On January 21, 2010, the Roberts Supremely Kangaroo Court of the United States (SKCOTUS) issued their ill-fated Citizens United ruling. The court was bitterly divided, smart people vs conservatives. The thinking justices opposed the ruling. So, guess who was for it? Of course, it was the always-wrong cons – all the usual suspects. John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel “pay to play” Alito, Clarence “give me money” Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy all ruled against America that day – and we, the people, have been paying the price ever since.

There used to be limits imposed on how much people could donate to politicians by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and, specifically, against corporations and unions from using their general treasuries to fund “electioneering communications” or radio, TV, or satellite broadcasts that refer to a candidate for federal office within 60 days before a general election and within 30 days of a primary election. (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, or BCRA, Section 203) The thinking was that political donations should, properly, be viewed as political speech, but that some people can donate more than others, and if they donate enough, they can literally buy a candidate, so there was a cap. Everybody could donate if they wanted to, but nobody could donate over a certain amount. It leveled the donations playing field. It protected the little guy’s free speech.

Then a non-profit group of conservatives called Citizens United made a movie about Hillary Clinton. It was called ‘Hillary: the Movie.’ (You’ve got to keep it simple for a con.) It was a smear job on Hillary that basically said she was unqualified to be President. They wanted to show the movie just before the primaries in 2008 but the FEC said it violated Section 203 of the BCRA. Citizens United sued the FEC. They argued that Section 203 violated their First Amendment rights.

I never saw the movie. I doubt there was ever any intention of showing the movie or if anyone ever really cared. I suspect the movie was the vehicle necessary to get the case before the Kangaroo Court. ALL of the lower courts that heard the case had ruled against Citizens United. But the five aforementioned morons pretended that (they said this) independent spending cannot be corrupt and that said spending would be transparent. THAT, right there, is the danger to responding to one’s delusions instead of logic and reason. BOTH of those assumptions have proven (<–see? evidence!) false.

The very concerns the FEC had voiced about rich people buying politicians and elections have proven to be absolutely true and the delusional claims to the contrary have proven, not just false, but ridiculously, should-be-embarrassed stupid. They’re not, though. Embarrassed, that is. I suspect they knew they were lying when they dropped their “explanation.” They just had to offer some kind of cover story. The bribes had been paid, the ruling had to be made.

So, now, corporations have more “free speech” than I do…you know, being people as they obviously are not. In fact, corporations have SO much more “free speech” than I do, MY free speech simply cannot be heard over the din. (Yours, either.) So, do you know where the fraudulent “corporations are people” idea came from? It’s really irritating.

These days, Americans are all in a dither about whether a known traitor should be allowed to be President again. Is it possible to protect this once-great nation using the 14th Amendment, section 3? Well, it’s the self-same 14th Amendment that people point to in support of that stupid, stupid “corporations are people” idea. Well, not the 14th Amendment, itself. The 14th was just the law used to reinforce the idea that different people deserve equal protection.

The Equal Protection Clause has played a crucial role in major Supreme Court rulings involving interracial marriage (1967’s Loving v. Virginia), affirmative action (1978’s Regents of the University of California v. Bakke) and same-sex marriage (2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges). It was also the thinking behind Roe v Wade (1973), when the Court found that a woman’s right to an abortion fell within the zone of privacy protected under the 14th Amendment. (See? There WAS a time the high court worked to protect Americans…)

But it wasn’t really even the 14th! There was a case in 1886 called ‘Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad.’ It was a tax assessment case (boring!) that has no real bearing on this subject, except that the final ruling was based on the 14th. BUT, the court reporter in that case added a hand-written headnote. It ostensibly quoted Chief Justice Morrison Waite as saying: “The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”

So there it is, the thing that made corporations “people.” A hand-written headnote that MIGHT quote the Chief Justice but was never a formal part of the ruling. Oh, but it’s been TREATED as an official part of the verdict ever since and in 2010, the Roberts SKCOTUS used it – or misused it – to usurp individual American’s rights once and for all.

There have been plenty of people who tried to warn against the ‘people are corporations’ idea. Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote that corporations were “artificial” persons rather than “natural” persons, and that granting them the right to political expression could “pose special dangers in the political sphere.” He was right. Justice John Paul Stevens argued in his dissent to Citizens United that “Corporations…are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.” He was right.

Soon after the ruling, then-President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address that the decision would “open the floodgates for special interests—including foreign corporations—to spend without limit in our elections.” He was right, too. Please note, no effort was ever made by Congress, among the recipients of this beautiful and endless bounty, to correct the “error.” Go figure…

I’m getting ready to post my revised Constitution for your perusal. (I’m having trouble with WordPress making the jump points back and forth work properly.) One of the changes I recommend is found in my moving the Ninth Amendment to a kind of umbrella statement at the beginning of the Bill of Rights. It says, “Section 1:  – The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, nor shall they be construed to apply to any entity other than individuals.

One sentence. A clause, really. But I’ll tell you this: it fixes a problem that threatens the very existence of the United States as we know it. Or, rather, as it once was and could be again – but isn’t now. Corporations own the country now. And we, the people, are just an afterthought…