According to Wikipedia, the United States has 413 billionaires. The world's total number is 1210.

The U.S. Supremes have ruled that money equals free speech and that free speech, understood as spending money on political advertisements, cannot be limited by government. That is our new national paradigm…at least until the whole enterprise comes apart at the seams.

New paradigms, built on rational thinking about the first amendment and democracy of, for and by the people…or, you know, not,…..nevertheless create new opportunities.

413 billionaires in the U.S. is way more than our country needs to launch an entirely new process for electing presidents and what not. So, I'm proposing a new league…like a sports league….made up of only billionaires. Money equals free speech….free speech is a guaranteed right….so what better way could there be to celebrate how free we are than by having our most successful free speech earners choose not only our presidential candidates every four years, but the president as well?

I think Chief Justice John Roberts would consider such a league the pinnacle of American political freedom.

For those of us who don't have enough free speech in the bank to participate any other way than passively….it will be essential to make our new league as entertaining and fun as possible so that the free speech/bank account-impaired stay engaged. This is vitally important because America, by god, is a nation of, by and for the people.

The league should be made up of 16 billionaires….allowing room for expansion of course….with 4 billionaires making up each of four divisions…a northwest, a northeast, a southwest and a southeast division each with four billionaire "teams." The 16 billionaires will be selected, rightfully, by all 413 current billionaires….because….well….they've stored up more free-speech over their lifetimes than the rest of us have ever earned, and would be, therefore, the most qualified.

Once the 16 billionaires were chosen and "team" logos, uniforms, banners, cheerleaders, and network and cable teevee rights determined….my proposal would feature a four year long process of elimination. The day after Inauguration Day would mark the beginning of each new season.

Each divisional billionaire league "team" will choose a presidential candidate….all behind closed doors and, naturally, in total secrecy so as not to compromise the greatest example of pure democracy the world has ever known. Once the candidates are selected, each candidate will be matched against another in a series of 800 primetime debate/talent show extravaganzas spread over the 40-odd months between general elections.

The format for these debate/talent shows would be similar to the highly-intellectualized, reality teevee programs that Americans have come to love and cherish so much. Each billionaire candidate, in turn, would choose whether to sing, dance, play an instrument, drink a beer with a handful of the unwashed, recite a poem, scratch his/her ass while pledging allegiance to the flag, challenge another candidate to a live duel on stage….or anything else that would help maximize the democratic-entertainment experience.

The audience would text in their choices after each "debate" night's fun. Texting would only be permitted once per debate night….with the punishment for cheating being a first class, expense paid trip to Guantanamo. DHS officials, not coordinating with the CIA, would oversee security of the voting process.

At the end of the "season" the four billionaire divisional debate leaders…think the Final 4 of NCAA basketball….would draw lots for the playoffs. Single elimination matchups would take up the month of October before the general election with the Super-Freedom-Democracy Bowl scheduled for the first Tuesday of November. What a night that would be.

So glorious would be the American display of freedom and democracy on that night that the roar from the national audiences just might cause the Framers to roll over in their graves…no doubt signifying their approval.

Think about all the new jobs and enterprises that could be spun off. The Fantasy President League alone would move billions of dollars and how about the growth in greasy and sugary junk food sales….through the freaking roof.

My proposed league would also eliminate the huge conservative effort necessary now to suppress voting, shorten the voting window, and pass complicated ID laws. In effect making the democracy league more efficient than our current system.

Just think….if my proposed league was fully operational today….we could be voting texting our choices for either Northeast Corporate Raider Mitt (sponsored fully by a hedge fund to be named later) or Rambler Gambler Newt (sponsored by the Adelson chain of casinos). Mitt could sing a Mormon ode written by one of his three grandmothers (on his father's side) and Newt could mime out, in full blackface, his impression of current President Obama.

I'm talking riveting, must see teevee here.

And really, when you give it some thought as I obviously have, what better way could there be to honor our Founders than to make a total entertainment mockery of the democratic process?

Texas Governor Rick Perry, GOP 2012 presidential frontrunner now by double digits over Mitt Romney, has clearly articulated what the real problem is with the United States. The United States, itself, according to Perry, is unconstitutional.

In typical Tea Party fashion, Perry promises to "take the country back" from it's unconstitutional self. Ultra-conservatives are flocking to Perry's candidacy….the same conservatives who identify themselves as modern day Paul Reveres, modern day patriots determined to defeat the unconstitutionality of the current U.S. and replace it with the real, genuine, authentic, divine constitutional country George Washington and Jesus of Nazareth chiseled into Plymouth Rock upon arrival to North America's eastern seaboard.

Nothing wrong with the country, according to the governor who pats himself on the back over his state's 8.2% unemployment rate,…..it's simply been operating in an unconstitutional manner for the last 100 years or so. Perry intends to correct that 100 year old problem. Perry and his Posse of Tea Party supporters, apparently the last patriots standing, have outlined just how unconstitutional our nation really is.

Perry….

The idea that they’re telling us how to educate our children or how to deliver health care or how to, for that matter, clean our air is really nonsense. If you really want to get America back to this vibrant economy then respect the Tenth Amendment allow the states to be the laboratories of innovation.

See, the problem with America right now is not the result of deregulated investment banksters ballooning up unsustainable casino games resulting in the removal of $8 trillion out of the American economic machine…..perish that thought. According to GOP frontrunner, Governor Rick, what's ailing the U.S. is the U.S. Department of Education, the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and, of course, the Environmental Protection Agency.

I guess the 10th Amendment is constitutional, so let's examine it….

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

As I see it, individual states can exercise state powers (pass laws), as long as those powers (law making) have not been delegated to the federal government. In the case of a conflict between federal law making and state lawmaking (as we've seen in a few states' new immigration laws), then, the federal law holds supremacy over the states' laws. Federal power trumps state power. That truth is spelled out in the "supremacy clause" of the Constitution….

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Now, let's suppose that Governor Rick is correct…..he's not, but let's assume for a moment that he is….why would the EPA and the Dept. of Education be unconstitutional? Why would Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and a federal minimum wage all be unconstitutional?

Don't all of these programs and agencies fall under the umbrella of the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution?

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Don't all the programs and agencies that Governor Rick says are unconstitutional directly address the "general welfare" of the U.S.? Social Security and Medicare address the general welfare of all the nation's elderly. Minimum wage and unemployment insurance address the general welfare of all 50 states' workers. How could these programs be unconstitutional?

Furthermore, and more importantly, if it's true that all these programs and agencies (and constitutional amendments which Perry thinks are unconstitutional) are really unconstitutional….why has our nation's constitutional solution to unconstitutional laws, the courts, not ruled them to be unconstitutional?

Medicare is almost 50 years old. Social Security is even older. Federal minimum wage laws began in 1938. Federal unemployment compensation laws began in 1935. The federal Department of Education opened in 1980. The EPA started in 1970. If all of these programs and agencies are unconstitutional, why have they not been ruled unconstitutional by the courts in all this time? Or, are courts unconstitutional too?

Additionally, am I the only one who finds it odd that at the same time Governor Rick is decrying so many longstanding federal programs and agencies as unconstitutional…he also wants to eliminate the parts of the Constitution that he doesn't like?

He calls the Sixteenth Amendment, which created a federal income tax, "the great milestone on the road to serfdom."

And he disagrees with the Seventeenth Amendment, which allowed for the direct election of senators.

Maybe the U.S. isn't actually unconstitutional after all. Maybe the problem is that Governor Rick can't sustain a presidential run without the support of Tea Party voters who just KNOW intuitively that all the agencies and programs I mentioned above are definitely unconstitutional? Could that be it?

Let's analyze the latest illogical ruling by the odious John Roberts-led Supreme Court.

Arizona passed a law in 1998 called the Citizens Clean Elections Act. Briefly, Arizona's law says that…

….candidates who are willing to forego private fundraising may finance their campaigns with state money. First they must qualify by demonstrating a certain level of support by raising a required number of $5 donations.

Once qualified, the publicly funded candidate receives a lump sum grant to pay for election expenses. This portion of the law was not under challenge.

The public funding option is available to all candidates, and it is up to each candidate to decide whether to abide by the public-funding system or rely instead on private sources of campaign money.

The challenge before the Court yesterday was this provision…

The controversial part of the law deals with the mechanism enacted to ensure that privately funded candidates do not automatically outspend their competition.

The matching funds were awarded to every candidate who agreed to participate in the public-funding option – not just the most competitive candidates. In addition, under the Arizona law, publicly funded candidates were to receive matching funds whenever an independent advocacy group spent money in support of a privately funded candidate or spent money in a way that opposed a publicly funded candidate.

It seems obvious that what Arizona was addressing was the threat to fair elections brought about by unlimited funds being spent by one candidate in a campaign. Yet, Arizona did not restrict the amount of money any one candidate could raise….and so candidates who chose to opt out of public campaign financing could spend as much money campaigning as they could raise.

The Supreme Court has already decided that free speech equals money….as incoherent as that is. Arizona did not, however, limit or restrict a privately-funded campaign candidate from speaking freely, so to speak. That privately-financed Arizona candidate could raise all the bags of free speech from as many wealthy benefactors seeking to push an agenda…as he could. Nothing in Arizona's law prevented a privately-funded candidate from raising as much money as he or she could raise.

That wasn't good enough for Chief Justice John Roberts. Arizona's law permitting a privately-funded campaign candidate to raise an unlimited amount of free speech didn't also punish the publicly-funded campaign candidate for opting to choose public campaign dollars. So, the radical Roberts Court struck down the Arizona law as….wait for it….a violation of a privately-funded candidate's free speech rights.

Roberts said that the radical conservative majority on the Court was not rendering an opinion on public campaign financing of political elections, whether public financing of elections was, itself, unconstitutional…."that is not our business", said Roberts.

It seems that the real "business" of the radically conservative Court was to insure that a privately-funded candidate could successfully outspend a publicly-financed candidate. That's the only conclusion I can arrive at after reading this…

….the justices invalidated a key part of the law that triggered state payments of matching funds for publicly financed candidates whenever their privately funded opponents outspent them.

The high court said the nearly dollar-for-dollar matching-funds mechanism violated the free speech protections of the First Amendment by deterring or diminishing the effectiveness of the speech of candidates who opt out of Arizona’s public finance system.

Astonishingly, John Roberts denounced the Arizona law saying that it, "imposes a substantial burden on the speech of privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups."

It seems obvious that the Court is protecting, preferring, biased towards….the privately-financed candidate….over the publicly financed candidate. In other words…..the Court's "reasoning" seems to go like this…. what's the point in raising all that influence-buying campaign money if you can't bury your privately-financed opponent in an overwhelming flood of campaign ads?

Now it is true that just spending more money on a campaign does not guarantee success….see Whitman, Meg. But for the Court to conclude that public matching of private political donations "imposes a substantial burden" on the free speech "effectiveness" of outspending your opponent…..is to enter into the land of up is down.

The reason that Arizona passed such a law in the first place was because of the corrupting influence of money in the political process. Justice Kagan reminded the radical Roberts majority that Arizona passed their campaign finance law "after an election scandal in which state legislators were caught on video stuffing campaign cash into gym bags." However, Arizona passed their campaign financing law before the Roberts Court had determined that the corrupting influence of money in our political process is a guaranteed right protected by the Constitution. In the radically conservative Court's opinion in Citizens United, the more corrupting influence that money has on our election process….the freer we are. No, I don't understand it either.

Yet, as hard as Citizens United is to comprehend…..the Arizona ruling is even worse.

Not only does money equal free speech….which obviously gives more free speech rights to those who have all the money. But also, now with the Arizona ruling, those candidates who raise huge bags of free speech from private contributors, much more than their publicly-funded opponents, must have the effectiveness of their advantage protected and defended by law.

The Arizona ruling, like the Citizens United ruling before it, is a perversion of free speech, not a defense of it.

In the controversial Citizens United Supreme Court case, Justice Samuel Alito voted with the 5-4 majority ruling which severely rolled back the tepid campaign finance reform attempted in the McCain/Feingold legislation.

The majority opinion, the one Samuel Alito agreed with, was written by Justice Kennedy. Kennedy wrote….

"If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

Shortly after the Court's ruling, Obama, in a State of the Union address, openly disagreed with the ruling, warning that the ruling could very well open the floodgates of foreign corporate money into U.S. political campaigns. Obama's words provoked Samuel Alito to shake his head and mouth the words, "not true", during the speech.

While I disagree entirely with the Citizens United ruling, the obvious reasons to be revealed soon in the 2012 election cycle, I believe the gist of the majority Justices opinion was that individual citizens, or groups of individual citizens, without distinction, have unlimited free speech rights in the political arena. This right, again according to the ruling, includes not just, you know, speech…..but money which pays for speech.

My purpose today is not to re-argue an opinion I disagree with entirely. Citizens United is what it is.

Instead, my purpose today is to shine a light on Samuel Alito's disconnect from himself in the Westboro Baptist case which was decided for Westboro 8-1 yesterday, Alito the lone dissenter.

Briefly….Westboro Baptist Church members protested publicly at U.S. soldier funerals. Westboro's religious beliefs, very similar to those of the deceased Jerry Falwell and the excitable Pat Robertson, include the belief that god is actively punishing the United States….evidence=dead U.S. soldiers…..because America is tolerant of homosexual behavior. God hates homosexuality…..god is an angry god…..god punishes country which does not also hate and marginalize homosexuals.

Just as when Falwell and Robertson blamed liberals who are tolerant of homosexuals for god's withdrawal of protection on 9-11…..so too, Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro, blames tolerance for homosexuals as the occasion for god to withdraw protection of U.S. soldiers in harm's way.

The lone dissenter in Westboro…..quite remarkable actually…..was Justice Alito…who wrote….

"Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case," Alito wrote in his dissent.

Chief Justice Roberts, at least consistent with his vote in Citizens United, said this in the majority Westboro ruling….

"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and–as it did here–inflict great pain," Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the decision. "On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation, we have chosen a different course–to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

Not good enough, says Alito….

Alito noted in his dissent…..that the father of the soldier was not a public figure, but "simply a parent" who wanted to "bury his son in peace."

Alito said the father suffered "severe and lasting emotional injury" as a result of the church's "malevolent verbal attack."

He added that such vicious verbal attacks that make "no contribution to public debate" are not protected when they inflict "severe emotional injury on private persons at a time of intense emotional sensitivity."

In Citizens United, Alito found no limits on free speech in the 1st amendment either on actual speech or the purchase of speech. No limits. But in Westboro, Alito finds numerous limitations in the 1st amendment on speech he finds offensive.

Alito mocked those who suggested that Citizens United would lead to severe and lasting injury to the democratic process of our country….yet whines in Westboro of severe emotional injury caused by the exercise of free speech at a moment of intense emotional sensitivity. Yeah…sensitivity.

I think Clarence Thomas is by far our most biased and dysfunctional Supreme Court Justice…..on a Court which has never been as far to the right during my lifetime. But what to say about Justice Alito?

Alito can't even find agreement with….Alito.

There's a battle going on inside Ohio. The crux of the dispute is over the same union-busting proposals being fought over in Wisconsin under the leadership of Neo-Confederacy Governor-General, Scott Walker.

In Ohio, Republican Sen. Shannon Jones (Springboro) has authored the anti-union bill tagged SB-5.

From a unionized worker's point of view, here are the most egregious provisions….

End all collective bargaining rights for state employees, including at universities and colleges;

Local police and firefighters would have weakened rights to binding arbitration by instead required deadlocked parties to extend their contract for a year first;

Local government could no longer include terms of health insurance coverage or costs in collective bargaining agreements. Management will pick insurance policies, and employees must cover at least 20 percent of the cost;

Allow local governments to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike (i.e. “scabs.”)

Prohibits public employers from picking up extra employee pension contributions;

Eliminates from state law automatic pay increases for experience and education (no automatic raise when you get your Masters Degree, teachers!);

Eliminates from state law leave policies and automatic 15 sick days for teachers;

Prohibits school districts from bargaining away certain management powers, such as the ability to deploy teachers to certain buildings;

No longer makes longevity a deciding factor when management is deciding to make layoffs;

Requires a public employer to publish on its website any changes in the union contract that impacts compensation of workers, including wages, length of service payments, and insurance coverage.;

Requires the employer and the State Employment Relations Board to publish the parties’ offers on their websites before and after fact-finding is complete; and

Allows schools or local governments in fiscal emergency to terminate or modify a collective bargaining agreement.

I don't think it would be stretching it too much to say that if this bill passes in Ohio, state employees' unions will soon be a relic from the state's past.

However, not everyone is on board LittleJohn Kasich's union-wrecking train. Like these state senators for example…..

"While there is much in the bill I think is good, there are some things I think are decidedly a bridge too far," said Sen. Bill Seitz,…..He said the bill gives management too much power.

Another Ohio state senator….

"I think that reforming collective bargaining doesn't mean getting rid of it. I believe in the right of people to gather as a group and advocate on their behalf."

"If binding arbitration is taken away, what are they left with? My fear is it becomes a situation where litigation is used, and I don't think that's the best way to solve our problems."

Yet another Ohio state senator….

"I've been a strong supporter of collective bargaining my entire career."

Do you know what the kicker here is? Those three state senators are Republicans. Those statements are from Republican state senators, Bill Seitz (Cincinnati), Franl LaRose, (Fairlawn), and Scott Oelslager (Canton).

That's how radical…how extreme….SB5 and LittleJohn Kasich….are.

And that's why many thousands of protesters will congregate in Columbus tomorrow to voice their disapproval.

By now, as many of the harder-cored conservative base have made plain, most folks watching what's happening in Wisconsin and what's being proposed for Ohio realize that all of this is simply one big concerted effort by Tea Party-fueled Republican governors and legislatures to crush what little remains of the backbone of Democratic politics…..labor unions.

When conservative radicalism rules……it's just not enough to be awarded the never-ending upper hand in all political campaigns by the activist-judicial ruling of Citizens United. Oh, no.

Being handed all the hundreds of millions the RNC will ever need to outgun their Democratic counterparts….for eternity…….is just not a big enough pound of flesh for LittleJohn's Crusaders. Alongside of the floodwaters of anonymous and unlimited cash that John Roberts' 4 Horsemen set free to flow into conservative political campaigns……the Democrats must also be starved out of the process. In other words….there must be blood.

What we're seeing in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey….and soon to come, many other states….is a political conspiracy to deal a fatal blow to the campaign-raising and organizing ability of the few remaining labor unions who still provide support for the Democratic Party.

In other words…..using political power, elected office, as Karl Rove has instructed, not to govern on behalf of the people…I mean, let's be serious…..but instead, to crush your political opponents.

First they came for ACORN, then they came for Planned Parenthood…..and now they are coming with their torches and pitchforks for the unions.

We deserve better.

I suppose it's all because a Democratically controlled federal government dared to pass legislation to confront our national health care cost crisis. It could, of course, just be another attempt to delegitimize a Democratic president.

Whatever the reason, our national discourse, such as it is, has been filled with numerous claims about the Constitution, mostly asserting that the federal government was assigned very limited powers in the writing of the Constitution.

Distilled down by these same conservatives to fit what's called Obamacare, a theory has been floated which says that the federal government cannot compel anyone to purchase anything, in this case health insurance.

I understand the psychological dynamic at work. Some citizens do not want to be forced to purchase health insurance. I think that's understandable….no one likes to be told what to do.

However, to work backwards from that dynamic, constructing out of whole cloth some new ahistorical, "lost" meaning of the Constitution,….ala a Nicholas Cage movie….with claims that the federal government is, somehow, significantly limited on what it has the power to pass and enforce…..is simply wrong.

From a recent The Nation piece by Garrett Epps…..

Conservatives…. claim that the Constitution was set up to restrain the federal government. If so, there's precious little evidence of it. The actual text of the Constitution is overwhelmingly concerned with making sure the new government had enough power; the framers thought the old Articles of Confederation were fatally weak.

……

The old Articles of Confederation had set up a Congress with the power only to beg states for money and recommend laws for them to enact. That didn't work; the country found itself headed for bankruptcy and disaster. To replace that old Congress, the Constitution created a bicameral Congress with a long and impressive list of textual powers. It also gives this Congress the power "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution," not only those specific powers but "all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

Epps adds…."That's a lot of power." Yes, it is.

You may have heard that the Arizona legislature (Idaho, as well) is now doubling down on their new unconstitutional immigration law by proposing that…

….the state actually nullify federal laws that legislators believe are invalid.

The measure crafted by Sen. Lori Klein, R-Anthem, would set up a committee of 12 lawmakers to review federal laws and regulations to determine which are "outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal in the United States Constitution."

Ratification of the panel's recommendation would mean the state and its residents "shall not recognize or be obligated to live under the statute, mandate or executive order."

But Klein said SB1433 is not challenging the fact that Arizona is part of the United States, at least not exactly.

"We're not seceding," she said. "We're looking at nullifying laws coming from the federal government that are mandates that are not constitutional."

Clearly, the U.S. has courts to determine which laws are constitutional and which are not…..and states have no power, other than to file suit, to nullify legislation passed by our federal Congress.

All this wrongheaded libertarianism philosophizing that states have been granted power, somewhere, of a higher nature than the federal government's power….is simply a myth. It's simply not true.

Last night, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell read what's called the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution during his program. He did so to rebut the most recent attack on federal powers by the state leaders of Arizona. (Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Arizona?)

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

Like I said earlier…..I can understand why people do not want the federal government mandating the purchase of health insurance. I get that. That said, it is also obvious that the federal government's power to mandate purchasing health insurance in an overall remodeling of national health care regulation is well within the broad powers given the federal government in the Constitution.

Now, it will be all up to Justice Kennedy.

U.S District Judge Roger Vinson.

Florida federal Judge Vinson's ruling to appease Tea Partiers hopeful of dismantling federal government power…..is found here. The ruling is so radically biased that it even takes the time to please TP'ers by including a silly and inapplicable throwaway comparison to…..wait for it…..the original Boston Tea Partiers.

Just what we need……Tea Party Judges.

One of the clearest examples of how divided America has become is found in recent rulings by federal judges over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Two federal judges have declared the legislation, as is, constitutional. Two others have ruled that it isn't. It seems unfortunate, but in our divided nation, it appears as if one Supreme Court Justice, Anthony Kennedy, will wind up deciding this complex issue. Kennedy is the lone "swing vote"……and I think that is even arguable.

Both of the judicial rulings against the controversial law focus on the "mandate" to purchase health insurance. The argument, if that's what it is, takes the position that the federal government cannot force an individual citizen to purchase something…in this case health insurance.

Conservatives call this overreaching by the federal government, Tea Partiers call it a socialist government takeover.

But is it either?

My take.

From the moment Tea Party-motivated governors and state attorneys general began joining lawsuits to strike down the Affordable Care Act, I have stated repeatedly that the law would stand and not be struck down, even by the current conservative activist Supreme Court….the one which ruled on Citizens United. I still believe that Justice Kennedy will not side with the activists in this case, but I admit I could be wrong.

Problem is…..if I'm wrong….and Kennedy and the 4 Horsemen of the Activist Apocalypse rule that the individual mandate to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional…..then much of the American way of life will be left vulnerable to similar future cases.

As Jonathan Cohn lays out in this The New Republic article, if the federal government's health insurance "mandate" is unconstitutional, then Social Security and Medicare may also be found….by the same conservative activist Court, to be unconstitutional as well. A government overreach, as it were.

With Social Security, employers are mandated to not simply deduct SS contributions from employees' paychecks, but to match those deductions using company funds. With the SS program, employers, it could be construed, are being forced by the government to pay for something they do not want to pay for. The argument could be that economic activity is an inalienable right, and because it is, the federal government has no right to demand that employers spend their private assets on stuff they would rather not.

With Medicare, the parallels with the Affordable Care Act are even broader…..

With Medicare, the government demands that people help finance the cost of society’s medical treatment through payroll taxes. With the Affordable Care Act, the government demands that people help finance the cost of society’s medical treatment either by paying for a reasonably comprehensive insurance policy or writing a check to the government.

The often-heard conservative rebuttal of the Affordable Care Act's "mandate" is that the government has no right to force an individual to buy health insurance. The bill, however, does not force anyone to purchase health insurance. Instead, the bill gives individuals the option of purchasing health insurance OR paying a tax penalty on April 15th if they don't.

I realize that in our current Tea Party dreamscape it seems as if all things to do with the government are up for grabs….but I'm not sure that even TP'ers would say that the government has no right to impose taxes on it's citizens. But again, I could be wrong.

If the government doesn't have the right to regulate the interstate commerce that pertains to health insurance and health care….then perhaps the government doesn't have the right to demand that "people help finance the cost of society's medical treatment through payroll taxes" in the Medicare program. After all, all employees are being forced to participate by paying for something which they may not want to pay for…..health care for seniors.

Here's yet another potential problem if the Affordable Care Act is found unconstitutional because of the individual "mandate"……

“A good analogy,” Yale professor Jack Balkin wrote recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, “would be a tax on polluters who fail to install pollution control equipment: They can pay the tax or install the equipment.”

Perhaps the EPA is also unconstitutional……a huge overreach by the federal government, as many conservatives argue. Perhaps the government has no right to tax polluters who refuse to purchase and install pollution controls. Maybe air quality for America's citizens is not within the purview of the "general welfare" of all Americans.

What's at stake with a potential Anthony Kennedy vote declaring the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional because of the individual "mandate"…..is more than just short term political Tea Party gain by Republicans and the activist judges who love them.

What's at stake is much of the modern American way of life.

Other links on this topic…..Think Progress,
Ezra Klein, Huffington Post

Watch only the first 20 seconds…..

Tom Donohue, National Chamber of Commerce President says of outsourcing American jobs….

"There are legitimate values in outsourcing, not only jobs but work."

Donohue's Chamber is spending $75 million to defeat Democrats November 2. The Chamber, which finds legitimate value in putting American workers out of work, has been taking advantage of Chief Justice Roberts ruling in Citizens United.

You may remember that ruling. It gave very wealthy groups, like the Chamber, the freedom and limitless ability to dominate our airways just before an election. You may remember Strip Search Sammy Alito rudely mouthing the words, "that's not true", at Obama's State of the Union speech when the President said that, based on the Roberts Court ruling in Citizens United, even foreign money could now find it's way into the U.S. electoral process.

As usual, Strip Search Sammy was wrong. Some $885,000 of foreign company money has now found it's way into the U.S. campaign process…..and that's just what we know about. Click the ThinkProgress link to see the 84 foreign companies which donate to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce…..the same Chamber of Commerce whose president says there is "legitimate value" in eliminating American jobs.

And I just bet there is.

Think about what's happening here. Big multi-national corporations outsource jobs to China, India and a host of other cheaper-labor countries. Why? To cash in on that "legitimate value". American labor, let's say, cost a company $15 per hour plus some token bennies. But Chinese workers will work for $2 per hour and forget the bennies. This cheaper labor swap lowers the multi-national corporation's cost of doing business, allows for higher profits and therefore, theoretically, a higher stock value and perhaps a larger stock dividend.

That's the "legitimate value" that the Chamber's Tom Donohue was referencing. American workers lose their jobs by the millions to Chamber-member outsourcing, a treasonous process in itself, so that a handful of paper certificate holders can get richer…..and CEO's can fly off in their Titanium Parachutes.

But even that's not enough for the meisters of greed. With Republican stooges carefully placed on the Supreme Court, like Strip Search,….and the shameless expediting by Chief Justice Roberts of the Citizens United perversion…..now those "legitimate value" seeking outsourcers have been unleashed to purchase ALL the seats in the U.S. Congress by saturating political ad buys in an unlimited fashion.

But it gets worse. The U.S. Chamber is now able to raise unlimited foreign company funds and put those unlimited funds to work inside America buying the seats of our congressional representatives. Alito is a dumbass. Chamber representatives can now entice foreign companies to donate to their U.S. political blitzkreig against democracy by threatening those foreign companies that they will lose THEIR workers jobs to Americans if they don't help the Chamber defeat the Democrats.

Even worse than that is the fact that Americans do not even have the right to know who is paying for and running the thousands of political campaign ads meant to defeat Democrats. Republicans defeated the only mild attempt by Congress to compel disclosure by the outsourcing robber barons.

So, crudely speaking, a handful of very, very rich Americans can now, legally, gang-fu*k all American workers and no American has the right to know who did it.

If anyone thinks this horror show is going to benefit the citizens of the United States, they're smoking crack.

Without a change in course, without a reversal of the despicable Citizens United ruling, without a moratorium on the outsourcing of American jobs, without national leadership which will kick the asses of smug, prickish, traitorous organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce……the United States of America is doomed.

Though George W. Bush will be remembered for his war crimes and disregard for national and international law, his real legacy is to be found in the Supreme Court.

Bush appointed two Justices to the Supremes bench. Sam Alito and John Roberts. Since being appointed and confirmed, Chief Justice John Roberts, despite his many statements while under oath to the contrary, has demonstrated that past judicial precedence is easily dismissable.

Nowhere has Roberts dismissed precedence as much as he and his fellow conservative activists decided to do in the Citizens United case.

The Activist Roberts Court held in Citizens United….

….that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment.

…..

The Court struck down a provision of the McCain–Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting “electioneering communications.” [2] An "electioneering communication" was defined in McCain–Feingold as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election or thirty days of a primary. The decision overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and partially overruled McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003).

The premise on which the activist court decision was based, as faulty or unserious as it may have been, was that money equals free speech.

How has that misguided, or cynical, decision…. which swept judicial precedence under the rug…..been working out since the Supremes rode roughshod over it?

Well…..Karl Rove simply loves it.

New FEC filings show that American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-backed group that is pouring money into attack ads targeting Democrats around the country, continues to be funded virtually entirely by billionaires.

In August, American Crossroads raised $2,639,052. Fully $2.4 million of that — or 91 percent — came in the form of gifts from just three billionaires.

That was August. In July, Justin Elliot of Salon reported this…..

And despite the group's description of itself as "grassroots," Salon's review of its IRS filings show that four billionaires have contributed 97 percent of the $4.7 million it has raised to date.

According to a Wall Street Journal piece dated Sept. 20, 2010, Rove's billionaire speech club has already raised 32 million dollars….I mean, 32 million free speech units. The goal is 52 million free speech units.

The Chief Activist, John Roberts, in ruling on Citizens United, said that since speech is the same thing as money, then no laws could be written to limit the use of money in elections.

The result has been that only the free speech of 3 or 4 billionaires can now be heard.

Here's the definition of oligarchy…..

a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.

The United States is made up of approximately 310 million people. All are guaranteed free speech rights by the Constitution.

However, now, after the aberration called Citizens United…. only 3 or 4 get to speak.

What's worse, the numbers I've presented here are only for the first midterm election following the Roberts Court ruling.

Can you even imagine what 2012 will bring?

The voting machines haven't even been set up yet and already the Republicans, drool sloppily dripping uncontrollably from their mouthes, are pissing in their pants with excitement over the prospect of…..shutting the government down.

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly…

Likely Senate candidate Joe Miller (R) in Alaska told Fox News last week that GOP lawmakers must have the "courage to shut down the government" in order to eliminate government programs he doesn't like. Right-wing CNN personality Erick Erickson said with child-like excitement yesterday, "I'm almost giddy thinking about a government shutdown next year. I cannot wait!"

And sleazy GOP consultant Dick Morris told activists late last week that Republicans should do exactly as Gingrich/Dole did 15 years ago, but this time it'll work out better.

"There's going to be a government shutdown, just like in '95 and '96 but we're going to win it this time and I'll be fightin' on your side," Morris said at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation Conference on Friday in Washington. [...]

Morris sounded a similar note in April, suggesting in a speech the Republicans should force a shutdown over health care funding.

It's gonna' all be just soooo great.

If there were ever an election cycle when Americans shouldn't even be considering voting for Republicans…..this one coming up in November….is the one.

Republicans are willing….and anxious….to fulfill Grover Norquist's wet dream of "drowning the government in a bathtub". Newtie tried to push the U.S. government's head under water long enough to kill it back in the 90's…..but he wound up injuring himself in the process.

I'll give the extremist Republicans (is there really any other Republicans now?) credit. They don't hide their intentions.

What are those intentions? Eliminate….phase out…Social Security. Replace Social Security with a Wall Street privatization program. Privatize Medicare, replacing our current system with vouchers to purchase for-profit insurance. Repeal the timid Obama health care legislation. Repeal Obama's timid re-regulation of the financial industry.

Make American Muslims and Hispanic Americans permanent second-class citizens. Militarize America's borders. Force underage incest and rape victims to carry to term their rapist's child. End all forms of affirmative action for blacks. Propagandize public school textbooks, revising American history to be more extremist-right favorable.

Begin a 24 month program….I guess, after shutting down the government,…..to "restore honor" to the executive branch. Investigating ghosts of liberation theology, birth certificates, bowing and Black Panthers, concluding in a Fox-led, clusterf*ck impeachment of the Dark Knight…..the One who "isn't really one of us."

An objective person might suggest that America's political-media discourse couldn't possibly get any more batsh*t crazy…..but that objective person would be mistaken. Just wait.

Back in the 90's, when Ken Starr was sniffing panties and preparing to prosecute President Clinton….I thought, surely these guys weren't going to try to remove a president for fibbing about a blowjob. I was mistaken.

In the fall of 2000, when Justice Scalia was preparing to save the nation from President Al Gore….I thought, surely these guys are going to allow Florida to handle their recount by themselves as the rule of law dictates…..but I was mistaken.

During all of 2002, and especially after the State of the Union address in January 2003…..I thought, surely these guys are not going to attack Iraq, a non-threatening-to-the-U.S. sovereign country….but I was mistaken.

After the revelations about torture, illegal wiretapping of Americans, outing a covert CIA agent, extraordinary rendition,…..and the cascade of lies which followed…..I thought, surely governmental leaders would do the proper and legal thing…..and remove an obviously criminal executive from office. But I was way wrong.

So….if you might be toying with the idea that…."it won't be THAT bad, if Republicans take back Congress"…..you had better be doing some rethinking.

After Gingrich shut down the federal government in the 90's, a foolish and radical action which eventually backfired on Newtie, Republicans went forward and impeached President Clinton, paving the way for a Black Robed Regiment to place George W. Bush in the White House.

Do you honestly think that the 2010 GOP players are less radical, less extreme than their 90's counterparts?