He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side, pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907.

“Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation,” Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. “Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them.”

It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as “some sort of beatific action.”

Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.

Thomas hit Obama back on two fronts. Firstly, black man to black man, Thomas reminded Obama of the odious and racial origins of the regulation of corporate speech. But he also took aim at a liberal’s favorite constitutional interpretative tool: legislative intent. The intent of this law was pernicious. How could you, President Obama, as a liberal and a black man, defend such a thing? Thomas has rightly called the President out on this issue. It’ll be a hard charge to rebut.

And since we haven’t yet touched this case over here, the furor over Citizens United seems odd. Thomas hit it well when he said:

“I found it fascinating that the people who were editorializing against it were The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company,” Justice Thomas said. “These are corporations.”

Indeed. The obsession has been over this idea that corporations while legally persons are not truly persons. Wait. Why does that matter, at all? Look at the text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The amendment is very clear that negative prohibition on Congress is to protect these general classes of liberty: religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. As far as I know, the amendment is frequently applied in its other areas both to individuals and to corporate forms. Are not churches freedom of religion rights protected? Does not the NY Times get protection under freedom of the press? Doesn’t even the KKK have their associational rights defended in our courts? To somehow now bring up the canard of corporate speech is really to be ignorant of the basic text of the 1st amendment. After all, a corporation is nothing more than a vehicle, a means for people to organize. Why shouldn’t the people in the corporation and acting through the corporation get the same fundamental protections awarded to other corporate activities under the 1st Amendment?

Look, I’m worried about multi-national corporations and “big corporations” having undue influence. But campaign finance regulation is like trying to control water flowing downhill. Somehow, someway, the money like the water always finds a way through to the place it’s trying to get to. The Framers had a very simple solution to keeping money out of government: keep the government minimal. The less things the government can actually do, the less incentive people will have to attempt to monopolize its powers.

I guess we have both the President and the good Justice for bringing this argument into the public square. Let’s hope it ends with a reasonable and constitutional solution. Or perhaps Obama can just invite Thomas over for a beer. You know. To talk things over. Smooth out any misunderstanding. Let me be clear…

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton missed President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address to attend a conference in London, but she was not the only absentee Cabinet member.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan was designated by the White House to ride out the speech in an undisclosed location as a precaution against the possibility of a catastrophe wiping out the rest of the government leadership.

One positive about this plan is that when the Humanoid Underground Dwellers emerge from the smoking pits, we’ll have HUD vs. HUD for control of the post-apocalypse world.

JAKARTA — Indonesian authorities said Monday they are considering a petition to tear down a statue of US President Barack Obama as a boy, only a month after the bronze was unveiled in Jakarta.

The statue of “Little Barry” — as Obama was known when he lived in the capital in the late 1960s — stands in central Jakarta’s Menteng Park, a short walk from the US president’s former elementary school.

HT Drudge, of course.

]]> http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/14037/feed 1 http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/13914 http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/13914#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:48:13 +0000 Alberto Hurtado http://www.southernappeal.org/?p=13914 We’re approaching the “one year” anniversary of President Obama’s first year in office. We should all congratulate him for the growth he has helped this country achieve in his first year in office:

• A larger unemployment and underemployment rate
• Greater government spending
• Increased government ownership of private entities
• More debt than before
• An increase of military entanglements abroad
• Two terrorist attacks on American soil/airspace

As President Obama said last week, “the buck stops with me.” This is his presidency. “Cash for A Clunker” could be the title for the book of Obama’s first year in office.

Basically, the Democrat Senate Majority Leader has shot off his idiot mouth once again. Harry Reid’s subtext was actually if Obama had been too “black,” America never would have elected him.

But Commenter “Jay” agreed on the face of it, that

It surely IS true that Obama would have had a much harder time getting elected if he spoke stereotypical Ebonics, just as a white candidate who sounded like he’d come straight from a trailer park…would lose votes on that account.

as did Commenter BSK, who noted that

Obama’s looks and diction may have played a role in his presidency (something true of all candidates)…

And that should be like, duh? to any denizen of the 21st century. If you can’t articulate the English language at least as well as the twits who read the 11 O’Clock News, you can’t be president.

OK, OK, George W, Bush couldn’t quite talk that talk and Sarah Palin could, but let’s move on, and also past Barack Obama’s relative “light-skinnedness,” which actually cuts both ways.

Because there’s a far more serious issue at hand here.

Reid’s use of “Negro” is unfortunate in this day and age, but I’m a generation younger, and I remember MAD Magazine referring to the “TV Negro,” who looked black but sounded like he went to Harvard.

Which—or who—Barack Obama is.

And there’s a PC flap right now over the 2010 US census, that in addition to self-identifications of “race,” “Negro” was kept in, as well as “Black” or “African American,” since some folks from Harry Reid’s generation prefer “Negro.”

But little of this, the word “Negro,” has anything to do with what’s important.

GOPers have some room for a righteous whine here, but not much: Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond

“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have all these problems over all these years, either.”

was substantive, not just a comment on Barack Obama’s cosmetic appeal.

Yes, it was rhetorical carelessness on Lott’s part. His retraction:

“My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life.”

Yeah, yeah. But it went far deeper than that. When Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948, he was deeply committed to segregation and opposed to anti-lynching laws.

So the Republican Party can enjoy a “gotcha” moment on Democrat Harry Reid and on the press giving him a relatively free ride for violating political correctness.

But it’s a hollow victory, and indeed not a victory atall. Harry Reid mouthed some thoughtless words, but Trent Lott thoughtlessly gave voice to an abominable idea, that Strom Thurmond should ever have been elected president in 1948.

All stupidities are not created equal. Sadly, it’s just more evidence that when it comes to race, today’s GOP still doesn’t get it. Yes, Republican Ike sent in the troops to Little Rock to enforce desegration of our schools. And Sen. Everett Dirksen swung the day in 1964 to win passage of the Civil Rights Act.

But in 2009, The Party of Lincoln has few other laurels to rest on. It can’t even tell the difference between Reid’s stupidity and Lott’s. This has simply got to change.

You gotta walk the walk, but as a politician, you also have to talk the talk. When you speak an alien language like Trent Lott did that night, that Strom Thurmond should ever have been our president, even in loose party talk, you’re not speaking American atall.

The first week of every COP meeting consists of posturing, speeches, protests, and NGO reports. Everything of significance to the treaty is announced late in the meetings, often on the last day, after a flurry of last-minute negotiations. Coming to Copenhagen at the climax of the talks, specifically to push negotiations “over the top,” as the White House statement says, is a risky move for Obama. He’s got skin in the game now; he’ll look foolish if he rides in at the last minute and fails to broker an agreement.

Well, it worked so well with the Olympic bid…

Much as I will enjoy the spectacle of another colossal public failure by Obama, it will unfortunately involve another public humiliation for the United States.  The man (or his advisors) simply doesn’t understand that you do not put the prestige of the office on the line unless you are certain of the outcome.

Btw, Planet Gore is a great place to sit back, mix a toddy, and enjoy the continuing fallout from Climategate.

Fred Thompson recently got some heat for suggesting that the war was lost, but his point was simply that the way in which we were fighting the war was leading us to defeat.  I agreed with that assessment, and I would much prefer our troops be withdrawn completely rather than be left to fight a war when they are not given the full resources to win the war.  It is unconscionable to allow our troops to keep fighting a war when we are not fully committed to victory.  Sadly, I do not sense that our President is so committed.  With regards to war, we must be all in our all out – half measures are the surest means to defeat.

That being said, I believe that the brave men and women who are fighting in Afghanistan will no doubt give it their all, and that whatever resources they are given, they will make the most of.  If we are ultimately unsuccessful in Afghanistan, it will not be their fault.