OMNI NEWSLETTER
ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE, CITIZENS UNITED & CORPORATE PERSONHOOD
Number 6
January 21, 2014.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for
a Culture of Peace, Justice, and
Ecology.
(Previous Newsletters on this subject: #1 11-2-11; #2
12-9-11; #3 1-2-12; #4 8-4-12; #5 9-23-12).
Here is
the link to all OMNI newsletters:
such as Campaign
Finance, Capitalism, Corporations, Democracy, Occupy.
.
Here is
the link to the Index:
CONTENTS PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS:
Contents of #4 2012
Staggenborg, Pledge to Amend
Amendment Fundamental
Congressional Amendment Process
Progressive for
Constitutional
Amendment
Momentum Building
Pledge to Amend
Move to Amend: Change More than Symptoms
Public Citizen for Amendment
Contents #5 2012
Moyers and Co. Two Programs on Citizens United
Moyers and Co. Sept. 23, 2012
Jimmy Carter Denounces Citizens United
ACLU Members Differ over CU
Fang, Super-Pacs Buying Election
Fang, Corporations Buying the Election
Abramsky vs Chamber of Commerce
Contents Current Newsletter #6
Corporate Personhood/Citizens
United 2014
Municipal Opposition in Arkansas
Faux: Pessimism, Must Overturn
Citizens United
Chomsky: Distorts the
Political System
Kucinich for Public Citizen
Propaganda Film
Sherrod Brown, Petition
Public Citizen,
Constitutional Amendment to Overturn
Google Search
From Ark
Times/blog: January 2013
Jennifer Pierce reports that the Conway
City Council voted
7-0 tonight in favor of a resolution that says corporations are not people.
This is part of a national movement to amend the Constitution if necessary to
overturn the Citizens United ruling in favor of corporate
personhood.
Conway joins Eureka
Springs, Fayetteville, North
Little Rock and Pine Bluff in adopting this resolution.
Little Rock?
Little Rock loves corporations, particularly the
corporate personage of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce which gets direct financial subsidies
from the city and holds critical power in shaping city decisions that grimy
little citizen people can only dream of. Oppose corporate personhood? Not this
bunch. Check the campaign contributions of the
at-large directors who cast the
swing votes on major issues. Corporate Arkansas
is their middle name.
The Servant Economy: Where America's
Elite is Sending the Middle Class. Jeff Faux. Wiley, 2012.
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Renowned economist Jeff Faux explains
why neither party's leaders have a plan to remedy America's unemployment, inequality,
or long economic slide
America's political
and economic elite spent so long making such terrible decisions that they
caused the collapse of 2008. So how can they continue down the same road? The
simple answer, that no one in charge wants to publicly acknowledge: because
things are still pretty great for the people who run America. It was an accident of
history, Jeff Faux explains, that after World War II the U.S. could afford a prosperous
middle class, a dominant military, and a booming economic elite at the same
time. For the past three decades, all three have been competing, with the
middle class always losing. Soon the military will decline as well.
- The most plausible
projections Faux explores foresee a future economy nearly devoid of
production and exports, with the most profitable industries existing solely to serve the wealthiest 1%
- The author's last book, The Global Class
War, sold over 20,000 copies by correctly predicting the permanent
decline of our debt-burdened middle class at the hands of our off-shoring
executives, out of control financiers, and their friends in Washington
- Since his last book,
Faux is repeatedly asked what either party will do to face these mounting
crises. After looking over actual policies, proposed plans, non-partisan
reports, and think tank papers, his astonishing conclusion: more of the
same.
NOAM CHOMSKY, POWER SYSTEMS
“Citizens United opens the way for
massive contributionns that distort the political system. But this is something that’s been going on
for a long time. So we’re talking aboiut
an expansionn of something that shouldn’t have happened in the first
place.” P.175 of Power Systems. See pp. 174-5
for his fuller statement.
Kucinich’s Praise
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Dick,
If it weren’t for everything Public Citizen has done for the past 42 years
and counting, the cloud of corporate greed looming over so much of our lives
may by now have cast all of America
under a permanent shadow.
During my 16 years of service in the U.S. House of Representatives, I
saw over and over again just how vital Public Citizen is to defending health
and safety, consumer rights, and our very democracy from Big Business and its
many puppets in politics.
Public Citizen does the hard work behind the scenes that helps get good laws
passed and bad bills stopped.
I really don’t know another organization that more skillfully and effectively
counteracts the vastly better funded legions of corporate lobbyists that
infest the halls of Congress day in and day out.
And — most significantly at this moment — nobody is doing more than Public
Citizen to fight the U.S. Supreme Court’s stupid and stupefying decision in
the Citizens United case.
It’s largely owing to Public Citizen that the movement to overturn Citizens United — and its evil twin McCutcheon v. FEC if it goes badly too — with a
constitutional amendment has taken root so deeply and so quickly.
In this season of giving, I hope you will join me in making as generous a
contribution to Public Citizen as you can.
Public Citizen can’t win without help from engaged Americans like you.
Please donate to Public Citizen
today.
You have my thanks.
Sincerely,
Dennis Kucinich
U.S.
House of Representatives, 1997 to 2013
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Citizens United's propaganda
unleashed
Overturning
Citizens United [alerts@pfaw.org]
Actions To: James R. Bennett Wednesday, August 14, 2013 1:48 PM
Supreme
Court's 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC overturned a century of
established law by declaring limits on corporate election spending
unconstitutional. Help us restore Government By the People, NOT the
corporations.
VIEW AS WEB PAGE | TELL A FRIEND | SUBSCRIBE
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Dick,
How’s this for a sneaky
way for a big money special interest group to influence an election?
Citizens United, the
organization at the center of the infamous 2010 Supreme Court decision, has
produced a 30-minute “documentary” on Virginia Democratic gubernatorial
candidate Terry McAuliffe which it’s licensed to air on three broadcast
stations in Virginia starting this month.
The film is nothing more
than smear propaganda, tantamount to a half-hour campaign ad for the
Republican in the race, ultra-right-wing Ken Cuccinelli … and one more
example of the dangerous proliferation of unlimited outside spending to
influence elections.
Worst of all, even if they
wanted to, Virginia lawmakers are powerless to restrict this kind of
disguised, sneaky political ad campaign because of the Supreme Court's
decision in Citizens
United v. FEC -- a
decision that bears the very name of the right-wing front group in question
here.
For this reason and
many more, we MUST amend the Constitution to overturn Citizens Unitedand the
other court decisions that have removed all restraints from special
interest spending to influence elections.
Help us get the
money out and restore government by the People.
Thank you for everything
you do to help put the power in our democracy back where it belongs with
the voters.
n Ben Betz, Online Strategy
Manager
Petition: Four years of Citizens
United is enough
Sherrod Brown info@sherrodbrown.com via uark.edu
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8:47 AM (50 minutes ago)
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Dear
Dick,
As of the 21st, Citizens United has reached it’s “fruit &
flowers” anniversary -- four years of degrading our electoral process, one
attack ad at a time.
Super PACs and special interest groups spend millions of dollars to
influence elections. We often don’t know where they get the money. We don’t
know what their true motivation is. Yet they spend enough cash to put their
agenda front and center, while middle class families in Ohio -- the ones that don’t have a
million dollars to spend on campaigns -- get drowned out.
I bet Karl Rove and the Koch brothers are celebrating today. You could have
bought a sports team -- or maybe a small tropical island -- with the amount
of money their affiliated groups spent on the last election. But we’re going to use today to reaffirm our commitment to stand
against Citizens United.
On this anniversary, I'm teaming up with some of my colleagues to gather
400,000 signatures on our petition to end the effects of Citizens
United. Join us -- sign the petition right
now.
In America,
elections are determined by the people. Corporations and special interest
groups don’t vote. And they shouldn’t get to collect cash from undisclosed
donors, and spend it virtually without limit or oversight, to influence
those who do.
Every year Citizens United is in effect, our democracy
suffers just a little more. The spending will get worse. And if we are ever
going to bring back some transparency and accountability to our electoral
process, we need to make sure our opposition to Citizens
United continues to grow.
Help me and my colleagues reach
400,000 strong standing against Citizens United. Sign our petition today.
Thank you for all of your support.
Sherrod
Paid
for by Friends of Sherrod Brown
Contributions or gifts to Friends of
Sherrod Brown are not tax deductible.
Citizens United: Four years ago today
Robert Weissman, Public 1-21-14 Citizen robert@citizen.org via uark.edu
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Dick,
Four years ago today,
my staff and I were glued to our computers, awaiting the Supreme Court’s
ruling inCitizens United.
Maybe you were too.
What’s happened since — see my earlier note below — really is amazing.
We can be proud that Public Citizen recognized the potential impact of Citizens United so early and that we were part of
the legal team that worked on the case.
We can be proud that we spearheaded the movement for a constitutional
amendment to overturn Citizens
United, which we launched with our allies within moments of the court
issuing that fateful ruling.
And we can be proud of all the work — signing petitions, emailing members
of Congress, hosting organizing parties and rallies, passing state and
local resolutions, and so much more — that Public Citizen supporters like
you have done.
In just four years, you and Public Citizen have helped make a
constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United a real possibility.
Of course, as the saying goes, we’ve only just begun.
Can I count on you to chip in
$5 or more right now so that we don’t lose any of the momentum we’ve
generated in our fight against Citizens
United?
Thank you!
Robert
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Dick,
I’ve been thinking about what to get you for our anniversary.
The fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s abysmal Citizens United ruling, that is — which is this
Tuesday, January 21 — and the beginning of our work to overturn it.
Traditionally, fourth anniversaries are commemorated with gifts of
flowers/fruit or linen/silk.
Modern advisors about such things also suggest appliances.
So I considered sending you a pineapple with a bow on it stuffed
inside a toaster oven.
But that just didn’t seem practical.
Instead, I’m giving you an update on our nationwide campaign to
mitigate the anti-democratic and pro-plutocracy effects of Citizens United and to ultimately pass a
constitutional amendment overturning it.
Some impressive data to start with:
· This time last year — as a result of grassroots
organizing driven by Public Citizen and our allies — 11 states had
formally called for an amendment.
· We’ve added five more states in the past year,
for a total of 16.
· We are mobilizing in 13 more: Alaska,
Arkansas, Georgia,
Iowa, Kentucky,
Minnesota, Nevada,
New Hampshire, New
York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas
and Washington.
· We’ll soon have fully half the number of states
needed to eventually ratify an amendment.
· A year ago, some 350 cities, towns and
communities throughout the nation had passed amendment resolutions.
· Now that number is more than 500.
· As of the third anniversary of Citizens United, just
over 100 members of Congress were on record supporting an amendment.
· That count is approaching 150 today.
· The popular amendment introduced in Congress by
Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Ted Deutch is named after our
Democracy Is For People campaign.
That’s a sampling of
the good news.
But of course the fight is far from over.
The Citizens United ruling is one of the worst
Supreme Court decisions of our time and one of the gravest threats our
democracy has ever faced.
The midterm elections later this year will see record-setting spending by
billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers, corporate giants
like Exxon Mobil and Bank of America, and dark money conduits like Karl
Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Let me remind you what that means in practical terms with a few examples:
· The Koch Brothers are the sixth and seventh
richest people on the planet, with a combined net worth of $72 billion.
They are spending hundreds of millions — amazingly, a mere pittance to
them — backing Tea Party, climate-science denying, “free market”
candidates for office around the country. By the way, they were
collectively worth $35 billion four years ago. In other words, they’ve
more than doubled their wealth sinceCitizens United.
· Meanwhile, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson
(“only” the 15th wealthiest person on earth) spent more than $100 million
on elections in 2012, and he’s bragged that he’ll double that in 2016. If
you think he’s bluffing, consider that he made $41 million A DAY last
year.
· Then there’s Karl Rove, the Typhoid Mary behind
the plague of dark money infecting our democracy. Rove’s Crossroads GPS
is the top “social welfare” organization exploiting theCitizens United ruling, along with lax FEC and
IRS enforcement, to radically distort elections for the benefit of the
far right corporate elite.
· And as for Exxon Mobil, the world’s most
profitable corporation raked in profits every 3 hours in 2012 equal to
what it cost to run Public Citizen for that entire year.
Citizens United enables billionaires and Big Business to make a
mockery of the principle of “one person, one vote” that is at the core of
our democracy and our national identity.
Their dark money will dominate the electoral landscape this fall and
flood the airwaves with an unprecedented barrage of negative ads.
And right around the corner — the Supreme Court could announce a
decision any day — is a ruling in a case that could amount to a sequel to Citizens United.
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission was conceived in early 2012
inside an upscale Washington,
D.C., hotel during the
“Ronald Reagan Banquet” at the annual Conservative Political Action
Conference.
If it rules badly in McCutcheon,
as it did in Citizens
United, the Supreme Court could essentially eliminate meaningful
limits on election spending by individuals, allowing someone to directly
ante up as much as $5.9 million per election cycle to a single party and
its candidates.
Public Citizen submitted an amicus brief in the case, and we will elevate
our constitutional amendment push to another level if the Supreme Court
uses McCutcheon to double down on itsCitizens
United debacle.
We’re fighting Citizens
United on many fronts.
Public Citizen has led a two-year, multi-organizational effort urging the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require publicly held
corporations to disclose their political spending.
The current lack of disclosure means that the public — and even a
corporation’s own shareholders — are kept in the dark when executives
funnel corporate money into partisan political attack machines operated
by the likes of Karl Rove and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
That we’re doing the right thing on this issue was confirmed last year when
Representative Darrell Issa — the richest person in Congress, with an
estimated net worth of up to $451 million — commissioned a special report
that singles us out for our work on it.
Winning this commonsense and popular rule at the SEC is the most important
step we can take in the short term — while we keep making progress toward
a constitutional amendment — to counteract Citizens United.
As former Congressman Dennis Kucinich wrote a few weeks ago:
Nobody is doing more than Public Citizen to fight the U.S.
Supreme Court’s stupid and stupefying decision in the Citizens United case. It’s largely
owing to Public Citizen that the movement to overturn Citizens United — and its evil twin McCutcheon v. FEC if it goes badly too —
with a constitutional amendment has taken root so deeply and so quickly.
Four years ago, a lot of people laughed off the notion of a
constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens
United.
It’s impossible, they thought.
Well, as you know, Public Citizen is not dissuaded by “impossible.”
Time and again throughout our 43 years, we have accomplished what others
— even other progressive organizations — considered impossible.
I’ll grant that it’s not easy. Amending the Constitution should not be
easy.
But in just four years, we’ve brought what many deemed a pipe dream into
the mainstream.
People know what Citizens
United is. They know
it’s rotting our democracy from the inside out. They know it has to be
overturned. And from every corner of America, from all walks of
life, they are joining this historic campaign.
As the inauspicious
anniversary of Citizens
United approaches, help
keep this once-in-a-generation movement strong by donating to Public
Citizen right now.
It is an honor for me to work with committed Public Citizen supporters
like you as we stand united against the corporate and plutocratic powers
that seek to dismantle the progress that is the hallmark of the society
we’ve made together.
Thank you for your support.
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 Onward,
Robert Weissman
President, Public Citizen
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© 2014 Public Citizen • 1600 20th Street, NW / Washington, D.C.
20009
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GOOGLE SEARCH, OPPOSITION
TO CITIZENS UNITED, CORPORATE PERSONHOOD, Jan. 21, 2014, first page
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission
The Citizens United decision did not disturb
prohibitions on corporate ... state law that
prohibited corporations from using treasury money to support or oppose ...... the Constitution to
abolish corporate personhood, thus stripping
corporations of ...
reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-personhood/
A clear introduction to Corporate Personhood, the legal doctrine
which gives ... “rights,” (published
nearly a decade before the Citizens United v FEC ruling). .... we're aware of to
officially oppose corporate
personhood — a tactic that lends itself ...
reclaimdemocracy.org/who-are-citizens-united/
As a result, Citizens United has greatly affected the
way corporations and unions ... We oppose the Citizens United decision, for the
following reasons:... influence is the legal concept of “corporate personhood,” wherein corporations
receive ...
www.truth-out.org/...citizens-united...corporate-personhood/132649716...
Jan 17, 2012 - Fast Track Opponents Predict More Lost Jobs,
Higher Trade Deficit; ...The Problem With Citizens United Is Not Corporate Personhood ... In an opinion piece
critical of the decision in Citizens United, Senator Sanders
wrote:.
Browse Corporate Personhood latest news and updates,
watch videos and view all ...In Citizens United , the court struck .....
spending limits for corporations and ...opposed to Citizens
United , which involved ..... expenditures by corporations .
www.united4thepeople.org/local.html
034-51, the Corporate Personhood Resolution, declaring
corporate ..... 2012 by State
Representative Stephanie Benfield, opposed Citizens
United and ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../citizens-united-constitutional-amendment_n...
Jun 19, 2013 - But the concept of corporate personhood -- which Tester's ... 62 percent of Americans
said they opposed the Citizens United ruling, and eight in ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../citizens-united-chicago_n_1695065.html
Jul 23, 2012 - ... Joe Moore Introducing
Resolution Targeting Corporate Personhood ...The resolution [PDF]
states that the Citizens United ruling -- as well as its ... Paul Stevens' dissenting Citizens United opinion -- that
corporations ... non-binding proposal
that would make opposition to the ruling an
official city policy.
Jan 21, 2011 - Poll after poll has
shown that Americans oppose Citizens
United by about 4 ... Widespread belief in the
need to keep corporations out of politics ...
www.pjcvt.org/what-we-do/give-the.../end-corporate-personhood/
Citizens United is an organization that
accepted corporate funding to produce ... either reverse Citizens United or oppose the concept of corporate personhood.
END CORPORATE PERSONHOOD/CITIZENS UNITED NEWSLETTER #6
