{"id":240755,"date":"2010-01-28T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1339"},"modified":"2010-01-28T09:39:16","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T14:39:16","slug":"barack-obama-versus-samuel-alito-a-federal-judge-judged-and-more-in-capital-eye-opener-january-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/240755","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama Versus Samuel Alito, a Federal Judge Judged and More in Capital Eye Opener: January 28"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"obamastateoftheunion.jpg\"<\/span><\/strong>SUPREME COURT’S SAMUEL ALITO THE NEW JOE WILSON?<\/strong> President Barack Obama<\/a>, standing before a full session of Congress within the U.S. Capitol, accused the U.S. Supreme Court of opening “the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations” through its 5-4 ruling last week in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. <\/em>A visibly agitated<\/a> Justice Samuel Alito, sitting just feet away from Obama as he delivered the presidential State of the Union address<\/a>, shook his head, made a face and appeared to mouth “simply not true.” <\/p>\n

Said Obama, in triggering Alito’s reaction: “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests \u0096- including foreign corporations \u0096- to spend without limit in our elections. I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”<\/p>\n

This wasn’t exactly a repeat of last year, when Rep. Joe<\/a> Wilson<\/a> (R-S.C.) blurted “you lie<\/a>!” at Obama as he spoke before congressional members. But Supreme Court justices typically rival Vulcans and poker champions when it comes to displaying emotion, at least during presidential speeches.<\/p>\n

His wide-ranging address, Obama focused heavily on topics such as health care reform, financial reform and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also called for allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

Obama also addressed expanding lobbying transparency — an issue central<\/a> to our mission<\/a> — while putting influence peddlers on serious notice.  <\/p>\n

“It’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or with Congress,” Obama said. “It’s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office.”<\/p>\n

Below, watch Obama’s address in its entirely — as well as a response speech from newly elected Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell<\/a>, a Republican:<\/p>\n

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FEDERAL JUDGE FACES IMPEACHMENT:<\/strong> U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. himself may soon become the defendant in an impeachment trial conducted by the U.S. Senate, as the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously voted<\/a> to approve four articles of impeachment over alleged misconduct. The articles of impeachment now go to the full House for a vote. If approved there, a two-thirds vote in the Senate would be required to remove the 63-year-old federal judge. Porteous is in part accused<\/a> of lying to Congress and corruption. <\/p>\n

CRP, IN THE NEWS:<\/strong> Columnist George Will, writing today<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em>, defends the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission<\/em> ruling in his latest dispatch. In doing so, Will cites our research showing that during the 2008 election cycle, lawyers proved to be more active campaign contributors than even bankers or energy industry workers … The National Football League<\/a> a major player in politics? Absolutely, writes Scripps Howard News Service<\/em> Sports Editor John Lindsay, who uses our research and quotes us in his report Wednesday<\/a> about the league’s newfound political interest, particularly in light of the labor and communications issues it now faces. (Read our September report on the issue here<\/a>) … WHYY-FM in Philadelphia interviews us<\/a> about how federal lobbying in 2009, particularly in the health care sector, will likely reach record levels … Other news articles citing the Center for Responsive Politics and OpenSecrets.org<\/a> in the past day include: the Los Angeles Times<\/em><\/a>, the Detroit News<\/em><\/a>, the Washington Examiner<\/em><\/a>, Bloomberg<\/em><\/a> and the Center for Public Integrity<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And become our fan on Facebook:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUPREME COURT’S SAMUEL ALITO THE NEW JOE WILSON? President Barack Obama, standing before a full session of Congress within the U.S. Capitol, accused the U.S. Supreme Court of opening “the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations” through its 5-4 ruling last week in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. A visibly agitated Justice Samuel Alito, sitting just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240755\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}