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Latest Featured Reports | Sunday, December 8, 2024
Sunday 'Teeny Tiny' Toons
THIS WEEK: What Mandate? ... Cabinet Medicine ... Concept Plans ... Pardon-pocrisy ... and more! In our latest collection of the week's itty bittiest toons...
Fox 'News' and GOP Get Their Hateful War on Trans Kids at SCOTUS: 'BradCast' 12/5/24
Guest: Law Dork's Chris Geidner; Also: 7.0 quake, tsunami warning in CA; Island nations fight for survival at U.N. High Court...
'Green News Report' 12/5/24
  w/ Brad & Desi
U.N. court to rule on landmark climate case; NC town sues Duke Energy for climate deception; S. Africa blocks new coal plants; PLUS: Global warming driving drought in U.S. West...
Previous GNRs: 12/3/24 - 11/21/24 - Archives...
'The Mind Boggles at Potential for Corruption' in Trump Tariff Scheme: 'BradCast' 12/4/24
Guest: TAP's David Dayen; Also: Final House seat called; '2000 Mules' filmmaker apologizes for fraudulent claims...
In Defense of Democracy from S. Korea to N. Carolina (and Beyond): 'BradCast' 12/3/24
Also: Control of MN House hangs on tossed ballots; WI's 13-year old anti-union law found 'unconstitutional'...
'Green News Report' 12/3/24
U.N. plastics treaty negotiations collapse; U.N. COP29 climate talks end with weak agreement; PLUS: Extreme drought an immigration issue, study warns...
Hunter's Pardon: 'BradCast' 12/2/24
Also: Biden-Harris 2020 cybersecurity chief questions 2024 results; Trump's latest corrupt appointments; Listeners ring in...
Sunday 'First Things First' Toons
THIS WEEK: Religious 'Freedom' ... The Felon-Elect ... Tariff-ied ... The Great Xcape ... and more! In our latest collection of the week's most prayful toons...
Sunday 'No Such Agreement' Toons
THIS WEEK: A Cabinet of Crooks, Kooks and Corrupted Curiosities...and more! In our latest collection of the week's most toxic toons...
How (and Why!) to 'Extend an Olive Branch' to MAGA Family Members Over the Holidays: 'BradCast' 11/21/24
Guest: Leaving MAGA's Rich Logis; Also: Bibi's 'war crimes'; Hegseth 'assault'; Gaetz out!...
'Green News Report' 11/21/24
Back-to-back killer storms in NW; Huge cache of 'rare earth' elements in U.S.; Climate change worsened every hurricane; PLUS: NY revives congestion pricing...
BARCODED BALLOTS AND BALLOT MARKING DEVICES
BMDs pose a new threat to democracy in all 50 states...
VIDEO: 'Rise of the Tea Bags'
Brad interviews American patriots...
'Democracy's Gold Standard'
Hand-marked, hand-counted ballots...
Brad's Upcoming Appearances
(All times listed as PACIFIC TIME unless noted)
Media Appearance Archives...
'Special Coverage' Archives
GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal 2012...
VA GOP VOTER REG FRAUDSTER OFF HOOK
Felony charges dropped against VA Republican caught trashing voter registrations before last year's election. Did GOP AG, Prosecutor conflicts of interest play role?...

Criminal GOP Voter Registration Fraud Probe Expanding in VA
State investigators widening criminal probe of man arrested destroying registration forms, said now looking at violations of law by Nathan Sproul's RNC-hired firm...

DOJ PROBE SOUGHT AFTER VA ARREST
Arrest of RNC/Sproul man caught destroying registration forms brings official calls for wider criminal probe from compromised VA AG Cuccinelli and U.S. AG Holder...

Arrest in VA: GOP Voter Reg Scandal Widens
'RNC official' charged on 13 counts, for allegely trashing voter registration forms in a dumpster, worked for Romney consultant, 'fired' GOP operative Nathan Sproul...

ALL TOGETHER: ROVE, SPROUL, KOCHS, RNC
His Super-PAC, his voter registration (fraud) firm & their 'Americans for Prosperity' are all based out of same top RNC legal office in Virginia...

LATimes: RNC's 'Fired' Sproul Working for Repubs in 'as Many as 30 States'
So much for the RNC's 'zero tolerance' policy, as discredited Republican registration fraud operative still hiring for dozens of GOP 'Get Out The Vote' campaigns...

'Fired' Sproul Group 'Cloned', Still Working for Republicans in At Least 10 States
The other companies of Romney's GOP operative Nathan Sproul, at center of Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, still at it; Congressional Dems seek answers...

FINALLY: FOX ON GOP REG FRAUD SCANDAL
The belated and begrudging coverage by Fox' Eric Shawn includes two different video reports featuring an interview with The BRAD BLOG's Brad Friedman...

COLORADO FOLLOWS FLORIDA WITH GOP CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Repub Sec. of State Gessler ignores expanding GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal, rants about evidence-free 'Dem Voter Fraud' at Tea Party event...

CRIMINAL PROBE LAUNCHED INTO GOP VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL IN FL
FL Dept. of Law Enforcement confirms 'enough evidence to warrant full-blown investigation'; Election officials told fraudulent forms 'may become evidence in court'...

Brad Breaks PA Photo ID & GOP Registration Fraud Scandal News on Hartmann TV
Another visit on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture with new news on several developing Election Integrity stories...

CAUGHT ON TAPE: COORDINATED NATIONWIDE GOP VOTER REG SCAM
The GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal reveals insidious nationwide registration scheme to keep Obama supporters from even registering to vote...

CRIMINAL ELECTION FRAUD COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST GOP 'FRAUD' FIRM
Scandal spreads to 11 FL counties, other states; RNC, Romney try to contain damage, split from GOP operative...

RICK SCOTT GETS ROLLED IN GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD SCANDAL
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) sends blistering letter to Gov. Rick Scott (R) demanding bi-partisan reg fraud probe in FL; Slams 'shocking and hypocritical' silence, lack of action...

VIDEO: Brad Breaks GOP Reg Fraud Scandal on Hartmann TV
Breaking coverage as the RNC fires their Romney-tied voter registration firm, Strategic Allied Consulting...

RNC FIRES NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION FIRM FOR FRAUD
After FL & NC GOP fire Romney-tied group, RNC does same; Dead people found reg'd as new voters; RNC paid firm over $3m over 2 months in 5 battleground states...

EXCLUSIVE: Intvw w/ FL Official Who First Discovered GOP Reg Fraud
After fraudulent registration forms from Romney-tied GOP firm found in Palm Beach, Election Supe says state's 'fraud'-obsessed top election official failed to return call...

GOP REGISTRATION FRAUD FOUND IN FL
State GOP fires Romney-tied registration firm after fraudulent forms found in Palm Beach; Firm hired 'at request of RNC' in FL, NC, VA, NV & CO...
The Secret Koch Brothers Tapes...


By Brad Friedman on 10/4/2010 11:07am PT  

Who could have foreseen it? (Oh, right, we did, months ago, when we described this year's appalling SCOTUS decision in Citzens United as "a case that would live in infamy.")

The following comes from Washington Post today (which, btw, doesn't bother to correct blatant errors in its reporting on other matters, but that's a different issue):

Interest groups are spending five times as much on the 2010 congressional elections as they did on the last midterms, and they are more secretive than ever about where that money is coming from.

The $80 million spent so far by groups outside the Democratic and Republican parties dwarfs the $16 million spent at this point for the 2006 midterms. In that election, the vast majority of money - more than 90 percent - was disclosed along with donors' identities. This year, that figure has fallen to less than half of the total, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post.

The trends amount to a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows.

The bulk of the money is being spent by conservatives, who have swamped their Democratic-aligned competition by 7 to 1 in recent weeks.
...
The Supreme Court cleared the way for unlimited spending by corporations, unions and other interest groups on election ads in its 5 to 4 decision this year in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Many interest groups are organized as nonprofits, which are not required to disclose their financial backing, helping fuel the increase in secret donors.

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Fawning front-page article describes lying wing-nut hatchet man, Andrew Breitbart, as a 'new media phenom'
Stenographer who thinks she's a journalist regurgitates Breitbart's latest Shirley Sherrod 'spin'...
By Ernest A. Canning on 9/3/2010 10:47am PT  

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times appears to be the type of reporter comedian Stephen Colbert had in mind during his blistering act at the 2006 White House Correspondence dinner:

"Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!"

As revealed by her front-page Los Angeles Times article, "Swinging at the left, hit or miss," Abcarian, apparently armed with nothing more than the baseline, mainstream media accounts of the Shirley Sherrod scandal, paid a visit to the West Los Angeles office of the man whom Brad Friedman aptly described as a "pathological liar" and "race baiter;" jotted down Andrew Breitbart's latest spin about himself and the Shirley Sherrod fiasco, and then dutifully spit out a fawning account which accepted at face value Breitbart's latest claim that he simply failed to "wait for full video" of the Sherrod speech, and which described Breitbart as a "new-media phenom;" a "transformed...liberal" who became "a star of the 'tea party' movement" after experiencing an epiphany during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarency Thomas, whom Breitbart describes as "an American hero" who was unfairly targeted by "a cavalcade of Caucasians asking...about his very private video rentals!"

In Abcarian and the Los Angeles Times, Andrew Breitbart, the consummate con-artist, had found yet another vehicle for rewriting history...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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By Brad Friedman on 8/8/2010 12:05pm PT  

Seriously, what part of "conservative values" and the "U.S. Constitution" do Fox "News" "conservatives" not get?

As we've been pointing out for years, and as we re-iterated yet again on Wednesday when CA's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage was found to be unconstitutional by a Reagan/Bush I-appointed federal judge, the ruling was "Great news for real conservatives who believe in the U.S. Constitution and its guarantee of equal protection under the law!"

Poor Fox "News" viewers, however, have been so obscenely and opportunistically disinformed for so many years about what "conservatism" actually means (basically, they've been told by the Fox/GOP opportunists that Republicanism is the same thing as conservatism, when it's usually anything but, and foolish folks on the non-Right have continued that fiction by describing them as "conservatives"), that they've had a next-to-impossible time wrapping their grotesquely disinformed brains around what last Wednesday's extremely conservative ruling actually means.

The scam that has been played on wingnuts --- inaccurately and opportunistically conflating Republicanism with Conservatism --- has rarely been more clear than it was on Fox News Sunday today, when anchor Chris Wallace's "conservative" disinformation train ran smack-dab into the brick wall of conservative facts and reality offered by Theodore Olson, George W. Bush's former Solicitor General (he of the infamous Bush v. Gore), who happens to be the plaintiff's victorious lead attorney in the Prop 8 case.

So, we'll ask again: What part of "conservative values" and the "U.S. Constitution" do Fox "News" "conservatives" not get? As we've got many such disinformed phony "conservatives" trolling us here at The BRAD BLOG, we'll look eagerly forward, as always, to their amusing, self-defeating, non-conservative, anti-Constitutional comments in reply to this video [courtesy of RAW STORY]...


Watch this video on iPhone/iPad

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Many more corporate-funded attacks to come, however...
By Brad Friedman on 7/16/2010 11:06am PT  

Good for Sinclair Broadcasting, in this case, pulling an inaccurate commercial off the air that was being run by the despicable corporate money-launderers of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, attacking Democratic U.S. Senatorial candidate Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania.

Of course, the ad was run on television before it was pulled. The fact-checking was not done in advance, so lies such as health insurance reform being "a government takeover of healthcare" were allowed to be aired as if they were legitimate claims.

Naturally, the campaign of Sestak's Republican opponent, Pat Toomey, backed up the Chamber's ads, even as they are not supposed to be coordinating with such groups, according to the law. But what do quaint old notions like "the rule of law" really mean anymore in these United States anyway?

What is underscored again here, is that corporate lobbyists and criminals like those at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are now free to wield millions --- even billions --- of dollars for or against candidates they don't like, or who may not meet with their corporate approval for any reason.

That's what the U.S. Supreme Court has recently deemed "free speech". And you, dear private citizen of the United States of America, can do nothing about it --- unless you happen to have a few hundred million extra dollars sitting around the house and want to exercise your "free speech" in producing and airing TV commercials in opposition. Good luck with that.

[Please see, and support, VelvetRevolution.us' StopTheChamber.com campaign to help push back against the anti-American, anti-citizen Goliath that is the U.S. Chamber. Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VR.]

* * *

UPDATE 4:04pm: Looks like the Rightwing corporate bosses at Sinclair may have come down on the local stations. AP is now reporting the Chamber says the ads are being restored:

Two Pittsburgh-area TV stations are reversing a decision to pull a commercial attacking Democratic policies and the voting record of U.S. Senate candidate Joe Sestak.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Friday that the stations are restoring the ad that the business advocacy group sponsored.

An official for sister stations WPGH and WPMY declined to comment.

[Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter Philip Shropshire.]

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UPDATE: Supreme Court vacates, remands Siegelman conviction!
LATER UPDATE: Brad's exclusive interview with Siegelman...
By Brad Friedman on 6/28/2010 1:00pm PT  

Last week, in a unanimous verdict, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the use of "honest services fraud" by federal prosecutors in cases that do not include bribery or kickback as part of that charge. The specific case considered by the court was focused on the convictions of Enron's Jeffrey Skilling, who is likely to see part of his conviction overturned by the decision.

How will that SCOTUS ruling affect the appeals in the cases of Alabama's former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman and Mississippi's once-powerful Democratic attorney Paul Minor, both of whom were targeted with apparent political prosecution by Karl Rove and the Bush Administration's politicized US Attorneys?

Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane at RAW STORY take a look at the still-uncertain future in both of their cases...

* * *

UPDATE 6/29/10 SCOTUS vacates Siegelman conviction, remands case back to appellate court! Great news, if not yet a full victory. Details at RAW STORY...

UPDATE 7/5/10 Brad's exclusive interview discussing all of the above with Siegelman on the Mike Malloy Show...

* * *

The BRAD BLOG's previous, years-long coverage of the disturbing Siegelman and Minor cases can be perused here...

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Controversial decision to block deep water drilling moratorium marred by conflict-of-interest...
By Ernest A. Canning on 6/24/2010 2:22pm PT  

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman, a 1983 Reagan appointee to the federal bench, issued what, on its face, would have to be regarded as an astounding decision [PDF] in which he blocked a six month moratorium on deep water off shore drilling, ruling that the Department of the Interior had erroneously assumed that because one rig failed, there was an imminent danger of others failing as well.

A perplexed Justice Department promptly announced that it intends to seek an immediate stay of Judge Feldman's preliminary injunction pending an appeal.

Setting aside what appears to be an inappropriate judicial intrusion by a Federalist Society-connected jurist into the prerogatives of the Executive branch in protecting public health, safety and the environment, setting aside the misguided notion that the burden rests with the government rather than the oil companies when it comes to demonstrating whether deep water drilling procedures are safe, Judge Feldman's decision --- and his failure to recuse himself despite conflict-of-interest concerns --- raises a significant question as to whether he should be impeached...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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No Tea Bagger protests against the courts latest Big Government encroachment?...
By Brad Friedman on 6/10/2010 1:58pm PT  

If you still have any doubts about what this Supreme Court is up to, even after their disastrous Citizens United ruling, yesterday's "emergency order" should now make things crystal clear...

In a burst of judicial activism, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upended the gubernatorial race in Arizona, cutting off matching funds to candidates participating in the state's public campaign finance system. Suddenly, three candidates, including Gov. Jan Brewer, can no longer receive public funds they had counted on to run against a free-spending wealthy opponent.

The court's reckless order muscling into the race was terse and did not say whether there were any dissents, though it is hard to imagine there were not. An opinion explaining its reasoning will have to wait until the next term, assuming it takes the case, but by that time the state's general election will be over and its model campaign finance system substantially demolished.

It seems likely that the Roberts court will use this case to continue its destruction of the laws and systems set up in recent decades to reduce the influence of big money in politics. By the time it is finished, millionaires and corporations will have regained an enormous voice in American politics, at the expense of candidates who have to raise money the old-fashioned way and, ultimately, at the expense of voters.

"Regained," New York Times? Did we miss something? Had the "millionaires and corporations" previously lost their "enormous voice in American Politics"???

Maddow covered some of the details in quickie coverage last night, observing: "It's great news for anyone psyched to get all the riff-raff out of politics so we can get over this whole democracy fantasy and just settle down to being ruled by our economic overlords, like the founding fathers intended."...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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It's time for the corporate 'Death Penalty'...
By Brad Friedman on 6/6/2010 2:45pm PT  

Not satisfied with merely destroying the Gulf of Mexico, on Friday, BP reported the emission of more than 500,000 pounds of pollutants and non-pollutants in April and May at their refinery in Texas City, TX. The emissions included hundreds of thousands of pounds of deadly benzene, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.

Via Think Progress:

While BP touts the mild success of its most recent attempt to contain the massive gusher spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, they would probably rather people don’t notice the other spill they recently caused, this one of deadly benzene from a refinery in Texas City, TX. The refinery released more than 400 pounds a day of the chemical over a 40-day period from early April to mid May of this year, BP quietly informed the state environmental regulator yesterday. Over that period, the refinery released 500,000 pounds of benzene and other toxic chemicals into the air, the Galveston Daily News reports [emphasis in original]:

Refinery spokesman Michael Marr said in its follow up reporting with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, BP estimated 36,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides and 17,000 pounds of benzene were released in the 40 days. State law requires 10 pounds or more of benzene and 200 pounds or more of nitrogen oxide during a 24-hour period must be reported through the commission’s air emissions database.

The bulk of the emissions during that time included an estimated 189,000 pounds of carbon monoxide and 61,000 pounds of propane, according to the company’s report to the TCEQ.

For the record, this is the same BP refinery where an explosion in 2005 killed 15 workers and injured more than 170 others. The company was forced to pay a meager $71 million in federal fines for that incident. It's as if the company has friends in high places, or something...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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Constitutional attorney, voting rights advocate targeted by Right for support of Bush impeachment...even though he also supported impeachment of Clinton...
By Brad Friedman on 5/20/2010 5:47pm PT  

Taking a page from the successful hit campaign the Republican right ran against former White House Green Jobs Advisor Van Jones, one of rightwing activist Andrew Breitbart's website's "Andrew Breitbart Presents...Big Journalism," is now attempting to use a McCarthy-like guilt-by-association smear against Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

But my own 2005 interview with their latest target kinda blows the very basis for their entire attempted High-Tech Lynching/Conspiracy Theory....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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By Brad Friedman on 5/11/2010 2:47pm PT  

One item we weren't able to cover in today's Green News Report, but which should be noted here, comes from today's Washington Post...

On Monday, BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant's profits averaged $93 million a day.

So that means, as Think Progress notes, so far the clean up costs for BP have amounted to a little less than four days of profits for them. "At $93 million a day in profits, BP makes $350 million in about 3.8 days."

It seems that recklessness for the fossil fuel industry remains a very safe business model for the time being.

In 1990, following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, federal legislation was passed to make oil companies responsible for the cost of clean up from such disasters, and liable for up to (a paltry) $75 million in damages. While Congress is currently considering legislation to raise that cap from $75 million to $10 billion, there remains a question of whether or not such legislation would be retroactive to cover damages from the Gulf oil disaster or not.

If it does, as "the largest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico," and one of "the world's five largest companies," according to WaPo, BP ought to be able to handle it.

Not that they ultimately will have to.

As both WaPo and TP remind us, thanks to a recent decision by the Bush Supreme Court, the "punitive damages against Exxon for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil-tanker spill were originally set at $5 billion in 1994 but were reduced on appeal. The company agreed last year to pay less than $1 billion, including interest."

It's good to be king a corporate "person".

CORRECTION: Currently proposed federal legislation would raise the cap on damages to $10 billion, not $5 billion as we originally wrote above. The article has been edited to correct that error. By the way, even at $10 billion, says Daphne Wysham at Huffington Post today, the damage to property and to the fishing and tourism industries, as well as others, could eventually far exceed even that much. As Wysham notes in concurrence with the above: "Crime pays for BP."

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By Brad Friedman on 5/7/2010 4:04pm PT  

Two quickie items from Public Citizen's latest DontGetRolled.org "e-newsletter about the movement to curb corporate influence in politics and restore our democracy," as brought to my attention by Ernie Canning today...

Stunning Statistic of the Week:

  • $75 million: The liability cap for BP for the Gulf oil spill, for damages such as lost wages and economic suffering
  • $5.6 billion: BP's first-quarter profits, a 135 percent increase over the first quarter of 2009

...
Election spending by third parties and special interest groups is up dramatically
Spending by independent and third-party groups on TV ads for seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate are nearly four times the amount from four years ago - $48 million vs. $11.2 million, reports the Campaign Media Analysis Group, an organization that tracks political spending. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the big spenders, as is the conservative group Americans for Job Security.

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By Ernest A. Canning on 4/16/2010 2:07pm PT  

Guest Blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 --- a date which will live in infamy."
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Amidst exploding bombs, smoke billowing from sinking battleships and dead bodies floating atop the oil slicked waters of Pearl Harbor, it was not all that difficult to appreciate the damage wrought by a surprise attack launched by the Empire of Japan. The same was true when we watched in horror as the smoldering twin towers of the World Trade Center precipitously collapsed on September 11, 2001.

Like these two earlier pivotal events, January 21, 2010 is, "a date which will live in infamy." Yet, unlike Pearl Harbor and 9/11, most Americans do not recognize it as such. This attack came not by way of planes or bombs delivered by some foreign menace. It came from within courtesy of what Professor Cass Sunstein aptly described as "radicals in robes" --- four directly connected to the Robert-Bork founded, billionaire-funded Federalist Society; all five as appointees of the Reagan and two Bush administrations. Men bent on unraveling the very constitution they had all solemnly sworn to uphold.

Their assault, though subtle, wrought far greater devastation than either Pearl Harbor or 9/11. They did not merely attack planes, ships and buildings. They assaulted the very foundations of our constitutional democracy...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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The corporate threat to both our health and our liberties...
By Ernest A. Canning on 4/4/2010 10:05am PT  

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"You've got a small number of multinational corporations that control the entire food system from seed to the supermarket. This isn't just about what we're allowed to eat. This is about what we're allowed to say; what we're allowed to know. It's not just our health at risk...They have managed to make it against the law to criticize their products. There is an effort to make it illegal to publish a photo of any industrial food operation." - Food, Inc. narration.

We hear it constantly from Republicans; an ideological mantra to the effect that government, especially government programs that would place the interests of public health, safety, and equality above the profits and power of those who already have too much of both, threatens our liberties.

Perhaps in a manner even more successful than Michael Moore's very powerful presentations in Sicko! and in Capitalism: A Love Story, Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser, in their Academy Award nominated documentary feature Food, Inc. (trailer posted at end of article), expose the lie behind the myth that so-called "free markets" make us free....

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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By Brad Friedman on 3/16/2010 1:35pm PT  

On the road for much of today (and for much of this week, actually), so no time to make the argument for it, other than just to mention it, for the moment, and let others run with the ball if inclined.

With Justice John Paul Stevens now said to be preparing to retire, how about a movement to call on Obama to replace him with George Washington University Law School's Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley?

Turley's blog is here, his bio is here, his Wikepedia entry is here.

Pros? Cons? (If anyone in comments would like to link to any of Turley's many important media appearances on video --- particularly during the Bush years and particularly on the issue of the unconstitutionality of torture, war crimes, spying, and on the failure by the Obama administration to undo those policies and/or hold accountable those who implemented them --- it would be very welcome, as I've got to hit the road right now.)

P.S. Looks like there was a similar call for Turley to be named to the high court in 2009 when David Souter retired and was ultimately replaced by Sonia Sotomayor. A DailyKos blogger called a Turley appointment a "no brainer" at the time, and a Facebook page was created here in support of the notion. Might be time to freshen up that Facebook page!

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The latest chapter of a 40-year assault on Constitutional Democracy
And the long overdue effort by the People to reclaim their democratic heritage...
By Ernest A. Canning on 2/19/2010 6:05am PT  

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

"The American people already believe that corporate special interests and their lobbyists run the show around here. I mean, the halls are crawling with them. But that’s not enough. Now the Court says to the big banks, to the drug companies, to the insurance companies, ‘Hey, all bets are off, and it’s open season. Our elections are for sale.’ A law won’t fix this; we have to fix it in the Constitution. So today I’ll introduce a constitutional amendment so that we, the people, can take back our elections and our democracy."
-- Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1/28/10

In "Activist U.S. Supreme Court Makes It Official, We're Now 'The Corporate States of America'", Brad Friedman, along with so many others, expressed alarm over the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission [PDF], as well he should have.

Notwithstanding the sophistries offered by Jan Witold Baran, who neglected to mention in his Jan. 26, 2010 New York Times editorial that he is a former general counsel for the Republican National Committee, it is clear from the broad language applied by the five-member majority of the Supreme Court that Citizens United calls into question the validity of all laws which seek to prohibit or even limit the ability of corporate bought-and-paid-for candidates to flood the airwaves with the corporate message, either directly or through corporate-purchased propaganda time slots; an ability that can drown out the right of citizens to see and hear those who do not tow the corporate line.

As I will explain in this first of a series of articles, this ruling perverts the very reason why the framers included "freedom of the press" in the First Amendment to the Constitutional amendments.

Unfortunately, as I will also explain in this series, the ruling in Citizens United was not unexpected. To the contrary, it is but the latest salvo in a 40 year, billionaire-funded assault on the very foundations of our constitutional republic and the rule of law.

A belated effort to reclaim our basic heritage has emerged via a move to amend the Constitution to overcome the devastating impact of Citizens United. Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig argues that a Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United will not be enough; that we have to overcome what he describes as "the economy of influence" which now controls Congress. Lessig has called for a new Constitutional Convention. Another activist group, The Peace Team, has denounced the decision in Citizens United as an "act of treason." The Peace Team features an on-line petition calling for the impeachment of the five members of the Supreme Court who signed onto the majority opinion.

Regardless of where one stands on these efforts, a full appreciation of the big picture may be required before an effective movement can counter the well-funded and well organized assault on liberty...

--- Click here for REST OF STORY!... ---

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and a Commonweal Institute Fellow.

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