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Comment by bhouston | Hacker News Reader

The fact that political spending is considered free speech in the US gives the rich and already powerful massive sway in the political system, it is basically tiled hard towards them. And then combined with how PACs hide their funding behind names like "Everyday Americans Making the World Better" when really it just wants to lessen online gambling laws for a billion dollar company, is just brutal. US politics is a dystopian future realized.

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The decision to allow unlimited political donations in 2010 was certainly one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Care to guess who was behind it? Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. The same corrupt assholes who continue to fuck this country every single time they get the opportunity.

And who is the kingmaker behind those three?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Leo

Look him up and his connections to Opus Dei.

>Roberts, Thomas, and Alito.

I wonder if an incoming next president can order those three to be jailed in an undisclosed offshore prison for "obvious corruption and abuse of power" and claim presidential immunity in the lawsuit that would follow, as it was clearly an official act of the presidency for which the illegal order was given.

They have given that power to the president, it seems?

Even crazier that they sway elections in districts they've never even visited nor intend to ever visit

Enabled yet again, today, by the SCOTUS.

What I find mildly interesting is how the older money (eg, the Koch brothers) spent decades creating the current environment (between deregulation on business, cutting taxes on the wealthy, and political ventures like the Federalist Society and Heritage, Inc), but it's come together to create a newer group of rich jerks who are really exploiting it to the hilt.

I recall that this outcome (today's rich jerks exploiting it to the hilt) was what was predicted all along.

Political spending is perhaps the most important kind of free speech.

It cost money to print copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers. The New York Times gets into politics quite a bit and is published by a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Where in the Constitution is that activity protected from the government but the First Amendment?

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