Yesterday, two decisions in the Extreme Court further distanced Americans from our Constitution. In the first, the fascist five decided that money is speech only when it comes from the rich or corporate criminals. Voters’ money is not allowed. In the second, they decided to deny justice to Iraqi torture victims and protect the criminal corporations that may have helped torture them by denying the victims a hearing.

The Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that provides matching funds to candidates who opt to receive only public money and face well-heeled opponents. The court’s conservatives objected to what they saw as an unconstitutional burden on the free speech of privately funded candidates. "’Leveling the playing field’ can sound like a good thing. But in a democracy, campaigning for office is not a game. It is a critically important form of speech," Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for the 5-4 majority. "The First Amendment embodies our choice as a nation that, when it comes to such speech, the guiding principle is freedom – the ‘unfettered interchange of ideas’ – not whatever the state may view as fair." Justice Elena Kagan disagreed. "Less corruption, more speech. Robust campaigns leading to the election of representatives not beholden to the few, but accountable to the many," Kagan wrote in her dissent. "The people of Arizona might have expected a decent respect for those objectives. Today, they do not get it." Supporters of the Arizona law worry that the ruling is part of a trend toward whittling away at campaign finance laws… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Kansas City Star>

How can it be an “unconstitutional burden on the free speech” of rich candidates and corporate funded candidates to allow candidates without a pecuniary interest in holding office to speak too? The voters of Arizona decided to give everyone an equal right to speak. However equal speech might interfere with Republican plans to establish an permanent one party regime, so these Injustices damned the Constitution on their behalf.

A group of former detainees at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq will not be able to sue military contractors who they say participated in torture and other illegal acts of abuse at the US-run detention facility in 2003 and 2004. The US Supreme Court on Monday declined without comment to take up the case of Saleh v. Titan Corporation. The suit raised the issue of whether private contractors hired by the US military to perform services in a war zone may be held accountable for allegedly participating in acts of torture and other war crimes. A federal appeals court in Washington threw out the suit against two contractors, Titan Corporation, which provided Arabic translation services, and CACI International, which provided interrogators. On Monday, the detainees lost their bid to reinstate the lawsuit… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Christian Science Monitor>

Click through for more information on this case.

Were these two particular corporations guilty of the torture Bush and the Republican Party ordered? Frankly, I don’t know. But their guilt or innocence was not the matter at hand. The issue was whether or to allow the victims to sue, and allow US courts to determine whether or not the facts warrant a judgment. Because SCOTUS declined without comment, I cannot say which Justices blocked the case, but figuring that requires no rocket science. I suspect the fascist five want to keep the doings at Abu Ghraib and Bush/Republican involvement under wraps.

In both actions the Republicans on the Court demonstrated, once again, their dedication to injustice and their unwillingness to consider the Constitution.