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Jimmy Carter Calls Citizens United 'The Stupidest, Most Damaging Ruling' in Supreme Court History

Worse than Dred Scott, worse than Plessy, worse than Korematsu...

(AP)
January 16, 2015

Worst Living President Jimmy Carter said something profoundly silly on Friday, and to the surprise of many, it wasn’t about the Jews.

In an interview with ABC News personality/ex-Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos, the former one-term president called the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United the "stupidest … most damaging ruling that the Supreme Court has ever issued."

So, in Carter’s view, the ruling affirming the first amendment rights of nonprofit organizations to spend money on politics is stupider and more dangerous than, for example:

  • Dred Scott v. Sandford (Ruled that slaves are not U.S. citizens and therefore have no rights)
  • Plessy v. Ferguson (Upheld racial segregation and "separate but equal")
  • Korematsu v. United States (Upheld the internment and exclusion of Japanese Americans)

Carter is hardly the only liberal to feel this way. But that doesn't make it any less of a hot take.