Showing posts with label Scalia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scalia. Show all posts

Monday, June 22, 2015

If Only A. Scalia were Half as Smart as He Thinks He Is!

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Antonine Scalia somehow managed to get a lifetime 'gig' on the U.S. Supreme Court. Before SCALIA came on board, SCOTUS might have been competent if not 'supreme'. All bets are off now. 

SCALIA has thrown in with a fringe group called "young earthers". They are called "young earthers" because they believe that the Universe and the Earth were created con-currently about 6,000 years ago. SCALIA has that in common with Sarah Palin who believes that human beings walked with the Dinosaurs

There is NO EVIDENCE but religious dogma for this 'young universe' theory. The opposite is true of the scientific evidence that proves conclusively that the universe is much, much older. Most recently scientists discovered an "object" whose distance from Earth can be measured. That distance is about 13.7 billion light years from Earth. Put another way --it has taken light (the light we see) some 13.7 billion years to reach earth. That, of course, is inconsistent with Palin and who clams that the universe and everything in it is but 6,000 years old.

SCALIA joins S. Palin by subscribing to it. Both Palin and Scalia are WRONG and embarassingly so! Recently --the most distant object in the universe was discovered and verified by REAL SCIENTISTS in the real world. The AGE of the universe is determined by the distance --in light years --to that recently discovered object. This figure, we are told, is derived by adding up the "begats" in the Old Testament.  

The distance to this object is stated in light years as is the distance to almost every object beyond our moon. The distance to the most distant jobject yet discovered is 13.7 BILLION LIGHT YEARS. That means that merely observing this object is PROOF that the universe is AT LEAST 13.7 BILLION years old as it has taken light from the object 13.7 BILLION years to reach the Earth where we have observed it. 

SCALIA should stick to law (or, at least, his defective grasp of it) and leave science to intelligent people! Put another way --SCALIA should just SHUT UP about things of which he is ignorant. Uh....come to think of it, SCALIA is no better at law than he is at science. 
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Saturday, August 11, 2012

The Fascist Origins of 'Corporate Personhood'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Many sources support my assertion and emerging thesis: the concept of 'corporate personhood' has Germanic, fascist roots. Herr Schlegel, for example, wrote an essay entitled “Signature of the Age” (Signatur des Zeitalters, 1820). Amid his attacks on British-American "parliamentary government" may be found his Mitt Romney/SCOTUS-like descriptions of a "machine-like", ideal state.

Schlegel describes his ideal with the term "organic" --though it is not! Schlegel also used the term 'Christian' to describe his 'fascist' state. His 'Christian corporations', he said, were 'living wholes' and he described them in terms not unlike that of the corporatist (fascist) philosophy that had been espoused/advocated by Hegel.

Some hard background: in England, ‘the Crown’ has been regarded as a 'legal entity' for centuries. But that is not to say that the 'Crown' IS 'a person'! It simply does not follow that because the 'Crown' may exert power and/or authority it is a 'person'.

Likewise, it simply does not follow that because 'corporations' may enter into contracts that the said 'corporation' is a person. In the case of the 'Crown', for example, it was said that it was both a source of law and the means by which it was enforced! This, it is said, put it above 'laws' --laws which people, real people, are expected to obey. Ergo: the 'state' is, likewise, not a person.

It is said that 'all modern societies' recognize the 'legal existence, as persons, of companies or corporations'! Again --many things may be asserted! It was often asserted that the world was flat; saying so did not make it true.

Corporations do not procreate sexually; corporations do not grow, fart, belch or have babies. Corporations do NONE of the things that define 'real people' either biologically or psychologically. A 'corporation' is nothing less than a paper contract outlining how and possibly when they may interact with 'real people' and with other corporations. NONE of these 'privileges' imply or bestow upon a 'corporation' either a sexual or asexual means by which they may procreate; NONE of these 'privileges' have either the evolutionary power or the 'God-like' power of bestowing upon a mere paper contract the status of 'personhood'.

SCOTUS was wrong and wrong-headed and so are those members of the GOP who bought the scam!

Some have said that a corporation is an 'artificial' person! But a 'real person' is ...uh...a 'real' person! A corporation is not by definition! Black's Law definition is disingenuous. Neither dictionaries nor ill-informed legal decisions can make people out of what are --in fact --mere contracts. Existence precedes 'essence' and it is 'essence' which defines! People are what they are upon birth. Corporations share none of characteristics which define what it means to be a person!

Contracts which, in effect, create a 'corporate entity, differ from other contracts only because they are normally on-file with a Secretary of State somewhere. But that hardly makes of them a 'real person'. They simply outline the legal scope of responsibilities of those party to the contract. See the quote by St. Thomas More who said of them that they were, in fact, '...conspiracies of rich men to procure their commodities in the name and title of the commonwealth'!

When the Sec of State in Delaware (for example) affixes his SEAL upon the articles of incorporation he has performed in a manner PRECISELY described by St Thomas More in his classic "Utopia". Ergo --corporations are better described as being 'legalized conspiracies' than as 'real people'.
“I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.”

- Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia
Words fail to describe the depths of lies, propaganda and sophistry indulged by the likes of A. Scalia who --laughingly --believes himself to be 'too smart for the court'!

Most advocates of 'corporate personhood' indulge false analogies because 'false' analogies may be their last redoubt. Clearly --real persons are not so easily defined or summed up having attributes of consciousness and volition that may never be duplicated in unimaginably large super-computers let alone a mere scrap of papers with a seal on it. Simply, 'personhood' cannot be duplicated artificially and most certainly is not duplicated in mere 'legal abstractions' of any kind.

I deny many right-leaning assertions that "modern societies recognise the legal existence as persons of companies or corporations"! If what is said in defense of corporate personhood were true, TRADE UNIONS would, may and should claim 'personhood'. Should they do so, GOP hypocrites would scream bloody murder, foul, no fair!

By simply refusing to tolerate such an outcome, the GOP will have demonstrated its hypocrisy, its disingenuous assertion that corporations are people. Alas --the GOP has historically sought to have it several ways but right.

In the meantime, I urge those who make cars for a living --ORGANIZE AND INCORPORATE!

I urge those who make steel for a living --ORGANIZE AND INCORPORATE!

I urge those who work in any way with respect to the production of oil and/or petroleum related/derived products --ORGANIZE AND INCORPORATE!

In that way, you are guaranteed that you will be treated like REAL PERSONS while, previously, actually BEING a real person would have guaranteed your enslavement to MOLOCH.

ORGANIZE!!!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Deceptive, Dubious and Dishonest Origins of Corporate Personhood

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The origins of 'corporate personhood' are dubious, suspicious, crooked! 'Corporate personhood' derived from an informal note from a CLERK:
"The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There are many things wrong with this statement. For a start, the 14th states clearly that its intention is to forbid a state "...to deny to any person ...equal protection of the law." To apply this to coporations assumes that corporations are people to begin with. Logicians call this a circulus en probando fallacy i.e, a circular argument! Lawyers would say that it 'assumes facts not in evidence'! Specifically , it 'assumes' that corporations are people under the 14th and does so in order to prove that 'corporations are people'. Thus an assumption becomes the premise that 'proves' the assumption; in this case an 'assumption' that 'corporations are people'! In fact, corporations are NOT entitled to the protections of the 14th because they are not, in fact, people!

A political agenda was at work! It is in the interests of the 'corporate party' [GOP] that corporations, their benefactors, be considered people. It is in the interests of this corporate party that corporations be granted privileges which, as mere legal abstractions, they would not, do not in any way deserve or warrant! In this way, I can prove almost anything,however fallacious, however stupid, however backward.

The GOP has learned to hide their 'assumptions' among the panoply of crap that is believed by the GOP rank and file in order to feel good about themselves. In fact, this fallacy would not survive a first semester logic course at university; this fallacy would not survive a sophomore high school debate coach.

Again --the right wing is severely, endemically confused about cause and effect, about premises and conclusions. A conclusion cannot be a rationale for a premise! A conclusion may not precede a premise. "One" precedes "two" and 'causes' --without fail --always precede their effects.

'Corporate personhood' was a desired result! One senses desperation at work. Failing authoritative sources --say --the U.S. Constitution or previous decisions of the high court, the five desperadoes, otherwise disguised as 'justices' seized upon whatever sounded good. Scalia is expert at this. His rationale for Bush v Gore, for example, was just as fallacious --a circulus en probando fallacy.
"...to count first and rule upon legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires."

--Antonin Scalia, CNN Transcripts, December 11, 2000, Supreme Court Bush v. Gore
The effect was simply this: the re-count was halted while Bush was still ahead! If this fallacy, which in fact works backward from a foregone conclusion, is the basis for SCOTUS's 'corporate personhood' decree then we must conclude that valid opinions of and by real jurists and past courts, several hundred years of jurisprudential traditions dating back to MAGNA CARTA mean nothing to Scalia! In better times, Scalia would have been called out, challenged, tarred, perhaps feathered, made to squawk while flapping his flabby arms.

Five republicans on SCOTUS have nothing but contempt for the concept of 'equal protection under the law' guaranteed to all citizens via the 14th Amendment'. They are contemptuous of the Bill of Rights in general.
"Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during its first fifty years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than fifty percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations"

--Justice Hugo Black 1938*
The Fourteenth Amendment was one of three amendments to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War to guarantee black rights. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth granted citizenship to people once enslaved, and the Fifteenth guaranteed black men the right to vote. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress in June 1866 and ratified by the states in 1868. The Radical Republicans had been battling with Andrew Johnson for control of Reconstruction. Johnson was in favor of leaving the future of black people in the hands of white Southerners.
The Radical Republicans disagreed, and they won. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States and prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the U.S., depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ("No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") With the exception of Tennessee, the Southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The Republicans then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which set the conditions the Southern states had to accept before they could be readmitted to the union, including ratification of the 14th Amendment.

Since Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment -- especially the equal protection clause -- has been applied to a number of cases. It emerged in the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka when the United States Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment as one of its rationales for declaring school segregation unconstitutional.
--Why the progress made by blacks during Reconstruction was seen as a threat by whites, Richard Wormser
In 1971, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Reed v. Reed. Sally Reed had sued when Idaho law presumed that her estranged husband should be automatically selected as executor of the estate of their son, who had died without naming an executor. The Idaho law stated that "males must be preferred to females" in choosing estate administrators.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, decided that the Fourteenth Amendment did prohibit such unequal treatment on the basis of sex -- the first US Supreme Court decision to apply the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause to gender or sexual distinctions. Later cases have refined the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to sex discrimination, but it was more than 100 years after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment before it was applied to women's rights.

-Jone Johnson Lewis, Women's Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment - Finally Applied, Reed v. Reed and Roe v. Wade, Findlaw


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Romney is Wrong! Corporations are NOT People

By Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Mitt Romney has claimed that corporations are people, real people! He even got upset with his audience for daring to challenge his absurd assertions. Now --when corporations are held responsible for their crimes in the same way that individuals, that real people, are held responsible for their crimes, then and only then can I even begin to take seriously the utter BS re: 'corporate personhood' that has been put forward by the GOP, by the extremists on the right wing SCOTUS or by the legion of powerful, wealthy lobbies on K-Street!

The fact is corporations are mere 'legal abstractions'; they are NOT people. The definition of 'people' may be found in biology textbooks; I deny that old men or liars in robes can redefine with a mere decree some several million years of evolution over which they have had no control or input. Robed judges are not 'God' nor can they --with a decree --change the laws of evolution and/or physics.

I deny that SCOTUS may decree that gravity will not work, that Earth will not orbit the sun or the moon, the earth! Say what it will, SCOTUS may not redefine a person; nor may it decree that words on paper may live, breate and procreate biologically as do real people. SCOTUS has no jurisdiction on this point. Rather, some several million years of biological precedent should humble the likes of Scalia.

Nor can I imagine how 'fundamentalists' reconcile their fundamentalist religious beliefs with the ludicrous idea that by squeezing a 'corporate seal' one may CREATE a person, and a REAL person at that! That SCOTUS may be taken seriously could be understandable in a state like Texas, victimized by the GOP assault on education. Texas ranks dead last in high school graduations, thanks to the GOP incompetence of Bush/Perry. However, it is not only Texas under Bush/Perry that has fallen off the radar with respect to education. Education, logic, intellect are always targeted by a party that has made of itself an enemy of erudition, science, logic and, most importantly, good will.

Real people are interchangeable in a corporation --an abstraction. Moreover, anyone can form a corporation for very little money and they can do it by mail order. The corporation is nothing more than 'data' recorded with a Secretary of State (somewhere, probably Delaware), a corporate seal, and a Certificate of Incorporation:

From Cornell University Law School:
"A corporation is a legal entity [emphasis, EC] created through the laws of its state of incorporation. Individual states have the power to promulgate laws relating to the creation, organization and dissolution of corporations. Many states follow the Model Business Corporation Act. (See Minnesota's adoption.) State corporation laws require articles of incorporation to document the corporation's creation and to provide provisions regarding the management of internal affairs. Most state corporation statutes also operate under the assumption that each corporation will adopt bylaws to define the rights and obligations of officers, persons and groups within its structure."
--Cornell University Law School
ERGO: people are INTER-CHANGEABLE in a corporation. A real person doing business as a 'sole proprietorship' does not have that luxury. To create this Orwellian interchangeability, SCOTUS seeks to bestow upon corporations 'privileges', privileges that real people are denied in the same decision.

The law treats a corporation as a legal "person" only in so far as it can sue and be sued. That is not to be confused with either legal or biological personhood. And the reason that it MAY NOT be so confused is that 'suing and being sued' DOES NOT DEFINE a person. If corporations were people, then DuPONT et al should have been put to death for the deaths it caused at Bhopal.

When has ANY corporation --at any time in history --been held to account for the many crimes to include mass murder and other atrocities in the same way that REAL PEOPLE are held to account?

NEVER!

Moreover, the legal independence of a corporation prevents shareholder liability for corporate debts; ERGO, corporations are NOT people. Real people have NO such exemptions, no such luxuries. Corporations are NOT people; SCOTUS, MITT and the GOP are dead wrong. I will be happy to set them straight.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Deluded Mitt Romney says: 'Corporations are people' too!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Here's what Mitt recently puked up:
"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend."
--Mitt Romney, aka 'The Compleat Cockroach'
Like every other GOPPER, Mitt claims privileges for corporations because, '...they are people''! The 'privileges' he claims for corporation are denied to 'real people' simply because they are real people and corporations are not! Neither Mitt nor the GOP can have it both ways.

In fact, corporations are not taxed as much or even in the same way as are real people. That is by design --GOP design! I say TAX the corporations! But, of course, the corporations themselves will oppose effort to tax them fairly or in the same ways as real persons are taxed. Nevertheless, corporations must be compelled to pay their fair share to support the legitimate functions of government with respect to the 'real' real people who are, by law, the source of all governmental 'sovereignty'.
Funny thing is, Romney's questioner wasn't asking him about corporate personhood. He was asking why Romney wants to cut Social Security but while preserving corporate tax breaks. It seemed as if Romney had already memorized this little speech and was looking for a chance to trot it out. He probably had.

--Truthout, Shiny Happy Corporate People
Corporations and the ruling elite which runs them can, in many cases, can avoid paying taxes entirely. In practice, however, the 'ruling elite' (now just 1 percent of the total population) pay less and less as a portion of their total income than do middle and lower class individuals. For us, the government's cut is a much, much larger percentage of our income than are the nominal taxes levied the ruling elite.

Why are not corporations locked up when committing crimes that would land real people in a Texas gulag hell-hole? As Truth Out put it: Romney and the GOP at large would ask: "Are you crazy? We're talking about corporations here, not people."

Corporations are often left off the hook entirely when sued for negligence or 'criminal manslaughter'. How many real people are housed in Texas prisons for those crimes? How many corporations are housed in TX gulags for precisely the same crimes? I will tell you: NONE!!!! In practice, perhaps in law, corporations are placed above the law, treated differently, given privileges and exemptions that real people have never had and will never have.

Why is the GOP so eager to bestow upon corporations --a collective abstraction --the status of 'personhood'? The answer is simple: the GOP are 'collectivists'; the GOP is anti-individual! The GOP seeks to establish a 'collectivist' dictatorship in which wealth --created by labor --is shared but only among the ruling elite which did not create it and have not earned a penny of it. Every one else in the GOP vision of AmeriKa is reduced to slavery if we have not been already.

REPUBLICANS: ARE THEY ABOVE THE LAW OR JUST OUTLAWS?

Republicans may say what they want of corporations as people, but, in fact, corporations have none of characterisics of real people, none of the responsibilities. They do not vote as people; they don't have to. They OWN the government! They benefit from its largesse as real people have never benefited and never will!

The only pockets lined by GOP largesse (pork) are the pockets of an increasingly tiny ruling elite now just 1 percent of the total population. The official stats prove my assertions; those numbers can be found by anyone with an internet connection at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Commerce Dept-B.E.A. Look 'em up! Be prepared to see proof that the GOP and Mitt are lying, distorting the effects of every GOP tax cut in U.S. history.

In each case, the cut --having enriched only the upper 1 percent --has been followed by a recession/depression. ERGO: GOP tax cuts do not have have never stimulated the economy, have never created a single fucking job! NOT ONE!

In fact, job creation has declined after every GOP tax cut; and every recession/depression since 1900 has been the result of either GOP incompetence or crookedness or both.

The Reagan depression of some two years is a specimen typical of the recurring problem. Under Reagan, jobs declined, investment declined, millions were thrown out of work, lost their homes and were forced to live in tent cities, under bridges! Ironically, this was the case in 'boomtown' Houston which had been called the 'Golden Buckle of the Sunbelt'. Every such depression/recession has been the result of similar incompetence by previous GOP regimes at least since 1900.

Here's the story that puts all this in perspective: Romney wants to cut Social Security while preserving corporate tax breaks. In other words, MITT ROMNEY --a typical GOP seed pod --wants to enrich those who are already rich upon the backs of those who were never rich, those who can least afford it. Romney wants to rob retirees and literally GIVE that wealth to mere 'legal abstractions' --corporations!

Romney's ideas will most certainly result in a contraction of wealth as 'money' (in varrious forms) will follow the well-rehearsed GOP SCRIPT! In other words, this 'wealth' will wind up in various offshore bank accounts where it creates no jobs and --significantly --does not 'trickle down'! As was the case wtih the Reagan tax cut, a depression, a massive loss of jobs, a contraction of the economy will result. It always has!

THE GOP MODUS OPERANDI

Check the official stats at Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Commerce Deptartment-B.E.A., the U.S. Census Bureau. Following EVERY GOP tax cut at least since Reagan has been a recession/depression [negative growth] defined by the millions of Americans that were suddenly jobless, homeless and living in tent cities, under bridges, as was the case in fact in 'boomtown' Houston.

The REAGAN YEARS SUCKED! [see Cheney's nose at right]

And they sucked because GOP economics have never, ever worked as advertised! GOP economic 'theory' is a fraud, a scam, a conjob. It does precisely what the GOP wants it to do: it enriches the GOP base! It's a laundered payoff for their continued support. As a result of GOP policies, just 1 percent of the total population owns more than the rest of us combined.

Instead of listening to Mitt, we should be restoring the nation's prosperity by taxing the rich and the even richer corporations FAIRLY! In other words, they should be taxed as was the case until Ronald Reagan wrecked the economy and impoverished everyone but the very, very, very rich who have had the 'bad manners' of investing their ill-gotten booty in offshore bank accounts.

The EXODUS of wealth following every GOP tax cuts is commonly called 'recession' or 'depression'. Look them up at the U.S. Commerce Dept B.E.A. the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Stats. The GOP record of tax cuts followed by recession is there in black and white for anyone curious enough to learn the truth!


Saturday, January 23, 2010

Why Five Members of SCOTUS Are Nuttier Than Fruit Cakes!!

by len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In the worst decision since Bush v Gore, the US Supreme Court has worked a 'miracle'. Five 'justices' --John G. Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Antony Kennedy --have conspired to turn mere words on paper into living, breathing 'human beings' and have decreed that these corporations, mere 'legal abstractions', have the same rights of free speech as do living breathing human beings. Who is the 'conspiracy theorist', who is nuttiest when five ideologues in robes can dictate to you that you treat mere 'abstractions' --pieces of paper --as if they were people?

The crooks on K-street may resume their on-going auction of the United States knowing that their nefarious bargains have been blessed by the 'high court', a cult of weird robed people who believe weird things! 'Corporations' --mere abstractions --are given license to sell out the nation and call it 'free speech'!

Should you dare to use the term 'conspiracy' to describe the activities of these crooks on K-street --the lobbies for Israel and other foreign entities --you will be labeled a 'conspiracy theorist'! But SCOTUS, meanwhile, gets away with calling words on paper a 'person' and giving them rights! I ask you: who is nuttier? You for believing what volumes of federal laws have called 'conspiracies'? Or --the SUPREME court who believes an embossed piece of paper with a corporate seal from Delaware on it is a real, living breathing person? I will tell you what I think! I think that five members of the Supreme Court of the United States are nuttier than fruit cakes!

Conspiracies Exist: SCOTUS IS One!

The Supreme Court itself has said 'conspiracies eixst' in numerous decisions that you can look up for yourself at Findlaw or Cornell University Law Library online. When there are thousands of pages of case law having to do with conspiracies, the notion that they don't exist is just plain stupid! The only folk trying to discount 'conspiracies' are ring wing nuts who are clearly up to their necks in numerous treasonous conspiracies to undermine American democracy and wage wars of naked aggression and oil plunder! The latest SCOTUS decision is the result and the proof of my charge.

Certain types of conspiracies were made 'legal' long ago. They are called 'corporations' and 'geniuses' on the high court think that they are 'real folk' and treat them accordingly. In fact, corporations are just ink on paper! If that! Today --you can form a corporation online and save the ink! The Supreme Court will think you are 'real' and may even grant you privileges that you have not earned or deserve. If you can afford an office on K-street or if you have enough corporate money to buy some Reps and/or Senators, you might even enlist the US military for a little invasion and resource theft on your behalf! You could line your pockets with the sacrifice of American lives and the lives of your victims.

SCOTUS has said that those 'conspiracies of rich men' are people --living, breathing people --who have rights and among those presumably inalienable rights is the right to bribe office seekers with monies that have most certainly bilked out of you and millions of other people, real people with hearts, lungs, mouths, and opinions. In an absurd Kafkaesque world of GOP manufacture, mere ink and paper have more rights, more power, more clout more impact upon the world than do you, a real person in a real word!
Less than two years after Buckley, Bellotti re-affirmed the First Amendment principle that the Government lacks thepower to restrict political speech based on the speaker’s corporate identity. 435 U.S., at 784–785. Thus the law stood until Austin up-held a corporate independent expenditure restriction, bypassing Buckley and Bellotti by recognizing a new governmental interest inpreventing “the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of [corporate] wealth . . . that have little or no correlation to thepublic’s support for the corporation’s political ideas.” 494 U. S., at 660. Pp. 25–32. (c

This Court is confronted with conflicting lines of precedent: a pre-Austin line forbidding speech restrictions based on the speaker’s corporate identity and a post-Austin line permitting them. Neither Austin’s antidistortion rationale nor the Government’s other justifica-tions support §441b’s restrictions. Pp. 32–47.

--SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, No. 08–205.
Nevertheless, when a 'conspiracy of rich men' has been granted privilege and status, you will be told that 'conspiracies' do not exist! If that were so, why has the US Supreme Court handed down so many cases defining them and applying to them the laws of these United States? And why are there so many US laws having to do with 'conspiracies' if 'conspiracies' did not exist?The fascist domination of American life and debate is possible because people have 'bought into' the pernicious notion of 'corporate personhood'. This notion facilitates More's 'conspiracy of rich men'.

Mere legal abstractions are absurdly accorded rights that, by right, belong only to real, living, flesh and blood people. Corporations are given license to lie about misdeeds, incompetence and corporate criminality, literally, a 'conspiracy of rich men --the Tea Baggers and idiots who have bought into it; and the GOP consultants, firms, and focus groups who dreamed it all up. And, just as egregious, the Supreme Court itself where the majority fussed about a red herring: corporations losing a voice in the political process! The words 'censorship' and 'banned speech' was banded about as if they were truly concerned about it but would not have been if those affected had not been the GOPs corporate sponsors who were clearly most affected.

Is the Voice of 'Labor' Silenced?

One can only conclude that SCOTUS's problem with the law as it had been was that labor unions were on an equal footing with the big, conservative corporations! Before the Supreme Court itself subverted Federal Election laws, both corporations and labor unions were free to voice any political opinion about any issue or candidate whenever they wanted! We can't have that, now can we? Simply, the five right wing extremists on the court have, as they did with Bush v Gore, labored mightily to hatch a rationalization for lies and bulshit, a rationalization that sounds scholarly, legal and erudite but which is, in fact, a lod of codswallop and high falutin' sounding crap!!

I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!

--Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia

Who is SCOTUS protecting and favoring? The Carvellian quick respons: the richest one percent of the US population which, in fact, owns more than some 95 percent of the rest of us combined. The Supreme Court of the Unites States, infiltrated by the likes of Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts, have partnered with the US right wing to rob the US population with "trickle down theory" and other nonsense utterly unsupported with fact or evidence.

Here are some assorted facts that paint the ugly picture.

  • In the late 1970s, the top one percent of the US population held 13 percent of the wealth; in 1995 it held 38 percent. [Source: Source: Levy, Frank. The New Dollars and Dreams ].
  • The top ten percent of the US population owns 81.8 percent of the real estate, 81.2 percent of the stock, and 88 percent of the bonds. [Source: Federal Reserve Bank data in Left Business Observer, No. 72, Apr. 3, 1996, p. 5].
  • One percent of the US population owns sixty percent of the stock and forty percent of the total wealth. [Source: Hawken, Paul, The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. New York: Harper Business, 1993].
  • The top fifth of households saw their income rise 43 percent between 1977 and 1999, while the bottom fifth saw their income fall 9 percent....
  • Since 1973, every group in society except the top 20 percent has seen its share of the national income decline, with the bottom 20 percent losing the most. They have just 3.6 percent of national income, down from 4.4 percent a quarter century ago.
  • Indeed, the top fifth now makes more than the rest of the nation combined...
    Rebecca Blank, who recently left the President's Council of Economic Advisors, pointed out, ‘We've gone back to levels of income and wealth inequality that this country hasn't seen since the teens and 1920s.’" [Source: Merrill Goozner, Crash of '99?, Salon.com, Oct. 1, 1999; addendum: since 1999, the date the source was published, the situation is much, much worse. Today --just ONE PERCENT own more than 95 percent of the rest of us combined. GOP incompetence and criminality moves so fast these days, it's hard to keep up!].
  • The top one percent of Americans receive more income than the bottom 40 percent. [Source: Korten, David. When Corporations Rule the World, p. 108].
  • Federal Reserve median family net worth by percentile for 1992, 1995, 1998, 2001 (Federal Reserve Bulletin January 2003, pp. 1-36). Note the small gains for the bottom 75% of the population and larger gains for the upper 25% and that the 1998 to 2001 gains were largest.

    --US Wealth Distributions 1989-2001

Republicans bought the scam because it made them feel good about being greedy, shallow bastards. The appeal is obvious: trickle down rationalized greed but only after the fact; it made one feel good about one's worst impulses, motives, and elitist bigotry.
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Friday, January 22, 2010

Jim Hightower: 'A Black-Robed' Coup d'Etat'

by Jim Hightower

Last September, I wrote The Hightower Lowdown about how the Roberts' Court could throw out over 100 years of campaign finance law.

Remember their names: Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas.

Yesterday, from within the dark isolation of the Supreme Court, these five men pulled off a black-robed coup against the American people's democratic authority. In an unprecedented perversion of judicial power, this court cabal has decreed that corporations have a free-speech "right" to dip into their corporate coffers and spend unlimited sums of money to elect or defeat candidates of their choosing.

Corporate interests already had too much money power over our political system. No other group in America comes anywhere near the spending clout that this relatively small clutch of wealthy special interests wields over our elections and government. So it's ludicrous for anyone – much less Supreme Court judges – to argue that the corporate voice is a victim of political "censorship." This is not merely judicial activism, it is judicial radicalism.

Thomas Jefferson warned about the dangerous rise of corporate power, declaring that must "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations." Today, I'm sure that founding patriots like Jefferson are not simply spinning in their graves at the Supreme Court's surrender to this aristocracy – they're trying to claw their way out of their graves to throttle all five of the traitors.

We MUST fight back. Many good groups are working on this issue, and we all have to get involved to fight against this corporate take over of our political system. Public Citizen has a petition we can sign. Common Cause is asking us to contact your congressperson and make sure they have signed on to the Fair Elections Now Act. I mentioned other good groups that are working on this issue. Get in touch with them. Let's fight the good fight... and win! Onward!

petition we can sign. Common Cause is asking us to contact your congressperson and make sure they have signed on to the Fair Elections Now Act. I mentioned other good groups that are working on t<

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Loss of American Democracy

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

A primary focus of the Mexican revolution of 1910 was the thirty-one year Presidency of Porfirio Diaz. It was during Diaz's presidency, that power and wealth concentrated in the hands of a ruling elite just as power and wealth was concentrated in the hands of a ruling elite in the U.S. with the ascension of Ronald Reagan. In Mexico, some 100 years ago, the 'common people' were effectively disenfranchised, suffering injustices and deprivation throughout the countryside and in the cities.

Today, in the United States, as in Mexico 100 years ago, just one percent of the entire population owns more than about 95 percent of the rest of us combined. This 'ruling elite' is the result and sole beneficiary of Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut of 1982. The upward flow of wealth was reversed briefly in Clinton's second term but resumed with additional tax cuts under Bush. It is believed wrongly that tax cuts stimulate investment and thus employment. That is called 'Trickle Down Theory'. In fact, investment in American enterprise has declined following every GOP tax cut and, as a result, employment has likewise declined. The official numbers that prove my assertions may be found at the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Commerce Dept-Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Reagan's tax cut of 1982, for example, was followed by a depression of some two years in which millions lost their jobs. Residents in 'boomtown' Houston were forced to live in tent cities when their homes were foreclosed upon. Others lived under bridges within view of the gleaming skyscrapers of glittering, corporate Houston. The official stats at the Bureau of Labor Statistics will reveal Reagan to have been among the very worst post World War II Presidents in terms of GDP and job growth. Jimmy Carter, reviled by Reagan-heads, is, in fact, among the best US Presidents, second in terms of both GDP and job growth. In those categories, Carter outperforms all GOP Presidents since World War II.

Back to Mexico, where a new generation hoped that a new election, called for in the Mexican Constitution, would usher in a progressive, more egalitarian era. They were disappointed when the Díaz machine chose to exercise their power indefinitely. Madero demanded that Diaz renounce his power and step down. Madero formed the ''Anti-reeleccionista'' Party and campaigned against Diaz throughout Mexico.

Madero supported democracy and a 'rule of law', in other words, holding a freely elected government to account within the 'strict limits of the law'. Naturally, his success and popularity represented a threat to the entrenched government, the base, elite support behind Porfirio Diaz. Marero dared declare himself the rightful president until new elections could be held. Madero promised a return of lands confiscated by Diaz; he supported universal suffrage, and just one term for the office of President. Madero's call for an uprising on November 20th, 1910, marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.

It is at this point that Mexican history and US history diverge. In the United States, the entrenched powers were momentarily threatened by the election of 2000. Florida was Bush territory and the fix was supposed to have been in thanks to Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his ghoulish Secretary of State. How embarrassing it might have been had 'his' state cast its 'electoral votes' for Al Gore --a (gasp) Democrat. A 'White Riot' of GOP brownshirts were bussed to Florida, a trip paid for by the Bush Jr campaign. Their assignment: stop the recount while Bush was still ahead. As the GOP filed suit to stop the re-counters from doing the work legally assigned to them, a sitting Supreme Court justice would issue one of the most absurd if not stupid statements in American history:
Count first and rule upon legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance that democratic stability requires.

--Antonin Scalia
Excuse me! Elections are the purview of 'states' and the Florida Supreme Court had, in fact, heard the case and had, in fact, ruled upon its legality. What right had SCOTUS to rule upon what is, in fact, a state election to begin with? Scalia's idiocy if not his manhood was appropriately vivisected by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
I might join The Chief Justice were it my commission to interpret Florida law. But disagreement with the Florida court's interpretation of its own State's law does not warrant the conclusion that the justices of that court have legislated. There is no cause here to believe that the members of Florida's high court have done less than "their mortal best to discharge their oath of office," Sumner v. Mata, 449 U. S. 539, 549 (1981), and no cause to upset their reasoned interpretation of Florida law.

...

In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.

I dissent.

--GEORGE W. BUSH, et al., PETITIONERS v. ALBERT GORE, Jr., et al. on writ of certiorari to the florida supreme court, [December 12, 2000]; Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens joins, and with whom Justice Souter and Justice Breyer join as to Part I, dissenting.
Clearly, SCOTUS had no standing, no right under law, to rule upon any decision by the Florida Supreme Court with respect to its own state laws and the conduct of its own elections.

Surely, if all the votes had been counted, Gore would have won and the nation spared the loss of republic, the wars of naked aggression, oil theft, capital war crimes and atrocities that followed upon Bush's assumption of the 'throne'.

Indeed, a revolution was fought in America and the enemies of Democracy, the treasonous enemies of the American republic, won! GOP brownshirts and 'white rioters' carried the day on behalf of the illegitimate regime of George W. Bush. It would properly be described as a coup d'etat! And the wrong side won! The men in 'white shirts' were neo-Nazis employed by the George W. Bush campaign!

Our fears were justified. Bush represented the interests of just one percent of the nation as Diaz had represented just one percent of the Mexican population in 1910. As might be expected, Bush paid for his support with tax cuts benefiting only the very rich ruling elite. Today, as a result of his policies and payoff, just one percent of the nation owns more than about 95 percent of the rest of us combined. This, likewise, describes the conditions in Mexico just prior to the Revolution of 1910. Things worked out a little differently in Mexico some 100 years ago.
On November 14th, in Cuchillo Parado in the state of Chihuahua, Toribio Ortega and a small group of followers took up arms. On the 18th in Puebla, Diaz's authorities uncovered preparations for an uprising in the home of the brothers Maximo and Aquiles Serdán, who where made to pay with their lives. Back in Chihuahua, Madero was able to persuade Pascual Orozco and Francisco ("Pancho") Villa to join the revolution. Though they had no military experience, Orozco and Villa proved to be excellent strategists, and they earned the allegiance of the people of northern Mexico, who were particularly unhappy about the abusive ranchers and landlords who ran the North.

In March of 1911, Emiliano Zapata led the uprising of the peasants of Morelos to claim their rights over local land and water. At the same time, armed revolt began in many other parts of the country. The "Maderista" troops, and the national anger which inspired them, defeated the army of Diaz within six months. The decisive victory of the Mexican Revolution was the capture of Ciudad Juarez, just across the river from El Paso, by Orozco and Villa. Porfirio Diaz then resigned as President and fled to exile in France, where he died in 1915.

With the collapse of the Díaz regime, the Mexican Congress elected Francisco León de la Barra as President Pro-Temp and called for national popular elections, which resulted in the victory of Francisco I. Madero as President and José María Pino Suárez as Vice-President.

The Mexican Revolution 1910

Abba: Fernando
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Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Tea Bagger Bigotry Exposed

The GOP has either allied themselves with the bigot-based 'tea bagger' movement or it is the instigator of it. Just when I had come to believe that the GOP could not possibly sink lower, it is now clear to me that this endemically bigoted party is positioned to exceed all previous lies, idiocy and hate talk spewed on that party's behalf by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and a legion of venom filled wannabes. Indeed, the GOP --apres Bush --is a deluge, a jack-booted army of right wing hate mongers.

Now --let's clear up another issue. A heavily-trafficked site [What Really Happened] which often links to my articles has referenced my article with the following lines:
Yeah, they are really desperate to sell this idea that anyone unhappy with the government must be a racist. [emphasis mine, LH]
Let me make this clear: NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO WRITE! There is no 'they' who dictated any content to me whatsoever! There is no 'they' and I resent the implication that my thoughts and my opinions were dictated to me in any way whatsoever by some mysterious and unidentified 'they' !!

Is that clear?

No one else is responsible for the content of this blog and no one tells me what I can post and what I cannot! I reserve the right to cite sources, quote other writers and/or politicians and analysts as well as numerous official, government sources.

More than three decades later we have Sherri Goforth, an aide to a Republican state senator in Tennessee sending out a mass e-mail of a cartoon showing dignified portraits of the first 43 presidents, and then representing the 44th — President Obama — as a spook, a cartoonish pair of white eyes against a black background.

When a gorilla escaped from a zoo in Columbia, S.C., a longtime Republican activist, Rusty DePass, described it on his Facebook page as one of Michelle Obama’s ancestors.

Among the posters at last weekend’s gathering of conservative protesters in Washington was one that said, “The zoo has an African lion and the White House has a lyin’ African.”

These are bits and pieces of an increasingly unrestrained manifestation of racism directed toward Mr. Obama that is being fed by hate-mongers on talk radio and is widely tolerated, if not encouraged, by Republican Party leaders. It’s disgusting, and it’s dangerous. But it’s the same old filthy racism that has been there all along and that has been exploited by the G.O.P. since the 1960s.

I have no patience with those who want to pretend that racism is not an out-and-out big deal in the United States, as it always has been. We may have made progress, and we may have a black president, but the scourge is still with us. And if you needed Jimmy Carter to remind you of that, then you’ve been wandering around with your eyes closed.

Glenn Beck, one of the moronic maestros of right-wing radio and TV, assures us that President Obama “has a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Some years ago, as the watchdog group Media Matters for America points out on its Web site, Beck said he’d like to beat Representative Charles Rangel “to death with a shovel.”

--The Scourge Persists, Bob Herbert, New York Times
The conclusions stated on this blog are mine and mine alone. And there is no denying --except by idiots and/or bigots --that bigotry underlies much of the criticism that is leveled by the right wing fanatics inside the 'tea bagger' movement.
Another racist photo [seen above right] showing Obama as a witch doctor is making the rounds with Tea Party activists.

Republicans accuse Speaker Pelosi of inciting racism with her health care comments.

Democrats are unhappy with proposed tax in the Baucus health care bill.

Rep. Pelosi said:
I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco.

This kind of rhetoric was very frightening" and created a climate in which violence took place.

I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made.

She said some of the people hearing the message "are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume.

Our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe.

But I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause.

--Nancy Pelosi, Statement
Mob scenes are now the GOP modus operandi. Paul Krugman asks: "What's behind it?" The answer to that is as clear and present as is the danger to the American republic and every freedom loving American: the leadership of the GOP, the GOP in Congress, the GOP at large:

Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.

And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.

So this is something new and ugly. What’s behind it?

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, has compared the scenes at health care town halls to the “Brooks Brothers riot” in 2000 — the demonstration that disrupted the vote count in Miami and arguably helped send George W. Bush to the White House. Portrayed at the time as local protesters, many of the rioters were actually G.O.P. staffers flown in from Washington.

--Paul Krugman, The Town Hall Mob
Like pre-war Nazis, the American GOP exploited the mob mentality most prominently in the so-called 'White Riot' --in fact and by law a treasonous 'coup d'etat' which stole the election for George W. Bush. In fairness to mere rank and file extremists, however, it is clear that in the year 2000, it was the GOP leadership that bussed to Florida a white-shirted, button-down mob of right wing radical extremists whose purpose and assignment was to disrupt the election process, to stop the vote count while Bush was still ahead.

Typically, Antonin Scalia would issue the absurdity of the decade: "Count first and rule upon legality afterward is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires." Robert Novak was just as stupid but more succinct: "The democrats are trying to steal this election by counting votes!" 'Logic' of the same fallacious form was heard even earlier from Barbara Olson who said that Gary Condit was guilty of murder not because there was evidence against him but because there was none! That, she said, was proof he covered it up!

Just words
from an idiot

The 'recipe' is how every election had worked since the invention of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Voting and then counting the votes is how elections, indeed, Democracy itself, is done. Scalia is a not an intellectual. Scalia is a dumb-ass who has learned a 'trick'. The American west was peopled with itinerant 'snake oil salesmen' who had learned a few big words and how to impress the yokels with them.

GOP mob mentality was again in vogue when Sarah 'Wolf Murderer' Palin purposefully appealed to a 'base' which revealed itself to be most responsive to messages of hate and prejudice.

Democrats have a right NOT to be intimidated!

Certainly, the GOP has resorted to form --exploiting ugly mobs, encouraging them to disrupt legal democratic town hall meetings. I urge that legal town hall meetings be defended by arms and armor. Enough is enough. The Democrats have a right to meet and they have a right to defend themselves against felony violence. They have a right to oppose and defend against a gang of would-be felons!

Why do Republicans make such good l'il Nazis?

The answer lies in research that shows how GOP-types are naturally inclined to conspiracies. That's why they would prefer you believe that conspiracies don't exist. Read Carl Jung and some of the more recent research surveyed in John Dean's book "Conservatives Without Consciences". Conservatives are 'authoritarian' types and tend to sort themselves into strong leaders (fuhrers) and eager, non-questioning followers (good l'il Nazis).

Liberals and progressives are often independent, creative, original. An 'ENTP' type is one of several types identified by the Jung Personality Test, similar to the Myers/Brigg test. ENTP, specifically, is described thus: "Inventor". Enthusiastic interest in everything and always sensitive to possibilities. Non-conformist and innovative."

This kind of personality does not make good, unquestioning follower-conspirators! This kind of person does NOT make a good LI'L NAZI. The GOP, by contrast, is over run by good li'l Nazis.


The 'tea bagger' movement is the 'enemy within', the anti-democratic, pro-fascist brownshirts who may have already destroyed the US ideal of a free and democratic republic --something that we have most certainly NOT seen since the rise of Ronald Reagan.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, however, came to Carter’s defense on Wednesday. “Jimmy Carter tells the truth about some, not all, but some of the rabid rage against President Obama,” Olbermann stated, “and is thus the recipient of the automatic blowback from those whose livelihoods depend on enabling the ragers to tell themselves it is not racism that they feel.”

In introducing the segment, Olbermann claimed that he could offer “at least 37″ cases that he believes “prove President Carter to be correct.” He also noted that Rush Limbaugh had attacked Carter’s statements by saying “Jimmy Carter is the nation‘s hemorrhoid” — and retorted, “”Well, I got to defer to him here, the nation‘s asshole would know about the nation‘s hemorrhoid.”

Some of Olbermann’s examples seem fairly indisputable, like a poster used at tea party demonstrations that depicts Obama as an Africa witch doctor, or Limbaugh’s claim that Obama has made it okay for black kids to beat up a white kid on a school bus.

--Olbermann: 37 racist incidents prove Carter is right
Already losers, a now desperate GOP has made a Faustian bargain with bigots. It is significant that the so-called GOP 'leadership' has yet to issue a tepid reproach, let alone a strongly worded condemnation of a movement that is 1) un-American 2) bigoted 3) made of liars to a person!

Until the GOP leadership steps forward and condemns the 'tea bagger movement', I remain confirmed that the 'tea bagger' movement is encouraged by the highest ranking members of the GOP embittered by the legion of failures chalked up by their party since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Un-American Lies of Antonin Scalia

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It's time the American people fired the man who thinks himself 'too smart for the (Supreme) court'. Scalia has done it again. The architect of Bush v Gore, the disingenuous decision that stuck us with Bush, has stooped to yet another low. Scalia will tell bald faced lies to prop up his bullshit 'opinions'.
To bolster his argument that the Guantanamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield." It turns out that statement is false.

According to a new report by Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, "The statistic was endorsed by a Senate Minority Report issued June 26, 2007, which cites a media outlet, CNN. CNN, in turn, named the DoD as its source. The '30' number, however, was corrected in a DoD press release issued in July 2007, and a DoD document submitted to the House Foreign Relations Committee on May 20, 2008 abandons the claim entirely."

--Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent
Neither logic nor the 'rule of law' is among Scalia's strong suits. How did he manage to get a law degree? Until this latest outrage, Scalia had said that the high court's decision restoring Habeas Corpus would 'almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed’. Hey! Scalia! Debate me on that one. I need fresh meat.
Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, however, is outraged. In his dissenting opinion, he devoted an entire section to “a description of the disastrous consequences of what the Court has done today,” a procedure “contrary to my usual practice,” he admitted. Scalia adopted extreme rhetoric about the impacts of the decision, calling it a “self-invited…incursion into military affairs” that would “almost certainly” kill Americans. Some lowlights:

– “America is at war with radical Islamists. … Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

– “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

– “Today the Court warps our Constitution.”

– “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”

It is unlikely that the Supreme Court’s decision will have the impacts that Scalia claims. As Kennedy explained, “Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.” Discussing the restoration of habeas at Guantanamo last year, Colin Powell noted:
The concern was, well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system’s all about? And by the way, America, unfortunately, has too many people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system.

--Scalia: Court’s Decision Restoring Habeas ‘Will Almost Certainly Cause More Americans To Be Killed’»
I am still amazed that a court whose job is to measure the nation's statutory laws against the 'supreme law' of the land could have ruled in Bush's favor on any issue. One had hoped SCOTUS would redeem itself for a bone-headed decision styled Bush v Gore, a disastrous, politically motivated decision that replaced the rule of law with political expediency.

Later, by ruling that habeas corpus protections apply to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, the high court held out the promise that it might yet rise above the muck left us in Bush v Gore and by Bush's war on the Constitution!

In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “We hold these petitioners do have the habeas corpus privilege”. For an administration that thought the fix was in, that it had sufficient ringers on the court, the decision must have come a shock.

Scalia's 'war on logic' is even older. In Bush v Gore, the 'decision that made no law', Scalia argued that 'continuing the recount' would be harmful to Bush. Well, I would hope so! That's the very purpose of elections. The candidate who gets the fewer number of votes is supposed to lose!

Being a disingenuous, snake oil salesmen is one thing. But telling a bald face lie in support of an argument in a decision of the high court is 'intellectual dishonesty' of the highest order.

It's time to impeach Scalia! Scalia doesn't like his job anyway. He thinks himself 'too smart' for it. Let's oblige him by firing his sorry ass.
According to news reports, Scalia, speaking to the ultra-conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute, read from the Lawrence opinion in mocking tones. Ironic, inasmuch as the 50-year-old institute has says its mission is to "enhance the rising generation's knowledge of our nation's founding principles - limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free enterprise and Judeo-Christian moral standards." The organization, like its famed speaker, draws the line at your individual liberty. They get theirs, you don't get yours if it is contrary to theirs. And there is only one Judeo-Christian moral standard--their own.

Scalia is not alone in his condemnation of his colleagues on the high court. Clarence Thomas has repeatedly talked about the cold and lonely place that is the Court. He shows his contempt for oral arguments by generally refusing to participate.

Why is it that the right, especially the religious right, represented by the likes of Scalia on the court, are so totally unaccepting of another's point of view? Do they truly believe that they have all of the answers to all legal, legislative, and social issues? This week I gave a legal seminar to attorneys in a part of Virginia where Rev. Pat Robertson seems to have a lock on "truth." A couple of religious zealots in the seminar derided other attorneys who tried to talk about life and death issues such abortion, end-of-life treatment, stem cell research, and health care for all Americans. We were supposed to be talking about legal conundrums and challenges.

--ELAINE CASSEL, Antonin Scalia's Contempus Mundi
Let's take the longer view. This government has become illegitimate by every definition of that term. Therefore, according to sound principles practiced by the Barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta and, more recently, the principle espoused by such disparate figures as Thomas Jefferson and Che Guevara, it is the right of the people to abolish the government.

It's time to start all over. And when we've done it, when we've plugged up the loopholes that even the disingenuous Scalia can't slither through, then a new government should give Scalia the notice that his 'services' are no longer required. He should have no complaints. After all, Scalia has said that he is 'too smart' for the court!