Tag: Citizens United

Reform The Supreme Court

The Daily Escape:

Gold Creek Valley, WA – December 2022 photo by Erwin Buske Photography

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not be trusted by anybody.” – Thomas Paine

Welcome to 2023! It seems like a good time to think again about what’s worth fighting for. Paine valued freedom and despised oppression. In 2023, we could substitute the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) for Paine’s original targets, which were Britain and King George III.

From Ed Walker: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“In case after case, SCOTUS has ignored the trial record, made up its own facts, reached out to take cases before a record can be made, ignored precedent, including precedent about rejecting precedent, invented new Constitutional “doctrines”, taking faked-up cases for the sole purpose of striking down actions…and delaying justice through the shadow docket.”

The Shadow Docket is designed to allow the Court to engage in administrative management of its calendar so that the Justices have sufficient time to rule on emergency applications.

On Dec. 27, we saw an example of the Court’s reactionary majority using the Shadow Docket to extend indefinitely a Trump immigration policy known as Title 42. Trump implemented Title 42 to exclude asylum seekers from the US because they might be carriers of coronavirus.

From Vox’s Ian Millhiser:

“That decision…is typical behavior from the Supreme Court — or, at least, is reflective of this Court’s behavior since a Democrat moved into the White House….It’s the latest example of the Court dragging its feet after a GOP-appointed lower court judge overrides the Biden administration’s policy judgments, often letting that one judge decide the nation’s policy for…an entire year.

And that delay may be the best-case scenario for the Biden administration — and for the general principle that unelected judges aren’t supposed to decide the nation’s border policy. “

Millhiser points out that SCOTUS’ response is very different from when Trump was in office. Back then, the Court frequently raced to reinstate Trump’s policies within days.

The Court’s Conservative Six no longer seem to care about the law or precedent. It’s become a policy-making body in service of Conservative’s religious and social agendas. We should expect It to continue down this path until we reform the Court.

Reform is necessary to protect the legislative prerogatives of Congress, and the prerogatives of the Executive. Oh, and to protect the individual liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.

The NYT’s Adam Liptak says that SCOTUS has been rapidly accumulating power at the expense of every other part of the government. He quotes Mark A. Lemley, a Stanford law professor’s article in The Harvard Law Review:

“The Court has taken significant, simultaneous steps to restrict the power of Congress, the administrative state, the states, and the lower federal courts. And it has done so using a variety of (often contradictory) interpretative methodologies. The common denominator across multiple opinions in the last two years is that they concentrate power in one place: the Supreme Court.”

Non-elected activist judges indeed.

We have historically entrusted courts with the task of determining which rights belong to the people, and the extent to which governments at all levels can exercise their Constitutional powers in controlling the people. We know that courts have always lagged behind the consensus of the American People on issues of rights. But before now, change has come, albeit slowly.

That ended with SCOTUS’ decision in Dobbs, where the Conservative Six ruled that women have no right to control their own bodies.

Earlier, they imposed their religious view that coaches are free to dragoon their players into worshiping the God of the coach’s choice, and that religious leaders are free to spread a pandemic, despite public health officials’ warnings.

Neither Congress nor the President have resisted SCOTUS’s power grab. They haven’t even taken the mild step of imposing ethical requirements on the Court. The other two branches have simply watched the Conservative Six operate in their self-declared role of Philosopher Kings. We now have a Supreme Court tinkering with the Separation of Powers, based solely on political and ideological preference.

As if to justify their power without restraint or oversight, Chief Justice John Roberts recently cited the myth of “three separate and co-equal branches of government.” But that isn’t what the Founders and Framers had in mind, and it isn’t what the Constitution says.

In fact, the judiciary was third in line of power and importance in the minds of the Framers of the Constitution. Article III clearly puts the Supreme Court under the control of Congress. Section 2 is unambiguous:

“[T]he supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

The founders felt the judiciary was not co-equal. In Federalist 51, James Madison proclaims:

“[I]n republican government the legislative authority, necessarily, predominates.”

In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton writes:

“[T]he judiciary is beyond compare the weakest of the three departments of power.”

It’s important to remember that the power to overturn laws passed by Congress and signed by the President was not granted by the Constitution: it was taken by the Court onto itself in 1803 in the case Marbury v Madison.

Soon SCOTUS will rule in Moore v Harper. Moore hinges on a legal proposition known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The theory says that, when it comes to making state laws that apply to federal elections — from drawing congressional district lines, to determining the who-what-when-where of casting a ballot — only the state legislature itself has the power to set the rules.

Moore is an opportunity for the court to reject radicalism, but SCOTUS may upend our democracy with their decision.

SCOTUS has legalized bribery of politicians (Citizens United) and ignored potentially seditious behavior by its own members and their families. Not to mention exceeding its Constitutional authority by inserting itself into political issues, now with startling regularity.

It’s time to reign in the Supremes before they reign over us.

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Saturday Soother – October 8, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Fall at Lake Gloriette, Dixville Notch, VT – October 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

(There will not be a Sunday Cartoon column this week. Wrongo and Ms. Right are off on their annual visit to Cape Cod, MA to see family and friends. It’s Oysterfest, people! Columns will be light and variable for the next 10 days.)

The midterms are just around the corner and if you’re planning to open your wallets to support Senate candidates, Wrongo suggests that you include Ralph Warnock (D-GA), John Fetterman (D-PA) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in your budgeting. If you are particularly flush, you can add to this list.

But today, Wrongo is venting his frustration with the tsunami of emails and texts he receives from Democratic candidates and organizations. Small dollar fundraising, that is the art of getting money from ordinary folks, has apparently been perfected by Democrats. Sadly that seems to entail creating a constant state of panic via email and text. From Wrongo’s inbox:

…”we have bad news. NO ONE is donating to help us re‑elect Raphael Warnock. Our MAJOR fundraising deadline is at 11:59 PM, and you IGNORED our first email!”

From Mark Kelly:

“This is your last chance to donate before the debate ends and we need your help, we can’t fall short. We’re closing in on this crucial goal. So, before time runs out, we need you to add one more donation to help push us over the top.”

From Val Demings:

“WE TOLD YOU: If we can’t hit our fundraising goal, we can kiss Florida GOODBYE. We can’t launch an outreach campaign with no funds in our bank!”

Democrats are correct. These days, there’s plenty to panic about, but isn’t that part of the problem? We’d be frazzled enough just by the news. Do we have to be reminded on a daily basis by Democratic candidates that we should be frazzled?

After Citizens United created a crisis in how to fund our politics, Democrats were able to deal with the problem by growing online small dollar fundraising for candidates. It started out as a decentralized effort by individual candidates, and it brought in tons of money. It also helped individuals feel that they were invested in the political process.

Now it’s institutionalized. All Democrats have the same lists. That’s efficient in some ways, but in other ways, it’s a problem. It leads to terrible uses of the money, such as dumping endless dollars into hopeless campaigns like the 2020 Senate races in Kentucky (Amy McGrath) and in Maine (Sara Gideon).

McGrath was a terrible candidate and of course, Mitch McConnell won. Sara Gideon was so overloaded with money that she couldn’t spend it all. These retail donations made no meaningful difference in her race against Susan Collins, which she lost by a wide margin.

Tim Miller in the NYT:

“…hundreds of millions of dollars are being pumped into hopeless…candidates. At a minimum, that money could be used more efficiently by the Democratic Party….Aren’t there myriad better uses for all that altruism than pumping out…attack ads?”

Imagine if all of that money was poured into state house races where it could be used more effectively.

Our best funds raising tool has now been turned against us. What we thought would lead to great things could now threaten the Democratic Party. This season, as in the past, Wrongo has donated to Democrats, but it leads to receiving 6-8 ever more desperate emails/texts daily. Fortunately Wrongo believes in their cause. Otherwise, reading them might soon lead to death due to David P.’s “politics fatigue”.

Enough! It’s time for our Saturday Soother, a time to let go of another week of bad news while we reflect on where to place our limited political funding over the next 30 days.

Here on the fields of Wrong, our indoor plants that spend spring and summer outdoors are back inside. And our short sleeve shirts have been put away.

To help you contemplate your seasonal wardrobe, start by brewing up a mug of Colombia Cerro Azul Enano, ($26/12 oz.) by Marin, CA’s Equator Coffee.

Now grab a seat by a south facing window and listen to the Finale of Saint-Saens “Symphony No. 3 with Organ” performed in 2012 by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Thomas, with Timothy Noon on the Organ. Saint-Saens who wrote this in 1886, was an accomplished pianist and organist, but this is his only symphony for organ. Also note the spectacular organ at the Auckland Town Hall. Play this LOUD to hear the deep register of the organ:

Wrongo and Ms. Right heard this piece played by the Waterbury Symphony on October 1st at Waterbury, CT’s St. John’s Episcopal Church, founded in 1732. It’s a beautiful old church with a very impressive organ that dates from 1956. Today the church reflects the changing demographics of Connecticut, having added a Hispanic ministry In 2003. Now the main Sunday service is in Spanish.

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Corporate Money Is Flowing To Senate Republicans

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Housatonic River, New Milford CT – 2022 photo by Tony Vengrove

There are just 55 days left until the 2022 midterm elections, and Wrongo’s crystal ball remains cloudy. For example, take the US Senate race in Pennsylvania. Democrat John Fetterman leads Republican Mehmet Oz by 48.5% to 40.4% in the 535 average of polls as of September 8. Sounds like a big lead, no?

But the US Chamber of Commerce told Axios on Sept. 11 that it was donating $3 million to support Oz’s campaign. Who is the US Chamber? They are an industry group that represents virtually every major American corporation. From Judd Legum:

“Corporations — whether individually or through a trade organization like the Chamber — are prohibited from donating $3 million directly to Oz’s campaign. (Corporate PAC donations are capped at $5,000 per election.) So instead, the Chamber is routing the money through the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super PAC set up by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell….The Senate Leadership Fund can raise unlimited funds from any source and spend them to boost Oz and other Republican candidates.”

In a statement, Chamber EVP Neil Bradley described Oz as “a pro-business champion” and said Fetterman “subscribes to a far-left, government-knows-best approach.”

So, America’s big corporations are against Fetterman. Sounds like a reason to be for him.

Legum takes a deep dive into where the US Chamber gets the millions it is donating to promote Oz’s candidacy: It comes from dues paid by member corporations. And which corporations are members? The Chamber keeps its membership list secret. More from Legum:

“We know, however, that virtually every major American corporation is a member of the Chamber. The Chamber’s board of directors includes representatives from FedEx, Bristol Myers Squibb, Facebook, AT&T, United Airlines, Abbott, 3M, Microsoft, Deloitte, Fidelity, Chevron, Intuit, Xerox, Pfizer, Dow, AllState, Delta, and many others.”

And most member companies don’t have a board seat. Their donations are secret as well, but CVS disclosed that it paid $500,000 to the Chamber in 2021 and $325,000 to a related organization, the US Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. And CVS isn’t a board member! Imagine how much the really big guns paid.

A few major corporations aren’t members. Apple, for example, resigned its membership in 2009 in protest of the Chamber’s policy on climate change.

Sadly, corporations are not accountable (or even visible) in their support of the extreme policies of the GOP when they donate through vehicles like the US Chamber. We have to hope that as the Republican message gets ever more extreme, corporations will have a harder time continuing their support for this type of Citizens United chicanery.

This shows just how scummy our politics have become with the help of the Roberts Court and the Federalist Society. If it’s illegal to donate a certain amount directly to this person or organization, we simply create a PAC or a Super-PAC, and then donate huge sums directly to them.

If creating a PAC achieves this result, how is the individual limitation protecting democracy?

There’s an old joke about how if you know a little about politics, your issues are guns, abortion and taxes. If you know a lot about politics, your issue is campaign finance reform.

Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states that could determine which Party holds the majority in the Senate. While Fetterman has a lead, Pennsylvania is still a competitive state, with money pouring into its governor’s race as well. This $3 million from the Chamber could have a real impact on the outcome.

It’s important to understand that more than 40% of the Pennsylvania electorate seems to want what Oz is offering. That’s scary, and it speaks to something that many in the media don’t want to address. They’re actually scared to address what the Republican Party has become. It isn’t surprising because the media are both a large part of the problem and not a part of the solution.

And when Biden accurately calls out what the Republican Party has become, when he says that Republican behavior and beliefs are inimical to what America is supposed to be, the media says he’s being divisive.

Oz is an example of what happens when one Party creates an existential situation out of whole cloth. When it’s backed by their 30 years of increasing extremism, the existential threat to democracy is now real.

No, America’s corporations aren’t going to save you. Giving money and time to Democratic Senate candidates like Fetterman, or Georgia’s Warnock (up by 2%), or Arizona’s Kelly (up by 2%), or New Hampshire’s Hassan (up by 4%), or Ohio’s Ryan (up by 1%), or North Carolina’s Beasley (up by 1%) MIGHT save you.

Do what you can.

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Monday Wake Up Call – August 9, 2021

The Daily Escape:

Zen Garden, Fields of Wrong, CT – 2015 photo by Wrongo

Some of Wrongo’s readers also follow Heather Cox Richardson, a Boston College history professor who writes an extremely successful blog called “Letters from an American“. She has the gift of seamlessly moving from speaking about America’s history to today’s politics. Last week, she had a column that Wrongo thinks everyone should read.

In it, she gives us a quick review of what led up to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Here is a long quote:

“Fifty-six years ago today, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. The need for the law was explained in its full title: “An Act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, and for other purposes.”

In the wake of the Civil War, Americans tried to create a new nation in which the law treated Black men and white men as equals. In 1865, they ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing enslavement except as punishment for crimes. In 1868, they adjusted the Constitution again, guaranteeing that anyone born or naturalized in the United States—except certain Indigenous Americans—was a citizen, opening up the suffrage to Black men. In 1870, after Georgia legislators expelled their newly seated Black colleagues, Americans defended the right of Black men to vote by adding that right to the Constitution.

All three of those amendments—the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth—gave Congress the power to enforce them. In 1870, Congress established the Department of Justice to do just that. Reactionary white southerners had been using state laws, and the unwillingness of state judges and juries to protect Black Americans from white gangs and cheating employers, to keep Black people subservient. White men organized as the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize Black men and to keep them and their white allies from voting to change that system. In 1870, the federal government stepped in to protect Black rights and prosecute members of the Ku Klux Klan.

With federal power now behind the Constitutional protection of equality, threatening jail for those who violated the law, white opponents of Black voting changed their argument against it.

In 1871, they began to say that they had no problem with Black men voting on racial grounds; their objection to Black voting was that Black men, just out of enslavement, were poor and uneducated. They were voting for lawmakers who promised them public services like roads and schools, and which could only be paid for with tax levies.

The idea that Black voters were socialists—they actually used that term in 1871—meant that white northerners who had fought to replace the hierarchical society of the Old South with a society based on equality began to change their tune. They looked the other way as white men kept Black men from voting, first with terrorism and then with state election laws using grandfather clauses, which cut out Black men without mentioning race by permitting a man to vote if his grandfather had; literacy tests in which white registrars got to decide who passed; poll taxes; and so on. States also cut up districts unevenly to favor the Democrats, who ran an all-white, segregationist party. By 1880 the south was solidly Democratic, and it would remain so until 1964.”

Cox Richardson talks about how a debate raged over whether states or the federal government should control who is allowed to vote in elections. That eventually led to LBJ signing the Act.

She then brings us back to the John Roberts Supreme Court gutting most of the provisions of the Act. First, with the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, and in July, with their decision in Brnovich v. DNC. In the wake of the 2020 election, Republican-dominated states have increased the rate of voter suppression, and the Brnovich decision helps codify their moves. Read the whole thing.

So once again, America faces an existential crisis over voting rights and whether it is the states, or the federal government, that should decide who can vote in our elections. As Wrongo has reported, a recent Pew poll shows that more than two-thirds of Republican voters don’t think voting is a right and believe it can be limited.

There’s still some hope that a voting rights bill can pass before the 2022 mid-terms. That could restore the power of the federal government over the states to enforce them.

Time to wake up America! Without federal oversight of voting, America will slip back into voter suppression. We can easily return to an earlier time that denied voting rights to many Americans.

To help you wake up, listen to Son Volt’s song “Living in the USA” from their new album, “Electro Melodier”. Front man Jay Farrar wonders if we’ve misplaced our collective soul, and how we glue the pieces of a broken country back together:

Sample Lyric:

This land of freedom, all can live the dream they say
With voices crying out and sirens wailing away
Money flows through every back channel door
Cash crowns the king, there’s no limits anymore
Livin’ in the USA

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Monday Wake Up Call – February 26, 2018

The Daily Escape:

Johannapark, Leipzig, Germany – Via

Paul Pillar of Loeblog alerts us that casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is offering to pay for the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem:

Such an offer constitutes a sort of bonus to show Adelson’s satisfaction with how his earlier large financial contributions to Trump’s campaign helped to buy the president’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This move was a personal goal of Adelson, based on a personal affinity with Israel that exceeds any affinity he has with the United States. Looked at from the standpoint of U.S. interests rather than private interests, the move was a huge mistake. It isolated the United States and dealt a major blow to any remaining hope for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

You remember Sheldon, worth $40 billion, the 19th-richest person in the world. Adelson is chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands, the largest casino company in America. He was the largest donor, in both the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. In 2012, Adelson told Forbes magazine that he was:

…against very wealthy people attempting to or influencing elections. But as long as it’s doable, I’m going to do it.

Adelson wanted the US embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and his financial backing of Trump is thought to be the reason that Trump decided to make the move.

According to the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, any money received by the US Government must be placed into the US Treasury General Fund. The 31 USC 3302 was enacted to keep some sort of centralized control over government money, and that includes donations. Generally, unless there is a special act of Congress, a billionaire may not provide earmarked donations to the US Government.

However it may be that the State Department is exempt from needing Congressional approval for the Adelson “donation”. From the Slackexchange:

…the Department of State can accept donations for its use, which are automatically appropriated to the Department.

It would seem that money that helps build a new embassy would be for the State Department’s own use, and as long as Adelson doesn’t get naming rights (!), it is probably legal, and for Adelson, tax-deductible.

The “Sheldon Adelson Israel Embassy of the United States“. Kinda catchy. Some will say, look, this is money that the nation doesn’t have to spend. Just take it, and move on. But, when money buys government policy, you think “third world country”, not the US.

But here we are, in the USA. And Trump is happy to see government policy bought and paid for by private funds.

Why should Sheldon Adelson be allowed to use his money to make foreign policy for the US? Will anybody with a bagful of money be able to bribe the US government to advance their personal interests? Ooh, forgot: Citizens United lets them do just that.

Drain the swamp!

That swamp won’t be drained by Trump. If it is to be drained, we all have to wake up, turn out and vote, starting with the 2018 mid-term elections. To help America wake up, here are Michael Franti & Spearhead doing “We Don’t Stop”, live at Reggae On The River, in 2004:

Sample lyric:

They got a war for oil, a war for gold
A war for money and a war for souls
A war on terror, a war on drugs
A war on kindness and a war on hugs
A war on birds and a war on bees
They gotta a war on hippies tryin’a save the trees
A war with jets and a war with missiles
A war with high-seated government officials
Wall street war on high finance
A war on people who just love to dance
A war on music, a war on speech
A war on teachers and the things they teach
A war for the last five hundred years
War’s just messin’ up the atmosphere

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Democrats’ Strategic Failure Continues to Haunt

When President Obama won re-election in 2012, Democrats increased their majority in the Senate, but the House of Representatives remained in Republican hands. In House races in 2012, 1.7 million more votes were cast for Democrats than for Republicans, but Republicans came away with 33 more Congressional seats.

How did this happen when in 2008, Republicans lost a “wave” election, and were looking at eight years in the minority? The Republicans were staring down a demographic tidal wave, and the Democrats were talking about a decade of changing politics. The Democrats had taken a super majority in the Senate. The real risk to the GOP was that, by the 2020 census, demographics could keep them in a semi-permanent minority for a very long time.

Then, along came a Republican strategist named Chris Jankowski. He had a strategy, one which the Democrats failed to react to. A strategy that turned a period of a likely permanent GOP minority to a GOP majority in four years. All of this is covered in “Rat-F*****: The True Story Behind The Secret Plan To Steal America’s Democracy“, by Salon’s editor-in-chief, David Daley.

Jankowski’s strategy was to gain control of as many state legislatures as possible in 2010. The plan was to control the state’s redistricting process for Congressional districts, once the result of the 2010 Census was available. That is because state legislatures draw most of the congressional boundaries across the country. The GOP’s plan was called REDMAP for Redistricting Majority Project. The idea behind REDMAP was to hit the Democrats in several state legislatures where Democratic statehouse majorities were thin. They targeted races with vast sums of money and were able to flip many state houses.

In 2009, Democrats held the majority of seats in both houses of the state legislature in 27 states. In six more, they held a majority in one house. The Presidency, the US Senate, and the House of Representatives were all in Democratic hands.

In 2010, Republicans gained nearly 700 state legislative seats, which, was a larger increase than either party has seen in modern history. The wins were sufficient to push 20 legislative chambers from a Democratic to a Republican majority.

Most significantly, the GOP took control over both houses of the legislature in 25 states.

REDMAP’s success was made possible by funding from a super-PAC called the Republican State Leadership Committee. It raised $30 million, mostly from corporations, of which $18 million was received just weeks before Election Day.

Pennsylvania is an object lesson: So skillfully were the lines drawn by the Republican legislature that in 2012, when President Obama carried Pennsylvania by 300,000 votes and the state’s Democratic congressional candidates collectively out-polled their rivals by 100,000 votes, Republicans still won 13 of Pennsylvania’s 18 seats in the House of Representatives.

In Michigan, the 2012 election was a huge success for Democrats. Voters elected a Democratic US Senator by more than 20 points and reelected President Obama by almost 10 points, but Republicans ended up with nine of the state’s Congressional seats to the Democrats’ five.

This was among the greatest political achievement in modern times. If you’re a Republican, you look at this and say, we played by the rules, we played within the law, and we won!

And the Democrats spent 2009-2011 asleep at the wheel, presiding over a catastrophic strategic failure.

Worse, the GOP plans were announced by Karl Rove in a March 2010 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Rove said they were going to use redistricting to take back the Congress. The GOP plan was in plain sight.

This takes us to Hillary Clinton’s possible choices for Vice President. Apparently, she is leaning towards Tim Kaine, (D-VA). Kaine is attractive in that Hillary needs to win in Virginia to win the presidency. Kaine is a Harvard-educated lawyer and was governor of Virginia from 2006-2010.

We mention him here since he was Chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2009-2011.

That’s right, it was Tim Kaine who the Republicans outsmarted with their REDMAP strategy. It is Tim Kaine who let the GOP place so many different locks on the door to Congress. Undoing that will take years of really concentrated effort, state by state, chamber by chamber. It’s going to take the Democratic Party at least until after the 2020 census to undo what Tim Kaine let happen in 2010 and 2011.

Perfect choice for VP. He’s the right guy to follow a Hillary Presidency.

In preparation for the next census, Democrats have come up with a REDMAP-like plan of their own. They call it Advantage 2020, and say they plan to spend $75 million.

Republicans have announced REDMAP 2020. Their spending goal?

$125 million.

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Pant Suit vs. Pant Load, Part III

(Note: this week there will be no Sunday Cartoon Blogging, since Wrongo will be visiting MA and PA through Sunday, returning on Monday.)

Wrongo and long-time blog reader Terry engaged in a short email dialog on how to “fix” the US political system. We were concerned that there is no individual Congressperson accountability. A backbencher can follow an agenda that can imperil our nation (and a few have done just that) without consequence.

But in America, accountability is managed by election district. Your only alternative is to round up enough votes to replace poor representation. So, if you wanted to reform the impact that money has in our politics, or the way the filibuster works in the Senate, you have to reform Congress.

Yet, under our Constitution, only Congress can reform Congress. And today, there are three parties vying for control of it, and since they rarely are willing to work with each other, not much gets done. So you can completely forget about Reform.

And the parties have not been willing to deal with the not-so hidden desperation in America that shows up in statistics like increasing opioid addiction and suicide rates. The political class ignores how lethal the US economy is for the less fortunate: The New York Times reported this week that US death rates have risen for the first time in a decade.

The increase in death rates among less educated whites since 2001 is roughly the size of the AIDS epidemic. One reason is the use of opioids. And, despite Mr. Obama’s speech in Elkhart, IN where he said our economy is doing well, there has been a spike in suicides to levels higher than during the 2008 financial crisis.

The little people know that the economic policies followed by both parties have brought income inequality to Gilded Age levels. They know that all of the post-crisis income gains have accrued to the top 1%. Unlike in China which continues to grow, our economic expansion has brought with it high unemployment and underemployment, particularly among the young.

As a result, people feel powerless. In fact, a RAND survey in January found that 86.5% of GOP voters who strongly identified with the statement “people like me don’t have any say about what the government does” were Trump supporters.

And, since so much of politics is about corralling money into the bank accounts of our politicians, your Congresspersons have no intention of listening to you unless you have given at least $10,000 to their campaign fund, or are the CEO of a major employer in their district or state. In US politics, money=speech. But, there is little meaning to free speech without free access to influence the political process.

Many of us feel nihilistic about our politics and our government. So the Pant Load’s support seems a lot like a form of public political vandalism where The Donald is the can of spray paint.

Most people can see that a large portion of Americans are poorer with each new election cycle. After all, the reason Trump (and Sanders) are doing well is because many, many workers are seeing their job security, income security, and retirement security all go up in smoke. That’s no mystery, just the natural outcome when the government fails to represent the people in favor of the rich who fund their campaigns. It’s no wonder the Pant Load is easily corralling the frustrated.

But can the Pant Suit reverse the Democratic Party’s abandonment of the working class in America?

We know that she needs to focus on drawing more potential working class and young supporters, but so far, Democrats are content to run only in their municipal strongholds, following a strategy of stitching together interest groups, largely in states with big urban populations.

Energizing people around the fact of our corrupt political system is both a way to get higher turnout, and a way to elect members of Congress and state legislatures to fix the corrupt system. That is Bernie’s message, what he calls a “political revolution.” But Sanders is not the person to bring this about. Consider Sanders just the messenger.

Strategically, the Pant Suit needs to figure out how to get folks energized enough to vote for her and against Trump for reasons that don’t so paralyze them with fear that they stay home. If she is successful, it could be the start of re-establishing the New Deal coalition, and a re-installation of the principles of the civil rights movement.

That’s a huge job that will not be completed in one election cycle.

This threat is the GOP’s worst nightmare. They have worked for 40 years to eliminate these ideas, so expect the GOP to unanimously support the Pant Load:

COW Never Hillary

The Bernie Dems will rally behind Hillary for similar reasons.

Trump/Arpaio 2016: Because immigrants are the greatest threat to the nation.

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Shock and Awe, Part Deux

From the Wall Street Journal: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Jeb Bush is crisscrossing the country on a 60-event fundraising blitz aimed at raising enough money to give other Republicans second thoughts about entering the race.

The fundraising effort, which Mr. Bush’s team has dubbed a “shock and awe’’ campaign, could be particularly meaningful for Mitt Romney , who is competing with Mr. Bush for support from the same small circle of longtime Republican donors.

How can talking about “shock and awe” in a supposed positive way be a part of your election plan? We all remember “shock and awe”, and not fondly. Probably as many as 100 million Americans understand that the high volume bombing of Baghdad by Jeb’s brother George W. did not bring about a pacified Iraq. In fact, the “shock and awe” bombing campaign led to a nasty insurgency and ultimately, a failed campaign to make Iraq a democratic and peaceful place.

The analogy would be that Jeb assumes if he raises a huge amount of money, it will force his rivals out of the race. If the analogy is perfect, he will discover that his opponents don’t quit the race, and he has no plan for what to do then.

But, since Citizens United, it will take a lot of money if the nominee is going to be someone other than Bush or Romney. One lesson of the 2012 Republican primaries was that, with no restrictions on the donations by the rich, candidates did not need to have a plurality of rich guys behind them in order to compete.

Maverick rich guys could keep a candidate sufficiently funded, as both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum demonstrated. But, the rich guys also learned that there are diminishing returns to funding, particularly in the primaries, so, it is unlikely that Romney can be funds-raised out of the race, he can self-fund. Which means Romney has little to fear from Jeb’s shock and awe fundraising.

The conservative Washington Examiner isn’t convinced that Jeb will be able to raise enough money. (brackets by the Wrongologist)

It has been a while since the Bush machine was in operation…It was last up and running in 2004, for the re-election of George W. Bush, and last at work for the caucuses in 2000, for W’s first run. For the 2016 race, that means the machine has been out of action for a long time. Many Bush donors from 2000 and 2004 became Romney donors in…2012. They have conflicted loyalties, and not all of them will rejoin the [Bush] family.

It is safe to say that Jeb won’t be able to scare Mitt Romney away based on fundraising alone, and that the two of them will divide most of the big donor base. Still, once governors like John Kasich of Ohio, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Chris Christie of New Jersey learn how much money that Bush has brought in by doing 60 events, they may realize that they can’t really compete. One or more will go forward to compete in the debates with the hope of landing the VP slot, or positioning themselves for private sector careers. For them, Jeb’s fundraising isn’t going to push them to the sidelines, no matter how much is raised.

And Jeb is supposed to be the smart one.

Finally, we are having a “Snowmageddon” event here in the Northeast. Internet may or may not survive. In the meantime, here is “Call it Stormy Monday, (but Tuesday’s Just as Bad)” by T. Bone Walker, recorded in 1947:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVR8lg1YLuc

 

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Money Changes Everything

The WaPo reported that the world’s 400 richest people added $92 billion to their collective wealth in 2014. Drilling down on the US political implications of that headline, Bloomberg reports: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Here’s a bit of perspective on the ever-rising cost of elections and the big-money donors who finance them: Three of the country’s wealthiest political contributors each saw their net worth grow in 2014 by more than $3.7 billion, the entire cost of the midterm elections.

(OpenSecrets.org reported that the tab for the 2014 House and Senate elections came to $3.7 billion.)

Bloomberg’s records show that Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, and Laurene Powell Jobs (widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs) each earned enough in 2014 to have covered all of that campaign expense with the just the growth in their individual wealth.

So, the 2014 return on investment for political donations seems to be very, very good. And with investment returns like that, Citizens United will remain in place forever.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows that 11 of the political donors that Bloomberg tracks added a combined $33 billion to their wealth in 2014. The implication is that, as the 2016 presidential election season approaches, almost all of those donors will have even more cash to burn contribute.

Their wealth, combined with loosening campaign-finance restrictions and the growing comfort of the wealthy flexing their financial muscles in politics will jump-start 2016 primary campaigns in the next few months. And Congress gave an additional gift to wealthy donors by voting in the CRomnibus to raise the limits on how much individuals can give to political parties: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Previously individual donors could give the national party committees up to $32,400 per year. The new law allows donors to add gifts of up to $97,200 to each of three causes: presidential nominating conventions, building funds, and legal proceedings, such as recounts.

That’s a grand total of $324,000 per year, ten times the prior level.

This points to a reality: A wealthy donor can now almost singlehandedly bankroll a candidate, as Sheldon Adelson did for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 2012. These buckets of ducats raise questions about whether their political contributions create policy. Bloomberg quotes Craig Holman of Public Citizen:

Our democracy just isn’t going to survive in this type of atmosphere…The US, throughout history, has worked on a very delicate balance between capitalism in the economic sphere and democracy in the political sphere. We no longer have that balance. The economic sphere is going to smother and overwhelm the political sphere.

The sheer amount of money some donors made on paper in 2014 rewrites the context of “big” money in politics. For a state-wide political race, a $1 million cash infusion could change the outcome. For America’s big-money clique, it’s a fraction of what some billionaires can make or lose in a single day.

The NYT’s Binyamin Appelbaum contends in “Who Wants to Buy a Politician?” that there is an upper limit to the political expenditures by the wealthy. He makes the point that during the 2014 midterms, television stations in several contested markets reported that they had sold all of their available slots and that one station in New Hampshire actually issued refunds after selling more ads than it could air.

He says that the real return on political investment is in lobbying, which seems to be more valuable than campaign contributions. Appelbaum quotes Michael Munger, of Duke University:

Incumbents and large corporations can basically spend as much as it would take to defeat some change that would harm them…They spend around 10 times as much on lobbying, suggesting that it’s less effective to influence the selection of policy makers than to influence the policy-making process itself.

Also, the lobbyists threaten legislators that there will be fewer campaign donations next time unless the legislator votes correctly.

Either way, the wealthy have the money to buy the change they need, or you do not.

 

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Alito: What Could Go Wrong?

What’s Wrong Today:

“If it ain’t broke, fix it until it is.”

This saying has been around for about 20 years. According to Barry Popik, “If it ain’t broke, fix it anyway” was first cited in print in May, 1993 in the Virginia Pilot by Jerry Alley.

The sentiment applies to the Supreme Court now that the Hobby Lobby decision’s slippery slope reasoning is out there being reviewed by lawyers. On July 3rd, just three days after Mr. Justice Alito issued his decision, lawyers for two Guantanamo Bay detainees filed motions asking the DC District Court to intervene after the prison’s military authorities prevented them from praying communally during Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims. The banning of communal prayers at Guantanamo is one of a series of recent measures against detainees who are on hunger strikes.

The lawyers argued that, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision, the detainees’ rights are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Requests for Temporary Restraining Orders were filed this week with the Washington DC district court on behalf of Emad Hassan of Yemen and Ahmed Rabbani of Pakistan. The filings were made by a UK-based human rights group Reprieve.

The detainees’ lawyers said courts have previously concluded that Guantanamo detainees do not have religious free exercise rights because they are not persons within the scope of the RFRA, but the lawyers now argue that the Hobby Lobby decision changes that:

Hobby Lobby makes clear that all persons – human and corporate, citizen and foreigner, resident and alien – enjoy the special religious free exercise protections of the RFRA

Which is exactly what Mr. Justice Alito said in his ruling. Despite his claim that it was a narrow ruling, the ruling itself is big enough to drive a truck through. Meet the truck, folks.

More from Cori Crider, an attorney for the detainees and a director at Reprieve:

Why are the authorities at Guantanamo Bay seeking to punish detainees for hunger striking by curtailing their right to pray? If, under our law, Hobby Lobby is a ‘person’ with a right to religious freedom, surely Gitmo detainees are people too

This is one of the unintended consequences from the Hobby Lobby decision: While the owners of Hobby Lobby certainly did not have Gitmo detainees in mind when they took Obamacare to court, it’s clear the ruling has become far bigger than its original purpose. Citizens United argued that “corporations are people,” Hobby Lobby focuses on religious rights and the idea that the government cannot force those corporate people to do things that are against their beliefs.

That could mean anything from refusing to teach evolution in school to ignoring laws designed to prevent discriminatory hiring practices against LGBT people.

The Defense Department did not directly address whether the men were being punished for their hunger strike. US Army Lt. Col. Myles B. Caggins III:

We are committed to religious freedoms and practices for the detainees, keeping in mind the overall goal of security and safety for detainees and staff

The overriding question is if the RFRA is compatible with the First Amendment. It seems to create a special privilege for religious groups that are not enjoyed by anyone else. How is this not itself an establishment of religion? If corporations can say: “but, it is against my religion” to escape the equal application of the laws, isn’t that a special right being bestowed based on religious belief?

Having the Supreme Court actually expand the RFRA beyond the protections put in place by the First Amendment only compounds the problem. Writing new rules to create certain forms of religious privilege seems dubious at best.

Try this thought experiment: Imagine atheists who have a family-owned corporation. Call them the Browns. They hold exactly the same views of birth control and abortion as the Greens, but their beliefs are based on their personal moral views, and not on any religious teaching. Would they be exempt from this mandate?

This isn’t Ms. Justice Ginsburg’s slippery slope, it’s a cliff.

The Supremes have now defined religious freedom not in terms of our own behavior but in terms of our ability to control the behavior of others. The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of more Corporate power, not religious freedom.

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