Now Reason TV defends the Atrocious

Instapundit puts up another hapless defender of the Dyslexic Supremes.

Step one: What is different between the NYT and Citizen's United?
Nothing, both are free to distribute advocacy to their voluntary customers in their customary manner.

I can see a problem if the NYT distributed their newspaper free just before the election with their advocating editorials. That is a problem. But NYT is doing its business as is normally done, with its own media, just like Citizen's United. They in fact are both media corporations, but it matters not.

Step two:
Citizen's Unitied buys media on the public market, the NYT does not. Is that form of business discriminated? Citizen's United, a media company, develops documentaries, but uses a regulated market place. If the legislature, in its duty to arbitrate conflicting rights, regulated limited media markets around election time would be in its rights? How can the judiciary judge whether limited channel markets can be deliberately clogged, by intent, for the purpose of denying fair information during an election?

Step three:
What is left to rule on? That the corporate charter agreement cannot be regulated differently, for the same purpose as in step two. We have legislators, shareholders, and judges sitting around saying, boy, this is going to be a pain in the ass to write all the rights arbitration into the corporate charter. Let's just not write the damn charters unless parties agree to a blanket abrogation of traded rights.

Want a simple way around this? Congress will only recognize corporations incorporated in the Cayman Islands, where Congress can enforce a voluntary agreement, unenforceable in the US. The legislature can create a precedent, off shore the judiciary.

Reason's real complaint is that they say legislatures cannot regulate public markets for free speech. That was not the issue in the case, and that would have been struck down.