The Supreme Court has made some (historically speaking) really embarrassing, short-sighted decisions and the country has survived, but why does it seem like those four conservative justices are out to abolish our democracy? And something else has been pointed out to me: The four never vary (the Affordable Heath Care Act notwithstanding) from their dogma, and are nearly perfectly predictable in their decisions way before their decisions are handed down - way before hearings even begin. Has that ever been the case historically?

...and another thing. Now that George H. W. Bush is nearing his time on Earth and twenty plus years have passed, you hear talk about how not-so-bad he was. This always gets my dander up because we can thank George H. W. Bush for Clarence Thomas. That's enough to condemn him forever in my eyes.

@ Bauhaus,

He doesn't seem so bad in comparison to the compulsive liars, sadistic psychopaths, and greed-crazed kleptomaniacs in office after him.

As much as the Roberts Cabal is scary - and they are Dred Scott all over, except much more clever about it - and as much as they are re-litigating the Civil War, we must be mindful that the Burger Court, which included a number of moderate, post-war, mid-century justices (the supposedly leftist activist court, minus Earl Warren), is where the real error occured: conflating money and speech. Money is not speech. If money is speech, then yes, that some Americans are entitled to more speech than others necessarily follows.

Thankfully, as access to a megaphone is no longer so heavily mediated by institutional gatekeepers (whom one bribes with money), the dependence of candidates and organizing structures on TV ad buys diminishes.

This means we have to work harder through social networks (and social media) to get messaging out. Focus on making fund-raising and ad buys irrelevant, and you strip away the big money advantage.

All these campaign limits do is let people buy offices...at ridiculously low prices!

We barely get bread, and we certainly don't get circuses, and we really want houses.

@6 - speak for yourself. I certainly don't want a house, they are debt-traps that facilitate a complacent society.

@3 - BushCheneyCo weren't compulsive liars, sadistic psychopaths, and greed-crazed kleptomaniacs also?

I could have *sworn* that illegal invasions based on complete untruth, ignoring intelligence thus allowing attacks, approved torture, illegitimate detentions, kidnapping, "extraordinary rendition", remote assassinations, corporate cronyism, no-bid contracts, and war, war, war - both at home and abroad - would rate as ALL those things you mention.
Have you forgotten already?
Or are you measuring the difference of degree between difference and no difference?