Citizens United

Back in January 2010, President Obama spoke in his State of the Union address about the damage that he believed the “Citizens United” ruling would do to our country and our democracy, to which most of the members of the Supreme Court just stoically listened. But one, Samuel Alito (whom I call “Scalito”…a miniaturized version of Scalia) had the nerve to shake his head in denial and mouth the words “that’s not true”…




Now, over a year later, it’s even starting to look like the Citizens United ruling may have actually been literally BOUGHT…




This corrupt ruling, which does EXACTLY what President Obama said that it would, has allowed the multi-billionaire Koch brothers and others like them, such as Peter G. Peterson – (who I write about here) and Ira Rennert (whom I discuss in this article - read it here), and numerous others like them to use fake organizations like “Americans for Prosperity”, “Club For Growth” “Tea Party Express” and “Freedom Works” to buy the most recent midterm election cycle. The obscene amounts of money that they pumped into the elections allowed their “Tea Party” crazies to take over state houses from Wisconsin to Ohio, from New Jersey to Minnesota.

Nationally, their deep pockets also allowed the GoP to take over the U.S. House of Representatives, bringing us to this place where they have defunded NPR, PBS, Planned Parenthood…basically any organization that anyone with a “(D)” after their name might think is doing good work, but whom republicans have notoriously hated. Currently the nation is still operating under threat of them shutting down our government completely (just like Gingrich and the rest of the republicans did back in 1995, which didn’t work out so well), though we have apparently bought a couple more weeks.

And on local levels their bought-and-paid-for Governors are now ready to do what their multi-billionaire financiers have always wanted, the destruction of organized labor, so that even MORE of the country’s wealth gets funneled to them as the middle class is even further decimated.  After all, it was the rise of organized labor that created the middle class in the first place, against the wishes of the robber-barons.  The unions are the very soul of the middle class and their decline is directly related to the rise of the earnings of the super-rich as everyone else's income flat-lines...see this article from CNN Money

The official propaganda mouthpiece of the Repubillionaires (my term for republican billionaires, sort of like “Brangelina” and “Benifer”, etc.), Faux...errr...FOX News even ran footage of a protest that they pretended was in Wisconsin when the footage clearly depicts palm trees and an obvious lack of the snow that currently blankets Madison, Wisconsin…





As this fight wages on, the Kochs and the other hard right Repubillionaires (along with the “Republican Governor’s Association” which is running a particularly dishonest ad, which I was unable to find video for) are still utilizing the Citizens United ruling to dump massive amounts of money into the matter as they currently blanket Wisconsin with a lot of completely inaccurate commercials in support of Scott Walker’s union destruction plan, like this pack of lies…



This spot calls the protestors “labor union mobs led by Barack Obama’s Organizing for America” and claims that they “are trying to intimidate and harass Governor Walker and lawmakers in Madison” when quite to the contrary, President Obama has pretty much stayed out of this matter (much to my chagrin, see my post On Wisconsin) and far from being “mobs” the City of Madison has publically thanked the protestors for their good behavior.  The police are even down on the line with the other protestors. In fact, a friend of mine who attended one day of the Madison protests told a story about meeting an older woman (old enough to have been protesting in the 60’s) who commented, “It’s incredible, after all my years of protesting, for the first time, me and the police are on the same side!”




The commercial then goes on to say that the president and public employee unions need to “grow up” and “knock off your selfish campaign of intimidation”. SELFISH?? Multi-billionaires who are hoarding almost all our nation’s wealth actually have the NERVE to call our nurses, teachers, EMTs, snow-plow drivers and other state workers SELFISH?

Kettle…have you met pot?

The FACT of the matter is that the “selfish” ones in this equation are the big money interests that want to make sure that they keep everything and we just keep quiet about having nothing. They use their big money to buy commercials to brainwash the common people into believing that making sure that the rich get richer and the rest get poorer is what’s best for the country, when in fact, that's only what is best for them. They’re cutting transportation funds, because the rich don’t need busses, and they’re cutting education funds, because they don’t want us educated, nor do they want us unionized…because ignorant and standing alone…? Well…we work cheaper that way.

Former Senator Russ Feingold (who I personally believe is the finest Senator I’ve seen in my adult lifetime), who had his Senate seat taken from him by one of those “Tea Party” candidates (a millionaire named Ron Johnson, who is now unfortunately my state’s Junior Senator), has written a wonderful piece called “The Second Gilded Age” which clearly spells out what is happening in Wisconsin (and the country) in relation to the current assault on worker’s rights, which he published at the website of an organization he founded called “Progressives United”…read it here.

I firmly believe that the Citizens United ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court was probably the most dangerous decision that has ever been handed down in the history of our nation…



…and I also believe that the surfacing evidence that certain members of the Court accepted money and other gifts/favors from the Repubillionaires (and therefore SHOULD have recused themselves) should get the matter reheard and overturned.

Here's hoping anyway...