James Bopp, Jr. of Indiana is a friendly-looking, cherry-cheeked, bespectacled fellow who reminds you of your favorite uncle Fred.
DO NOT be led astray by his innocuous, friendly-seeming demeanor. The man is a total snake! Bopp's benign-looking face masks the demonic mind behind Citizens United, Bopp is the man who would ensure that campaign finance laws – or the lack thereof – would give Americans the best government that money can buy, to echo the ironic words of Mark Twain:
We have the best government that money can buy.
and Greg Palast who wrote the book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
The New York Time's bio of Bopp:
James Bopp Jr. is an Indiana lawyer who was the driving force behind the case that led the Supreme Court in January 2010 to rule that corporations, unions and nonprofit groups have the right to spend as much as they want supporting or opposing the election of a candidate.
For more than three decades, Mr. Bopp, who practices law out of Terre Haute, Ind., has been a lonely Don Quixote tilting at the very idea of regulating political donations as an affront to free speech.
Hillary: The Movie
It was Mr. Bopp who had first advised the winning plaintiff in the case, the conservative group Citizens United, about using its campaign-season film "Hillary: The Movie" as a deliberate test of the limits on corporate political spending. And he shepherded the case through appeals to the Supreme Court as part of what he describes as a long-term legal strategy.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Muckety.com offers a brief survey of Bopp's connections:
Formerly part of the Federalist Society as well as a member of Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, currently active on the Republican National Committee, the National Right to Life Committee, Focus on the Family, part of the Bopp, Coleson and Bostrum law firm.
http://www.muckety.com/...
Bopp's latest salvo against clean elections occurred in Maine:
Last week, three Maine plaintiffs, represented by attorney James Bopp, filed suit in federal court to overturn the Clean Election matching funds system, asserting it is an unconstitutional infringement of their First Amendment rights....
This new lawsuit is part of a well-financed assault on the nation's campaign finance laws. Wherever voters and legislatures pass laws that attempt to level the playing field, deter corruption and limit the influence of moneyed special interests, Bopp is never far behind.
In lawsuit after lawsuit, Bopp and his allies go to bat for those with the fattest wallets. Remember Citizens United? That's the U.S. Supreme Court decision that rolled back 100 years of federal campaign finance reforms and guaranteed the right to unlimited political spending for corporations. Bopp was behind that one, too.
http://www.pressherald.com/...
Earlier this year Meteor Blades warned of Bopp's activities in Montana:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Ad Uses Luntz Framing To Bamboozle Voters On Financial Reform
Zachary Roth, February 11, 2010
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is ripping a stunningly deceitful new ad by a shadowy conservative group that uses Frank Luntz's up-is-down messaging advice to confuse voters about the financial-reform legislation currently in Congress.
Tester told the Billings Gazette that the ad -- which is being run by the "Committee for Truth in Politics" (CTP) and labels the reform effort a "$4 trillion bank bailout" -- is "not true."
.... CTP's attorney, James Bopp Jr., was behind the recent RNC "purity resolution," which aimed to get all GOP candidates to abide by a pledge not to waver from conservative orthodoxy. Bopp, an RNC committee member, also represented Citizen's United in its successful bid to challenge laws limiting corporate spending on politics. And he has sued the FEC, arguing that CTP shouldn't be required to file any disclosure reports with the agency.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...
The Committee for Truth in Politics, apparently freed from the pesky democratic tendency for disclosure for allowing mere humans to know who funds the group, is actively campaigning against the consumer protection act:
A third-party group, the Committee for Truth in Politics, is out with an ad blasting the House’s "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act." The group, which has no Web site and has made no disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, was created by a North Carolina GOP operative, according to National Public Radio, and is represented by lawyer James Bopp, who sued the FEC on the grounds that the group shouldn’t have to file any kind of spending report to that agency.
The ad has run in 35 markets in Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a Kantar Media Solution.
debunked at:
http://www.factcheck.org/...
Beyond the Committee for Truth in Politics' campaign against legislation protecting human rights, Greg Palast offers up a Manchurian candidate scenario:
I'm losing sleep over the millions — or billions — of dollars that could flood into our elections from ARAMCO, the Saudi Oil corporation's U.S. unit; or from the maker of "New Order" fashions, the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Or from Bin Laden Construction corporation. Or Bin Laden Destruction Corporation.
Right now, corporations can give loads of loot through PACs. While this money stinks (Barack Obama took none of it), anyone can go through a PAC's federal disclosure filing and see the name of every individual who put money into it. And every contributor must be a citizen of the USA.
But under today's Supreme Court ruling that corporations can support candidates without limit, there is nothing that stops, say, a Delaware-incorporated handmaiden of the Burmese junta from picking a Congressman or two with a cache of loot masked by a corporate alias.
http://crooksandliars.com/...
Thanks to the deliciously cheery faced James Bopp, Jr., we can now all share Palast's nightmare.