Rather than being villain turned hero, as in the television version of The Dirty Dozen – The Deadly Mission, our version of The Dirty Dozen is even more sinister. ARII’s Dirty Dozen are agents—bought by global money interests—from the three branches of American government. They are congressmen, Supreme Court justices, and presidents gone rogue. How have they defrauded us?

What can you do—you are only one person? True, but you are only “six degrees of separation,” on average, from any other person on Earth. You become powerful when you share information with your friends and ask them to share it with their friends—it becomes a global revolution. As Stephen King suggests in The Long Walk, when these “society-supported sociopaths” come, step aside, and find the strength to run…

If I couldn’t live in California anymore—and I do prefer the climate here—I would consider moving to Vermont so I could vote for Senator Bernie Sanders. With his tousled white hair and Brooklyn-cum-New England accent, he stands out, as do his common-sense, independent positions. He takes the historian’s long view on subjects important to him such as the environment, and energy policy, but the cause on which he is currently bestowing the greatest passion is the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United.

It is easy to see why Senator Sanders—or “Bernie,” as he prefers—would choose this issue, which some would consider a lost cause. He has long been a champion of the average working person—not so much the billionaires. In a speech before a Senate panel July 24, he spoke in support of a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling that “corporations are people and money is speech.” He is sponsoring the Saving American Democracy Amendment, which has a companion measure in the House sponsored by Ted Deutch (D-FL).

“What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires and the corporations they control: ‘You own and control the economy, you own Wall Street, you own the coal companies, you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we’re going to give you the opportunity to own the United States government.’

“The amendment would say that for-profit corporations are not people, that they are not entitled to any rights under the Constitution, that they are subject to regulation by state legislatures consistent with free press protections, and that they are prohibited from making contributions or expenditures in political campaigns. The amendment also would declare that Congress and the states have the right to regulate and limit all political expenditures and contributions.”

Underscoring the malign effect Citizens United is having on elections through SuperPACs, note the report coming out of the recent Kansas primary: “Conservative groups, including Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Kansas Right to Life spent between $3 and $8 million.” Where are the billionaires in this? Kansas state Senate President Steve Morris noted that “the Koch brothers also helped fund the campaign, using Kansas as a testing ground for their ideas. ‘They said it will be an ultraconservative utopia,’ Morris said of the Kochs. ‘It depends on your definition of a utopia.’”

The result was a bloodbath for moderate candidates. “Seventeen out of 22 moderate Republican Senate candidates were defeated Tuesday, a culmination of a bitter GOP war that has engulfed the state since 2011.”

“They tried to tie our folks to President Obama even though we had nothing to do with him,” Morris told HuffPost. “They said we all supported Obamacare and that’s not true. It’s effective. The campaigns we did were positive and informational. The campaigns against us were very nasty. Evidently negative campaigning must work.”

Most voters will say that they don’t like negative campaign messages. Yet the folks that run them know that, nevertheless, they work to their advantage. To whatever extent that happens in Kansas, we will see in November. One thing for sure, there is no shortage of money, from sources that remain unknown.

“Morris… said he expects Kansas voters to reverse course on conservatives in the future. “I hope the electorate, when they see what happens with ultraconservatives, decide that is not what they want,” he said. “That takes a while, though; Senate elections are every four years.”

Bernie isn’t waiting four years in hopes of a voter reaction. He is using every means at his disposal to bring the issue to people’s attention, and people are listening. Vermont and five other states” (California among them!) “have adopted resolutions asking Congress for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision. More than 200 local governments, including about 60 towns in Vermont, have passed similar measures.”

Obviously, this is just a start. With Bernie Sanders, we need to maintain the public’s attention on this issue and keep up the pressure on government at every level, especially after the election season. “I’m proud to say the American people are making their voices heard on this issue—they are telling us loud and clear it is time to reverse the trend,” Sanders said.

What can you do—you are only one person? True, but you are only “six degrees of separation,” on average, from any other person on Earth. You become powerful when you share information with your friends and ask them to share it with their friends—it becomes a global revolution. As Stephen King suggests in The Long Walk, when these “society-supported sociopaths” come, step aside, and find the strength to run…

It’s not just jobs and the economy—it’s time to think of the approaching election in terms of the future of the Supreme Court.

Our two preceding articles focused on threats to our traditional balance-of-power structure put in place by the Founding Fathers—the executive, the legislative and the judiciary branches, each with their unique functions and prerogatives. All through our nation’s history, there has been an unceasing jostling for power with strong individuals or groups of individuals, at various times, exerting extraordinary influence and thus affecting the governance of our nation.

Now, in the light of the Court’s recent decision on the controversial Affordable Care Act, powers are in play that will dramatically affect the course of our nation for many years to come.

Legal commentators have universally hailed John Roberts’ deciding vote on the 5 to 4 decision as a brilliant stroke—defending his court from accusations of partisanship from the liberals while, at the same time, handing the conservatives a victory that will yield long-term consequences in the limitation of federal powers.

Listen to a conservative: “We won,” said Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett, who was perhaps the most influential legal opponent of the Affordable Care Act. “All the arguments that the law professors said were frivolous were affirmed by a majority of the court today. A majority of the court endorsed our constitutional argument about the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Yet we end up with the opposite outcome. It’s just weird.”

The liberals, headed by the Obama administration, find themselves in a position that is less clear. Sure, “Obamacare,” the centerpiece legislation of the Obama presidency, survived, but it emerged from the Roberts’ court branded as a tax, giving its enemies a strong weapon to use against it from now to the election. In one stroke, Roberts transformed the issue from a judicial one into a political one. Erick Erickson, conservative blogger, expressed the result in stark terms: “In forcing us to deal with this politically, the Democrats are going to have a hard time running to November claiming the American people need to vote for them to preserve Obamacare. It remains deeply, deeply unpopular with the American people. If they want to make a vote for them—a vote for keeping a massive tax increase—let them try.”

Pondering the deeper implications of this decision whose many permutations remain to be worked out, it is impossible to avoid the thought that this decision is what a poisoned apple was to the Snow White character—a tempting, wholesome-appearing treat that in reality contained a deadly poison.

Looking back, the 2010 decision on Citizens United is a standout example of another 5 to 4 decision that has altered the political landscape in a troubling manner. In this instance, Justice Kennedy played his accustomed role of “decider,” writing the majority opinion giving corporations equal rights with individuals in the arena of political speech. In the simplest terms, corporations are people; money is speech. We are seeing the results, and it is daunting.

Another notable intrusion of the Court into the political scene is, of course, the example of Bush v. Gore during the contested 2000 presidential election. The word “disgraceful” continues to be attached to this example of judicial behavior, which has fed countless debates on the proper role of the high Court. Added to a nearly uninterrupted string of 5 to 4 decisions, it gives rise to questions about the partisan nature of so many recent decisions on matters of importance to the American people.

In making our decision for a presidential candidate this November, we should consider that during the next president’s term of office three Supreme Court justices will be entering their eighties—liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg, conservative Antonin Scalia, and swing vote Anthony Kennedy. Supreme Court justices, selected by the president and confirmed by the Senate, serve for life, stepping down only at their own discretion. Thus the next president will conceivably be able to profoundly influence the composition of the Court—and the nation—for many years to come.

This situation is not lost on those who watch the political scene. Erick Erickson observes, “It seems very, very clear to me in reviewing John Roberts’ decision that he is playing a much longer game than us and can afford to with a life tenure. And he probably just handed Mitt Romney the White House.”

Some of us hope that Erickson is wrong. There is so much at stake, and as long as I have a vote, I’ll use it to support a truly representative democracy.

What can you do—you are only one person? True, but you are only “six degrees of separation,” on average, from any other person on Earth. You become powerful when you share information with your friends and ask them to share it with their friends—it becomes a global revolution. As Stephen King suggests in The Long Walk, when these “society-supported sociopaths” come, step aside, and find the strength to run…