Free Speech or Contracting Speech

Free Speech or Contracting Speech (Full Version)

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KenDckey -> Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 9:09:07 AM)
quote: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/us/president-obama-may-require-federal-contractors-to-list-campaign-gifts.html President Obama is seriously considering an executive order that would require companies doing business with the federal government to disclose their political contributions, White House officials said on Tuesday, a step long awaited by activists to reduce the influence of secretive corporate donations in elections. Should this be done or not? Lots of good thought on both sides of the issue. Free Speech (under Citizens United) extends to corporations and businesses. The problem is Obama wants to make it a part of the bidding process in Governmental Contracts. As such, if a business supports an opposition position, the administration (regardless of the administration) can use it as an excludor or tie breaker in the bidding process. Government should be more interested in price/service than speech in my opinion. Who believes what should not matter.

mnottertail -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 9:33:02 AM)
Yeah, money is not speech, I dont give a fuck what a nutsucker scotus says. The reason they want disclosure is for transparency in the bidding process to insure that is isn't being supported because of a bought congressman, general, senator, cabinet officer, or president.

KenDckey -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 9:42:34 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail Yeah, money is not speech, I dont give a fuck what a nutsucker scotus says. The reason they want disclosure is for transparency in the bidding process to insure that is isn't being supported because of a bought congressman, general, senator, cabinet officer, or president. Generals and cabinet officers don't get political contributions,. Bribes maybe. Generals are prohibited from political speech (even tho tons of them have made political speeches) except for donating to political activities using money,. There is a law about that. They can be repremanded thru both judicial and non-judicial methods.

mnottertail -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 9:50:17 AM)
thats right, but they do receive honoraria and other gifts. And they can receive those from federal bidders, and lobbyists. Here is a nutsucker who almost got caught. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/23/us/3-bush-cabinet-members-drop-meetings-with-gop-donors.html?pagewanted=all

vincentML -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 9:53:52 AM)
quote: Bribes maybe We got trouble right here in River City/ we got trouble and it starts with 'B'/ trouble, I tell you, right here in River City.

Lucylastic -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 9:57:55 AM)
we have all seen what citizens united has done..

DominantWrestler -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 10:24:41 AM)
IMO If companies are given the right to donate to politicians, then people should be allowed to vote with their dollar and choose to work or not work for companies based on politics Bribery is a non partisan, as Monsanto and Halliburton demonstrated

BamaD -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 2:06:10 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DominantWrestler IMO If companies are given the right to donate to politicians, then people should be allowed to vote with their dollar and choose to work or not work for companies based on politics Bribery is a non partisan, as Monsanto and Halliburton demonstrated Are people assigned jobs in PROM? People do have the right not to work for companies they don't aprove of.

KenDckey -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 3:13:39 PM)
And if Obama wants to force companies list their donations why not force every citizen to be publicly listed in some silly data base run by the government for every penny donated and to whom.

BamaD -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 3:50:43 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KenDckey And if Obama wants to force companies list their donations why not force every citizen to be publicly listed in some silly data base run by the government for every penny donated and to whom. I notice that none of the people who have ranted against corporations being allowed to make contributions have said a word agaisnt either the cash or in kind contributions made by unions.

DominantWrestler -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 4:09:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BamaD quote: ORIGINAL: DominantWrestler IMO If companies are given the right to donate to politicians, then people should be allowed to vote with their dollar and choose to work or not work for companies based on politics Bribery is a non partisan, as Monsanto and Halliburton demonstrated Are people assigned jobs in PROM? People do have the right not to work for companies they don't aprove of. The whole point of my last post was to allow workers to make informed decisions. Alabama education lives up to it's reputation

Phydeaux -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 11:02:00 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KenDckey quote: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/us/president-obama-may-require-federal-contractors-to-list-campaign-gifts.html President Obama is seriously considering an executive order that would require companies doing business with the federal government to disclose their political contributions, White House officials said on Tuesday, a step long awaited by activists to reduce the influence of secretive corporate donations in elections. Should this be done or not? Lots of good thought on both sides of the issue. Free Speech (under Citizens United) extends to corporations and businesses. The problem is Obama wants to make it a part of the bidding process in Governmental Contracts. As such, if a business supports an opposition position, the administration (regardless of the administration) can use it as an excludor or tie breaker in the bidding process. Government should be more interested in price/service than speech in my opinion. Who believes what should not matter. Yawn. Do it, it will be ignored. The feds would have to prove misdoing - they won't even be able to make a case by the time obama has run out his turn. And were they able to, it would lose in court. Eventually, anyway. Closely held corporations the govt would lose flat out. A smart public corporation would make equal protection arguments. Although since most public corporations disclose anyway, they may not challenge.. Either way, wll only stand till sanders loses the general election.

MrRodgers -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/21/2016 11:46:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KenDckey And if Obama wants to force companies list their donations why not force every citizen to be publicly listed in some silly data base run by the government for every penny donated and to whom. Because people are not corporations. (corporations don't even exist, except in the abstract...on paper) Also, people don't have nearly as much free speech in the bank. [sic] Thus, money as speech constitutionally protects the purchase of speech. Nothing less. Everybody can be a whore, we are then simply discussing price. The so-called 'marketplace' of ideas is in fact not a marketplace at all where 'ideas' are to be...bought and sold.

DesideriScuri -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/22/2016 12:29:49 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DominantWrestler IMO If companies are given the right to donate to politicians, then people should be allowed to vote with their dollar and choose to work or not work for companies based on politics That's the beauty of things! You don't like Chik-fil-A's politics? You don't have to work for them. You can also vote with your dollars and not eat there, if you so choose. What's even more incredible, is if you think there are enough people who have the same political leanings, you can start your own Filet O' Chick, to compete with Chik-fil-A. All that being said, shining a light on the government contracting business might be a damn good idea. Can it be used as a partisan tool? Sure. Will it? I don't know. Maybe. Should it? Hell no. What will the information be useful for? If we see that Company ABC has donated to Senator John Doe, will Senator John Doe have to recuse himself from any voting on whether or not ABC gets awarded a contract? If so, how do we prevent Senator John Doe from making a deal with Senator Jane Doe (no relation) to support Company ABC in return of his support of Company DEF which has donated to her? How important will political contributions be in the bidding process, and how will we guard against abusing partisanship (positive or negative) based on those contributions?

ReMakeYou -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/22/2016 1:14:30 AM)
quote: And if Obama wants to force companies list their donations why not force every citizen to be publicly listed in some silly data base run by the government for every penny donated and to whom. Because the two main flaws with that system are personal attacks against large donors, and the simple overhead required to maintain that large a database. Solve those two problems, I'd be totally down with the idea. Since there are fewer corporations than people, and the only way to really hurt them is a coordinated legal or financial attack on a scale completely different from personal attacks, the idea is sound in theory. quote: All that being said, shining a light on the government contracting business might be a damn good idea. Can it be used as a partisan tool? Sure. Will it? I don't know. Maybe. Should it? Hell no. What will the information be useful for? If we see that Company ABC has donated to Senator John Doe, will Senator John Doe have to recuse himself from any voting on whether or not ABC gets awarded a contract? If so, how do we prevent Senator John Doe from making a deal with Senator Jane Doe (no relation) to support Company ABC in return of his support of Company DEF which has donated to her? In practice, though, this. Corporations have many smart lawyers on hand to comb the books for any possible loophole. As much as I support the idea of knowing who's on who's payroll, there are too many tricks that corporations are using right now to bypass the spirit of existing laws. Unless you plug the loopholes (which could have unpleasant consequences in turn), I don't see much value to a new law saying essentially the same thing.

DominantWrestler -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/22/2016 6:16:12 AM)
Voting is private, and citizens, not corporations, should have anonyminity. Donating personal money does not take money from others, and therefore should be private. If companies are able to donate without anyone knowing, how will investors know that their money is not being used to fund those they do not believe in?

mnottertail -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/22/2016 7:42:49 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri That's the beauty of things! You don't like Chik-fil-A's politics? You don't have to work for them. You can also vote with your dollars and not eat there, if you so choose. What's even more incredible, is if you think there are enough people who have the same political leanings, you can start your own Filet O' Chick, to compete with Chik-fil-A. No the beauty of things would be if we were on equal footing, we are not. What would be really incredible is if we the citizenry could simply say thes nutsucker corporations are not american values, and throw them out of the country.

Phydeaux -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/22/2016 10:15:02 AM)
Oh horsefeathers Get 10 people together. One person is elected spokesperson. Congrats, theres no difference between that and a corporation. All this fussing about money in politics is ridiculous. With Obama raising 2.4 billion dollars, do you REALLY thing money is a meaningful issue, for either party? But besides that - Clinton has blown 85 million dollars - sanders is at 25. Clinton could have spent another 100 million - and it still wouldn't have mattered. People already know her. She's old, she's corrupt, she's inept, and she's a feminist running on her husband's coattails. Not to mention under investigation. Its this never ending liberal nanny state of trying to say what other people can do with their lives and their money. Fuck off. Do what you want with your life - leave me alone.

MrRodgers -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/22/2016 12:59:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Phydeaux Oh horsefeathers Get 10 people together. One person is elected spokesperson. Congrats, theres no difference between that and a corporation. All this fussing about money in politics is ridiculous. With Obama raising 2.4 billion dollars, do you REALLY thing money is a meaningful issue, for either party? But besides that - Clinton has blown 85 million dollars - sanders is at 25. Clinton could have spent another 100 million - and it still wouldn't have mattered. People already know her. She's old, she's corrupt, she's inept, and she's a feminist running on her husband's coattails. Not to mention under investigation. Its this never ending liberal nanny state of trying to say what other people can do with their lives and their money. Fuck off. Do what you want with your life - leave me alone. You are correct. I want the plutocracy to remain just as it is right now. I need to be able to buy the laws I want because of course, govt. (congressmen) meet with me and my lobbyists, not those 10 nanny-state crazies out there in community land. No, I just need the govt. to stand by, at the ready so I can buy just a few trillion$ of nannying...when I need it, with my suitcase full of free speech. Besides, being corrupt, inept and yes, even a little old, never disqualified RR or anybody else for that matter, so I guess Clinton is as qualified as any to be pres. When society has so lowered the bar in terms of its very culture and functioning institutions, this whole debate is rendered superfluous.

MercTech -> RE: Free Speech or Contracting Speech (1/23/2016 3:32:37 PM)
Now, if the company is claiming campaign contributions as business expenses or charitable contributions; they are already reporting that to the government. Check annual SEC filings. <grin>

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