The Scheme 23: Let's Say

[Joinfortmill]

'Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) took to the Senate Floor to deliver the twenty-third in a series of speeches entitled “The Scheme,” exposing the machinations by right-wing donor interests to capture the Supreme Court and achieve through the Court what they cannot through the elected branches of government.

Whitehouse recounts what we know about the capture of the Supreme Court to date and rebuts the arguments offered by attorneys for court fixer Leonard Leo and billionaire Harlan Crow.'

OMG, people, grab a cup of coffee or something stronger, gird your loins, and prepare to listen to a master class on the scheme to destroy American democracy (my words).

[kentuck]

1. We never knew the depth of the corruption...

...until we examined the Supreme Court ideologues.

[ancianita]

2. Just letting you know this is a double post.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017864155

[thesquanderer]

14. This one's more useful, because the post includes descriptive text,

telling you what it's about, why it's worth watching. That's probably why this one has all the recs and replies.

[ancianita]

15. Just sayin'. Didn't know that Whitehouse has to be sold.

I've posted all of Whitehouse's Scheme series, and so did that on the day he presented, as usual.

It's not really a problem, although the admins have deleted my OP's if they were doubles. That, I will take exception to
in the future.

[thesquanderer]

16. I could be wrong, but I think dupes are only deleted for LBN. n/t

[ancianita]

17. You're probably right; I haven't read DU rules lately.

[erronis]

18. I don't mind getting duplicate posts of really good material such as this.

Thank you for including descriptive text. I usually don't go into a video without some understanding of the content.

[mopinko]

21. it's cuz this is gd, and the other is videos.

not that many ppl go to the smaller forums.

[thesquanderer]

22. Good point, that this one has 5x as many views,

so proportionally, this one isn't so different, in terms of how many recs compared to how many views.

But still, this one prompted a dozen "initial" replies (i.e. not counting replies to replies), and the other prompted none, and I think that might be because this one had text.

And even the increase in view might not be (only) because of what section it is in, but also because each reply bumps its placement, which means more people see the headline which increases the number of times someone is likely to click on it.

That said, the other one was placed in the appropriate section, it really should be in the one for videos, not GD.

[Stargazer99]

3. In the 1700,s or 1800,s a Native American Shaman said in the future there would no longer be America

because the corruption of government not do to war or another country taking over the US...this speech by Whitehouse rather confirms the shaman's statement...makes you wonder, huh?

[byronius]

4. Good lord what a den of open criminality.

Sheldon is an honorable American doing his duty.

Harlan Crowe and his little gang need prison time. What a criminal scheme this is. Bastards.

[Abigail_Adams]

5. Whitehouse for the win! And maybe the White House in future? : )

[Rebl2]

6. I believe

he would be a good president in the future.

[Marthe48]

7. I listened to excerpts last night

I am sad that the people who have final say on the matters that affect so many Americans, so many humans, are venal, crooked, avaricious, base, bought-and-sold, flawed, and narrow-mined bigots who care more for money and power than upholding and defending The Constitution of the United States of America.

Thankful we have Senator Whitehouse! And others who are piercing the wall of dark money surrounding the installed criminals sitting on the (formerly) s.c.o.t.u.s.

[cilla4progress]

8. This was incredible.

Saw it on Lawrence O'Donnell last night.

Bought and paid for - for generations.

[Dustlawyer]

9. Let's say the big billionaire friends of SCOTUS were also big advertisers.

Let’s say they told the MSM they were not sure they would advertise if certain stories were reported on. Do you think the MSM would run those stories or give them much air time?

Let’s briefly discuss another related issue. Let’s say the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, through its Institute for Legal Reform, created courthouse newspapers (all with the word “Record” in the name, I.e. Louisiana Record, West Virginia Record, Southeast Texas Record…) for potential and current jurors to read. Let’s say these papers were put in areas considered “judicial hellholes” by the Institute for Legal Reform. Let’s say they hid their ownership of said papers and put in (off-times fabricated) pro business stories to demonstrate the unfairness of laws or prosecutions. Let’s say that these stories coincidentally matched cases going to trial where the courthouse newspaper was published for potential jurors to read before their deliberations.

We have so much big money corruption. They control our politicians with donations, our media with advertising, and us with propaganda. We have a shadow government which would explain why the will of the people is ignored routinely. Campaign finance and propaganda are the two root causes for most of our country’s problems. We need to support and back anyone who is committed to addressing these two root causes!

[erronis]

19. You've hit a couple of the corrupt connections between $$$ and media and politics. Thx!

[fredamoss3]

10. "President Whitehouse" has a certain prophetic ring to it, doesn't it?

I would vote for him in a heartbeat if Joe Biden weren't running.

I love a person who passionate, intelligent, and decent.

[Pepsidog]

11. Laws and ethics are only for the little people. The rich and politically connected swim in a sea of

corruption with impunity. Dems have a moral and patriotic duty to reform and rebalance SCOTUS by any means necessary should they gain the power to do so. Dems can no longer play by the rules. The time has come to rewrite the rules, starting with SCOTUS then overturn the damage this USSC has done to our liberty. Then they must use the tax code to shift the tax burden from the middle-class to the super wealthy. First thing to go is Citizen’s United. If given the power to enact change so the Dems have the will to do so? People like Sheldon Whitehouse, Liz Warren, Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, and Jamie Raskin will need to lead the way.

[Moostache]

12. My only surprise here is that ANYONE is surprised by this at all...

I have become increasingly disillusioned with all levels of government as I have aged. When I was young, I believed that people in the highest levels of our government were honorable, smart and capable and did what they did out of a sense of duty and patriotism. I bought the myth of the founding fathers as benevolent deities on Earth, of the Constitution as the truth of the question "what is the best way to govern free peoples?" and I ignored the bad and unsavory elements of American History.

Things began to change when I was in high school and watched Ronald Reagan's OBVIOUS mental decline during his second term. My family has been Democratic (large D, party supporters) since they emigrated to America between the wars. FDR was third in line behind Jesus and the Pope in our family history. My grandfather and his brothers (all 6 of them) all served in WWII. My father and his cousins served in Vietnam. But it was Reaganomics and the gutting of the unions in America that started the decline into the current morass. Reagan from 1986 until he left office in 1989 was enfeebled, mentally suffering from dementia and cognitive impairment and it was obvious to anyone looking. But the corruption of his administration was already destroying the country, his administration took what Nixon had done and put it on steroids and proceeded to do pretty much whatever the hell their donor class demanded. That pattern has NEVER even slowed down since the election of Bill Clinton.

Whitewater, Lewinsky, Florida recount, "what do liberals hate America?", Fox News, 9/11 story time, Afghanistan, WMD Iraq lies, Iraq invasion, torture, water boarding, and on and on and on...then Palin was unleashed in a desperate bid to unseat President Obama (who had already been knee-capped and tormented by House bomb throwers and overt racism over birth certificates and the might of the drug industry and medical insurance lobbies). Finally, the culmination of all of this race to the bottom - Trump. The worst elements of all of them - Nixon, Reagan, Shrub, Palin, Beck, Limbaugh - all rolled into a self-unaware man-baby with personality disorders, a tortured relationship with both the truth and reality and no conscience at all.

The horrors of the last decade have been unrelenting. But McConnell and the theft of the seat that Gorsuch now contaminates was the low point up until January 6th, 2021. I cannot even adequately communicate my horror at the continued viability of Trump as a major party candidate for the Presidency...and then it hit me...the real power does not (and NEVER has) resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (or even in the Senate) since the Kennedy assassination. It resides in the shadows and pockets of thieves, billionaire vampires who have sucked their very existence out of the nation's bounty and our workers and the poor. The very nature of capitalism unchecked is monopoly and fascism, it is financial Darwinism run amok.

The cure for all of this is currently unattainable. Constitutional amendments are functionally impossible to achieve in the political climate that has oozed into existence. Getting a 2/3rds majority of ANYTHING is impossible - even life and death issues like pandemic prevention and vaccinations have shown that. There is no hope of changing this without a massive awakening from the squishy middle that they MUST stop voting for things as a popularity contest or who they'd like to have a beer with and recognize the peril of the republic that has wrought.

The influence of money and greed is unfortunately a human relic from our savannah-monkey past - the banana scarcity paradigm is ingrained into our monkey brains and forces us to respond like Pavlovian apes (sorry for the forced and somewhat bad analogy!). I am left in the end to wonder what was the greater evil - Citizen's United or Neil Gorsuch? Richard Nixon or Donald Trump? Ronald Reagan or W.? Perhaps it does not matter who or what was worse, just that all led to the same path and like small stones heading down the mountain into an eventual avalanche, it is no one thing that becomes the eventuality, but the combination of them all.

[erronis]

20. I'm guessing I'm in the same boat. But I'm not sure it's our aging but rather the degradation

of the body politic - especially in the (r)epuglicon party.

A concerted effort was made to buy out that party - by the rich and by the enemies of democracy.

[Warpy]

13. I'm afraid one of two things will need to happen

Either the GOP self immolates over TFG, which seems pretty likely right now; or there is a massive financial crash that wipes out much of the billionaire class.

Money equaling power and its ability to take over the smaller political party while starving the majority of proper wages is the problem.

In a truly just country, most of those billionaires would be sitting in prison, having been convicted of racketeering. The Federalist Society, instead of being a massively powerful fringe organization, would have been declared a terrorist group.dedicated to the overthrow of democracy, which it is.

Instead, we've got a weird country in which the old Mafia guys went legit and the "businessmen" started running rackets. Eiuther the power of money to act or the money itself will have to be destroyed for positive change to occur.

Some of us knew the seriousness of the corruption, we'd watched every step of it and warned people about what was going on. It got us labeled left wing kooks.