Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Supreme Court in Bed with Big Business

So much for ANY ethics in all branches of our government.

A little more than a year ago the Supreme Court had ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns.

During President Obama's State of the Union speech last year Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words "not true" when President Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court's campaign finance decision.

Obama had said, "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said. "Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

The court had overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for campaign ads.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

Now we learn from Common Cause that just a few weeks before that infamous 5 to 4 decision that two sitting Supreme Court Justices (Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) had attended seminars sponsored by the energy giant and conservative bankrollers Koch Industries (the Koch brothers have been a longtime underwriter of libertarian causes)...just for the purpose of discussing the laws governing corporate campaign contributions.

Clarence Thomas defended his attendance there saying he "just dropped by", but records for his expenses when he filed for reimbursements indicated food and lodging at the Koch affair for four whole days.

And for 5 years Justice Clarence Thomas didn't report any income for his wife on his income tax returns, until Common Cause also called him out on that as well...and ONLY THEN did Justice Thomas file an amended tax return to report his illegal omissions.

It's all over folks. A President (extended tax breaks to the rich), both political parties (allowed outsourcing of jobs), and the Supreme Court (allowed corporate bribes) - all three branches of our government - are in bed and beholden to the very corporations that killed the America Dream for a large part of the working class. And people working in the Federal Reserve and Supreme Court are cheating on their taxes too.

This country has been governed by people for decades who have no honor at all, so it's no wonder we are where are we today - - - 20% unemployment, bankrupt, failing as a nation, and in decline.

As far as I'm concerned our "leaders" are all just common criminals and should be arrested and thrown in jail.

2 comments:

  1. Bud-been following this blog for a couple weeks now. Read this story and immediately thought of you. Hard enough to find a job, yet employers are allowed to discriminate if you've been unemployed too long: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110217/ts_yblog_thelookout/help-wanted-jobless-need-not-apply

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  2. Thanks Mrs M, Good article. I added it to my Facebook group:
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tier-Five-Or-Die/120731691298779

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