Applying lessons from some of the history below, up top: Regardless of the individual views of ordinary Republicans as citizens, the national party apparatus of the GOP has never ceased trying to undo Social Security; The GOP-and-finance-sector daisy chain indicated below, potent as it has been in some elections, is dwarfed by current use of [...]

Another in an occasional series on free speech: One person, one vote. One person, one amount. Following up previous posts, again on the recent legal argument that money, in the context of political donations, is speech; that huge political donations are a form of political participation like other ways of participating; and that corporations are [...]

Update re Stephen Colbert and PAC: www.rollcall.com/news/Stephen-Colbert-PAC-FEC-video-205563-1.html?ET=rollcall:e10287:80103659a:&st=email&pos=epol Today, class, we will deal with that strange position of our time, the legal argument that money, in the context of political donations, is speech; that huge political donations are a form of political participation like other ways of participating; and that corporations are persons and can contribute [...]

This 1991 case—a student, Douglas Hann, expelled from Brown University for drunkenly shouting abusive epithets, in the small hours, not a first offense—should never have gotten to the court of public opinion. The student was drunk and disorderly, shouting on university grounds in the small hours of the morning, for which the university was authorized [...]