Obama has real problems with free speech for opponents

NY Times:

President Obama on Monday sought political advantage from the expected defeat of a campaign finance measure that he has championed by pre-emptively attacking its Republican opponents for “nothing less than a vote to allow corporate and special-interest takeovers of our elections.”

Mr. Obama’s statement to reporters at the White House was added to his daily schedule after it became clear that the Senate would vote Tuesday on whether to take up a bill that would require corporations, unions and other special interests to disclose the donors that bankroll their political advertisements. The legislation would also ban campaign spending by foreign-controlled corporations.

The House has passed the measure, which Democrats initiated after the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to allow unlimited independent expenditures by corporations in elections, saying the federal limits violated First Amendment rights. But in the Senate, with a solid wall of Republican opposition, the measure is expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.

That would probably kill the initiative for this election year, handing Mr. Obama a big loss in a fight against not only Congressional Republicans but also the dominant conservative faction on the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

A week after the court issued its decision in January in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Mr. Obama delivered an unusually direct critique in his State of the Union address, with justices in the audience. He said the court had “reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.”

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I think Obama is wrong about this issue and the bill he is pushing is terribly unfair. It allows the union thugs to do pretty much anything and imposes more restrictions on corporations. Democrats like to abuse corporations and they really do not want them to be able to fight back in the market place of ideas.  It gives you some idea of how weak they must thing their arguments really are.