Twenty Questions, Stupid

For Jonathan Turley, Law Professor to ask selected U.S. Supreme Court Justices and the ACLU

(1) Regarding the recent Supreme Court decision to "protect corporations' right to freedom of speech:"

The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging freedom of speech,..."  The Court's majority decreed that paying money to a candidate is an expression of freedom of speech. therefore, this freedom for corporations shall not be abridged.  They may donate as much money as their hearts desire to candidates, but individuals' freedom of speech is abridged.  They may donate a maximum of 2300 dollars to a candidate in freedom of speech.  Is something wrong here, stupid?

(2) If donating money, like speech, no longer carries with it a quid pro quo (right stupid?), then any donation to someone with whom I claim to agree, cannot be subject to criminal charges or bribery, right stupid?

(3) If paying a candidate money to do what I want him to do is expression of freedom of speech, stupid, then what is voting, but expression of speech?  Is it not abridgement of freedom of speech to purposely make it much more difficult for citizens to register to vote, stupid?  Why are you letting Republican legislatures, especially Florida's punish people for helping citizens to register?

Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke, Secretaries of US Treasury and Federal Reserve

Wouldn't you think, stupid, that before you gave a Wells Fargo or Bank of America half a billion dollars each at -% interest, that you might just ask for some sort of prospectus, you know, maybe ask if the money may be used for small business loans or loans to qualified home buyers?  If you didn't like their answers, you woudn't have to give them the money, would you, stupid? Stupid !

Larry Summers  President Obama Economic Advisor

Given that the Republicans would gladly sacrifice the lives of their firstborns to continue the Bush tax cuts, stupid, do you think that we should have traded away those most precious possessions, the tax cuts, for a nuclear treaty that they would have signed anyway and an unemployment insurance extension that they would have signed anyway?  Given that President Clinton made rather token cuts in spending and modest increases in taxes, but gained extra hundreds of billions of dollars in benefits by applying the extra accumulated funds to the debt (when the bond rating was improved and the interest rate subsequently lowered)?  Why did you not argue to raise taxes 1% on everyone and apply the hundreds of billions of extra funds to the national debt payment?  Maybe Mr. Obama could have avoided the extra trillion dollars added to the debt the day after he failed to do this, stupid?

Congressman Ryan

Before you cut benefits from Medicare and Social security, stupid, don't you think you ought to first cut the 40 to 60 billion dollars per year overspent by the bogus Part D of Medicare, the fraudulent Republican scheme to pay for freedom of speech, oral sex and other forms of political donations from the gracious pharmaceutical and pharmacy lobbies?  You might even remind stupid and forgetful Democrats about their tens of billions of overspent dollars wasted on durable medical goods, oxygen supplies and laboratory testing.  It is stupid to take all of the blame yourself, isn't it stupid?

Meanwhile, as Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (not stupid) reminded the forgetful David Gregory on Meet the Press , what about the 2.6 trillion dollars stolen from the Social Security Surplus ( payroll tax !), the lower and middle class and working poor, to fund the Bush tax cuts and other bogus fiascoes, stupid?  Do you want more income tax cuts for people already subsidized by STOLEN payroll taxes?  Sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it.  Somehow, the president , the Democratic party and all its incompetent speech writers can't say this in plain English!

Maybe some taxes ought to be raised to pay back those payroll taxes?  What do you think, stupid?  Maybe munitions could be surtaxed- those special weapons designed specifically to kill people- assault weapons, rockets, launchers, cannons, tanks, etc?  It wouldn't, heaven forbid, hurt sales, stupid, and it would come from those people who received so much of the misappropriated payroll taxes stolen over the last ten years, stupid.

Michelle Bachmann and Grover Norquist

Is closing crooked and obscene tax loopholes like Ethanol and oil company subsidies or depreciation of overseas corporate assets the same as raising taxes, stupid?  Is crucifying Tom Coburn, one of your party's best assets, really a wise thing to do, stupid?  Wasn't it your party that said that if we cut enough useless spending we would not have to raise taxes to balance the budget, stupid?

To be continued, unfortunately, because there seems to be no limit to questions ending in "stupid."

Allen Finkelstein , D.O.  6/14/11