Ok, so this is a little more serious than most of my posts but I need to vent big time. I just got done with my daily NY Times perusal and Oh. My. God. Most liberals are so busy bashing our essentially lame duck president that they're not looking at the real potential cancer of our country, the only branch whose power is much more solidified than any other, the Supreme Court. Why Sandra Day O'Connor, why why why did you retire? Now that Roberts and Alito have joined the Conservative ranks of Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas, the Conservative majority is on an animal-killing, freedom of speech and religion-stripping, big business-supporting, precedent-overturning rampage!
The most recent decisions that are just KILLING me are the decision which essentially ruins the McCain-Feingold law on Campaign Spending Reform and the decision in National Association of Home Builders and Environmental Protection Agency v. Defenders of Wildlife. What the first decision basically did was overturn a piece of the McCain-Feingold law which prevents companies and unions from paying for ads that even mention the name of a candidate for federal office in the 60 days before the general election and 30 days before the primary. Because the ads in question were "issue-focused," the Conservative majority ruled that they should be allowed even though they mention the names of 2 Democratic candidates and lead viewers to a website disparaging one such candidate. It kind of seems to me like these companies, you know like oil companies, insurance companies, big business in general, who ironically tend to support the Republican party, will be able to use this loophole to pay for many many "issue-focused" ads which basically support their candidate of choice or disparage the candidates in opposition. This has created a slippery slope to ruin all the progress that was made in the area of campaign finance reform, once again promoting platforms chosen only by those with money, a very small minority, and ignoring the wishes of the people. I am frightened for what this could do.
I can't honestly decide which I'm more frightened about honestly because the second decision I mentioned has decided that it is more important for the EPA to allow states to hand out water pollution permits to developers than to protect the endangered species that this development will inevitably kill. So once again, the Conservative majority in the Court favors big business at the expense of possible extinction of some species. Isn't it ironic that the Environmental Protection Agency is actually supporting the developers? Kind of seems like a conflict of interest to be called the Environmental Protection Agency and then allow corporate developers to pollute water sources causing actual entire species to go extinct...huh. GRRRRR, please please please, let a liberal or even just a moderate candidate get elected in '08 and let a conservative justice retire so a moderate or liberal can replace him, please please God. For the sake of our country and it's Constitution, because some serious constitutional rights are going to start getting stomped on by this Court soon if changes aren't made.
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