The Distracting Roar

For decades the Republicans have been villainizing trial lawyers. How dare anyone make a living by filing law suits to stop deceptive sales practices, the production and sale of unsafe and often harmful products, and the violation of wage and labor laws. Republicans are always sounding the alarm. They are always telling us that if we make the mega corporations behave responsibly they are going to have to raise the price they charge for their products and services! The only alternative to raising those prices is for the corporations to cut executive incomes down to a level which is only a hundred times greater than what their average employees make, and you know that is not going to happen. So lets all shout: “Tort Reform Now! End Frivolous Lawsuits! Down With Trial Lawyers And Contingency Fees!” Did you know that contingency fees allow people to secure legal representation and file law suits even when those people do not have the money to pay attorneys? It's no wonder there are so many lawsuits when you allow the riff raff to sue people. And corporations are people (very privileged people but still people in the eyes of the adoring injustices sitting on our Supreme Court).

Now in addition to passing legislation designed to restrict your ability to hold companies accountable for their actions, the Republicans have come up with another, very clever way to deal with trial lawyers. The strategy is to distract some of the more prominent trial lawyers by hiring them to file frivolous law suits against the President of the United States, and to distract the government's attorneys by making them defend the President from those suits. You Certainly have to hand it to the high priest of the high church of right wing stupid; Texas Governor Greg Abbott has sunk well below and away from anything resembling reasonable. He actually brags about filing thirty one lawsuits against President Obama, and he has formed a coalition of twenty five other red states filing suits against the President. Next to Greg Abbott, John Boehner and the Republican members of congress are pikers. But you cannot blame the Republican members of congress too much for that. I mean they have filed suits against Obama Care and against executive orders regarding immigration, etc.   And they have filed those suits in spite of the fact that their standing to do so is highly questionable. That certainly shows some spunk. I might add that with so many highly partisan Republican Appointees sitting on our courts, forum shopping is pretty good for the Republican litigants who are able to shop. As for our Republican Congressmen, they have every reason to be optimistic. After all, we do have the worst and most partisan Supreme Court ever.

The fact that filing such frivolous suits against the President is costing the tax payers a bundle is irrelevant to the greedy old plutocrats.  They encourage those frivolous suits while demanding still more legislation to protect them from meritorious law suits. The only thing great enough to match their greed is their hypocrisy!

Somewhere there is a beleaguered Congressman sitting alone, away from maddening roar of the money, thinking about how much it will take to please the greedy old plutocrats.  Their greed is never satiated, but that is probably why they are willing to pay a high price for influence.  And that high price will keep the Congressman from sitting alone too long; although he will never admit it, he is addicted to the maddening roar of the money!