PS to Renisha McBride Story - the Real Guilty Men

“Detroit-based activists and community members gathered in front of the police station of nearby suburb Dearborn Heights Thursday evening”

With all the discussion of "Stand Your Ground" laws, which now rule in 30 of these United States, let us not forget that these laws have been strongly promoted by the rich, powerful and secretive A.L.E.C. - the American Legislative Exchange Council (see my earlier posts on A.L.E.C., such as "The Only Way Republicans Can Stay In Congress...").

A.L.E.C. is strongly backed by the Koch Brothers, David and Charles, both in their seventies, two smugly smiling gentlemen whose family corporation, Koch Industries, has estimated annual revenues of 100 billion dollars (Wikipedia article here).

Here's a 2010 article from the "New Yorker" - what could be more respectable? - on "The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama."

And a hard-hitting video from the redoubtable Robert Greenwald, "Koch Brothers Exposed" - here at its full one-hour length -

The Only Way Republicans Can Stay In Congress...

... is by blanketing the airwaves with their paranoid, militarist, racist - quoting Winston Churchill's immortal phrase - "terminological inexactitudes".

To do that they need huge amounts of cash.  And they would dearly love to have all limits taken off their ability to receive these bribes - which is what they are.

Why are they bribes?  Because the rich - should we call them people; are they actual humans like the rest of us? - persons who pay these dues to "conservative" politicians, know full well that what they are buying is the right to have the laws passed that suit them - see my earlier posts about A.L.E.C., the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Now the Supreme Court is going to rule on a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.  (I mentioned this case a month ago, in Goddammit, What Did I Just Say?, and pointed out that "Judging by the Supremes' unconscionable decision in Citizens United, we may have a problem, Houston.") The hearing on McCutcheon was this past Tuesday.

A group called SierraRise is calling on us to raise our voices against this travesty of a case that should never have been filed, let alone taken seriously by the Supreme Court.

They say, "This is pretty crazy: There's a Big Coal CEO demanding the right to donate as much as he wants in an election cycle."

The message continues, ending in a Petition for your signature - 

"The CEO's name is Shaun McCutcheon. His case would end campaign finance law as we know it -- and the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, is on board, eager for all that coal cash. ^[3] If they get their way, corporate polluters will be able to buy more politicians and elections than ever before, launching a brutal assault on all the environmental progress we've made together.

But there is good news: Several leaders in Congress are standing up and fighting back. These lawmakers are pushing for major reforms that would reduce the amount of dirty money in politics -- and with the Supreme Court considering the McCutcheon case, that work has never been more important.

Will you take 30 seconds right now to push back against billionaire polluters? Let campaign finance reform champions know that we're 100% behind fair elections!

McCutcheon's Supreme Court case, which the justices are considering right now, is just the beginning -- imagine a system where billionaires could just keep giving and giving. As the U.S. solicitor general told the Court, take away those limits and "Less than 500 people can fund the whole shooting match. The government will be run of, by, and for those 500 people." ^[4] These are the people trying to replace our democracy with their dollars, and our health and climate with their profit. We must stop them in their tracks.

McCutcheon is the CEO of Coalmont Electrical Development in Alabama. He filed his lawsuit with the Republican National Committee, and Senator McConnell jumped at the chance to join them. McConnell, who's up for re-election, is one of the biggest coal champions in the country, and he couldn't be more excited to take all that dirty money -- even sending his lawyers to join McCutcheon at the Supreme Court.

Environmental champion Senator Bernie Sanders took a different approach outside the Court that day, and told it like it is: "Freedom of speech, in my view, does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government." ^[5]

We can turn the tide. Our allies on this in Congress, known as the DARE task force, want to "disclose, amend, reform and elect." ^[6] They're fighting for several critical changes: overturn Citizens United, provide more public campaign financing by matching small donors, block efforts to stop Americans from voting, and require donor disclosure for political front groups like those run by Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers.

Tell the DARE task force to keep at it -- let's send them a petition with 60,000 names so they'll know we've got their backs!

In it together,

Nathan Empsall
SierraRise Senior Campaigner

P.S. Five signatures are even more powerful than one -- after you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends, family, and colleagues!
"

Bernie Sanders, Truth-Teller, on the Koch Bros and Paul Ryan's Blackmail

For your Sunday Morning delight - some straight talking about what's happening in Washington: excellent commentary from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -

On the 12th day of a government shutdown, Senate Republicans on Saturday made the crisis worse by blocking a measure to raise the debt limit so the country can pay its bills. Within days, the Treasury Department expects the government will run out of borrowing authority and default. One of the immediate impacts could be a significant increase in interest rates on mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other debts owed by ordinary Americans. Yesterday, the Republicans were demanding that in order to reopen the government and pay our debts the Affordable Care Act had to be repealed. Today, they are demanding concessions on Social Security, Medicare and other programs. The leader of this gambit is House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, the 2012 candidate for vice president who ran on a ticket that lost by 5 million votes. “It is imperative that Republicans stop holding the American people hostage and let us reopen the government and pay our bills. Frankly, given the enormous problems facing this country, it is beyond belief that we have wasted weeks debating whether, for the first time in our history, the largest economy in the world should default and plunge the world into a severe financial crisis,” Bernie said.

VIDEO here

Bernie Sanders' website, with more informative Videos, is here.

AND it links to a Report from the Reuters News Agency - "Richest 1 Percent Hold 46 Percent Of The World's Wealth" - which you can read here.

How To End The Shut-Down

I trust I get credit for resisting writing about about the Damn Shut-Down - so far.

But now, when even the Koch Brothers, who funded the whole thing, are running from their brain-child (see The Guardian here) we have the exit route in front of us.

Daily Kos Campaigns invite us to Petition Our Elected Representatives for Redress of Grievances, thus -

"House Republicans shut down the government and there’s no end in sight. John Boehner is too scared of the Tea Party extremists in his own party to bring a funding bill up for a vote—even though there are more than enough Democrats and moderate Republicans to pass one.

But House Democrats just found a way to get around Boehner.
Democrats can force a vote on a clean funding bill and reopen the government if 218 representatives sign a “discharge petition.” With 200 Democrats on board, we only need 18 Republicans to sign on and cut John Boehner’s legs out from under him—and 21 House Republicans are already on the record saying they’d vote for a clean funding bill.
It’s time for these Republicans to act.

Join Daily Kos, Democracy for America and Campaign for America's Future by telling House Republicans: Sign the discharge petition and end this shutdown now.

Petition Text

Our Message to House Republicans

To House Republicans:
The government shutdown has been train wreck for the American people. Vital services have been shut off and 800,000 working people furloughed at a time when the economy is still weak.

It’s time to end this shutdown. Join House Democrats and sign the discharge petition to bring a clean funding bill up for a vote."

You can sign the Petition here.