Dennis Hastert, Don Blakenship and the coddling of Conservative Criminals

Always note that Privilege means "Private Law". If you are rich, white, and conservative you can expect to get away with the most heinous of crimes, usually followed by a vigorous defense by the right-wing media. Additionally, you can always expect Republicans to rattle their sabres about how they are "tough on crime". But, it's as hollow and false as their so-called patriotism.

Republicans are weak on crime when said crime is committed by a member of the Right-Wing Club. Obviously, if the alleged criminal is poor, liberal, or a minority then expect conservatives to gleefully support violence, torture, and extra-judicial murder.

Dennis Hastert, abused at least 5 youths, during his tenure as a High School Coach. When "Coach" Hastert took over the Speakership of the Republican Party he gladly oversaw the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for a consensual adult sexual relationship. Hypocrite is too generous and kind of a word. Child Molesting Sexual Predator is more fitting. To which should be added convicted criminal.

The need for hush money to pay off his victims explains Hastert's Prairie Parkway real estate shenanigans, which netted "Coach" several million dollars from the $207 million federal grant he secured from President George W. Bush. Hastert apparently has been engaging in various criminal financial schemes to fund his hush money.

But, conservatives loved Hastert cause he undermined Democracy, with his "Hastert Rule". Even after the allegations began to surface and the heinous details emerged, conservatives took to the ramparts to denounce the extortion, because that's the "crime" they really cared about, and to rail about Big Bad Obama and his LIEbral Government "illegally" intruding on the private financial affairs of Dennis Hastert.

Don Blakenship, the Chief Executive Officer of Massey Energy, has spent decades buying Republicans. Because as a rich man he needed the ability to flout the law with impudence and be assured he would never be held accountable. Blakenship's purchase paid off when in 2004, a West Virginia Judge whom Blakenship owned ruled in his favor in vacating a 2002, $50 million dollar verdict against Massey Energy. So, egregious was this invocation of Privilege that the case went to the Supreme Court in 2009.

In the West Virginia case, Justice Kennedy wrote, there was “a serious, objective risk of actual bias.” Chief Justice Brent D. Benjamin, the beneficiary of the coal executive’s spending, twice joined the majority in 3-to-2 decisions throwing out the $50 million jury verdict against the company, Massey Energy. 

In a series of decisions rejecting disqualification motions, Justice Benjamin said there was no objective reason to suggest he could not rule fairly in the case. 

Justice Kennedy said he did not doubt Justice Benjamin’s sincerity. “We do not question his subjective findings of impartiality and propriety,” Justice Kennedy wrote of the state court’s chief justice in Monday’s decision, Caperton v. A. T. Massey Coal Company, No. 08-22. “Nor do we determine whether there was actual bias.” 

The plaintiffs in the fraud case, several small mining companies, won the $50 million verdict in 2002, persuading a jury that they had been driven out of business by fraud committed by Massey. That company’s chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, spent about $3 million in 2004 to defeat an incumbent justice, Warren R. McGraw, a Democrat, and to elect his opponent, Mr. Benjamin, a Republican who is now the court’s chief justice.

On April 5, 2010 an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine owned by Massey Energy Resulted in a disaster which killed 29 coal miners. During Blakenship's 10 year reign as CEO of Massey Energy safety regulations were systematically ignored and undone in the pursuit of profits (Mine owner ran up serious violations, 495 violations last year alone.) Blakenship was just found guilty of one count of conspiring to violate mine safety regulations. Of course, deregulation is a core plank of the Republican Party. And predictably this gets zero coverage on Faux News while the only chatter in the epistemically closed right-wing internet is to decry the travesty of justice of convicting Blakenship.

Update:
Josh Marshall at TPM points out that when child molesting Dennis Hastert ascended to be Republican Speaker of the House during the right-wing Impeachment of Bill Clinton, the entire Republican leadership involved in those proceeding were all deep into sordid, tawdry, or criminal sex scandals. But, IOKIYAR.

Coal Miners forced to attend R-Money Campaign Event

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.

I never quite understood the Regular guy Romney strategy of photo-ops with R-Money shown rubbing elbows with working class joes, his Brooks Brothers jacket off and his silk shirt sleeves impeccably rolled up (illustrating he's ready to "work"). But, at this point it doesn't matter.

Romney had a photo-op with Ohio Coal Miners owned by Murray Energy. Multiple miners allege they were forced to attend. Many being forced to take an unpaid day off. Murray Energy CFO Rob Moore brushed aside the allegations,

"Our managers communicated to our workforce that the attendance at the Romney event was mandatory."

See? They weren't forced! It was just mandatory they go there. Rob Moore did confirm pay was docked for all the workers.

Next on the Murray Energy Corporate Agenda is forcing the miners to take an unpaid day off to go vote and making voting for Romney "Mandatory" for employment.

Wage Slavery and Corporate Domination are here. And when your Corporate Owners tell you to do something you do it. It would be an awful shame if Murray Energy had to fire those miners for having the temerity to vote against R-Money...

Murray Energy has donated more than $900,000 to politicians in the last year — all of them Republicans.

With the Faux News and Mainstream Media pushing ceaselessly for Willard Mitt Romney his history as a cowardly Chicken Hawk, a slimy Vulture Capitalist, a swindler who has stolend billions of dollars and the livelyhood's of thousands of Americans are immaterial.

The 1% see an opportunity with Romney and Ryan to cement their strangehold upon the throats of the American people. Once they have implanted Romney in the White House the Rich will usher in an Era of Wage Slavery and Corporate Bondage.

What caused my return to Christ, an atheist's reawakening

"Can't serve God and Mammon both, Mammon being money." - Clint Eastwood, Pale Rider

As I was driving through soul crushing Chicago rush hour traffic, a small gray Toyota Corrola whizzed by me and on the back I saw Don't Let the Car Fool You My Real Treasure is in Heaven.

I realized at that moment that indeed God was real. But, the car had another message. Riches on earth did not belong to the fervent believer but to those who have another Religion.

Capitalism has replaced God.

This theory is hardly new, as the above quote relates, but what I did realize is that the Corporatists have sought to replace god as another means to control the working class.

The Serfs who toiled and labored under nasty and brutish conditions "enjoyed" more time off work, nearly a half year thanks to Feast and Mass days, than most workers in America do today.

Americans today are working longer hours, for a stagnant pay scale, and taking less time off than those Medieval Serfs. There are many reasons for these conditions, some stemming from the Reagan Revolution of supporting Corporate Welfare on the backs of the Middle Class. But, to the point of this post, Capitalism has absorbed many of the attributes of god.

Capitalist Demagouges abound in this Nation. They pontificate about the miracles associated with Capitalism. Capitalism has created the frozen TV Dinner! Alleluia! Capitalism has turned worthless black sludge into petrol! Free Market be praised!

Last year, when 32 Chilean miners were saved from being trapped under ground. Daniel Henninger, a blinkered Capitalist Priest, jumped forward and declared, Capitalism Saved the Miners: "It needs to be said. The rescue of the Chilean miners is a smashing victory for free-market capitalism."

Conservapedia had on their main front page: Bad News for Liberals Once Again. Pure Capitalism and the free market saved the miners.

The only thing Capitalism has ever done for Miners is kill them.

The most recent example being the Upper Big Branch Mine Explosion on April 5, 2010, which took the lives of 29 miners. The murderous tragedy happened because Massey Energy is an adherent of Unfettered Capitalism, who purposefully and systematically ignored safety, circumscribed government regulations and manipulated elections in order that they could run their mine on the principles of Capitalism.

Of course, in America there have been many mine disasters. In 1947 in Centralia, Illinois a mine explosion killed 111 miners. This murderous capitalist disaster is mainly known of today because Woody Guthrie (and later Bucky Halker) memorialized them in "The Dying Miner".

But, these and the myriad other incidents of Corporate malfeasance are ignored by the priesthood and thus unknown by the duped and brainwashed flock, who mouth the hosannas of Free Market and Capitalism, without knowing what they are doing is creating and then reinforcing a neural pathway of bondage to those who view the majority of the world as replaceable parts.

So, for the sake of more time off let's supplant the new god of Capitalism for the older christian god...