My response to a petition from the Communication Workers of America

I would be more likely to sign if you had shown the actual amendment! Furthermore, I am tired of half measures. There is no Constitutional reason why there should be ANY donated money in politics. The airwaves, and thus the electromagnetic spectrum, belong to We The People and they should be required to deliver a reasonable amount of airtime for debates and information on candidates. The rest should be done with a small (by current standards) set-aside of tax dollars. Unions should not tacitly endorse ANY money as the equivalent of speech. Money doesn't talk, it swears." (Dylan)
 Here is the body of the CWA email:
"Are you one of the 73% of Americans who support getting big money out of politics? If so, there's still time to sign on as a citizen co-sponsor of the Democracy for All amendment, which would restore the ability to set common-sense limits on campaign spending. The United States Senate will vote on this amendment next week. Click here to sign the petition in support of the amendment today. With common-sense limits in place, candidates would spend more time interacting with voters and elected officials would spend time addressing issues important to you and me, not begging for checks and catering to the wealthiest donors. We will deliver our petition signatures to the Senate before the vote. By adding your name you'll help the amendment gain majority support and our movement build even more momentum. Click here to become a citizen co-sponsor of SJ Res. 19, a constitutional amendment to strengthen our democracy."
Here is the link to sign the petition: http://action.cwa-union.org/c/1372/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8983&tag=email:%28moneyinpolitics%29ask-allied-203437/8983&utm_medium=email&utm_source=allied&utm_campaign=8983
Really now, weren't we fed up with the money in politics before Citizens United?
Another half step when we'd better RUN back to Democracy in the USA.

Democrats let Republicans have the Supreme Court

Part 3
This is the third blog in a row in which I think of political events that somehow I managed to figure out, but Democrats apparently did not. No, they did, but they didn't have the will to fight.
I hardly have the energy to go on and on about the Supreme Court, a national disgrace that carries more weight than Constitution itself. The decision Bush v. Gore alone disqualifies those justices as political hacks. And Citizen's United? Money is speech? Corporations are people? The recent ruling that WE the People don't have "standing" to challenge the pervasive unwarranted use of spying techniques? Any common sense reading of the Constitution would convince an intelligent fifth grader otherwise. Is the Supreme Court dumber than a fifth grader? No, it is simply a giant turned evil.
I remember hearing decades ago that Republicans intended to put the Supreme Court into their back pocket, and now they have. Why didn't Democrats move aggressively to prevent this? Why did I see it coming, but they apparently did not? Does it matter that one could say, I've seen it coming ever since FDR? No, what matters is doing something about it and the Democrats failed.
Robert Bork was voted down because he had written and spoken so much that he had a track record easy for even a Democrat to oppose, so the game plan now for all Supreme Court nominees is to refuse to comment on anything. But, the Republicans know what they are getting, except for that one Obamacare surprise from Roberts! (gives one hope)
I could not believe my eyes and ears as I watched the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. I could not believe that such words were being broadcast into my home where I had young children to raise. And when Anita Hill was savaged in the name of getting Thomas's sure right-wing vote for a lifetime, I thought our nation had lost all justification for ongoing moral influence in the world - but that's a long list, eh Patrice Lumumba?
I'm saving the discussion of judicial review for another time. I'm talking about the Republican techniques used in building a Supreme Court which could, with a straight face, proclaim that in the 21st century PRE-9/11 world, the United States of America could not dare the luxury of counting votes or running a new, clean election.
Anyone still reading this post probably doesn't need me to go on about the appointments of the current Supreme Court, but I'd like to make sure to remind you that the Republicans have ALSO been refusing to approve lower court seats if a Democrat proposed the position. That the Bush administration purged many honest lawyers from the Justice Department for no good reason and replaced them with ill-educated hacks. The Republican Party has sucessfully stocked the legal system pool with party hacks who will become the only "logical" choices for future Supreme Court justices and Federal presecutors.
The Republicans stop at nothing to achieve their ends and the Democrats stop at the mere threat of a filibuster. Democrats pursue things one at a time. Republicans work all aspects of the system so they direct the course of debate even when they lose elections.
Democrats are linear. Republicans are global.