It is a dark day in the life of the American experiment in Democracy. The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the government may not limit spending by corporations in public elections. This action effectively puts the governance of America up for sale to the highest bidder.
The decision is widely seen as an important tool by which corporations can broaden their already bloated influence on public policy.
Newt Gingrich says of the ruling, "It will help an average middle-class candidate find the resources he needs to stand up to the forces of the rich and powerful". I don't know what fucking planet that jackass is from, but I sure wish he'd go back there. Let me get this straight, Newt: rich corporations are going to give huge amounts of money to "average middle class candidates" so that they can stand up to rich corporations? Bizarre.
The ruling overturns a century-old law and two Supreme Court precedents. (So much for stare decisis, a supposed guiding principle of the "conservative" members of the court.) Predictably, the ruling was split along ideological lines, conservatives siding with corporations, and liberals siding with Democracy and the People. Justice Kennedy (previously thought to be a minimally rational human) casted the deciding vote with the majority.
This is the reason that it is absolutely essential to keep Republicans out of the Presidency. Conservative members of the Supreme Court are hard at work handing over control of the country to corporations. During the last Presidential campaign, McCain sited exactly the Justices responsible for this ruling as the kind of Justices he would nominate. It would have been an unimaginable disaster if he had been able to replace Justice Souter.
And I was worried about Roe v. Wade.
Oh yeah, the name of the case is "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission". Not surprisingly, Citizens United is a conservative organization flooded with corporate backing. Under their name on their website appears the phrase, "Dedicated to restoring the government to Citizen control". How incredibly ironic. Instead, they are dedicated to diminishing citizen control in favor of fostering corporate power. And that absurd, insipid eagle! Jesus! What is the deal with fucking conservatives and eagles? It is just emblematic of the tackiest brand of trailer park patriotism; as well as being another spectacular irony: the Bald Eagle was saved from near extinction by the Endangered Species Act, which was enacted by liberals and opposed by conservatives. On those grounds, I propose that conservative groups be legally prohibited from exploiting the image of eagles in the future.
