Dogs and Money Rule!

I came across a lot of strange little things last week.

Consider this: How do you know you're living in a First World country?

I'm pretty sure a good sign is a 19-page ruling from a federal court on the validity of patents for football and baseball jerseys - for dogs.

Favorite passage from MRS Innovations v. Hunter Mfg.: "... the secondary references that the district court relied on were not furniture, or drapes, or dresses, or even human football jerseys; they were football jerseys designed to be worn by dogs."

Seems like that should have gone without saying.

Then there was a sentence from a Los Angeles Superior Court complaint filed on behalf of former Major League Baseball player Lenny Dykstra. This is the entire sentence that came at the end of a paragraph: "Spring training, and now it's Justice turn to be up at bat."

Sic.

That might have made more sense if the regular baseball season hadn't already started when that was filed. Let's hope Justice doesn't strike out.

There was also a suit against a former football player, Roosevelt Grier, that contained this astonishing passage: "Grier is best known as a professional football player. Subsequently, Grier hosted a television show and authored several books on needlepoint."

Now that's versatility.

And, no, it had nothing to do with what the lawsuit was about.

But my favorite sentence of the week came in another L.A. Superior Court lawsuit, against the L.A. County Chicano Employees Association: "Implicit in the agreement between all Plaintiffs was that unfeathered, unrestricted legal services would be provided ..."

It's never good when your lawyers aren't properly plucked.

Money Talks: Quick quiz to see if you were paying attention to U.S. Supreme Court rulings last week.

A majority ruling started out with this sentence:

"There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders."

Well, that sounds reasonable. Do you know what the outcome of this ruling was?

Pick the correct one if you can:

A. Dogs have rights too.

B. Rich people can shout down everyone else in a democracy.

C. Southern poll workers have to accept AARP cards as proper identification even if the holder looks like a teenager.

D. You still get to vote even if the bridge you were driving on suddenly closed.

OK. That was pretty obvious. The answer is indeed B - McCutcheon v. FEC, in which a 5-4 majority (probably the richest justices) ruled that people with money can spend as much as they want on multiple candidates (even though there are limits per candidate).

If you have a really loud megaphone at a rally, you can drown out all the peons with just plain voices.

The ruling then quickly follows up with this: "... we have made clear that Congress may not regulate contributions simply to reduce the amount of money in politics, or to restrict the political participation of some in order to enhance the relative influence of others."

Because the relative influence enhancement of money has been properly paid for. We do have property rights in this country.

I admit I'm jealous. I'd love to spend millions, if not billions, on a campaign to impeach just about everyone in office.

What can be done about this?

Simple. Get rich and then campaign against people supported by big money.

Then get poor because you did that.

Or just keep the money and switch to the other side.

Money rules!

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