Good call! This about the media and corpotacracy ruling the media.  Now Obama is all against is as his and his parties media monopoly is broken. Well done.

I didn't know that law restricted YAL.

I'm not so sure this was a win for liberty... Sure, we should all have access to free speech, and limiting the time period of when we can say things and when we can't is unconstitutional. But the other thing this ruling does is broaden the interpretation of  "the people" to corporations. And that could be potentially disastrous.

Individuals should be able to spend a limitless amount of money, as should groups of like-minded individuals who get together and pool their earnings. But a corporation is not an individual, nor is it a collective of individuals all on the same page. In a corporation, a CEO or a small board can get together and spend loads of money  (money that is NOT their salary) that hundreds or tens of thousands of people worked to earn, even when those workers and managers and designers and whoever else never agreed to the spending of their company's money for a political cause.

This is sort of a gray area as our founding fathers probably never imagined our system of corporations like Walmart or Exxon Mobile flooding money into television advertisements in order to influence elections in their favor.

I think that we ought to prohibit corporations outright from donating to political campaigns, or at least prohibit those which contract with the government (as most major corporations do) through new legislation or possibly even an amendment to the constitution.

I disagree with the Supreme Court Ruling.  Allowing corporations to spend unlimited monies during Federal Elections for politicians is a conflict of interest. It amounts to buying politicians. Politicians will be beholden to the industries who pay for their elections.

Corporations are not people, and they consist of people usually with disparate political opinions.

America should be about ideas, not money.  Why not have full-fledged broadcasting of debates and speeches by the candidates, for free, on the public airwaves?   No charge to them.   Maybe without big-monied politicians drowning out those with less we'd actually be able to pick good candidates for a change.

>>>Well, it shouldn't really matter to begin with.

It shouldn't, but it does. Our country is already corrupted with politicians bought-and-sold by corporations; this decision will just worsen an already bad situation.

>>>You cannot disregard the Constitution when talking about all of this.

The Constitution guarantees free-speech to individuals. A corporation is not an individual.

>>>I think what has happened is we are looking at a problem, but not understanding the cause.

The cause is from our current congress not telling the satellite/cable companies that the public owns the airwaves and that if they want to continue leasing some frequency on those airwaves they are going to have to give free blocks of time for political candidates to speak, debate, etc., with _no_ costs to the candidates. That would finally level the playing field, and we'd truly be able to choose the best candidate rather than only select candidates with the most money.

>>>Why are we worried about politicians being bought and paid for?

Because they are in dire need of _lots_ of cash to be able to run their commercials and advertise. Being elected into office should not require that the candidate have so much money; requiring this overlooks many qualified people that are never heard from because of their lack of cash.

>>> Because they are doling out special privileges to well-connected firms. But, if you were to follow the Constitution, there would be no special privileges!

Defense Mfr. A builds missiles and bombers. Two republicans compete in that congressional area in Texas where Defense Mfr. A is located: Dick Cheney and Ron Paul. Who do you think Defense Mfr. A is going to spend billions on for advertising? Ron Paul will be able to raise money from us but it pales in comparison to the billions Defense Mfr. A spends on Dick Cheney. Ron Paul follows the Constitution, but because of the imbalance in financing, Dick Cheney wins the election.

I have no problem at all with Defense Mfr. A advertising their missiles and bombers and stating War is the best thing since peanut butter. They're selling a product: people understand that. But when they start spending their billions on airing hundreds of commercials showing Dick Cheney's wife and kids, the family outings at church, Sunday family picnics with their dog Spot, and the wholesome wonderful candidate we should all vote for, Dick Cheney, that's when, imo, they've crossed the line. There's an unmistakeable conflict of interest there that cannot be overlooked.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/23/citizens_united/index.html

This should answer everyone's concerns...