Oh, here's a shorter link ... it's ".org" not ".com"

http://www.yeswestillcan.org

Link to "Yes We Still Can" (that Thom just talked about) is here:

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5649/t/4951/content.jsp?content_KEY=2802

DRichards,

"So, what will it take to get the Democratic party to implode?"

I think passing crappy health care reform will do the trick.

RandyWinn,

Yes, corporations should also be subject to the death penalty for killing people.

I never hear anyone on the right explain why they think that the only voice that executives and share holders have is through their corporations. Why don't they use their own voice, just as I do? Why do they think they're mute unless they're 'talking' through their rich and powerful corporations??

So, if contributions from the corporation are the shareholders practicing their First Amendment rights through the corporation, the personal contribution limits through the corporation should be enforced, and the contributions should be made in the names of the individual shareholders rather than in the name of the corporation. And any personal contributions should be applied against the contributions made through the corporation as far as the limits. And there should be documentation of the shareholders' intent to contribute through the corporation signed by each of the individual shareholders.

The question of whether corporations were persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment had been argued in the lower courts and briefed for the Supreme Court, but the Court did not base its decision on this issue.

However, before oral argument took place, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite announced:

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

This quotation was printed by the court reporter in the syllabus and case history above the opinion, but was not in the opinion itself. As such, it did not technically - in the view of most legal historians - have any legal precedential value. However, the Supreme Court is not required by Constitution or even precedent to limit its rulings to written statements.

The persuasive value of Waite's statement did influence later courts, becoming part of American corporate law without ever actually being enacted by statute or formal judicial decision. For these reasons, some believe it to be literally an unprecedented extension of constitutional rights to US corporations.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong

Thom,
You asked your guest if he thought that giving corporation the right to personhood is what the founding fathers had in mind. Your guest said Yes.

That is his opinion. What do the facts say?

Here is a bit of news about Medicare Advantage Plans. My wife is 61 and is disabled. She is eligible for Medicare 1 October 2009. We wanted to keep the original Medicare but wanted to buy a Medigap policy that would pay for the expenses that Medicare doesn't cover. Well in the State of Arizona this is only one "Company/Organization" that offers coverage to people under the age of 65. Unfortunately one must be affiliated with a certain religion to buy it. So, because she is disabled and under the age of 65 she is being discriminated against. So we settled for a Medicare Advantage program. Once you sign up with one of these plans your Medicare card can't be used.

Yesterday we were at her Doctor at the Mayo Clinic and told her that my wife was changing Health Insurance companies and that she is starting Medicare and bought one of the Advantage plans. The Doctor kind of gasped and said that Mayo Clinic Hospital doesn't take Medicare Advantage patients but does take traditional Medicare. We asked why and she responded that traditional Medicare reimburses the Clinic at a higher rate than the so called Advantage Plans.

So although she only enrolled last week, she will be going back to traditional medicare during the November 15 - January enrollment period.

Corporations should not be able to OWN other corporations! they should not be able to profit from their crimes! They should serve the same jail time as natural persons! they should only be allowed to live the average life of a human! They must prove they require the same things to exist that humans do - after all most animals require all the things humans do to survive and we don't give them the same rights we give corporations...

I LOVE that you played the clips from JFK's Madison Square Garden speech on health care. It is just one of the many great speeches of President Kennedy, but it is little known and tragically it is just as relevant now as it was then.

For those who would like to hear the whole speech, it is on Youtube.