This is Very Bad News.

Very bad news (emphases mine):

The Supreme Court has given big business, unions and nonprofits more power to spend freely in federal elections, a major turnaround that threatens a century of government efforts to regulate the power of corporations to bankroll American politics.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court's conservative majority crafted a narrow overhaul of federal campaign spending Thursday that could have an immediate effect on next year's congressional midterm elections.

"Our nation's speech dynamic is changing, and informative voices should not have to circumvent onerous restrictions to exercise their First Amendment rights," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The conservative-led opinion radically alters the election calculus, offering greater spending flexibility for a broader range of for-profit and nonprofit groups seeking a voice in the crowded national political debate.

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, "In a democratic society, the long-standing consensus on the need to limit corporate campaign spending should outweigh the wooden applications of judge-made rules."

This decision absolutely makes my blood run cold. It is not hyperbole to say this decision is paving the way for America to become a fully-fledged corporatocracy, which, depending on your perspective, is a sibling to fascism or a version of it.

When we look at the two major parties and see that there is so little difference between them that a stream of sunlight can barely eke through, when we see the GOP gleefully and unapologetically doing the business of corporations, watch with horror Democrats enthusiastically voting for massive hand-outs to Big Pharma and funding the adventures of the military-industrial complex and turning healthcare reform into a giant gift to the insurance industry and approaching environmental issues with the sort of shrugging trepidation that makes Big Energy grin, that is because the majority of Congress is already held in the thrall of corporate donors.

That was their power before the Supreme Court further eased restrictions on corporate campaign spending.

And, yes, unions and progressive non-profits are getting the same benefit, but I don't guess I need to note that unions and progressive non-profits aren't flush with cash the way corporations are. Even without government bail-outs.

This decision further diminishes any voice that isn't backed with a fuckload of money.

Someday, we may look back on this day and realize it was the day our democracy died.