Guest Post: Citizens United Case

Guest Post by Thad Guyer

Peter Sage:   Thad Guyer, a litigator specializing in employee whistleblower cases looks closely at what messages are persuasive to judges and juries.  In today's guest post he describes how the Citizens United 5-4 decision in the Supreme Court changed American politics. The majority opinion included a prediction that unlimited corporate and special interest money would not create an appearance of corruption or undue influence.   In fact, the influence of money is a key component of the campaigns of the two candidates who are totally disrupting the 2016 election.   

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Here is Thad Guyer's Comment:

Trump and Sanders Awaken Americans to Corrupt Party Establishments Fueled by Dirty “Citizens United” Money

The so-called “swing justice”, Anthony Kennedy, and his four Republican cohorts, get to behold in real time the legacy of their judicial love child, “Citizens United”. Scalia lived just long enough to see the evil spawn publicly scorned as a crook and criminal. The conservative cabal in the Supreme Court is now treated to frenetic and sneering ridicule for having splashed corrosive acid in the faces of the Republican and Democratic parties. 

The party elites were supposed to benefit from the merger of “big money” and “corporate speech”. But the Justices were able to delude only themselves with these words: 
“This Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.”

Pool at Hunting Lodge where Scalia died

Shock yourself by clicking and reading it. https://goo.gl/HU20wo. With poetic justice, Scalia posthumously splashed around still more acid by being found dead in a “free” luxury suite owned by a millionaire to which he was flown in a private jet. 

Citizens United shows not just what feckless justices the Five were, but that they were idiot politicians as well. So now, reflect if you will on how Trump and Sanders, wielding bayonets forged of Citizens United aluminum, spill the blood of the “stupid” parties they each duped into hosting their 
independent campaigns. No single derision by these independent candidates has been more enduring than “The Donald” and “The Bern” brutally humiliating Hillary, Jeb, Marco, and Ted as money whores and puppets. Yes, smug in their life tenures, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Thomas had assured the candidates that taking the big money would not give the “appearance of corruption” to anyone. And Citizens United swelled donors' hearts with the hubris that their millions would “not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy”.

More questions about why Cruz really opposed ethanol support

The real clear politics here is that in attacking Citizens Untied as the common enemy, the bond and brotherhood between Trump and Sanders flourish. In every public appearance, in every debate, “the brothers of different fathers” launch their “hate speech” against the donors and the recipients of the corrupt money. Both  renegade candidates repeatedly and recently attack not just the money-sucking candidates, but the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee, respectively. See, “Trump Targets RNC After South Carolina Debate” http://goo.gl/ByZoz1 (Newsweek 2/15/2016), and “Bernie Sanders Protests DNC's Lifting of Ban on Lobbyist Donations”, http://goo.gl/r3p1qt (Democracy Now 2/16/2016). Oh yes, the party bureaus themselves are the very face of the enemy.

More questions about Rubio's independence

UpClose wisely tells us to get “comfortable” with Trump projecting as a bipartisan strongman and tough guy. And if we should get comfortable with Trump for this, we should get comfortable with Sanders too. Both are tough guys who get in the face of the establishments and say with Clint Eastwood bravado “I don't need your stinking money”. The Donald, as UpClose says, does it with a Tony Soprano fist. Bernie does it as a ‘tough old bird’ with grand kids gathered at his feet. But both are “burn it to the ground” zealots. See, “Bernie Sanders Sues DNC for $600,000 a Day Over Removal of Data Access”, http://goo.gl/iTTxPq, and “Trump warns RNC Isn't Honoring 'Pledge,' Threatens to Sue Cruz”, http://goo.gl/4QKyWb. 

Questions about her Wall Street ties

Yes, indeed, 2016 is the year when a Dickensian young street thief named Citizens United mischievously opened the flood gates of that long lost quality we are taught to love-- bipartisanship. Now we must decide if we want to embrace bipartisanship with mutual spirit to topple the corrupt political establishments, Republican and Democrat.