The US Supreme Court

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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by JimC » Thu Jul 08, 2021 5:06 am

...a California law requiring charitable organizations to disclose the identities of their major donors to the state attorney general’s office...
Why would this be a problem, unless the donor had reasons to hide?
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Thu Jul 08, 2021 6:03 am

JimC wrote:
Thu Jul 08, 2021 5:06 am
...a California law requiring charitable organizations to disclose the identities of their major donors to the state attorney general’s office...
Why would this be a problem, unless the donor had reasons to hide?
We may well speculate as to the true motivations of the plaintiffs, but their argument is:
[T]he compelled disclosure requirement violated their First Amendment rights and the rights of their donors. Disclosure of their Schedule Bs, [tax document listing names of major donors] the petitioners alleged, would make their donors less likely to contribute and would subject them to the risk of reprisals. Both organizations challenged the constitutionality of the disclosure requirement on its face and as applied to them.

[source]
Those un-named hypothetical vicious entities who will enact 'reprisals' on the innocent charitable organizations and their donors are carrying a lot of weight here. Even if we accept that hypothetical, it's not the government that would be interfering with the free speech of the plaintiffs, but private entities exercising their own constitutional free speech rights. What the right wing money machine 'Americans for Prosperity Foundation' is doing (with a strong assist from the US Supreme Court) is placing money as a form of free speech--a shit precedent, but in the books now--above actual free speech.

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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Svartalf » Thu Jul 08, 2021 2:44 pm

Given that the giving of money to organisations, charitable or otherwise, in in and of itself an expression of first amendment rights, it should be only correct to ensure that such expressions are made public. People have a vested interest in knowing where this or that outfit get their money.
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by JimC » Thu Jul 08, 2021 9:17 pm

Transparency is anathema to the big end of town...
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Svartalf » Thu Jul 08, 2021 11:57 pm

That's why the rich always have smoked class in their car windows.
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Fri Aug 27, 2021 3:10 am

More along the same lines. Fucking shithead senators Manchin and Sinema and those who hide behind them are likely to scuttle any voting rights bill that gets to the US Senate. Meanwhile the handily wrapped up 'conservative' majority on the US Supreme Court is busy making sure that the 'free speech rights' (read money) of corporations are given primacy over the voting rights of the citizens.

Libertarian dingleberrys should applaud this one. After all, freedom for corporations is what really matters. I'm not giving the future of democracy in the US very good odds right now. Also, more joy for the 'what democracy?' fucking anti-American bigots. May they choke on it.

'According to US Supreme Court, Right to Buy an Election More Protected Than Right to Vote in One'
Earlier this summer in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority held an Arizona election law did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act, because it discriminatorily abridged the voting rights of only a few thousand voters of color. Prior to Brnovich, in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom PAC v. Bennett, its Republican majority found Arizona’s campaign finance law did violate the First Amendment, because it enabled candidates relying on public campaign funding to spend as much on their campaigns as their privately financed opponents.

Taken together these cases show the Court’s Republican majority understands the right to purchase an election warrants considerably more protection than the right to vote in one, at least more than the right to vote of people of color.

...

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a five-member Republican majority, found the law violated the First Amendment rights of private campaign contributors and their candidates. Citing the court's prior fantastic holding in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, that campaign contributions are speech, Roberts observed that unrebutted speech often is more effective than rebutted speech, and that outspending one's opponent can make it possible for a candidate's speech to be unrebutted. Roberts reasoned that by allowing the publicly financed candidate to spend as much as the privately financed candidate, the law deprived privately financed candidates of the possibility of advantaging themselves by outspending the publicly financed candidate, and speaking without rebuttal. In so doing, Roberts explained, the law reduced the efficacy of their speech, which he declared to be a violation of the First Amendment.

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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by JimC » Fri Aug 27, 2021 3:48 am

The rule of the wealthy is propped up by a vast array of legal and political machinations and structures. They have the game sewn up...
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Scot Dutchy » Fri Aug 27, 2021 8:02 am

JimC wrote:
Fri Aug 27, 2021 3:48 am
The rule of the wealthy is propped up by a vast array of legal and political machinations and structures. They have the game sewn up...
Very much so Jim especially in America where charitable donations are only used for tax deductions and smoke screens.
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Svartalf » Fri Aug 27, 2021 9:53 am

L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Fri Aug 27, 2021 3:10 am
More along the same lines. Fucking shithead senators Manchin and Sinema and those who hide behind them are likely to scuttle any voting rights bill that gets to the US Senate. Meanwhile the handily wrapped up 'conservative' majority on the US Supreme Court is busy making sure that the 'free speech rights' (read money) of corporations are given primacy over the voting rights of the citizens.

Libertarian dingleberrys should applaud this one. After all, freedom for corporations is what really matters. I'm not giving the future of democracy in the US very good odds right now. Also, more joy for the 'what democracy?' fucking anti-American bigots. May they choke on it.

'According to US Supreme Court, Right to Buy an Election More Protected Than Right to Vote in One'
Earlier this summer in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican majority held an Arizona election law did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act, because it discriminatorily abridged the voting rights of only a few thousand voters of color. Prior to Brnovich, in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom PAC v. Bennett, its Republican majority found Arizona’s campaign finance law did violate the First Amendment, because it enabled candidates relying on public campaign funding to spend as much on their campaigns as their privately financed opponents.

Taken together these cases show the Court’s Republican majority understands the right to purchase an election warrants considerably more protection than the right to vote in one, at least more than the right to vote of people of color.

...

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a five-member Republican majority, found the law violated the First Amendment rights of private campaign contributors and their candidates. Citing the court's prior fantastic holding in the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo case, that campaign contributions are speech, Roberts observed that unrebutted speech often is more effective than rebutted speech, and that outspending one's opponent can make it possible for a candidate's speech to be unrebutted. Roberts reasoned that by allowing the publicly financed candidate to spend as much as the privately financed candidate, the law deprived privately financed candidates of the possibility of advantaging themselves by outspending the publicly financed candidate, and speaking without rebuttal. In so doing, Roberts explained, the law reduced the efficacy of their speech, which he declared to be a violation of the First Amendment.
Alright, so people of color can legally be deprived of their franchise. what's the fucking motivation for that?
Is there any way to get back at the SoBs who so abridge the rights of citizens, and even more so of citizens belonged to protected minority groups?
Are there any ways to send Eowyn and Merry at those Nazgûl who approve of such manifestly tyrannous legislation?
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by L'Emmerdeur » Fri Aug 27, 2021 2:47 pm

US Supreme Court justices have life tenure. The option available to change the current domination by 'conservatives'* is to expand the court, but I think there is practically no chance of that happening.

* I put conservative in scare quotes because they've shown time and again that they only make a point of their supposedly conservative principles when it's convenient for their particular agenda, and will readily overturn precedent when that's the convenient route to getting their way.

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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Aug 27, 2021 3:50 pm

If your going to buy a judge them the least you can expect is a favourable hearing.
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Svartalf » Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:00 am

L'Emmerdeur wrote:
Fri Aug 27, 2021 2:47 pm
US Supreme Court justices have life tenure. The option available to change the current domination by 'conservatives'* is to expand the court, but I think there is practically no chance of that happening.

* I put conservative in scare quotes because they've shown time and again that they only make a point of their supposedly conservative principles when it's convenient for their particular agenda, and will readily overturn precedent when that's the convenient route to getting their way.
If the Nazgûl can't be deprived of the powers of their Rings, then it's time to reinstate the Jackson doctrine, I guess...

And I don't get your thing about "conservative" supposedly not being compatible with readiness to overturn inconvenient precedent. I thought the GOP had manoeuvered to get them in place precisely so they could have opportunity to reverse precedents they don't like. I'm actually surprised they've not nullified Roe vs Wade already...
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Brian Peacock » Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:41 am

Sometimes they'll overturn, sometimes they'll reinstate, because, as Tero might say, "Guns, babies, and Jesus" ( but we know it's actually because, "Power, money, and race" ).
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Tero » Mon Aug 30, 2021 9:38 pm

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Re: The US Supreme Court

Post by Scot Dutchy » Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:55 pm

Power.
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