Did the Koch Brothers buy the United States Supreme Court?

The New York Times broke a story today.

Common Cause Asks Court About Thomas Speech

When questions were first raised about the retreat last month, a court spokeswoman said Justice Thomas had made a “brief drop-by” at the event in Palm Springs, Calif., in January 2008 and had given a talk.


In his financial disclosure report for that year, however, Justice Thomas reported that the Federalist Society, a prominent conservative legal group, had reimbursed him an undisclosed amount for four days of “transportation, meals and accommodations” over the weekend of the retreat. The event is organized by Charles and David Koch, brothers who have used millions of dollars from the energy conglomerate they run in Wichita, Kan., to finance conservative causes.

Both Justices Scalia and Thomas attended the Koch event as speakers, THEN went on to cast the deciding votes in the controversial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case.

The vote was 5-4. But, considering Scalia and Thomas had financial and political ties to the Koch Brothers, should they not have recused themselves from the case?

The result of this court decision opened the floodgates of special ( corporate ) interest money into the waiting arms of politicians.

Had these two Justices recused themselves as would have been proper, the vote would have gone the other way 3-4, thus preventing the corporate political lobby from spending tens of millions of dollars on negative ads attacking both Democrats and Rebublicans for the "leftist" leanings.

In other words, in this decision, we see the funding to push America further and further to the right. So far right that Reagan, Nixon and Eisenhower policies would be considered leftists and in some cases, even socialist, by comparison.

How can Supreme Court Justices participate in political strategy meetings with ultra conservatives and then rule on the rights of those ultra conservatives to spend tens of millions of dollars to further their own political agenda? Is this not a conflict of interest?

Were Justices Scalia and Thomas legislating from the bench in favor of their billionaire friends? Should they have recused themselves? Should they be allowed to stay on the highest court in the land when the integrity of their decisions is now in question?

Remember Egypt!

Take a long hard look at the image above.

What do you see?

Do you see violence?

Do you see American flags being burned?

Do you see Israeli flags being burned?

Do you see women in black burkas?

here's what you don't see:



You don't see hate.



You don't see radical fundamentalism.

What you see are people that dress like we do, and want the same things we do. What you see are people who are standing up for their beliefs without pointing a gun or strapping on a bomb. What you see are human beings that are just like us.

Look at the women of Tahir Square:



head scarves to be sure but look at them. They wear eye shadow and colorful clothing, earrings and jewelry.


No one knows where this revolution will lead. It may take years before we can look back and say this point is where it all changed for the better or worse. What we do know is the people of Egypt stood up with a raised voice, not a raised gun and demanded change. And they won.

It is important that the rest of us look to their example and remember, that these people, people just like us, had the courage to make that stand and face death in order to gain freedom and liberty.

and remember how the Professiona Right paints these events:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Do not let them push you into their paranoia. Do not let them infect you with their fear and delusion. They do it for ratings and political gains. Do not let those terrorists win.



Be better than this.

Eisenhower/Nixon: Socialists!

In a 245 to 189 vote on January 19th, the House passed a repeal of the "job-killing" Health Care Reform Act. As the battle continues, Americans are bombarded by the propaganda of the Professional Right Wing as they scream Socialism from every rooftop. But, they forget the roots of the plans that have been proposed and the very people who proposed them.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed a National Health Care system.

Eisenhower asked Congress for $25 million to fund what he called health "reinsurance."

Under the Eisenhower plan, private insurance companies who extended benefits to uninsured Americans would be reimbursed by the federal government should they incur excessive loses. In a way, the government was insuring the insurers.

Eisenhower said:

Because the strength of our nation is in its people, their good health is a proper national concern; healthy Americans live more rewarding, more productive and happier lives.

The good health of the people is a proper national concern!

Eisenhower's efforts to insure every America with tax payer money failed, but the standard was not dropped forever. In 1974, President Richard M. Nixon proposed the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan ( CHIP ). It would have allowed for every American to receive health insurance. The plan would have been paid for through a combined effort of the employed, the employer and the government.

Nixon placed health as important as any other factor in an American's ability to chase after the American Dream.

Without adequate health care, no one can make full use of his or her talents and opportunities. It is thus just as important that economic, racial and social barriers not stand in the way of good health care as it is to eliminate those barriers to a good education and a good job.

Both plans fell to the left of the Health Care Reform bill passed by the Obama administration. Both plans called for more government "intervention" than the current law. And yet, the Conservative right still screams about Socialism.


Socialists of the Right

By their own definition, if proposing the Health Care Reform Act shows us that President Obama is a Socialist, as the Right Wing propaganda machine would have us believe, then, by that same logic, both Eisenhower and Nixon were socialists as well.

112 - Paid to not work

It's been just over a week since that fateful day in Tuscon. President Obama delivered an inspiring speech at the Tuscon memorial service and that same day, Sarah Palin sunk her entire political career by proving that she just doesn't have a clue what it means to be presidential. We were slapped with the utter irony of Glenn Becks website post calling for non violence with a picture of Beck himself wielding a handgun to the immediate left of the post. We have found that Jared Lee Loughner was in fact a disciple of the far right wing sovereign citizen movement and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is making a miracle recovery. And we learned today that Peace Corp director Sargent Shriver passed away.

So, with this insane backdrop, the House of Representatives is back in action with the Tan Man at the helm. And, of course, we are subjected to the political theater of the job-killing health care bill repeal. Wait, no it's job-destroying. Umm wait job-crushing. Republicans are backing away from their title but not the bill itself. The bill itself must be debated, voted on, passed on to the Senate, who will vote it down. And even if they somehow through some miracle of the Republican God pass the repeal, President Obama would never sign it and the votes are not there to override his veto.

So, it's dead. It hasn't even been debated yet on the floor of the house and it's dead. It was dead when it was submitted. It was dead when it was written. It was dead when it was conceived. And yet, here we are discussing it like it actually is a valid piece of legislation.

Why?

Some would claim that this entire production allows the Republicans to come back in a year and a half and say," hey, we tried to repeal it. we are on your side, Tea Party. Vote for us and vote out those socialist Democrats who are tearing our country down." And make no mistake, that will be one of the many of the Republican lies spread throughout the country come the next election cycle.

Today is a good day to do nothing.



There is a more important reason to stage this three act play in the House, the Republicans have once again stalled any forward movement. Once again, the party of no has taken our future hostage while they perform their melodrama out for all to see. Once again, they have found a way to take the national discussion and move it to the title of the bill instead of the contents of the bill itself. They began with repeal and replace and now have it down to simply repeal. They have not mentioned a single word about what they plan to replace the Health care reform bill with. Not one thing. Instead, they have moved off that message and are now calling the reform soemthing it is not, never will be and never was. Job-killing.

The so called fiscally responsible right ignore the numbers coming out of the Congressional Budget Office that said repealing health care would increase the deficit by $230 billion dollars. Additionally, repealing the health care reform bill would repeal the tax breaks passed in the bill for small businesses. That means, the party that fought tooth and nail to keep the Bush era tax breaks for the rich, now wants to raise taxes on small business owners. Why is this not being screamed from microphone by Democrats. Why are they instead fighting over the phrase job-killing, instead of screaming about the actual job-killing this repeal would mean?

The fiscally irresponsible Republicans have stated in no uncertain terms, their only real goal is to see that President Obama is a one term president. The best way they can hope to achieve this is by keeping the government tied up in knots unable to move forward, unable to pass anything that would actually help the people, unable to focus on any real issue at all. This has been their modus operandi since the days of the Ken Starr witch hunt. So, here we are at the beginning of the 112th congress and they're at it again.

In the end, the reason we should be most outraged is, if you voted for the winner or not, we sent them to Washington to do a job. We are paying them to do that job and instead of doing that job, they engage in a trivial partisan propaganda play. Every minute spent on the fake repeal is a minute they aren't doing their job. Every minute they debate the name of this pretend proposal, this bogus bill, is time spent away from actually getting to the true business of the government, which is governing.

How many hours did you have to spend at work to pay these people to pretend to work?

When words are meaningless

Jared Lee Loughner once asked Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, "What is government when words are meaningless?"

Jared Lee Loughner became obsessed with words and their meanings. He demanded deductive arguments and rejected inductive arguments completely, but couldn't recognize the difference between the two. Lost in his own incoherence, Jared's mind saw only his own dreamstate as reality, and this reality as the dream. And who can blame him.

Words have meanings. These meanings are agreed upon and placed into a big book which we call the dictionary. But over the last decade or so, we as a culture have been changing the language, blurring the meanings of words. We call things that which they are not and demand that everyone accept this new definition. Communist, Anarchist, Socialist, Fascist. These words have meanings. And we have allowed the punditry to usurp their meanings and label those around us with false terms used only to incite fear and illicit the desired response.

In an educated America, this false labeling could not occur. So, the punditry rejects the educated and chooses instead to follow a shout the loudest and it's true method. Death tax. The Angry Left. Death panels. Hillarycare or more recently Obamacare.

Espoused beliefs that are never followed like: Fiscal responsibility, Never forget the heroes of 9/11, Support the troops, A pledge to America, all lead to a world where the words that are being said are meaningless, because those saying them are not telling the truth, they are not being real, they are fake. And in Jared's disturbed mind, these people who were not real they were fake people.

Jared once asked Rep. Giffords a question, when she didn't answer the question to his liking, he told his friends that she was a fake. And from that point on, if he saw or heard her name, he became upset. He didn't bring it up, but if it was already there, he expressed his discontent and his belief that she, like all in Washington, were fake, a feeling many of us have had and would readily agree with were we there to hear Jared say it.

But, Jared took it further than the rest of us. He saw something dire in the way language was being used. Something sinister and ultimately infinite. He saw a conspiracy that changed the date to an infinite year, one that could never change and could not be escaped from. He saw alternate realities in which the world was not like this and found that he could visit those worlds through lucid dreams. He saw pictures from Mars and saw a conspiracy in which NASA was doctoring up images of space to fool the American people. He believed the Mars Rover mission and all of the Space Shuttle missions had been faked. There simply was no real in this reality.



The image above is a billboard for Tuscon radio station, KNST, Tuscons Conservative talk radio. It is located just three miles from the Safeway where Jared Lee Loughner opened fire. And it is a perfect example of how we usurp the meanings of things.

straight shooter
n. Informal
One who is honest and forthright.

But, if we place bullet holes around that title, it changes it's meaning. It no longer just means honest. It means something else entirely. Blood libel means something too, or did until Sarah Palin used the term the other day and now it means something completely different. Because she ( or rather her handlers )says so. We allow these people to invent their own meanings for things and redefine our culture in the process. Without definitive meaning, there is no discourse, no debate, no consensus , no compromise. We spend our time debating the meanings of words, instead of the actual issue at hand. Without definitive meaning, the words just become a white noise. Like the people of Babel, our speech has become confounded. Our words have become meaningless.

You don’t allow the government to control your grammar structure, listener?

Jared Lee Loughner is a disturbed young man. This is not up for debate. The question is what disturbed him?

Amidst all the rhetoric being thrown around, the rush to judgment, the finger pointing, the press is now trying to spin a picture of a young man with no political agenda at all. According to them, Jared is just some loon who shot people.

But, nothing could be further from the truth. Jared is a loon with a political agenda. One that may not be instantly recognizable as either right or left but an political agenda nonetheless.

Jared placed a video on YouTube entitled Introduction: Jared Loughner. It is just text on a black background with soft music playing. The first words seen by the viewer are: My final thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner!

The introduction alone tells us that this is Jared's message to the world, his explanation for the crime he was about to commit. His explanation for what drove him to this place. It is a picture into the very troubled mind of this young man.

You don’t allow the government to control your grammar structure, listener?

a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon.

The majority of citizens in the United States of America have never read the United States of America’s Constitution.

You don’t have to accept the federalist laws.

Nonetheless, read the United States of America’s Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws.

The property owners and government officials are no longer in ownership of their land and laws from a revolution.

The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar

No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver!

These are not the statements of someone who is non political. His actions, attempted assassination of a sitting Congresswoman are not the actions of someone non political.

Was Jared reacting against Tea Party politics? Was he in support of Tea Party politics? Only Jared knows. Someday, he may make that known to all of us. Right or left? doesn't matter. What matters is the attempt to turn Jared Lee Loughner into a non political ignores the truth and , in my opinion, dishonors the dead. they died for a reason. It is Jared Lee Loughners reason, but there is a reason. We need to remember that.

Jared Lee Loughner will be reduced to a name in the rhetoric soon enough. But the rhetorical Jared Lee Loughner is not who this disturbed young man really was. He is not some non political kid. He had a message. One that may have been misguided and crazy but a message that was his. If we do not attempt to understand that message, if we write him off as a non political nut job, then we run the risk of creating more like Jared Lee Loughner.

The Blame Game is more than justified

The condemnation of those that rushed to judgment concerning the motives of Jared Lee Loughner, the man who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) is valid. We shouldn't rush to judgment. We had and still have almost no idea why this young man decided that violence was the answer.

But, is anyone really surprised by the judgment itself? Take a schizophrenic young man and place him into an environment of angry hate filled rhetoric and the surprise isn't Loughners crime, but the fact that it's not happening more often.

And let's not forget Jim David Adkisson, who some on the very very far right consider a hero after he walked into a church with a shotgun and opened fire killing 2 and injuring 7 before he was done. Adkisson's prime motivation was, in his own words, "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."

When searching the mans home, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly.


The Tea party's message is Don't blame us, but how can we not look to the environment of violence that they have bred and not place at least some of the blame squarely on their shoulders? They claim that because Jared Lee Loughner was not on their membership roles then, of course, he wasn't a Tea Partier who turned violent. After all, the Tea Party and it's member have never promoted violence right?



Right?



Never.


Nope, not them.