Tuesday, September 6, 2016

How Citizens United
Will Help
Make America Great Again



Make America Great Again!




"Wait a minute!  That's Donald Trump's line," you say!

That's right.  But  Donald Trump has hired David Bossie,  President of Citizens United, to be Deputy Campaign Manager of his Presidential Campaign.  And Mr. Bossie wants to help "Make America Great Again" by finally destroying Hillary Clinton.

David Bossie has been going after Hillary Clinton ever since he was fired as chief investigator for Newt Gingrich's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 1999.  Bossie lost his job for doctoring transcripts in an attempt to implicate Hillary Clinton in wrongdoing.

Surprisingly–or maybe–"not so surprisingly," David Bossie received the Ronald Reagan Award from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 1999.

In 2008, David Bossie and Citizens United sought to test the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law by creating and advertising Hillary:  The Movie, a right wing tour of the Clinton scandals.  But the Federal Election Commission restricted Citizens United from advertising the movie as per the McCain-Feingold Act.   Citizens United appealed, saying their right to free speech was threatened.

When the Citizens United case went to a lower court in 2008, the court sided with the FEC, saying that the film was effectively a 90-minute campaign ad "susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her."


But Bossie and Citzens United persevered, and in 2010, in the landmark case,  Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court upended the McCain-Feingold Act.   In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that "freedom of speech prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation."

The turning point of the case, addressed in a Washington Post article was a theoretical argument: what the government would do if Hillary: The Movie was a book instead.  When the counsel for the government said that the government would bar Hillary: the Book as well, the Supreme Court ruled on the side of the First Amendment rights of the nonprofit corporation, Citizens United.  And, thanks to Citizens United, that's how corporations attained the "First Amendment" rights of citizens.

There are those, myself included, who believe that the mission statement of Citizens United is an anomaly:

Dedicated to restoring our government to citizens' control.

In actuality, with the utter lack of campaign finance restrictions, the mission statement of Citizens United is:

Dedicated to giving control of our government to corporations.


If Trump, Bossie, and the other Right-Wing elements have their way, destroy Hillary, and elect Trump, John Q. Citizen will not be the one who benefits from a Trump Dynasty.  It will be the corporations again.

If, however, America elects Hillary Clinton, Citizens United, the court case, will be revisited.  Campaign finance laws will be reenacted.  And our government, a government of the people, will be restored to citizens' control again.

That would truly help:  Make America Great Again!



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