In case you missed Shipjacks's diary a few weeks ago on this important case, here's the NY Times piece on the outcome.
Nothing too shocking here from the neocon clean up crew of Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts and their newest bestest BFF Kennedy. If there's one overarching reason for us to make nice this primary season and ensure that a Democrat takes the White House it's the future of the Supreme Court.
Scheme-fraud. Nothing like knowing that the two most effective and well reasoned legal arguments of the last quarter century "opening the floodgates of litigation and forcing businesses to litigate claims brought by anyone other than businessmen" are so incredibly malleable as to apply to any case the Supremes choose to hear. Could be those pesky little non-institutional working class shareholders, insurance policy holders, consumers, or the working class friendly boogeyman bad guy plaintiff-side lawyers, doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the minute big business begins shrieking in fear that "we can't do business if we are actually required to obey the laws and are held accountable for our conduct that causes harm," the neocon Supremes will come rushing to their aid.
Economic and consumer justice are dead in this country. Unionism is on life support. We are a nation of serfs, or maybe cattle is more apt, with very little chance of upward mobility unless we invent something useless and sell it on late night cable tv shopping networks. Invent something incredibly useless that everyone has to have like the 21st century pet rock or chiapet. Bankruptcy laws are misused by corporate attorneys and corporate executives to bilk workers out of their pensions and bust unions while consumer bankruptcy is skyrocketing due to the astronomical cost of health care.
Citibank's malfeasance will surely result in somebody getting a big fat golden parachute while 1000's of workers get their pink slips. One big giant Ponzi scheme economy with the American taxpayer always left holding the bag. Two candidates and two candidates only even give lip service to what the problem actually is--John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich. The former is labeled angry by everyone including progressives (who should know better if it wasn't so self-evident that they've drunk the Friedman koolaid too and deep down just want their chance to feed at the trough but God forbid actually back the guys who address the fundamental weakness in our little democratic experiment) and the latter an unelectable far-left-fringe candidate. IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID! Or more accurately the nature of our economic system.
Back whomever you like in the primary, that's your right as an American. But if you think things will change one iota, economically speaking, without a fight to the death with legal concepts like "corporate personhood" and a fundamental reorientation of our economic model, then you're bordering on delusion. A little tweaking or smoothing out the rough edges isn't going to cut it. I guess my big question is "what's it going to take for people to wake up, smell the coffee, and get angry?" Another worldwide economic Depression is my guess.