[hga]

I'm not entirely certain why, but the logic you employ here strikes me as very similar to the justifications used to support the Citizens United ruling.

I'm not certain why, either, seeing as how Citizens United was about core political speech, Federal government censorship of a video about a candidate for federal office, which if the First Amendment, specifically:

Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

Means anything, it means such speech cannot be abridged.

[6stringmerc]

I guess I mean in practical outcomes - that money equates to speech, therefore freedom of money in politics has done the exact opposite of campaign finance reform.

[Frondo]

No freedom is or has ever been absolute, certainly not 1st amendment freedoms (e.g. fraud).

[hga]

The only speech I'm talking about, the only speech which was the subject of Citizens United, is core political speech.

In that context, in the traditional US context, there's no "fraud", AKA criminal libel. Although I don't agree with the extremes of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which removed useful feedback in the system in the civil law arena, current case law makes protection of core political speech all but "absolute".

[6stringmerc]

To paraphrase the late great Hunter S. Thompson:

"There was a rumor going around the circle of journalists, and while I was the one who started the rumor, its existence meant I could report it as a fact."