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By David Swanson
Free Speech for People

The damage from the Supreme Court's decision in "Citizens United v. FEC" continues to spread as feared. Newly emboldened corporations are suing to overturn state laws that restrict corporate spending on politics:

"A pro-natural resource development group [how's that for spin?] and a Bozeman painting company asked a Helena District Court on Monday to strike down Montana’s 1912 ban on corporate donations and expenditures to political campaigns to comply with a January U.S. Supreme Court ruling."

Marylanders are responding to the shocking new Supreme Court ruling that corporations, for the first time, can spend unlimited funds to influence any local, state or federal political campaign, a ruling the state Senate president called "offensive" and "devastating to democracy."

War, Budgets and Blind Ambition

By CHRIS FLOYD
Counterpunch

The American elite's unbounded, unquestioned, indeed unconscious sense of imperial entitlement and dominance -- based ultimately on war, the threat of war and the profit from war -- is one of the defining characteristics of our age. And if you would like to see a glaring example of this attitude in action, look no further than the front page of Tuesday's New York Times, where one David Sanger gives us his penetrating "news analysis" of the Administration's just-announced $3.8 trillion budget.

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY
Counterpunch

Congresswoman Donna Edwards has just introduced a Constitutional amendment, together with Congressman John Conyers.

HTTP://FREESPEECHFORPEOPLE.ORG

Watch this brand new video:
http://freespeechforpeople.org/edwardsvideo

PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS APPLAUD REP. DONNA EDWARDS FOR FILING CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL TO OVERTURN US SUPREME COURT RULING ON CORPORATE MONEY IN ELECTIONS

HOUSE JUDICIARY CHAIR JOHN CONYERS, JR JOINS FILING

"Free Speech Rights Are For People, Not Corporations"

By Steven Thomma
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Fighting wars and lingering effects from a deep recession, President Barack Obama will run up a record $1.56 trillion budget deficit this year and is proposing a 2011 federal budget that would spend $1.27 trillion more than the government takes in next year.

Even with plans to scale back after that, his budget proposal Monday calls for deficits of more than $700 billion a year for at least a decade and relies on outside help from an as-yet un-appointed commission to bring them down more.

DemocracyNow! - President Obama has unveiled a record $3.8 trillion budget that boosts money for war while cutting domestic spending.

President Obama: “I’ve proposed a freeze in government spending for three years. This won’t apply to the benefits folks get through Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare, and and it won’t apply to our national security, including benefits for veterans. But it will apply to all other discretionary government programs.”

Under Obama’s proposal, the Pentagon budget would grow over three percent in addition to separate funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for a total of over $741 billion. The new budget contains no major weapons cancellations as opposed to last year’s gutting of the F-22 fighter jet. Obama is also seeking a $7 billion increase in nuclear spending despite a pledge to cut the US arsenal and seek a nuclear weapons-free world. The Labor Department would see a 32 percent cut, most from declining unemployment benefits and stimulus spending.

Democracy Now! - President Obama is unveiling a record $3.8 trillion budget for 2011 today. The budget would boost war spending while trimming domestic expenditures. Obama is seeking a $44 billion increase in the military’s budget. If approved, this will bring the Pentagon’s budget to $708 billion. The Obama administration is also asking Congress to increase spending on the US nuclear arsenal by more than $5 billion over the next five years. Obama is seeking the extra money despite a pledge to cut the US arsenal and seek a nuclear weapons-free world. The Obama administration argues that the boost in spending is needed to ensure that US warheads remain secure and work as designed as the arsenal shrinks and ages.

By Rachel Slajda
TPM

House Minority Leader John Boehner said Sunday that defense spending should not be exempt from President Obama's proposed spending freeze.

"I think the president's proposal on freezing non-security domestic spending is a good first step, but it's only $15 billion for each of the next three years," Boehner said on Meet The Press.

By Sarah van Gelder
YES! Magazine

With climate disruption, war, and a faltering economy, the '00s were tough. Still, seeds were sewn for a more green and egalitarian 2010s. And peoples movements offer the power to make real change happen.
— tags: copenhagen

In my last column, I listed nine crises of the ‘00s.

Remarks of President Barack Obama
The State of the Union
Wednesday, January 27, 2009
Washington, DC

Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

The Source of Corporate Power

By Robert C. Koehler

Tribune Media Services

“If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.”

By Roger Runningen
Bloomberg

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will propose a three-year freeze on federal spending outside of national security to save an estimated $250 billion over a decade as part of an effort to rein in record deficits, administration officials said.

DynCorp has been responsible for training Iraq's police force$2.5 Billion contract monitored by one staff person

BBC

A watchdog has accused the US state department of grossly mismanaging the oversight of a $2.5bn (£1.5bn) contract for training Iraq's police force.

An audit by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir) said the state department repeatedly failed to monitor the contract.

In one case, it assigned heavy security costing $4.5m to a group of contractors who already had their own bodyguards.

By Scott Malone
Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) - General Electric Co's

On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court struck down longstanding rules on corporate and organized labor spending in elections.

In a 5-4 decision, the court struck down elements of campaign finance law, ruling that independent expenditures by such groups in elections is protected by the First Amendment.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

By Zachary Roth
TPM

One of the biggest winners from this morning's Supreme Court decision on campaign finance: the Chamber of Commerce. And that's not just because the court's ruling gives the corporations that make up the business lobby's membership an even greater voice in the political process than they've enjoyed until now.