Letters and Articles on Corporate Power

Unless otherwise noted, letters were submitted to the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune newspaper

Where's the Outrage?

22 March 2006
 

Where is the outrage? Corporate CEOs get multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses and they get them regardless of how they or their companies actually perform. Meanwhile, they lay-off thousands of employees and/or ask them to take massive pay cuts and/or ship their jobs overseas. In addition, those few companies with defined benefit pension plans are canceling them, often passing the cost off onto the taxpayers (who are the same workers who are losing their livelihoods) via the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.

However, the top officers make sure to take care of themselves. They still get their obscene pensions and no-show consulting fees. This compensation comes directly out of the pockets of shareholders, workers, and consumers. They then bribe the government to give them massive tax cuts so that they can keep even more of our wealth. Why do they do this? Because they can.

Any society with a sense of fairness would be staging a revolution. Instead, people expend all of their energy on whether gays should be allowed to marry, whether to teach creationism in the schools, and who should win "American Idol." It serves the interests of the CEO's and the government officials who do their bidding for us to be distracted this way.

Job Creation Where?

22 November 2011
 

Republicans are always referring to the large corporations and the rich as "job creators." I have to confess that they do create jobs -- in Mexico, China, India ... They just aren't creating them here. I guess that paying a living wage and benefits to Americans just lowers profits too much for the executives to get their full bonuses.

Corporate Welfare Never Pays Off

31 May 2012
 

This newspaper's editorial on the failure of 38 Studios misses the main lesson to be learned from the experience. In their race to the bottom to attract business, cities and states offer them large tax breaks and subsidies that always cost more than the value of the jobs created. These companies then show no loyalty and move as soon as they can find a cheaper place to do business, laying off the workers hired and leaving the taxpayers holding the bag. This is known as corporate welfare. Of course, these deals never seem to contain claw back provisions to recoup the giveaways. It's way past time that government leaders learned that giving in to corporate extortion never pays off.
 

Another Giant Merger

31 May 2012
 

Once again, two corporate giants have been allowed to merge with only the most cursory review. This time, it's NStar and Northeast Utilities. I don't recall seeing a call for public comments on this. If there had been one I would have said that, in the wake of bailing out "too big to fail" banks, we have no business allowing huge corporations to merge and get too
big to regulate. Where is enforcement of the anti-trust laws that were passed 100 years ago to stop such abuses back then. Do we learn nothing from history?

Corporate Fraud Should Mean Prison

21 July 2012
 

Every day exposes a new scandal involving fraud and other criminal acts on the part of giant banks and other corporations. The small fines that are erratically levied are not serving as a deterrent. They are just considered an ordinary cost of doing business that can be written off. Meanwhile, millions of ordinary real people suffer the consequences. It is past time that the limited liability laws were revised to make employees of corporations (including the top executives) personally liable for criminal activities. They should be indicted, tried, sent to prison, and be required to make restitution. Sadly, this will not happen as long as elected officials are controlled by corporate lobbying and campaign contributions.

Secret Trade Treaty Is a Corporate Power Play

23 November 2012

For the past two years, the nations of the Pacific Rim (including the United
States) have been negotiating a massive "trade" treaty.  The proceedings
have been kept secret from Congress and the public, but representatives of the major multi-national corporations are primary participants. They are
developing a new world order that will raise corporate rights above those of people and governments.  Leaks reveal it to be a wish list of corporate
givaways like those from NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, only much more so.  Its effects would be to:

Severely limit the ability of governments at all levels to regulate foreign
corporations operating within the United States.  Indeed, it would give them greater rights than domestic firms.

Provide American companies with even greater incentives to ship jobs
overseas to countries with low wages and weak environmental laws.

Allow corporations to sue governments for any laws that reduce potential
future profits.  These include laws for consumer, labor, or environmental
protection and that give buy-local preferences.  These would be tried in
special international tribunals whose judges are the same attorneys that
work for the multi-national corporations.  History so far has shown that the corporations always win these cases in these biased courts.

Just as with similar treaties, the plan is to present it to Congress for a
rapid vote before its full implications can be digested and debated.  This
massive usurpation of our rights on the altar of corporate profits and power must be stopped.  Congress and citizens must insist that these negotiating sessions be opened up to full public scrutiny and exposed as the giant corporate giveaway that they are.
 

Jay Ambrose Is a Corporate Shill
18 February 2015

As is to be expected, Jay Ambrose writes as a shill for the giant corporations. In his February 13 column, he decries the FCC classifying internet service providers as utilities so that they can be regulated.  What he neglects to mention is that this was the result of a massive grass-roots push in order to protect consumers from predation by these giant corporations who want to control the content that can be posted and impose extra fees for decent service. It was also made necessary by a corporate-friendly Supreme Court ruling that net neutrality could not be preserved in any other way.  This government regulation serves to increase freedom for individuals and protect them from being constrained by the corporate drive for greater profits at our expense.

He claims Congress is working on legislation providing these protections.  Given their recent history and certain interference by corporate lobbyists, I am not holding my breath on getting a law that serves our interests over those of the ISPs.  Also, the history of corporate mega-mergers demonstrates that the anti-trust laws are virtually never enforced.  Finally, he cites the Heritage Foundation.  It must be noted that this think tank was founded by the Koch brothers and other industrialists to serve their corporate agenda.  They are no friend of working people or consumers.

More Corporate Whining
10 January 2016

There they go again.  The corporate founded and funded Heritage Foundation is complaining about government regulation (The 10 Worst Government Regulations of 2015 - Jan. 4).  There is a very good reason for regulating corporations.  Many of the largest companies have strong sociopathic tendencies and seek to maximize profits, regardless of the collateral damage done in this relentless quest.  Therefore, they need to be kept on a tight leash.  Let's address the specific points:

Tombstones:  This is merely an example of one giant power group seizing more influence than another.  Sadly, it's how politics is done in our country.

Salt:  The fact is that restaurant food is seriously over-salted because other seasonings are more expensive.  I doubt that Americans are in any danger of not getting enough salt.

Birth Control Insurance:  Despite Supreme Court rulings, corporations are not people and cannot have a religion.  The real issue is worker versus employer rights.

Minimum Wage:  The purpose of the minimum wage is to prevent a race to the bottom in worker pay.  The fact that so many employers pay exactly this amount proves that they would keep driving wages lower and lower if they could.  The current federal minimum already keeps workers in poverty.

Energy Efficiency Standards:  Despite the fossil fuel industry's denials, the
earth is heating up due to carbon dioxide emissions (2014 and 2015 were the hottest years on record) and we do need to reduce energy use.  Setting efficiency standards allows consumers to objectively evaluate which products are best and saves us money.  It's been revealed that the oil companies predicted global warming 40 years ago, but buried the research because it threatened profits.

Waterway Jurisdiction:  History has proven that, without government regulation, corporations will wantonly pollute and neglect basic safety precautions.  Giving the Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard jurisdiction over our waterways and wetlands helps to ensure that people and freight travel safely and that wildlife can be at least somewhat protected.  Remember, we do share this finite planet with other species.

Internet:  The reality is that a small number of giant corporations do control most access to the internet.  They have already tried to set access speeds based on charging content providers extra and restrict what content can be posted.  Without complete net neutrality, small users and content providers (i.e., ordinary citizens) risk being squeezed out.

Clean Power Plan:  Coal has the highest carbon and general pollutant output per unit of energy generated and mining it does the greatest environmental damage of any fuel.  We do need to get this under control, but the coal companies and their think tanks will oppose any limits tooth and nail.  Even Republican president George W. Bush had a "clean coal" plan.

We already tried letting industry have free reign back in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  We wound up with dangerous consumer products, air we couldn't breathe, water we couldn't drink, and soil too contaminated to live on.  It took the power of government to force them to clean up their acts.

Original column:
http://www.eagletribune.com/opinion/column-the-worst-government-regulations-of/article_9fc44571-ce32-5b3d-a0a2-0d63a0174936.html
 

Why We Keep Needing More Regulations
5 July 2016

Richard Williams gives the usual Republican screed against government regulation ("Celebrating red, white and blue -- not red tape - July 1). What he fails to disclose is that the reason agencies keep issuing all of these rules is because corporations keep trying to cheat. They use armies of lawyers and accountants to keep finding arcane loopholes in the laws intended to protect workers, consumers, communities, the environment, and even investors in their relentless pursuit of maximizing short-term profits at all costs. This forces the government to constantly scramble to plug the leaks. A good example is making predatory loans and selling the associated junk real estate bonds as AAA investments, which resulted in crashing the world economy in 2008. If corporations had a strong culture of ethical behavior, then we wouldn't need all of these laws and regulations.
 

Drug Prices
31 August 2016

Why do pharmaceutical companies suddenly jack up the prices of their products by factors of five or ten? Because they can. In America, it is illegal for the government to negotiate lower drug prices (a Republican insert into the Medicare Part D legislation -- along with the "donut hole"), health insurance companies have no incentive to, and desperate patients will pay to protect their health / lives. Remember that, according to stock analysts and top corporate executives, there is no higher value in the world above maximizing profits, regardless of who gets hurt or the damage done in that quest. And, with their huge paychecks, they can afford those prices themselves, so what's the problem?

Corporate Rights Overreach
10 December 2016

In a classic example of the abuses allowed by the Supreme Court created concept of corporate personhood, Exxon is suing the Massachusetts Attorney General's office over its investigation of the company's cover-up of its climate change research, claiming that it violates their rights under the 1st, 4th, and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. Notwithstanding that this is equivalent to a criminal suing the police for serving a search warrant, the fact is that the idea of corporations having the same rights as people is a complete legal fiction manufactured out of thin air by the Court in 1886 and then repeatedly compounded by a long series of corporate-friendly justices granting them more and more "rights," despite that fact the word "corporation" never actually appears in the Constitution. Such travesties demonstrate why it is essential that we pass an amendment declaring that corporations are not people.

ALEC and Republican Cabal
6 - 31 December 2016

Original Letter (12/06/2016):
http://www.EagleTribune.com/opinion/letter-convention-of-states-could-rein-in-federal-government/article_898b6723-e931-5416-ab31-0f15b413b7d2.html
 

14 December 2016:

Rebecca Giambarresi calls for a constitutional convention to reduce the regulatory powers for the federal government. She calls it a grassroots movement, but the reality is that it's pure astroturf. What she fails to mention is that this is an ongoing initiative by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- a cabal of giant corporations and the Republican party to write and pass laws that favor their interests at the expense of everyone else.

ALEC writes model legislation to be passed in Republican-controlled states to disenfranchise poor minorities, expand private prisons, relax gun safety regulations, weaken environmental protections, bust unions, and privatize education, among many others. To date, they have gotten 28 states to call for such a convention to ram through a suite of amendments that would cripple the federal government's ability protect workers, consumers, the environment, and civil rights as well as starve safety net programs for the poor.

The only pending amendment that actually benefits ordinary Americans is the "We the People Amendment" that holds that corporations are not people and money is not speech. This would be the first step in preventing the above abuses of our democratic system.

Response to my letter (12/20/2016):
http://www.EagleTribune.com/opinion/letter-alec-a-legitimate-organization-of-patriotic-citizens/article_27dda9d7-2bc5-5a95-8790-e9e0b639ed86.html


26 December 2016:

In response to my letter, Rebecca Giambaressi refers to ALEC as a group of "patriotic citizens, organizations, and legislators." This might be true if you consider multinational corporations to be citizens (as the Supreme Court erroneously does) and patriotism to be maximizing their profits. Contrary to Ms. Giambaressi's assertion, this group's only objective is to make government work more effectively to advance the profits of these corporations at the expense of ordinary working people and the environment and to put/keep their Republican allies in control to advance this agenda.

Their initiatives include harsh voter ID laws aimed at excluding poor black voters combined with strategic redistricting that dilutes their influence (thus reducing votes for Democratic candidates), minimum sentencing laws that increase the rate of incarceration and the need for more prisons, union busting "right to work" laws, the gutting of environmental protections, handing over protected federal lands to mining and oil drilling interests, privatizing Medicare and Social Security, and much, much more.

Don't be fooled. ALEC does not represent the public interest -- only corporate greed and the selfish interests of the 1%.

"Right to Work" Designed to Destroy Unions
18 February 2017
 

Unlike Don Ewing, I am relieved that Republicans in the New Hampshire House of Representatives rejected the Senate's union busting "right to work" law. This law, written by corporate lobbyists at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), is cynically designed to starve unions of resources so that they cannot fulfill their purpose of protecting their members' interests. Mr. Ewing's assertion that opting out of union membership allows an employee to negotiate his own deals erroneously assumes that there is a level playing field between an employer and an individual worker. However, the reality is that, without the presence of a union, the employer holds all of the power to set pay and working conditions. A prospective employee can only take it or leave it and has no assurance that he will do any better with the next company.

The reasons that right-to-work states have faster job growth than union rights ones is because corporations move there explicitly to shut down their union shops. However, pay and benefits in those states are lower, demonstrating the results of having weakened or no union representation. It is the exact same reason that also motivates them to ship jobs to low-wage, third-world countries.

Unions might not be perfect, but it is only their collective bargaining power to represent all workers that gives any balance of power with corporate management. Any worker who thinks that he can be freeloader who can have union pay, benefits, and protections without having to pay for it is only hurting his own interests in the long run. If enough workers opt out, then the union collapses and the employer becomes free to exploit and abuse its workers as it pleases.  And, that is the law's ultimate intent.

Ordinary Americans Betrayed by Republicans and Trump
8 April 2017

With the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, corporate interests now completely control all three branches of government and Republicans and the Trump administration are racing at breakneck speed to betray the people who they fooled into voting for them. Just so far, the following laws and executive orders have been rammed through:

1. Cancelled a rule allowing salaried workers making between $23K and $47K to receive overtime pay.

2. Attempted to throw people back into the wild west of unregulated health insurance companies while giving a $400 billion tax cut to the wealthy.

3. Repealed the fiduciary requirement for stock brokers, so that they can now return to cheating consumers.

4. Made state-sponsored worker savings plans illegal.

5. Crippled government agencies' ability to police abuses by investment firms.

6. Opened up federal lands to coal mining and allowed mining companies to dump their tailings into previously pristine streams.

7. Rolled back application of the Clean Water Act to small streams in general.

8. Passed a bill allowing internet service providers to sell our browsing history and other personal information.

9. Revoked the rule on net neutrality, so that internet companies can now provide worse service on content that they don't favor.

10. Prohibited internet providers from charging reduced rates to low-income customers.

11. Rolled back a rule forbidding excessive telephone charges for prison inmates.

12. Lifted limits on how many television and radio stations a media conglomerate can own so that they can increase their control of what we see and hear even more.

13. Forbade research at the EPA on global warming (it is real and already happening) and how to mitigate its effects and deleted data on the subject from its web site.

14. Eliminated rules limiting the emission of greenhouse gases by oil/gas companies and power plants.

15. Demolished the ability of the EPA to even research environmental protections, let alone make rules.

16. Further weakened already inadequate background check rules for gun purchases.

17. Weakened anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals.

18. Weakened the ability of individuals to prosecute lawsuits against large corporations.

19. Repealed requirements for employers to report safety or labor violations and accidents.

20. Eliminated a rule requiring companies to report bribes paid to foreign governments.

21. Cancelled a reduction in FHA fees for first time home buyers.

It's almost too much too fast to keep up with and this is only a partial list of the most egregious and far-reaching actions. And, they show no sign of slowing down on giving our country totally away to their corporate owners at the expense of workers, consumers, and the environment.

Supreme Court Upholds Employer Arbitration Clauses

22 May 2018

The Supreme Court has done it again.  They have granted more power to corporations and taken rights away workers.  In this case, they ruled 5 to 4 that employers may enforce binding arbitration clauses in the agreements that employees must sign as a condition of employment.  These prohibit workers from banding together to bring class action lawsuits when the company cheats or otherwise abuses them.  It should be noted that this constitutes coercion since the employee must either accept this restriction or not get the job, but this matters not to the conservative justices.  This follows on the heels of a similar 2011 ruling that allows companies to make their customers sign such agreements (usually buried deep in the fine print of the contracts that nobody reads) as a condition of using their products.  Since the arbitrators are selected and paid by the company and not the aggrieved worker or consumer, they almost always rule in the company's favor.

This constitutes yet another major shift in the balance of power in favor of corporations, which has been the habit of the Court for the past 140 years.  Since this ruling is based on statute (the 1925 National Arbitration Act and the 1935 National Labor Relations Act), Congress could fix this.  But, since the Republican Party is owned by the giant corporations, it is unlikely to happen.  It could also be fixed by state governments, but Republican-controlled states are unlikely to do so either.

It should be noted that the Trump Justice Department sided with the corporations in this case.  It's past time for Trump voters to wake up and realize that their President is shafting them big time while he advances the interests of the rich and powerful.

Democratic Socialism Is What America Needs

2 Aug 2018

Corporate spokesman Jay Ambrose and right wing ideologue Taylor Armerding cynically and deceptively conflate democratic socialism with communist dictatorships because they are in a panic over the possibility that the current corporate kleptocracy may be overturned.  The fact is that our country is dominated by a system of rampant, barely restrained capitalism serving the interests of giant multinationals at the expense of ordinary Americans and small community-based businesses.  Our economy and government are ruled by corporations' quest to maximize profits regardless of the social cost.

An array of corporate-funded think tanks craft policies that serve their interests and promote them via media campaigns (such as the columns referenced above).  Then, their trade groups (such as ALEC) write model legislation to implement them and have (primarily Republican) lawmakers introduce them.  Next, an army of corporate lobbyists bribe (via campaign contributions) and extort (by threatening to run primary opponents to their right) elected officials in a way that ordinary citizens cannot.  This is enabled by a long series of pro-corporate Supreme Court decisions granting them constitutional rights as people and declaring money as equivalent to First Amendment speech.

That is why we get:
*  tax cuts overwhelmingly favoring billionaires and corporations, bankrupting our government;
*  energy policies denying global warming and favoring fossil fuels;
*  erosion of labor, consumer, and environmental protections;
*  jobs exported to low-wage countries;
*  obstruction of sensible gun control;
*  exorbitant drug prices;
*  stagnating wages;
And much, much more ...

In contrast, the whole point of Democratic Socialism is that it is democratic.  It is highly regulated capitalism that puts power back in the hands of ordinary working people and advocates for a government that works for us, not the corporate overlords.  It's true that taxes are high in western Europe, but they get what they pay for.  Universal health care is way cheaper than our system based on corporate profits (and frees businesses from that expense) and free/cheap college is an investment in future prosperity that returns far more than is spent.  Worker protections are strong, but their economies still thrive and employers make a fair profit.  That is why high-tax Scandinavian countries consistently poll as the happiest.

Finally, given their rabid hatred of socialism, I assume that Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Armerding will be declining their Social Security and Medicare benefits when they retire.

Original columns:
http://www.EagleTribune.com/opinion/trendy-socialism-will-only-make-us-all-miserable/article_50678193-7755-598b-a772-73c148138361.html

http://www.EagleTribune.com/opinion/success-of-new-york-socialist-is-bad-news-for-rest/article_248850ce-b745-5343-b79b-b2027b3cdc6c.html
 

5G Frequency Band Auction Conflicts with Weather Buoys

1 Jun 2019
 

I commend the editorial board for their column on the dangers of selling off the frequency
band used to gather data for tracking storms at sea. However, you omit discussing the full
risks and real reasons for this huge giveaway to the telecommunications industry.

In addition to your assessment, 5G technology requires the presence of microwave transmitters
every few thousand feet. This requires them to be placed on utility poles throughout our
neighborhoods without any prior research on potential health effects of constant exposure to
such a high energy density. It will also involve hundreds of satellites to relay the data.
What risks will so many objects in orbit present to space travel? Finally, there is the
massive loss of privacy that using all of the enabled smart devices 5G is intended for will
create.

Why is this being pushed through so fast? First, the majority of the FCC Board of Trustees
have demonstrated a bias in favor corporate interests over those of the American people.
This was demonstrated by their repeal of net neutrality in 2017. Second, this administration
is bending over backwards to deny climate change and suppress any data that supports it in
deference to the fossil fuel industry. Hindering the ability to take measurements is an
excellent way to help achieve that. Third, we can also count on Congress failing to act to
protect us since too many of them are in the back pockets of industry or just clueless about
technology.

The bottom line is that this headlong rush to implement such a potentially dangerous
technology is ultimately driven by that fact that our government considers corporate profits
to be our nation's highest value, regardless of the consequences. In turn, this is because
the Supreme Court granted constitutional rights to corporations and money, allowing them to
spend unlimited amounts to lobby government officials and to influence elections.

In the end, this will not be fixed until we amend the Constitution with the "We the People
Amendment" to establish that corporations are not people and money is not First Amendment
free speech.

Michael Bleiweiss

Corporate Mega-Mergers

29 Jul 2019

Congress is holding hearings regarding anti-trust issues with the major technology giants -- Google, FaceBook, and Amazon. At the same time, the Justice Department has just approved the merger of the two telecom giants T-Mobile and Sprint. I hope I'm not the only one who sees the disconnect here.

The way these companies became so big and powerful is by buying up their competitors and side businesses. For example: FaceBook acquiring 79 other companies, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Friendster; Amazon acquiring retailers, such as Whole Foods (which had previously acquired Wild Oats); and Google buying up over 200 companies. Similarly, the "too big to fail" banks that we spent $750 billion bailing out in 2008 got that way by serially acquiring other banks and investment companies. Another example is the landline telephone companies. In 1984, the government broke up the near monopoly AT&T into the "Baby Bells." But then, it allowed them to all merge again into Verizon.

The best way to deal with a monopoly is to prevent it from forming in the first place. Sadly, the government agencies pretty much just rubber stamp corporate mergers after only token review. Indeed, the anti-trust laws have been pretty much disregarded ever since the Sherman Anti-Trust Act originally passed in 1890.

The underlying problem is that, for at least the past 150 years, the federal government has existed primarily to serve the interests of wealth, rather than the welfare of ordinary people. This is seen in the repeating rounds of tax cuts given to the top 1% and multi-national corporations (creating bigger and bigger deficits) and the bloated, unaccountable military budget that mostly funnels profits to defense contractors and protects corporate interests overseas. This, in turn, is enabled by the massive amounts of money spent lobbying and contributing to the campaigns of elected officials and the corporate-government revolving door that puts corporate executives in charge of the agencies that regulate them. This has been further enabled by a Supreme Court that almost always rules in favor of corporations over the rights of people and governments.

We can't even begin to address this until the influence of money on our government is restrained. A strong starting point is the "We the People Amendment" (H.J. Res. 48) that would establish that constitutional rights are only for real people and not artificial entities and that money is not First Amendment free speech.

Michael Bleiweiss
 

Sent to Congresswoman Lori Trahan:

14 May 2021
Shareholder Rights and Anti-Trust Law Flaws

Dear Rep. Trahan,

I used to be a shareholder in the company Varian Medical Systems.  However, in April, the company was acquired by the German conglomerate Seimens and Varian shareholders were cashed out.  This acquisition was never put to a shareholder vote nor were we offered to take Seimens stock instead of cash.

This is all quite legal, but reveals a flaw in corporate law.  Managers are able to make major decisions adversely affecting their shareholders without ever consulting them.  Remember that stockholders are technically the company's owners, but don't get a say in such matters.  In addition, the Justice Department and FTC rubber stamped this sale of an American company to a foreign one.  So much for "buy American" and for enforcing anti-trust laws.

To me, this means that we need some modifications to corporate law to strengthen shareholder rights and anti-trust enforcement.  Remember, the giant social media companies wouldn't have gotten so big and powerful if they were prevented from acquiring their competitors in the first place.

Sincerely,
Michael Bleiweiss

Clarence Thomas Is a Bought Man

28 Sep 2024

Recently, William Kolbe wrote a column on the large number of dissents written by Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas (Beware of the Dissenter-in-Chief - 16 September 2024), but did not elaborate on why. It's because Justice Thomas is bought. For the past couple of decades, he has been wined and dined and gifted by a cabal of far right-wing activist billionaires.

This has included lavish vacations, paying his grandnephew's private school tuition, buying his house and then letting his mother live there for free, and directing consulting fees to Thomas' wife Ginni (a leader in the movement to overturn the 2020 election results). None of these were reported on Thomas' required annual financial reports.

These billionaires regularly bring business before the Supreme Court trying to overturn government regulation of corporate abuses and privilege extreme Christian Nationalist policies. This constitutes a strong conflict of interest and would be a violation of ethics rules -- if the Court actually had any.

These should be impeachable offenses, but congressional Republicans will never let that happen because it also advances their agendas and they are bought too.

Michael Bleiweiss