So. What are we supposed to think about the Supreme Court now with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh occupying space on it? Is the Supreme Court now first and foremost a tool of corporations and large business interests and the richest 10% of the population? Is its mission now exclusively revenge politics and the protection and preservation of the corrupt, cronyism and nepotism, and fascism? Does the Supreme Court intend to take a wrecking ball to civil rights, social issues and rights, the rights of consumers and people to litigate against abusive practices and policies of business and the government, and to the Constitution itself? Does the Supreme Court intend to smash unions and abolish unions and defeat labor organizing? I think these are all open and valid questions. Are these some of the ambitious plans of the new Supreme Court? We’ll soon see, I’m sure of it.
I saw an article yesterday. The Supreme Court is preventing the deposition by Congress of Wilbur Ross, Trump’s secretary of Commerce, for his conflicts of interest and insider business activities while on the job. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are stepping forward and exposing their loyalties and politically important priorities by starting to pay back the benefactors who helped get them on the Court. This is not seeking truth and justice. It’s obstructing them. The Supreme Court no longer deserves our respect, only derision and disgust. The Supreme Court is now nothing more than a tool for the use of the already privileged and obscenely wealthy. It’s acting only in political ways. Law and justice mean nothing at all in this Supreme Court. It’s a mockery of a once great independent branch of the government. It’s also a great tragedy for the American people and their democracy.
Greg Snyder October 16, 2018 · If you are retired and want to do something useful, please consider doing something like joining AARP or ACLU or Southern Poverty Law Center or any other group that advocates for regular people. See if you can be involved in working with these groups to do outreach and work for political reform that will help to protect the future. The fantasies of a very small group of obscenely rich individuals like the Koch brothers who have funded multiple think tanks over the last several decades have come up with a lot of creative ways to buy the government and then have it dismantled. They are now feverishly at work on trying to keep their tax cuts, which really only benefit the obscenely rich and make them even more obscenely rich by having their republican congressmen and senators trying with all their stealth to gut Social Security and Medicare to pay for the tax cuts they and Trump have put into place and which have in the last year added 789 billion dollars to the budget which the republicans are saying are caused by “entitlement” programs. Each individual American worker has paid into the Social Security Trust fund since the first hour they started working and have alway contributed to it in all the work that they have done. It is not an “entitlement”. It is a savings account that every worker has paid into. And that money does not belong to the politicians who are trying to divert it away from its purpose of helping people live in retirement. Nor was it ever intended to be a piggy bank that Congress use to pay for unauthorized or even authorized wars without paying what it borrowed back. That money is not for borrowing. Congress owes the Social Security trust fund trillions of dollars that it has “borrowed”. Congress needs to pay that money back. The republicans have been pushing idea that Medicare and Social Security cause the national debt. They say it over and over again and have been saying this for a long time. It is an outright lie. But they have been repeating this lie over and over for a long time and now they are really pushing hard for this lie to become a reality. If retired people who have a lot of free time now use some of that time to get involved and help in any way they can, it could help ensure a future that continues to have Medicare, (hopefully an expanded Medicare for all), and Social Security (that should also be strengthened and expanded and could be done easily simply by removing the cap on income that is taxed and currently capped at some hideously low income limit) not just for the rest of the newly retired workers lives to live out the rest of their lives, but for future generations. Do people want to see their children and grandchildren and future generations living in a world where they no longer have these programs? If you care, you will help if you can. It could make a crucial difference. If not, the republicans and the Koch brothers will create a future of deprivation, despair, poverty and increased disease and earlier death because they will have decimated American health care. And now they have a Supreme Court that will absolutely back them up in those efforts. So, it’s kind of either get involved, or help seal the fate of future generations. A future without hope.
What is the Supreme Court plotting at this very moment? What “surprises” lie ahead? I now consider the Supreme Court to be fully politically driven. Gone is any semblance of integrity, fairness, impartiality, legitimacy. Now it is hyper partisan, heavily favoring the already wealthy and powerful, large corporations and the 1% or 2%. And now, with Kavanaugh, he brings his baggage of misogyny, extreme political views and revenge. This is not a Supreme Court that represents “the people”. This Supreme Court represents a tiny majority of people of wealth and power. Not “THE PEOPLE”.
Many thanks to the conservative Judges on the Supreme Court who voted for allowing unlimited foreign and domestic money into this country’s electoral politics. Thanks to them, dirty Russian oligarch money has played a prominent role ever since. And thanks to them, American oligarchs have dumped many hundreds of millions of dollars into the investment of a corruption of our politics like we never experienced before this.
Why are rape victims treated worse than rapists in the United States? How can a victim of rape or assault who has done all that she can possibly do to get help, to notify authorities, to see that justice is done then be attacked yet again and be berated and torn down and shamed and bullied by the system and the public servants who are supposed to be protecting people, including rape and assault victims? Why are rape victims being treated like the criminals and the rapists being treated like the victims?
So, more than 100k documents were withheld from the public and not made fully available to the Senate Judiciary Committee to enable the members of the committee to adequately vet a nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States, a lifetime position. How did it happen? Chuck Grassely, the republican committee chairman, made it an ironclad decision and denied the committee adequate time to review those materials. But how was this pulled off in the first place? Did the suggestion and authorization to make these documents “committee confidential” come from Don McGhan, the WH lawyer, who then delegated it to this unknown defense lawyer who is not even a government employee? If that’s the way it went down, that keeps McGhan’s hands really clean, doesn’t it? I have a few questions about the week before the committee reconvenes to hear the testimonies of the woman who accused Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her and Kavanaugh himself. Are any of the members of the Senate Judiciary committee using any of the time this week to further review the documents that they were not given adequate time to review before and during the nomination hearings? If they do, will they be able to ask further questions that arise in the proceedings when the committee reconvenes for these new testimonies? All I can say is I hope so. We don’t know and won’t know. But, we will see what is actually done next week.
Greg Snyder September 19, 2018 · Now Trump wants to release classified documents from the DOJ and the FBI by unclassifying them because he thinks that by doing so he will help discredit those agencies and strengthen his own position and help him? Many experts on national security have stated publicly that un classifying and releasing those documents could increase risk to our national security. Do the national print and television news media have to publish these documents once they are unclassified and made available to the public? Of course, they do not have to publish them. The owners and editorial decision makers in the print and television news media could decide to publish any or all of them if they want to. That might, according to experts, increase risk to our national security. Or, the print and television news media could decide to not publish these materials and not put the country at increased national security risk by doing so. It’s really up to them to publish or not publish.
Since the United States was established our politics and federal budget, (the taxes that you and I pay) have been controlled by conservative, white, wealthy, privileged business men.
Our representatives in the House of representatives and our senators in the Senate have a very close relationship with these leaders of business. Politics in Washington DC are more or less a pay-for-service type of arrangement. Members of Congress are lobbied by special interests and rich people who can afford to pay “campaign donations” which gives them access to these elected officials. That’s the way the system works.
I don’t think there is necessarily anything inherently wrong with decisions being made for everyone by a select few men. (But how about more women? They make up 51% of the population. And, how about allowing for some diversity? This country is no longer lily white.) But they haven’t always made the best decisions or served a greater good. If we are talking about serving a majority of the people, so far the decision makers have not done a very good job. I’d give them a D. Just barely passing. In terms of serving their own needs they probably would get an A. If they were better at serving the needs of the majority of people they could have my confidence and earn a better grade.
If our elected members of Congress are not initially motivated to run for office with the goal of becoming rich, they soon become accustomed to and learn the system and use it to become wealthy. They use it to become members in the top tier 10% of the wealthiest people in the country. They do not usually go to Washington DC as rich people. But after a couple of years or a few terms in office, they definitely become rich, extremely well padded bank accounts, excellent lifelong benefits and health care, etc.
Most decisions that our elected officials make are made based on the donor funding they receive and are not necessarily based upon what the voting constituents in their districts want and need. The needs and wants of the rich people and corporations who have paid access to our elected representatives are often very different and often conflict with the needs and wants of the voters at home. And they get the attention and consideration and action of our elected representatives. The folks at home may not get what they want, ask for or need.
The laws that Congress makes, what that the government does, is often based more on who pays the most to get specific things done. The large corporations and the very wealthy have the most money to pursue their interests with Congress. They are always involved in manipulating politics to best suit their needs. Ordinary citizens do not have the large sums of money it takes to get the attention of their elected representatives and therefore have practically no say or influence on their representatives or what they do. This system, which both Republicans and Democrats exploit for their own personal monetary gain, is what turns our elected representatives into incumbent, entitled opportunists who become increasingly disdainful of their voting constituents. When their constituents make their needs and wants known to them, and those wants and needs conflict with the wants and needs of high-paying corporate and private individual donors, our elected officials almost always side with where the money comes from. This is how our politics operate in the United States. This is how the system has become a system of governance not of, for and by “the people”, but a government that more and more caters to the highest bidding players in Washington DC, an oligarchy.
The American people can have a government that is once again responsive to their needs. Americans could have a very different country if they wanted it. But it would take a lot of work to accomplish that and it would take the utter ousting and annihilation of the Republican Party.
Some of the things that Americans COULD HAVE if they wanted them are: Free, excellent education pre K through the first 4 years of college; a 21st century infrastructure; a sustainable smart grid energy system; a publicly owned and financed broadband utility and free or low-cost internet access by all Americans; universal health care for all; retirement with dignity; the eradication of poverty and homelessness; treatment for mental health diseases and substance abuse; job training programs. And this is just to name a few of the things we could demand, and have, as Americans if we wanted them enough and we worked toward those goals. Americans could also have more say in the budgetary prioritites that the government decides for the tax dollars we pay. We, as a country, could demand a re-priorization of federal tax dollars out of the defense budget and into all these other priorities. We could make it happen. How could this be accomplished? It would have to start by Americans demanding and expecting reform. Campaign finance reform; getting money out of politics, and reform of our political system so that it is not run by the corrupting influences of incumbency and the expectations of our elected officials who are supposed to be our public servants that they will get rich being a representative or a senator. So, get money out of politics. Demand Term Limits for all elected offices. We should start to think of our politicians as PUBLIC SERVANTS with term limits who want to work for the people. We should look for people want to work for THE PEOPLE. These public servants should be people who want to serve the people on a short term basis and not want or expect to make a long career out of working the system in Washington DC or getting rich. Most ordinary citizens make less than 100k a year. Why should our elected officials expect to go to Washington DC and become rich? That expectation is one that really needs to change. The United States needs a new tax code. Where do we need tax relief? Do the rich need tax relief? They have been getting huge tax relief since the very large tax cuts started with George W Bush. It was called Trickle Down. Now it is generally a known truth that nothing ever trickled down. The rich got several huge tax cuts from Bush and recently got a whooper from Trump that is already exploding the deficit by trillions of dollars. All paid for by 98% of American tax payers who always pay their taxes on time. Do large corporations need tax relief? Well, they have been getting huge tax relief. Many large corporations don’t bother to pay any taxes at all and the government does nothing at all to try to get them to pay a fair share of taxes. Large corporations also receive giant subsidies to add to their already obscene profits every year. These are not small to medium-sized businesses with a modest income. They are mammoth corporations with aleady obscenely large profits. The United States government has created many laws that condone the creation of monopolies and ever larger mega corporations. Mergers and acquisitions are the favored way to do business in the United States “free market” economy that kills and consumes small businesses and start ups and stifles a truly “free market”, chokes it, suffocates it, and kills it before it gets a chance to grow. After all of these tax cuts first under Bush and now under Trump, is there ever, or can there ever be enough tax cuts for the rich and corporations? These tax cuts have already given the rich and large corporations such obscene wealth that it is beyond what any normal person can imagine. Is it enough? Can it ever be enough? Do the rich and the large corporations want a tax rate of zero and won’t be happy until that’s what they get? While regular American citizens get no real tax relief and always pay their taxes on time? It’s absurd the lengths to which the rich and government go to create privilege upon privilege for the already privileged. Two cases on point are the capital gains tax and the carried interest loophole. They both highly favor the rich. How about, instead, all Americans making less income than 100k a year pay only 15% or less in taxes and everyone making higher incomes have tax brackets that accurately reflect their incomes, including what’s set aside in foreign bank accounts and secreted away in all the other loophole mechanisms for hoarding wealth? It’s way over due for the wealthy to begin to pay their fair share of taxes and become citizens in good standing like everyone else. There needs to be an entire revision of the tax code to include: Tax brackets for all levels of wealth, the higher the income, the higher the tax rate; a reduction of the tax rate, (no more than 15%) for incomes of less than 100k per year. And get rid of all the god damned loopholes! That would be true tax relief. If we made these reforms in government and the tax code we could have the things that we want and need. It really could be the Greatest Country in the world. As things are now, it is the greatest country in the world for the very rich and corporations. For everyone else it’s a struggle and definitely no paradise.
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