Today's Interesting Links, 11/21/13

Harry Reid and the Dimmocratic leaders have finally, as Jon Stewart would say, grown a pair!  They can now put reasonable judges on benches with 51 votes in the Senate.

What a concept!  (I believe it's called er..... democracy?)

(The mechanism in question was a party-line vote to change the rule on the filibuster.)

Of course it doesn't apply to that running sore on our society known as the Supreme Court, busy as we speak on their task of selling off more of our election process in 
McCutcheon v. FEC.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren on the growing Social Security crisis:

"A generation ago, middle class families could put away enough money during their working years to make it through their later years with dignity. But since that time, the retirement landscape has shifted dramatically against our families.

A third of working families on the verge of retirement have no savings of any kind. Another third have total savings less than their annual income. Just as people need to rely more than ever on pensions, employers have replaced guaranteed retirement income with 401(k) plans that leave retirees at the mercy of the market. And 44 million workers don't even have access to that sort of plan.

Add all of this up, and we're left with a retirement crisis – a crisis that is as real and as frightening as any policy problem facing the United States today.

Social Security is incredibly effective, it is incredibly popular, and the calls for strengthening it are growing louder every day. Will you join our national pledge to protect Social Security?"

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!
"

Goddammit, What Did I Just Say?

No sooner have I finished a Post about the need for the 99% to have a say in Washington - and the Democrats to pay attention to that need - than I open an e-mail about the case coming up in the Supreme Court next week, McCutcheon v. FEC.

USAction tell us that "The outcome of this case will determine if a "super limit" of $117,000 on large donors will remain the law of the land".

"The impact of this case is huge. Right now, only four out of one million Americans neared or reached the aggregate contribution limit of $117,000 in 2012.¹ But if the FEC loses this case, elite donors will be able to give as much money to influence elections as they want."

Judging by the Supremes' unconscionable decision in Citizens United, we may have a problem, Houston.

The e-mail continues:  "Unfortunately we can't decide for the Supreme Court. But we can work together to pass meaningful campaign finance reform laws. So starting today, USAction and Public Campaign Action Fund are running ads in Kentucky against Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) -- who has been a leading advocate for unlimited campaign contributions.

Click here to view our ad that will be hitting the airwaves of Kentucky today. Then tell Sen. McConnell to stand up for everyday people, not for big campaign donors.

Americans already believe their elected representatives are more responsive to their big donors than voters. But if the Supreme Court strikes down super limits next spring, this will only get worse.

America was founded on the idea of government for the people, by the people. But this idea has been eroded over time by big moneyed interests buying off our politicians -- in the form of political donations -- in order to get the policies they want.

We need real, meaningful campaign finance laws. And we need them yesterday. But right now, we must defend super limits, one of the few remaining protections our Democracy has left.

Watch our video against Mitch McConnell now. Then, tell Sen. McConnell to stop fighting to weaken campaign finance laws.

Together, we can create the Democracy our Founding Fathers envisioned and which the American people deserve."

 Go for it, Citoyens!

UPDATE to "Overthrowing Citizens United: Progress!"

In addition to the material below, People For the American Way tell us that there's a Ballot Initiative in progress right here:  "in California, where we've already achieved a major victory in the legislature, an effort to get a referendum on the 2014 ballot supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United JUST launched -- think of the incredibly powerful message it will send if we can get voters in a state of 40 million people to overwhelmingly approve this measure directly!"

They're also "... working with a coalition of state groups and state legislators to draft an advisory referendum to push back on Citizens United in Wisconsin and are engaged in similar efforts in Minnesota..."

Of course, PFAW need money;  you can donate here:   https://secure.pfaw.org/site/Donation2?3446.donation=form1&idb=349402178&df_id=3446&autologin=true


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People For the American Way report that

• 12 states have passed legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, including West Virginia just last week...and we're working on getting it passed in New Hampshire, Washington State and Nevada this session...
• We're helping to build grassroots and "grass tops" support in more states, like Delaware, where we've helped organize support for a sign-on letter from state legislators to the congressional delegation, and Wisconsin, where we're building support with a statewide petition effort...
• More than 500 local resolutions have passed, including one we recently helped get passed by referendum in the New Hampshire Senate Majority Leader's district, in part to increase pressure on him to move the state bill...

Happy to say that here in Ventura, California, our Board of Supervisors passed a Resolution calling for a Constitutional Amendment.

As they so accurately say,

"The Supreme Court's disastrous 5-4 decision in 2010's Citizens United v. FEC made the longstanding problem of big money in politics exponentially worse, opening the floodgates for unlimited spending by Super PACs, corporate special interests and billionaire right-wing ideologues in America's elections. It's getting worse with each cycle, but PFAW is mobilizing Americans in every corner of this country to build the support we'll need to amend the Constitution and undo Citizens United."

You can check out PFAW and their issues here.

Challenging Monsanto, #2

I just found a cool link to the "Indiana Farmer vs Monsanto" case, in The Atlantic, written by Andrew Cohen, a contributing editor at The Atlantic and legal analyst for 60 Minutes. 

The story takes the form of a speculation on "What Would Woody Guthrie Think?"

Read on:  http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/monsantos-supreme-court-seed-fight-what-would-woody-guthrie-think/266072/

American Hero stands up to Monsanto

An Indiana farmer is taking Monsanto all the way to the Supreme Court over their genetically modified FrankenSeeds....

Thanks to my partner, Robin, for contributing this.  The report is from the New York Times Business Section, so it's pretty loaded towards the Monsanto spin on the issue, but at least it gets the case out to the public - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/16/business/supreme-court-to-hear-monsanto-seed-patent-case.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&

If anyone has less business-slanted stories on this case, I'd be glad to hear about them - thanks!