Photo by Nicolas Shayko
THE next US election will most likely bring a new face to Bush-style policies, putting a woman in charge [1] to perpetuate surveillance, assassination, torture, etc. Larry Lessig does not find much "Hope" as what he considers to be inherent corruption carries on [2-5] and the 'leftist' media definitely carries on doing its thing [6,7]. A recent discussion about con€trol of the media by the spies and the gov€ern€ment appar€atus helped shed light on the role that free press should play if it exists (it hardly exists in the UK and the US, where it is typically referred to as "alternative media"). When the political systems are mostly controlled by corporations, which also control the media, then there is a deadlock on influence and a massive barrier pushing progress away and selling us unnecessary wars [8] (i.e. death to millions of innocent people). Professor Lessig found that out the hard way when he pushed for copyright sanity and repeatedly failed because of lobbyists and corrupt politicians (serving corporations that bribed them). Those who try to push for standards and software freedom typically meet those same barriers. ⬆
In my view, the elements in the current game are first a grave threat (“the likely default on United States debt [which] could be catastrophic”) and second, the “forc[ing of] changes in existing law when it can’t with honesty say that it represents a majority”
On Thursday, Senator Elizabeth Warren and I will participate in an event hosted by the Constitutional Accountability Center (livestream here) to discuss a brief I submitted in a corruption (aka “campaign finance”) case that the Supreme Court will hear on October 8: McCutcheon v. F.E.C.
Ed_in_LA has a nice comment to my piece in The Beast about the original meaning of “corruption.” The basic thrust of his point is that originalism is about how judges read the Framers’ texts. And the word “corruption” (like “democracy,” or “separation of powers,” or “federalism”) doesn’t appear in any founding text (except “corruption of blood”).
The question in that case is whether aggregate limits on contributions are constitutional (I.e., do you have a constitutional right to give more than ~$125k to federal candidates every year). But in deciding that question, petitioners have asked the Court to revisit the standard of review that applies to limitations on “contributions.”
Therein lies the bomb: In Buckley (1976), the Court held that while limits on expenditures had to be evaluated under “strict scrutiny,” limits on contributions got “less rigorous” scrutiny. In McCutcheon, the petitioners (and Senator McConnell, who will also be arguing in the case) are asking the Court to apply the same standard to contributions and expenditures.
A study by Noam Chomsky's nephew shows how ownership interferes in media coverage, forcing publications pursue private, greedy interests.
Last week I was invited to dis€cuss the con€trol of the media by the spies and the gov€ern€ment appar€atus by the Centre for Media Stud€ies at the Stock€holm School of Eco€nom€ics in Riga. Many thanks to Hans, Anders and the team for invit€ing me, and to Inese Voika , the Chair of Trans€par€ency Inter€na€tional in Latvia, for set€ting the scene so well.
So USA Today asked two neoconservatives.