Buck Naked Politics

The Selling of Democracy

by Bill Kavanagh:  American democracy has long been corrupted by the influence of corporate cash, lots and lots of it for all parties. It's led to an orgy of giveaways and an almost total lack of oversight, a belief in markets and their wisdom, and ultimately has resulted in the disastrous meltdown of 2008-9. We're enduring unemployment and foreclosures at Depression levels, lost retirements and lost hopes as a consequence. And yet, it seems, what we've endured so far is not the limit—not by a long shot.

Now, the Supreme Court, by the same one-vote majority that brought us Bush v. Gore, has struck down any limit on corporate spending to affect elections. Corporations are now people, in the important respect that they enjoy freedom of speech. The only electoral and speech difference between me and a corporation now is the corporation's ability to print their messages everywhere you look, to hire public relations consultants to massage them into your daily life and entertainment as you contemplate your votes, and to ensure that their messages get in front of you in every possible way, while my speech is confined to this blog— or a sandwich board if I prefer to wear one.

SC Supreme Court Makes an Insurance Company Pay $10 Mil for Wrongfully Revoking Policy of 17 Year Old with HIV (& Other Tales of Health Care Rescission)

by bartleby the scrivener |  Murray Waas has the story:

"The South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered an insurance company to pay $10 million for wrongly revoking the insurance policy of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. The court called the 2002 decision by the insurance company "reprehensible." ....

"In the ruling, Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal wrote: "We find ample support in the record that Fortis' conduct was reprehensible ... Fortis demonstrated an indifference to Mitchell's life and a reckless disregard to his health and safety."

"An investigation this summer by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and earlier ones by state regulators in California, New York and Connecticut, found that thousands of vulnerable and seriously ill policyholders have had their coverage canceled by many of the nation's largest insurance companies without any legal basis. The congressional committee found that three insurance companies alone made at least $300 million over five years from rescission....

Colbert Stands Up for an Oppressed Minority -- Corporations

by Damozel | A brilliant rant by my fellow South Carolinian against the influence of corporate campaign donations on democracy.  Yes!  Colbert is right: why not just go to a ballot system where every dollar buys you one vote?

Senator Franken

In the wake of Al Franken’s long-awaited Senate victory in Minnesota, Steve Young has an interesting insight in the Huffington Post that should shed some light on how Franken made the transformation from comedian with a conscience to US Senator.  After all, Franken wasn’t looking to become a politician a few years ago, but after he was moved to write a scathing parody ripping Right Wing talk TV and radio, something happened.

Young has this take:

 

The straw that broke the far right wing's back came in the form of a 2003 law suit where the right-wing elevated the comic/author Franken from comic and author to Michael Moore danger level.
 
Penguin Books published Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," which included a cover photo of O'Reilly and a chapter accusing O'Reilly of lying. The book had sold fairly well, but would have run its course until Fox News, pushed by O'Reilly taking the bait, sued claiming infringement of its registered trademark phrase "Fair and Balanced." A federal judge found the lawsuit to be "wholly without merit" and Fox then filed to dismiss it. With the media attention drawn by the legal folly, Franken's sales and his public image went bonkers. He not only beat O'Reilly and made him appear thin-skinned and toothless, but his books and satirical approach taught the Democrats to fight back creatively. More importantly, he gave open-minded Republicans a bit of the truth behind far-right talk show zealots claims. Claims that had pretty much gone without scrutiny even by the so-called liberal mainstream media who were happy to book people like Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Ann Coulter to get their take on politics.  

Supremes Do Care if Officials Strip Search Your Daughter to Look for Prescription Drugs

"Nymph Surprised" (detail) by Edouard Manet, via Olga's Gallery

And I don't mind admitting I misjudged the judges.  In fact, it makes me very happy to do so.  As Amanda Marcotte remarks, "Once in awhile, something defies common sense so much that even people like Justices Scalia, Alito, and Roberts can see it."

  In a ruling of interest to educators, parents and students across the country, the Supreme Court ruled, 8 to 1, on Thursday that the strip search of a 13-year-old Arizona girl by school officials who were looking for prescription-strength drugs violated her constitutional rights...The officials in Safford, Ariz., would have been justified in 2003 had they limited their search to the backpack and outer clothing of Savana Redding, who was in the eighth grade at the time, the court ruled. But in searching her undergarments, they went too far and violated her Fourth Amendment privacy rights, the justices said..  (NYT)

The lone hold-out?  Justice Clarence Thomas.  (NYT)  He does not believe that the Constitution applies to schools, end of story. (SCOTUSblog)

Tales of the Torture Adm'n: Federal Judge Says a Convicted Terrorist Can Sue Bush Adm'n Lawyer for Role In Torture Memoranda

by Damozel | Saying that he was trying to  balance "a clash between war and the defense of personal freedoms," federal district Judge Jeffrey White, a Bush appointee, refused to dismiss a lawsuit by convicted terrorist Jose Padilla against Bushie John Yoo, now a law professor at UC-Berkeley.  (AP at MSNBC)  While such a lawsuit would be many times less satisfactory than action by the current administration to hold responsible members of the Bush administration accountable, at least it is a step in that direction.  

Judge White wrote:

"Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct....The issues raised by this case embody that ... tension — between the requirements of war and the defense of the very freedoms that war seeks to protect....This lawsuit poses the question addressed by our founding fathers about how to strike the proper balance of fighting a war against terror, at home and abroad, and fighting a war using tactics of terror."  (AP at MSNBC)

GOP Strategists Who Specialize in "Latino Outreach" Upset by Sotomayor Attacks

by Damozel | At HuffPost, Sam Stein writes:

Top-ranking Republican strategists who specialize in Hispanic outreach say they are outraged, disturbed and concerned by the type of reception Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court has received from conservative activists.

In the days since the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, several prominent conservative voices have leveled unusually blunt attacks at her resume. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and radio host Rush Limbaugh both insisted that the court of appeals judge was a racist for saying that her Hispanic background allowed her to come to better judicial decisions. Former Congressman Tom Tancredo, on Friday, called Sotomayor a member of the "Latino KKK."

Newt Gingrich Calls Sotomayor a Racist and other Nonsense

by Damozel | Way back in 2001, before she knew she might be nominated to the Supremes, Sonia Sotomayor gave wingnuts all the reason they needed for clutching their pearls, fainting, and screeching for their smelling salts by saying without regard for whether it could someday be taken out of context:

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life," Sotomayor said in that speech, describing how life experience can inform judicial opinions.  (CNN)

Anxious for any excuse to oppose Obama's nominee, conservatives have seized on this comment.  Newt, being a twit, tweeted:

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 27, 2009 Video) -- Justice (Sotomayor & Gonzalez)

After the jump....

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 26, 2009 Video): Obama Names Sonia Sotomayor as Choice for Supreme

After the jump.....

Supremes Don't Care if School Officials Strip Search Your Daughter To Look for Advil

"Nymph Surprised" (detail) by Edouard Manet, via Olga's Gallery

by Damozel | Chief Justice Roberts said it is probably reasonable for a school official to demand that your kid shake out her bra, which is what happened to 13 year old Savanna Redding, strip-searched by [female] school officials in Arizona on suspicion of packing prescription ibuprofen ("a prescription pill with the mind-altering force of a pair of Advil").  But CJ Roberts did suggest that a line might have been crossed.  According to The New York Times,  "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suggested that the law might treat different undergarments differently. “The issue here covers the brassiere as well,” he said, “which doesn’t seem as outlandish as the underpants.”  (NYT)

None of the lawyers had a particularly easy time of it. Matthew W. Wright, representing the school district, said that intimate searches should be allowed even for the most common over-the-counter drugs.

“At some point it gets silly,” Justice David H. Souter said. “Having an aspirin tablet does not present a health and safety risk.” (NYT)

Scalia said, with his usual logic (resembling, as ever, the peace of God) --:

The Torture Administration: Exposed; The Operatives: Indemnified & Immunized

by Damozel | According to Ambinder, Obama has redacted the identities of the torturers, but the rest is all there.  And, really, I have no words.  What Greenwald said:  "They are unbelievably ugly and grotesque and conclusively demonstrate the sadistic criminality that consumed our government."  Digby:  "I feel like vomiting right now. This is the very definition of the banality of evil --- a dry, legalistic series of justifications for acts of barbaric cruelty."

Conservative Andrew Sullivan, with whom I agree on this issue if on little else, agrees with Digby on the banality as well as the evil:

I've only read the Bybee memo, as chilling an artefact as you are ever likely to read in a democratic society, the work clearly not of a lawyer assessing torture techniques in good faith, but of an administration official tasked with finding how torture techniques already decided upon can be parsed in exquisitely disingenuous ways to fit the law, even when they clearly do not. This is what Hannah Arendt wrote of when she talked of the banality of evil....

Minnesota Court Declares Franken the Winner; Coleman Vows to Appeal

by Damozel | The Minnesota Star Tribune reports:

After a trial spanning nearly three months, Norm Coleman’s attempt to reverse Al Franken’s lead in the recount of the U.S. Senate election was soundly rejected today by a three-judge panel that dismissed the Republican’s lawsuit.

The judges swept away Coleman’s argument that the election and its aftermath were fraught with systemic errors that made the results invalid.

“The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the Nov. 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately,” the panel said in its unanimous decision.

Oh, and, er....ouch.

Siegelman Update: Appeals Court Upheld Most Charges

Truthout reports:

"A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta struck down two of the seven charges that Siegelman was convicted of and ordered a new sentencing hearing. That means Siegelman's seven-year sentence could be reduced.

"But he won't get off entirely: The court upheld key bribery, conspiracy and obstruction counts against him in what prosecutors described as a scheme that put Scrushy on a state hospital regulatory board when he was at the helm of HealthSouth. The court upheld all six counts against Scrushy and his sentence of almost seven years."

More than 50 states' attorneys general asked Congress to investigate the questionable prosecution of Gov. Siegelman, apparently convinced that something was terribly wrong with the way that President Bush's Justice Department had prosecuted him.  For a refresher, check out the 60 Minutes video after the jump.

Some Supreme Court Justices Stand up to Drug Company

The Christian Science Monitor Reports:

"A Vermont musician has won her battle against the pharmaceutical company Wyeth over the adequacy of the warning label on an antinausea drug [Phenergan] that caused her to lose her right arm.

"In a 6 to 3 decision on Wednesday, the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Wyeth that the musician's lawsuit must be dismissed as preempted by federal drug laws and regulations.

"Instead, the majority justices said the drug company could be held liable for an alleged violation of a state law requiring that consumers receive adequate warning about dangerous products....

"The decision puts drug companies on notice that it is their responsibility, not that of the Food and Drug Administration, to ensure that its products feature clear warning labels."

In case you can't guess which three justices voted for the drug company, I've listed them after the jump.

The Obama Administration's First Civil Liberties Test: FAIL? (Commentary Round-Up)

by Damozel | Eric Holder, our new Attorney General, is overseeing a "review" of Bush administration policies on the state secrets act that Bush used to protect his administration from suits for their antiterrorism excesses. (AP)  Don't worry, my paranoid friends of the far right:  they are still going to protect state secrets, even if it means that victims of the Bush administration are deprived of any judicial remedy and the public never hears the evidence about the methods which Bush & Co. thought would keep us "safe" from terrorism.

Today a representative from Obama's brave new DoJ used the state secrets defense in  Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. (Jake Tapper)  To clarify, the DoJ invoked the state secrets act to bar the lawsuit of five men who were suing a Boeing subsidiary that helped the CIA kidnap five men --- one of whom seems to believe he had his penis "sliced to bits," as Cernig puts it --- fly them to secret CIA camps.  Where they claim to have been tortured, the whiners. 

The Pardoner Commutes Sentences of Two US Border Agents

by Teh Nutroots | The two border agents shot an unarmed drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila ("in the buttocks") as he was trying to flee across the Rio Grande have had their sentences commuted.  "Wingnuts of the Lou Dobbs variety will be dancing in the streets," says DWT...as will a number of Republican and Democratic members of Congress, including Rahm Emanuel. (CNN)  "The Fifth Circuit had refused to disturb the convictions," notes ImmigrationProf Blog.  CNN reports:

Justice Dept. Lawyer Claims Bush Found (14 million) Missing Emails

by Deb Cupples |   In 2007, two groups (CREW and the National Security Archives at George Washington University) sued the White House, trying to prevent it from destroying emails that may give us taxpayers some clue as to how White House officials really conducted business.  Federal law requires that such emails be preserved.

For months, White House lawyers claimed that millions of emails had been lost. Perhaps  coincidentally, many of the purportedly lost emails were from time periods relating to the questionable invasion of Iraq and the likely illegal outing of ex-CIA agent Valarie Plame Wilson.

All of a sudden, just days before President Bush is to leave office, a Justice Department lawyer claimed in court that the White House (with help from an expensive private contractor) has found 14 million missing emails -- thus, CREW'S and the National Security Archives' lawsuits are moot.  How convenient.

Postscript on Franken Senate Victory: The Coming Court Challenge

by Bill Kavanagh:  It appears that the Minnesota Supreme Court is going some distance towards limiting the damage that might have been caused by a detail in an earlier Supremes ruling (December 18) in the by-a-hair Franken-over-Coleman Senate election, now just finished recounting, with Al Franken ahead by only 225 votes out of about 3 million cast.

 For those of you who are really into election minutia, you may have read here that I was earlier quite concerned about an aspect of the  December 18 MN Supremes’ election decision.  

Improperly Convicted Missouri Man Spent 24 Years in prison Before Released

by Deb Cupples |  A prosecutor's job is not simply to wrack up convictions: it's to carry out Justice -- even when Justice requires that innocent people go free.  I do not understand how any prosecutor could fail to understand this simple principle.

Two days ago, I blogged about the possible misconduct of former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, whom Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.  Despite protests from a fellow prosecutor familiar with the case Mr. Burris reportedly sought the death penalty for a man whom evidence strongly suggested was innocent.

Yesterday, I came across a blog post at TalkLeft about possible prosecutorial misconduct in Missouri that led to the incarceration of a man who had been improperly convicted.  The man spent 24 years in prison before being released a few months ago.  You can read that heartbreaking story here.