I can’t help it; I find this story perversely hilarious, the blackest of black humor.

In a nutshell, the ultra-right leaning Roberts Court looks like it is about to overturn most of campaign finance law, specifically the parts that limit how much money corporations can give to politicians.

It’s the last right they don’t have, these immortal, undying, illusory creatures of greed, profit and the law. If the Roberts Court rules as they’re hinting, Coca-Cola will be able to directly, legally sponsor, aka bribe/purchase, politicians. Or Pepsi. Or Exxon. You get the idea. As bad as the whoring in Congress is today, with a simple health care reform supported by 75% of the American public unable to get past the Baucus Caucus, if the corporations that run our society could directly buy votes in the Senate?

Game over man, game over. It’s the end of the American experiment.

From Digby:

Let’s start with the biggest and most obvious reason this is a momentous case. Citizens United is arguing that expenditures by corporations in elections should be treated identically to those of individuals. If the Court accepts this argument, it would do away with a distinction that has been in place in our Constitution since the Founding and our statutory law since the Tillman Act of 1907 (as explained in the brief CAC filed in Citizens United), and allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections. To appreciate how scary this change would be, consider that, according to the FEC, the Republican and Democratic parties combined spent slightly more than $1.5 billion between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2008, while Fortune Magazine reports that the 10 most profitable companies during the same period earned combined profits of over $350 billion. This contrast reveals that unleashing even a tiny fraction of corporate profits – from just a handful of companies – could overwhelm the campaign system with money that represents the narrowest interests of private, profit-driven entities.

Although she forgot the link, that piece I quoted appears to have originally come from this Huffpo article.

Obama’s campaign fundraising was revolutionary because it brought in an all-time record amount of cash; according to PBS, almost 750 million dollars.

The Fortune 500 could outspend him 10 to 1 without breaking a sweat. Big Pharma spends almost 60 billion a year, A YEAR, in advertising in the US alone. Why bother, when you could just buy the Senate, lock stock and barrel, for a tiny fraction of that, and legislate yourself rich(er)? Ban generics, ban importing drugs, mint a ton of cash and force Medicare to spend it on your products. The sky is the limit.

The only issue I see with this is that there’s going to be a pretty hectic bidding war, though once they repeal all the campaign finance laws so that they can take the money in secret I imagine things will work themselves out. It’ll be like an auction, with our country on the block, at least for a while.

Not to worry though; eventually they’ll just bring back the smoke filled rooms and the Right People can make all the decisions again.

The way it was always meant to be.

Update: I should amend this to say that there are other rights corporations don’t have yet, but I’m not sure they matter. They can’t vote, but who cares about voting, when a handful of bought and paid for Senators can block even the most desperately needed reform?

Voting is obsolete. No wonder they don’t have that right yet; it’s not worth the purchase price.