Wednesday 26 December 2018

Buying Democracy (or subverting it)

In 2010, Obama commented on the Citizen's United (2010) ruling:
“Last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limits in our elections. I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.”
...
His comments were drawn from Justice John Paul Stevens’ powerful dissent in Citizens United, which noted that many U.S. corporations have foreign parents that could, after the ruling, funnel unlimited amounts into American campaigns through U.S. subsidiaries. In the 2016 campaign, it’s not clear if it was Russian “companies” — or the Russian government — that was funding the efforts, but U.S. corporate subsidiaries have not yet been shown to be the intermediaries.

The simple fact is Citizens United was a poor decision, and Obama was right. It opened the US Democracy to the highest bidder.

And Putin bought the Presidency for Trump.


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