Elizabeth Warren Does Something Incredibly Stupid

Think Progress:

The 2012 elections will undoubtedly see an unprecedented injection of third-party influence, thanks to the Citizens United ruling and the subsequent advent of super PACs, and now, “super super PACS” — groups that “not only raise mega cash to promote candidates, but give money to candidates’ campaigns” directly. Attempting to stem the tide of undue influence, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) and her opponent Sen. Scott Brown (R) signed a ban on third-party ads. Brown had sent Warren two previous proposals but Warren objected to “some of the loopholes” that remained. Warren sent back a signed proposals with “clarifications to make it stronger.” The ad ban is “designed to control what is already prodigious outside spending on the race. By some projections, the campaign could cost at least $60 million” with at least “$20 million being spent by special interest groups with an interest in the outcome.”

Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie.

What - in the name of every repug motherfucker who publicly attacked you, sabotaged you, stabbed you in the back, tried everything under the sun to literally destroy you as a public servant, as a lawyer, as a person - are you thinking?

The Super Pacs trying to prevent you from restoring Ted Kennedy's senate seat to the party that earned it are laughing their asses off and buying up commercial time as I write this.

The Super Pacs that support you will probably respect your request, even though they know Brown's Super Pacs will not. If they don't know that, then they're even more stupid than whatever insane urge possessed you to do this.

Admit it, Elizabeth: you are too naive to run for the U.S. Senate. You're going to get crushed, and you're going to deserve it.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall"

Uploaded by Librarian1972

Bob Dylan's live-performance of his legendary „A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" at „The Great Music Experience", Nara (Japan) in May 1994. Dylan plays before a massive orchestral scenery, which is the Tokyo New Philharmonic orchestra -- the first time ever he played with an classic orchestra.

Show Your Love for Mountains

Show your sweetheart what kind of lover you really are this Valentine's by taking her/him to the I Love Mountains demonstration at the State Capitol in Frankfort.

From Kentuckians for the Commonwealth:

When Kentucky author Wendell Berry and the 13 other Kentucky Rising leaders emerged from the State Capitol to join the I Love Mountains Day rally last February, he said:

"We do not think of what we have done as in any sense a symbolic gesture. We are humbled, instead, by the realization that our effort cannot be carried to success by us, or by any other few of us. If the adventure of the last few days, by this small company of friends, is to be more than a symbolic gesture, that can be only because all of you who are here, and many of our friends who are not here, will take it up, make it your adventure and your cause, until this great house will become the true home of justice to all the people of this state, and of faithful care for the divine gifts of land and water, and of life itself."

So we'll be back at the State Capitol on February 14 with a powerful and visible presence as KFTC members continue to answer Wendell Berry’s call, You see, right now is our best chance in generations to end mountaintop removal mining and build a clean energy economy that generates good jobs in every Kentucky community. We won't stop until we have: a thriving democracy, clean energy jobs, affordable, renewable energy, and healthy communities.

All over eastern Kentucky and Central Appalachia, residents in communities like Eolia, Hueysville, Benham, Lynch and Montgomery Creek are speaking up to protect their health and homeland from the destruction of coal and to create a more sustainable economy.

Will you join us and be one of the more than 1,200 people standing up for clean water, clean energy, and a just economic transition for eastern Kentucky?

And will you volunteer to bring with you at least one other person with you? If each us brings a friend, imagine how much more powerful our voice will be!

More information about the day, including a schedule, and registration information can be found on our website here.

The march around the Capitol starts at 12:30, and the rally at 1 p.m. Come early and buttonhole your state legislators inside.

The Kids Are All Right

We've been wondering for a while what it would take to get the video-glazed-eyed slackers out into the streets; now we know.

Rebecca Leber at Think Progress:

Youth activists interrupted the State of the Energy Industry earlier this week to deliver the 99 percent’s message to polluters’ biggest lobbies, who were all gathered for a conference.

The annual event included addresses by American Petroleum Institute, American Gas Association, and the National Mining Association. During API President Jack Gerard’s speech, the activists yelled “mic check” and fact-checked the oil lobby. “Big Oil’s lies are hurting Americans, our economy, and our environment,” the group shouted. “API spends hundreds of millions of dollars corrupting our democracy. … Big Oil is raking in record profits at the expense of the American people.”

One of the protesters described her experience:

We all stood up. Our voices combined were deafening in that small room. I could see Gerard fuming under his smug grin. We were hurried out by Suits with nervous demeanor, but not before we were able to get a few powerful last words in. This was Big Oil’s crown-jewel forum – they’d been advertising this forum on NPR and even their top PR officials were talking it up online. It was clear they were embarrassed and totally caught off guard.

But this will not be the last one Big Oil hears from us. Oh no. We’ll be visiting them again and again, speaking truth to the lies, corruption, and corporate greed of dirty energy, and replacing it with a vision of transparent democracy and a just, clean energy future.

Watch the video here.

While the protesters promise to return, API is deploying an election-year “Vote 4 Energy” campaign to promote “drill, baby, drill” and deliver on its threat that rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline has “huge political consequences” for the president.

And yet, youth activists have spread the 99 percent’s environmental message across the world, recently. Thousands of protesters fought successfully against the Keystone XL pipeline, and youth voices grabbed attention at the Durban climate conference last month. Now, the 99 percent are taking that message directly to the doorstep of the oil industry.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "I Ain't Marchin' No More"

Uploaded by davedave25

False Dawn, or a New Progressive Revolution?

So, when you heard about this, did you shout and leap for joy, or did you frown and mutter because that's surely the last remotely progressive thing we'll see out of this hippie-bashing administration for a while?

Today, in a huge victory for women’s health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans, along with other preventive services, with no cost-sharing such as co-pays or deductibles. This means that after years of trying to get birth control covered to the same extent that health plans cover Viagra, our country will finally have nearly universal coverage of contraception.

Opponents of contraception had lobbied hard for a broad exemption that would have allowed any religiously-affiliated employer to opt out of providing such coverage. Fortunately, the Obama administration rejected that push and decided to maintain the narrow religious exemption that it initially proposed. Only houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith will be exempt. Religiously-affiliated employers who do not qualify for the exemption and are not currently offering contraceptive coverage may apply for transitional relief for a one-year period to give them time to determine how to comply with the rule.

I did both, so there.

Mike Lux is the author of The Progressive Revolution, a book I strongly recommend as both inspiration and cautionary tale. He writes at Crooks and Liars about the meaning of recent progressive victories, including the appointment of Richard Cordray and the at least temporary stoppages of the Keystone XL Pipeline, SOPA and PIPA.

As Bob Dylan would put it, the times they are a-changin'. There's a storm outside and it's raging, baby. We really are shaking their windows and rattling their walls. Done deals are not getting done. Dead appointments are acting like Lazarus and rising from the dead. The establishment is getting very, very nervous. And grassroots activists, from the occupiers to the netroots to those chaining themselves to the White House fence or sitting in at the Wisconsin Capitol last year, are shaking and rattling things all over.

SNIP

Progressive activists should feel incredibly good about all they have accomplished in the last year, and should feel good as well that President Obama -- even if it is sometimes more slowly or reluctantly than we would like -- is understanding that on a range of issues, it is politically smart of him to be aligned with these grassroots movement. But it is also no time to pat ourselves on the back: over the next 72 hours, an enormous issue will probably get resolved that will be the biggest single thing that will determine whether the dead housing market, as well as the broader economy, will get a boost that will bring it to life: the bank settlement deal. How this issue gets resolved not only will have a massive impact on the economy, it will go a very long ways in whether the President can credibly run for re-election as the guy who took on Wall Street and held them accountable when the chips were down.

SNIP

I will close by noting that, as I wrote about in my book The Progressive Revolution, positive change in America happens because of the combination of big progressive movements and Presidents open to that change. The last few victories progressives have won have shown us that formula is starting to work again. Let's hope the next 72 hours show us that the progressive movement can muster its troops to make Wall Street accountability happen, and that the president remains open to change.

Stay on 'em. Join your local occupations. Harass your state legislators. Call and write your congress critters - I thought that hadn't worked since the Reagan administration, but it worked like a charm on SOPA. Remind yourself and your fellow disappointed Democrats that while President Obama may listen to us only occasionally and reluctantly, preznent Romney or Gingrich won't listen at all.

Nine months to election.

Not Dog-Whistle, Not Overt Racism, Just A Desperate Gamble

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" on Newt Gingrich's real message:

What Newt Gingrich is doing here, then, is not making a coded racist argument against Barack Obama and minority communities. He is, rather, presenting himself as the anti-Obama: the Great Conservative Racial Uniter, the man who can walk into minority communities, free them from the tyranny of the welfare state, and win back their love, re-uniting them in harmony with their Southern white brethren in defiance of the liberal media and government elites trying to keep them poor and indebted to government programs.

As with Romney's statement about firing people, the key to understanding conservative statements is often to look past the initial attention-grabbing phrase, and to watch for the context that comes afterward. In this case, the key for Gingrich lies not in his lines about "food stamp" or "pay check" Presidents. The key lies in his confidence that he is the one and only conservative who will be able to make minorities love Republicans again by freeing them from mental slavery.

Republicans are not only sensitive to allegations of racism. They also know in their hearts that in their current incarnation they face demographic extinction. The Fox News demographic is literally dying. They also know that simply putting minority faces like Marco Rubio on the same old policies won't work.

In order to survive without moderating their policies, they must subscribe to the belief that if only they eliminate every program that helps poor people (including minorities), minorities will suddenly wake from a deep sleep and learn to embrace conservatives through the power of tough love.

That's what Newt Gingrich promises them. He is their answer to Barack Obama, their Savior, their Great Racial Uniter. He speaks not ignorantly, schizophrenically nor in code. He and his base have leaped into this ideological gamble with open eyes, and are attempting to take the rest of the country with them.

Read the whole thing.

As always with repugs, it's not about helping others or improving the nation in any concrete way; it's about grabbing and keeping power.

Whatever it takes.

Why Libraries Are Better Than the Internet

There is nothing cooler than a library. And you don't have to go to the Library of Congress or the New York Public Library - or even the Kenton County Public Library in Covington, KY - to find treasures that no one will ever see online. They're waiting for you at your local library.

Cindy Schroeder at the Northern Kentucky Enquirer:

As the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I approaches, historians and genealogists will soon be able to use a rare series of books at the Kenton County Public Library system’s Covington branch.

“The Source Records of the Great War,” a set of seven, gold-leafed volumes on World War I (1914-18) were donated this month by the Sons of The American Legion and the American Legion Moon Brothers Post 275 in Independence.

SNIP

Compiled by Charles F. Horne in 1923, the hard-bound books with the Legion emblem embossed on the cover are known as a definitive collection providing details of the causes and various armed conflicts of World War I, said Dave Schroeder, executive director of the Kenton County Public Library system. Each volume is about 300 pages, and the chapters are written by authoritative sources, such as WWI generals and political leaders of that era.

SNIP

Because of the rarity of “The Source Records of the Great War,” the series won’t be available for general circulation, Schroeder said. However, he sees them being used by local historians and genealogists. The books will be in the history department in the Covington library “in no more than a couple of weeks” for anyone who wants to read them, he said.

“If you know that your great-great grandfather was in a particular WWI battle, this series will give you information about that battle and what led up to it,” Schroeder said.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "What Did You Learn in School Today?"

Uploaded by PopulistParty:

Pete Seeger sings Tom Paxton's song live on the "Tonight In Person" Show (1964).

Here's some of the "best" lyrics:

I learned that Washington never told a lie.
I learned that soldiers seldom die.
I learned that everybody's free.
And that's what the teacher said to me.
That's what I learned in school today.
That's what I learned in school.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Rally for Kathy Stein Sunday - Today - at 4 p.m.

Come to downtown Lexington to show Governor Steve "Cowardly Weasel" Beshear and the un-democratic lack-of-leadership in the General Assembly what you think of them exiling the sole liberal voice in the state senate and disenfranchising the liberal voters of Lexington.

Barefoot and Progressive, which has been all over this from Day One and is not letting up.

The disenfranchised voters of the leaderless republic of Lexington, KY will gather on Sunday, January 22nd, from 4PM to 7PM at 200 East Main Street at the heart of Downtown to rally in support of Kathy Stein and this revolutionary new idea for a political system which we humbly call “democracy.”

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION & TO RSVP

Join us.

Tell your friends.

Share the news.

Bring signs.

Invite the Governor. I’m sure he’ll be interested in your thoughts.

Creating the Next Generation of Protesters

Don't think there aren't school officials in your state who are quietly - or not so quietly - applauding this abomination and plotting to how implement something similar.

Now that it's popular.

In a page right out of Newt Gingrich’s alternate-history science-fiction wingnut-polygamy utopian epic Candyland Space Land, the school district in Tucson has completely banned Mexican-American studies, seized all the textbooks and even wall posters from the classrooms, and punished the students who protested by sentencing them to janitorial duty. The self-hating Latina lady who oversees the now-illegal ethnic studies program even comically told the kids, “Mexico is where Mexican studies is taught, not America!” Why oh why does the Newt have to be in stinky old South Carolina during such a historical moment in stomping the Mexican, for freedom?

The insanely racist Arizona law, HB 2281, specifically targets ethnic studies in the public schools. Tucson’s Mexican-American Studies program was specifically shut down to meet the law’s requirements, although administrator Lupita Garcia — who sure sounds like a Mexican to us — seemed utterly delighted to shut down the district’s program and shout racist idiocy at the students.

The students bravely marched five miles from Cholla High School (better change that name!) to the Mexican-American Studies headquarters … and as punishment for this crime against white society, they were all put on janitorial slave duty. Sounds like Tucson needs to be occupied! (Weather is very nice this time of year. It’s a good season for a Mexican-sounding revolution.)

Somebody give each and every one of those kids a full Mario Savio Free Speech scholarship to Berkeley right now.

h/t Digby.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "If I Had a Hammer"

How much has the Reich Wing ruined this country? This much: in the late 1960's, in conservative Kentucky, at summer camp, I learned this song from camp counselors who taught it and many other popular songs of protest, sex and drugs to hundreds of kids with the full knowledge and approval of our very conventional parents. Nobody blinked an eye.

Try singing this song today within hailing distance of your local elementary school and see how fast you get arrested.

Uploaded by jguth3:

Live at Wolftrap, August 8, 1993. Arlo and Pete and family perform Pete's song with Pete leading the audience in his robust way. What a great concert this was!

Doing More Without Congress

I don't think "extensive background checks" is the best way to attract foreign tourists, but working around congressional obstruction is a good election-year tactic.



Full transcript here.

How a Modern Democracy Regresses to the Dark Ages

By empowering conservatives and freakazoids, of course.

This week, the Republican National Committee rejected 35 years of bipartisan U.S. diplomacy to declare itself in favor of genocide in the Middle East.

The Republican National Committee (RNC), at their winter meeting in New Orleans, unanimously adopted a resolution that appears to support a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"One-state solution" is neo-con for "eliminating all non-Jews from biblical Palestine and annexing the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights - and what the fuck, Jordan and southern Lebanon, too - into Greater Israel."

For more than 50 years, we liberals held up Israel as the epitome of the modern secular democracy. Israel's founders were secular socialists who despised the Orthodox freakazoid minority and worked hard to marginalize it.

That Orthodox freakazoid minority, by the way, vehemently opposed the establishment of the Nation of Israel 64 years ago, and loudly and repeatedly denied its very existence. Their objection was that according to their invisible sky wizard, only the return of the messiah could bring about the rebirth of Israel as a nation. Not even Palestinian terrorists were as shrill in their refusal to acknowledge Israel as were the Orthodox freakazoid minority.

That is the same Orthodox freakazoid minority which is now forcing its insanity on every aspect of Israeli society. Israel today is about half an inch away from being as fanatic and ridiculous a theocracy as Saudi Arabia or Iran.

Digby:

Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and contemplate how an advanced nation can suddenly take this regressive turn:

In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry.

The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance. So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough.

Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage.

Though shocked that this was happening at a government ceremony, Dr. Maayan bit her tongue. But others have not, and her story is entering the pantheon of secular anger building as a battle rages in Israel for control of the public space between the strictly religious and everyone else.

At a time when there is no progress on the Palestinian dispute, Israelis are turning inward and discovering that an issue they had neglected — the place of the ultra-Orthodox Jews — has erupted into a crisis.

And it is centered on women.

“Just as secular nationalism and socialism posed challenges to the religious establishment a century ago, today the issue is feminism,” said Moshe Halbertal, a professor of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University. “This is an immense ideological and moral challenge that touches at the core of life, and just as it is affecting the Islamic world, it is the main issue that the rabbis are losing sleep over.”

The list of controversies grows weekly: Organizers of a conference last week on women’s health and Jewish law barred women from speaking from the podium, leading at least eight speakers to cancel; ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed; the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform; protesters depicted the Jerusalem police commander as Hitler on posters because he instructed public bus lines with mixed-sex seating to drive through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods; vandals blacked out women’s faces on Jerusalem billboards.

Without wading into Israeli politics, let's just say that this is disturbing on any number of levels. But one thing is clear: fundamentalist religious influence always leads to the repression of women.

And there's nothing that says a Western democracy can't go backwards. It's the whole point of conservatism.

SNIP

Perhaps women, racial minorities and other "traditionally" second class citizens can be forgiven for being somewhat appalled at the idea that these people could be empowered even more than they already are. It's really not all that abstract to them.

SNIP

Devolution means regressing to traditional hierarchies. It's something those who were only recently second class citizens understand in their bones.

And of course that's just the way America's Xian freakazoid minority wants it. If the freakazoids can turn back the clock to the Dark Ages in a modern secular democracy like Israel, they can do it here, too.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

Because the Plutocracy feeds on war, and feeds people to the war, and needs war to survive.

Uploaded by Thespadecaller:

On July 26, 1956, the House of Representatives voted 373 to 9 to cite Pete Seeger and seven others (including playwright Arthur Miller) for contempt, as they failed to cooperate with House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their attempts to investigate alleged subversives and communists. Pete Seeger testified before the HUAC in 1955.
In one of Pete's darkest moments, when his personal freedom, his career, and his safety were in jeopardy, a flash of inspiration ignited this song. The song was stirred by a passage from Mikhail Sholokhov's novel "And Quie Flows the Don". Around the world the song traveled and in 1962 at a UNICEF concert in Germany, Marlene Dietrich, Academy Award-nominated German-born American actress, first performed the song in French, as "Qui peut dire ou vont les fleurs?" Shortly after she sang it in German. The song's impact in Germany just after WWII was shattering. It's universal message, "let there be peace in the world" did not get lost in its translation. To the contrary, the combination of the language, the setting, and the great lyrics has had a profound effect on people all around the world. May it have the same effect today and bring renewed awareness to all that hear it.

The Yankee Bull Connor

Which state is, right now this minute, doing the most to deny voting rights to African-Americans? It's not Mississippi, or Alabama, or even South Carolina.

It's Michigan.

Rachel Maddow Monday night:

Governor Snyder`s administration is currently considering whether or not to use the remarkable unilateral power that the Republican legislature voted to give him last year to essentially abolish the local government of Michigan`s largest city and replace it with someone he puts in charge who has unilateral authority.

In the year of really ambitious, sometimes radical policy-making in red states that has followed the very, very Republican 2010 nomination, my personal nomination for the single most radical thing implemented by any Republican legislature and governor is what happened in Michigan. It`s Michigan`s expanded emergency financial manager law. It allows Rick Snyder, the state`s Republican governor, to essentially, effectively abolish all local voting rights.

You vote for your city council, you vote for your town mayor, but in Michigan, it does not matter who you vote for, because the results of your local election can be overruled if the Snyder administration says so. The state, the governor, will decide who`s going to run your town, no matter who you vote for. He will put in who he wants.

The Snyder administration has already taken over these cities around the great state of Michigan and now, it is considering the largest city in the state. Now, it`s considering whether to take over Detroit.

As noted a couple months ago by the indispensable Michigan politics source, Ecleto blog, as reported by us thereafter, and as noted by three members of Congress, nine state senators and dozens of state representative, as well as eight Detroit City council members in a letter they wrote to Governor Snyder recently, if Governor Rick Snyder decides that in addition to these cities he`s already taken over, he is also going to overrule local decision making, local elections, and take over Detroit,
and Inkster, which are two cities now being reviewed, approximately 50 percent of all African American citizens in the state would then be living under the authority of unelected managers.

Think about that for a second.

Congratulations, Michigan. You elected a Republican legislature and Republican governor last time around. And so now, if you are black and you live in the state of Michigan, you may soon have only a 50-50 chance of your vote counting in Michigan toward who represents you in your city or town.

I like this law. Or rather, I like the idea of President Obama using a national version of this law to strip Rick Scott of all power and give the Emergency Manager of Florida job to Alan Grayson.

Think about it. Arizona in the care of Raul Grijalva. Texas under Jim Hightower. Crit Luallen here in Kentucky. Emmanuel Cleaver in Missouri. South Carolina run by - oooh, Stephen Colbert!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Transcript here. Scroll about 1/3-1/2 way down the full text page.

My favorite part of the segment was her interview with the Rev. David Bullock, Michigan state director of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, senior pastor at Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church. Much as I hate giving credit to xians for anything, Rev. Bullock explained the voting rights battle in Michigan as clearly, passionately and eloquently as I've ever heard.

Watch the Bullock interview here.

KY Lege Exiles Liberal Senator; Disenfranchises Second-Largest City

UPDATE, 7 a.m. Jan. 20: Governor Beshear has not yet announced his decision on the bill to exile Kathy Stein and disenfranchise Lexington. Read details and how you can help stop this abomination at Barefoot and Progressive.

You think congressional repugs are vicious thugs and congressional dems are corrupt backstabbers? They are paragons of legislative probity compared to the shitheads of both parties that pass for the "leadership" of the Kentucky General Assembly.

Short version, from the Herald:

Just when we thought the redistricting process couldn’t get any more ridiculous or offensive, the Senate ups and outdoes the House with a plan that would leave the heart of Kentucky’s second-largest city without an elected senator for two years.

Yep, it’s the revenge of Senate President David Williams, who was rejected 3-1 by Lexington voters in his failed bid for governor last year and is now paying them back.

The Republican-controlled Senate State and Local Government Committee has approved a redistricting plan that would move Democratic Sen. Kathy Stein’s District 13, which now includes the University of Kentucky and environs, to Mason and Lewis counties in northeastern Kentucky.

The Lexington district would become Senate District 4, which is now located in western Kentucky, and for the next two years would be represented by Sen. Dorsey Ridley, a Democrat from Henderson.

With all due respect to Ridley, no one in Lexington ever voted for him to represent them. The Senate Republican plan essentially disenfranchises 90,000 residents of Fayette County.

Shrill reaction that puts Markos to shame, from Barefoot and Progressive here, here and here.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years"

Uploaded by solutioncow:

(written by "An Unknown Proletarian,' Music by Von Liebich)
(First Listed Printing, Industrial Union Bulletin, April 18, 1908)

LYRICS:

We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed,
Though there's never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers' dead.
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool.
Then if blood be the price of all your wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in full!

There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we're buried alive for you.
There's never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew.
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in!

We have fed you all a thousand years-
For that was our doom, you know,
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago.
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives,
And we're told it's your legal share,
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth,
Good God! We bought it fair!

Two Years Too Long for Citizens United

Hard to believe it was just a year two years ago, January 21, 2010, that the Reagan/Bush Supreme Court let corporations openly buy American elections.

KeninNY at Down with Tyranny:

It seems overwhelmingly likely to me that anyone who's found his/her way to DWT registers proper horror upon hearing the words "Citizens United." The timing of the dreadful Supreme Court decision that has bid fair to make American elections straight purchase operations by them what's got the most to spend couldn't have been much worse, but then probably wasn't coincidental. The groundwork had been laid; the necessary justices were in place; and the rich were damned tired of having to struggle so mightily to make their clout felt electorally.

At the time, I remember some super-smart progressives pooh-poohing the panic that most of us were feeling, insisting that no, it was hardly going to change things at all. And I suppose if what you mean is that the Money People would have found other ways to make their dollars count, there's a point in there somewhere. Not an important point, but a point.

Of course the people who would have to take action to in some fashion overturn Citizens United -- legislatively, for example -- tend to be people who can see its potential personal benefits to them. Still, with the anniversary of the ruling coming up, a bunch of progressive organizations have banded together (you can see a list on the United for the People webpage, United4thepeople.org.) and will launch a "national week of action" on January 16.

As the webpage says: SPREAD THE WORD!

Protest Citizens United on Its January Anniversary

STATEMENT OF COMMON PURPOSE

The Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC has focused America's attention on the dangerous influence of corporate power in our democracy and the urgency of taking all necessary measures to undo that influence, including amending the Constitution.

Generations of Americans have amended the Constitution over the years to ensure that "We the People" means all the people, not just the privileged few. The Citizens United case, which opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending to influence elections at all levels of government, has brought home the importance of amending the Constitution to ensure that "We the People" does not mean we the corporations.

We believe that America works best when our government is of, by and for the people. Although we have differences in scope and tactics, all of us are united in the understanding that the Court's decision in Citizens United must be remedied by amending the Constitution in order to restore the democratic promise of America.

From the man who's been right about this longer than anybody else:

I know that many of you are deeply concerned about the economy, health care, education, global warming and the environment, Social Security and Medicare, civil liberties, war and peace and the national debt. But here's an issue that's even more important because it encompasses all of these issues -- and much more.

Will the United States survive, in any significant way, as a democracy in which ordinary people can control their future? Or, will "democracy" simply become another commodity owned and controlled by billionaires and corporations in order to serve their own purposes?

Today, as a result of the absurd Citizens United Supreme Court decision, corporations and billionaires can spend unlimited sums of money, without disclosure, in political campaigns. And that is exactly what they're doing.

Karl Rove's American Crossroads has already pledged to spend at least $240 million in the elections of 2012. The extreme right-wing billionaire Koch brothers may be spending even more. And then there is Wall Street, the oil and coal corporations, the insurance and drug companies and the military-industrial-complex with all of their money.

The goal of the top 1 percent is simple. They will spend as much as it takes to elect candidates who support a right-wing corporate agenda. They will spend as much as it takes to defeat those candidates who are fighting for working families. And that's about it!

Please join me, Daily Kos and Democracy for America in pledging to fight to overturn Citizens United.

Our strategy must be equally simple. Short-term, we must do everything we can to support those progressive candidates in 2012 who are fighting for the middle class and the values we believe in. Long-term, we must overturn Citizens United and fight for real campaign finance reform which limits the power of big money.

Last month, I introduced a constitutional amendment, the Saving American Democracy bill, to overturn Citizens United. This amendment states that:

• Corporations do not have the same constitutional rights as human beings.
• The people have the right to regulate corporations.
• Corporations are prohibited from making campaign contributions.
• Congress and states shall have the power to set reasonable limits on election spending.
  

As we approach the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision, please join me, Daily Kos and Democracy for America in pledging to fight to overturn Citizens United and to counter the unlimited resources of the right-wing in 2012.

Your pledge of support today will show the Big Money interests that while they may have unlimited sums of money, we have something more important -- the power of the people. Your support could mean volunteering on local, state or national elections, organizing against Citizens United, donating to progressive candidates or running for office yourself.

Please pledge your support today. Please stand with us so that, together, we can transform American politics.

Sincerely,

-Bernie

Sen. Bernie Sanders
U.S. Senator from Vermont

It's growing:

The Communications Workers of America have joined the fight against the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United, which allows unlimited corporate donations in electoral campaigns. CWA joins 60 other organizations in the battle to get corporate money out of U.S. elections. The groups, under the United For the People banner, are calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling.

If Citizens United prevails, this nation will truly become a nation of the moneyed, by the moneyed and for the moneyed. Forever.

There will be demonstrations in more than 100 cities to mourn the decision. If you're in Lexington, KY, on Friday, join protesters at the federal courthouse at Limestone and Barr from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

On STRIKE!

If the HTML code works properly, this blog will be blacked out from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. today, Wednesday, Jan. 18.

The purpose of the Internet-wide strike, led by no less an Internet Essential than Wikipedia itself, is to show the world what the Internet will look like if the fascist censorship bills - PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House - pass into law.

While SOPA has been temporarily derailed, the even-worse PIPA is still alive in the Senate.

While the disappearance of Blue in the Bluegrass would not cause even the tiniest ripple in the space-time continuum, PIPA and SOPA would eliminate vast swaths of the Internet. Look for your favorite sites today, see which is showing solidarity by striking, and ponder life without any of them.