UNDERSTANDING THE SUPREME COURT DECISION

The radicalize Supreme Court has ruled on same-sex marriage. I was shocked the decision went the way it did. The fundamental ruling was in keeping with the way conservative claim to think. They claim their desire is to protect individual rights as a conservative principle, which is why it shocked me to learn the details of how the voting went. The liberal on the court voted to protect individual rights. When we examine the vote, we realized the most radical conservatives on the court voted against what turned out to be the majority decision. Conservatives usually speak about protecting individual rights. They turn right around and fight to destroy those rights by claiming States Government and not the Federal Government should have the power to make those decisions. The reason they want the states governments to have control is that they can gain control of state governments with the objective of destroying certain individual rights. They know it is easier to control state government than it is to gain control the Federal government; in fact, they now control a large number of state governments. The four radical upreme Court justices do not seem to realize their vote against same-sex marriage counters having States control the social agenda. As long as the Federal Government prohibited same-sex marriages, the more their radical conservative supporters are willing to fight and fight harder, for their bigger issue, which is to fight for states rights. They want to weaken and destroy the Federal government. States in which conservatives control the government are those states that do not allow same-sex marriage, which is the way the four radical conservative judges voted. The fact the most conservative Justices voted against what they fundamentally profess to believe may sound confusing because it is. Thus, as just argued, the conservative justices on the court opted to vote to oppose same-sex marriage; thus, remove one of the big reasons they use to argue for states’ rights. The Republican Party; thus, the conservatives in our nation insist on having individual rights dominate Federal government mandates. Conservative extremists have taken over the Party and the Federal courts. They have done this by taking over one state government at a time and by taking over one Federal judge at a time. That is the purpose of the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Of course, they do not mean democracy in the usual sense of the word, one-man-one-vote. What they mean by individual rights is doing things their way. Yes, one-man-one-vote but the trick is they are the only ones whose vote counts, which is what voter suppression is all about. Conservatives destroyed this in my state of North Carolina and shamefully elected Thom Tillis senator. Thus, they approached their quest for distorting individual rights in a circuitous way. They took over states legislatures and many Federal Judgeships by electing radical conservatives member to the state houses and appointing radical conservatives judges. The Supreme Court is a prime example. In the conservative mindset, if you have a simple majority you have complete control. We constantly hear a conservative will not compromise with liberals, which means once the scale tips, minority members will have nothing to say. The Supreme Court is no different. The Court has radical conservatives Roberts, Alito, and Scalia. Thomas, the fourth is a radical conservative member, but he is only conservative to take advantage of his token value. Then you have conservative Justice Kennedy, who is conservative to be sure but is not radical. The Court has a conservative majority, but the redeeming feature is that only four are radical! What happened in the same-sex marriage decision was a compromise, which was shocking because it was counter to conservative views on social issues. Conservatives demand states right for one reason and one reason only, which is to control such things a voter rights, and to prevent abortion and stop same-sex marriages. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

CITIZENS UNITED IS HERE TO STAY

Candidate after candidate steps to the microphone and tells us what we already know. They tell us some unseen force has turned our economy upside down, which is not true. We are a democracy, so the truth is that we the people have turned our economy upside down. Legitimately, we cannot blame the rich, or labor unions, or big banks, or Wall Street, or some other named entity. More and more, we are getting angry that it happened, at least the politicians tell us we are getting angry but are we. I think not. If we were angry, we would do something about it but we don’t. The candidates for president tell us what we already know, know the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer because we let it happen that way. I listened to some of them running under the Republican banner ridiculously declare they will, if elected, work for the working people. Consider the one decision that has overturned American Democracy, which is the Citizens United decision. Virtually, everyone acknowledges how devastating this decision has been to workers in America. Also, everyone knows our corrupt supreme court is responsible. We can easily identify the five members of that court who are responsible, but also why and how the presidents appointed them to their positions. Also, we all know what it would take to overturn that devastating decision. We have two choices; pass a congressional amendment overturning the ruling or impeach the most corrupt Supreme Court justices. The “disconnect” between the people and the problem should be obvious; we all know what is wrong and how to fix it, but we do nothing. If the answer to the problem is so obvious, what can’t it be answered? How many candidates have myriad reporters from both sides of the aisle asked if they support overturning the Citizens United Decision or support impeaching a Supreme Court Justice? The answer is zero! The bigger question is why has that question not been asked? Perhaps, the answer is that they just said during their stump speech that Congress should reform campaign financing, so reporters feel the answer is so obvious they need not ask. I listen very carefully to Republican candidate speeches and do no not hear anyone of them say they will submit legislation to overturn that ruling or to impeach a Supreme Court Justice. Democratic candidates mention these things, but still no legislation is submitted and doesn't expect it ever will be. You can counter with the argument that cannot submit legislation because they are not in office; however, the same situation prevailed with the last batch of candidates and will appear with the next bunch. I can be confident about what I am saying because there has been zero legislative submission to achieve either of those ends. Why is that? The answer is simple; powerful positive feedback has always existed in politics, and all Citizens United decision did to streamline the means for the powerful individuals to have positive feedback for politicians. Did I mention that the new twist is that Karl Rove’s, a low-level political advisor to Bush, had a desire for a perpetual Republican majority put corrupt money into federal courts and started campaigning for radical justices, which opened the door for the Supreme Court justices to become politicians. The more a congressional representative supports unregulated money in politics the more valuable corrupt money becomes to that candidate in holding on to his or her office; thus, a never-ending cycle is born. There is only one answer and that for you put down your can of beer and become interested in politics, study the issues, and vote. All I can say to that solution is to dream on. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

ONLY UNIONS CAN SAVE DEMOCRACY

Over 90% of people in the United States feel there is too much money in politics. In addition, we can pinpoint why; it clearly centers on the Supreme Courts decision to turn money into words. Of course, even prior to that decision, political operatives have manipulated and otherwise corrupted the our system of government to allow big money contributions directly by lobbyists and other maneuvers such as the now 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) categories made so infamous by Karl Rove.

Justice Alito is the poster child of the decision. However, it took five justices to make the horrible decision that is well on the way to destroying our democracy. The fix is easy; Congress could pass an amendment and 2/3rds of the States could ratify it thus amending the constitution and override the Supreme Court Decision. In addition, the Supreme Court could overturn their decision but they obviously will not admit they were wrong.

Am I talking hyperbole when I say that it is a decision that is destroying our democracy? Ask yourself, if it is so easy to do what 90 % of the people want to do and amend the constitution why don’t they do it. If our representatives in Congress represented the people, they would but they don’t represent the people; they represent a very small group of very rich people.  Because they do not represent the people is why the Senate does not impeach Supreme Court Judges for doing what the few rich people want.

Nobody wants a second amendment solution. First, the right to own guns is a result of a misreading of the Constitution by judges in the same court system, the Federal Courts, that gave us Citizens United, but more important absolutely nobody wants violence. There will never be a French Revolution-style uprising where people sharpen the blades of guillotines and heads roll. Instead of guillotines, we need the entire social structure. The biggest is the voting box, which is an uphill climb. Look at what happened in Wisconsin when the people tried to recall an openly corrupt Governor. People including massive numbers of union workers filled the streets for months on end, yet Scott Walker won at the ballot box. The Koch brothers’ money bought the people. For example after the election, I heard union workers say they voted for Walker because they thought it was unfair to try to recall him. They parroted what they repeatedly heard every hour on every station and read in every newspaper for days. To believe to recall a bad Governor is unfair is unbelievable; well-paid talking heads on TV and radio convinced enough union workers into voting to support the man who took away their unions freedom to bargain collectively.

In addition, The only argument I have heard in support of Citizens United decision is industrialists needed it to counter unions giving massive amounts of money to certain candidates. Check out Congress; after what I just wrote about recalling Scott Walker or overturning Citizens United, do you think Unions have a majority in that body? “We the people” means much in America, and I am here to remind you that unions are “We the people” in contrast to me, me, and me in boardrooms around the country.

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CHARLIE HEBDO IS DEAD WRONG

I have some thoughts concerning the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, operating in Paris. Using an analogy, on a hot day, I am setting in a bar with my wife enjoying a cool beer. In walks a 280-pound football player type guy, a stranger. While setting down next to us he looked over at us and said, “You have an ugly wife”. I told him he was an animal or some such thing then pulled out a gun and shot the guy in the shoulder.

Does he have free speech? Of course, he does. Is what he said to me right or wrong? Of course, it was obviously wrong. Is what I did right or wrong? Of course, what I did was wrong. He responded to being shot by saying, “Oh, I was joking. Why aren’t you laughing?” Does what he said after being shot make what I did more wrong?

This gap in the law has existed since the beginning of democracy; we refer to it as human decency versus the lack of human decency; it is curse of Democracy. According to the law, Charlie Hebdo has the right to do what it does. However, according to the law, the people who were insulted do not have the right to do what they did. Short of defamation of character, people do not have any intermediate option.

The point I am making is that there is an important gap in human relations. In this case, it relates to what we refer to as, “free speech”. There are important reasons for having “free speech”; however, “free speech” does not include insulting each other. There is no law to prohibit insulting speech. The point is that we have little or no intermediate ground to control insulting speech but by using violence. Some Supreme Court judge is reported to have said about pornography, “I cannot define it but I know it when I see it.” The same is true of insulting speech. Charlie Hebdo is just as wrong as the big guy who insulted the women in the bar in my little imaginary story. Charlie Hebdo say what they do is OK because they insult everyone; twisted logic. What they do is wrong. Free speech or not, what they do is dead wrong!

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UNITED STATES ON WRONG PATH

In a democracy, there is only one-way for a dictatorship to happen, and that is for the people to vote a dictator into power. Nevertheless, the reverse of that is not true. We cannot vote a dictator out of power for the obvious reason, which is that if we have a dictator, we no longer have a democracy. Therefore, once we have a dictatorship, the only way to remove the dictator is through violence of some kind; civil unrest, or even international war to undue the excesses of the person in power. However, I base this observation on the formation of dictatorships on a superficial treatment of the their history, using what seems to be the most egregious dictators: Hitler, Stalin, or Castro. Lately, advances in communication technology such as the internet and social media, the availability of more complete and detailed information of current and past events makes it clear, a dictatorships evolves out of complicated social events, either fabricated or “normal”. By normal, I mean political unrest arising out of natural disasters, for example, the so-called dust bowel or the steady increase in populations. Much more common in modern times is the fabricated political crisis—lust for power by the group growing out of and archaic system of royalty or the even more archaic system of religious dominance. Regardless one-person eventually is identified as leader. A small group of radicals selects the leader to dominate the disinterested masses: Fidel Castro, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Husain, al-Assad, to name a few. The route followed is varied but my major point is there is a wide spread social movement of some description taken over by narrower and narrower focused factions or groups and eventually taken over by one individual or small groups of individuals.

We saw massive numbers of down trodden farmer-laborers take over Russia and then went through individuals in the leadership-group struggling for power with ultimately have one man dominating; I know of now female dictator. We saw the German people, suffering from post war economic strife, struggling between two polar opposite political faction; they chose a political philosophy that “supposedly” represented the people, only to realize that party was under the iron fist of one man. We saw poor people in Cuba disgusted by excesses of the rich living in a glitzy style fall behind Castro, supposedly a man of the people, but in reality, he formed a one-man dictatorship. Numerous examples of countries, especially in the Middle East that were torn apart by sectarian religious strife and end up the dominated by a robed cleric—a religious dictator—representing only one of the sects. This pattern was repeated; a popular political party headed by one small sub faction, that claimed to stand behind “all” the people but really represented a minority, claimed the support of all the people and that faction was dominated by one person. In addition to this pattern, there was another common factor; they were truly minority leaders’ thus, found it necessary to rule by terror.

The point is, in each case, the people who freely chose to give up their “democracy” by complacency. Rule by terror did not happen until they had lost their democracy; as I keep saying once you vote you cannot get it back. They let it happen until it was too late to change it. We have a democracy of which we are proud—can we keep it. We have two political parties: Democrats and Republicans representing the majority of people in the United States who want to have a mixture of socialism one side and laissez-faire capitalism on the other, which is the principle on which our founding fathers built our country. However, we have individuals within the Democratic Party who are radical and want to move toward a more socialistic government thus move away from laissez-faire capitalism. These people want the government in their lives and are willing to pay for it. We also have radical individuals in the Republican Party who want to move away from socialism and more toward to laissez-faire capitalism; they do not want to have government in their lives and are only willing to pay taxes for what is for them. For two hundred fifty years, “we the people” have been switching back and forth with the result that we are in the middle road, which is the envy of the world.

I think I see something happening in America that has not happened before. We have radical group tipping the scale to one side beyond recovery. It is easy to point an accusing finger at the Tea Party, a vocal and radical faction within the Republican Party. It is small in number but is powerful, which is true but the Tea Party is only a small step in this wrong direction. They have gained much popular acceptance by catering to the universals desire of people not to pay taxes. The second, more dangerous step in the tilting, in my eyes, is this radical faction’s manipulation of the constitutional power of “advice and consent” given to congress. They have used their minority power to take control of the federal court system including the Supreme Court. As loyal, law abiding Americans we willing bow to the will of the Supreme Court, which creates a non-reversible step in the tilting process. The third and most dangerous step in what is happening in our country is that we have an extra governmental force, meaning a non-elected body, taking control of that faction of the Republican Party. That faction is the plutocrats in the United States. To date, they have manipulated the congress and courts with impunity. They, as a group, ignore government attempts to regulate them by defunding such agencies as EPA and SEC with the snap of a finger. They do not pay taxes, they give themselves subsidies, and they create a climate of competition among the states for the lowest tax rates, are destroying labors unions, and destroying public schools as well. The list nefarious activity is endless; it is like a snowball rolling down hill so large we will not be able to roll it ups hill. We all know who the puppets are but no one outside their inner circle knows for sure but it appears they have a leader, the Koch Brothers.  

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CITIZENS UNITED DECISON IS ILLOGICAL

It is a sad day in America; in a display of the power of money influencing votes (buying Democrats) , the very thing the amendment was aimed at correcting, our senate decided not to support an Amendment to overturn the corrupt Supreme Court Citizens United decision. Pollsters show repeatedly that the American people want the decision overturned. Republican greed for power is leading them to continue “the fall of the empire”, which we call America democracy, in a significant way. It has taken millions of people working over 250 years for our “empire to rise” and now we have five Supreme Court judges working to destroy it. Above all else, this is a clear example of how greed corrupts the mind and causes humankind to abandon reason. This vote is a classic example of that. The greed of these few Justices is wrecking havoc on our nation. I haven’t read any simple explanation of how this is can happening.

The fundamental principle of this country is equality for everyone; shattering the concept of “the privileged few”; economic standing, color, or creed plays not part. The only restriction to voting is maturity. If you are of voting age and a common worker or a multimillionaire, it should make no difference; everyone should have equal ability to influence the government and that is what one-man one-vote means. Citizen’s United decision destroys that concept. Simply saying that your vote is shorthand for that entire concept is naive at most or a bit stupid at least; certainly, no a student of government would believe the only influence we can have on government is restricted to our vote. We as individuals can run for elective office; we can help someone campaign; we can put signs in our yard; and within the limits of our means, we can donate to political campaigns we can attend caucuses to select candidates; etc. There is equality in that. However, following the Citizens United decision; on a personal level, a worker no long has an equal share in government. I would bet almost every one of you those who support the decision to maintain that decision, though a minority of the population, works or a living but allows rich man Rupert Murdock (Fox), regardless of your town or city, your school board, your county, you state, tells you how to think. Should I mention he is worth $12.5 billion, which is enough to pound a political sign in everyone’s’ yard.

I have heard arguments such as Labor Unions can contribute huge sums to political campaigns. Aside from the fact that if it is wrong for labor unions it is wrong for industry, industry have all but destroyed labor unions, which should tell you something about relative power even before Citizens United decision, which will make that situation worse. Also, have heard the argument that corporations are people, which is central to the decision under discussion; how do you argue against something so inherently wrong? A family is not a person, a labor union is not a person, a basketball team or football team is not a person; the lexicon of examples is endless. Consider the current voter ID question; what would General Motor Boeing Aircraft or Hobby Lobby use for identification at a voting booth. What is the effect the Citizens United decision of non-persons having on a census to determine the number of representatives in society? Citizen United is wrong because it is fundamentally illogical even at the simplest level.

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HOW JUDICIAL ACTIVISM WILL DESTROY AMERICA

Jonathan #Capeheart acting as guest host on MSNBC’s show, UP used the Bugs Bunny character holding a large package of TNT with a lighted fuse to explain the problem John Boehner has created for himself. Speaker Boehner made the issued very real by issuing a resolution to sue President #Obama for over-stepping his authority as president. It will be very hard for him to step back from his position. As with Bugs Bunny, the issue is a political package of TNT to heavy to throw far enough away to prevent himself and his political party from being hurt.  

Legal minds are quick to point out that the suite has little chance to succeeding. The only danger to our democracy is that the Supreme Court of the Untied States is now the #Robert’s Court and is not operating as a legal mind. I have repeatedly referred to the Robert’s Court as being corrupt meaning that they act based on political philosophy and not the jurisprudence; thus, are acting extra constitutionally. Of course, their refrain is that they are constitutional fundamentalist thus act strictly according to the Constitution as written.  #Roberts, #Alito, #Thomas, and #Scalia, the especially corrupt individuals on the court, all swore in confirmation hearings that they abhorred judicial activism, and then acted in just the opposite manner; liar, liar the fuse is on fire. This is obvious to all by looking at the decisions they made, such as Citizens United, which made corporations people; Hobby Lobby, which violated the separation of church and state, and declaring a provisions of the voter’s rights act unconstitutional, which violates the rights of many people to have a say in government.

In addition, the personal conduct of the individual justices is deplorable. They are accepting gifts and taking bribes in other forms—such as outlandish speaker honorariums—from the Koch brothers and other radical right wing groups. This “unconstitutional” activity even extends to their wives. It is usual for one or the other of the justices to say how he will rule on an issue even before a case comes before the court, which is an open invitation for radical groups to submit cases with the express purpose of having the issues come before that court. Worst of all, they rule on things that are not in the law. They are activists of the worst kind.

What worries me most is that they and their followers do not seem to understand what ‘democracy’ means in the sense of “we the people”. They have found the Achilles’ heel of our constitution and used it to created a situation in which a select group of people will elect a “dictator”. The only way a democracy can destroy itself is to elect a king or dictator.  By allowing only Republicans to vote, which is what the repeal of provisions of the voters’ right act was all about; allowing corporations to control media, by allowing corporations to control personal lives, which the Hobby Lobby decision was all about; and for corporations to control all media, which is TV, talk radio, news paper, and  magazines, which was the objective of the citizens United decision these four “men” have destroyed America.

As an American, I despise these men. Worst of all I despise those Republicans who support what they are doing and warn all of the people that once the Court has done what it is doing, we will never be able to undo it. We need conservatives and liberals who are free to work their will, which is what a balanced government is, which is what our Constitution gave us. Freedom is like money, it is great to have it but you can spend it foolishly; however, once it is gone, it is gone forever. When the suite goes to the Supreme Court, the TNT blows up, Bugs Bunny is gone; “that’s all folks”.

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GROUNDS TO IMPEACH ERIC HOLDER

Trying to understand the Republican mind is sometimes difficult; why do they act the way do? This morning once again I heard Republicans are talking about impeaching Eric because he is fighting to make sure all Americans have “the right to vote”. The Attorneys General of the United States is fighting to insure that all Americans have the constitutional established right to vote: one-man one-vote. This is the most fundamental premise of our government. Colonial United States was the first place in the world that people collectively put governance in the hands of “all the people”; in other words, they acted selfishly to give the power to themselves. It was so incredible that this happened, it makes Democracy envy of all nations and the subject of book after book, history class after history class, and because it is so surprisingly contrary to innate individual human personality which, of course, makes it the subject of  psychology class after psychology class. The United States Constitution takes the power away from royalty; collections of individuals such as special groups; the economic elite, for example; as well as taking power out of the reach of dictators of every description including religious and military leaders, which are the banes of the third world countries as the Arab Spring shows. If this success of democracy were the case, and every finger points seems to at the veracity of it, why would a political party fight so hard to prevent the Attorneys General for doing his job in the fight to insure all people have the right to vote. On face value, it makes absolutely no sense.

The secret to understanding this political party mind-set seems to be in understanding what a ‘majority’ means in the minds of Republicans. According to the Constitution, in a free society, a majority is the majority of votes cast by those who “chose” freely to vote. To parliamentarians, therefore, the answer to the question is straightforward and only has to do with the mechanics of voting; a majority is the person or issue that receives the most votes cast by eligible voters. The vote tally that it takes to win is the majority of the number of people who legitimately voted. However, various societies corrupt this simple concept of a majority in a wide variety of ways, some of them very clever. If there are no specific by-laws, can leaders count absence ballots or not? Is a legitimate delegate or member of society involved in the votes by saying “here” or “present”, does simple attendance count as a vote; if it does, is it a yes or a no vote? Of course, this is all aside from stuffing ballot boxes, and other forms of illegal voting and counting votes. As a practical matter, the constitution allows all of this; the authors of the constitution wrote it is as a general document. If they didn’t, they would still be writing and we would not be a free society.

Therefore, what does the concept of “voting” and a “majority” mean in the context of

Republicans desire to impeach Eric Holder, the Attorneys General of the United States. How can they possibly see what they are doing as legitimate under the Constitution? It is apparent that they think it is “Constitutional” because they openly talk about it along with saying, what to the majority of us seem to be asinine things, such as they want to “take ‘our’ government back”. Back from what? Back from whom? We vote. We count the votes and abide by the results; the majority wins. How hard can it be to understand that?

To understand, one has to go to such primitive places as Republican controlled North Carolina, or in particular, others States that have a plantation background. They have passed laws in their state legislative bodies that they intended to restrict who can vote. Flip the question, who do they think can legitimately vote? These legislatures are legal entities; however, they have been fashioned these legislatures by gerrymandering voting districts, by the economic elite pouring big money into campaigns, by threatening elected officials to vote the way the moneyed interests want them to vote or they will be “primaried” and lose their jobs. My message is that the “majority in these legislatures” represents only the people “they” think can legitimately vote and excludes those they do not want to vote. The Republican majority, as fabricated as it is, voted to restrict voting and for Eric Holder to fight for voting rights is going against the will of the majority—he  should be impeached.

Therefore, what a Republican means when he or she says they want to “take back America”, they mean only people they think should vote should be the ones who make all the decisions. Down through the years, they tried to use poll taxes to restrict voting, they tried rewrite the Constitution to read that a black person a 2.3 citizen, they tired to make people cite the preamble of the Constitution to enable them to vote, they tried to restrict voting time, they tried to make undesirables use IDs they could not obtain, and many, many etceteras. Each time the majority of the American people rejected all their efforts.

The Republican effort to redefine democracy will fail; the Constitution says loud and clear, “all people are equal” even with the corrupted Supreme Court. The GOP can shame themselves all they want by trying to corrupt the constitution but they cannot change it—they cannot drag us back to the dark ages where they seem to want to be in their thinking.  

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BELIZE; LAND THAT I LOVE

This point of this post is that love should not be blind. At first, I was shocked at the Canadian Government’s negative travel advisory concerning travel to Belize. In addition, some of the negative comments about Belize on “places to retire” articles in various magazines and newspapers surprised me. Based on my personal experiences, I take exception to this sentiment. I have been in and out of that country for almost forty-years; in fact, I lived there for 20 of those years and take pride in being a naturalized citizen of that country. I saw a tremendous maturing of the people in their struggle to change a British colony into what is now, “a freestanding sovereign state”—many missteps along the way but Belizean’s can be proud of their successes. However, that does not mean there are no existing problems because there is.

One of the big problems has to do with growing violence in the gateway city, Belize City. If one looks at populations censes data there tends to be a bicameral distribution—the young and the old—caused by immigration of hard working, energetic young people to the Untied States, Canada, and Britain. Many young people leave their children, who make up the low end of the spectrum, when they leave they leave young brothers and sisters and their children with grand parents: visa are expensive and travel cost are high. In addition, the young people who have traveled from Belize to these countries many years ago but now, toward the end of the working life, have earned retirements and are returning “home”, which speaks to the positive attributes of beautiful Belize; the climate, the people, the government, the taxes, and many, many other things.

This is not a simple thing. It means that young people have received an education in Belize that allows them to compete for jobs with children in the host countries. In addition, some Belizean parents send their children to college in the host countries, with Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, and Jamaica colleges added to the list. Some of theses children decide not to return to Belize because of economic considerations; however, those who have returned are highly respected by the people for their substantially contribution to Belize. The healthcare industry is a prime example; there is no veterinary college, medial college, or dental college in Belize, which means every healthcare worker in the country, has a foreign education. This is no longer true of many professions with more and more Belizeans being educated in Belize: archeology, accounting, military, etc.

Another subtlety in the populations demographics caused by immigration is very negative. America especially, acts like a big sieve for Belizean young people. Many of the immigrants are black and move from a culture essentially without racism to one that has deep rooted biases. Belizeans proudly proclaim, rightly so, this melding of seven ethic groups that populate the country to be their “a rainbow coalition”. They are not prepared to handle that and fall into street gangs, for example, one drug gang arrest in New York resulted in over thirty Belizean young people being sent to trial and being deported back to Belize for drugs and other gang related activity. In other words, of all our young people who travel to the Untied States, the majority of Belizeans are good hard working educated people who stay but the U.S. government sends the “punks” back; these people are on the streets of Belize City: not so nice for Belize but great for the United States.

Against a background of a thriving tourist industry, Belize has encouraged immigration from the United States and Canada. In recent years, long after I came to Belize, They have established a “new” residency program. Tourist visit Belize, like what they see, and then are encouraged to return and stay. People without a criminal record and with provable incomes are welcomed to apply for permanent residency status with certain benefits. Obviously, the program target is retired people. Equally as obvious is that these people are older. One of the things the government does not tell the applicant is that once you reach 80 years of age no matter your health status, you can no longer legally drive. This new law “drove” me out of the country; my hobby ranch, a profitable sheep raising operation, was 11 miles out of town, which made driving a necessity.

Another bad thing about Belize is a small percentage of the people it attracts as immigrants are attracted because of the lack of law enforcement. It is an economic thing; a product of an “attractive” low tax rate. Until recently, the police did not have vehicles speed guns, or breath analyzers or any why to enforce traffic laws, for example. Although this is improving, the people I am talking about are attracted to Belize because they see this as the same thing as not having laws; you have all heard the refrain, “I want to live where there is no government and no regulations”.  Almost everyone but them knows that they are talking about themselves. They can violate the law, which exists, but if there is no to enforce the law, it does not apply to them because they can simply say it does not apply to them.

As a person who has visited a number of countries in my past, I am sensitive to the feeling that  I am American Citizen therefore my government will protect me from everything; I am better than anyone else and can do what I want. My first spontaneous riot in Panama City, Panama, made me realize that was not the case.  However, I still have a residue of that attitude and I see it in a number of people, both tourists and immigrants alike to various degrees, who come to Belize. Belizeans are just people like me. I found out that politicians are like all politicians. The civil are in Guatemala displaced many people some of whom came to Belize. Many small groups of them, joined by Belizeans entrepreneurs, started churches everywhere they can. The Belizeans own the churches; U. S. churches send them money to establish the church; therefore; the church is a low overhead, self-financing business and the collection plate is a hefty income for the owner. The problem is that they make so God damn much noise that you can hear them for miles; they have the right to worship anyway they please and God tell them they should  worship in a load voice. Belize has anti pollution laws that include noise pollution but politicians know that if they approved of law enforcement censoring a church for noised making that would be the end of their political career. This is not just Belize; it is a clear example of what the Supreme Court of the United States just erroneously ruled. Freedom to religion, or separation of church and State, is not the same as freedom to worship anyway you want. I could do nothing.

There is one more subtle thing wrong with Belize. In my opinion, the Untied States has a long way to go to catch up to Belize in attitude. When I was in Belize in 1981, the people would stop you on the street and ask you if you liked their new country. They are working hard to make it better. When is the last time you heard that in Washington D.C.; perhaps the Belizean people should not look at the Untied States as a modal?  

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SCOTUS CORRUPTS THE DEFINITION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

One of the things my mother taught me never to talk about with my barber is religion; however, I will have to find solace in the fact that you are not my barber. However, in my opinion, the corrupt #Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) #“Hobby Lobby” decision has forced me to address this sensitive subject. Religion is something unique to everyone, even those of us who call themselves Christians, Jews, or Muslims. If you do not believe this, ask a religious person, any religious person regardless of claimed church affiliation, to describe “their” heaven or their hell. Each description will be fashioned to fit that persons desires or interpretations of the most evil of all things, which are personal therefore unique. Of course, some atheists are immune from the dictates of religion except when they, for example, label themselves as Jewish atheist—obviously; a person cannot be such a thing.

Religion is very real. Humankind has fabricated religion around an ill-defined sense we all have of one or more superior beings. Different religions feel comfortable anthropomorphizing that spirit; others describe it only as an omnipresent, powerful spirit. Nevertheless, the sense of a superior being is like the taste of salt or the sense of hunger; we recognize it and allow it to guide us, but are not able to explain precisely why we have such a sense. We can give senses human attributes and even attribute emotions to them: the sense of hunger as evil the sense of affection is good.

Then the United States happened; the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution cleverly created a unique form of governance around built around secular laws. In a sense, they endorsed existing religious concepts of humankind to gain acceptance of these documents but were careful not to allow any religion to rule over another; they cleverly excluded religion dogma and doctrine from government. They created for the first time in the human history a government not based on hierarchy but one that centers on individual rights: one-man one-vote. At the same time, they made provisions for the innate peck order or hierarchy dominance by establishing the form of government they did: a House of Representatives for the people, a Congress for the economic elite, the Supreme Court for secular, and not “religious law”. We glibly, sometimes flippantly, describe this as “checks and balance”. When you think about it, the fusion of both religion propensities and biological innate propensities into our lives was truly a remarkable achievement. What is also obvious is that this created an extremely delicate balance; one false move and the delicate balance will disappear and we will return to the caliphate world; God picks the leader; whatever that means.

However, tragically, SCOTUS has now upset that balance. The bigger tragedy is that many, many people endorsed what they have done as the correct thing to do. These misguided approvals centers around one thing SCOTUS has done; the blatant corruption of the definition of religious freedom.

Religious freedom means anyone in the United States is free to worship the way the wish. Of course, there are constraints; they cannot do harm to others such disturb them with loud music, harm people such as nail them to a cross, or use cruel and unusual punishment for sins with the term ‘sins’ meaning anything some guy in a church decides is a sin. For example, they can not cut off a persons head or stone them to death for adultery, or chop off a hand for thievery but they can excommunicate them from their church, not allow women to become church leaders, etc. The most important thing is that they cannot force anyone to follow a specific religious dogma; religion has to be voluntary: that is what freedom of religion means.

With the Hobby Lobby decision, the Supreme Court has violated that fundamental premise, and they did it for political purposes. The ignorance of Speaker of the House #+John Boehner, RNC Chair #+Reince Priebus, talk radio host Glenn Beck, even no-count newspaper columnists such as +Ben Crystal and many other people are willing to sacrifice religious freedom for political gain; they are despicable. They are ignorant of what freedom to worship really means; the way you worship does not mean you can force others to follow your religious teaching. The religious driven prolife movement, which is the Victorian Age anti abortion, anti contraceptive method movement, has the same basis but the Supreme Court has not yet sanctioned that religious belief as secular law; but yesterday they opened the door. The Republican political operatives are tearing down our Democracy with the Citizens United decision and are about to set you in the front pew of “their church” and you still vote for them.     


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IMPEACH

I agree, it is time to use the “I” word again. We should impeach Roberts, Alito, and Scalia for being unAmerican

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SUPREME COURT ESTABLISHES BIBLICAL LAW

Once again, the Supreme Court of the United States, operating under the guise of being fundamental constitutionalism, has violated the promise of our Constitution. People who own corporations can impose their religious beliefs on you and your family, not just you but your family as well, if you are “their” employee—so much for separations of church and state. These corporations can now treat some people differently from others and can intrude into your most private moments. They have created a moral group, which violates our religious freedom; the very thing our constitutional guarantees will not happen.  This Court, corrupted by the Koch Brothers and other members of the economic elite because of a previous bad ruling made by the same court, has used that ruling to do what it was intended to do, which is to tear apart our democracy and create a plutocracy.

Obamacare is the law. The Congress of the United States passed the law and now SCOTUS says it does not apply to everyone. It is a truly a bad decision that misinterprets the meaning of religious freedom; people are not “free to force others to practice their religion”. That is not what religious freedom means. This decision is a bullet through the heart of our Constitution made possible by another one of their bad rulings, which made everyone a member of an “organized militia” thus has the right to carry arms.

The thing wrong with Sharia law is that under that form of law everyone has to follow, under the penalty of death, some cleric’s interpretation of the Koran. Now, the SCOTUS mandates that we have to follow what someone says the Bible tells him; that is biblical law. The new ruling makes no pretence of social control of any kind such the public electing them, only ones’ belief in the Bible. This is consistent with the Republican mantra of moral order, which means moral order is whatever the bible or Rev. Moon, or Billy Graham, or the Ayatollah Kumauni, or Joseph Smith, Jr. (Morman) says it is. It is also consistent with concept of moral groups. The constitution says we have religious freedom and we all belong to one group—the human race. It is OK for a Muslim to kill a Christian; it is OK of a protestant to hate a Catholic, or a Sunni to hate Shi′a. It is OK to tell impressionable children the only way they can get to heaven is to belong to “the” church—everyone else is going to hell or as they often say a lake of fire. A real family is composed of a dominant man with an obedient wife and children. In addition, it is morally wrong not punish a misbehaving child. To ratchet it up a notch, suicide bombing is OK for an Islamic terrorist on an airplane filled with people to advance his religion. Now, according to SCOTUS, your boss is the terrorist who controls your family life.

One question: are you sorry yet that you voted for a Republican?     


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AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE (AUMF)

Someday, we have to realize that human society has changed; like landscape amnesia, once we recognize the change we stand in wonder of why we did not recognize it sooner. Therefore, the undeniable and sweeping truth revealed in Friedman’s 2005 book, The World Is Flat, shocked people; technology has changed everything. Everyone had opinions but no one seemed to dismiss the basic logic of his argument. What was more startling was that no one seemed to have any idea of how to respond or even put his theory into day-to-day perspective over all cultural endeavors including the blatant negativity that we call war. His well-documented and systematic approach to our historical and geographical journey through time was economically and business oriented and not from a general cultural perspective.

Friedman treated the changes in technology in glowing terms of enhancing human collaboration but almost as an aside, he also expressed concern that terrorist networks could slow the flattening of the world. I do not think he fully appreciated the change technology represented in terms of the evolving changes in relationships between sovereign nations. The realpolitik of Henry Kissinger had died. General Patten standing in a tank turret was long outdated—Gen. Eisenhower and Adm. Hulsey supported by a massive Pentagon, with their massive armies and fleets under their “heroic leadership”, gloriously battling equal foes were essentially disappearing—however, there are still a few isolated and lingering exceptions.

Part of the “flat world” created by technology in “warfare” is the shift from massive million man armies to small clandestine, radical groups in isolated regions. Lethal weapons include such bizarre things as internet recipes for making lethal explosives in your kitchen to air missiles held by one person to his shoulder for sale on the international market or to how to make nuclear bombs. Governments counter by developing drones, explosive detectors, supersensitive radars, and x-ray to screen everyone who boards an airplane.

In the “good old days”, legislative bodies could debate and decide to negotiate after diplomatic efforts failed, an attack could be methodically organized that is fund and prepare an army to defend against a massive army. Our turtle like governments had time to organize a military draft to involve the nation’s people in a war. Everyone now knows that the congress of the United States congress cannot decide anything in less than years; even in emergencies, it takes months. The point is that it takes a long time to prepare a massive invasion; amass an army or navy, fund and activate a war industry, and prepare the people to support a war or otherwise defend themselves in contrast a terrorist can operate without warning.

We have played around with laws and treaty negotiations to correct this situation to mount a sudden attack but not with success. The “Authorization for the Use of Military Force” falls into that category. The 60-word resolution put together during a meeting;

“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

People are unhappy with the resolution, as they should be. However, all it really does was to allow the President of the United States to do what the Constitution authorized him as Commander in Chief to do. After the shock of 9/11 passed, Congress chose to call any aggressive military act as “an act of war”, which any president could only carried out after Congress declared war on a sovereign enemy; however, there is never a sovereign enemy in terror. Bush and Cheney needed a sovereign state to attack so they use a convenient neighborhood villain and attacked Iraq under the resolution. Advisors and the military industrial complex, religious interests, and multinational oil companies urged them on. Everything that could go wrong with that war went wrong; the American people became distrustful of the president and obviously did not want him to have war powers to start full-fledged wars as he had done.  

A drone attack was not “an invasion” nor was it an attack on a sovereign state it is not a full-fledged war. Most countries do not see drone attacks on individual terrorists as attacks of war. Most people see them as effective, although some chose to see them as violating human rights and demanded that the government bring terrorist to trial to prove they were terrorists—obviously impossible.

Of course, collateral damage, especially unintended deaths, were despicable but nothing compared to an act of war. Worst of all, the people did not trust the Republican president who clearly lied. When the people elected Democrat Obama, it was suddenly pay back time; if the American people hated Bush, the Republicans had to create hate for Obama anyway they could, which is where we are today. The resolution is not that bad but the Bush legacy is that we can never trust president again. The “expanding” tragedy is that we cannot trust congress either—they are bought and paid for by Koch brothers and other plutocrats due to a corrupt Supreme Court; the ultimate sellout to the military industrial complex: war for profit. We THE PEOPLE must debate this resolution in depth. 

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DISGUSTING CHRIS HAYES AND GLENN GREENWALD

All in with Chris Hayes, a program on MSNBC hosted #Glenn Greenwell as a guest. It was disgusting. Greenwald was there to grub out a few dollars selling books. What I found the most disgusting was an off-hand remark made by Greenwald to the nodding agreement of #Hayes; “When I started writing public polling indicated terrorism was number one on the most despised list, now it is our government.” He was bragging about contributing to the generation of hate for his own government. This is not responsible journalism!

For those who do not know, Glenn Greenwald is the reporter #Snowden came to with the information that he had access to government secrets but would not send the information unless Greenwald bought an installed a cheap encryption package on his computer, which he did; thus, incriminating himself in stealing government secrets. Greenwald received and published some of the secrets because under the first amendment he can. As a press reporter, he claims to have the right to yell fire in a theater even though others cannot. As a result of his criminal activity, Snowden fled the country with his computer that contained the information on their hard drives, first to China then to Russia but Greenwald stayed and continued to publish reports; making money big time.

The American people will never know how many people died or will die because of the damage he did to our information gathering apparatus. They have compromised both terrorists operations and international policy. We will never know if Putin knew how to avoid detecting his moves in Ukraine or into the Arctic for oil and a long list of etceteras. At a critical time in places like Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey, the information gathering ability of those who are trying to protect our country has been compromised and Hayes and Greenwald are bragging about weakening their own government.

They claim what they are doing is making our government stronger. They claim the First Amendment gives them the rights to do what they are doing—it does not! The Supreme Court, with their Citizens United decision, has clearly shown that misinterpretation of the Constitution can lead to the destruction of democracy and turn it into a plutocracy. The same is true with the Second Amendment, which has turned our country into a circular firing squad. Anthony Scalia of the Supreme Court is the equivalent of Nevada rancher Clevin Bundy. More and more the fundamentalists are destroying the intentions of the spirits of 1776, of that document.

Every one knows that corporate surveillance far exceeds anything our government is doing or ever has done. Everyone knows that we can vote a government official out of office if information is even slightly misused but can do nothing about a corporate CEO who misuses personal information in the most nefarious way every minute of every day. #Hayes and #Greenwald, also driven by greed, make corporations more powerful by making government weaker.  

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STATES RIGHT, SUPREME COURT, AND DRED SCOTT

What is there about states rights that contribute to equality? The answer is that there are many things, unfortunately there are many things that take away from that equality. Apparently, interstate commerce was one of the motivating reasons for states right inclusion in the Constitution. Much of our nation was devoted to agriculture and among those, a smaller numbers, saw the right to own slaves as no more than their right to farm as they saw fit; therefore, they saw it as an individual right. One of the quirks of our nation was that one region; the “deep south”, was more agriculturally oriented than the manufacturing and small business oriented north especially the northeast. With the westward expansion, so do agriculture; however, with mixed attitudes toward slavery. Every schoolchild should know this.  What they should also know that slavery was the issue that corrupted our democracy then and still corrupts it. In fact, it came close to preventing our democracy from forming once and from being maintained once.

Just as every schoolchild knows or should know our nations history, they should also know our political history as well but they do not seem to know it. The burden of slavery is heavy. At the time of the writing of the Constitution, there can be little question that the sentiment in the nation as a whole was against slavery. Even the people who wrote document were internally divided. The question remains; why did the Constitution declared, “All men are created equally”, and contained an attached Bill of Rights, but still allowed owning slaves. The answer is that our ancestors allowed states Rights to trump human rights for the sake of forming the federations of states. It was only partly a numbers game; the “number” of people voting verses the “number” of states voting—one state one vote, which was the result of a devious game of politics.  

Our Supreme Court is playing the same game and sadly, the reason they are doing it is still the same, only a minority of players have successfully modified that reason beyond easy recognition by a majority. Part of the human “condition” is hierarchy dominance; a well-conserved genetically embedded trait common to all biota, which even mindless creature know. We live with the continuous struggle for hierarchy dominance because it is how we survive in all levels of societies. People seeking power do not pay much attention to the actual creation or maintenance of a poor class or class of virtual slaves—even sensitized as we are by our shameful history of slavery—because popular attention focuses more on creating a plutocracy, the exact opposite end of the scale: Citizen United and McCutcheon decisions.

However, that legacy behooves us to look more closely at what this Court is doing with States Rights; it is unconstitutional, it is changing our course away from the direction of equality. It is right and proper for the good citizens of this country to be concerned with #Roberts, #Alito, #Scalia, and #Thomas conserving States Rights to justify discrimination and calling themselves strict constructionist. At one time in the darkest days of  history of this nation, a slave was counted as 2/3 of a person, now in many situations they, along with a number of poor white people, cannot vote at all; therefore, they have lost their person-hood just as justice Rodger Taney’s 1857 Supreme Count Dred Scott ruling said they should.  

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CALL FOR GINSBERG'S RESIGNATION

The North Carolina political situation is in turmoil. Thanks to the Republican instilled government, the state government is in complete chaos, taxes are sky rocketing, utility cost for homeowners and workers are going through the roof, the public school system is trashed. This is what Art Pope bought and paid for.  So what is on the horizon?  

“The Kochs’ $8.2 million has completely erased Democrat Kay Hagan’s 15 point lead -- she is now tied with or trailing every single Republican challenger in North Carolina, which Nate Silver projects is the “tipping point in the Senate battle.””

The Supreme Court Citizens United Decision has destroyed democracy in our country, and North Carolina is a case in point. Justice Samuel Alito when he mouthed “Not true” during Obama’s State of the Union messages has proved him a liar of the worst kind. Ruth Bader Ginsberg can be the tipping point that could topple our country. This is a call for her resignation while Obama is still president, for obvious reasons.   

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GOP LIE EXPOSED BY SEN. WICKER AND NICOLE WALLACE

This morning on #Morning Joe (MSNBC) was as good as it gets; Joe wasn’t there interrupting everyone so they got to say what they were thinking. That is not to say I agree with what they were saying it is just that they were able to say it. Guest #Sen. Rodgers Wicker of Mississippi and political pundit #Nicole Wallace were falling all over each other condemning #President Obama on the anniversary of the $800-billion dollar stimulus. In the sense that what they were saying is so counter to the facts, it was sad. The stimulus is a failure and Obamacare is a failure. There were 1.6 million jobs added per years and several times the Congressional Budget Office has offered evidence that Obamacare is working even better than expect. The sad truth is that for me, as a liberal, neither program went far enough.

It was at this point that Nicole Wallace was caught up in her lie. She said something like, the Republicans did not have an input; her proof is that the stimulus package received only three Republican votes; therefore it was not bipartisan, therefore it is not good. The theme between these two political operatives was based on that implied lie; any Obama legislation is not bipartisan therefore not good; therefore, Obama is a failed president because he did not work with Republicans. Some one on the show shattered their argument with one simple statement; the truth is that the Republican Party, by fiat decided to vote against everything; not just the stimulus, not just the Affordable Care Act, not just immigration, not just jobs bill, not just food stamp, but everything! They had the objective to bring the country to its knees by obstructionism. They did not work with Obama, not the other way around.

I have thought long and hard about the bigger question, why they were doing this. My conclusion is that they wanted to prevent Democratic Obama from having a successful presidency. If they could make things bad enough, the people would elect even a Republican. As the president’s domestic agenda and foreign policy successes started to pile up, Republicans became more and more aggressive in their objection; the more he succeeded the more they objected. The more success the more they tried to create false scandals; Benghazi, IRS, Obamacare, etc. I posted this belief in a blog on Feb. 3, 2014 on this web page, Republicans Hate Obama’s Successes. However, it was never made clearer than it was this AM by Sen. Rodger Wickers and Nicole Wallace. I thank them for forcefully making my point.  

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SHIFT IN DIALOGUE FROM VOTERS TO DONORS

Have you noticed that since the corrupt Robert’s Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision, there has been a shift in political discourse? Politicians and people in the media, in past have talked about what “the voters” will think or what they will do about this or that. I may be hearing wrong, but it sounds to me as if they now refer what “donor” will think or do or think and not the voters. I keep saying that until we overturn that horrible decision or impeach Associate Justices Scalia, Thomas,  and Alito, our democracy is in danger and I feel this shift in rhetoric is an indication of why.

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SOTOMAYOR SCREWS UP BIG TIME

This morning on Steve Kornacki’s, show UP on MSNBC, one of his guests made a great point about the Justice Sotomayor ruling about the power employers have over employees—she issued a stay order. The ruling had to do with the right of Catholic nuns to be exempt from paying for birth control. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) most health insurance plans are required to cover FDA approved contraceptives. Logically, it is part of the women’s preventive care.  Churches and houses of worship are exempt from the birth control requirement. The problem arises from the expression “some religions affiliated organization” including charitable organizations, universities, and hospitals.  Do these organizations have the right to “mandate” the type of insurance plans the employees have?  The law says that institutions that serve the general public are not exempt.

The Sotomayor stay order is feeding red meat to conservatives that do not want people to have affordable health care. It open up the tired old argument used by people like Rand Paul, “if you own it you control it”. Remember the lunch counter statements where Senator Paul famously declared the lunch counter owner could serve who he wants—black, white, or whoever.  It gave rise to a flood of conservative rhetoric of hate; Obama is forcing the Little Sisters of the poor to buy contraception. They will bombard the courts with case after case trying to exempt employees of every religious affiliated organization from the Affordable Care Act. I was thinking that the conservative argument as being so weak that it is ludicrous, like Larry the Cable Guy, the comedian, might look it then I realized that he probably has the same basic beliefs as Phil Robertson and would probably believe it. They do this knowing that they will lose but it provides them with a bully pulpit provided by the radical media: Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc. The tragedy is that the Duck Dynastic types, including some congressional representatives, believe this because that is all they listen to therefore that is all they know. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor screws up big time. Clever people like Karl Rove will use her stay order to influence weak-minded Republicans and that is not funny.

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SOTOMAYOR RIDICULED FOR HER RULING

Left leaning Supreme Court Justice screws up. The first Hispanic justice and third female justice Sonia Sotomayor makes a huge mistake. Clearly, the Constitution separates religion and politics. Legislators write the laws of this nation so that religion does not impinge on their interpretation. Lawmakers write the laws so that every religious sect is free to interpret the laws as they see fit.  While it is true that the Bush administration distorted this reading of the constitution with their faith-based initiatives, it means in its simplest form that there is a separation of church and state. We now have a law that says contraception is covered by every insurance policy under the Affordable Care Act. If catholic nuns want to be covered, they are. The furor over the Sotomayor ruling that exempts nuns from contraception coverage reminded me of what happened with the vaccination of children against human genital human papillomavirus in the often-crazy Texas political theater. The uneducated (religious private schools) parents interpreted that to mean that once 10 and 11 year old girls were vaccinated that gave them permission to be sexually active, or worse yet, somehow forces them to be sexually active. Just because we have a law that says, insurance covers the cost for nuns to buy contraception, does not mean that they have to or will use it.  It is like saying children in families covered by ACA insurance policies should be exempt from paying for contraceptives coverage for their children.

How a highly educations Justice of the Supreme Court could have been duped by Republican rhetoric into making this stupid ruling is surprising but then, in the past, five justices rules in favor of the Citizens United case that is destroying the our democracy and that court made George Bush President with disastrous result. What is surprising is that she is supposed to be left leaning and know better than open herself up to attack by her own kind.   

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