Taughannock Falls

Taughannock Falls
from: althouse.blogspot.com

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The Plutocrats' "Ace in the hole"




Here's Jamie Raskin, law professor at American University:


In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the Rehnquist Court, by a 5-4 margin, called off vote-counting by the state of Florida and determined the outcome of a presidential election in favor of one lucky Texan.
In 2010, in Citizens United, the Roberts Court, by a 5-4 margin, declared that private corporations have a First Amendment right to engage in unlimited campaign spending and likely altered, for as long as anyone can see, the outcome of every major contested election in the country in favor of CEOs and Republican consultants who bundle their money.
The Supreme Court stole one election and sold off the rest of them.

This analysis is chillingly accurate. The Supreme Court right now is the plutocrats' ace in the hole. Whenever their paid servants, in the executive or legislative branch, assert some independence and manage to accomplish something that benefits the bottom 99%, the plutocrats turn to the friendly five Justices to put a stop to it. If there was no other reason to prevent, at all costs, a Republican from gaining the White House in 2012, the nomination of new Justices should be enough to make this a priority. "Liberal activist Judges" are actually exceedingly rare. All we need are people willing to decide cases on the merits, without trying to use their considerable power to undo generations of social and political progress. We may get more such nominees from Barack Obama. No Republican President, on the other hand, would resist the pressure from the right-wing to appoint another Alito or Roberts.

3 comments:

cranstonista said...

This whole Citizens United mess makes me sick... I'll believe "corporations are people" when Texas exeutes one!!

dbshotz said...

I just wish we had a better choice than the very pro-corporate Barack Obama, and the very, very, very pro-corporate Willard Mitt Romney!! Is it too late to draft Bernie Sanders?!?

Motivated In Ohio said...

I hope OWS keeps active. The word is getting out. The dialog is changing.