Yes, The Real The New Awesome Primary Thread

Until we remove the concept of "The Corporation" as an individual with voting rights there is little hope regardless of which party is in power. Fascist Oligarchy forever.AbE: And if we hope for change the very voice of Corporations must be silenced, the lobbyists thrown out and banned from having any contact other than contractual with governments at federal, state and local levels.Edited by jar, : see AbE:

Agreed. And for the life of me, how this was ever even considered as a viable concept by the Supreme Court was beyond belief from my perspective.A corporation is a conglomerate of various individuals. How can one consider it as some 'singular entity'? It makes no sense. If you go through the various employees of a company, I am sure you will find varying personal and political beliefs. But ultimately, those at the top can use the power of the corporation to push their own specific agenda, regardless of the views of those who work at that company. Doesn't seem very democratic to me. Smacks more of plutocracy.

I understand the desire to limit corporate speech, but I don't really understand this particular argument. There is absolutely nothing about a corporation that is democratic. Corporations, in general, pay employees for their work, without giving them any say in the corporations objectives. The corporations objectives are determined by the corporation owners who owe a fiduciary duty to their stockholders. The corporation simply does not represent the employees. In that way corporations are completely distinct from unions which owe duties to their members.Putting limits on the speech of corporations is essentially putting limits on the rights of the owners to use their money as they see fit. I'd surely like to find a constitutional way of applying those limits, because the result of not having limits is a distorted political process. But IMO, it is pointless to complain about the fact that employees of a union have no say in what the corporation does politically. Unless the corporation is using unwilling corporate assets and forcing them to do its political bidding, there is nothing inherently unfair in that situation.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

If the corporation is an individual, then the corporation should pay individual tax rates. And the corporation should be subject to a jail sentence.

You two people with numbers for names aren't allowed to talk to each other: you might give the impression that this is upon us. Of course, since Bernie Sanders is ushering in the Dawn of Socialism in America, it's probably only a matter of time before we all have serial numbers for names and mind-altering PC drugs to keep us all in line, so perhaps we should all be voting for Trump too?

Um blu Jay the mind altering is covered by the media, and you do have a social security right? number In my country you get a tax number, and an emo( unified evidential number of person), You also have account numbers and other numbers for doing anything meaningful for the rest your name suffices So we are already there or about to be.

Numbers are essential, else Trump might not be able to keep his alter-egos inline.

Not at all. The owners are the shareholders. Any money the CEO of corporation doesn't spend on supporting Trump For President or whatever cause he personally favors can instead be paid as dividends to the shareholders, who can then choose for themselves whether or not to donate their money to a political cause, and if so to which. This gives them a freer exercise of their right to spend their own money than if the board of directors makes that decision for them.Could we not at least have a little consistency on this issue? Usually when a corporation does something evil, we are told that the sole legal and moral imperative of the executives is to make as much money for the shareholders as possible, and that if the law allowed them to sell their grandmothers for glue, they should do it. But this imperative magically disappears when the evil thing they want to do is supporting their pet political cause with money that they could otherwise pay out to the shareholders, in which case they should be able to do what they like with the money, because FREEDOM!!!

That's right. But the owners/shareholders have adequate recourse to control what the CEO does. If I understand you correctly, would it not be up to the shareholders to object to what the corporation does? What if the shareholders did, in fact, authorize speech on behalf of the corporation? Why isn't it their constitutional right to delegate that authority to speak to the officers of the corporation? Doesn't your supposed inconsistency result from taking a rather short sighted view? Why isn't a little (or a lot of) money spent on creating a better political landscape for business not a potentially rewarding investment for the shareholders? When a company takes the position that discrimination against gay people in their state is bad for shareholders because it makes attracting talent for hire more difficult thus making costs higher, isn't that a logical conclusion? Such a corporation might not like the idea of Ted Cruz being president for purely financial reasons related to delivering profit to shareholders. On the other hand, an insurance company might feel similarly about the result of Sanders becoming president; i.e. single payer health system is bad for business and the shareholders. Why wouldn't it be appropriately selfish for a corporation to spend some money to make sure Bernie was not elected.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Perhaps they can in principle; I'm not convinced that they do in practice. In any case you must concede that if they just got the money for themselves, they would have an even finer degree of control over how it was spent, so it's hard to argue that that would be "putting limits on the rights of the owners to use their money as they see fit".And if any shareholders wanted to spend their dividends in conformity with the wishes of the CEO, they would be free to ask him what those wishes were, and he would be free to tell them. Potentially, but that isn't the argument we hear. Instead, we hear a whole lot about FREEDOM!!! Whereas in fact according to the dogma of shareholder value, freedom doesn't come into it: a corporation is obliged to spend money on some things and obliged not to spend it on others. If (for example) the CEO, the board, and indeed all the shareholders were homophobes, and yet statistics showed that homophobia was bad for business, then the legal and moral obligation of the corporation is to fight for gay rights, thus sayeth the Gospel of Shareholder Value. Freedom implies choice; shareholder value imposes obligations.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Wednesday 3/23 7:30 am EasternDonald: 58 delegates for total 739
Ted: 40 for 465
John: 0 for 143944 remaining delegates to be chosen. 1237 needed to win------Hillary: 51 for 1681
Bernie: 57 for 927
(includes super delegates)2157 delegates remaining. 2383 to win

Blue Jay loads up some typos with: Who tattooed numbers on the Jews? The fascists or the communists?Here is how your post should read:

I hope you realize Blue Jay had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he wrote that.Or did he?

If Trump does get elected (after all we did see a "B" actor get elected twice) what realistically would happen?The President can issue Executive Orders to tell Federal Administrative Departments how to operate. Congress's role is pretty much limited to trying to get new laws passed and signed or in the area of (de)funding.Areas such as Immigration and Naturalization, Border Control, Environmental Protection, even Military, DoD, FBI, CIA, NSA and the Department of Homeland Security are under the direct control of the Executive Branch.Some still remember the era of Joe McCarthy and the "Fight for America", J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon's "Enemies List". They were all immensely popular at one point and ruined many lives.We have seen Trump find new enemies wherever he looks, reporters and journalists, protestors signs, Muslims, illegal immigrants, Mexicans, criminals, liberals ... We have heard him say that we need to torture folk, to spy on folk, to watch the mosques, to infiltrate religious and political groups.We have heard him lie and the public applaud, heard him recommend violence to those who dare to speak against him and heard him say that the protestors brought the violence on themselves, that sucker punching someone was justified.And all those behaviors are being welcomed and supported by audiences across the nation.He is telling folk that "It's not their fault" and they want that assurance. They welcome the opportunity to blame others, blame Muslims, blame immigrants, blame liberals, blame Mexicans, blame everyone but them. Tell them they are right to fear and hate the Muslims, immigrants, liberals, Mexicans, everyone but themselves.All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

I still don't see the inconsistency. Once someone has elected to speak, for whatever reason, if the government intervenes to stop them, why isn't it appropriate to complain about a lack of freedom. Not quite. The shareholders can forfeit whatever profits they chose to forfeit. It is the company officers that has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders and not vice versa. Perhaps your remarks should be limited to just the board and CEO.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.