The State of the Union
posted by Gerard Magliocca
If you watch a replay of the speech, you will see that when the President describes Citizens United as “opening the floodgates” of corporate money in politics, the camera pans and Justice Alito clearly says, “No. That’s not true.”
UPDATE: I guess that’s the judicial way of saying “You Lie.”
January 27, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Posted in: Current Events
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Responses (12)
SOTU: POTUS v. SCOTUS « FIRST ONE @ ONE FIRST - January 27, 2010 at 8:35 pm
[...] later, Justice Alito broke into a wry smile and mouthed “No, that’s not true,” becoming the only non-impassive face in among the [...]
MJG - January 27, 2010 at 8:53 pm
The youtube link of Alito’s response can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pB5uR3zgsA
John Randolph - January 27, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Now we can impeach him for his unjudicial conduct! Anyone up for it?
State of the Union: Lip-reading Justice Alito - January 27, 2010 at 9:07 pm
[...] limit in our elections.” Justice Samuel Alito could be seen mouthing words and in particular, per Gerard Magliocca, the phrase “That’s not true”. For why he might have reacted that way, see [...]
chris - January 27, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Mr. Magliocca, your post suggests that you feel the President’s claim is false. It seems that that your emotions are consistent with Justice Alito’s impulsive body language which asserts that the President has lied.
As a lay person I challenge you to provide a factual basis for the sentiments you’ve expressed. I suspect that as of today’s date it is far too early for a reasonable person to make such a determination. Perhaps only the passage of time will tell if the President’s claim or Justice Alito’s sentiments are true. Please show that I am wrong by providing a factual and reasoned argument that cites the Citizen’s United decision, the law and recent public events that have transpired since Thursday January 21st, 2010 to show that your emotional claims are not just another example partisan hyperbole.
Joe - January 28, 2010 at 1:27 am
Bad time to be caught with the camera on you, huh?
Christa - January 28, 2010 at 8:52 am
It is interesting that none of the justices can really stand up and clap when a president says something contrary to their opinion. What should they be doing other than mouthing, “That’s not true”? Sitting still would have been a more dignified response.
Ken Rhodes - January 28, 2010 at 11:52 am
This is a tempest in a teapot. Who really cares that Justice Alito mouthed the words, since EVERYBODY already knew his opinion? Not only that, but everybody also knows that (a) Mr. Justice Alito will not be running for reelection, and (b) Mr. Justice Alito will probably be in office long after Mr. President Obama has departed.
Interesting, too, that we have such debate going on about the words–or more importantly, the concept–”opened the floodgates.” To this engineer’s brain, “opened the floodgates” does not equate to “loosed a flood.” It says that we’ve removed the impediment to the flood. This action may cause an immediate flood, if there’s one dammed up, or perhaps it may allow a future flood, if and when the rushing waters flow down the river and reach the dam.
Can that possibility be denied, now that the floodgates have been opened?
FR3E - January 28, 2010 at 9:40 pm
I agree with the comment you made the other day when you said: “I don’t know a lot about campaign finance reform and thus probably shouldn’t comment on Citizens United”. That was a valuable insight. It’s unfortunate that you have again “decided — in typical academic fashion — not to let (your) ignorance stand in the way of my opinions” by publishing yet another ‘opinion’ on Citizen’s United.
Ken Rhodes - January 28, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Fr3e wrote: >>I agree with the comment you made the other day when you said: “I don’t know a lot about campaign finance reform and thus probably shouldn’t comment on Citizens United”. That was a valuable insight. It’s unfortunate that you have again “decided — in typical academic fashion — not to let (your) ignorance stand in the way of my opinions” by publishing yet another ‘opinion’ on Citizen’s United.>>
I guess I must have missed the invisible paragraph in the original post. “Opinion on Citizen’s United???” I saw only a brief comment on the questionable politeness of one of the Supremes at a public exhibition.
Brett Bellmore - January 29, 2010 at 6:04 am
“Can that possibility be denied, now that the floodgates have been opened?”
Not so long as you note that there’s already a dam on that particular branch of the river, upstream from McCain/Feingold, with it’s floodgates welded shut. 2 USC 441a.
A pretty effective dam, so long as candidates don’t do something questionable, like going out of their way disabling all the automatic checks on their website’s credit card software that would check to see if donations were coming from another country… Obama is in a piss poor position to complain about foreign money flowing into American politics.
Ken Rhodes - January 29, 2010 at 7:17 am
I wrote (at the end of my post of several paragraphs): >>“Can that possibility be denied, now that the floodgates have been opened?”>>
Brett replied to that question: >>Not so long as you note that there’s already a dam on that particular branch of the river, upstream from McCain/Feingold, with it’s floodgates welded shut. 2 USC 441a.
A pretty effective dam, so long as candidates don’t do something questionable…etc.>>
Apparently, I didn’t make myself as clear as I thought I had. Apparently, too, the five justices failed in the same way.
No, Brett, it isn’t about contributions; that isn’t the “particular branch of the river” under discussion. If it were, then McCain-Feingold would have been redundant, and the discussion would not be taking place at all.
Rather, it’s about direct purchase of advertising by corporations. The dam doesn’t exist AT ALL on that branch anymore.
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