Before the Civil War, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) helped perpetuate slavery and thus ensure that people were property. Now they’re working the other side of the street and ensuring that property is people. SCOTUS yesterday mended the last tiny hole in the fence separating people from corporations when it issued its ruling on the Montana Supreme Court case.

This is the case about the legitimacy of a Montana law written 100 years ago to keep the copper barons from overtly buying (essentially free market, auction block buying) of politicians. Actually worked pretty well, all things considered. Worked well enough to get the attention of the lawyers pimping for the oligarchy, so a challenge was issued in the state courts. The Montana Supreme Court, evidently the offspring of this law, in that they actually don’t appear to have been bought off, amazingly upheld Montana law and said No, corporations are NOT allowed to buy politicians.

Well, our corporate masters couldn’t let this ride. Enter the SCOTUS, black robes flapping like the ravens come to pluck the liver from Prometheus for daring to bring sunlight to a dark world. Their decision in the case was 1 paragraph long—or one paragraph short. Brief by any legal standard but probably pretty representative of the amount of time they took to think about it. Here’s the gist:

“A Montana state law provides that a “corporation may not make…an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party”…The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law. There can be no serious doubt that it does.”

Yep, just in case anyone was wondering whether the SCOTUS had any second thoughts about Citizens United after seeing the real-world results, the answer is in and it’s a resounding “NO.” Now we and the corporations are all just one big happy people family. And we know who gets to be the daddy.