If you still have any doubts about what this Supreme Court is up to, even after their disastrous Citizens United ruling, yesterday’s “emergency order” should now make things crystal clear…
The court’s reckless order muscling into the race was terse and did not say whether there were any dissents, though it is hard to imagine there were not. An opinion explaining its reasoning will have to wait until the next term, assuming it takes the case, but by that time the state’s general election will be over and its model campaign finance system substantially demolished.
It seems likely that the Roberts court will use this case to continue its destruction of the laws and systems set up in recent decades to reduce the influence of big money in politics. By the time it is finished, millionaires and corporations will have regained an enormous voice in American politics, at the expense of candidates who have to raise money the old-fashioned way and, ultimately, at the expense of voters.
“Regained,” New York Times? Did we miss something? Had the “millionaires and corporations” previously lost their “enormous voice in American Politics”???
Maddow covered some of the details in quickie coverage last night, observing: “It’s great news for anyone psyched to get all the riff-raff out of politics so we can get over this whole democracy fantasy and just settle down to being ruled by our economic overlords, like the founding fathers intended.”…
The court’s unsigned, one-paragraph, emergency order is here [PDF]. Muriel Kane at RAW STORY has more.
Whenever we speak with folks in Arizona, the one thing they seem to be unanimously proud of, in regard to their dubious electoral system, is their Clean Elections law which has allowed a lot of candidates who might not otherwise have the funds or insider connnections to not only get into the game, but actually get elected.
That may now be all over, thanks to this wildly activist U.S. Supreme Court who continues to show that they are not conservative in the least, at least in regard to their propensity for Big Government over-reaching into state rights issues.
Where are the Tea Bagger protests now? Where is Glenn Beck and his phony outrage? Yeah, that’s what we thought — nowhere.
(P.S. Another big thanks to John Kerry for all of this too!)
How convenient that there is no rationale published for this decision. It is stunning that the Supreme’s can just overturn a State Statute regarding the disbursement of State funds that on it’s face, seems to mirror a federal Statute. You know you have a renegade, radical right-wing Court when States Rights, the Holy Grail of traditional conservatives, is so brusquely swept aside.
Maddow got it partly right. It wasn’t the Founding Fathers who intended that we be an oligarchy though. They wrote the Declaration of Independence which clearly intended a democratic form of government which they said was not only our right, but our duty.
It was the Framers of the Constitution who betrayed the Founders by writing a Constitution that gave us neither a democracy nor a republic, but a plutocracy–rule by a wealthy few like the ones who secretly wrote the Constitution and who feared “too much democracy.” The Framers wanted those who owned the country to rule it and they wrote the Constitution accordingly.
That’s why the Constitution does not guarantee us the right to have our vote counted, that’s why the Constitution allows the Electoral College, Congress, and the Supreme Court to nullify or simply ignore the popular vote, and that’s why it doesn’t matter what or why the Supreme Court rules, because no matter how unconstitutional, unprecedented, illogical, baseless, or even ridiculous their rulings, just like the edicts of tyrants or kings with Divine Right, the rulings of the Supreme Court cannot be appealed.
Oh, Congress can try to legislate around them, but the Supreme Court can strike down such legislation on any pretext or with no pretext whatsoever. When you have supreme power that cannot be appealed, you can do whatever you want. And the Constitution also ensured that those with that supreme power would be appointed by the oligarchy, not elected by the people.
How many years now have I been repeating this over and over, how many websites have banned me for speaking the simple truth, and when will anyone other than a few genuine geniuses begin to understand what I’m saying? It isn’t rocket science. Our votes don’t count, not because of the voting machines, the election officials, or anything else like that–our votes don’t count because our Constitution made sure that our votes didn’t have to count.
It isn’t a question of left or right, Democrat, Republican, or third party. It is a question of having or not having a democratic form of government. This divide and rule stuff and blame others who weren’t there and didn’t write the Constitution, is getting old and tired, as I am.
The problem is that any rights not specifically granted us by the Constitution, which the Constitution says should be ours unless officially taken away from us, are interpreted by the Supreme Court as not being ours because we weren’t specifically granted them. What the Supreme Court was granted by the Constitution was the power to make decisions that could not be appealed, so they are truly and actually supreme.
The dictionary definition of a democratic form of government is one in which supreme power is vested in the hands of the people, and they can exercise their power either directly as in a participatory democracy, or through their elected representatives as in a republic. We have neither a democracy nor a republic. Our Constitution vested supreme power in a Supreme Court. That’s why they called it a Supreme Court, because it, not the people, has supreme power.
Thanks for not banning me, Brad, but I still feel like I’m talking to a wall. 😉
Off-topic, but always relevant… Spakovsky has Spoken!
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/6/10/874882/-Latest-Advice-from-Conservatives:-Ignore-the-Justice-Department-on-Voting-Rights
… be sure to dial your bibs to anti-drool setting #11…
#2, I thought it was the founding fathers that wrote the constitution and it was the people of the commonwealth of Massachusetts that presented the bill o rights. Or something like that…
http://www.sidis.net/TSChap28bw.htm
IMO if it wasn’t signed, if I were the AZ governor I’d flip the SCOTUS the bird and keep funding the candidates according to AZ law. I’d consider it a forgery until an original copy comes signed and notarized.
I had high hopes for “clean elections” in Arizona and elsewhere, but this is what happens when you have bad voting machines and packed Supreme Courts.
Fuck!
Dear Mark:
You are talking to a wall.
signed,
Another brick in the wall.
Dear Mark, You have said exactly what I would say if I could put it as succinctly and eloquently as you have.
I constantly rave about the Supreme Court Jesters who serve their corporate masters and smirk down upon us from their high perch. I fear that I may turn some people off with my anger and frustration. I see what you see, an uninformed and thoroughly [distracted] public.
The Supreme’s are an enemy to the American people [friends of the Bush crime family] and the sooner we get real about this the sooner we can take back control of our lives and our country.
What kills me about the “Supreme Court” and their decisions….every one knows the “five” are corporate activists, crooked as hell and bought and paid for by Corporate money and GOP far right wing ideology…and no one does a fucking thing …except complain and whine about it
#2- Interesting, but, not having heard your theory of intentional, malicious design inherent in the Constitution before just now- and though it appears logically valid, at the very least, and is a whole lotta food for thought on top of it- my gut reaction is that it only seems that way because of the corporate stooges on the Court, appointed by corporate stooge presidents, who were “elected” thanks to corporate money, corporate manipulation of the E-vote, E-count, and E-zily manipulated, so-called conservative voters. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this matter, and I’m thinking that the SC has done some good things over time, and it all depends on who’s sitting on that Supreme bench, ruling on things that couldn’t be foreseen over 200 years ago… so, maybe you (or someone else?) could point out some material that supports your argument? Would very much appreciate it. Thanks.
There are obviously some Republican candidates who will be hurt by this, but aren’t there some Democrats here and there who will also be hurt? What about states where Dems are running against Rich opponents (ex. Meek v billionaire in Florida, Brown v Whitman in California)?
# 11- Oh man, intrigued by your question I spent like 45 minutes researching and responding to your question only to have my response lost to the ether-net… the short answer is, voting laws vary wildy from state to state, district to district, so first, you have to figure out which states are holding which elections, who the candidates are, what the laws are, and whether the SC “emergency order” (GAG) can, does, or will apply to those candidates, something I haven’t read any speculation on. This link has some good analysis of these issues, a bit dated but worth the time if you want more details-
http://www.campaignfinancesite.org/structure/states1.html
* (#11) of course, I forgot to mention that none of that even matters in places where they use and/or count the votes with electronic voting machines, about which Brad Blog has said, ad infinitum,(to paraphrase) not a single vote has ever been verified as the intended choice of the voter… EVER.