Elijah Sweete asks, Does The Roberts Court Favor Corporations Over Ordinary Citizens? If his summary of the Alliance for Justice report, “Unprecedented Injustice,” didn’t get you fired up, maybe this will add some fuel to his fire…
For the last two weeks as Bill Moyers wound down his program, the Citizens United decision popped into the discussion. Last week the self-described “America’s #1 Populist,” Jim Hightower, called the decision “a black robed coup by five men on the Supreme Court.”
The week before, Bill Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One: How Corporate Executives and Politicians Looted the S&L Industry, opined:
if corporations are going to be just like people, let me tell you my criminologist hat. Then let’s use the three strike laws against them. Three strike laws, you go to prison for life, if you have three felonies. How many of these major corporations would still be allowed to exist, if we were to use the three strike laws, given what they’ve been convicted of in the past?
And in most states, they remove your civil rights when you’re convicted of a felony. Well, let’s take away their right to make political contributions that they’re found guilty of a violation.
While on the topic of fiery rhetoric from liberals, Slate’s David Plotz made Fox news headlines a couple weeks back when he got carried away about Wall Street shenanigans and suggested we go after them “with pitchforks, knives, guns, clubs we find, mace, anything…”
Here he comments on his 15 minutes of fame:
Plotz caused the only firestorm I heard of, and his response is the same formulaic one we always hear from the vilified — by Left & Right — elite MSM. But my ultimate takeaway is that it’s good to see some fire in the liberal heart.
We do hear, have heard, for decades now, of the huge success of firebrand Right leaning talk radio and cable shows. We’ve also heard that liberals just don’t have it in them. Remember Air America? Well maybe there’s real fire in the liberal heart after all.
RELATED: For a court decision that brings liberals and conservatives together, the Constitution Center remembers the Kelo Decision in Life, Liberty and Property: Four Years After the Kelo Decision (mp3):
A conversation about Kelo v. City of New London four years after the Supreme Court’s highly controversial 5-4 decision involving the use of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another to further economic development. Since the 2005 decision, 40 states have passed legislation limiting the state government’s power of eminent domain for economic development. In practice, however, solutions have proven elusive. Guests include investigative journalist Jeff Benedict, author of Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage, and attorneys Brian Blaesser and Scott Bullock. Veteran Supreme Court correspondent Lyle Denniston moderates. Program recorded on 06/10/2009.
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