Saw an article on TEPCO (Japans' Nuclear Company/Oligopoly). And that inspired this poem:
We get the numbers of dead by counting the job openings. Truth is what they say it is, and news is what they let out from under the lid. Silly Bureaucrats, Playing their monkey games, Protecting their hierarchy, while hiding their shame.
The McCutcheon case seems to reflect the fact that the Supreme Court is starting to wake up to the undue influence that their corrupt decision is having on the body politic and the deserved low esteem the public is starting to hold them in. It begins with a statement on their current stance on money as protected "free speech":
"The right to participate in democracy through political contributions is protected by the First Amendment, but that right is not absolute. Congress may regulate campaign contributions to protect against corruption or the appearance of corruption. See, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 26–27. It may not, however, regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others. See, e.g., Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U. S. ___, ___. "[12-536_e1pf.pdf]
This of course is corrupt language as the purpose of such laws is to prevent the private, separate advantage of corrupt influence and access using money, not to hold down folks who obviously are doing quite well.
In the Arizona case they had struck down a provision of law providing for public financing of elections. And Elena Kagan wrote a forceful dissent which the Brennan Center quotes in their article on the Arizona case:
“Except in a world gone topsy-turvy, additional campaign speech and electoral competition is not a First Amendment injury.” (9)
Unfortunately "topsy turvy" is diplomatic speak for brazenly corrupt decision making by the courts:
“This suit, in fact, may merit less attention than any challenge to a speech subsidy ever seen in this Court….Arizona, remember, offers to support any person running for state office. Petitioners here refused that assistance. So they are making a novel argument: that Arizona violated their First Amendment rights by disbursing funds to other speakers even though they could have received (but chose to spurn) the same financial assistance. Some people might call that chutzpah.” (12)
The chutzpah is calling the undue influence of rich folks buying elections "free speech" and denying others access to such influence.
“Robust campaigns leading to the election of representatives not beholden to the few, but accountable to the many. The people of Arizona might have expected a decent respect for those objectives. Today, they do not get it.” (32)
The power of money in politics, obviously extends to the Supreme Court.
But of course we aren't talking about the previous corrupt decisions but the McCutcheon case. Given their outrageous behavior prior to this case, one couldn't expect any other decision unless one of the judges had a "road to Damascus" moment. That didn't happen. But they seem to realize they established a corrupt privilege and called it a right.
So they haven't woken up. If the right to participate in politics by spending money is not absolute, then why is the Supreme court overturning legitimate laws aimed at regulating power and privileges ability to unduly influence policy and elections?
Money is not free speech. First even if one considered money "speech" it's not free. If it were free I'd love to see some. It is earned, it is taken, it is exchanged. But it is never free. "Free Money" is an oxymoron. That is why they talked about "corporate Speech" instead of money in the Citizens United, and have used such crazy twisted arguments like the notion that helping those whose speech is being suppressed is somehow infringing the speech of the privileged class of monied financiers buying elections. So they don't use the word "money = speech" even now. Money is not speech and privileging money is not a legitimate activity of the Supreme Court.
So they can obfuscate what they are really doing, which is privileging the time dishonored notion of "undue influence" by privileging wealthy oligarchs over everyone else. Which is what they did when they opened the door to this with the Citizens United Decision and they affirmed as their strategy when they ruled on the Arizona case and then outrageously overturned a nearly 100 year old Anti-Corporate Montana law without even presenting arguments Though Justice Breyer submitted a dissent.
"In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court concluded that “independent expenditures, includ ing those made by corporations, do not give rise to corrup tion or the appearance of corruption.” 558 U. S. ___, ___ (2010) (slip op., at 42). I disagree with the Court’s holding for the reasons expressed in Justice Stevens’ dissent in that case. As Justice Stevens explained, “technically independent expenditures can be corrupting in much the same way as direct contributions.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 67–68). Indeed, Justice Stevens recounted a “substantial body of evidence” suggesting that “[m]any corporate independent expenditures . . . had become essentially interchangeable with direct contributions in their capacity to generate quid pro quo arrangements.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 64–65)."[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-1179h9j3.pdf]"
So what this corrupt majority is doing is privileging undue influence, bribery, graft and all sorts of corruption and tyranny. As Breyer continues in the Montana case:
"even if I were to accept Citizens United, this Court’s legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana. Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the State had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations."
100 years of evidence that the Supreme Court is lying about the link between money and corruption -- and the majority ignored that evidence.
Conclusion? Court is corrupt.
There really isn't much more to argue right now. Money is not speech, it is a tool, a source of power, and thus a source of influence. And when uncontrolled and in the hands of officers like the Supreme Court or wealthy privateers, it becomes a source of undue influence. The court ignored the entire principle of Undue Influence when it made it's decision so it could exert undue influence to corrupt the process, and so the justices involved can hear years of "Ka-ching" rewards from grateful oligarchs.
I've written on this twice now. On the Citizens United Case (http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-corrupt-decision-blind-to-corrupt.html) and last week I explained the Founders view of "undue influence".
The difference between a pirate and a privateer wasn't much. Both plied the seas, waged war based on private profits, and robbed people. But privateers had a charter legitimising their thefts. Pirates didn't. The Privateers didn't have to share the loot with the crew, and the pirates did. The Privateering spirit lives on.
The problem with the Citizens United case, as I noted in my post from October last year, titled "A corrupt decision blind to corrupt access and influence" is that the most eggregious error of that decision wasn't the "corporate personhood" mistake. Corporate personhood is just a legal fiction that the courts have used to exempt companies from laws and responsibilities at State or County level. The huge error was their defenestreing of corruption/bribery laws through their failure to recognize "undue influence" and "improper access" as corruption despite 200 years of legal jurisprudence establishing these as the heart of corruption.
In that decision Kennedy had written:
"there is only scant evidence that independent expenditures even ingratiate. … Ingratiation and access, in any event, are not corruption."
But ingratiation and separate access provide opportunities for undue influence and undue influence is at the heart of Bribery definitions and corruption, and our more progressive leaders have known that since the Federalists talked of this while writing the Federalist papers. Undue influence is at the heart of the evils of plutocracy, bureaucracy, and all forms of tyranny (Locke: "Power...exercised...for private, separate advantage". Denying the potentially undue influence exerted by money expenditures and independent expenditures, simply expresses the corruption that the Supreme Court has suffered due to the undue influence of wealth and power expressed through pressure groups like Americans For Prosperity and the Federalist Societies patrons that has created such a corrupt supreme court.
Wikipedia defines it as:
"In jurisprudence, undue influence is an equitable doctrine that involves one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person."
Our founders understood the dangers of "Undue Influence". Robert Yates wrote in the Federalist:
Image of page 657 "The Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers by Hamilton, Jay ..., Volume 1"
Text of 657 to beginning of 658 follows and could almost be describing our own times:
"In respect to the first it may be necessary to observe that under the colonial government there existed violent parties now known by the name of whig or tory republicans and aristocrats Those who were in the employments of government or the ins [who] were for extending the prerogative of the crown while the outs were checks to it. Many of the leaders on both sides were under strong expectations that sooner or later that branch of colonial government called the king's council would be erected into a hereditary house of lords. The ins being nearest to the disposition of the offices of honor and profit and in the way of obtaining patents for vacant lands and being from time to time joined by other crown officers and dependents who flocked to and settled in this colony since the year 1763 had the means of making use of undue influence to retain their situations which made the outs at last despair of ever having a turn unless the elections were by ballot. [punctuation added]
Undue Influence was part of the unfair power (and wealth) distribution that was the real reason for the first revolt that created the United States. Fear of foreign undue influence was one of the reasons we formed a General Federated Republic rather than remaining separate (and warring) colonies. And undue Influence has reared it's ugly head throughout our history in our country in much the same fashion. Only instead of hereditary land-lords with power by way of land titles, we now have hereditary Corporate-barons with power by way of Corporations. And we have those barons exerting undue influence on the Supreme Court as expressed in the Citizens United Decision and the efforts of the newspeak (bizaaroland) named Tea Parties. Where we resisted the undue influence of the East India company during our 1775-1889 revolt, it's modern analogues exert flagrant influence on us now.
In the Federalist Papers James Winthrop "Agrippa" referenced the power of the East India company in the following passage (on page 548)
"In most countries of Europe trade has been more confined by exclusive charters Exclusive companies are in trade pretty much like an aristocracy in government and produce nearly as bad effects An instance of it we have ourselves experienced Before the Revolution we carried on no direct trade to India. In most countries of Europe trade has been more confined by exclusive charters Exclusive companies are in trade pretty much like an aristocracy in government and produce nearly as bad effects An instance of it we have ourselves experienced Before the Revolution we carried on no direct trade to India " [page 548-549]
The USA was founded on a tension between legitimate business and privateering under charters. Our own chartered privateers were labeled as pirates by the British during our revolution [I visited a museum dedicated to that "notorious Pirate John Paul Jones" during my visit to Britain two years ago]. Pirates had an imperative to share the loot with crews while privateers and chartered trade companies ran their business as absolute dictatorships solely for the benefit of the owners. Our business people learned acute lessons from being considered second class businessmen. Many of them were officially branded as smugglers or even pirates. Part of the motive of the revolution was to protect their own trade from dumping by the East India Company which enjoyed tax free status on it's tea, while our businessmen had to buy the tea with a tax stamp from Britain, from the East India company!
Agrippa continues:
"In a republick we ought to guard as much as possible against the predominance of any particular interest It is the object of government to protect them all When commerce is left to take its own course the advantage of every class will be nearly equal But when exclusive privileges are given to any class it will operate to the weakening of some other class connected with them "
The founders sought to accomplish that by dividing the government into divisions and forcing them to both work together and to have to work out competing interests. They also were thinking of Business, but as we didn't have businesses like the East India Company in our country yet, they left working out that separation of power to later generations.
So undue influence is connected to our founding principles, and the power of direct bribery and the indirect bribery labeled as "undue influence" was identified as a major ill way back during our founding days. This illustrates all the more graphically the mendacious and perverse faux principles of the "Federalist Movement" and it's corrupt avatars on the Supreme Court.
In this stage of our history the companies are more and more resembling the East India company and less and less resembling Paul Revere's Silver company or even Robert Morris' grand pirate fleet (our first navy). When folks argue for freedom from government they are really talking either about self-government, or the switch becomes rule by greedy corporations like the East India Company. The East India company so botched it's control of Bengal and other parts of SE Asia that the British Navy, Marines and Army had to come in to rescue them. Democracy is not only about individual rights it is also about functional societies where the right people are able to get offices and power for limited times as needed, and not to make their power hereditary and oppressive. That is why these discussions were found in the writings of the Federalists, Republicans and Anti-Federalists.
Further reading that describes how "undue influence works" to corrupt judges like Clarence Thomas and Scalia:
There are many more quotes from founders and I believe Federalist 2 that reference "undue influence" and the need to protect our politics from foreign undue influence, corporate undue influence and the influence on each other of executives, judiciary members and legislators through divided government and separation of powers. I'm sure if I look hard enough I'll see references to pastors and priests as well.
Written 3/27/2014
The Zombie Sarah Palin advocates Nukes If we destroy the world, it will be because morons like her have no clue as to what they do. If we leave the world a peaceful graveyard, we can only pray we leave birds behind to sing over our graves. And we can pray that we leave completely, and not after a millennia more of nightmare. We fear the Zombie apocalypse, while eating brains at the fair. Is it too late? Chris Holte
For some reason whenever I see the words "Five Myths" I'm about 50/50 confident that the article will offer it's own myths in contrast to the claims the author deems myths. Aaron David Miller, writing for CNN writes such a piece today. You can read it here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/08/opinion/miller-five-myths-about-ukraine-crisis/
And these are my comments:
This one is mostly on target but still misleading.
Follow Aaron Miller on Twitter: https://twitter.com/aarondmiller2
Townhall released an article claiming to be Issa's questions to Lois Lerner:
1. In October 2010, Lerner told a Duke University group: “The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year-old precedent that basically corporations couldn’t give directly to political campaigns. And everyone is up in arms because they don’t like it. The Federal Election Commission can’t do anything about it. They want the IRS to fix the problem.”
I think anyone who thinks that graft and corruption should be illegal should be concerned about the outcome of Citizens United. Not only for it's extension of corporate personhood to companies, but for it's claim that money = privileged (!) speech -- and the court's corrupt denial in that case that undue access or influence is corruption. But Issa took her comments out of context.
Who exactly wanted the IRS to “fix the problem” caused by Citizens United?
Even the Breitbart source [http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/08/06/Lois-Lerner-Discusses-Political-Pressure-on-the-IRS-in-2010] for the leak (not exactly paragons of virtue) answers this question:
"Lerner goes on to outline the fact that 501(c)(4) organizations have the right to do "an ad that says vote for Joe Blow" so long as their primary activity is social welfare. However Lerner again emphasizes the political pressure the IRS was under at the time saying, "So everybody is screaming at us right now 'Fix it now before the election. Can't you see how much these people are spending?'" Lerner concludes by saying she won't know if organizations have gone too far in campaigning until she looks at their "990s next year."
Fact is the entire progressive wing of the Democratic party plus any remaining honest conservatives were screaming that we need to do something about the legalized graft that is the corrupt Citizens United Decision and subsequent rulings eviscerating 200 years of efforts to get graft, bribery, undue influence and extortion under control in our government. It is WE THE PEOPLE (other than corrupt Tea Baggers of course) demanding change.
Issa alleges:
2. In February 2011, Lerner e-mailed her colleagues in the IRS: “Tea Party Matter very dangerous. This could be the vehicle to go to court on the issue of whether Citizens United overturning the ban on corporate spending applies to tax-exempt rules. Counsel and Judy Kindell need to be in on this one please. Cincy should probably NOT have these cases.”
Issa then mistates her statement:
Why did Lerner think the Tea Party cases were “very dangerous”?
The Tea Party are dangerous because they are litigious, subversive, incendiary, insurrectionist, and because they own at least some of the Supreme Court Justices (Thomas). I think anyone observing their behavior since the judicial coup of 2000 can observe that.
3. In September 2010, Lerner e-mailed subordinates about initiating a “c4 project,” but wrote: “we need to be cautious so it isn’t a per se political project.”
The reason for the project is that 90% of the 501(C)(4) organizations are not primarily promoting social welfare but pushing the agendas of the rich and powerful:
In general. An organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare if it is primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the people of the community. An organization embraced within this section is one which is operated primarily for the purpose of bringing about civic betterments and social improvements. A social welfare organization will qualify for exemption as a charitable organization if it falls within the definition of charitable set forth in paragraph (d)(2) of § 1.501(c)(3)-1 and is not an action organization as set forth in paragraph (c)(3) of § 1.501(c)(3)-1. [http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.501(c)(4)-1]
So:
Why was Lerner worried about this being perceived as a political project?
Because any effort to reign in abuses of the 501(c)(4) provisions could easily be interpreted as partisanship, as Issa is doing now.
Subsequent events have pretty much born out her rationale for worrying about this.
4. Michael Seto, manager of EO Technical in Washington, testified that you ordered Tea Party cases to undergo a “multi-tier review.” He testified: “[Lerner] sent me email saying that when these cases need to go through multi-tier review and they will eventually have to go to Miss Kindell and the chief counsel’s office.”
And yet most of these organizations eventually got approved despite their obvious partisan nature. In fact the only cases turned down were progressive organizations.
Why did Lerner order the Tea Party cases to undergo a “multi-tier review”?
It's called due diligence. Something Fire-Bug Grand Theft Auto Issa doesn't feel necessary in his own efforts.
5. In June 2011, Lerner requested that Holly Paz obtain a copy of the tax-exempt application filed by Crossroads GPS so that her senior technical advisor, Judy Kindell, could review it and summarize the issues for Lerner.
Probably because Crossroads GPS's application was so obviously not about an organization promoting the "social welfare" that it's irregularities were obvious even to folks not directly concerned with them.
"Crossroads GPS contends that all its ads are “issue ads,” which are “a position statement about, or a discussion of, public issues.” But CREW alleges that the three ads constitute independent expenditures, which are communications “expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.”
Why did Lerner want to have the Crossroads GPS application?
And of course with our Supreme Court dominated by Grafter Judges legalizing Grafts the entire 501 section of the legal code could be in jeopardy if the issue went before that corrupt court.
Issa then says:
6. In June 2012, Lerner was part of an e-mail exchange about writing new regulations on political speech for 501(c)(4) groups “off-plan” in 2013.
Anyone involved with Government knows that bureaucrats are discussing regulations all the time. It's a non issue that they discussed "about writing new regulations" before they wrote the regulations.
Doesn’t this “off-plan” effort from 2012 contradict Administration assertions that new regulations were written in response to the 2013 TIGTA report?
More than likely those discussions went into writing the TIGTA report. Issa is blowing smoke.
7. In February 2014, President Obama stated that there was not a “smidgeon of corruption” in the IRS targeting.
Considering the IRS also targeted progressive groups doing the same sorts of tactics. Issa's comments are trying to criminalize the invocation of the 5th amendment. She has the right to refuse to testify about things that can and will be deliberately misconstrued and twisted into criminal behavior if they get in socipath Issa's hands.
If this is true, why do House Democrats believe that Lois Lerner has a well-founded fear of criminal prosecution that allows her to claim the Fifth Amendment in refusing to testify?
And indeed Lerner stated she was willing to testify if the Committee would guarantee they wouldn't misconstrue her testimony. She could be revealing something illegal that I don't know about yet, but so far I don't see anything coming out that the public hasn't known for the past years. Just the same repeated ad-nauseum talking points.
But of course for Issa the 5th amendment only exists to protect him from prosecution from Arson charges of bomb throwing in committee. And meanwhile he wastes taxpayer money on a poor imitation of a witch hunt.
Tom Perkin's comments about how "wealthy people should have more votes than poor people" actually states present reality, but it also states what looks like an ongoing plot for the wealthy to implement Ayn Rand's dream of a "Galt's Gulch" if they can't continue to dominate USA politics. That dream seems still alive and even has a website still pushing it:
http://business.time.com/2014/02/14/tom-perkins-taxes/"wealthy people should get more votes than others because they pay more in taxes. The comments by Perkins, who made his fortune as one of the founders of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, provoked laughter at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, where he was being interviewed by Adam Lashinsky of Fortune."
Read more: Wealthy Venture Capitalist Tom Perkins: Rich Should Get More Votes | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2014/02/14/tom-perkins-taxes/#ixzz2u7miDXL3"
The dreams seem similar to the world depicted in Elysium or Hunger Games. And they are still dreaming of building their "Galt's Gulch" on Belle Isle:
http://www.commonwealthofbelleisle.com/
They are actually serious of building their "Galt's Gulch" Monaco style mini-country. With public money of course!
