Kissinger and the Constitution by Howard Fast : http://www.trussel.com/hf/kissingr.htm speaking of the murder of more than a million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge, Isaacson writes: "'There are only two men responsible for the tragedy in Cambodia,' Prince Sihanouk [of Cambodia chased by the Communists] has said. 'Mr. Nixon and Dr. Kissinger. Lon Nol [Communist leader] was nothing without them, and the Khmer Rouge was nothing without Lon Nol. They (Nixon and Kissinger) demoralized America, they lost all of Indo-China to the communists, and they created the Khmer Rouge.'" "It is not simply that Nixon was inadequate to the calling of the job. Many presidents have been inadequate. It is the fact that the strange, dark personality of this man carried no influence with the public. But at least Nixon was elected. No one elected Henry Kissinger to anything, yet the power that he gathered into his hands exceeded that of the president; indeed, it exceeded that of the Congress. The bitter truth of it is that under the hand of Henry Kissinger, the Constitution became meaningless. "
good work. Ya got it! same shit different cabal on top. sheeple eating the manure up like pancakes. can't wait till scumya cabal makes the draft law, and haul the young warmongering neocon fascist extremists in the middle of a bullet rain:eek: Not wishing harm to anyone, but they do need to face reality.