Sunday, November 28, 2010

The 100 Year Old Bankster Conspiracy

In November of 1910, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich (R) of Rhode Island, chair of the National Monetary Commission formed in the wake of the Panic of 1907 to review banking policies in the United States, invited a small group of men out to Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia for a "duck hunt". That was what people were led to believe at the time, anyway. But this was no ordinary group of amateur outdoor sportsmen. In addition to the Senator and his personal secretary Arthur Shelton, the Jekyll Island group gathering for the "duck hunt" was comprised of Dr. A. Piatt Andrew, a former Harvard University assistant Professor of Economics and as of 1910, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Henry P. Davidson, partner at J.P. Morgan and Co., Frank A. Vanderlip, President of the Rockefeller-owned National City Bank and Paul M. Warburg, representing US interests as a partner of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. and extensive international interests as a member of the Warburg banking family.

How many ducks they actually bagged on that trip is inconsequential; it was subterfuge for the real purpose: the most powerful monied interests in the world secretly redesigning the way money works in America. The plan hatched on this trip was the basis for what would eventually become the Federal Reserve. Though Aldrich's initial legislation upon return from this trip would be rejected by Congress, it did approve a similar proposal complete with a central banking system in 1913, which President Wilson signed into law called the Federal Reserve Act. This law, which forever altered the structure of the US economy, would never have been conceived if these most powerful monied interests (Morgan, Rockefeller, Warburg) had not secretly conspired to make it so.

One hundred years later, the world looks very different on the outside, but business still gets done pretty much the same way it did back then. Even in the 21st century, we still see that a "duck hunt" can be used as a ruse by powerful interests to get business done. That's how I would define the word conspiracy as it relates to economic and political power: how business gets done. Why is the subject of conspiracy not given a more open and honest examination within the context of US historical analysis? I leave it to the late, great comedian George Carlin to explain:

"The limits of debate in this country are established before the debate even begins.

And everyone else is marginalized and made to seem either to be communists, or some sort of a disloyal person; or 'kook' - there's a word - and now its 'conspiracy', see.

They've made that something that should not be even entertained for a minute! That powerful people might get together and have a plan! 'Doesn't happen! You're a kook! You're a conspiracy buff'!"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO0-u900OG4



If you think this 100 year old conspiracy is a joke, I would counter by saying not only do the powers that profit the most from this arrangement think the joke is on you, they are still rubbing that joke in our faces. Consider recent events from earlier this month:

Fed has starring role in 'Return to Jekyll Island'


By Neil Irwin

bernankemortgage.JPG
(Photo Credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
By Neil Irwin
JEKYLL ISLAND, Ga. -- After making their most significant monetary policy decision in quite a long time earlier this week, top officials of the Federal Reserve are now set to turn their attention to some big-picture questions about their institution: Where has it been? How did it get here? And where is it going?
They are gathering this weekend at the very resort on the Georgia coast where 100 years ago a group of bankers and finance experts met to craft what would eventually become the Federal Reserve System.
Indeed, the 1910 Jekyll Island gathering has long been viewed by conspiracy theorists as the root of what they consider to be the central bank's shadowy, elitist ways. There is even a Fed-bashing book called "The Creature from Jekyll Island."
Now, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is hosting a conference titled "Return to Jekyll Island." It may sound like the sequel to a bad horror movie, but it is in fact a meeting that aims to examine the full scope of the Fed's history (see the agenda here).
more...
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-economy/2010/11/fed_has_starring_role_in_retur.html

As Neil Irwin points out, unlike the original meeting 100 years that was deliberately shrouded in secrecy, there were plenty of journalists on hand to record what happened this November. Here is a recording of one moment that stood out in particular:

Is it time yet for America to force these banks into receivership?
To force prosecution for these frauds..... these crimes?
And to hold accountable the regulators.... including The Fed..... who intentionally ignored these frauds and crimes?
How many Americans have to lose their homes?
How many jobs have to go to China?
How much devaluation of our currency - undertaken to prop up these scams - will you tolerate?
How much higher does gasoline and food have to go in price, while your wages remain stagnant or you lose your job - and you're evicted from your house - before you demand it stop and the scammers go to prison?

more...

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=171691

While I have gone on record many times in the past with my condemnation of the astro-turf front known as the Tea Party, I have no problem citing the likes of Karl Denninger, especially since he has seen what he had thought was the original intent of the organization be usurped by the likes of Sarah Palin & Newt Gingrich focusing on "Guns, gays, God," instead of "enforcement of the law against those who have robbed, financially ****d and pillaged the nation." I would hope that all people of good conscience, regardless of their ideological preference, would stand in unity against this assault from the Elite. There can be no real justice or real democracy in this country until there is economic justice and economic democracy. While there may not be a consensus on how to get there, the first step is to recognize that the banksters are not a realistic part of that solution, only the continuation of a very debilatating problem.

Monday, November 22, 2010

PLAME/EDMONDS/AIPACGATE UPDATE: Rosen Threatens to Open Pandora's Box

Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it. But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything… That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

-Sibel Edmonds

About a year ago, I had reached the acceptance stage of my grief over the fact that justice would not be served and the perpetrators behind the outing of Valerie Plame, the corruption that Sibel Edmonds witnessed before the FBI fired her and the espionage at AIPAC would never pay for their crimes. The cover-up of these crimes by both the justice system and the mainstream media (MSM) put me in a depression that for six months made writing a blog seem like a waste of time. But by November of 2009, I had moved on to documenting other aspects of deep politics in the midst of a global scenario of permanently declining resources. The prospect of finding justice in a labyrinthian conspiracy I had spent the past five years documenting was not even worth entertaining anymore.

One year later, that possibility is still facing astronomical odds. But there is a faint glimmer of hope; the slightest shred of a chance. This is why:


Ex-AIPAC official threatens to uncover mass spying at Israel lobby


By Daniel Tencer
Sunday, November 21st, 2010 -- 11:41 am




 Ex AIPAC official threatens to uncover mass spying at Israel lobby
Top AIPAC officials visited prostitutes, regularly watched porn at work: claim
Is US's most influential advocate for Israel about to implode?
snip
Steve Rosen, who was in charge of foreign policy issues at AIPAC until 2005, is suing his former employer for $20 million, alleging that AIPAC defamed him when they fired him. Rosen and colleague Keith Weissman were charged in 2004 with espionage for allegedly pressuring a Washington Post reporter into running classified US government information they had obtained about Iran. The charges were dropped last year, evidently due to lack of evidence.
snip
Rosen says his actions were common practice at the organization. He said his next move is to show that AIPAC, Washington’s major pro-Israeli lobbying group by far, regularly traffics in sensitive U.S. government information, especially material related to the Middle East.
snip
"Unfortunately for AIPAC, Rosen has 180 documents which could prove that Howard Kohr, AIPAC's executive director, and probably the AIPAC board as well, knew exactly what Rosen was doing," reports M.J. Rosenberg at Al-Jazeera.
He suggests that Rosen's threat to reveal AIPAC trafficking of data is meant to intimidate the lobby group into settling out of court. Making the lawsuit go away "will not be easy - even if Steve Rosen ultimately accepts a payoff from the organization and refrains from telling what he knows," Rosenberg writes.
more...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/official-uncover-mass-spying-israel-lobby/

As the story notes, there is still the strong possibility the truth will remain covered up through an out of court settlement. But if that doesn't happen, the revelations Rosen possesses could be the equivalent of what James McCord revealed to Judge Sirica in a letter dated March 19, 1973. That letter, which stated that perjury had occurred and the Watergate burglars had plead guilty under pressure from John Dean and former Attorney General John Mitchell. As wikipedia summarizes, "His letter set off the Watergate scandal in earnest by implicating many higher-ups in the Richard Nixon administration for covering up the conspiracy that led to the burglary." I noted the potential for a similar Pandora's Box opening existed within the AIPAC spy scandal in the second edition of American Judas three years ago:

On January 20, 2006, Judge T.S. Ellis, III sentenced Franklin to 12 years and 7 months in prison sentence and a $10,000 fine for passing classified information to a pro-Israel lobby group and an Israeli diplomat. In August, he denied Weissman and Rosen's motion to dismiss their indictment on the grounds that the government could still prosecute and punish those who retransmitted classified information regardless of whether they had a security clearance or not, an interpretation of the Espionage Act that could have wide-reaching implications if it were allowed to become legal precedent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC_espionage_scandal This was done in spite of the efforts of defense lawyers, who tried to excuse their clients actions by claiming that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that Franklin did. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101648_pf.html While the defense’s attempt to highlight this as an example of backchannel exchanges that are part and parcel of how Washington works failed to persuade Judge Ellis to dismiss the case, in light of Ledeen’s implication that Rice approved of Hadley authorizing the December 2001 Rome meeting between Franklin and Ghorbanifar, this might turn out to be a Pandora’s Box if the defense chooses to open it when Weissman and Rosen’s trial occurs later this year.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/steverosenaipac.jpg Steven J. Rosen AIPAC
I believe Rosen's documentation could be just as explosive if allowed to publicly see the light of day. If anyone could do it, it seems the most likely bet that it would come through a powerful disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind and a sex scandal tied in to boot. The biggest impediment, even if Rosen does have his day in court, is MSM. When will they awake from their collective slumber and report the deep dark truth? This timeline doesn't give any indication that they ever will:

DC Press Corps Ignoring AIPAC’s Tawdry Civil War, the Biggest Story in Washington?

This post is by Paul Woodward and originally appeared on War in Context.
The story so far:
November 8: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) files a 260-page motion [large pdf -- don't attempt to download without broadband] in the District of Columbia Superior Court, in which AIPAC is attempting to fend off a $20 million defamation suit from former employee Steven J Rosen who claims he was wrongfully dismissed. AIPAC ditched him and his colleague Keith Weissman in 2005 when the pro-Israel lobby feared investigation by the FBI.
November 15: Grant Smith highlights much of the politically damaging content of the motion in an Antiwar article, AIPAC Bares All to Quash Lawsuit.
November 16: the story is picked up by MJ Rosenberg, The Forward and others.
November 17: the story is gathering steam in the Jewish press, with items in the JTA and Haaretz.
As for the Washington Post, the New York Times and the rest of the US mainstream media, well as of noon Wednesday, it’s apparently still nap time — or, a figurative bloodbath at that obscure and uninfluential lobbying organization really isn’t news — or, there’s no such thing as the Israel lobby and so why should the press pay any attention — or, a bunch of spineless editors, worried about embarrassing their friends at AIPAC, are looking over their shoulders waiting to see which of their competitors is going to break loose first and force them to report on this unseemly turn of events.
more...
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/11/17/dc-press-corps-ignoring-aipacs-tawdry-civil-war-the-biggest-story-in-washington/#

So it looks to me as if the only way the truth will be revealed is through slow, incremental pieces in little tucked-away corners of the blogosphere like this:

AIPAC On The Brink: And Not One Word In MSM

user-pic
AIPAC is in big trouble and the media is ignoring it. If this was, say, the National Rifle Association or NARAL, this story would be on page one.
But it's AIPAC, and few want to mess with it. ( Clay Swisher's does here. ). And here is Nathan Guttman at the Forward.
The story was broken in a Antiwar.com piece but is carried in the court filings by AIPAC and its ex-employee Steve Rosen who was fired by the lobby after being indicted under the Espionage Act (the case never went to trial).
snip
Beyond the smut, the most shocking revelation in the court documents is when Rosen reveals that immediately upon being told by the FBI that he was in serious trouble, and being warned by AIPAC's counsel to come immediately to his office and talk to no one in advance, he immediately ran to meet with the #2 at the Israeli embassy!
more...
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/16/aipac_on_the_brink_and_not_one_word_in_msm/

As I've indicated before, I'm not holding my breath for any tectonic plate shift. But I will remain vigilant and keep my eyes and ears open.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Dr. Strangecorp or: How the ACLU Learned to Stop Worrying and Enable the US Chamber of China

What I wrote in my last blog entry about a "sham election" wasn't an attempt at prophecy. It's just that the writing on the wall was very clear to me in the weeks leading up to the House takeover by the GOP on November 2. That writing on the wall came courtesy of ThinkProgress.org in a number of articles they published on a number of meetings and financial dealings between various dark actors that borders on, dare I say, a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Much thanks to Octafish and kpete at DemocraticUnderground.com for bringing these stories to my attention:



What Role Have Scalia And Thomas Played In The Koch Money Machine?

Earlier today, ThinkProgress’ Lee Fang revealed several documents outlining the details of one of right-wing billionaire Charles Koch’s secret convenings of corporate political donors. As Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal in 2006, the purpose of these meetings is to recruit “captains of industry” to fund the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks and media outlets. Buried in this document, however, is a surprising revelation about the role two supposedly impartial jurists have played in these extended fundraising solicitations: “Past meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”
A Supreme Court justice lending a hand to a political fundraising event would be a clear violation of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, if it wasn’t for the fact that the nine justices have exempted themselves from much of the ethical rules governing all other federal judges. Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court tells ThinkProgress that “[t]he Justices look to the Code of Conduct for guidance” in determining when they may participate in fundraising activities. Under that Code:
Fund Raising. A judge may assist nonprofit law-related, civic, charitable, educational, religious, or social organizations in planning fund-raising activities and may be listed as an officer, director, or trustee. A judge may solicit funds for such an organization from judges over whom the judge does not exercise supervisory or appellate authority and from members of the judge’s family. Otherwise, a judge should not personally participate in fund-raising activities, solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose. A judge should not personally participate in membership solicitation if the solicitation might reasonably be perceived as coercive or is essentially a fund-raising mechanism.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/scalia-thomas-koch

The article referred to in the first paragraph by Lee Fang is very important. Before I go into those details however, I'd like to point out that Scalia and Thomas are not the only current Supreme Court Justices heavily involved in right-wing fundraising. Lee Fang has a new article out today on another Justice on who the concept of impartiality is completely lost:

Exclusive: Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito Dismisses His Profligate Right-Wing Fundraising As ‘Not Important’

Last night, the American Spectator — a right-wing magazine known for its role in the “Arkansas Project,” a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton — held its annual gala fundraising event. The Spectator is more than merely an ideological outlet. Spectator publisher Al Regnery helps lead a secretive group of conservatives called the “Conservative Action Project,” formed after President Obama’s election, to help lobby for conservative legislative priorities, elect Republicans (the Conservative Action Project helped campaign against Democrat Bill Owens in NY-23), and block President Obama’s judicial appointments. The Spectator’s gala last night, with ticket prices/sponsorship levels ranging from $250 to $25,000, featured prominent Republicans like RNC chairman Michael Steele, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer (a major donor to Republican campaign committees and attack ad groups), and U.S. Chamber of Commerce board member and former Allied Capital CEO William Walton. Among the attendees toasting Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), the keynote speaker for the event, was Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito.
It’s not the first time Alito has attended the Spectator dinner. In 2008, Alito headlined the Spectator’s annual gala, helping to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the political magazine. According to Jay Homnick, a conservative who attended the 2008 Spectator gala, Alito spent much of his speech ripping then Vice President-elect Joe Biden as a serial plagiarizer.
As Alito entered the event last night, I approached the Justice and asked him why he thought it appropriate to attend a highly political fundraiser with the chairman of the Republican Party, given Alito’s position on the court. Alito appeared baffled, and replied, “it’s not important that I’m here.” “But,” I said, “you also helped headline this same event two years ago, obviously helping to raise political money as the keynote.” Alito replied curtly, “it’s not important,” before walking away from me.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/10/sam-alito-republican-fundraiser/



But the shady fundraising from Koch-aligned groups goes beyond these activist judges. Back to the Lee Fang article from October 20:


MEMO: Health Insurance, Banking, Oil Industries Met With Koch, Chamber, Glenn Beck To Plot 2010 Election

In 2006, Koch Industries owner Charles Koch revealed to the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore that he coordinates the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts through a twice annual meeting of wealthy right-wing donors. He also confided to Moore, who is funded through several of Koch’s ventures, that his true goal is to strengthen the “culture of prosperity” by eliminating “90%” of all laws and government regulations. Although it is difficult to quantify the exact amount Koch alone has funneled to right-wing fronts, some studies have pointed toward $50 million he has given alone to anti-environmental groups. Recently, fronts funded by Charles and his brother David have received scrutiny because they have played a pivotal role in the organizing of the anti-Obama Tea Parties and the promotion of virulent far right lawmakers like Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). (David Koch praised DeMint and gave him a “Washington Award” shortly after the senator promised to “break” Obama by making health reform his “Waterloo.”)
While the Koch brothers — each worth over $21.5 billion — have certainly underwritten much of the right, their hidden coordination with other big business money has gone largely unnoticed. ThinkProgress has obtained a memo outlining the details of the last Koch gathering held in June of this year. The memo, along with an attendee list of about 210 people, shows the titans of industry — from health insurance companies, oil executives, Wall Street investors, and real estate tycoons — working together with conservative journalists and Republican operatives to plan the 2010 election, as well as ongoing conservative efforts through 2012. According to the memo, David Chavern, the number two at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Fox News hate-talker Glenn Beck also met with these representatives of the corporate elite. In an election season with the most undisclosed secret corporate giving since the Watergate-era, the memo sheds light on the symbiotic relationship between extremely profitable, multi-billion dollar corporations and much of the conservative infrastructure. The memo describes the prospective corporate donors as “investors,” and it makes clear that many of the Republican operatives managing shadowy, undisclosed fronts running attack ads against Democrats were involved in the Koch’s election-planning event:
snip
Participants collaborated with infamous consultants who specialize in generating fake grassroots movements, as well as experts on how corporations should take advantage of Citizens United. One session, about how to “mobilize citizens for November,” involved a discussion with Republican strategists Tim Phillips and Sean Noble, anti-union leader Mark Mix, and longtime Koch operative Karl Crow. Phillips — a veteran astroturf lobbyist who previously managed a deceptive grassroots lobbying campaign to help the Hong Kong-based Tan family maintain their forced abortion sweatshops in the Mariana Islands — now leads the day-to-day operations of Americans for Prosperity, the group ThinkProgress first reported to have helped organize many of the initial Tea Party rallies against Obama. Americans for Prosperity, founded and financed by David Koch, has a field team of over 80 campaign staffers spread out around the country, and additionally plans to spend $45 million dollars worth of attack ads against Democrats. Shortly before the planning meeting, Crow authored a campaign finance memo explaining that because of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, he advised specifically that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 501(c)(6) and Americans for Prosperity’s 501(c)(4) can “now use general treasury funds to produce communications materials opposing or supporting specific candidates” and corporations can aggressively pressure their employees to vote a certain way.
snip
After ThinkProgess published its exclusive investigation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce revealing that the Chamber has been actively fundraising from foreign corporations for its 501(c)(6) account used to run a $75 million attack ad campaign, Chamber lobbyists found common cause with Beck and many of the conservative talking heads. Shortly after our investigation, Beck hosted an on-air fundraiser, asking his audience to give to the Chamber. Casual observers might have been surprised by the Chamber’s swift alliance with Beck (Chamber executives appeared on the Beck radio program and sung Beck’s praises on the Chamber blog), who has compared Obama to Adolf Hitler and called the President a “racist” who has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” By telling his listeners to give money to the Chamber, Beck, who owns a media company worth more than $32 million dollars and an experimental Mercedes Benz, essentially told his working class viewers to give their wages back to their employers. However, Beck never disclosed his long working history of discussing political strategy with America’s largest corporations. The Koch memo clearly shows that Beck has been collaborating with the Chamber, as well as other titans of industry, for years. In his latest appeal for support to the Chamber’s foreign-funded trade association, which already counts JP Morgan and ExxonMobil as dues-paying members, Beck yesterday told his audience that the Chamber simply “defends the little guy.”
more...
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/20/beck-koch-chamber-meeting

I have detailed in many previous blog entries the machinations of the Koch brothers, Glenn Beck, the real "activists" on the Supreme Court and evil corporate powers. But I have yet to document the machinations of the US Chamber of Commerce. Prior to the 2010 election season, I had not even heard of this organization. This fall, they seemed omnipresent in political TV ads castigating Democratic politicians and propagandizing in favor of corporate-friendly state initiatives. Every time their ads came on TV, I kept wondering, "Who are these guys?" Now, thanks to ThinkProgress.org, we know.
Through their investigative reporting, which President Obama cited while campaigning for Democratic Congressional candidates, we know that the US Chamber of Commerce is fueled by foreign oil and is funded by top offshoring companies working to send American jobs overseas. What did the US Chamber of Commerce do with this funding? They spent $75 million in the attack ad campaign we witnessed this fall. But that's not the worst part of the story. The worst part is that the US Chamber of Commerce raises money from foreign-owned businesses for its 501(c)(6) entity, the same account that finances its unprecedented $75 million dollar partisan attack ad campaign. Only $885,000 from 80 foreign companies have been documented in disclosed donations. The US Chamber of Commerce response to this investigation is that "we have a system in place" to prevent foreign funding for the Chamber's "political activities." Unfortunately, most donations are undisclosed, so there is no way to verify this claim. But they did not deny that they rely heavily on fundraising from firms all over the world, including foreign companies controlled by foreign governments, like China.
Think about that. The US Chamber of Commerce is financed by China. It astounds me how so many of these reich-wing, Teahadist-loving corporatists who normally red-bait at the drop of a hat where it concerns President Kenyan Marxist Obama can turn a blind eye to having their favorite candidates and causes funded by Red China. Oh wait, sorry, they have a "system in place" to prevent that. Is that system called Don't Ask Don't Tell? I call bullshit, and unless they can prove otherwise, I'll throw their red-baiting back in their face by referring to them as the US Chamber of China from now on. If they can't walk the walk, they shouldn't talk the talk.
Yeah, that's the ticket. What if name-calling solved all our problems? Unfortunately, the situation is much graver than that. It would be so convenient if I could just slap the label "American Judas" on a person or organization that deserved it and just neatly separate the right from the left. But it's not that simple. If there is a person or organization that has been characterized as or embraced by the left that is complicit in selling this country out, then I have a moral obligation to slap the label "American Judas" on them too. Not because I enjoy name-calling, but because when diagnosing what is ailing this country and why, then I have to name who is responsible for those problems, regardless of ideological preference.
This is where the story of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who has had the reputation of being a left-wing organization, enabling the US Chamber of China to saturate the media with propaganda that essentially bought the Congressional Class of 2010 comes into play. I've already cited how the US Chamber of China took advantage of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling when a longtime Koch brothers operative, Karl Crow (What a Dickensian name! Like Karl Rove and Jim Crow had a love child!), advised them they could “now use general treasury funds to produce communications materials opposing or supporting specific candidates”. Who fought for these corporations so that five Supreme Court justices (including Scalia, Thomas and Alito mentioned above for their heavy involvement in right-wing fundraising) could give them these "rights"? That would be the ACLU. The ACLU filed a brief in the Citizens United case on behalf of the side that ultimately won.
I have searched the internet and have yet to find any apologies, regrets or action to rectify this enabling of corporatism, i.e. fascism, on behalf of the ACLU. The New York Sun reported on January 24 that the ACLU board was debating whether or not to reverse their position and endorse government limits on corporate campaign spending. The Atlantic noted on February 5 that: "In the meantime, however, the ACLU is apparently laying low, keeping its opposition to campaign finance restrictions officially in place, and at the same time, keeping quiet about it". One person who did not lay low was Ira Glasser, retired Executive Director of the ACLU. On The Huffington Post, he defended the ACLU's action as "a huge victory... for freedom of speech and against government censorship. Yes, censorship." There were more examples of condescending sanctimony in his defense of Citizens United and his attack against "liberals", but it basically boiled down to this question that he posed: "Do we want the government--the government??!!-- to be deciding which corporations can speak and which not?"
With that rhetorical question, Glasser revealed the truth about what the ACLU really stands for. They are not left-wing at all. Despite being reviled on the right and embraced by the left for being "liberal", the correct designation would be to say that they are libertarians with a pretense at social consciousness. That pretense is up front and center on most social issues, yet evaporates completely on the most important issue of all: economic justice. Money talks and bullshit walks. And in the case of Citizens United v. FEC, money literally talked and the ACLU walked out on justice. Glasser and everyone at the ACLU who thinks, talks and acts like him, will never get the problem with his question. Otherwise, they might have seen the answer one week earlier on January 27 from Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman at AlterNet:
We respectfully -- but vehemently -- disagree. Simply put: money is not speech, corporations are not people.
Given the immense sums of cash these corporations have to spend, the Citizen's United decision is the equivalent not of guaranteeing individual Nazis the freedom to march, but instead of granting the Party itself the right to drive tanks down the street, guns ablazing.
It's not the same as giving individual Klan members the right to hold a rally, but rather for the organization to do public lynchings as part of a terror campaign aimed at taking tangible power.
Nowhere in the Constitution do the Founders mention the word corporation. There were six of them at the time of ratification, all strictly limited by state charter to where and what kind of business they could do. They bear scant resemblance to the multi-national behemoths we confront today. Those who wrote and ratified the First Amendment would be horrified by their very existence.

That analysis cuts right to the heart of the real problem: until we compel our government to recognize the inherent truth that a corporation is not a person, then the 1st Amendment rights we're supposed to have as individuals will continue to be debased as we descend down the corporatist staircase until those rights are meaningless. Unless we have a Constitutional Amendment to End Corporate Personhood, we will continue to see our elections bought in proxy by the biggest corporations willing to sell us out to whoever will provide them with the quickest path to maximum profits, especially the corporate libertarians that James Howard Kunstler refers to as corn-pone Nazis: the Tea Party. Of course, by the next election cycle, TP may have been replaced by something far more hateful, far more racist and far more violent willing to serve their corporate masters in the name of "freedom". Our struggle to overcome this cannot begin too soon.