Democrats

Before the American polls close, NON-republicans take heart

The far right believes they have a chance to remake the world into the christian, capitalist theocracy they have always wanted.

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

Even liberal media says, “If they win this election cycle they will do things that would reverse history for 75 years!”

But none of that’s going to happen.

There are only two possible outcomes. Either . . .

  • The non-republican ground game will send the right-wing nuts an important rebuke. Everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their particular brand of religious and capitalist lunacy are non-republicans, Democrats or not, including those that are conservatives but not crazy. This by far larger majority will hopefully reject the worst of the candidates. The non-republicans are and will be the alternative and more long-lasting just because they are not crazy, or at least less crazy.

Or . . .

  • The kin to Sharia law, especially with respect to the treatment of women, our home-grown religious terrorists will be given the numerical and ideological reins and have their greatest opportunity yet to self-repudiate their bankrupt ideas.

There is an acknowledgement that it’s too late for these old, white men. Their time has already passed. They may enjoy a few years of influence but all their bad ideas will not last long because they have no survival value. They are already on the ropes and going down. Their opinions are everyday more non-sensical towards the environment, human rights, women’s rights, income inequality, just about everything, and we, the non-republicans are not standing for it no matter what happens tonight.

 

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When will we move to impeach certain Supreme Court justices? (Part 2)

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

“In the Potemkin justice of the Roberts
court, the right to vote 
is under attack,
while the power to buy elections

is sanctified by law. Corporations
are called people under a
faux doctrine
of free speech, while women are denied
standing 
to combat discrimination.”
– Brent Budowsky Editorial from The Hill, April 9, 2014.

 

 

Most of us came of age with nearly blind trust in this once-austere body, this third branch of government charged with deciding the most challenging questions of our time. But times have changed, and so has the purpose and direction of the Supreme Court. It’s literally gone off the rails, insane. 

So, yesterday, we formally joined the national conversation by asking when the grassroots-at-large will rise up, start paying more attention to this judicial menace, and act by using the formidable power vested in the people to reshape The Supreme Court?

Budowsky’s April 9 editorial offers a prescription for us, a place to start in the near term:

Democrats, liberals and populists should promote a constitutional amendment to reverse Supreme Court decisions, propose statewide ballot initiatives to take back America from special interests, and make corruption in Washington a defining issue to mobilize the Democratic base, rally political independents and transform the 2014 and 2016 elections.

 

It’s one thing to make corruption in Washington a defining issue, but what of the larger picture? Which body reigns above us all and makes possible the Koch Brothers and their spawn? stands with the National Rifle Association in its total misunderstanding of the Second Amendment? restricts voting among known Democrats wherever and whenever possible? The list of shame goes on and on.

We have seen the rise of something worse than winning or losing a couple of elections. Pre-eminent constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe calls it the “Roberts Anti-court Court,” not just for the Court’s dismal showing, especially in the last several years with it’s rash of constitution-shredding decisions in favor of monied, self-interested litigants, but for it’s dramatic restructuring of the procedures and rules they formerly operated within, delimiting class actions, and forcing involuntary binding arbitration.

Tribe’s must-read book is entitled, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution.

“Since 2005, the Roberts Court has issued a string of decisions that make it harder to hold the government accountable in court when it violates the Constitution.”

“The result is a shrinking judicial role in enforcing the Constitution and protecting our liberty.”

[The Roberts Court is] “far more sensitive to the substantial burdens of litigation than to the potential benefits of lawsuits.”

“Whereas the midcentury court saw itself as a protector of the powerless, the Roberts Court is mostly uninterested in that role . . . it has dealt critical legal rules a death of a thousand cuts—leaving many of our rights intact but making them effectively impossible to enforce in any court”

Tribe urges us to “seek justice elsewhere . . . the democratic process, social movements, arbitration, our communities and families, consumer report websites and other means of ensuring that everyone comply with the law. Indeed, the Constitution presumes that democracy, not litigation, is how we’re supposed to resolve many disputes.”

Arthur Bryant, Chairman of Public Justice, a national public interest law firm, writing Thursday for the National Law Journal, agreed with Tribe’s analysis but goes a step further, “We must keep fighting for justice in the courts” and “keep working hard to make the Supreme Court a pro-court court. We need courts to provide access to justice to all.”

First, we need to keep using the courts, as much and as best we can, to hold corporations, the government and the powerful accountable—exposing the truth, righting wrongs and making the wrongdoers pay.

Second, we need to keep fighting to preserve and expand access to justice. Nothing could be more important.

The bottom line is that we cannot accept an anti-court Supreme Court. We need to develop a pro-court court. Then we need to do what everyone in America should be able to do: Go to court and get justice.

 

You can learn more about some of the more egregious recent decisions by the Court by taking a look at  Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, unconscionably awarding people’s free speech to corporations who have exploited this new right only further consolidate corporate and political power; Shelby County v. Holder, a gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, legalizing political graft.

Educate yourself for this inescapable campaign to unseat the worse of the worse as it revs up into full gear. Sign the petitions against Chief Justice John RobertsAntonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. And, connect with organizations and people in your own community who want to step forward to rescue America from these misguided justices. We need really, really wise justices to protect the voiceless, and these three are not that.

Click here for yesterday’s Part 1.

For more:

Budowsky: History to Impeach Roberts

We Cannot Let and “Anti-court Court Eliminate Access to Justice

Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution

And, to learn why VenusPlusX thinks this is important, read A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom, and catch our unique mix of posts and videos 24/7 that will get us all to that better future, sooner rather than later.

When will we move to impeach certain Supreme Court justices? (Part 1)

“Five conservative Republican men serving on the Supreme Court,
led by a chief justice who has violated 200 years of judicial precedent,
despite pledging under oath during his confirmation hearings to respect
judicial precedent, are waging a legal war of mass destruction against
core principles of American democracy . . .”

Brent Budowsky Editorial from The Hill, April 9, 2014.

 

Antonin Scalia Flickr/creative commons

Antonin Scalia
Flickr/creative commons

Every June, I get nervous about the Supreme Court, and the Roberts’s court in particular. My knees have been shaking at the very idea that they may rule anyway now to give Hobby Lobby and all corporations/employers’ the right to disallow contraception coverage, something that is mandated by and totally funded by for the Affordable Care Act of 2010.

When I was growing up in the 50s, my parents impressed upon me the reverence they paid to the Supreme Court, whose justices served selflessly for life to decide the hardest decisions American’s face. I held this view up until the retirement of Justice William J. Brennan in 1990. At the time, I was close friends with his daughter and happen to be privy to the fact that he stayed on longer than he wanted to boost the progressive voices then on the court. But a lot has changed since then. George Bush was elected in 2000 and proceeded to pack the court with conservative judicial activists instead of stalwarts of justice. So now, we find ourselves looking for grounds for impeachment starting with the two of the worse, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, along with their enabler, Chief Justice John Roberts.

This right-wing majority in the Supreme Court is now forcing us to endure the most terrible, constitution-shredding rulings I never could have imagined: In 2009, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates by giving organizations free speech prerogatives, formerly reserved for individuals, in allowing political spending by outside groups, something that has since clearly hijacked the democratic political process. Then in 2013, the court decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted, savaged really, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, striking down its Section 4 as unconstitutional, the formula that subjected certain jurisdictions (mostly in the South with its bad voter protection histories) to pre-clearance by the Department of Justice before implementing new changes in their voting laws and practices. And, also last June, in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Court held that aggregate campaign contribution limits were invalid under First Amendment, newly legalizing a long-ago rejected form of outright political graft.

There are already numerous petitions to call for the impeachment of Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. Roberts has even prompted a petition from his own right wing, for siding with the progressive side of the court which upheld that people can be forced to get coverage under Affordable Care Act, just as with car insurance, a widely accepted premise.

Both Thomas and Scalia have been participated in partisan fundraising, which would be be considered a clear violation of ethics. Thomas’ wife, Ginni, was also on the payroll of at least one of these organizations, Thomas says he “forgot” to disclose. An analysis of Scalia’s public statements and speeches could hold the key to his ouster because they were seditious. Unfortunately, ethics censure is voluntary for Supreme Court justices. They are not held the same standard of conduct that all other federal judges are held to, and under which they can be impeached.

Budowsky urges us to mobilize:

Democrats, liberals and populists should promote a constitutional amendment to reverse Supreme Court decisions, propose statewide ballot initiatives to take back America from special interests, and make corruption in Washington a defining issue to mobilize the Democratic base, rally political independents and transform the 2014 and 2016 elections (from The Hill)

What will you do to address this most important threat to American democracy in our history?

This post continues in Part 2 with a discussion and analysis of Laurence Tribe‘s new book, Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution.

For more:

Budowsky: History to Impeach Roberts

We Cannot Let and “Anti-court Court Eliminate Access to Justice

Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution

And, to learn why VenusPlusX thinks this is important, read A Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom, and catch our unique mix of posts and videos 24/7 that will get us all to that better future, sooner rather than later.

 

 

Right-wingnuts bless progressives

“The Republican base is driving the party toward a political agenda
that makes its candidates increasingly unelectable
for national and statewide offices.”
Howard Dean, former Vermont Governor,
the preceding Chair of the Democratic National Committee,
and founder of Democracy in Action, speaking to Politico Magazine

We spent the entire year before the 2008 presidential election, we only realized later, in a state of distress as we contemplated the downfall of our country should it be taken over by right-wing extremists or nut jobs like PTSD-sufferer John McCain. On election night, with Obama victorious, the tears flowed and flowed. We felt like we had rescued triumph from the jaws of defeat, and then felt the same way when he was re-elected in 2012.

In spite of Obama’s shortfalls politically since he took office, the trend towards sanity, particularly with respect to equality rights, has been brighter than it has ever been, despite the racial hatred expressed by the opposition on a daily basis.

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

With the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 2010 our joy over Obama has been tampered by the awareness of just how much harm and chaos can still be wrought by hate-filled right-wingnuts. Things were likely to get much worse before they could get better, especially with the rise of tea party madness. Make no mistake, these right-wingnuts, all of whom are white christianists with only a handful of exceptions, are just as misguided and murderous as any fundamentalist theocrat you can find in all the world’s trouble spots. And, just like them, right-wingnut politicians have fueled domestic terrorism.

Since that 2008 election eve, however, we also came to understand that each misstep the opposition makes is a gift because their’s are are always self-repudiating, always damaging to their cause, always distancing the speaker further and further from reality, always a sentiment with no legs therefore no future, always a simplistic hope that is destined to die by its own negativity. The more stupid they behave, the better for progressives, even if the results are not immediately apparent.

It used to be that right-wingnuts kept their racism and sexism under wraps, as much as was possible. For example, Nixon’s “southern strategy,” to enrage poor, low educated, white people to resist progressive ideas and candidates, was a direct result of and backlash against the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, just as much as Jim Crow laws were a reaction against the end of slavery. But since the 60s everything was done behind the scenes, as secretive as possible, civil on the outside but treacherous on the inside.

The inevitability of the population shift toward a non-white America, and in particular the election of a black president, has created another backlash, one so fearsome that right-wingnut’s deepening paranoia and hatred has been fully unmasked. For the last 6 years, they speak and act like we can’t see or hear them, a sure sign of mental disease, making their self-repudiation more rapid and complete, hastening their demise. This modern backlash is good for progressives because it brings our opponents into sharper relief, easier to criticize, and, most important, unseat.

When Mr. Brat, an economics professor of dubious merit, can ride Tea Party ideals to unseat a Republican establishment candidate like Cantor in a Virginia primary, that can only be a gift to the opposition if used well. Unfortunately, in this case, Brat’s Democratic opponent is also another economic professor of dubious merit, from the very same small-bore college in the woods of Virginia, so it’s impossible to say which one will be victorious, but the silver lining is nonetheless there for progressive to take note.

Howard Dean deftly defined this silver lining on Monday in Politico Magazine.

First, competing in every state and every district is still vital. You never know when an opportunity will arise to pull off an unexpected victory . . . Democrats can win everywhere only when we run everywhere. That requires committing to and developing grass-roots talent in the deepest-red and darkest-blue corners of the electoral map.

Second, Americans are so fed up with Congress that even the tea party wants to kick it out. . .  House leaders have engaged in very little serious work that would benefit the American people, and voters are sick of it.

Third, organization and shoe leather can beat big money. . . In an upcoming election in which Republicans’ secret corporate money could dwarf Democrats’ progressive message on the airwaves, Cantor’s defeat should remind us that phone calls, door knocks and one-on-one conversations with neighbors can beat back a tidal wave of cash.

Fourth, base support wins elections — unless it drives you outside the mainstream. Cantor’s loss has largely been attributed to his failure to retain the support of a GOP grass-roots base that opposes everything from gun-violence prevention to comprehensive immigration reform. That was bad news for Cantor, but it is even worse news for the GOP nationally. The Republican base is driving the party toward a political agenda that makes its candidates increasingly unelectable for national and statewide offices.

This dynamic stands in stark contrast to the one between Democrats and their progressive grass-roots base, which pushes the party to embrace policy ideas that enjoy broad popular support.

Lastly, and perhaps most important, Democrats need to learn from Cantor’s loss that anything can happen in 2014. Even on the morning of the election, not a single major pundit or politician thought the majority leader would lose. Cantor was considered invincible, and Republicans were expected to win big in November. But voters have minds of their own and the tea party’s right-wing base helped it usher in a truly unexpected result.

The fact is, the Democratic base is much larger than the tea party, and polling shows that most Americans stand with us on issue after issue, from expanding Social Security to raising the minimum wage to getting big money out of politics. If Democrats mobilize our base, stand up for what’s right and force a fight on vote-inspiring issues connected to combating income inequality, we can rack up wins that will stun many in Washington’s pundit class — and elect Democratic majorities in the House and Senate in November.

(The full article, “The Lesson in Cantor’s unexpected defeat” can be found here.)

So progressives take note: Foolish Republicans are there for plucking. Find and support your local candidates who can articulate what we stand for. Let’s sweep both houses of Congress this November!

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons