Hasta La Gadget!

The Supreme Court doesn’t seem to care about much besides the very richest when it comes to campaign finance law. In the 2010 decision Citizens United vs. FEC, the court ruled that no amount of money can corrupt a politician, hence there shouldn’t be any limits to spending in elections, because having spending limits is basically just like muzzling some poor corporation’s political speech with an unconstitutional ball gag. There have been concerns over a conflict of interest in the Citizens Untied decision, after revelations that Chief Justice John Roberts had in fact been discovered as an infant and raised in the woods by a pack of corporations.

To some, going through the process of passing a new amendment is too daunting to find it viable. But given the widespread support for overturning Citizens United, this is necessary to stop the Supreme Court from continuing to eviscerate common sense anti-corruption laws. In the recent decisions Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius and McCutcheon vs. FEC, the Supreme Court doubled down on the dubious precedent of Citizens United: that corporations have constitutional rights just like people, and that letting a rich person spend as much as they want in elections was what the founders intended when they wrote the First Amendment.

It might seem radical to have a Constitutional Convention over something like Super PACs, the unenforceable slush funds that have flourished as the latest billionaire accessory. But you know what is even crazier? Passing a Constitutional Amendment BANNING ALCOHOL. Can you imagine a tougher sell than banning cocktails? Doesn’t leveling the playing field in elections seem pretty reasonable now?

In this edition of Activist Comics, the need for an amendment is visualized through adapting a Superman comic book cover where the Man of Steel is being made into a monkey by a mutant gorilla.

What would this amendment look like? There have already been different versions introduced to Congress, and even the Senate debate about an amendment to overturn Citizens United fell short of including the tenets that Money≠Speech and Corporations≠People.

Below is what that amendment could read like, as proposed by Move to Amend, which was introduced into Congress with love on Valentine’s Day, 2013. And to make it feel as important as possible, here is the amendment presented as the opening scrawl from Star Wars.

STAR WARS 28th Amendment from John Wellington Ennis on Vimeo.

A new CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT is one of the Fix Six solutions featured in PAY 2 PLAY: Democracy’s High Stakes, a new documentary about standing up to money in politics. Out 12/2 on DVD, available now in iTunes, Amazon, Vimeo, and Disinfo.

3D Robotics is not about to let DJI hog all the press with its wild Inspire 1 Drone, so it just revealed its own semi-pro model: the X8+. The 8-prop UAV is designed to carry GoPro or lightweight mirrorless cameras, while offering a fully automated…

LONDON (AP) — The family of slain hostage Alan Henning has paid tribute to his life, gathering for a private memorial service.

Henning, a 47-year-old taxi driver from the town of Eccles in northwest England, was abducted minutes after his aid convoy entered Syria on Dec. 26, 2013. Islamic State group militants beheaded him in October. Henning’s wife Barbara said in a statement Saturday that his death was “caused by a senseless act of barbarity.”

“I only hope that we can bring these people to justice, or that they receive the justice they deserve in the next life,” she said. “No god would ever condone the killing of innocent people.”

The Islamic State group’s militants have beheaded several Western hostages, celebrating the killings in extremely graphic videos. It still holds other captives.

“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1” looks like it just had the best opening day of the year.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The University of Virginia on Saturday suspended activities at all campus fraternal organizations amid an investigation into a published report in which a student described being sexually assaulted by seven men at a fraternity in 2012.

President Teresa Sullivan said in a letter to the university community that the Board of Visitors is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the allegations contained in a Rolling Stone article, along with the university’s policies and procedures concerning sexual assaults. Groups of students, faculty, alumni and others will be asked to hold similar discussions.

“In the words of one student who wrote to me this week, `Policy is needed, but people make change,'” Sullivan wrote. “We need the collective strength of the members of our community to ensure that we have the best policies.”

Sullivan said the suspension of all fraternal groups is effective until Jan. 9. She also has asked Charlottesville police to investigate the alleged rape at the Phi Kappa Psi house. The fraternity has voluntarily surrendered its fraternal agreement with the university.

On Friday, Attorney General Mark Herring said the university agreed to withdraw its appointment of former federal judge and prosecutor Mark Filip as independent counsel to investigate how the school responds to rape allegations. In college, Filip was a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Sullivan had said the Rolling Stone article includes details that weren’t disclosed to university officials previously.

“I write you in great sorrow, great rage, but most importantly, with great determination,” Sullivan wrote. “Meaningful change is necessary, and we can lead that change for all universities. We can demand that incidents like those described in Rolling Stone never happen and that if they do, the responsible are held accountable to the law. This will require institutional change, cultural change, and legislative change, and it will not be easy. We are making those changes.”