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Saturday, September 15, 2012

The 1% Court


Bush vs. Gore 2000 ~ the court elects a president.

Citizens vs FEC 2010 ~ Corporations are people.

Arizona’s Free Enterprise Clubs Freedom PAC vs. Bennett ~ The conservative majority concluded that the availability of increased public funding deterred speech because it discouraged candidates from spending more than the publicly funded candidate.

WALMART V. DUKES (2011) ~ The Court held unanimously that an employment discrimination suit against Walmart could not be brought as a class action on behalf of 1.6 million women across the country.

AT&T MOBILITY, LLC V. CONCEPCION(2011) ~ bilked by a misleading ad that said cases had to be settled by arbitration (illegal in California State Law) overturned by the Court saying Federal law had precedent. What your cell phone contract. Or, corporations can escape the responsibilities.

JANUS CAPITAL GROUP, INC. V. FIRST DERIVATIVE TRADERS (2011) ~ a Janus investment fund mislead its buyers but got away with it.

ASHCROFT V. IQBAL (2009) ~ five conservative Justices rejected decades of precedent to rewrite the requirements for pleading a case, jeopardizing the ability of individuals to challenge the conduct of the government, employers and others in court. Prior to the decision, in order to launch a lawsuit, plaintiffs were required only to present a short and plain description of their claims that provided fair notice to the defendant. Now the Court shifted the burden to the plaintiff to produce sufficient facts to make the claim plausible and judges were given broad discretion to dismiss cases that failed this standard.

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS V. SIBELIUS(2012) ~ The Court upheld most provisions of the Affordable Care Act, but five conservative Justices planted the seeds of new restrictions on the ability of Congress to address major social needs. This position is a radical break with seventy-five years of precedent giving Congress broad power through the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The position of the conservatives threatens to curtail the ability of Congress to enact legislation in areas ranging from civil rights to social welfare.

See Bill Moyers blog

9 comments:

  1. "Bush vs. Gore 2000 ~ the court elects a president."

    No, that is a fringe myth, just like the belief that Obama was born in Kenya.

    Bush won in 2000 the exact same way those before (and the one after) did: he won enough of the popular vote in enough states to get the electoral college victory. The Supreme Court did nothing more than stop an effort to overturn the people's vote.... which set it right back to how it usually worked.

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    And yes, I oppose the Citizens United "corporations are people" part, while I support the part that got rid of the censorship.

    I know some would-be jackbooted thugs like Moyers, who is consistently in favor of moving toward fascism and strongly opposes our basic civil liberties, believe this is bad and a tight regime of censorship should be imposed by America's ruling elites.

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    WALMART V. DUKES (2011)?

    This one was frivolous. It was actually on behalf of a few claimants. The attorneys lied in court and attempted to get over a million women who had no complaint at all attached to the case. But truth prevailed.

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  2. Bill Moyers, a jackbooted thug? ..a bit of a stretch, IMO.
    "Court did nothing more than stop an effort to overturn the people's vote.... which set it right back to how it usually worked." Along those lines, we note 'Coleman vs Franken-
    the court elects a senator...stopping an effort to overturn
    the people of Minnesota's vote.

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    Replies
    1. A would-be thug, not an actual one. Referring to Moyers' consistently favoring the interests of the rulers over those of the ruled. His favoring of censoring those who criticize our ruling elites would make him get along well in North Korea.

      He is also a welfare queen: getting rich off of taxpayer money, and is a mouthpiece of the ruling class as part of the government's official approved TV news agency.

      Gore would have won in Florida if the counters had done what Gore wanted: count ballots with no votes on them as votes for Gore.

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  3. "The position of the conservatives threatens to curtail the ability of Congress to enact legislation in areas ranging from civil rights to social welfare."

    The opposite is true actually. The Congressional interpretations of the Commerce Clause, especially in regards to Obamacare, damage our rights and social welfare.

    The conservative position that Congress should not bully the people in this regard is a noble one.

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  4. Perhaps 'Citizens United' will be successfull in increasing democracy: if vigilant and informed voters consider who and how much $$ is poured into a campaign. For example, if
    big corporations, independent billionaires, Chamber, etc really desire something...we can expect desultory results for the average American...or, if we study history closely,
    we might be startled to see the ominous rearing of the system known as feudalism. Yep, it may be successful...

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  5. Nah. Having more free speech does not increase "feudalism".

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  6. "The opposite is true actually. The Congressional interpretations of the Commerce Clause, especially in regards to Obamacare, damage our rights and social welfare."
    ...and we note, the 'citizens united' SCOTUS legal gurus
    OK'd obamacare. If they can piss off the right and the left, they must be slightly unbiased...

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. In matters of constitutional law, I defer to the experts. The 'restore the first Amendment' SCOTUS you refer to has merely sent this issue back to the legislative arena.

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