Big business just got a huge shot in the arm yesterday thanks to a Supreme Court of the United States ruling that removes restrictions for federal campaign financing by corporations, unions, and other special interest groups (See "A Shocking Win for the Fat Cats"). The argument made by the majority boils down to the need to give corporations the same freedom of speech that you and I have under the Constitution of the United States. I blogged over at Thoughts on Government about how wrong this reasoning is, but here at Green is Good I wanted to touch upon how corporations can now directly spend their money to work to defeat any legislation that threatens their bottom line.
Health care firms were already spending an average of $1.4 million a day, yes, a single day, to defeat health care legislation. Now that the SCOTUS has made a ruling that will remove the restrictions that force corporations to use PACs for federal campaign contributions, one could argue that any legislator who supports a bill that hurts corporate profits will now be under fire from those same corporations and industry groups. Besides health care, the climate change legislation comes to mind as the most critical legislation that is now under threat of being derailed thanks to this ruling. The utility industry groups have already been sending out letters to their customers, telling them that climate change legislation would lead to higher rates or a tax on the utility customer. The SCOTUS ruling will open up a floodgate of more mailings, more commercials, and much more money being spent to defeat any legislators who support cap and trade or cap and dividend legislation.
This ruling will make it more likely that any Democratic Senator or Congressman in a red state or district will think twice about supporting a bill that puts them squarely in the bulls eye of corporate America. Our legislators, those who do not have a spine anyways, will not vote for something that is unpopular, even though it is, in their mind and heart, the right thing to do. My friends, we are becoming a plutocracy - a nation where our laws and policies are no longer written for your average citizen, but for the citizen (think T Boone, Bloomberg, Soros, etc) and the corporations that have the deep pockets to buy any politician who supports their agenda. If you haven't already, please watch the great documentary The Corporation for more on how treating corporations as if they were citizens poses a serious threat to our democratic republic.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Supreme Court Ruling is a Huge Blow to Climate Change Legislation
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4 comments:
Health care, in its present form, and climate change legislation (as envisioned) should both be derailed. The public is against radicalization of either, but no, let's ignore the public's wishes and force this upon them, because every liberal greenie knows the public is stupid. The truth is that greens have a more carbon-intensive lifestyle than the average citizen. Someone tell me, as one who has studied global warming for years, where is the actual proof of disastrous, man-made global warming? Forget the spin, where is it? It's not there. You just want to believe that it's true. A Pew Research study (not a conservative group) found that liberal Democrats are 3X more likely to believe in global warming than conservative Republicans. Wonder why? It's the agenda. You need to read more before making up your mind.
Actually, there are places up in the far north that are currently under threat from the rising sea levels caused by man made climate change. Read for yourself
Good try Schultz, but sea level rise has been shown to be exaggerated by the use of inaccurate satellite data (they measure with an accuracy of approx. 35mm, while supposedly guaranteeing their results to a couple of mm.or so), much greater than tidal records. Much of sea level rise is due to thermal expansion, but the oceans have been cooling for the past 6-8 years, based on Argo data. Also, you need to read the scientific reports concerning the true causes of Arctic ice melt and Alaskan warming, like the shift of the PDO to a warm state, Arctic insolation, the Gakkel Ridge undersea vents, Pacific infusion through the Bering Strait into the Arctic, high velocity winds blowing ice into the N. Atlantic, etc. The Arctic was warmer during the Depression days, and Amundsen sailed it in a wooden boat in 1904-05. Navy subs surfaced in open water at the Pole in the 50's-60's. Alaska warmed 6 degrees in 2 years in the mid-1970's, according to the Alaska Climate Research Center website, and hasn't really warmed at all since. That didn't stop climate alarmists from trumpeting it as a 2 degree per decade increase, when it was actually a 6 degree, one time, step increase caused by warmer Pacific ocean temps. But we have now entered a cold PDO, which is why many alarmist and skeptic scientists are forecasting 20-30 years of continued cool. And the solar cycles 24-25 are forecast by NASA and others to be weak, insuring that we remain cool for a while. Check for yourself.
Pretty cool site you've got here. Thanx for it. I like such themes and everything that is connected to them. I definitely want to read a bit more on that blog soon.
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