Posts Tagged ‘citizens united’

Get Ready For The Ads

Wednesday, September 5th, 2012

Get Ready For The Ads
by
David Schlecht

Thanks to the Supreme Court and their insane Citizens United ruling, billionaires and international corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money to drown out your first amendment right of Free Speech.This means that this is the first time in our lifetimes that anonymous donations of hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions of dollars can be spent on blatant lies.

And it’s coming.

In the next month you’ll start seeing a nauseating amount of negative ads, outright lies coming out of your TV and your radio on every billboard and in every advertising platform you can imagine.

Why is this possible? How can billionaires and international corporations defecate on our electoral process? How can they wipe themselves with our first amendment?

Because the Republicans on the Supreme Court (and yes, it was only the Republicans) think that people sick with money should run our country.

You will get sick of the negative ads. And every time you see a negative ad, and it’s brought to you by some corrupt corporation like Americans for Prosperity or Americans for a Better ______, or Concerned Citizens for a Better ___, know that their name is as deceitful as their message.

Once you’ve had enough of these crooks spewing sewage our our democracy, get mad. Donate what money you can to the Democratic candidate that they are slandering. And get mad enough to be sure to get out there and vote against the Republican machine that is trying to give our democracy to billionaires and multinational corporations.

It’s coming, so get ready, and get mad and get rid of those who have brought this crap to America.

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Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »

Clarence Thomas Thinks He’s King

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

Clarence Thomas Thinks He’s King
by
David Schlecht

We Americans all know that our government is rotten to the core. The number of good politicians is a tiny percentage of the body politic and the vast majority of the rest are doing their best to destroy America.

The mand who would be king

We’ve written about Clarence Thomas before. His crimes, big and small, are far above what any country should condone in a government.

There is finally starting to be efforts to bring the criminal Supreme Court judge to atone for his crimes. This is from the CREDO:

U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter is demanding that the Judicial Conference, an administrative arm of the court, uphold the Ethics in Government Act by referring Thomas’ apparent misdeeds to the Attorney General for further investigation.

It’s time we all signed up to make our voices heard. No Supreme Court judge is above the law. Law breakers do not belong in our government and we’re not going to put up with it anymore.

Sign up to have Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas investigated for his numerous crimes.

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Posted in Politics | 4 Comments »

Economy Still Stumbling

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

Economy Still Stumbling [Updated]
by
David Schlecht

Unemployment in many states is still on the rise. We saw a short glimmer of hope over the holiday season but now we’re back to further and further declines in the economy.

The stock market is improving though, but so what? The stock market doesn’t provide jobs for Americans. In fact, it’s time we quit considering the stock market when remarking on the state of America’s economy. For Americans the things that mean anything when considering the country’s economy is jobs, pay, benefits, and pensions. Also included in evaluating the economy is the state of our social safety net, not the stock market.

All these things affect the economy of Americans. The stock market does not. I know, I know, there many people (one hundredth of of one percent of Americans) who actually make any reasonable money off the stock market but that in no way reflects the state of America’s economy.

This simple difference explains why we haven’t dug ourselves out of the Bush years yet. We’re putting our resources and attention in the wrong things. Did we learn nothing during the last Great Depression? The conservatives are telling us that it was the second world war that got us out of the last Great Depression. Well, now we’re in two and a half wars. Our economy should be the best it’s ever been, right? Well, no, not really. Wars don’t cure depressions. Job do. The stock market doesn’t cure depressions, jobs and benefits and pay do. So when are we going to start addressing these problems?

Want to fix the economy? Here’s how:

  1. Stop with the tax give-aways to the billionaires and multi-national corporations. Put taxes back where they were before Reagan began the destruction of our economy,
  2. Increase the minimum wage to a living wage and keep it there,
  3. Require all major corporations and all multi-national corporations provide substantial pensions to all workers, full time and part time,
  4. Stop the Social Security tax give-away for billionaires. Expect billionaires to pay the same percentage of tax for Social Security that you and I do,
  5. Temporarily create government jobs for Americans (no tax dollars spent on non-American incentives, you know, the bill the Republicans opposed), and
  6. Fix our broken trade policies, get out of NAFTA, GAT, WTO, and all the rest of the trade agreements that are destroying our manufacturing jobs. In other words, protect American jobs.

The nice thing is these don’t have to be done all at once but the more that we enact, the faster our economy will improve.

Now if you see these points brought up over and over in the blogisphere, they must not be rocket science, so why hasn’t our government thought of them? They have, but the big businesses controlling both parties are preventing us from stopping the rape and pillage of America’s economy. Remember, someone is making out like bandits while the rest of us suffer, and those bandits donate to make and break our politicians.

Get involved! Get active. Participate on our political process. Run for the local dog catcher or school board. That does make a difference.

[Update: ] Check out this post at Open Left for an good example of what the economy really means.

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Posted in Finance, Politics | 2 Comments »

How to Spot a Lie

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

How to Spot a Lie
by
David Schlecht

Now that the Republicans in the Supreme Court have flushed America down the toilet with Citizens United v FEC, major American corporations as well as foreign corporations and governments can spend an unlimited amount of money to buy our elections. Are you watching all the negative ads on your TV and on the radio and in your mail box? These almost all come from some PAC named something like Defending America PAC or Concerned Citizens PAC or Americans for a better government PAC.

If the name isn’t enough of a red flag, you should remember that any one who has to tell you he’s a white night is probably the devil. All these PACs are as dishonest as their names. They are almost all created and funded by big businesses, not citizens. They’re concerned about fleecing America, not supporting good government. In fact, thanks to the Supreme Court, they could even be terrorist organizations or communist dictators.

The entire world can now take part in our elections and they are, and what’s worse? They don’t even have to state who they are. The Republicans voted against a bill that would require these PACs to state in their ads who was funding the lies.

So what can we do? This is the time for America to wake up and turn off the TV and turn off the corrupt corporate news and shut off all negative ads. The law that the Supreme Court unilaterally passed at least prevents ads from supporting candidates, only policies. So, if it’s a negative ad and it’s from a PAC you don’t recognize, it’s probably the People’s Communist Country of China trying to influence your local elections.

I know, I know, it’s not all about the Republicans or the Democrats. Well, maybe in this case it is. The Democrats have tried repeatedly to correct this and the Republicans have forced this upon us all on their own. When will the Real Republicans take back their party?

[Update] What many Americans don’t realize is that political advertisements do not have to be true or factual. PACs take advantage of this by dumping millions of dollars in outright incorrect lies right before elections.

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Posted in Politics | 2 Comments »

This is Your Country

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

This is Your Country
by
David Schlecht

Do you get the feeling that we’re losing control of our country? If you paid attention to the recent Supreme Court decisions, you know that they have given corporations the rights of We the People. How twisted! Corporation personhood.

We are supposed to have three equal branches of government, but the Supreme court has decided all by themselves that it doesn’t matter what Congress wants or what the people want or even what the constitution says. They have decided that Corporations should have the same rights as you and me.

Only the worst part is they have said that money is the same a free speech and corporations can spend as much as they want to influence elections.

If corporations can spend unlimited money, then the little amount you and I invest in our representatives will be insignificant compared to the billions of dollars at the disposal of an entire industry.

How did things get so bad? How do we get it back?

The only way to solve this is to remove the personhood of corporations. We need a constitutional amendment saying that businesses are not people. How stupid is that? Why should we need such a silly clarification in our constitution? Everyone knows a business is not a person and our founding fathers didn’t make this country for We the Corporations.

But, alas, the amendment is the only way to clean up years and years of Supreme Court activism. Check out the many organizations that are working to clean up this mess. Check out Move to Amend.

Which Political Party Was Responsible for Giving Corporations Personhood?

View Results

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Posted in Politics | 4 Comments »

Citizens United vs FEC. Can we fix this in time?

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Citizens United vs FEC. Can we fix this in time?
by
David Schlecht

The American people are horrified by this landmark decision by the Republican Supreme Court justices. This is the Dred Scott decision of our day and Americans are united in our opposition.

The Republican judges decided that contrary to our constitution, the rich get a political voice and We The People are silenced. I’ve discussed this corporate giveaway in previous posts.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, this decision equates money with free speech. In other words, corporations and the wealthy can spend any amount they want on deceptive and dishonest ads to influence an election or even a ballot issue. I’m sure many will think that this is just an over reaction, The case couldn’t possibly have been that bad. Well wake up! It’s time to get outraged.

Now the average American gets free speech and he can mumble and whisper to his neighbors and families all he wants or stand on a street corner and holler, but the billionaires can spend unlimited amounts of advertising money to influence public opinion.

If you don’t believe that marketing and advertising really influence opinion, then you’re one of those easy marks. If it didn’t work, there wouldn’t be billions of dollars spent on it every super bowl and then all year long. Some people are easier marks.

How much money was spent to affect the last presidential elections? It was less that $500 million, considerably less. Now, how much was given to the bankers for bonuses? $63 BILLION. In other words, what the bankers make in one year could completely silence all other candidates with just a fraction of their bonus.

Of course, an unethical billionaire businessman would never use his money to get richer at our expense now would he?

But, America is waking up. Believe it or not, we’re beginning to wake up.

This is not a partisan issue, not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. All across America, people polled show disgust for this ruling. Almost 80% of Americans are against it. Of course, once the billionaires start bombarding us with advertising, those number will drop. But if the major corporations win, we will have given our country to the greedy and been happy doing it.

Had enough? Ready to do something about it? Get involved. There are many many organizations that are uniting to fix this before it’s too late.

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Posted in Politics | 11 Comments »