Let's see ... she can see Russia from her house, on Glenn Beck's show (of all places) she gets North and South Korea mixed up, and in the well researched book by John Hellemann and Mark Halperin, "Game Change", they note: "She knew nothing. She had to be taken through World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and Palin was not aware there was a difference between North and South Korea. She continued to insist that Iraq was behind 9/11; and when her son was being sent off to Iraq, she couldn’t describe who we were fighting."

Read the rest of the link. It's short ...

There we go ... we can use the Tea Party to win elections, but we don't actually want those policies to apply to *us* ....

H.J.RES.74 Cosponsors are updated on Thomas.loc.gov here.

But we have them for you first: Andre Carson, Yvette Clarke, John Conyers, Keith Ellison, Bob Filner, Alan Grayson, Raul Grijalva, John Hall, Martin Heinrich, Maurice Hinchey, Mazie Hirono, Jesse Jackson, Barbara Lee, Carolyn Maloney, Edward Markey, Jim McGovern, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Chellie Pingree, Nick Rahall, Tim Ryan, Louise McIntosh Slaughter, Betty Sutton, Peter Welch.

 

Amendment language:

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States permitting Congress and the States to regulate the expenditure of funds by corporations engaging in political speech. (Introduced in House)

HJ 74 IH

111th CONGRESS 2d Session

H. J. RES. 74

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States permitting Congress and the States to regulate the expenditure of funds by corporations engaging in political speech.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

February 2, 2010

Ms. EDWARDS of Maryland (for herself and Mr. CONYERS) introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

JOINT RESOLUTION

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States permitting Congress and the States to regulate the expenditure of funds by corporations engaging in political speech.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

`Article--

`Section 1. The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity.
`Section 2. Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.'.

 

Free Speech for People Statement: PDF


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"

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Donna Edwards of Maryland introduced today a constitutional amendment bill to overturn the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling allowing unlimited corporate money in elections.  Congressman John Conyers, Jr. of Michigan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is a co-sponsor of the amendment bill.

A coalition of public interest organizations and independent business advocates praised the Congresswoman’s action.  The groups, Voter Action, Public Citizen, the Center for Corporate Policy, and the American Independent Business Alliance, say the Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC poses a serious and direct threat to democracy.  Immediately following the Court's ruling on January 21, 2010, the groups launched a constitutional amendment campaign at http://www.freespeechforpeople.org to correct the judiciary's creation of corporate rights under the First Amendment over the past three decades. 

"Free speech rights are for people, not corporations," says John Bonifaz, Voter Action's legal director and the director of http://www.freespeechforpeople.org .  "Our history has included prior amendments to the US Constitution which were enacted to correct egregiously wrong decisions of the US Supreme Court directly impacting the democratic process.  The Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC demands a similar constitutional amendment response.  We applaud Congresswoman Edwards and Congressman Conyers for taking this critical step toward restoring the First Amendment to its original purpose."

"The Citizens United decision is wrong as a matter of law, history, and our republican principles of government," says Jeffrey Clements, general counsel to http://www.freespeechforpeople.org .  "The decision is devastating to our democracy, which is already dominated to a dangerous degree by corporate interest money.  Congresswoman Edwards and Congressman Conyers are showing the leadership we need in Congress at this hour."

"The First Amendment was never intended to protect the likes of ExxonMobil, Pfizer or Goldman Sachs, nor should it," said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "Public Citizen thanks Representative Donna Edwards for her courage and leadership in responding to the Supreme Court majority's aggression with a proposal for a constitutional amendment to restore the First Amendment to its rightful purpose: guaranteeing the speech rights of real, live persons."

"An amendment allowing regulation of corporate spending in elections is not only necessary to correct the twisted logic of the Citizens United ruling," says Charlie Cray, director of the Center for Corporate Policy, "but will also go a long way towards rousing us as citizens to assert our authority over the now presumptively untouchable corporations."

"The American Independent Business Alliance is pleased to see Representatives Edwards and Conyers respond to public outrage over the Supreme Court's rewrite of our Constitution," says Jeff Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent Business Alliance.  "America's independent businesses are among those which recognize that we need to limit corporations to their appropriate role--doing business. Allowing giant corporations even more power over our elections and government would be as bad for business as it is for democracy."

In addition to the filing of Congresswoman Edwards’ amendment bill, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts joined the call today for a constitutional amendment.  In testimony before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, Senator Kerry said: "[W]e need a constitutional amendment to make it clear once and for all that corporations do not have the same free speech rights as individuals."

 

EVERYONE should be behind this .... call/write/email your congresscritter demanding that they support this amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "Corporations are NOT people!"

So true. This really, really is scary. I've had this argument with some other parents at the boys' various schools. For the record, Noah and Ben are up-to-date on all their immunizations, as are Elene and I. As a matter of fact, I've had extras so I can travel to places in Asia and the Middle East that still have outbreaks of "obsolete" diseases.

"The rejection of hard-won knowledge is by no means a new phenomenon. In 1905, French mathematician and scientist Henri Poincaré said that the willingness to embrace pseudo-science flourished because people “know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether illusion is not more consoling.” Decades later, the astronomer Carl Sagan reached a similar conclusion: Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort. “A great many of these belief systems address real human needs that are not being met by our society,” Sagan wrote of certain Americans’ embrace of reincarnation, channeling, and extraterrestrials. “There are unsatisfied medical needs, spiritual needs, and needs for communion with the rest of the human community.”
Looking back over human history, rationality has been the anomaly. Being rational takes work, education, and a sober determination to avoid making hasty inferences, even when they appear to make perfect sense. Much like infectious diseases themselves — beaten back by decades of effort to vaccinate the populace — the irrational lingers just below the surface, waiting for us to let down our guard."