BCT Editorial – 1/29/10

This is the second editorial on this topic in four days.  For most of my comments, please read my critique of “For what it’s worth.”

Note the editorial’s repeated use of the term “activist judges.”  The intent is to make us think the ruling was not based on the Constitution and “made law” as left-leaning judges are wont to do.  The activism occurred when the First Amendment rights of corporations and labor union management were originally abridged.  The editorial also asserts the decision “gutted the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law that was enacted in 2002.”  Neither assertion is true and the Times knows it.  When in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the Supreme Court ruled separate is not equal, and thus overturned case law going back nearly 60 years, I wonder if the Times considered those justices to be “activist judges.”

As for public campaign financing, I have no problem with it as long as candidate participation is voluntary, funding is via voluntary contributions, and taxpayers aren’t forced to provide any of the funding.   That’s not the case with the current bills, however.  What the editorial failed to note is the current bills [Fair Elections Now Act (S.752, H.R.1826)] in Congress fund the program via a tax on federal contractors (0.5% of contracts over $10,000,000 up to a max of $500,000 per contract).  Since that means a portion of each contract paid for by taxpayers goes into this fund, a portion of your taxes will go to candidates you don’t even support!  How can that be constitutional?

The editorial concludes with “In addition to lots of money and grassroots enthusiasm, the right-wing populist movement in this country now has the Supreme Court’s seal of approval to push its propaganda efforts on the American people and to petrify Congress into inaction.”  Once again we have the implication that “right = rich” and “left = poor.”  As I asked in a previous critique, have you ever noticed how lefties always talk about “fat-cat Republicans” while failing to talk about “fat-cat” Democrats like the Clintons, the Kennedys, Jon Corzine (newly ex-NJ governor), Sen. John Kerry (MA, husband of Teresa Heinz), Sen. Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Bill Gates, George Soros, Peter Lewis, John Edwards, et cetera?  Of the 10 richest members of Congress, eight are Democrats.  As for “propaganda efforts,” you can bet the corporation-owned and operated Times won’t give up its First Amendment right to publish its own political ads in the form of “analysis,” columns, editorials, “news” articles, et cetera.