Protesters marked the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling by unfurling a banner reading “U.S. Supreme Koch” on the court house steps. The action is part of a week-long effort to raise awareness of the unjust power that the Citizens United decision has gifted to corporate special interests and billionaires like the Koch brothers over U.S. politics.

The Supreme Court's astonishing ruling in Citizens United v. FEC enables unlimited corporate expenditures on political campaigns and allows donors to influence elections without being identified.  It's exactly the weapon that corporations like Koch Industries, run by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, are using to turn the U.S. into an oligarchy that serves the 'needs' of the 1% and endangers the rest of Americans.

The protesters represented a host of citizens groups, including The Other 98%, Health Care for America Now, Backbone Campaign, Greenpeace, Velvet Revolution and AFSCME.

“The Kochs and their kind are engaged in a hostile corporate takeover of our nation’s political system,” said John Sellers, co-founder of The Other 98%. "We've come to the scene of the crime today – the U.S. Supreme Court – to tell the justices exactly what we think of the infamous Citizens United ruling that made that takeover possible.”

“The Supreme Court has undermined government of, by and for the actual people by defining corporations as people and money as speech,” said Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now.

Here are a few pictures and a video of the action:

With Bush brushing off yesterday's landmark global warming decision by the Supreme Court we continue to recrod for posterity what will no doubt be a legacy of foot-dragging and global warming denial by the Bush administration.

We have seen reports of political interference in global warming science spanning most of Bush's tenure as president.

A day after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases, President Bush said he thought that the measures he had taken so far were sufficient. Mr. Bush made it clear in remarks on Tuesday that he thought his proposal to increase automobile fuel efficiency was sufficient for the moment; he gave no indication he would ask the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions of heat-trapping gases.

With the Supreme Court ruling today on greenhouse gas emission regulations, readers have been asking us who were the parties opposing the ruling.

Not surprisingly, the list includes many third-party groups representing major auto manufacturers, heavy industry, oil and gas and electrical production. We thought it would be interesting to see where each of these organizations stood on the issues of environment and global warming. And interesting it was, for example, one of the opponents of new carbon emissions regulations is the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, yet their website states that, "members of the Alliance believe that it is prudent to reduce emissions, including carbon dioxide…"

The Supreme Court has ordered the federal government to take a fresh look at regulating carbon dioxide emissions from cars, a rebuke to Bush administration policy on global warming.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

Massachusetts Attorney General, Martha Coakley, states: "Despite acknowledging that global warming poses serious dangers to our environment and health, the Bush Administration has done little or nothing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. As a result of today’s landmark ruling, EPA can no longer hide behind the fiction that it lacks any regulatory authority to address the problem of global warming."

As the Supreme Court global warming case enters its second full day, the circus act on the administrative side of the floor continues. Today, Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, first admitting that he had limited knowledge of climate science, proceeds to state that there is a "likely connection" between greenhouse gases and global warming but that "it cannot unequivocally established."