A Brief History…

UPDATE #2: Oh, and another thing. All men are created equal is not in the Constitution. It’s in the Declaration of Independence. No wonder we can’t see Obama’s grades from Harvard.

UPDATE: The White House attempted to defend Obama’s demagoguery and stepped in it again.

The State of the Union speech last night was weak, contradictory and filled with straw men. One moment was particularly bad. Obama’s one supposed accomplishment in a very thin resume was that he was an adjunct professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago School of Law. It gave him a certain panache among the professoriate, one of the bases of the Democratic Party. Why then did he use the most appalling bad manners to attack the US Supreme Court in front of six of its members who attended the speech ? He was wrong on the law, as well.

The Court held that 2 U.S.C. Section 441a, which prohibits all corporate political spending, is unconstitutional. Foreign nationals, specifically defined to include foreign corporations, are prohibiting from making “a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State or local election” under 2 U.S.C. Section 441e, which was not at issue in the case. Foreign corporations are also prohibited, under 2 U.S.C. 441e, from making any contribution or donation to any committee of any political party, and they prohibited from making any “expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication.”

Even Linda Greenhouse, the NY Times court reporter confirmed that he had the law wrong. She was formerly a supporter.

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election. It is true, though, that the majority wrote so broadly about corporate free speech rights as to call into question other limitations as well — although not necessarily the existing ban on direct contributions.

This was said by the only presidential candidate I am aware of who has ever disabled the credit card security functions of his campaign web site, ensuring that anyone, including foreign nationals, could donate to his campaign.

the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.

This statement is risible since many of the donations were from fictional figures like Mickey Mouse. Campaign fraud was rampant in the Obama campaign last year. And this is the man who insulted the US Supreme Court as they sat in front of Congress and millions of TV viewers. They won’t be back next year, I suspect. It was a sickening moment in an unpleasant evening.

Tags: Obama

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 8:32 am and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.