With all due respect to Mr. Donlan, I could not disagree more... our nation’s capital is now over-run with battalions of lobbyist, and mercenary patrols of monied special interests.   Their influence is great and comes at the expense of the common wheel, and as evidence of this, we need look no further than the our present financial crisis.   Watered down bank reform, Too Big to Fail, and Business as usual, courtesy of Mr. Dodd & Mr. Frank, Et Al., appears to be the coin of the realm.   IN short, get ready for our next financial crisis.   Moral hazard will skyrocket!

History will repeat itself again, only this time the Fed’s won’t have the money/discretionary spending to cushion the blow, and the next crisis very well maybe this nation’s last.

I contribute to a PAC, and I believe corporations do have a right to be heard... but that’s where it stops.   Instead of capping Corporate CONTRIBUTIONS, the supreme court has turned loose a flood of money that will drown out any other voices!

Corporations are  hell bent for one thing only and that is profit, and there is nothing wrong with profit; but Corporations’ ar e anything but human.  Unlike Humans, corporations, like private equity, can buy out company, and leverage it to the hilt; the private equity firm can liquidate the company, suck it dry, and leave nothing but ruin decay, and further add to the ranks of the unemployed. 

A like analogy would be home invasion, whereby criminals broke into y our home, Mr. Donlan,took out a home equity loan, and – legally- absconded with the funds. 

Unlike the ordinary American citizen, Corporations can hire platoons of attorneys to write legislation, place said legislation in the politicians hands, that run in direct conflict to the interests of this nation, and the people.

Do you think President Teddy Roosevelt would agree?   The trust buster.   Mr. Obama would do far better to channel Teddy, than he would Reagan, at this point in our nation’s future!

As of result of the Supreme court’s ruling the out-sized influence that Corporations have on our politicians and our democracy will only grow, unimpeded and unchecked.  As a result, Corporations rights will come before the rights of this country’s citizens; but that’s not news.... it’s just a continuation of the status quo.                         J.M.H.

EDITORIAL COMMENTARY/Barron’s

 | MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2010

By THOMAS G. DONLAN

Corporations Have Human Rights

AFTER DECADES OF INACTION, the U.S. Supreme Court has restored some of the nation's lost rights to speak freely and to pay to be heard. Corporations and unions are now free to spend unlimited amounts of money praising or condemning candidates for public office and urging citizens to vote for or against them.

The decision appalled four justices, as well as the president and others accustomed to the privilege of speech without limit. Justice John Paul Stevens, for one, claimed that "corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires." If that wasn't clear enough, he added this rhetorical flourish: "They are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."

Corporate speech is speech by people, of course. Those who would regulate money in politics understand that all speech isn't equally effective. Amplification, whether by megaphone, newspaper, radio or television, costs money. Until recently, each improvement in amplification cost more money.

Corporations, from the biggest and best money-grubbers to the holiest nonprofit, are effective vehicles for concentrating wealth for their owners to use. The progressives who would control speech and conform it to their ideals first went after corporate speech with a 1907 law, because it could be powerful. Outlawing corporate financing of political speech deprived progressive politicians' enemies of some of their power.

Thus it isn't just about the money, it is about the speech. The members of the century-old progressive movement have often been frank about their fear of rich people and the power of their money. They see corporations as shielding the wealthy from retribution for such crimes as charging what the traffic will bear and crowding out less effective competitors.

An interesting thing about this case, however, is how much less it matters in the age of the Internet. Freedom of the press is no longer limited to those who own one. Nearly everybody owns one. Freedom of the press now includes freedom of the podcast, the Tweet, the blog and the Webzine.

Anyone with a $200 computer and an ounce of determination can create and transmit information to millions of people. Whether those millions pay any attention or not depends most on the appeal of the speech. The government need not interfere.

Justice Stevens and his ilk also would do well to remember that neither American citizens nor American corporations are recipients of rights conferred by the government. The First Amendment doesn't establish rights to worship, to speak, to publish, to assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances. It says that "Congress shall make no law" about these fundamental freedoms, which the people already possess -- which government must protect.