BETTER LATE THAN NEVER?

President Obama, during his surprise Reddit chat last Wednesday, jumps into the Citizens United fray.

"I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it)," President Barack Obama wrote last week during a surprise public Reddit chat.

"Consider mobilizing?" Groups like Move to Amend and Public Citizen initiated that mobilization shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's radical-right quintet handed down that infamous decision in 2010. By July of this year, California had become the sixth state to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizen's United.

"Assuming the Supreme Court doesn't revisit it?" The Court had an opportunity to revisit Citizens United earlier this year, or at least to limit its impact to federal elections. Instead, the same radical-right quintet expanded the reach of that democracy destroying decision by overturning a Montana Supreme Court decision which had sought to uphold a century old, state anti-corruption law.

While the President's remarks will no doubt be welcomed by the already-mobilized movement, one should not lose sight of the fact that they fall far short of an endorsement of either Vermont's proposed constitutional amendment or the measure introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the U.S. Senate. Both efforts call for the end to "corporate personhood" and a determination that money does not equal free speech under the First Amendment.

If the President truly desires to spotlight what amounts to a hostile corporate takeover of our democracy, he will confront Mitt "corporations are people, my friend" Romney in the upcoming Presidential debates with an openly stated support for a constitutional amendment that, as the Sanders measure provides, establishes that the "rights protected by the Constitution...are the rights of natural persons and do not extend to for-profit corporations, limited liability companies, or other private entities established for business purposes." Indeed, that position could frame the issue for all candidates seeking public office in the 2012 election.

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Pennsylvania has refused to turn over documents that the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) had sought in order to determine whether the state's new polling place Photo ID restriction law is in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and other federal laws.

As previously reported by The BRAD BLOG, on July 23, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez submitted a four-page letter [PDF] to Carol Aichele, the Acting Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (coincidentally, the wife of Gov. Tom Corbett's Chief of Staff), requesting information in electronic format for 16 broad categories of documents that the DoJ felt were needed to evaluate whether the Keystone State's Photo ID law complied with federal laws barring discriminatory election laws.

In an Aug. 17 letter [PDF], the Commonwealth's General Counsel, James D. Schultz, responded to Perez, by telling him that PA would not comply with what Schultz described as an "unprecedented attempt to compel [PA], a state not within the purview Section 5 of the VRA, to present information concerning compliance with Section 2 of the VRA."

Section 5 of the VRA requires some 16 different jurisdictions in the U.S., with a history of racial discrimination, to get pre-clearance for new election-related laws. Pennsylvania is not one of those jurisdictions. However, all 50 states are barred from instituting discriminatory laws under Section 2 of the act.

Schultz accused the DoJ of targeting "a growing number of states…simply because they instituted legislation designed to insure the integrity of the voting process"...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

The horror that played out during the recent midnight massacre inside a Century theater in Aurora, CO is but the latest example of the danger posed to our safety and our very lives by the radical right's expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment.

On June 28, 2008, that view --- that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected to service in a state militia --- became the law of the land, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court's hard right quintet's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller ("Heller") --- a 5-4 decision that ignored precedent, history and basic rules of constitutional interpretation.

Heller not only elevated the profits of the domestic small arms industry above the ability of government to protect our safety, our general welfare, our domestic tranquility and our very lives, but provided a disturbing new context to the eerily prescient 1991 warning provided by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) when he likened the confirmation of Clarence Thomas as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to a game of "Russian Roulette"...

Clearly, those "Turks" are just trying to steal her away from us!

Once again, the delightful Desi Doyen, co-host and managing editor of The BRAD BLOG's Green News Report was sitting in to guest host on The Young Turks yesterday along with longtime TYTer, Ana Kasparian.

They were both joined in the first hour, devoted to yesterday's stunning Supreme Court health care ruling, by Current TV's Jacki Schechner (an expert in health care legislation issues). The second hour, it was just Desi and Ana.

(By the way, Des will once again be sitting in today, Friday, co-hosting along with TYT top dog Cenk Uygur during the 4p-5p ET / 1p-2p PT hour. I'll try to remember to post the LIVE FEED here at The BRAD BLOG, but either way you can watch the full hour live at TheYoungTurks.com.)

A bunch of highlights from yesterday's two hours, on a bunch of topics covered --- from the health care ruling, to the RW push to close the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, to eating bugs to save the world, to new news on the Miami 'zombie' who tried to eat a guy's face --- all follow below. Enjoy!...

TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Record heat, record wildfires & Michelle Malkin on the run; Record flooding in FL so GOP fiddles with federal flood insurance; Climate deniers smack-down by appellate court is good news for anyone who breathes; PLUS: 80% renewable energy by 2050? New study says 'Yup! And it's easy!' ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Exxon CEO calls climate change engineering problem; Chesapeake Energy Colluded With Rival To Lower Prices In Bid Wars; BPA Linked to Brain Tumors for the First Time; Feds Grant Approval for Southern Portion of Keystone XL Pipeline ... PLUS: Kardashians Get 40 Times More News Coverage Than Ocean Acidification ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

In case you were watching the misreporting by CNN and Fox "News", it was a win for the Obama Administration and a crushing defeat to the Republican opponents of health care insurance reform in this nation. It's that simple.

With the exception of that portion of the Act which permitted the federal government to punish states by cutting off the entirety of their federal Medicaid funds if they declined to expand state Medicaid services from limited categories of individuals to all individuals with incomes below 133% of the poverty level, the U.S. Supreme Court, by its 5-4 decision in National Federation of Independent Business v Sebelius [PDF], upheld all provisions of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 [ACA] against the constitutional challenges that had originally been filed in U.S. District Court by FL, 12 other states and business organizations...

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL-19) joined me live on today's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio to discuss two things:

1) Our exclusive from earlier this week on FL Gov. Rick Scott's voter purge/DHS database deception (an issue which Deutch has been raising hell about for several weeks) and 2) His OCCUPIED Amendment to get corporate money the hell out of our electoral system, particularly in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Montana's 100-year old anti-corruption law on Monday.

I was delighted to hear the Congressman was nearly as furious about both as I was. He also confirmed that nobody has been able to verify the "100 or so" alleged "non-citizens" that Scott says have been found on the rolls (out of 182,000 identified in the initial purge list and out of 11.2 million voters), and also that there are still three FL counties --- Lee, Collier and Bay --- where the Supervisors of Elections may still be carrying out the faulty and disenfranchising systematic purge.

My rant explaining Scott's scam kicks off the show, before Deutch then joins us. Then, Desi Doyen joins us with the latest Green News Report and we take a couple of quick amusing calls.

Oh, and though I mentioned it at the top of the show, I forgot to reiterate it again at the end of the show, so I'll do so now: FL Gov. Rick Scott, FL Secretary of State Ken Detzner and/or their spokesmen were invited to appear on the show to offer their response to our Monday exposé. They declined to even respond to the invitation.

Download MP3 or listen online below...

So much for states' rights from the so-called "conservative" U.S. Supreme Court --- as if 2000's Bush v. Gore didn't already tell you that they, like other "small government Conservatives", were largely full of shit when making that pretend claim...only when convenient to their policy goals, of course...

You can read more about the courageous decision earlier this year by the Montana Supreme Court --- the decision struck down today by SCOTUS --- in Ernie Canning's coverage from January. In that case, even the dissenting MT Justice found the U.S. Supreme Court's "entire concept" of corporate personhood to be "offensive."

"Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people --- human beings --- to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creations of government. ... Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons," wrote the dissenting Justice James C. Nelson who, clearly, disagreed with Citizens United, but dissented in the MT case because he believed --- as SCOTUS affirmed today --- that they, not states, can decide how campaign finance will or won't work for every state in the entire nation.

The 5-4 Citizens United majority has essentially told Montana --- and every other state in the union --- that they may not run their own elections as they wish. Even though Justice Anthony Kennedy had written for the majority in that case that "independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption," the high court today decided not to review the record of corruption --- essentially, mining companies buying up the entire state legislature in MT back at the turn of the 20th century --- which gave rise to the now-dead Montana law.

In Justice Stephen Breyer's dissenting opinion of today's summary reversal (made without even hearing oral arguments), he writes: "[E]ven if I were to accept Citizens United, this Court’s legal conclusion should not bar the Montana Supreme Court’s finding, made on the record before it, that independent expenditures by corporations did in fact lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption in Montana."

"Given the history and political landscape in Montana, that court concluded that the State had a compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures by corporations," Breyer wrote in the dissent (joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan). "Thus, Montana’s experience, like considerable experience elsewhere since the Court’s decision in Citizens United, casts grave doubt on the Court’s supposition that independent expenditures do not corrupt or appear to do so."

The court's one paragraph summary reversal and Breyer's full dissent can both be read here [PDF].

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Last week, after notifying the state of Florida of its intention to do so, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit [PDF], seeking to halt what Asst. U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez described in his June 11, 2012 letter [PDF] to FL Sec. of State Ken Detzner (R), as "a new program for systematic voter removal, which may ultimately target more than 180,000 registered voters."

A longtime respected election official in the state went further, describing the attempted scrubbing of the rolls to be "un-American".

The lawsuit alleges that the ongoing, systematic voter removal program violates the provisions of the National Vote Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), which "expressly forbids such removal programs during the 90-day period before an election for Federal office."

The complaint seeks not only an immediate federal court injunction to stop the purge, but an order directing FL officials "to take all steps necessary to ensure that no registered voter identified as potentially ineligible based on the [faulty FL Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles] database and voter verification procedures...is removed from the voter rolls within 90 days of a primary or general election for Federal office."

The injunction may prove to be necessary only in three of the Sunshine State's 67 counties --- Lee, Collier and Bay --- where election officials have signaled they intend to continue the allegedly unlawful voter roll purge, even after the actions taken by the DOJ.

When interviewed last week by Brad Friedman on the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show, Leon County (Tallahassee), FL's legendary Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho --- the man placed in charge of the aborted 2000 Florida Presidential recount --- explained the reasons why most of the Supervisors of Elections (both Democratic and Republican) in each of the state's 67 counties have now refused to carry out the state-ordered purge. He described the ongoing effort by the Governor and Sec. of State as "shameful."

The DOJ's 6/11/12 letter also responded to, and seemed to debunk, the claim made by FL that it had been denied access to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration database. The state, in its own lawsuit filed against the DHS last week, has cited lack of access to that database as their reason for using the less reliable state Dept. of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV) database for the basis of its voter purge.

The purge, to date, has identifies hundreds of perfectly legal citizen voters for removal from the rolls.

The state of FL, in its response to the DOJ, appears not to be offering the full facts about their attempt to use the DHS database and, as it turns out, Republican Gov. Rick Scott should, by now, be very well acquainted with the perils of voter purges based on inaccurate information...as an apparent victim of one such purge himself...

[Now UPDATED with tonight's audio archives below!]

It's our penultimate (second to last!) day in our latest week-long sting filling to guest host the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show, as Mike and Kathy enjoy a much-deserved vacation. So we're making noise again tonight over your public airwaves, on the Internet (streaming links below) and on SiriusXM ch. 127!

Once again, we'll be BradCasting, LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the globe from L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• SUE WILSON, media activist, director of Public Interest Pictures' Broadcast Blues, and a 22-year, award-winning veteran of broadcast journalism, and founder of the Media Action Center on how the "public airwaves" were used to "win" the WI recall election for Scott Walker, and what we the people can do about it.
• JOHN WELLINGTON ENNIS, Director of the upcoming documentary Pay2Play, Democracy's High Stakes and before that, 2008's Free For All: One Dude's Quest to Save Democracy on the increasingly insane effect of big, dark money on our electoral system in the post-Citizens United world.
• PLUS! Drumbeating Iran, Fossil fuel companies global warming woes, and much more, as usual, along with your phone calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at our Sante Fe affiliate KTRC 1260, or our Minnesota affiliate KTNF 950 (use code 55447 when asked). Also, you should be able to listen live at WhiteRose Society if the radio gods are with us.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: A surprisingly fun show tonight. Surprising (and fun) to me, at least. Hopefully you'll agree! The audio archives are all now posted below --- and ad-free, because we love you! Enjoy 'em, or your money back!...

Guest blogged by Sue Wilson

Whatever questions remain about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's recall election, there is no question that his campaign was built on big money, the likes of which we've never seen in a gubernatorial campaign before. And where did all that money go? Right into thin air - OUR air.

And as owners of the air - our public airwaves, to be precise - there is plenty we can do to combat the corrosive effect of big money on our elections, by holding our partners in broadcasting, local TV and radio stations, accountable to the communities they serve.

Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that the First Amendment prohibits government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations and unions, is the reason huge amounts of money poured into the Walker camp from third parties like the billionaire Koch Brothers and others, (compared to the relatively paltry sum given to his opponent Mayor Tom Barrett by unions and others.)

As previously noted by The BRAD BLOG:

So the Walker recall gave us the first glimpse at how the infamous Supreme Court ruling will affect campaigns for years to come unless something changes. . There is a large and growing movement now from organizations such as Move to Amend, to amend the Constitution to help put the brakes on the unlimited spending allowed by Citizens United. Such an effort, however, will take years to accomplish, if it ever happens at all.

But what's not being talked about is where most of this unrestricted money goes: about half of all campaign dollars go directly into your local radio and TV stations' wallets --- local broadcast stations which get licensed in the public/private partnership of broadcasting ONLY IF they "serve the public convenience, interest, and necessity."

As to the First Amendment, the Supreme Court has also ruled, in Red Lion v. FCC that "it is the right of the viewing and listening public, and not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount."

Nonetheless, until Citizens United is changed or overridden in some fashion, things are only going to get worse --- unless we the people do something about it now with a few, still-unused tools that remain at our disposal...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal issued a terse decision denying a petition for rehearing of the earlier 2-1 9th Circuit panel decision in Perry vs. Brown [PDF] in which the majority ruled that CA Proposition 8's effort to strip away the previously recognized right of same sex couples to marry was unconstitutional.

The court order noted: "The matter failed to receive a majority of the votes of non-recused active judges in favor of en banc consideration." (En banc essentially means 'by the full 9th Circuit', as opposed to a three judge panel.)

The order added, however: "The mandate is stayed for ninety days pending the filing of a petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court. If such a petition is filed, the stay shall continue until final disposition by the Supreme Court."

This essentially means that, despite the determination that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, same sex couples in CA cannot effectuate their right to marry until either 90 days have lapsed, or longer if a Supreme Court challenge is filed.

As The BRAD BLOG previously averred, U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt's earlier majority opinion in this case was "so narrow and so tightly crafted to meet the criteria of a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Romer v. Evans, that it minimized the chances that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide to hear the case, let alone reverse the decision."

The mainstream corporate media spend a lot of time telling you about crap that doesn't matter. Then there's the stuff that does matter which you hardly hear about at all.

This is one of those stories. Hugely important, yet, almost inexplicably, barely reported on.

Happily HuffPo's Dan Froomkin --- who Tweeted it out this week by noting: "Hey! Did you just feel the campaign finance firmament move? I think Karl Rove did." --- has at least been staying on top of it...

See the rest of Froomkin's piece for more very instructive info on this.

Now the Rovians have a remarkable ability to slither through newly found loopholes to ensure they are able to continue not doing the right thing when it comes to gaming our embarrassingly obscene campaign finance system. Moreover, election law professor Rick Hasen expects the "stay request to now end up before the Supreme Court, where the outcome may be different."

Nonetheless, this is a very positive development for those who believe in transparency, particularly in the dark infamy of our post-Citizens United world, and I'm amazed, on one hand, that this story isn't being discussed more by the media. On the other hand, given that the corporate media are actually the top beneficiaries of the Citizens United ruling, perhaps I shouldn't be so amazed.

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"If we play Russian Roulette with the Supreme Court," Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) said during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, "if we confirm a nominee who has not demonstrated a commitment to core constitutional values, we jeopardize our rights as individuals and the future of our nation."

"We cannot undo such a mistake at the next election or even in the next generation," he warned. Too bad more of his Democratic colleagues failed to listen.

With four of the nine Supreme Court Justices now in their seventies, and the GOP Senate minority having bottled-up the Obama administration's nominations to the federal trial and intermediate appellate courts, the decision by the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, to select Robert Bork (see video below), founder of the ultra-radical, right-wing billionaire-funded Federalist Society as his chief legal adviser has turned the 2012 Presidential election into a new, and far more serious game of "Russian Roulette" --- one that would give the same forces that were behind the Bush v. Gore judicial coup and the infamous Citizens United decision a super majority on the Supreme Court.

The harm to the rule of law that would accompany the expansion from four
Supreme Court radicals in robes to seven could not be remedied, as Kennedy warned, by "the next election or even in the next generation"...

Guest Editorial by Ernest A. Canning

On Wednesday, by a bi-partisan vote of 26-3, the Vermont state Senate passed a resolution "calling for an amendment to the [U.S.] Constitution that corporations are not people and money is not speech and can be regulated in political campaigns" according to advocacy group, Move to Amend.

A majority of Senate Republicans joined with all of the Democrats in voting to approve the measure. The three nay votes came from Republicans after similar resolutions were passed in March by 64 different communities in Vermont.

Move to Amend observed that the Green Mountain State's Senate resolution goes much further than similar resolutions passed in Hawaii and New Mexico, which sought only to overturn the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission [PDF]. (The CA State Assembly also passed a resolution last month to overturn Citizens United).

In 2010, President Barack Obama blasted Citizens United as "devastating to the public interest." During his 2010 State of the Union Address, the President said the Court's decision would "open the floodgates for special interests --- including foreign corporations --- to spend without limit in our elections."

However, the President has, as yet, not offered a rejoinder to the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt "Gordon Gekko" Romney, by squarely stating that "corporations are not people!"

If the President followed Vermont's lead, would it portend to a Democratic landslide in November? Would the SCOTUS, faced with the prospect of a Constitutional Amendment that would put an end to corporate personhood altogether, feel pressured to either overrule or, at a minimum, curtail the reach of Citizens United?...