[Updated] U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Free Speech

In a ruling that will have huge implications on the political stage not only this November but for years to come, the United States Supreme Court ruled that freedom of speech includes corporations and unions with regard to political expenditures.

From the Washington Times:

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as this year's midterm congressional elections.

The decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, removes limits on independent expenditures that are not coordinated with candidates' campaigns.

It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

The case also does not affect political action committees, which mushroomed after post-Watergate laws set the first limits on contributions by individuals to candidates. Corporations, unions and others may create PACs to contribute directly to candidates, but they must be funded with voluntary contributions from employees, members and other individuals, not by corporate or union treasuries.

It is likely that, given unions' almost free reign to use members and their dues on politics, this ruling will put corporate money back into the political fray--especially with so much at stake in 2010 and beyond.

Let the games begin.

UPDATE:

The Queen of Labor, SEIU's Anna Burger issued a statement condemning the Court's ruling:

Today the US Supreme Court lifted the floodgates and started dismantling century-old restrictions on corporate electoral activity in the name of the ‘free speech rights’ of corporations—meaning if you are a ‘corporate person’ (aka a CEO or corporate official), you are now free to hit the corporate ATM and spend whatever of your shareholders’ money it takes to elect the candidates of your choice.

Now, that's rich!  The SEIU and other unions spent an estimated $1 billion of their members' money on the 2008 elections.

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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine December 23, 1776

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AFL-CIO Top Boss Spins Why Scott Brown Won

Richard "the boss" Trumka, the AFL-CIO's top dog, puts his spin on the Democrats' stunning defeat in Massachuetts on Tuesday.

Spoiler alert:  Trumka's message: It's because Democrats' weren't socialist enough.



Delusion:  de⋅lu⋅sion [di-loo-zhuhn] –noun

1. an act or instance of deluding.

2. the state of being deluded.

3. a false belief or opinion: delusions of grandeur.

4. Psychiatry. a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact: a paranoid delusion.

h/t: The Union News.

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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine December 23, 1776


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“There is no turning back.” SEIU’s Stern urges Dems to go ‘all in’ on HCR

Less than 24-hours after seeing a million dollars of his members' money wasted supporting failed candidate Martha Coakley's campaign, SEIU's Andy Stern dished out his recipe on how Democrats should shove the nationalization of health care down Americans' throats:

From HuffPo:

Step one: The House should pass the Senate's health insurance reform bill - with an agreement that it will be fixed, fixed right, and fixed right away through a parallel process.

Reform can work -- the Senate bill can serve as the foundation for reform and include at minimum the improvements the Administration, House, and Senate have negotiated. We cannot squander the opportunity to make real progress. The House and Senate must move forward together. And, there is no reason they cannot move forward together to make those changes through any means possible -- whether through reconciliation or other pieces of moving legislation....

Some in Washington may want to throw their hands up and walk away; others may call for walking back reform by passing something smaller. So let's just say it: the Democrats own health reform. They own the votes they already took. And, they own what health reform will stand for. Most importantly, it will be a major achievement the American people need and deserve. There is no turning back. There is no running away. There is no reset button.

There is a right choice: Break the political paralysis and go big. Giving up or scaling back reform is not an option. [Emphasis added.]

Since Andy Stern pretty much owns health care, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, now we know what's coming.

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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine December 23, 1776

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Cross-posted.

Andy Stern's Purple Shorts Just Turned Brown

$214,000 of his SEIU members money:  Wasted.

$685,000 more of his SEIU members' money: Wasted.

300 pairs of purple jack-boots sent to Mass for GOTV:  Wasted.

Seeing Andy Stern's own members campaigning for the opposition:  PRICELESS

America's de facto Labor Party received a serious setback tonight:

Brown will give Republicans a 41st seat in the Senate, robbing Democrats of the filibuster-proof majority the party had used to pass President Obama's health care plan late last year. In the immediate lead-up to tonight's vote, Democrats -- including the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) -- insisted that the party would move forward on health care but it is unclear whether that bravado will carry over in the coming days as the party seeks to deal with Coakley's stunning upset.

"I have no interest in sugar coating what happened in Massachusetts," said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (N.J.). "There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient."

Congressional strategists had warned in the closing days of the Massachusetts Senate race that a Coakley defeat had the potential to trigger a series of retirements within the Democratic ranks as members flee a political wave that could wash out dozens in the House and high single digits on the Senate side.

"My message to my clients? Jump ship now," said one Democratic operative who advises a number of targeted Members of Congress. "Obama can't help you."

Priceless.
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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

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CNBC's Cramer: Stocks to Rise if Scott Brown Wins in Mass?

From NewsBusters:

Former Barack Obama supporter Jim Cramer on Friday said the stock market would have a huge rally if Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in Tuesday's special senatorial election in Massachusetts.

"I think investors who are nervous about the dictatorship of the Pelosi proletariat will feel at ease, and we could have a gigantic rally off a Coakley loss and a Brown win," said Cramer on Friday's "Mad Money."

"It will be a signal that a more pro-business, less pro-labor government could be in front of us." 

The often outspoken CNBCer marvelously declared it a "Pelosi politburo emasculation"

As we've noted before, a Scott Brown win would be a serious setback to the pushers of the job-destroying and hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act.



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SEIU Members for Brown Speaks More About SEIU Than Anything Else

Very often, because of its seeming totalitarian tactics and the dictator-like bosses Andy Stern, Anna Burger and their bands of purple people eaters, the tendency for many critics of the purple behemoth is blanket condemnation (perhaps rightly so) of everything and everyone who dons a purple t-shirt.

Yet, this video demonstrates that there are individuals within the SEIU who do not follow lock-step the Union of Purple People Eaters' top-down orders:



While these members' individual opinions are often drowned out by Andy Stern's authoritarian union, their presence rallying for a candidate their union bosses oppose serve to remind us that there are some SEIU members (though they may be few) with independent minds who may be trapped in the Union of Purple People Eaters.

Hat-tip: Think Red.

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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine December 23, 1776

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Which Constitution Will SEIU Bosses Follow in Massachusetts?

Did donning their infamous purple shirts just put these SEIU members in jeopardy of retaliation from their union bosses?

We might think SEIU members are merely exercising a constitutional right and campaigning for a candidate their union bosses have opposed.  Sadly, however, by donning their purple shirts, their union bosses may have another opinion and claim the SEIU members have violated another constitution...that of the SEIU.

Andy Stern and his Union of Purple People Eaters (otherwise known as the Service Employees International Union) have got to be going nuts over these members seeming "gross disloyalty and conduct unbecoming a member."

The big question is, will union bosses at the SEIU respect their members' [U.S.] constitutional rights?

We hope so.  In either case, we'll be watching and waiting to report.

h/t: RedMassGroup.
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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine December 23, 1776

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The Devil Just Bought 10,000 Snow Shovels Today: SEIU Protestors Picket For Brown

The above headline comes from one of the reader comments to this story from the American Spectator:

More than 75 boosters of the GOP candidate turned out for the counter-rally, standing the sub-freezing weather to wave Brown signs and loudly sing (to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic"), "Glory, Hallelujah . . . Send Scott Brown to D.C.!"

Among the Brown supporters were - believe it or not - rank-and-file members of the Service Employees International Union.

"We're Americans - we have our free choice," said one of the SEIU members, who identified herself only as Michelle and said she drove more than 60 miles from Western Massachusetts - "The stepchild of this state" - to show her support for Brown in Worcester.

Not only is Michelle a Brown supporter, but she's also a Tea Party activist who rode 10 hours on a bus to attend last year's 9/12 March on D.C. "I didn't like the slide into socialism," she explained.

No further comment necessary.

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Honor UFCW's Amish Market Boycott? It depends what's on tomorrow's menu...

The United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) staged a protest in New York City earlier today to announce a boycott of Amish Market [no relation to the Amish of horse and buggy fame].

After a Rosie O'Donnell impersonating politician spoke at the rally, avid union man, Tommy Keating proudly stated [at 1:15] that "the country should be run by unions."  [Apparently, Tommy doesn't watch the news?]

However, when asked if he would continue eating at the Amish Market (or would he support the UFCW's boycott), avid union man Tommy Keating declared:

“We’ll see. Depends on what’s on tomorrow's menu.”

It sounds as though, in a union town like New York, a boycott can be broken by serving a pastrami and rye.

And union bosses wonder why they can't keep members?


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Union Bosses' Reign of Error May Suffer Fatal Blow Next Tuesday

Unions and their de-facto labor party political puppets [read: Democrats] are freaking out right now!  They know that their Reign of Error may come to a crashing halt next Tuesday.

The Senate Special Election in Massachusetts next Tuesday is not going their way and, while the AFL-CIO sends its shock troops and the SEIU's attack ads and purple shirts flood the Bay state, GOP candidate Scott Brown's momentum seems to be gaining over his opponent Martha Coakley with Brown now leading Coakley  Even in her own polling, Martha Coakley's "bottom has fallen out."

"I have heard that in the last two days the bottom has fallen out of her poll numbers," says one well-connected Democratic strategist. In her own polling, Coakley is said to be around five points behind Republican Scott Brown. "If she's not six or eight ahead going into the election, all the intensity is on the other side in terms of turnout," the Democrat says. "So right now, she is destined to lose."

According to a Suffolk University poll, Brown is up by 4%.

How quickly has this race turned around?

In November, Coakley was beating Brown by 31 percentage points. Now, Brown is up by 4% -- a change of 35% in two months.

How important is this election to the nation?

Well, as one newscaster stated: "If Scott Brown wins next Tuesday...he will change the world of politics as we know it." This is what has union bosses so scared.

Unions have spent over a billion dollars electing a party that would be beholden to their interests (as evidenced by the sweetheart deal union bosses got from Democrats on the "Cadillac tax" earlier this week). 

Union expenditures in 2006 and 2008 were purposeful and with two primary (and many secondary) goals in mind:

First and foremost, union bosses have been running a deceptive campaign to get the job-destroying and hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) made into law.  As EFCA effectively strips workers of their right to vote on unionization and gives the (union-backed) federal government the right to impose contracts in the private sector, it has been union bosses' dream for some time..

Secondly, union bosses have been campaigning for the nationalization of U.S. health care for decades. With the billions union bosses will make from nationalizing the health care industry, union bosses see health care reform as one of the two major vehicles for them to regain their stranglehold on the U.S. economy forever.

Now, however, union bosses' dreams may be getting a bucketful of cold (Bay State) water thrown onto them if Scott Brown wins on Tuesday.

To us, it would not matter if Spongebob were running against Martha Coakley and the union special interests...but  he's not.  So, if you're at all interested in helping Scott Brown end union bosses' Reign of Error and beat Andy Stern & Co., go here to help.

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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776

Follow LaborUnionReport on Twitter.

Cross-posted.