our nation s campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant of democratic legitimacy. to be clear, what the supreme court has done is strike down the federal law that limited how much a single person could give to all political candidates put together and how much a single person could give to all political parties and pacs. now, it s a fair question to ask, you know, how many people in america will want to do what the guy did here, who brought this lawsuit, a businessman named shaun mccutchen, who had a lot of money and wanted to give to a lot of candidates, how many people are there like him, that s a fair question, but it s another erosion on the limits of money in politics, and the two warring factions here believe that that is a, you know, either a good thing and that will be more speech in politics, or bad thing that it s going to make more of the political discourse in america in the hands of fewer people with a lot of money.
that box in order to get where they needed to go. it s a really disturbing decision following a really disturbing decision in citizens united. most on the right are hailing the court s opinion as a victory for free speech, noting that it simply striked down the agruget limits on every american, whether they want to give to republicans, democrats, nments, or any other candidates and say together with the citizens united decision, it will provide more opportunity across the board. enable more citizens to be involved, more citizens to contribute to the candidates and causes they believe in. that s good for america. this is a great decision. the original plaintiff in this case, shaun mccutchen, from alabama, was celebrating by saying in a free country, he believes citizens should be able to freely give with their political speech, and it sounded like today he is planning on spending more in this political cycle than he would have been able to under those old caps. shan bream live a
questions about why eye witness and cia accounts from the ground were overlooked or discounted. chief intelligent correspondent catherine herridge has highlights from today s contentious hearing. the former deputy cia director michael morrell s appearance, his first public testimony on the talking points was filled with awkward explanation, frustration, and pointed accusations. you made significant substantive changes for the white house, whether it was on behalf, we don t know. but we know you are the one who made those changes. ma am, if you look at the record, what you will see is the changes i made were fully consistent with what our analysts believed at the time, period. morrell told the committee he gave more weight to the intelligence assessment at headquarters by analysts thousands of miles from benghazi than he did to the cia chief of station, the top intelligence officer in libya, who reported there was no protest. if i m looking for the cia s judgment abo
this $123,000 limit or the $48,000 limit in direct contributions to candidates. well, and i want to bring in michael here. the other issue here is that this seems like a silly it seems like a silly restriction now after citizens united gave the blueprint. citizens united didn t start the idea of super pacs. we always want to make that distinction. but essentially election lawyers used citizens united to come up with this superpab pac blueprint that it does allow mr mr. mccutchen, he can only give a certain amount of money to federal candidates directly, but superpacs allow him to write unlimited amount of money to candidates in a separate committee. it s an important point. right now candidates in political parties compete against one another for contributions because donors might want to give the maximum but they bump up against this aggregate limit. if thing a regae ing a raggrega
multimillion-dollar contributions to superpacs. they have to operate independently of the candidates and parties. if mccutchen prevails it could strengthen the political parties where there s more of a ma jor tearian instinct and that money is fully disclosed to the fec. pete, who s making these arguments today? reporter: senator mcconnell will not with arguing on his own. he ll be represented by counsel. the lawyer for shaun mccutchen will present his case, then the solicitor general will argue on the government s side to support the campaign finance restrictions. it s the first big case of the term. one other thing, chuck. there s a pretty big line here. there s a lot of interest in this case. this is the second day the supreme court s been in business. the third branch of government is working despite the government shutdown. and the even the people who put the scaffolding up on the supreme court are working. they re supposed to be taking it down after a long season of remodelin