United States Of Ameri-WHA? Crazy Legislation From Across The Nation
Jillian Rayfield | April 29, 2010, 8:30AM
Arizona may be making headlines these days for putting the AZ in CRAZY, but it’s definitely not the only
state that’s been passing legislation that’s controversial, misguided, or just plain bizarre.
As we documented, Arizona has introduced a wave of conservative legislation over the past year or so, leading up to a law that makes it a state crime to be an illegal immigrant, and requires law enforcement officials to demand papers from anyone they suspect to be in the country illegally.
Somali Pirates Say They Are Subsidiary of Goldman Sachs
Andy Borowitz
BorowitzReport.com
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA (The Borowitz Report) – Eleven indicted Somali pirates dropped a bombshell in a U.S. court today, revealing that their entire piracy operation is a subsidiary of banking giant Goldman Sachs.
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Thom Hartmann’s Update and Expanded Edition of
Unequal Protection
Includes discussion of the infamous January 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United case allowing “corporate personhood” to more easily buy elections.
Especially Autographed for BuzzFlash Readers by Thom Hartmann for a limited time.
Released on May 14, 2010
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and
the Theft of Human Rights
* By America’s most popular progressive radio host
* Updated throughout, including analysis of recent critical Supreme Court decisions
* Reveals how corporations achieved their current near-imperial status and what we can do to change it
Unequal taxes, unequal accountability for crime, unequal influence, unequal control of the media, unequal access to natural resources-corporations have gained these privileges and more by exploiting their legal status as persons and by winning special protections that enable them to avoid the responsibilities that come with these rights. How did something so illogical and unjust become the law of the land? Is there a way for American citizens to recover democracy of, by, and for the people? Thom Hartmann takes on these difficult questions and tells a startling story that will forever change your understanding of American history.
Americans have been struggling with the role of corporations since before the birth of the republic. Hartmann uncovers evidence that the Boston Tea Party was actually a protest against actions of the East India Company-the world’s first modern corporation-making it the great-great-granddaddy of today’s World Trade Organization protests. But eventually the corporations won. Hartmann tells the astonishing story of how an offhand comment by a Supreme Court justice led to the Fourteenth Amendment-originally passed to grant basic rights to freed slaves-becoming the justification for changing the status of corporations from “artificial persons” with limited rights to persons entitled to the same rights granted to human beings.
Unequal Protection details the deeply destructive results. Corporations now enjoy extraordinary privileges that make them virtually independent kingdoms. This new feudalism is not what our founders intended. Hartmann proposes specific legal remedies that could truly save the world from political, economic, and ecological disaster. It’s time for “we, the people” to take back our lives.
With huge corporations now benefiting from massive taxpayer-funded bailouts, Hartmann’s hard-hitting critique of corporate personhood is more timely than ever. This new edition has been thoroughly updated and features Hartmann’s analysis of two recent critical Supreme Court corporate speech cases.
> From Jeanne Theoharis:
Fahad Hashmi took a government plea bargain. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy
for allowing an acquaintance to store waterproof socks, ponchos and raincoats in his apartment.
The government dropped the other three charges.
Fahad made this decision after having served 3 long years in solitary confinement under SAMs
[Special Administrative Measures] and one day after Judge Preska approved the government’s
recent request for an anonymous jury with extra security measures.
In addition to the use of secret evidence and indefinite solitary confinement, the move to have an anonymous jury raised already heightened concerns as to whether a fair trial was even possible
in Fahad’s case. With sentencing scheduled for June 7, Fahad faces a maximum of 15 years, as
opposed to the 70 years he might have faced if he had been convicted on all 4 counts. With time already served (4 years total) and considerations for good behavior, Fahad could be out in less
than 10 years.
(It is of note that on the eve of the trial the government was willing to shave 55 years off the
potential sentence.)
Today’s decision does not in any way detract from the importance of the work we have been
doing and the civil rights issues that Fahad’s case has raised. The government’s use of Special Administrative Measures and the attacks on due process in “terrorism” cases like Fahad’s
continue to cast a pall on the US justice system.
For that reason, we plan to hold our usual vigil on Monday night outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center: http://www.thawaction.org/. We hope you will spread the word and
join us.
Thank you for your steadfast commitment to these crucial civil liberties issues.
Jeanne Theoharis
Educators for Civil Liberties
Make an urgent contribution.
“The Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests … to spend without limit in our elections.” – President Obama’s response to Citizens United in his January State of the Union address.
As we saw again this week, the stakes could not be higher: It has been revealed that the balance of Wall Street political contributions has recently swung to those who have been stalling debate on financial reform in the U.S. Senate. [1] There is already too much money in politics, and with the Court’s recent decision, it could go from bad to worse.
Can you make an urgent contribution of $25 to help us pass the bill by May 31?
The Schumer-Van Hollen bill is good stuff: It includes bans on campaign spending from federal contractors, foreign-owned corporations or those that receive taxpayer-funded bailouts. And it requires disclosure of all campaign spending, so voters can judge the credibility of political ads run by Goldman Sachs or ExxonMobil.
If we don’t pass this bill, we can expect a flood of corporate money in the upcoming elections. In a 5-4 divided decision the Supreme Court gave corporations the rights of a person, and then used that notion to allow unlimited corporate contributions to the political committees that buy most of the ads that inundate us at election time.
And it’s dangerous. With your help, we’ll be able to fight back.
We know we can win because most Americans agree with you and me, and staunchly disagree with this ruling. In a Washington Post-ABC poll, 8 in 10 respondents said they oppose the high court’s decision, and nearly as many back congressional action to curb the ruling. [2]
Your donations will give our advocates and organizers the resources they need to:
* Meet with Congressional leaders in D.C. and back in their districts to make sure they are hearing their constituents’ support.
* Set up phone banks in a dozen cities to flood key legislators with phone calls from constituents.
* Push to strengthen the bill by including Rep. Mike Capuano’s (Mass.) Shareholder Protection Act, [3] which will give investors a say in how their money is spent in politics.
The bills must then pass the Senate by July 4, and that’s not very much time.
Personally, I am motivated by this issue because the very integrity of our democracy is at stake, and I hope you join me in fighting the Supreme Court’s bad decision. Click below to give an urgent $25 gift to pass these bills through the House by Memorial Day.
https://www.uspirg.org/action/close-the-floodgates?id4=es
If enough of us kick in a small contribution of $25 or more, we can prevent corporations from writing million-dollar campaign checks to corrupt our democracy.
Thanks for all your help.
Andre Delattre
U.S. PIRG Executive Director
action@uspirg.org
http://www.uspirg.org
[1] Wall Street Rules Help GOP Fill Campaign Coffers, Washington Wire, Apr. 27, 2010.
[2] Poll: Large majority opposes Supreme Court’s decision on campaign financing, Washington Post, Feb. 17, 2010.
[3] Washington, D.C.: New Legislation Would Protect Shareholders Rights, U.S. PIRG, Mar. 11, 2010.
Warrantless search bill to become law; Sanford veto defeated
In a 74 to 37 vote, House lawmakers narrowly overrode Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of the
warrant-less search bill Wednesday.
That means law enforcement will soon be able to search those on probation and parole
without a warrant.
Earlier this month, the Senate overrode the veto, meaning the bill can now become law.
The bill applies to the bodies and vehicles of those on probation and parole but not their
homes.
It’s hard to argue with “conservatives” like these!
MCM
From a Buzzflash News Alert:
Event allows candidates, others to fire weapons at car representing ‘liberal policy ideas’
LiveFreePA event takes place next month at the Elstonville Sportsmen’s Association
by Jennifer Todd
Government-run health care and gun control will be targets of an event hosted by a conservative group next
month at a Manheim outdoor club.
Those and other “liberal policy ideas” will be represented on a beat-up car. Attendees can fire off rounds at the car to represent their opposition to such plans, Nate Benefield, spokesman for the Commonwealth Foundation, the Harrisburg-based advocacy group sponsoring the event, said Tuesday.
Ted Olson takes on Paul Minor’s Appeal
Rebecca Abrahams
Former United States Solicitor General Theodore Olson has agreed to represent Mississippi trial attorney Paul Minor in his appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.
This is good news for Minor, who has been serving a federal prison sentence since September 2007 for bribery and honest services fraud.
It is believed that Minor, a successful trial attorney and fierce opponent of tort reform, was a victim of selective prosecution by the Department of Justice under George W. Bush. Minor, one of the largest individual Democratic donors used awards from tobacco settlements to support non-partisan judicial candidates including Mississippi Supreme Court Judge Oliver Diaz.
Since the putsch…
MCM
Return of the Death Squads
Honduran oligarchs target members of the National Front of Popular Resistance.
By Jeremy Kryt
TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS–Late in the afternoon on February 3, Vanessa Zepeda, a 28-year-old registered nurse, left a union hall after a meeting and began walking to the supermarket to buy school supplies for her children and formula for her baby girl.
She never made it.
According to witnesses, as she was leaving the union hall parking lot in this sprawling capital city, Zepeda was forced into an unmarked white sedan by two masked men dressed in fatigues.
Palast is quite right: Arizona’s heinous immigration law is not just a spontaneous burst
of bigotry, but an early move to help the GOP there steal the next election.
Let’s talk about Jan Brewer, the governor who, not surprisingly, signed this bill into law.
When she was secretary of state, she also served as chairperson of Bush/Cheney’s
“re-election” campaign in Arizona–just like Ken Blackwell in Ohio that same year,
and Florida’s Katherine Harris four years earlier. Although nobody mentioned it, because
the serial election theft in Arizona hadn’t (and still hasn’t) ever been reported by the national
media, such overt partisan commitment was as inappropriate in her case as it was in
Harris/Blackwell’s. Like those two, she’s an ardent partisan–and Christianist–who
will do anything to “win”
And so we also need to say something about our president–who’s actually the one
responsible for Brewer’s sitting in the governor’s chair. Let’s remember that she wasn’t
voted into that position, but slid up into it when then-governor Janet Napolitano was
appointed by Obama to run the Department of Homeland Security. It was yet another
indication of his utter cluelessness, and/or indifference, re: the little matter of the GOP’s
strong penchant for election fraud. (I wrote about it at the time–and yet, amazingly
enough, Obama picked Napolitano anyway!)
So it is not too early to prepare ourselves for a big win by AZ’s Republicans this fall!
MCM
Behind the Arizona Immigration Law:GOP Game to Swipe the November Election
Our investigation in Arizona discovered the real intent of the show-me-your-papers law.
by Greg Palast for Truthout.org
[Phoenix, AZ.] Don’t be fooled. The way the media plays the story, it was a wave of racist, anti-immigrant hysteria that moved Arizona Republicans to pass a sick little law, signed last week, requiring every person in the state to carry papers proving they are US citizens.
I don’t buy it. Anti-Hispanic hysteria has always been as much a part of Arizona as the Saguaro cactus and excessive air-conditioning.
What’s new here is not the politicians’ fear of a xenophobic “Teabag” uprising.
Orwell Rolls In His Grave, featuring MCM – Buy the DVD
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