Fact Check: State of the Union

Two comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  Liberty_Bell on January 30 at 1:32 p.m.

  And one can only laugh, after Justice Stevens writes Kelo, for the Corporation, and dissents in Citizen, against the corporation?

  I guess that 5th dosent apply but the 1st should?

  Wasent Thomas Jefferson clear in his letters to James Madison, in 1810 about our jewish lawyers?

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  Liberty_Bell on January 31 at 5:58 a.m.

  CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N
  Opinion of the Court
  When word concerning the plot of the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington reached the circles of Government, some officials sought, by persuasion, to discourage itsdistribution. See Smoodin, “Compulsory” Viewing for Every Citizen: Mr. Smith and the Rhetoric of Reception,35 Cinema Journal 3, 19, and n. 52 (Winter 1996) (citing Mr. Smith Riles Washington, Time, Oct. 30, 1939, p. 49); Nugent, Capra’s Capitol Offense, N. Y. Times, Oct. 29,1939, p. X5. Under Austin, though, officials could havedone more than discourage its distribution—they could have banned the film. After all, it, like Hillary, was speech funded by a corporation that was critical of Members of Congress. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington may befiction and caricature; but fiction and caricature can be a powerful force.Modern day movies, television comedies, or skits onYoutube.com might portray public officials or public policies in unflattering ways. Yet if a covered transmission during the blackout period creates the background for candidate endorsement or opposition, a felony occurssolely because a corporation, other than an exempt mediacorporation, has made the “purchase, payment, distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value” in order to engage in political speech. 2 U. S. C. §431(9)(A)(i). Speech would be suppressed in the realm where its necessity is most evident: in the public dialogue preceding a real election. Governments are often hostile to speech, but under our law and our tradition it seemsstranger than fiction for our Government to make thispolitical speech a crime. Yet this is the statute’s purpose
  Cite as: 558 U. S. ____ (2010) 57
  Opinion of the Court
  and design.
  Some members of the public might consider Hillary to be insightful and instructive; some might find it to beneither high art nor a fair discussion on how to set the Nation’s course; still others simply might suspend judgment on these points but decide to think more about issuesand candidates. Those choices and assessments, however, are not for the Government to make. “The First Amendment underwrites the freedom to experiment and to create in the realm of thought and speech. Citizens must be free to use new forms, and new forums, for the expression ofideas. The civic discourse belongs to the people, and the Government may not prescribe the means used to conduct it.” McConnell, supra, at 341 (opinion of KENNEDY, J.).
  The judgment of the District Court is reversed withrespect to the constitutionality of 2 U. S. C. §441b’s restrictions on corporate independent expenditures. The judgment is affirmed with respect to BCRA’s disclaimer and disclosure requirements. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
  It is so ordered.

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