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Free speech is a Constitutionally protected right of American citizens. Nevertheless, to equate money with speech is to make Orwell's "Animal Farm" a reality: "All men are created equal, but some are more equal than others." The perverse equating of money with speech is compounded by the concept of corporate personhood.

In addition, there is significant evidence supporting Putin's scheme to undermine democracy by having Russian oligarchs pumping money into the political systems of Western democracies. They give millions to such organizations such as the NRA, which in turn funnels it into the GOP. Is it any wonder why Republicans are opposed to Campaign Finance Reform? Why bite the hand that is feeding you?

Remember when the cry of the right was "activist Supreme Court". It was just the same deception a pick-pocket uses as he removes your wrist watch.

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I have followed you for over 12 years, and have also read many books in the past dozen years revealing to me how flawed America has always been.

In this essay, you have clarified exactly why now is even MORE dangerous than the last time the morbidly wealthy had this much power, just before the Great Depression.

-This time, we have the 1976, 1978, and 2010 Supreme Court decisions as additional deterrents, as we fight the same crescendo of immorality allied with authoritarianism as we fought beginning in the 1930s.

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#Thom ... I don't think I can empathize enough how Ur ability to research DEEP into the #Legal-root(s) of our current dilemma(s) has placed a giant beacon on our hill at least as great as the "Colossus" that once illuminated the harbor of #Alexandria, our ancient world's then center of instruction, wisdom, knowledge, and repository of commercial transactions as well as a "safe harbor" from the barbarian "bearded ones" of dogma, repression, corruption, and cruelty. "Shine on you 'crazy diamond'!" ~ Floyd the "Pink"

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I would absolutely love it if the new congress could cripple the Supreme Court decisions that have led to this unholy mess. If we can just hold onto our majority in the House, perhaps add a few more to it, and then (This is the big one!) hang onto all 14 of our Senate seats and take 12 of theirs. Then we can clean up this whole mess, including an end to the filibuster. Of course, it might mean building a whole lot of new prisons - and a much bigger budget for the DOJ.

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A big cry of alarm Republicans have raised against the left is the progressive intention to "redistribute wealth." Hell, yeah! You don't need no Karl Marx to see the need for that!

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The Republicans insist on voter ID. They have and will scrutinize every move made during the counting of the vote. They demand transparency on both accounts, but do they want it for the money injected into an election? OH, HELL NO! Any entity, foreign or domestic, can feel free to inject whatever they want into OUR American elections. What does that money buy? All the lies and propaganda their dear leaders can disseminate, especially The Big Lie.

At the hearing titled "Threats Against Election Officials" on 8/3/22, Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Dick Durbin rhetorically asked why the Republicans won't address threats to county clerks and election officials, "Because it means saying the big lie IS a lie.".

Shame on them and the stupid Supreme Court judges that concocted the idea that money is speech/corporations are people! Stupid is a word I normally use for an idea or action, not a person, but if the ruling fits, wear it!

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Great article. I'd add one thing. Money laundering and storing is a major and time honored crime, probably invented the day after money was invented, along with lawyers and politicians (lawyers with their ethics removed). Dirty money must be laundered, and the laundry regularly moves as Interpol catches up. We all know of Switzerland and the Caymans, but Singapore, Andorra, and many other countries have laundered money at times. Today, the USA is the main money laundering country.

Won't Americans be surprised when they wake up one morning and Putin is gone, only to be reported hanging around Sturgis.

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I have a quick and easy solution that I think the NaziRepublican politicians would also support, because it would eliminate center-right courts from creating laws out of thin air just like it would stop far right extremist courts. The truth is we'd be far better off if the center-right Warren Court hadn't established that states could limit women's rights with Roe. Now the states are limiting Roe and the corrupt Roberts SCOTUS has the Warren's decision to support the outrageous concept that individual states can limit women's rights. Next could be blacks or gays or white men with freckles.

Think of the decisions you really liked. OK, I don't remember either, but you can google "unanimous supreme court decisions". I agree with most of the unanimous decisions.

The corrupt Roberts court is known for horrendously unconstitutional decisions, but they are also pumping out unanimous decisions left and right, which we don't hear about because - we agree - thus no "what-aboutism" or dissent to sell drugs, soap and SUVs, thus no media coverage.

The corrupt Roberts court is intentionally selecting ridiculous cases to achieve unanimity and create a talking point, (what do you mean we are biased, 90% of our decisions are unanimous).

Well, let's agree with Roberts and propose a bill that requires ALL SCOTUS decisions be unanimous. Then let's make SCOTUS decisions - which SHOULD be restricted to the actual case they are deciding, purely advisory. Anything they unanimously reject goes to the US congress for review and updating, or they can say "let it ride".

Even better, let's replace the US congress with a polling agency that makes sure all Americans are asked what THEY want, and create our laws that way. We can keep Congress, just make all the jobs civil service tests and advisory to us, for when we vote to decide. If we eliminate the politics from Congress, that gives them 200 times as much free time to do what we need done.

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Wow, great article. I'll support it with real history. My first job (at 15) was working in a grocery store in the worst part of town. While the neighborhood was indeed crap, the residents were super, really nice people. I ended moving there when my dad kicked me out at 16 for being progressive. OK, lots of petty theft, but also lots of love.

I learned about poverty, organized crime, and cops there. Interestingly, the local criminal was 100% positive for the neighborhood. He was the #1 employer, and owned the cops, who he wouldn't allow to abuse the residents.

Anyway, we had several customers who lived in abandoned buildings. One man used to buy 50 lb bags of Purina dry dog food with money from recycling soda bottles people had tossed - remember glass soda bottles? Dumb 16 year old me said to the head clerk "That poor man must really love his dog to spend so much on dog food" She replied "He doesn't own a dog". Oh.

An old, old lady used to come daily, and she just barely hobbled to the store. She had very little money, and no teeth. She would always bring a clean spoon and a paper towel. She'd eat baby food on the spot, then carefully clean and stack the empty jars, then buy one jar to take home for the other 23 1/2 hours of the day. We'd make a PA announcement "AL, please call the office" to warn all the employees to stay away from the baby food Aisle, AL meant "Ancient Lady", nobody worked there named Al.

All of the managers approved. The owner of the chain of store always told us that food was critical, it was our duty to do whatever we could to help people. He was death on theft for profit, but approved anything we donated to the needy.

So were we lying? Yes. Was the old lady stealing? Yes. Well, no way in H that I'm going to turn her in, I literally could not do it. Nobody else could.

Yep, the real problem is people not understanding that laws apply to everyone. However, I think they understand just fine.

Having the cops work made the neighborhood a whole lot safer.

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