Adults in Charge

President Obama is a corporate-owned centrist happy to fuck over liberals in pursuit of David Broder's approval, but Thank Dog he's an adult who doesn't think starting a war is the appropriate response to an idiot setting himself on fire.

Steve Benen explains:

If you've been following the news the past couple of days, you've no doubt seen plenty of coverage of the attempted terrorism aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. And while you've also probably seen some political figures rush to get on television -- God help anyone caught between Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) and a camera -- President Obama has remained largely scarce. Indeed, yesterday, the president went golfing.

Marc Ambinder noted yesterday that there's a deliberate White House strategy underway.

Here's the theory: a two-bit mook is sent by Al Qaeda to do a dastardly deed. He winds up neutering himself. Literally.

Authorities respond appropriately; the President (as this president is want to do) presides over the federal response. His senior aides speak for him, letting reporters know that he's videoconferencing regularly, that he's ordering a review of terrorist watch lists, that he's discoursing with his Secretary of Homeland Security.

But an in-person Obama statement isn't needed; Indeed, a message expressing command, control, outrage and anger might elevate the importance of the deed, would generate panic (because Obama usually DOESN'T talk about the specifics of cases like this, and so him deciding to do so would cue the American people to respond in a way that exacerbates the situation. [...]

Let the authorities do their work. Don't presume; don't panic the country; don't chest-thump, prejudge, interfere, politicize (in an international sense), don't give Al Qaeda (or whomever) a symbolic victory; resist the urge to open the old playbook and run a familiar play.

In the Bush/Cheney era, we know officials read from a far different script. Incidents like these became opportunities to exploit. Top officials -- Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Ridge -- would fan out and start hitting the talking points. There'd be talk about invading Yemen. Maybe the Bush gang would get a bump in the polls, maybe Dems and administration critics would hold their fire for a few days. If they didn't, the White House could take comfort in knowing that critics would be accused of "aiding and abetting" terrorists by attacking the Commander in Chief in the wake of a crisis.

Obama and his team obviously prefer a far more mature, strategic approach. It's about projecting a sense of calm and control. It's about choosing not to elevate some lunatic thug who set himself on fire.

Indeed, notice the pattern throughout the year. The Obama administration has taken out Saleh al-Somali, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, and Baitullah Mehsud, while taking suspected terrorists Najibullah Zazi, Talib Islam, and Hosam Maher Husein Smadi into custody before they could launch potential attacks.

In each case, there were no high-profile press conferences, no public chest-thumping, no desire to politicize the counter-terrorism successes. Indeed, most of the country probably never heard a word about any of these developments.

It's about competent and effective leadership, and it's what the country was sorely lacking up until 11 months ago.

I'll just add that given Lieberschmuck's demands to invade Yemen, it remains to be seen if President Obama cedes foreign policy to Traitor Joe as completely as he ceded health care reform.

Sorry, Nancy, But Obama's Got to Sign the Bill Now

I second Zandar's endorsement of Aimai's plea to get the health care reform bill signed immediately, before Traitor Joe kills it.

And speaking of Lieberdouche, Aimai at NMMNB has a must-read on why Obama has to go over the heads of the Centrists, and ask the House to eat a bowl of crap, and has to sign the Senate health care reform bill into law before this weekend's attack becomes the excuse Joe needs to kill this bill.

Previously, even a day ago, I was opposed to the ping ponging of the bill. I hoped that a conference report might, with the good wind at its back, materially improve the bill and still squeak through the Senate's sixty vote bottleneck. Now I'm sure that Lieberman is going to step up and screw us if he can, when he can. Just imagine his puffed up self hectoring us about how irresponsible it is to spend money on health care when there are terrorists attacking us in our valued cities, like Detroit?

I recommend that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi take what they can get--push the Senate version of the bill through as is and then fix every bit of it they can as it relates to the budget through Reconciliation. Do it fast and without warning. And make the terrorist attack your excuse, if you want. Say "the country has been through enough and we need to get on with things. We believe this bill is very good and we can fix the parts that need fixing through reconciliation in a timely manner." And then just do it. Lieberman will be left with his mouth hanging open and the majority of the bill will be irrevocable. But promise the progressives that they will absolutely be able to get the rest of their initiatives through the reconciliation process and hew to that promise. It will be the best of all possible worlds.

Agreed. Fast track this thing. Sign it ASAP, or Lieberman will kill it. Period.

Ditto. It's a piece of shit, but repugs hate it and Traitor Joe wants to use it to fuck over progressives. Ping-pong that fucker right past the House and sign it. Do it now.

Small Towns in Kentucky are AIG's Latest Victims

KeninNY at Down with Tyranny alerts us to the newest way that Big Corporations have found to squeeze even more turnip blood out of destitute eastern Kentucky.

7. THE PUBLIC ENEMY AWARD

To AIG. We’ve all seen those westerns where the evil, sweaty, filth-encrusted villain holds the water canteen just out of reach of the dying old man in the desert and pours out the contents into the sand. Nothing better represents where AIG is coming from. This company is so guilty, they even had to change their name, just like Diebold had to. The first thing they did was take down their sign so angry citizens couldn’t find them or hassle employees as they slithered out of the building every day.

Check this out, from Yasha Levine at AlterNet, who recently discussed what effect the nice folks at AIG have recently had on two small communities in Kentucky:

“Middlesboro and Clinton are two tiny, impoverished towns in southern Kentucky with a combined population of 12,000. In 2008, Middlesboro’s per capita income was $13,189 a year, only a few hundred dollars more than the average worker earned in third-world Mexico. That is if they were lucky to even get a job. Real unemployment hovers somewhere around 30%, and the state is so broke that half the people eligible for unemployment benefits can’t receive them. Life may be tough and most people live in poverty, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be made a little poorer. That’s the lesson locals learned after bailed-out insurance villain AIG took over their water utility and instantly raised rates to squeeze an extra $1 mllion in profits out of its new customers, forcing some to consider choosing between running water and food.”

This is in America in the 21st century, not some Old West town taken over by a gang of outlaws, right? Well, apparently, it’s something quite like that. We’ve heard about people not being able to afford heat and having to choose between their health care and food or between prescriptions and food for their kids. Now it’s running water. You can bet that the insipid, despicable suits at AIG also sit around conference tables on Wall Street laughing as they fantasize about a future of selling us our air too.

Our tax dollars went to bail these vermin out and keep their lawn sprinklers running and their swimming pools filled all summer. If we can send so many troops to Afghanistan, why can’t we send a few Special Forces squads to the offices of AIG? That’s a military action I can get behind! Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the citizens their might want to question what kind of U.S. $enate representation they have gotten from the likes of Jim Bunning and Minority Leader "Miss Mitch" McConnell.

Read the whole Alternet piece here.

When I say President Obama and Congressional Democrats are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Big Corporations, this is what I mean.

Barack and Michelle's Christmas Message

Read the full transcript here.

Not Shutting Up, Not Going Away

OK: Everybody who thought, even way back on Election Night, that Barack Obama was a "starry-eyed idealist," stand on your head.

That's what I thought.

So let's stop with the everybody-who-doesn't-think-the-shitty-Senate-health-care-bill-is-better-than-Social-Security-and-Medicre-put-together-is-an-idiot criticism.

No, this is not a defense of Jane Hamsher's insane alliance with Grover Fucking Norquist.

It's a demand that the Obama apologists hysterically claiming that a trillion-dollar giveaway to Big Medicine is the Democratic Achievement of the Century stop insulting those of us who would like to point out how many thousands of people will continue to die after going bankrupt trying to pay for mandated insurance that is too expensive and doesn't cover anything.

We're not pissed because Obama broke our delicate wittle hearts. We're pissed because we started way back before Inauguration warning the President, Democratic members of Congress and everybody else that if they didn't start negotiating with the strongest, furthest-left position they could imagine - Single-Payer - the Blue Dogs and repugs would negotiate them down to nothing.

And hey, lookie here: That's exactly what happened.

Now that it's obvious that we were right and they were wrong, guess who's getting ridiculed and ignored and marginalized? Yep, the ones who have been right all along.

But only the ones who were wrong are allowed to comment on health care DEform. Only the repug collaborationists and corporate tools who made sure the bill is a windfall for everybody except the people who actually need health care coverage have the credibility to tell us how wonderful it is and how we should shut the fuck up and go away.

Serve all of them right if we did. If all of us Fighting Liberals who knew a year and a half ago that getting real reform out of centrist, cautious Barack Obama was going to be trench warfare one muddy step at a time just left the DINOs to their fate.

But as told-you-so satisfying as it would be to see Harry Reid lose the Senate next year, as he richly deserves, there's work to do. And as usual, it's we liberals who are going to have to do it.

So we're going to keep demanding Congress repair the gaping holes in the health care reform bill, and we're going to keep promoting primary challengers to Blue Dogs and DINOs, and we're going to keep calling out Barack Obama every time he fails to meet a crisis with the appropriate liberal solution.

Not because he ever promised he would, but because he made it crystal clear he would not, and that makes it our job to force him to do it anyway.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Proof the Economy's Sunk and Not Rising Any Time Soon

It's been traditional for two millenia, after all. It's free housing, meals and healthcare for life, with much less chance of dying than in the military. The celibacy's a bitch, of course, but my guess is the seminary teaches that one with a wink.

The Archdiocese of Louisville is seeing an increase in men studying for the priesthood, a dramatic reversal of a trend earlier in this decade when the pool of prospects shrank to all but zero.

Seventeen men from the archdiocese are now in seminary, the most since the early 1990s, church leaders say.

And St. Meinrad School of Theology in Southern Indiana — which trains many future priests for dioceses in Kentucky, Indiana and throughout the country — is reporting its highest enrollment in two decades as it strains to find classroom and living space for the influx of seminarians and other students.

Read the whole thing.

Kentucky's "Doomsday Book"

You don't have to be a family tree freak - excuse me, amateur geneaologist - to find this discovery exciting.

Land, census and marriage records from the late 1700s to the early 1900s have recently resurfaced that could provide a treasure trove of information for genealogists and others.

The books, which are being indexed to make the information easier to pinpoint, were found in several places. The land and census records were at government archives in Frankfort, and several years' worth of marriage licenses were in the Fayette County clerk's storage area.

SNIP

Potter found out about a large volume of applications for land patents from an article in the October issue of The Kentucky Explorer magazine. The article said the Fayette County clerk's office had a "Doomsday Book" containing names of the commonwealth's earliest settlers.

SNIP

The Doomsday Book contains the names of settlers who applied for land patents — property titles, essentially — from 1779 through 1780, when Kentucky was still part of Virginia.

SNIP

The clerk's office also recovered several books containing Fayette County school census records from 1896 to 1909. There are separate books for black and white students.

Potter calls the census records a "significant discovery" for black genealogists.

"Unfortunately, the Fayette County clerk's office doesn't have a lot of records for black people to go on," she said.

The census books contain students' names, addresses, names of parents and siblings, and dates of birth.

"All of a sudden, one record has potentially opened up a world of finding one's family," Potter said.

SNIP

There is no timetable for when the records will be indexed and available for the public to see at the Fayette County clerk's office. But clerks will do what they can to accommodate people with an urgent need to look at them, Potter said.

Read the whole thing.

Boxing Day is for Giving

Not more superflous presents to friends and family, but gifts that will make all the difference to those in need.

The name derives from the tradition of giving seasonal gifts, on the day after Christmas, to less wealthy people and social inferiors, which was later extended to various workpeople such as labourers and servants.

The traditional recorded celebration of Boxing Day has long included giving money and other gifts to charitable institutions, the needy and people in service positions. The European tradition has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown and there are some claims that it goes back to the late Roman/early christian era.

In the United Kingdom it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their 'Christmas boxes' or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas. [1].

The establishment of Boxing Day as a defined public Holiday under the legislation that created the UK's Bank Holidays started the separation of 'Boxing Day' from the 'Feast of St Stephen' and today it is almost entirely a secular holiday with a tradition of shopping and post Christmas sales starting.

Want to wash the conspicuous consumption off your holiday? Take a few of the minutes and a few of the dollars you were going to spend shopping today, and put them to work helping others.

Need an idea? Every community in the nation has a food bank, and every food bank in every community is struggling to feed dozens, even hundreds more families who never needed food help before. Check the phone book, or google "Food Bank" and the name of your community.

"Oh, Man. Look here."

Dickens nailed it 166 years ago.

"'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.'

'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here.'

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

'Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

'Spirit. Are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.

'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'

'Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge.

'Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses.'"

For there is not a problem on earth that cannot be traced back to those two vicious children Ignorance and Want.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

You've probably heard at least one "rewrite" of the famous poem by Clement Clarke Moore this week. For the record, here is the original poem and a short history of its creation and global influence.

Twas the night before Christmas Poem also called “A Visit from St. Nicholas"

Clement Clarke Moore (1779 - 1863) wrote the poem Twas the night before Christmas also called “A Visit from St. Nicholas" in 1822. It is now the tradition in many American families to read the poem every Christmas Eve.

The poem Twas the night before Christmas has redefined our image of Christmas and Santa Claus. Prior to the creation of the story of Twas the night before Christmas St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children, had never been associated with a sleigh or reindeer. The author of the poem Twas the night before Christmas was a reticent man and it is believed that a family friend, Miss H. Butler, sent a copy of the poem to the New York Sentinel who published the poem. The condition of publication was that the author of Twas the night before Christmas was to remain anonymous.

The first publication date was 23rd December 1823 and it was an immediate success. It was not until 1844 that Clement Clarke Moore claimed ownership when the work was included in a book of his poetry. Clement Clarke Moore came from a prominent family and his father Benjamin Moore was the Bishop of New York who was famous for officiating at the inauguration of George Washington. The tradition of reading Twas the night before Christmas poem on Christmas Eve is now a Worldwide institution.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Completely Off the Rails

If you harbored the faint hope that losing on health care reform would send the wingnuts to their corners to quietly lick their wounds, think again.

Zandar reads the crazies so we don't have to.

I knew the Wingers would grimly intone the end of the United States of America as we know it due to today's Senate bill passage, but two reactions stand out as some of the worst punditry I can recall seeing on the entire issue. First, Rick Moran warms up paragraph after paragraph of mendacious warnings, calling the bill the "worst piece of legislation in my lifetime" while managing to absolve the GOP...

SNIP

Look, Rick, there was zero amount of GOP Senators that ever would have voted for this bill. Until 2013 at the minimum, the Republican Party has abdicated any and all responsibility for legislating anything. They simply vote no and then complain they aren't allowed to run the country anymore. Over a hundred cloture or procedural votes in 2009 alone, Rick. You can't be that dense. Nobody believes for a second the GOP is going to do anything but blockade this Congress.

But then we have a winner for worst Wingnut douchebaggery of 2009 hands down as Dan Riehl directly compares the passage to a terror attack on America:

SNIP

Really. This asshole just outright called them terrorists, called the President a terrorist mastermind, and called for the people to rise up against them.

Riehl is so far off the map he's in another year's atlas. This is the kind of stuff that I've been talking about since I started this blog, the level of unbridled, blood-drunk hatred against the Democrats that borders on the delusional and sociopathic.

This is Obama Derangement Syndrome. And it's only getting worse.

Read the whole thing.

This is why I'm glad the Democrats have won - so far - on health care DEform, even though I still think the bill is a piece of shit that will cost Democrats dearly in extra work, extra money, extra time and lots of lost votes.

This bill is making repugs rip out their own eyeballs in rage and despair, and for the moment that's a good enough outcome for me.

"95 percent of what I wanted."

Jim Lehrer's a putz, and President Obama is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate America, but last night the two did agree that the modern filibuster, as wielded by repugs, is an abomination.

"I mean, if you look historically back in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s - even when there was sharp political disagreements, when the Democrats were in control for example and Ronald Reagan was president - you didn't see even routine items subject to the 60-vote rule.

So I think that if this pattern continues, you're going to see an inability on the part of America to deal with big problems in a very competitive world, and other countries are going to start running circles around us. We're going to have to return to some sense that governance is more important than politics inside the Senate. We're not there right now."

Part One:



Part Two:



Read the transcript here.

Blown Opportunities

Although there is a case to be made that the failure to reach agreement on reducing global climate change is the fault of China, Naomi Klein explains how President Obama's missed opportunites on the economic crisis set the climate talks up for failure:

There's plenty of blame to go around, but there was one country that possessed unique power to change the game. It didn't use it. If Barack Obama had come to Copenhagen with a transformative and inspiring commitment to getting the U.S. economy off fossil fuels, all the other major emitters would have stepped up.

SNIP

I understand all the arguments about not promising what he can't deliver, about the dysfunction of the U.S. Senate, about the art of the possible. But spare me the lecture about how little power poor Obama has. No President since FDR has been handed as many opportunities to transform the U.S. into something that doesn't threaten the stability of life on this planet. He has refused to use each and every one of them. Let's look at the big three.

Blown Opportunity Number 1: The Stimulus Package When Obama came to office he had a free hand and a blank check to design a spending package to stimulate the economy. He could have used that power to fashion what many were calling a "Green New Deal" -- to build the best public transit systems and smart grids in the world. Instead, he experimented disastrously with reaching across the aisle to Republicans, low-balling the size of the stimulus and blowing much of it on tax cuts. Sure, he spent some money on weatherization, but public transit was inexplicably short changed while highways that perpetuate car culture won big.

Blown Opportunity Number 2: The Auto Bailouts Speaking of the car culture, when Obama took office he also found himself in charge of two of the big three automakers, and all of the emissions for which they are responsible. A visionary leader committed to the fight against climate chaos would obviously have used that power to dramatically reengineer the failing industry so that its factories could build the infrastructure of the green economy the world desperately needs. Instead Obama saw his role as uninspiring down-sizer in chief, leaving the fundamentals of the industry unchanged.

Blown Opportunity Number 3: The Bank Bailouts Obama, it's worth remembering, also came to office with the big banks on their knees -- it took real effort not to nationalize them. Once again, if Obama had dared to use the power that was handed to him by history, he could have mandated the banks to provide the loans for factories to be retrofitted and new green infrastructure to be built. Instead he declared that the government shouldn't tell the failed banks how to run their businesses. Green businesses report that it's harder than ever to get a loan.

Imagine if these three huge economic engines -- the banks, the auto companies, the stimulus bill -- had been harnessed to a common green vision. If that had happened, demand for a complementary energy bill would have been part of a coherent transformative agenda.

Whether the bill had passed or not, by the time Copenhagen had rolled around, the U.S. would already have been well on its way to dramatically cutting emissions, poised to inspire, rather than disappoint, the rest of the world.

There are very few U.S. Presidents who have squandered as many once-in-a-generation opportunities as Barack Obama. More than anyone else, the Copenhagen failure belongs to him.

Read the whole thing.

Paying the Arsonist who Burned Down Your House

You may remember last year the revelation that a small town in Alaska charged rape victims up to $1,200 for the cost of the kits used to collect evidence from them.

Yesterday, the Kentucky Public Service Commission pulled a similar stunt.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission on Wednesday authorized Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities to pass nearly half a billion dollars in environmental projects on to their 900,000 customers across 77 counties.

Work will include new coal combustion waste landfills at LG&E's Trimble County power plant and KU's Ghent power plant near Carrollton; an expansion of an ash pond at the Trimble plant; construction of a second ash landfill at LG&E's Cane Run power plant in Louisville; and new controls on smog-causing nitrogen oxides at KU's E.W. Brown plant in Mercer County.

Read the whole thing.

This is worse than the rape kit outrage. Those coal-ash ponds are "environmental projects" only in the sense that they devastate the environment and allow Big Power to shrug and blame "nature" when the ponds burst, flood millions of acres and poison thousands of people.

But there is and never has been any limit to the ways that Kentucky's government will offer up its citizens for Big Coal and Big Power to ass-rape.

Welcome Our New Corporate Masters

and wave bye-bye to democracy.

John Amato explains:

While our backs are turned as we are engrossed with the health-care debate, there is a Supreme Court case looming on the horizon that could upend our entire political system. The Roberts court must be salivating to get the chance to help their right wing Big Corp base as they wait to render their decision on the Citizens United case which will for all purposes allow BigCorp. to dump as much money as they can into any election they want.

The most excellent Dahlia Lithwick writes:

Citizens United released the film in six theaters and on DVD, actions not subject to federal regulation. But when they sought to distribute the film by paying $1.2 million to sell it through a video-on-demand service, the Federal Election Commission contended that the film was no different from the kind of "electioneering communication" regulated under the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. That was the 2002 statute that tried to limit the influence of big money on elections. If subject to the constraints of McCain-Feingold, the film could not be financed by corporate treasuries or broadcast within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. The federal court of appeals agreed with the FEC, finding that the movie could be interpreted as nothing but an effort to "inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office." Citizens United appealed.

With their limitless resources, they can corrupt our system like never before and destroy our democratic process.

In Bush v Gore, the United States Supreme Court, in an unprecedented ruling that proclaimed it should not be used as precedent, decided the 2000 presidential election by a 5-4 decision. Bush v Gore stands as one of the most legally dishonest and the most politically partisan opinion ever issued by the Court.

That is, until the Court hands down its decision in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, involving a ruling by the FEC that barred a rightwing hit group, partially financed by a corporation, from running a hatchet-job film about Hillary Clinton in the days prior to an election in violation of the McCain-Feingold law.

By another 5-4 decision the Supreme Court will effectively turn the United States government over to corporations, i.e., back to the Republican Party, this time for keeps. The major corporations -- total profits of more than $600 billion per year for the top Fortune 100 -- will be permitted to advertise without limitation in Congressional, Senate and Presidential elections.
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Moreover, corporations often have foreign shareholders. Although barred as individuals from participating either through financial contribution or voting, foreigners will now be able to use the corporate fiction of a 'legal person' to influence profoundly the outcome of US elections.

The Supreme Court will soon allow corporate profits to be spent without limits to "preserve, protect and defend" not the Constitution, but those profits.

Swiftboats will be the fastest growing industry in the United States.

...read on

Sen. Dick Durbin is saying that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Citizens United, that prove the catalyst for creating new campaign-finance legislation:

As a Supreme Court decision that could weaken campaign finance laws looms, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said that a ruling giving an upper hand to corporations and labor unions could be the catalyst needed to pass election-reform legislation.

He and Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., spoke at a Center for American Progress event on Friday to promote their legislation, the Fair Elections Now Act, and discuss the impact of the pending decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

That decision could open the door for unrestricted spending on campaign advertising. "It takes a major scandal to create a major reform," Durbin said. "I don't know that we've reached the level in the Senate or in the nation where people are going to demand this of us.... But if they think that the Supreme Court has tipped the scales so dramatically that they don't have a fighting chance any more, they may be open to this.

Do we really want that to happen? No, the Court must not rule in favor of the wingnut film makers. Something will have to be done, because a single corporation could bully any member of the House or Senate to vote for their profitable benefit or they will unleash their pocketbooks against them and that is a nightmare scenario.

Read more about real campaign finance reform here.

Toxic coal ash in our drinking water - yum.

Because blasting mountains to smithereens and burying downstream communities isn't enough.

Because exploiting the ignorance and desperation of impoverished people in order to rake in windfall profits isn't enough.

Because roasting human life right off the planet with greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning isn't enough.

Big Coal and Big Power are demanding to expand yet another way to poison, ruin and kill Kentuckians: coal ash ponds.

Jake has the details:

Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E), owned by E.ON U.S., has requested permission from the Kentucky Public Service Commission to increase rates. Why, you may be wondering? Well, uh, to finance the construction of two new coal ash ponds in Trimble County. That’s within the floodplain of the Ohio River. 40 minutes from Louisville and the Louisville Water Company’s intake facility.

This is happening just a year after the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal ash disaster. Great timing.

“A year ago today, more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash - waste from a coal-fired power plant - flooded a quiet residential community in Tennessee when the dam holding the ash back failed”, stated Wallace McMullen, Chair of the Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter Energy Committee. “However, as the EPA discusses new coal ash regulations, LG&E is proposing to saddle its customers with a costly, public health liability.”

Isn’t it about time LG&E/E.ON applied responsible management practices instead of putting countless thousands in danger by exposing them to hazardous coal waste?

Read the whole thing.

In potential good news, the Kentucky Public Service Commission is requiring East KY Power to actually present minimum justification for expanding a coal-burning plant just outside Lexington.

Don't worry; the PSC will never deny the permit. But even asking Big Power to explain itself is a huge step forward.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Obama Finds Populism at Last

Forget health care reform or even a real jobs bill. This is what will get President Obama re-elected:

The federal government will impose stiff penalties starting this spring on airlines that keep passengers waiting too long on the tarmac without feeding them or letting them off the plane — a remedy that will relieve many travelers but mean longer delays for a few.

JetBlue passengers waited for hours to leave Kennedy Airport for Cancun on Feb. 14, 2007.

Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, called the action on Monday “President Obama's Passenger Bill of Rights.”

The Obama administration took the strict new approach in response to several highly publicized events in recent years, and in the face of likely Congressional action if airline regulators did not respond to the consumer outcry that ensued.

It acted on the eve of the busy Christmas travel season, and just as airlines struggled to recover from extensive weather-related disruptions to air travel to and from the Northeast over the weekend.

Under the rule, airlines that do not provide food and water after two hours or a chance to disembark after three hours will face penalties of $27,500 a passenger, the secretary of transportation announced on Monday.

Read the whole thing.

People hate airlines. More than they hate Wall Street, more than they hate insurance companies. This is a winner.

Have a Very Atheist Christmas

Shamelessly stolen from PZ Myers.

Welcome, No More Misters! It's UK2K Day.

No offense to the Duke, UCLA, Indiana and various SEC fans out there, but I'm going to have to welcome you to BITB with this.

Yes, our college basketball program can beat up your college basketball program, and has probably done so at least once.

The journey began Feb. 18, 1903.

Win No. 1 for the Kentucky Wildcats basketball program came by one, 11-10, over the always formidable Lexington YMCA.

On Monday night, the fascinating journey that is Kentucky basketball reached 2,000 wins first — before any other college hoops program — with an 88-44 obliteration of Drexel.

"This is for the greatest fans in the history of college basketball," UK Coach John Calipari said.

What a trek UK2K has been.

No, there is nothing horrible and vicious you can say about Calipari that I will not agree with and try to top, and yes, by the beginning of this season any semi-alert high-school basketball coach could have gotten this team to 2,000 wins, but here's the important thing to remember:

UK got there ahead of North Carolina.