Clinton re-oriented to take in 5x the funds in wake of Citizens United

Podesta: "So much money on the table."

Clinton re-oriented to take in 5x the funds in wake of Citizens United: https://t.co/pOS0lq9KGj pic.twitter.com/06DTsTrUrw

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 2, 2016

Progressives Getting Super Angry About Hillary's Super PAC Hypocrisy

Progressives Getting Super Angry About Hillary's Super PAC Hypocrisy http://t.co/xXqIj5FWyU

— Andrew Malcolm (@AHMalcolm) May 18, 2015

At a meeting with financial supporters last week presumptive Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton vowed to only put forth Supreme Court nominees who are committed to overturning the 2010 Citizens United ruling. Despite that pledge Ms Clinton has decided to personally raise money for a super PAC supporting her campaign, a move that is bringing criticism from the left who see the move as further proof that former Secretary of State doesn't their progressive values.

Ironically the Citizens United case which opened the political funding floodgates was created by a Hillary2008 campaign objection to commercials for anti-Hillary movie to air on Direct-TV in 2008.

According to CNN, "liberal activists determined to use the Democratic primary to pressure Clinton to embrace a progressive agenda say the idea of the former secretary of state personally wooing the wealthiest class of donors runs counter to the populist rhetoric she's employed this year

The most amazing thing about this article is zero mention that Citizens United was about Hillary The Movie.

The most amazing thing about this article is zero mention that Citizens United was about Hillary The Movie. http://t.co/Rmssu67Evj

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) May 15, 2015

SOUTH CAROLINA FREEDOM SUMMIT!

Citizens United and Congressman Jeff Duncan are teaming up to bring grassroots activists from across South Carolina and the surrounding area to hear directly from national conservative leaders at the South Carolina Freedom Summit on Saturday, May 9, 2015. With the critically important South Carolina Primary less than a year away, the Summit (is) a launch point for conservative ideas as we head towards 2016.

TED CRUZ:


MARCO RUBIO:


SCOTT WALKER:


DONALD TRUMP:

Perry, Cruz Make Their Mark at S.C. Forum for Presidential Contenders: GREENVILLE, S.C. – William… http://t.co/mCUGammTkQ | @texastribune

— Austin Daily News (@austindailynews) May 9, 2015

.@GovernorPerry: "I told the President last summer, if you won't protect the border, Texas will!" Standing ovation at #SCSummit #tcot

— Citizens United (@Citizens_United) May 9, 2015

This year’s Republican presidential campaign is unique, not only in how wide open the race is but also because of the wealth of choices for voters from the party’s different wings or factions.

◼ GOP presidential candidates face delicate balancing act

Establishment Republicans, who long have been dominant in the nomination process, may be able to pick from Romney, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

The most conservative party activists, who believe it is time for the GOP to nominate someone who is a true believer, could have even more choices. That group includes the two most recent winners of the Iowa caucuses — former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee — as well as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and doctor Ben Carson.

Add in four others who could fit somewhere in between — Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Texas governor Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — plus other dark-horse candidates struggling to gain some attention and the jockeying is likely to become ferocious, raising the stakes on finding ways to stand out in the crowd....

The Iowa Freedom Summit, co-sponsored by Citizens United, drew nearly two dozen speakers — more than half a dozen of them now thinking seriously about running for the nomination — and a huge throng from the media, with an estimated 200 requesting credentials. Missing, however, were Bush, Romney, Rubio, Paul and Jindal.

◼ #iafreedomsummit: Ted Cruz
◼ #iafreedomsummit: Rick Perry
◼ #iafreedomsummit: Scott Walker
◼ #iafreedomsummit: Chris Christie
◼ Ben Carson
◼ #iafreedomsummit: Carly Fiorina
◼ Mike Huckabee
◼ Rick Santorum
◼ Sarah Palin
◼ Donald Trump
◼ #iafreedomsummit: Newt Gingrich
◼ #iafreedomsummit: Jim DeMint
◼ Steve King
The Iowa contingent: Both of Iowa's U.S. senators, 34-year veteran Chuck Grassley and newly sworn-in Joni Ernst, will speak, as will Gov. Terry Branstad, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds and Rod Blum, the newly elected congressman in the 1st District, in eastern Iowa.

◼ Prominent speakers at the Iowa Freedom Summit - Des Moines Register

The free event (was) at capacity, and a waiting list for admission topped 800 names. Event organizers said all 23 speakers (were allotted) equal time to speak: 20 minutes. The order ...determined by the speakers' schedules and when they'll be arriving and departing Des Moines.

Senate GOP Blocks Harry Reid's Silent Coup

◼ Senate Republicans pumped their muscle in the upper chamber today by managing to block a constitutional amendment on campaign spending. - Breitbart

The purpose of the amendment would have reversed the Supreme Court's Citizen's United Ruling. Democrats needed 60 votes to conclude debate on the measure, but failed to do so. In addition, a constitutional amendment needs 67 votes to pass the Senate. The measure failed 54-42 with members voting along party lines.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the amendment would have altered the Bill of Rights and prevented free speech.

“It should worry everyone that there are 54 Senators who think that less free speech is better. Our government is stronger when more citizens participate in the electoral process. That includes exercising the right of political free speech and exercising the right to vote. Free speech creates a marketplace of ideas and fosters participatory democracy, allowing an educated citizenry to cast votes to elect its leaders,” Grassley said in a statement....

The amendment, proposed by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), would have permitted the federal government and the states to regulate and limit fundraising and spending on federal candidates. Sen Ted Cruz (R - TX) blasted the amendment saying Saturday Night Live's Lorne Michaels would be jailed under the amendment's regulations.

“Congress would have the power to make it a criminal offense; Lorne Michaels could be put in jail under this amendment for making fun of any politician. That is extraordinary. It is breathtaking, and it is dangerous,” the Texas Republican said on the Senate floor on Tuesday.

“Citizens United was one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court,” Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) said floor Tuesday. “It was a disaster.”

The 2010 Citizens United decision struck down restrictions banning corporations and unions from spending money from their general treasury funds to support or oppose candidates. The court's McCutcheon decision struck down aggregate limits on individual contributions to candidates.

◼ Silent Coup: Harry Reid’s plan to hand America to liberal billionaires - Matthew Continetti/Washington Free Beacon

Writing in June that the nonprofit “strongly opposes” the so-called Udall amendment, the ACLU’s Laura Murphy and Gabriel Rottman called the Democratic proposal “deceptively complex,” “unnecessary,” “redundant of existing law,” “dangerous for liberties,” “vague,” “overbroad,” “exceedingly dangerous to democratic processes,” and “the first time the amendatory process has been used to directly limit specifically enumerated rights and freedoms.” Reid’s baby, the ACLU said, would “‘break’ the Constitution” by “amending the First Amendment.”

Two levels of government would be permitted “to criminalize and censor all issue advocacy that mentions or refers to a candidate under the argument that it supports or opposes that candidate.” Recall that Citizens United, which the Udall amendment is supposed to address, was not about Tea Party Astroturf. It was about the FEC’s attempt to censor a film critical of her royal highness.

The mandarins at the FEC and IRS, as well as their counterparts at the state level, would be responsible for distinguishing political communications that “support or oppose” a candidate from those that do not. They would penalize the individuals and groups they subjectively deem violators of administrative diktat. If this is not about “limiting free speech,” what is?

I am not speaking abstractly. Want an image of a post-Udall world? Think Lois Lerner on Spring Break—after a bottle of tequila.....

What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week, when the Udall amendment failed a cloture vote, when 54 Democrats voted to refashion the First Amendment to serve the interests of incumbency and power, was not a noble cause. It was not good government. It was not an example of altruistic intentions stifled by Wall Street.

What we saw in Harry Reid’s Senate this week was an attempt by the ascendant part of the elite, the part that makes its living from abstraction, to vanquish the declining part, the part that makes its living from extraction. And this sorry excuse for a legislative week did more than reveal, in real time, the structure and nature of class struggle in America today. It also occasioned a sentence I never thought I would write. If only Harry Reid listened to the ACLU.

◼ Harry Reid is mad that Republicans didn't obstruct his bill - Ashe Schow/Washington Examiner

After Monday's bipartisan 79-18 vote, Reid vented to reporters that Republicans were trying to "stall" the Senate, indicating that he never intended for the campaign finance amendment by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., to go to a real floor debate.

Politico reporter Burgess Everett writes that many Republicans voted to advance the amendment Monday in order “to foul up Democrats’ pre-election messaging schedule, freezing precious Senate floor time for a measure that ultimately has no chance of securing the two-thirds support necessary in both the House and Senate to amend the Constitution.”

The move not only guarantees a lengthy debate over Democratic efforts to limit the First Amendment, but it also limits the amount of time left for debates over other doomed measures on gender pay equality and the minimum wage, which were intended to frame the coming elections for Democrats as they defend their Senate majority.

California lawmakers vote to support overturning Citizens United

◼ California lawmakers waded into the ongoing battle over corporate money in politics Thursday with a resolution that supports overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case, which has led to a flood of money from deep-pocketed donors in this year's presidential race. - Timeds-Standard

The Assembly passed the resolution on a 48-22 vote. It rejects the notion of corporate personhood and calls on Congress to pursue a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 decision saying corporations can spend unlimited sums to influence elections.

Democrats said the resolution is an important first step toward overturning the ruling that granted “personhood” rights to corporations, which they say has made it harder for ordinary citizens to have a voice in the political process.

...Opponents of the ruling are pursuing a ballot initiative that would reject the notion of corporate personhood in California. Proponents of the “Corporations Are Not People Act” could not be reached for comment.

In the northern California town of Arcata, residents are gathering signatures for a symbolic “Corps Ain't Peeps” initiative.