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Fething is speech. It's a way to express my love to my wife. Why should society get to infringe on my 1st Amendment right by passing laws that say that I can't feth her on the lawn in front of the grade school?

 d-usa wrote:
Fething is speech. It's a way to express my love to my wife. Why should society get to infringe on my 1st Amendment right by passing laws that say that I can't feth her on the lawn in front of the grade school?

Who said fething is protected under the 1st Amendment?

<.<

>.>

You sure you're not high on something? Delirious from sleep deprivation?

The thing is... money is absolutely essential to run a campaign... right?

But it can’t buy an election.

Remember Ebay's Meg Whitman? She spent something like 5 times in her gubernatorial campaign compared to Jerry Brown who ... Guess which one gets to be called governor?

Carly Fiorina outspent Barbara Boxer by a big amount, too, and still lost.

Bajillionaire Sheldon Adleson spent around $100 million in his failed attempt to get Newt Gingrich nominated and then Mitt Romney elected in 2012.

Now lets look at someone else who spent heavily on politics but learned from his failures: George Soros.

That dude is a genius... here's why.

He teamed up with fellow billionaires... ie, Peter Lewis and Herb & Marion Sandler... to try to buy the 2004 presidential election and remove GWB from office. They must of spent at least $150 million in a failed attempt to unseat GWB in 2004.

Then... Soros got smart... really REALLY smart.

After they failed... they created a super coalition of other super wealthy progressive Democrats, the Democracy Alliance. The intent was to build a progressive infrastructure whose goal was to educate and persuade average voters about progressive ideals. That organization spends an absolute feth TON of money... From that sprang MoveOn, Media Matters, Center for American Progress, etc.... with the goal to be about advancing progressive ideals.

And Harry Reid has the fething galls to complain about the Koch Brothers?

That's how you win The Culture Wars in the realm of The Political Thunderdome™.

 whembly wrote:

I think his reasoning is very dangerous... here's why:

If you read the Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, and consider each instance of "the people" as not referring to individual citizens but this amorphous "Collective™" noun.... it explains a lot of the leftist thought process (note, I'm not saying Liberals here).

Again, Breyers is stating that "the people" is the "Collective", not individuals.

The people are individuals and they are a collective (treating it as one or the other is simple and easy, but narrow sighted). Freedom of speech is only useful for the individual if it is ensured for all individuals which is Beyer's point. If you have the right to speak your mind, but your words matter less than another's, then you're not really free. Our current system (at least in political discourse) is arguably more of a faux freedom of speech. What you or I say, means nothing to a politican. What big pharma says means a lot becaue big pharma's speech comes with fat checks (and under US Law, all three of us are individuals).

The reality of the world is that money matters, and so long as a politcian can justify to themselves that it's for the greater good, they don't care what you or I say as individuals. They only care when enough other individuals (the collective) agree with what we say because that has an effect on their prospects to get elected beyond what money can buy them.

Beyer is saying that there is no point to individual rights if individuals are not equal, and he takes the position that it is the responsibility of the government/law to enforce equal playing fields (at least on politics in this case) on a society where natural outcomes can create inequality.

THAT should scare you.

There is no fear padawan. Only the Force.

Some ambiguous maybe scenario doesn't scare me. Reality scares me, and reality is that words mean little in the world without the money to back it up. The power of the people is as a group. Individuals standing against the world is romantic and all, but its a fantasy Americans spend too much time indulging. Individuals mean little in the grand scheme of things.

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Did Nebraska pass some marijuana laws recently?

The only drug Nebraska needs is Corn.

Personally I don't think liberals* have won, more so that conservatives* have lost. With many of the things that conservatives have been supporting, anti-gay, racism, ect. These things are rapidly decreasing in popularity as the years move on with each new generation being more accepting and tolerant than the last. Just my thoughts.



*Dictionary definition and only socially.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Fething is speech. It's a way to express my love to my wife. Why should society get to infringe on my 1st Amendment right by passing laws that say that I can't feth her on the lawn in front of the grade school?

Who said fething is protected under the 1st Amendment?

<.<

>.>

You sure you're not high on something? Delirious from sleep deprivation?

You truly think that green pieces of cotton-paper are speech and spend the last couple of pages telling us how incredible dangerous it is to prohibit the free speech of green cotton-paper in the interest of society and that you cannot wrap your mind around the concept that we would ever prohibit any form of speech for the protection of society at large.

But when given numerous examples of speech and expression being already regulated for society you act confused and indifferent.

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Fething is speech. It's a way to express my love to my wife. Why should society get to infringe on my 1st Amendment right by passing laws that say that I can't feth her on the lawn in front of the grade school?

Who said fething is protected under the 1st Amendment?

<.<

>.>

You sure you're not high on something? Delirious from sleep deprivation?

You truly think that green pieces of cotton-paper are speech and spend the last couple of pages telling us how incredible dangerous it is to prohibit the free speech of green cotton-paper in the interest of society and that you cannot wrap your mind around the concept that we would ever prohibit any form of speech for the protection of society at large.

But when given numerous examples of speech and expression being already regulated for society you act confused and indifferent.

*sigh*

We won't see eye-to-eye here because I'm NOT talking about a "yelling 'FIRE' at a movie theater" kind of thing.

I'm talking about the idea that "The Collective" gets to decide if your speech is helpful to "The Collective's" political goals.

The Collective mean the majority in power. (ie, Congress, Justices, etc...)

If it is helpful to the Collective's political process, then you have the right to free speech.

Otherwise... STFU.

So, what would you do to fix this then? Allow all contributions made public

I'm sick and tired of people saying that money is speech. I'm sick and tired of people saying corpertaion are people. I say we limit all contribution s to $5K to one, $20K total.

(This is just directed at everybody, not you whem. I say that because you did ask a question and I didn't what you to think I was answering it )

Bran Dawri wrote:
The USA has been an oligarchy in all but name for quite some time now...

Since inception and before. The only remotely suprising thing in all of this is the apparent amnesia considering the very lessons of history that led the rich to fabricate the illusion of a representative government on their own behalf. Considering the necessarily exponential nature of capital accumulation and concentration, all limits must fall away at some point to allow for its continuance.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Fething is speech. It's a way to express my love to my wife. Why should society get to infringe on my 1st Amendment right by passing laws that say that I can't feth her on the lawn in front of the grade school?

Who said fething is protected under the 1st Amendment?

<.<

>.>

You sure you're not high on something? Delirious from sleep deprivation?

You truly think that green pieces of cotton-paper are speech and spend the last couple of pages telling us how incredible dangerous it is to prohibit the free speech of green cotton-paper in the interest of society and that you cannot wrap your mind around the concept that we would ever prohibit any form of speech for the protection of society at large.

But when given numerous examples of speech and expression being already regulated for society you act confused and indifferent.

*sigh*

We won't see eye-to-eye here because I'm NOT talking about a "yelling 'FIRE' at a movie theater" kind of thing.

I'm talking about the idea that "The Collective" gets to decide if your speech is helpful to "The Collective's" political goals.

The Collective mean the majority in power. (ie, Congress, Justices, etc...)

If it is helpful to the Collective's political process, then you have the right to free speech.

He's not saying that more people speaking should get to decide who gets to speak.

He is saying that a few people screaming the loudest shouldn't get to drown out the majority that is speaking at a reasonable volume and that everybody should get equal speech.

It's not a hard concept to grasp unless you start out not wanting to grasp it.


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 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sick and tired of people saying that money is speech. I'm sick and tired of people saying corpertaion are people. I say we limit all contribution s to $5K to one, $20K total.

I'm sticking to my original thought. Keep the current limit per candidate, and only be allowed to donate to candidates that are actually on your ballot. If they don't represent you and you can't vote for them then stay the feth away from them.

That will never happen, but a man can dream

 d-usa wrote:


He's not saying that more people speaking should get to decide who gets to speak.

He is saying that a few people screaming the loudest shouldn't get to drown out the majority that is speaking at a reasonable volume and that everybody should get equal speech.

And all I'm advocating is to tread "carefully" with this line of thought.

Again... the danger of this argument is that the same thing could be used to censor major media corporations such as the NYT, Hollywood, Old Alphabet News Channel, and so on... Because... when Hollywood/MSNBC/et. el. spends bijillions of dollars each year advancing a liberal agenda, the general public will not be heard.

Instead of a free marketplace of ideas, we get a marketplace in which major Hollywood moguls, CNN's Zucker, MSNBC's Griffin has hundreds of thousands of times the ‘speech power’ of the average American.

And... we wouldn't want that now...right?


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 d-usa wrote:

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 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I'm sick and tired of people saying that money is speech. I'm sick and tired of people saying corpertaion are people. I say we limit all contribution s to $5K to one, $20K total.

I'm sticking to my original thought. Keep the current limit per candidate, and only be allowed to donate to candidates that are actually on your ballot. If they don't represent you and you can't vote for them then stay the feth away from them.

That will never happen, but a man can dream

I wouldn't limit the contributions...

But, I'd be in favor (I think) of requiring full disclosure so that the contributions can ONLY be used for candidates on your ballots.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:


He's not saying that more people speaking should get to decide who gets to speak.

He is saying that a few people screaming the loudest shouldn't get to drown out the majority that is speaking at a reasonable volume and that everybody should get equal speech.

And all I'm advocating is to tread "carefully" with this line of thought.

Again... the danger of this argument is that the same thing could be used to censor major media corporations such as the NYT, Hollywood, Old Alphabet News Channel, and so on... Because... when Hollywood/MSNBC/et. el. spends bijillions of dollars each year advancing a liberal agenda, the general public will not be heard.

Nothing in the argument says that a person cannot spend millions of their own money advocating their agenda. It says that we should be careful with one persons speech influencing one particular politician to the effect of drowning out the speech of everyone else.

In that context we are already limiting the speech of major media corporations using the Equal-time rule.

I don't even understand what you're arguing anymore Whembly.

 whembly wrote:
Again... the danger of this argument is that the same thing could be used to censor major media corporations such as the NYT, Hollywood, Old Alphabet News Channel, and so on... Because... when Hollywood/MSNBC/et. el. spends bijillions of dollars each year advancing a liberal agenda, the general public will not be heard.

Instead of a free marketplace of ideas, we get a marketplace in which major Hollywood moguls, CNN's Zucker, MSNBC's Griffin has hundreds of thousands of times the ‘speech power’ of the average American.

And... we wouldn't want that now...right?

You realize this is what Beyer is saying, right? He's saying that this decision and the current trend of how SCOTUS is approaching the issue of campaign spending is giving major corporations and rich individuals more speech than everyone else and that it's dangerous to the essence of democracy.

Ignoring that Hollywood has no liberal agenda (that myth really just needs to end), this is exactly what my example was saying. You take a rich individual or a corporation which under US law is an individual and you give them free reign to spend in politics, and you're giving them more speech than everyone else who has less ability to spend and thus less ability to actually 'speak' to politicians. This isn't useful to the collective. It's counter to the interests of the people as a whole and is bad for democracy.

That's what Breyer is saying.

 whembly wrote:

I'm talking about the idea that "The Collective" gets to decide if your speech is helpful to "The Collective's" political goals.

As I said before, that is already the case. If everyone in the US supports the repeal of the 1st Amendment, then the 1st Amendment will be repealed. This is the nature of all politics, but especially democratic politics.

Moreover, LordofHats is correct. What you're worried about is so outlandish that it beggars belief, especially given that this decision continues a trend begun by Citizen's United which diverts more power to the very wealthy and to corporations.

But, on the plus side you probably won't have to worry about 501(c) segment of the tax code much longer, because that will be on the chopping block soon enough.

 LordofHats wrote:
I don't even understand what you're arguing anymore Whembly.

 whembly wrote:
Again... the danger of this argument is that the same thing could be used to censor major media corporations such as the NYT, Hollywood, Old Alphabet News Channel, and so on... Because... when Hollywood/MSNBC/et. el. spends bijillions of dollars each year advancing a liberal agenda, the general public will not be heard.

Instead of a free marketplace of ideas, we get a marketplace in which major Hollywood moguls, CNN's Zucker, MSNBC's Griffin has hundreds of thousands of times the ‘speech power’ of the average American.

And... we wouldn't want that now...right?

You realize this is what Beyer is saying, right? He's saying that this decision and the current trend of how SCOTUS is approaching the issue of campaign spending is giving major corporations and rich individuals more speech than everyone else and that it's dangerous to the essence of democracy.

He's saying that... yes.

Ignoring that Hollywood has no liberal agenda (that myth really just needs to end), this is exactly what my example was saying.

Uh... you don't think Hollywood slants towards the progress agenda? News organizations like NYT? MSNBC? CNN???

You take a rich individual or a corporation which under US law is an individual and you give them free reign to spend in politics, and you're giving them more speech than everyone else who has less ability to spend and thus less ability to actually 'speak' to politicians. This isn't useful to the collective. It's counter to the interests of the people as a whole and is bad for democracy.

I never said that was a great thing. But how do you limit it?

That's what Breyer is saying.

Based on his past rulings... no, imo that's not what he's saying.


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 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

I'm talking about the idea that "The Collective" gets to decide if your speech is helpful to "The Collective's" political goals.

As I said before, that is already the case. If everyone in the US supports the repeal of the 1st Amendment, then the 1st Amendment will be repealed. This is the nature of all politics, but especially democratic politics.

Here's the problem with that statement. The majority in power, ie the Collective, is not EVERYONE.

Moreover, LordofHats is correct. What you're worried about is so outlandish that it beggars belief, especially given that this decision continues a trend begun by Citizen's United which diverts more power to the very wealthy and to corporations.

Like I said... it's not a perfect system.

What would you do to mitigate this then? (I do like d-usa's idea for what it's worth).

But, on the plus side you probably won't have to worry about 501(c) segment of the tax code much longer, because that will be on the chopping block soon enough.

Yay?

If it encourages more disclosure... I'd be fine with that.

 whembly wrote:
Uh... you don't think Hollywood slants towards the progress agenda? News organizations like NYT? MSNBC? CNN???

Hollywood pushes the "lets make some money by playing to popular hot topics/fears/ideals of the audience" agenda. The only way to argue Hollywood has a specific political agenda, is to ignore the vast majority of movies it churns out, 70-80% of which are solely created to spark popular appeal and make money.

Based on his past rulings... no, imo that's not what he's saying.

You're own linked article covers this. Breyer has a nuanced position on free speech. He is concerned about the current string of decisions in campaign spending because he finds it detrimental to the public good. We can discuss what he's actually saying in his dissenting opinion on this case, or we can discuss some faux position he isn't even advocating.

The majority in power, ie the Collective, is not EVERYONE

Yes it is. Breyer is talking about the People. I'm the People. You're the People. Dogma is the People. D-USA is the People. Microsoft is the People too, because under US law Microsoft is a person (unfortunately that doesn't make Mircosoft murderable >.<. We are all the collective, and recent SCOTUS decisions have damaged the collectives ability to speak in favor of specific members of that collective.

Again. We can talk about what Breyer is saying, or we can talk about something else entirely.

It's pointless at this point.

He continues to argue back to me with "well, it would hurt liberals too" as if I actually give a feth about liberals. At this point I truly think that he is truly not capable of accepting that there are such things as non-partisan issues. It also fits his usual style of argument that either go "Conservatives do something bad? Liberals are worse!" or "Look, Liberals are doing something bad! Conservatives do it too? Well, everybody does it so what's the big deal..."

If his favorite sources tell him it's bad, then he will argue that it's bad. It's sad really, because he has shown that he is actually intelligent and can have independent rational thought. But he will accept whatever somebody is saying as long as it aligns with his ideological side.


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At this point, lets just post senseless ideological posts, editorials, and mind-control messages:

 whembly wrote:

Here's the problem with that statement. The majority in power, ie the Collective, is not EVERYONE.

No gak. But all politics function of the basis of majority rule, where majority extends beyond pure number. If The People decide you're not worthy, you get left out.

 whembly wrote:

What would you do to mitigate this then?

Differentiate between legal and natural persons.

 whembly wrote:

If it encourages more disclosure... I'd be fine with that.

It won't. In fact it will directly work against it. Axing the spending restrictions in 501(c) would enable wealthy individuals and corporations to hide their political contributions from the public, and prevent the FEC from regulating individual contribtuions.

This how knowing who gives money to whom will work out;

*Bob* "Oh my god! Bill Gates gave money to Obama in 2012!"

*Frank* "Seriously? WTF Bill."

*Jerry from HR is sitting in the corner and rolls his eyes* "And what are you two dimwits going to do about it?"

...

*Frank * "Joey gave Obama money too!"

*Bob* "Joey the Intern?"

*Jerry* "Get him!"

No rich person/corporation will ever 'pay' for giving money to a politician. Joe schmo on the other hand probably will.

 LordofHats wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Uh... you don't think Hollywood slants towards the progress agenda? News organizations like NYT? MSNBC? CNN???

Hollywood pushes the "lets make some money by playing to popular hot topics/fears/ideals of the audience" agenda. The only way to argue Hollywood has a specific political agenda, is to ignore the vast majority of movies it churns out, 70-80% of which are solely created to spark popular appeal and make money.

I'll drop this from this thread as I don't want it to deviate from the topic.

Based on his past rulings... no, imo that's not what he's saying.

You're own linked article covers this. Breyer has a nuanced position on free speech. He is concerned about the current string of decisions in campaign spending because he finds it detrimental to the public good. We can discuss what he's actually saying in his dissenting opinion on this case, or we can discuss some faux position he isn't even advocating.

I am discussing his opinion on this case...

The core of the first amendment is the protection of political speech.

I can be persuaded that spending money, unequally between the masses, is NOT protected speech... but what can be done to mitigate this without impacting political speech in general?

I mean, we all can agree that we still really don't have a clear understanding of why money = speech. As such, we should err on the side of caution when regulating this. (d-usa's earlier proposal seems like a good compromise).

The majority in power, ie the Collective, is not EVERYONE

Yes it is. Breyer is talking about the People. I'm the People. You're the People. Dogma is the People. D-USA is the People. Microsoft is the People too, because under US law Microsoft is a person (unfortunately that doesn't make Mircosoft murderable >.<. We are all the collective, and recent SCOTUS decisions have damaged the collectives ability to speak in favor of specific members of that collective.

Again. We can talk about what Breyer is saying, or we can talk about something else entirely.

No... he's saying "the People" as distinctly different as "individuals".

Breyer does not accept that free expression is a natural right. Instead, he recognizes it as a right only insomuch as it furthers the end of what he would characterize as a properly-functioning government.

That's the major distinction here, and that's why I'm fussing over it.

You, me and d-usa can likely agree to a compromise on how to mitigate the influences the wealthy, UNIONS, corporations can have on the political sphere.

But what Breyer's reasoning to support is opinion is dangerous and I'm glad that he's in the minority.


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 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

What would you do to mitigate this then?

Differentiate between legal and natural persons.

I think I'd agree with you.

So, you saying organizations like the NRA, Walmart, Planned Parenthood, Accorn shouldn't be allowed to contribute to their favored candidates?

 whembly wrote:

If it encourages more disclosure... I'd be fine with that.

It won't. In fact it will directly work against it. Axing the spending restrictions in 501(c) would enable wealthy individuals and corporations to hide their political contributions from the public, and prevent the FEC from regulating individual contribtuions.

You know what... good point.

How would you address this? This is in your neck of the woods after all.


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 LordofHats wrote:
This how knowing who gives money to whom will work out;

*Bob* "Oh my god! Bill Gates gave money to Obama in 2012!"

*Frank* "Seriously? WTF Bill."

*Jerry from HR is sitting in the corner and rolls his eyes* "And what are you two dimwits going to do about it?"

...

*Frank * "Joey gave Obama money too!"

*Bob* "Joey the Intern?"

*Jerry* "Get him!"

No rich person/corporation will ever 'pay' for giving money to a politician. Joe schmo on the other hand probably will.

Don't get me wrong... that's a valid concern.

But! Brendan Eich ex-CEO of Mozilla ain't "Joe Schmo".

but what can be done to mitigate this without impacting political speech in general?

Spending limits (Now unconstitutional TM)

Brendan Eich ex-CEO of Mozilla ain't "Joe Schmo".

Being fired because you said/did something silly that publically embarassed your company is different from giving someone some money. It's especially different from giving someone some money in an environment where everyone knows who is giving who money.

Public disclosure is not the solution and will likely lead to more harm than good. Further its tantamount to revealing at the end of each election who voted for whom, which is just opening politics to open intimidation of voters (which frankly, the corporations would probably eventually jump on like jack rabbits).

No... he's saying "the People" as distinctly different as "individuals".

Breyer does not accept that free expression is a natural right. Instead, he recognizes it as a right only insomuch as it furthers the end of what he would characterize as a properly-functioning government.

That's the major distinction here, and that's why I'm fussing over it.

And it would matter if Breyer was actually saying that. He's not. You're saying he's saying it, which is usually called straw manning (no relation to Patton Manning).

But what Breyer's reasoning to support is opinion is dangerous and I'm glad that he's in the minority.

Whembly... He's arguing against the very thing you're afraid will happen. His entire dissenting opinion is about how SCOTUS decision will create what you're afraid will happen You should be agreeing with him, not quibbling over some definition of a word he used that he is clearly using in a different way than you are interpreting.

 whembly wrote:

I think I'd agree with you.

But, of course, that will never happen as it would require Congress to pass a law (which would immediately be cast as an attack on job creators) overturning almost 200 years of precedent.

 whembly wrote:

So, you saying organizations like the NRA, Walmart, Planned Parenthood, Accorn shouldn't be allowed to contribute to their favored candidates?

I'm saying the contributions of legal persons should be regulated differently from those of natural persons. This does not mean they shouldn't be allowed to contribute at all, but that laws should exist which prevent them outstripping natural persons in terms of gross contributions.

But, again, this will never happen.

 whembly wrote:

How would you address this? This is in your neck of the woods after all.

Kill one of the conservative SCOTUS Justices? That's pretty much the only way.

 LordofHats wrote:

but what can be done to mitigate this without impacting political speech in general?

Spending limits (Now unconstitutional TM)

And the winner is...LordofHats.

This issue is confusing at best, frankly, at least to me.

My first reaction is to say, well, unrestricted money into politics is corrupting, self evidently so.

On the other hand all the remedies to that problem really do seem to infringe upon an individuals right to associate with whomever they would like to. And, as pointed out earlier, money isn't the final arbiter of a win, anyway.

It's a tough issue, in my opinion. I don't think I can pick a stance.


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 dogma wrote:
Kill one of the conservative SCOTUS Justices? That's pretty much the only way.

Could Obama could pack the court while Congress is in recess?

He should do it the day before he leaves office (and add anothern 9 judges to the court just to be safe)

Actually I don't think he can, I was misinterpreting something.

It would be like, the nuclearest of options anyway.

 Ouze wrote:
Actually I don't think he can, I was misinterpreting something.

Aww. And here I thought you were making a clever reference to John Adams' Midnight Judges

 Ouze wrote:
This issue is confusing at best, frankly, at least to me.

My first reaction is to say, well, unrestricted money into politics is corrupting, self evidently so.

On the other hand all the remedies to that problem really do seem to infringe upon an individuals right to associate with whomever they would like to. And, as pointed out earlier, money isn't the final arbiter of a win, anyway.

It's a tough issue, in my opinion. I don't think I can pick a stance.

Yeah... I could be waffling on this too as LordHats keeps pulling me away from full disclosures.

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 dogma wrote:
Kill one of the conservative SCOTUS Justices? That's pretty much the only way.

Could Obama could pack the court while Congress is in recess?

I guess he could even with the Senate he has now.

What's to stop him? Reid/Democrats changed that Senate rule to over-rule filibuster from 60 to simple majority for appointments.

At first glance, I don't see any legal prohibition. (yet).


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 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

I think I'd agree with you.

But, of course, that will never happen as it would require Congress to pass a law (which would immediately be cast as an attack on job creators) overturning almost 200 years of precedent.

So... what... give up?

 whembly wrote:

So, you saying organizations like the NRA, Walmart, Planned Parenthood, Accorn shouldn't be allowed to contribute to their favored candidates?

I'm saying the contributions of legal persons should be regulated differently from those of natural persons. This does not mean they shouldn't be allowed to contribute at all, but that laws should exist which prevent them outstripping natural persons in terms of gross contributions.

But, again, this will never happen.

For sake of argument, how would you regulate this? "X" amount per name person and "X" amount per organization?

 whembly wrote:

How would you address this? This is in your neck of the woods after all.

Kill one of the conservative SCOTUS Justices? That's pretty much the only way.

O.o

 LordofHats wrote:

but what can be done to mitigate this without impacting political speech in general?

Spending limits (Now unconstitutional TM)

And the winner is...LordofHats.

Corruption and power go hand and hand....

Wherever there's money, it'll go where ever it needs as its so fungible. beside more disclosures, the best we can probably do to prevent the corruptions in our elected officials is to have an educated and aware populace willing to reject the corruption.

Honestly, I don't think we're there yet...

The other way to reduce corruption would be to limit the power of those elected officials, which would involve limiting the power of government itself. Fat chance there...eh?

I was thinking that the filibuster change specificay excluded the SCOTUS.

 d-usa wrote:
I was thinking that the filibuster change specificay excluded the SCOTUS.

Yeah... you're right about that. Currently.

But if it can be changed with normal appointments, I'd posit it could be changed for SC appointments.

 whembly wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I was thinking that the filibuster change specificay excluded the SCOTUS.

Yeah... you're right about that. Currently.

But if it can be changed with normal appointments, I'd posit it could be changed for SC appointments.

It was just a precedent that even Reid wasn't willing to set. It's the red line of the Senate

 whembly wrote:

For sake of argument, how would you regulate this? "X" amount per name person and "X" amount per organization?

That's a good question, though the answer is obvious.

I would overturn Citizen's United, and overturn the McCutcheon decision.

 whembly wrote:

O.o

Obviously I was being facetious, but the fact of the matter is that the balance of The Court would need to swing left because any law passed by Congress which curtailed corporate rights (itself a herculean undertaking) would immediately face legal challenges, and subsequently end up on the SCOTUS docket; where a conservative Court would probably rule against it.

Also consider that Ginsburg is probably going to be the first to die, or retire, likely doing so under a Republican administration.