{"id":2364,"date":"2010-07-27T02:18:35","date_gmt":"2010-07-27T09:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2364"},"modified":"2010-07-27T02:18:35","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T09:18:35","slug":"obama-a-line-in-the-sand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/07\/27\/obama-a-line-in-the-sand\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama: A Line in the Sand?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have been calling on Barack Obama to take the gloves off, disappointed more often than not.  Could Campaign Finance Reform be the point of change?<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"CNP-MNS\" President Barack Obama warned Republicans Monday not to block a campaign finance bill<\/strong> he said would stop foreign interests and big business from deluging US elections with piles of cash.<\/p>\n

Obama spoke out in support of a bill that responds to a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that critics fear will open the floodgates for millions of dollars in special interest money to taint looming congressional elections.<\/p>\n

"Big corporations — even foreign-controlled ones — are now allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on American elections<\/font><\/strong>," Obama said.<\/p>\n

"They can buy millions of dollars worth of TV ads — and worst of all, they don’t even have to reveal who’s actually paying for the ads<\/font><\/strong>."<\/p>\n

The Senate was expected to debate the bill, already passed by the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, with Republicans, who may benefit most from the status quo, expected to oppose it.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in January held that corporations could dip freely into their general funds to finance campaign ads either in support or against a particular political candidate.<\/p>\n

The ruling is expected to result in an even more intense barrage of campaign ads than usual in the run-up to mid-term congressional elections later this year, and in Obama’s 2012 reelection race.<\/p>\n

"Imagine the power this will give special interests over politicians," Obama said in his remarks in the White House Rose Garden.<\/p>\n

"Corporate lobbyists will be able to tell members of Congress if they don’t vote the right way, they will face an onslaught of negative ads in their next campaign<\/strong>."<\/p>\n

The bill, known as the Disclose Act, would require any political organization to make their donors public and ban foreign controlled corporations and government contractors<\/strong> from making political donations.<\/p>\n

Senator Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, however said the bill could infringe constitutional guarantees of free speech and was a distraction from efforts to revive the US economy\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Alternet<\/a>><\/p>\n

I certainly hope he means it this time.  We may not win this fight, because Mitch \u201cOne Bought Bitch\u201d McConnell and the Republicans will likely goose-step in unison to support their corporate masters.  But this is a fight worth losing.  If the Republicans block it, we must make them block it again, and again, and again, and again, screaming bloody murder each time they do to expose the Republican party as the corporate shills they are.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have been calling on Barack Obama to take the gloves off, disappointed more often than not.  Could Campaign Finance Reform be the point of change? President Barack Obama warned Republicans Monday not to block a campaign finance bill he said would stop foreign interests and big business from deluging US elections with piles of […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}