Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling, the Corporate takeover of our government is complete and Karl Rove can now openly solicit massive contributions to his cause of getting his pudgy fingers on the neck of power in the name of our big-moneyed “betters.”

From Rawstory :
By David Edwards

A recent Supreme Court decision hailed by Republicans but condemned by most Democrats may be helping to stuff the coffers of conservative political groups founded by Karl Rove.

President George W. Bush’s former senior adviser admitted to Fox News Tuesday that his American Crossroads 527 and Crossroads GPS groups have benefited from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

The Republican National Committee actually lost money in 2009 but Rove doesn’t think his groups are part of the problem. The party ended the year with $10 million fewer dollars than at the start of the year.
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Independence Day is bittersweet for anyone with a brain and a knowledge of history, knowing that our Founding Fathers – true students of the Liberal Age of Enlightenment – handed us a system of government “of, by and FOR We The People” not seen since the time of the Romans and, in spite of their warnings, we allowed big-moneyed interests to turn it into a Plutonomy mired in endless wars.

Since recorded history, the philosophy of self-governance was an aberration. Societies were structured hierarchically with hereditary rule by the rich in partnership with religious institutions promising the underclass rewards in the afterlife.

Our Founders were also well aware of the dangers of having a standing Army. Elbridge Gerry, our fifth Vice President under James Madisan  vocalized a common sentiment when he damned standing armies as “the bane of liberty” during Congressional Convention debate in 1789.

At the Virginia convention to ratify the Constitution in 1788, Patrick Henry denounced standing armies because they “execute the execrable commands of tyranny.”

James Madison said, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . .

Thomas Jefferson was aware that so-called “voluntary” armies needed a “pauper class” for their existence. Jefferson largely away with America’s standing army by the end of his Presidency. He was so proud of his accomplishment in the defense of true liberty that he wrote to his friend Dr. Thomas Cooper and said, “our men are so happy at home that they will not hire themselves to be shot at for a shilling a day. Hence we can have no standing armies for defense, because we have no paupers to furnish the materials.”

Our Founders are surely rolling in their graves to see what we have become.. a militaristic, nationalistic, dying empire, with the largest disparity between rich and poor and the least upwardly mobile of all the industrialized nations.

Patrick Henry noted, “We have heard that there is a great deal of bribery practiced in the House of Commons of England, and that many of the members raise themselves to preferments by selling the rights of the whole of the people.” Surely he would be appalled to know of the millions of dollars greasing the hands of today’s so-called representatives and the corrupting influence of money in politics – especially now in the light of the Citizen’s United Supreme Court ruling that allows unlimited corporate monies into our system.

While Millions of Americans remain unemployed and cut off by Republican obstruction from life-sustaining benefits and all branches of the military meet and exceed their recruitment goals, it’s clear that the Republican war against the middle class has turned “The Land of the Free” into “The United States of Serfs and Lords.”

U.S. House Representative Dennis Kucinich gave spoke to our endless military adventures and their damage to our economy and our liberty….
Here is the transcript…
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Conservative columnist and future CNN co-host Kathleen Parker posted a column on Wednesday entitled “Obama: Our first female president” in which she argues that the President “displays many tropes of femaleness.”

As unbelievably offensive on so many levels this is, it’s to be expected.  Parker displays a common trait of con women – garnering self worth through the denigration of all things female.

When your agenda is to turn back the clock on progress to a time where everyone knew their “place”, it makes sense that Conservatives would also adopt the mindset of the time periods they so admire.

To Cons, just as it is “natural” for the rich to run everything and rule over a large pool of compliant Serfs, the male is the “natural” head, so in order to excuse the female’s audacity to enter the Conservative arena as a leader, she must denigrate anything “female” so as not to threaten his inherently fragile masculinity.
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One doesn’t have to stretch their imagination too far to glimpse the Republican vision for the future – just turn back the clock to the “gilded age” where super-rich robber barons ran government and lived in opulence while lording mercilessly over the common people.

Don’t take my word for it… take if from the Republicans themselves.  In spite of Republican Pollster Frank Luntz’s directive for Republicans to stay on their fake populist message in an effort to convince Teatards that “freedom” equals the “freedom” of transnational corporations to ride you to the bank unfettered by pesky government, the compulsively pro-corporate, GOP class war agenda can’t help but sometimes slip from their well-fed GOP mouths.

From Joe Barton’s apology to corporate felon BP, to Sharron Angle’s view that unemployment benefits are ‘spoiling’ the lazy citizenry, the GOP staffers are keeping busy desperately releasing retractions every time one of these out-of-touch bastards comes out of their gated communities to spit in the face of the late, great, middle class, destroyed by 30 years of Reaganomics.

This latest example is the orange-hued House Republican Leader John Boehner, who, like all rich GOP bastards, went to bat for his true masters – the rich and their giant corporations, by saying financial reform is like attacking an “ant” with a nuclear weapon. I guess he would have a point if that “ant” was capable of destroying 8 million jobs and collapsing the world economy.
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Its no surprise that bank stocks rose when so-called financial reform passed just like health insurance racket stocks rose on the passage of so-called health insurance reform.  The wheels of government turn only to ensure that the wealthy top 1% can ride the rest of us to the bank unrestrained by considerations other than profit.

In 1901 Teddy Roosevelt said in his New Nationalism speech,

“The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need to is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise.”
Read the rest of the speech here.

Yes, Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican… a progressive Republican…  who knew the stranglehold and corruptive influence a small handful of wealthy Oligarchs could have on a free people.

I’m certain, though, that he could never have imagined a Supreme Court ruling that Corporations are People who can pour unrestricted wealth into elections, as well as allowing wealthy individuals to spend their personal fortunes to obtain seats in government.

The passage of this financial reform bill is nothing but window dressing that gives the illusion of “change” while keeping the most dangerous parts of the financial system in place.
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The Republican Party exists solely to do the bidding of transnational corporations who seek to ride working people to the bank unfettered by the pesky government.  Their Republican (and Democrat in Name Only) operatives in the Halls of Power work to make that possible – and ingratiate their own coffers as well.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman is a case in point.  Feldman is the judge responsible for overturning the Obama Administration’s 6-month moratorium on off-shore drilling in the wake of BP’s greed-sponsored destruction of our Gulf Coast… but surprise, surprise!  Judge Feldman owns stock in numerous companies involved in the offshore oil industry—including Transocean, which leased the (now-exploded) Deapwater Horizon drilling rig to BP.

Yahoo Newsroom reported, “According to Feldman’s 2008 financial disclosure form, posted online by Judicial Watch [pdf], the judge owned stock in Transocean, as well as five other companies that are either directly or indirectly involved in the offshore drilling business.”

As FDR said, they “consider the government of the United States a mere appendage to their own affairs!”

We can certainly expect more favorable rulings that will keep the oil-industry’s choke hold around the neck of America since an AP investigation discovered  that more than half the federal judges in the districts affected by the BP disaster have financial stakes in the oil and gas industry.  Money trumps all in a government that exists to ensure the wealthy get wealthier without restraint while suggesting the rest of us “pray.”

UPDATE:  (Friday June 25)  It came out today that the judge owns shares in a company with a rig that was DIRECTLY impacted by the drilling moratorium with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake – and thus would have negatively impacted Judge Feldman’s investment – every day the ban ensued.  Read more about that here. My father always used to say, “we can only expect a grunt from a pig.”  Especially a corporatist pig.

Joe Barton, Republican from failed state and albatross around the neck of normal America, Texas, apologized to the felonious transnational corporation BP for pesky government making them set up an 20 Billion Dollar account to pay for the trillions in damages their greed and hubris continues to cause.

It comes as no surprise that Barton left his job in Arco (which is now part of BP) in 1985 to join the Congress so he could turn our government into an appendage of the oil industry.  For his efforts, the oil industry has richly rewarded him.  According to Open Secrets, “Individuals or PACs associated with the oil and gas industry as a whole have been Barton’s biggest patron since he entered Congress, donating more than $1,448,380 since the 1990 election cycle.”

After his apology, other Repugs came down hard on Barton for truly expressing Republican sentiment and thus exposing the fact that they work solely for the interests of the rich.  You see… although Barton shares a mainstream Republican philosophy, they simply cannot be honest about it lest the “small people” catch on to the fact that the Republican mission is to turn America into a Feudal State where the rich run everything and everyone knows their “place.”
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President Obama’s feckless speech to the nation was proof positive that America, like the sea life washing up on the shores of the Gulf, is nothing but a carcass from which corporate vultures pick and discard.

At one time I was convinced if anyone could restore the middle class after the 30-year assault of Reaganomics, it was a Barack Obama – man of color who was able to overcome all obstacles to become President in this arrogantly ignorant, sophomoric and racist nation.

If he was clever enough to accomplish that feat, I concluded, he could certainly out maneuver the economic royalists who have our government co-opted as an appendage to their own affairs.

Like many others, I was hoping that Obama’s first Oval Office address to the nation was going to be a turning point where the President would finally deliver the campaign promises of “change we can believe in.”

What we got, instead, was a useless display of what Dan Froomkin called, “vague generalities and empty, convictionless rhetoric” regarding a catastrophic national emergency that requires actual solutions.    It evident that waiting for  President Obama to discard his Democrat-in-Name-Only advisers like Rahm Emmanuel and become this generation’s FDR is like “Waiting for Godot.”
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It’s a well-known Republican dirty trick that when they are in power, they spend like drunken sailors on shore leave to give the Sheeple the illusion of prosperity while they stagnate their wages and send their jobs to China.  Republican Deficit hawks only appear during Democratic administrations when they need to justify their attempts to dismantle our social safety net and privatize every New Deal initiative that created the American Middle Class (making them too “uppity” for Republicans).   When it comes to refusing to extend unemployment benefits or putting an end to jobs programs and health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers, phoney Republican Deficit hawks appear like flying monkeys out of the Land of Oz.

Only when it comes to carrying water for the wealthy and entrenching an inter-generational aristocracy in America do concerns about the deficit go the way of their concerns about a child’s school-lunch program as their recent obstructionist move to allow one-quarter of 1 percent of people to inherit their parent’s wealth tax-free demonstrates.

Watch: GOP Goes To Bat For The Wealthy, Blocks Estate Tax Extension

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If the BP oil disaster highlights anything, it is that the American People are at the mercy of a Corporate Bankster class with no allegiance to either country, community or democracy. They are what FDR called, “Economic Royalists.” They are vested in selling the dumb Serfs myths about “freedom” while forcing misinformation and division into the public discourse through their media outlets. All the while making sure, with the help of Republican and Democrat in Name Only operatives in government, that the late, great, middle class is too tired from working 3 “uniquely American” jobs to get out in the street and take back their seat at the table.  Greed is their highest value and everything else can go the way of the Brown Pelican if it stands in the way of rapacious profit. Even our Mother Earth herself does not warrant a modicum of respect against these corporate bastards and their greed, so how much less does that pesky American worker fare in such a business model?
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