Fox News Ratings Explode On Scott Brown Victory Night
Fox News was the only one to show both speeches fully.
"The network saw its biggest night since Election Night 2008, averaging a staggering 6.161 million total viewers in primetime. For comparison, that's almost double CNN (1.503 million total viewers), MSNBC (1.138 million total viewers), and HLN (668,000 total viewers) combined."
"Interestingly, both "Hannity" and "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" (6.399 million total viewers) averaged more than the "Jay Leno Show" on NBC (5.994 million total viewers)."
Saturday, January 23, 2010
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BTW, Air America went off the air today. No support from the left?
This is scary it shows the majority of the American people are moving towards fascism. The supreme court just handed control of our government over to the corporations, we are no longer a country of "We the People" no longer a democracy but a "corporatocracy" like in the film "Rollerball"
Published on Friday, January 22, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
If Corporations Were Human
by Scott Klinger
Yesterday's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case removes all limits on large corporations to finance and influence federal elections. In its ruling the Court reverse a decades old ruling barring companies from using their general funds to fund political campaign, and guts pieces of the popular McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation. In so doing the Court implicitly embraces a 125 year-old precedent in the case of Santa Clara v. Santa Fe, where the Court first developed the legal doctrine of corporate personhood, explicitly granting corporations the same political and civil rights granted to human beings. Our nation's founders would be shocked to learn that their revolution had resulted in non-human entities like corporations being endowed with the same hard fought rights secured for citizens.
But what if we accept corporate personhood as the current reality and instead focus on changing the rules such that corporations would also have to be bound by other limitations of humanity? How would corporations be different if they were indeed human-like?
If corporations were human, they would pause for sleep and recreation. When human families vacation, they frequently go to parks or natural places which they inherently recognize as part of the commons set apart from the marketplace. Many corporations know no such bounds; if resources are available, even in the nation's National Parks, they will seek to develop them. Today's modern corporations are 24/7 affairs, that are always charging forward. The press for continuous growth and the need to deliver the next quarter's earnings, make corporation's urgency and intensity toward time a threat to many communities, which have other priorities like caring for children and elders, not the tireless quest to produce more profit.
If corporations were human, they would acknowledge their dependence on a healthy community for their well-being and contribute financially to the vibrancy of the community through payment of taxes. Fifty years ago, corporate taxes made up nearly 22% of the federal treasury receipts, today corporate taxes contribute less than 13% to the Federal budget. The mindset of many large corporations is that of takers, looking to be supported by society with a stream of tax credits and preferential tax rates. According to a 2008 report by the Government Accounting Office, 25% of large US corporations paid no Federal income taxes in 2005 (the latest year studied) despite reporting collective sales exceeding $1.1 trillion.
If corporations were human, they would recognize that their brains are only one of many vital organs. The brain, which provides the executive function for the body whole, nonetheless consumes a relatively modest share of the body's nutrition. A brain which swells beyond a normal healthy state is a dire threat to the body and most often requires the dramatic intervention of surgery. Inhuman corporations provide ever larger amount of nutrition in the form of money to its executive function. These swollen levels of pay are a cancer that often results in excessive risk, putting both the corporation and society at risk.
If corporations were human, they would be accountable to society when they break the law and would be punished with a loss of their freedoms. When a person steals or murders, they are sent to prison, where they lose their freedom to practice their trade, and to participate in the economic and political life of the community. When corporations produce products they know to be deadly, or withhold important information on the safety of their products are they not guilty of murder? When corporations submit fraudulent financial statements to investors, or engage in deceptive marketing practices that cost people their homes or their life savings, are they not guilty of felonious theft? Shouldn't corporate criminals, particularly repeat offenders, be denied their freedom to practice business and have their license revoked?
If corporations were human, they would one day die. Unlike the finitude of human life, modern corporations can live forever under the law, growing in size and gaining political and economic power generation after generation. It was not always so. When our nation was young, people recognized both the good things that business contributed but also the risks of concentrating too much power in the hands of businesses. Business charters were granted for a set period of time, commonly a generation, after which time the businesses would be dissolved. While businesses could still prosper and grow to have influence, they were kept from becoming too big to fail, where their size alone was a threat to the social order.
Corporations can't have it both ways - insisting upon the political and civil rights guaranteed human rights under the Constitution, while at the same time refusing to live within the constraints of human life in terms of longevity, size, accountability and support of the communities which grant them their existence.
Scott Klinger is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He may be reached at scottklinger@earthlink.net.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation
A corporation is an institution that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.[1] There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business.
Corporations exist as a product of corporate law, and their rules balance the interests of the management who operate the corporation; creditors who loan it goods, services or money; shareholders who invest their capital; the employees who contribute their labor; and the clients they serve. People work together in corporations to produce value and generate income. In modern times, corporations have become an increasingly dominant part of economic life. People rely on corporations for employment, pensions, goods, services, economic growth and cultural development.
An important feature of corporation is limited liability. If a corporation fails, shareholders normally only stand to lose their investment, and employees will lose their jobs, but neither will be further liable for debts that remain owing to the corporation's creditors.
Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like actual people. Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state,[2] and they may be responsible for human rights violations.[3] Just as they are "born" into existence through its members obtaining a certificate of incorporation, they can "die" when they lose money into insolvency. Corporations can even be convicted of criminal offences, such as fraud and manslaughter.[4]
Corporations can't be put in jail or get the death penalty for manslaughter, not in the USA anyway you need to read the footnotes. Yet tell me why do you as a person want to give corporations even more power, like they don't have enough already, what is your motivation?????
So tell me what is your motivation, many corporations poison your food and water and pollute your air and water and land, don't pay their fair share of taxes, burn down forests and kill indians for oil, exploit the under educated, corrupt our governments, etc...why do you want to protect them? Sure there a "good" corporations like Google yet these good corporations want more regulation not less...what is your motivation?
you could replace "corporations" with individuals, people or organizations in your statement.
A corporation is just a group of people.
No a corporation is a "few" people with way too much power and little if any liability... almost all of hundreds or thousands of employees in a corporation are scared of losing their jobs to blow the whistle when the few at the top do wrong.
When corporations burn the Amazon forest and kill the natives to drill for oil in Ecuador or Colombia do you think we hear about it on FOX?
No, a corporation could be one person. To protect myself in Amsterdam, I set up a corporation. As a corporation I paid more taxes than as an individual.
Most of the burning of Amazon forest is down by farmers and ranchers, who are corporations, but poor people trying to make a living.
And yes you do hear things like that on Fox.
Why did you set yourself up as a corporation in Amsterdam if it meant you had to pay more taxes??? Why didn't you do that in the USA instead??
The corporation was a U.S. company. I had to pay more than if I just took the money directly. I had to pay additional Social Security taxes, and tax at the Corporate Rate, plus all the other fees (workman's comp, etc) that goes with employment.
To protect myself in Amsterdam, I set up a corporation. As a corporation I paid more taxes than as an individual.
I don't see your point? What is your point? That corporations pay less in Holland than in the USA? Which may be true by the way and yet they still have a far better social security system than we do and they pay fewer taxes to boot...maybe after 30 years of Republicans running America that's to be expected...if that's your point I think we agree.
If something bad happen I could be sued. As a corporation I would only lose the assets of the corporation. As an individual, they could take all my personal assets away.
why should corporations have more rights than individuals?
Corporations can't vote so why do you think they have more rights?
they have more rights because they have limited liability the people or unincorporated business do not, if people make mistakes they have to pay corporations do not...thus corporations have more rights...by the way corporations do vote, the people in them vote for the person they think will help their corporation the most, further they do more than vote they lobby, lobbying is worth far more than voting...wake up Joe you should be able to see this???
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