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The Wisconsin recall election was the first major test of the new era in American politics. That new era began in January of 2010 when the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that the political voice of We The People was no longer as important as the voices of billionaires and transnational corporations. Now we know the result, and it bodes ill for both 2012 and for the tattered future of small-d democracy in our republic. A few of America's most notorious oligarchs - including the Koch and the DeVos (Amway fortune) billionaires - as well as untraceable millions from donors who could as easily be Chinese government-run corporations as giant "American" companies who do most of their business and keep most of their profits outside the US - apparently played big in this election. I say "apparently" because the Supreme Court has ruled that we no longer have the right to know who is really funding our election commercials, or even our candidates themselves. Thanks to an irrational and likely illegal Supreme Court ruling, we have moved into an era of oligarch-run politics. As much as $40 million of our oligarch's money was spent in Wisconsin in a handful of local races - a testing laboratory for strategies that will now be used against Democrats nationwide in 2012. And so now we enter the battle of the oligarchs over the next fifteen or so months. As the old saying goes, when the elephants fight, the mice get trampled. In this case, the mice aren't just the voters. It's democracy itself. America is now - demonstrably, as proven by Wisconsin - just a few years away from the possibility of a totally corrupted, totally billionaire- and corporate-controlled political system. Political scientists call it oligarchy. The Citizens United election experiment is over, and the oligarchs won. Long live the oligarchy.

One of the last racial barriers existing in America is an African-American woman on the Supreme Court. Many people think that it's time to shatter it.

The best "justice" money can buy via packing the Supreme Court with "conservatives" is bearing smelly, polluted fruit. Specifically, those "conservatives" are showing themselves to be "activist judges" in "watering down" conservation and public safety laws passed by Congress. Polluting "business" entities are apparently NOT to be considered to be within the oft-quoted and loved "conservative" limitation of the purview of the federal government to merely protect the populace from "enemies foreign and domestic". That this pollution kills and injures thousands (and poisons the environment for the countless of the "unborn") apparently doesn't matter (but if Al Qaeda was doing it, then complete suspension of all domestic rights would be justified to "fight" that!). Pictured: In 2007, a pipe maker was fined millions of dollars for dumping oil, lead and zinc into Avondale Creek in Alabama. A court ruled the waterway was exempt from the Clean Water Act. The firm eventually settled by agreeing to pay a smaller amount and submit to probation.

In March, 2002, American citizen Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago and publicly accused by then-Attorney-General John Ashcroft of being "The Dirty Bomber."  Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to a military brig in South Carolina, where he was held for almost two years completely incommunicado (charged with no crime and denied all access to the outside world, including even a lawyer) and was brutally tortured, both physically and psychologically.  All of this -- including the torture -- was carried out pursuant to orders from President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials.  Just as the Supreme Court was about to hear Padilla's plea to be charged or released -- and thus finally decide if the President has the power to imprison American citizens on U.S. soil with no charges of any kind -- the Government indicted him in a federal court on charges far less serious than Ashcroft had touted years earlier, causing the Supreme Court to dismiss Padilla's arguments as "moot"; Padilla was then convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Justice (R) Sajjad Ali Shah Former Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice (R) Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim Former Judge Supreme Court, Justice (R) Javaid Iqbal Former Judge Supreme Court and Justice (R) Saeed uz Zaman Siddiqui Former Chief Justice of Pakistan in Special episode of Capital Talk and discusses with Hamid Mir.

BYCOTT ALL LIBERAL MEDIA SPONSERS / PASS IT ON

A part of the voting rights act was annulled by the Supreme Court because it's believed that the legislation is out-of-date and that it's not unclear what areas actually need federal monitoring. So it's removing the protection of the federal government from monitored voting in the South. They talk about racial progress and change that'd happened in the 40 years since the voting rights act happened. Obama's not too happy with it, says that voting discrimination still exists in the country, and is calling on Congress to create legislation that would create equal access to voting.

Islamic organizations in Russia The first official Islamic organization in Russia appeared in 1788, when by decree of Catherine II was created by the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, engaged in the construction of mosques and marital affairs. However, after the revolution of a mosque in 1917, as the Orthodox Church, were closed, and the clergy was subjected to repression. Many Muslim organizations formed in Central Asia and the North Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War were split during the "perestroika" (1980-1990). In 1994 was created by the Supreme Coordinating Center of Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (DUMR private commercial enterprise), which lasted four years and in 1998 joined the newly formed Council of Muftis of Russia. On the territory of European Russia and Siberia after the collapse of the Soviet Union announced the creation of new autonomous organizations. In 1996 the First Congress of the leaders of the Muslim Board of Russia, where it was decided to set up the Council of Muftis of Russia. A year later the organization was established Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Asian part of Russia. In 1998, the Conference North spiritual offices in Nazran, it was decided to establish the Higher Coordination Centre of North Caucasus Muslims, some of whose members initially included, also a member of the Council of Muftis of Russia. However, because of the differences, was forced to leave. In 2009-2010, decided to join forces to achieve unity of Russian Muslims and strengthen the traditional Islamic religious principles of the Muslim nation. However, by the great success it has not resulted. To date, the Russian equivalent approved two Muslim organizations that claim to the national character: TsDUM (Central Muslim Spiritual Board of Russia) and CMP (Council of Muftis of Russia). Each of them combines a number of relatively independent of the Spiritual Board of Muslims, based on the principle of administrative division. Beyo

Under the guise of religious consciousness and First Amendment rights, Conservatives are mounting yet another assault on women's health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception. While the challenge scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court was not brought by Catholics, it's all the same to me. Besides, they were the loudest and most aggressive in their objections. So, I decided to repost this information I presented during the 2010 debate because the objections represents the epitome of hypocrisy and false morality to me.

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei stressed Iran's determination to continue talks with the world powers, but meantime, underlined that the country won't halt its nuclear research and development programs.

As a young law clerk working for Justice Thurgood MarshallSupreme Court in September 1987, Elena Kagan wrote an angry memorandum urging her boss to try to overturn a conservative appeals court ruling that had questioned the constitutionality of a rent-control ordinance.

In a stunning display of self-unawareness, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg pointed to last week's forced "resignation" by Dave Weigel from The Washington Post as evidence that the Post, "in its general desperation for page views, now hires people who came up in journalism without much adult supervision, and without the proper amount of toilet-training." Goldberg then solemnly expressed hope that "this episode will lead to the reimposition of some level of standards." Numerous commentators immediately noted the supreme and obvious irony that Goldberg, of all people, would anoint himself condescending arbiter of journalistic standards, given that, as one of the leading media cheerleaders for the attack on Iraq, he compiled a record of humiliating falsehood-dissemination in the run-up to the war that rivaled Judy Miller's both in terms of recklessness and destructive impact.

With the northern land mass reduced to a sea of gray goo, one must wonder: Is the supreme leader agitated enough?

Which set of invisible omniscient beings does our Supreme Leader truly believe in?

Demonstrations to Mark the Anniversary of Citizens United v. FEC on January 21 & 22 The movement to take a stand against Corporate America and amend the Constitution to prevent corporate control of our elections is growing stronger every day. Public Citizen is working with organizations to mobilize nationwide demonstrations around January 21, 2011: the one-year anniversary of the day the Supreme Court handed down its outrageous 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.