The Death Panel is Coming!

What Will SCOTUS Pull Out Of Its Ass This Time?

For most of his life, Wally paid minimal attention to the Supreme Court.  After all, they were just a bunch of trusted old men and woman who always did the right thing.  “That’s what I learned in high school and until recently,” he said, “had no reason to doubt it.”

But Wally realizes how different things are now.  Although appointed by politicians, the justices were above politics and held those lofty positions because of their character and integrity.  “But lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas,” Wally said in a recent tweet.

And he is not alone, recent polls are showing that the decisions of SCOTUS are turning people off, big time.  Because of four prosperous old white men and one crazy black man, according to Wally, those of us who aren’t in the top 98 percent income bracket are going to get screwed.

According to Gallup, people started losing faith in the Supreme Court back in 2000, with their 5-4 decision to hand the presidency to George W. Bush.   And how they managed to declare that corporations are people is still a mystery.

Right now, the Court has already gutted the Voting RightsAct and will likely inflict more damage this session.  It is also looking to inflict damage to Fair Housing, Environmental Protection Agency, birth control, financial regulation, consumer protection and so much more.  Worse yet, they may succeed in gutting Obamacare, a Republican’s wet dream.

Wally is among many in his opinion that SCOTUS Justices are no better than politicians and term limits for them is a good idea.  Just watch and see as the US Supreme Court takes us back to the fabulous 1950s in full black and white with analog sound.

Supreme Court Follies

When the Supreme Court came down on the side of Hobby Lobby’s right to participate in their employees’ family planning as well as determining the extent of healthcare which female employees can access, Weird Wally was not surprised.   If corporations are people, then they have the right to religious freedom as well as free speech.  And although not surprised, he was confused.  “How the hell did corporations become people in the first damn place?” he posted on the internet. 

At one time, Wally saw the Justices in their black robes as the wisest of the wise, but with the recent antics of Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas, Wally now sees them as a bunch of blacked robed clowns.   “Religious freedom my ass,” he wrote later in that post.  “This is about giving the top one percent even more power in determining how the rest of us live our lives.

“What Roberts and his conservative Justices are doing,” he concluded, “are opening doors to closets that contain some horrible and scary monsters that we have yet to imagine.  Just wait and see.”  

Is The U.S. Supreme Court An Oligarch's Best Friend?

Forget the zombies, it’s the oligarchs who’ll eat you alive.  And, with the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, the oligarchs are coming to get you!

When they attack, however, it won’t be in mass hordes.  As a matter of fact, you’re not even likely to see them coming, but come they will, because they are already on their way.  Until the stunning Citizens United, Supreme Court decision of January, 2010, oligarchs have acted in the shadows, hiding behind public relations firms, front groups, lawyers and a bevy of brought and paid for politicians. 

But ever since the Court, first opened the village gate and decreed that corporations are people, with the same First Amendment rights of free speech as the rest of us, oligarchs, such as the Koch brothers, have been doing their war dances and sharpening their weapons.  Their main weapon being, unbelievable massive amounts of money with which to by media time and not have to be responsible for anything they say.  In other words, they can lie and get clean away with it.  Add to the mix their ability to finance and buy political campaigns and politicians, the rest of us may be defenseless against them.

The Town Hall has already been taken and on every state, local and federal level, the oligarchs are running amuck.  Some are even stepping out of the shadows and bearing their teeth.

Take Sheldon Adleson, for instance, one of the top ten richest men in the world who, along with a few others of the top 1 percent, are currently buying up the Republican Party.  And he recently hosted a diner for the top Republican candidates at his Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

It’s amazing that we let them get away with it, but most everyone aspires to be rich; to be in that top 1 percent.  But one day, when we ask an average 10 year old what they want to be when they grow up, don’t be surprised when they say, “I wanna be an oligarch.”  That American dream goes pretty deep.

And even though the costs may far outweigh the benefits, it’s a lot like Walt Kelly once wrote, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Walter Lide

The Hungry Oligarchs

If you’re not scared of the hungry oligarchs yet, you haven’t been paying attention.

According to a study scheduled for release later this year, it’s the economic elites and well-connected business people who are running the country and us average voters don’t really count for much.

Worse yet, even when we organize into citizens and public interest groups, “we have much less influence than corporations or and business-oriented groups,” a Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University, one of the study’s authors. Page and his co-author, Marten Gilens, a politics professor at Princeton University are hinting that our democracy may have morphed into an oligarchy without us even noticing. 

If recent efforts to enact background checks for potential gun buyers is any example, things are only going to get worse.  "The Supreme Court's recent decisions, which have removed most legal limits on big financial contributions to politics, are likely to increase the political clout of wealthy individuals and leave average citizens with even less influence than they have now," said Page. "I find this very troubling. The Court's view that political donations constitute 'speech' protected by the First Amendment opens the door to money-driven politics and a distortion of democracy."

Which brings to mind an old saying, “money talks and bullsshit walks.”  In the case of our devolving democracy, however, money may talk and our votes may walk; straight into oblivion. 

Walter Lide