2023 Archives

The GOP & the billionaires who fund them learned their lesson. Never again would they allow a rightwing justice to stray beyond the rigid ideological boundaries set at that justices’ confirmation… The media is interpreting the relationship between rightwing billionaires and Supreme Court justices as good old fashioned corruption, as if they’re trying to buy votes. But what if, instead, it’s actually something far more insidious than that? Billionaires Harlan Crow and Paul Singer both have had business before the Supreme Court, but both also argue that they’ve never specifically discussed that business with Clarence Thomas or Sam Alito, respectively. And Thomas and Alito, while not recusing themselves from those cases, claim that they’re not taking into consideration the positions, needs, or desires of their “good friends” when making decisions or casting votes. If all that’s true, why do we keep seeing instances of rightwing billionaires reaching out to Supreme Court justices? Why did the Koch brothers regularly invite Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to their mansions, resorts, and private events?

Or, as was common in the 19th century, should they be dissolved by the state and have their assets sold to other corporations that will behave in a way that is not toxic to democracy or the community? Back in 2022, I suggested that our federal government should spend about one-third of the cost of the Trump Tax Cuts to buy the three largest oil companies in this country. They could then be run for the public interest, prevented from continuing to fund climate change denial, and end their support of toxic Republican politicians. So far, no members of Congress or the administration have picked up on my suggestion, but the people in Maine have a similar idea and they’re moving forward with it. Ninety-seven percent of the electric power in Maine is provided by two for-profit corporations, Versant and Central Maine Power (CMP).

"I love her dearly. . . . I cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this." —Charles Whitman, in a note he left after murdering his mother on the day of his mass-shooting spree, August 1, 1966

Money in politics is a lot like Oxycontin, and the people who pass it out are often just as cynical, sociopathic, and deadly as the Sackler family… Historians and futurists tell us that we are moving into a new era, a Fourth Turning. It certainly feels that way. But the people who have been in charge —who we seek to replace — particularly George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and the Republican Congresses associated with them — have so rigged the game that it’s going to be a real challenge to dislodge the corrupt systems they’ve put into place. From think tanks to PACs to online publications to newspapers to talk-radio hosts to television networks to paid online trolls and Wikipedia editors there is a vast conservative ecosystem that will do everything it can to destroy any genuine, practical and achievable effort to reform America. Even though most are working class people, they think of themselves as Republicans and thus eagerly take $15 or $20 an hour for the task of screwing their neighbors. The worst thing for America, they’ll tell you, would be a level playing field, rather than one that’s so very tilted toward the morbidly rich.