Citizens United. When I hear those words all I can think about is corruption. Corruption of our political campaigns, corruption of our government and corruption of our Supreme Court. It is said that money is the root of all evil and Citizens United is all about the money in political campaigns and in our election process. Now there is an actual organization call Citizens United in 2010 took on the FEC and won striking down as unconstitutional a federal law prohibiting corporation and unions from making expenditures to federal elections. Their current President is David Bossie who in 2016 took a leave to become Donald Trump’s assistant campaign manager. You look at their mission statement and it sounds real good. They state that their Mission is to restore the United States government to “citizens control, through a combination of education, advocacy, and grass-roots organizations” seeking  to “reassert the traditional American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security”. Some of those things on the surface sound great but you have to think about it for just only a couple of minutes to know that the statement is pure BS. I always love the words traditional American values. What in the hell are traditional American values. A huge part of this country was founded on slavery. Is slavery an American value? With how conservative organizations fight to keep the minimum wage low and fight against union organizing so workers can improve their pay I would have to say “yes.” Slavery is an American value. Our system creates poverty and then makes it very difficult for people to rise up out of poverty. Immigration was an American value from just about the time our nation was founded but most conservative groups hate immigration. The statement Strong Families just kills me. How does anything the conservative movement do to create strong families? It is a great statement that they don’t really have to back up with any solutions.

By ruling in favor of Citizens United the Supreme Court overturned campaign restrictions that dated back a 100 years. Here again, just like guns, they thought that everyone before them was wrong. Just like their decision on guns, the decision to overturn Campaign spending restriction has corrupted our voting system more than it already had been. They claimed spending restrictions violated corporations First Amendment right to free speech. Here again the Supreme court became the tool of the oppressor. If anything money drowns out free speech. Our Bill of rights were the right of the individual and the Citizens United rule diminished the right of millions of voices being heard because they now lacked the money to be heard. Money corrupts and those men and women on the Supreme Court know that. I don’t care what Kennedy wrote. It is what he helped create that counts and he helped create a corrupt system were a small minority wields tremendous power. They created a system that our government works more for the rich. That 1%. Citizen United doesn’t help enhance the American dream it helps create the American nightmare with no end in sight. It now makes corporations, Super Pac’s, and billionaire Super Pac’s now more controlling of the people in our government. Instead of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people we have politicians that are catering to the Super Pac’s for support and are willing the do the bidding for those Billionaire Super Pac’s. The will of the people that the framers of our Constitution wanted where did that go? The Supreme Court is not in the least interested in the will of the people. They have helped diminish the voice and vote of many America especially those of color. I wonder if those are the American Values that Citizens United was talking about?

You always hear about the dark money is Washington. A lot of time the person doing the talking is a Republican. Dark money is money that is donated to a nonprofit organization that doesn’t have to disclose who their donors are. There are Dark Money Groups on both sides but of the top 15 Dark Money groups two thirds are Republican or Conservative groups. During the Jackson confirmation hearings every Republicans decried the support that Jackson got from a supposable Dark Money group and hear everyone of them were getting Dark Money themselves. This Dark Money that has been created because of the Citizens United decision can come from anywhere and that includes foreign countries and foreign Oligarch’s. Yes, Citizens United has enabled foreign governments and foreign Billionaires to influence our elections. We have no idea who owns who. I have read that Russian money is being filtered through the NRA. Our children are dying and the Dark money group, the NRA, is probably partially being funded by the Russians and Putin. We can blame the NRA but some of the blood on those children rest squarely in Chief Justice Roberts’ court. How many other Dark Money groups are out there trying to create the chaos that the NRA has created? Does any of that Dark Money get filtered to the Court itself? I ask that question because our democracy seems to be disappearing. Gerrymandering and voter suppression is running rampant and the court would not even consider listening to the Gerrymandering case. Are they the tool that will lead us to authoritarian form of government? Many of the monsters in history like Hitler had the courts to help them.

I have stated that when the Supreme Court is the tool of the oppressor the country is in for a real bad hair day. Well our hair is not looking too good right now. Children are dying and more children will die because of how the NRA and the Supreme Court has twisted the 2^nd Amendment. Our Government will continue to get more and more corrupt as more money flows into Washington. If you want good things to happen to America the first thing you have to do is get the Money Out Of Washington. I worry about what we are going to leave behind for our grandchildren.

 

Citizens United (organization) - Wikipedia

Citizens United Explained | Brennan Center for Justice

Republicans hammer at dark money groups in opening statements- POLITICO

How They Did It: Uncovering the Top 15 “Dark Money Groups” in US Politics - Global Investigative Journalism Network (gijn.org)

Is the NRA Funded by Russia? What We Know and What We Don't (newsweek.com)