A bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the government may not ban political spending by corporations, labor unions or other organizations in elections. The court’s majority in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission swept aside a century-old doctrine in election law, ruling that the campaign finance restriction violated the First Amendment’s free speech principles. The dissenters said opening the floodgates to corporate money will corrupt democracy.

Well, I guess at least the corporate influence will be unmistakably obvious now. So we’ve got that. We’ve also got a near 0 probability of any reform candidate ever winning, and a near 1.0 probability of incumbent protection … leading to further ossification of our government and the strengthening of the oligarchy. On the other other hand, maybe this is outrageous enough to re-spur the reform movement … in another 100 years.

While I should add that I believe the definition of an “activist” judges is one who issues a decisions with which you disagree, this is an activist decision. There is nothing more “activist” than overturning a 100-year old precedent, which the Scalitothomasroberts group did. Thus, the Bush “minimalists” and “strict constructionists” and “originalists” are … activists.

Also, fuck you, Kennedy.

A federal appeals court on Monday issued one of the most comprehensive rulings yet limiting police use of Tasers against low-level offenders who seem to pose little threat and may be mentally ill.

In a case out of San Diego County, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals criticized an officer who, without warning, shot an emotionally troubled man with a Taser when he was unarmed, yards away, and neither fleeing nor advancing on the officer.
…
The San Diego County case is the latest ruling to address the issue.The court recounted the facts of the case: In the summer of 2005, Carl Bryan, 21, was pulled over for a seat-belt violation and did not follow an officer’s order to stay in the car. Earlier, he had received a speeding ticket and had taken off his T-shirt to wipe away tears. He was wearing only the underwear he’d slept in because a woman had taken his keys, the court said without further explanation.During his second traffic stop in Coronado, he got out of the car.

He was “agitated … yelling gibberish and hitting his thighs, clad only in his boxer shorts and tennis shoes” but did not threaten the officer verbally or physically, the judges wrote.

That’s when Coronado Police Officer Brian McPherson, who was standing about 20 feet away watching Bryan’s “bizarre tantrum,” fired his Taser, the court said.

Without a word of warning, he hit Bryan in the arm with two metal darts, delivering a 1,200-volt jolt.Temporarily paralyzed and in intense pain, Bryan fell face-first on the pavement. The fall shattered four of his front teeth and left him with facial abrasions and swelling.

…

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit affirmed the trial judge’s ruling on Monday, concluding that the level of force used by the officer was excessive.McPherson could have waited for backup or tried to talk the man down, the judges said. If Bryan was mentally ill, as the officer contended, then there was even more reason to use “less intrusive means,” the judges said.”Officer McPherson’s desire to quickly and decisively end an unusual and tense situation is understandable,” Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the court. “His chosen method for doing so violated Bryan’s constitutional right to be free from excessive force.”
…
“Certainly the officer should be able to articulate the reason the force (was used), and a mere resistance to comply may not be enough,” said Sheriff John McGinness.

Texas. Tex. Fucking. As.

Progress!

1) Started at the Alamo? The tea baggers are protesting independence from Santa Anna’s Mexico? The Rio Grande flows into Boston Harbor where the tea floats and … WOLVERIIIIINES!!!!!

I can get behind the idea that they are doomed idiots who choose to hole themselves up in an indefensible location despite orders directly to the contrary. I mean, that much is just obvious.

2) Glenn Beck is one whiny little bitch. And his music sucks.

3) I believe “listening to the people” is exactly what doing what you were elected to do entails.

4) Shorter: I’M DUMB AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

5) Mixed metaphor warning: Dont tread on one if by land two if by me the Alamo sea.

And, finally, I’m starting a 9/13 movement.

In my pants.

The typical American household made less money last year than the typical household made a full decade ago.

To me, that’s the big news from the Census Bureau’s annual report on income, poverty and health insurance, which was released this morning. Median household fell to $50,303 last year, from $52,163 in 2007. In 1998, median income was $51,295. All these numbers are adjusted for inflation.

Progress!

Barney makes my real world job more difficult, but I can’t help but love the guy. Finally, a dem stands up to the astroturfed ragemonkeys. Reminds me of the Army-McCarthy hearings…

We all knew that, but here’s an actual outline on the teevee.

If it wasn’t for Maddow and the Daily Show, though, all you’d have are endless parades of batshit angry/insane people yelling at Democratic congresscritters in the town halls.

My optimism that we’ll actually get what the vast majority of actual people want – health care for all – is exceedingly slim. Our idiot media and the querulous Dems are too easily rolled by the astroturfing. Oh, and the strongest voting block in the country – seniors – already has government health care that they love. They have no incentive to give what they have to the younger folk and if they’re not on board, it’s a tough road to hoe. I can’t wait until the most narcissistic generation in our nation’s history reaches retirement age.

Some of the advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.
…
A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

In the discussions, Mr. Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that, using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.

“The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,” the memorandum said.

The memorandum — written by the lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked the department about a president’s authority to use the military to combat terrorist activities in the United States.

For those that don’t know, the use of the military on American soil against American citizens is unconstitutional and illegal six ways from Sunday. It has not been done since the Civil War. And yet, Cheney is a free man and Yoo still a tenured professor at UC Berkeley (though he has to teach elsewhere now).

One guy can get impeached for a blowjob.

Fifty can’t even get a dirty look for shredding the constitution and considering turning our country into a literal police state.

Yeah, that makes sense.

The historical sweep of the last 20 years, with the Bush era as a particular catalyst, combined with the advent of technological marvels that can subdue people without leaving marks has us hurtling toward an authoritarian state faster than I thought it possible.

Shorter version: small men in power + culture of fear + tasers == police state.

The first minute is an all-time classic. Loooove it.

The joke is: if you’re going to be tea bagging the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey

Web users, the meter is running. In a strategy that’s likely to rankle consumers but be copied by competitors, Time Warner Cable (TWC) is pressing ahead with a plan to charge Internet customers based on how much Web data they consume. Starting next month, the company will introduce tiered pricing in several markets.
…
In the case of Time Warner Cable, customers will be charged from $29.95 to $54.90 a month, based on data consumption and desired connection speed. Customers will be charged $1 for each gigabyte (GB) over their plan’s cap. Time Warner Cable offers four cap levels of 5, 10, 20, and 40 GB.

40GB as the top tier? Assuming I want to watch my Netflix and grab my typical monthly email load, I’ll be over 40GB in the first month. And that’s not even talking about any torrent joy, which of course I would never do, particularly with full DVD rips at 8.4GB each.

Those are some bullshit tiers, with ridiculously low data limits. If your infrastructure is that loaded, buy some new switches, but 40GB? You are seriously abusing your near monopoly control over broadband access. In theory, I have no problem with tiering for high usage users in a realm of areas, but (assuming arguendo that it applies here, which it does not), you can’t set the range from retirees checking their email accounts to retirees who know what a computer is checking their email and expect that to fly. (Note: I’m assuming there are provisions for libraries and other public places which will be exempted or otherwise not gouged. Home offices and nonprofits are fucked though.)

The problem is that the internet doesn’t get clogged by people sucking from the pipe too much – that’s a meatspace analogy that does not hold up in this realm (caveat: I’m greatly simplifying here). Instead all of the costs for providing bandwidth are done up front with the purchase of the routers, switches, and the like. After that, it does not matter if a billion bits or no bits are coming through – the cost to the business is the same. Now, the only time a cap is relevant is if you are constantly maxing out your equipment. In the real world, too much demand is a good thing – you’re popular, you have more people signing on, you buy more retail space to accommodate your customer base. TWC apparently thinks high capacity = a problem of too many customers. Are we sure the GM folk did not just transition over?

Long story much shorter: I think this is a bald play by TWC to try and effectively get around the Net Neutrality issue via pricing rather than packet filtering. Now instead of locking their users into walled gardens technologically (want to see your hidef Hulu? Sign up with AOL!), they’ll do it with a pricing tier (want to see your hidef Hulu? Sign up with our fancy broadband tier!). I don’t think their plan will accomplish what they think it will and will instead have significant regressive effects and/or opting for other broadband options.

So… say hello to (the reportedly bad) AT&T UVerse, possibly Direct TV … no on Clearwire in Austin … jesus, this country’s broadband infrastructure is pathetic. Just pathetic. We pay more for less than anywhere else. Just like healthcare. Fuck you, TWC.

Have I mentioned that tiered usage is an obsolete business model that has no place in the 21st century internet, where people are downloading the Daily Show while podcasting their analysis of the simulcast highdef All the Single Ladies danceoffs? I did? Oh.

Update: Oh hells, yes. Suck it, Time Warner! You surrendicans!

Time Warner Cable has shelved plans to test consumption-based billing until it can improve its “customer education process,” the company announced Thursday.

“It is clear from the public response over the last two weeks that there is a great deal of misunderstanding about our plans to roll out additional tests on consumption based billing,” Time Warner CEO Glen Britt said in a statement. “As a result, we will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met.”

There’s an easy way to not pay the bonuses, there is good legal footing to deny them. What is lacking is political will. Let’s help those spineless twerps in DC out.

I should note that there are rumors that if the bonuses aren’t paid, the managers (or the French, it’s unclear) will declare a default event and trigger hundreds of billions of dollars more to come due. To which I say to the AIG management: bullshit. Go ahead and try it and take your economic terrorism elsewhere. Go Galt on us, please, you worthless shitbags.

Team Obama needs to get out in front of this. It’s a position so easy to spot that even Bill Kristol can see it, and if Obama doesn’t deny the bonuses, then they just gave the GOP a 300 pound birthday cake. With balloons.

According to the FBI report, which was originally posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, police also found a National Socialist Movement membership application filled out by Cummings. The NSM currently is the largest neo-Nazi organization in the country, with 69 chapters in 30 states.

Amber Cummings reportedly told police that her husband was “very upset” over Barack Obama being elected president, had been in contact with white supremacist groups, and that he’d been mixing chemicals in their kitchen sink while talking about dirty bombs

Imagine if it were a Republican president and Cummings was named Garcia or Sharif.

Oh, wait, I know why… let’s talk about steroids and LiLo’s new lips. Muuuuch more important these days, because everyone knows there’s no such thing as domestic terrorism.

Nevada resident Margaret Frye-Jackman, 71, was diagnosed in August with ovarian cancer. She had two rounds of chemotherapy at University Medical Center, the only public hospital in the Las Vegas area.

Soon after, she and her daughter heard the news on TV: The hospital’s outpatient oncology services were closing because of state Medicaid cuts. Treatment for Frye-Jackman and hundreds of other cancer patients was eliminated.

You got that? Public services for urgent medical care are being cut … and still the GOP fiddles and argues for tax cuts. If ever there were a group of more amoral, corrupt, soulless bunch of shitheads outside of collapse-of-Rome, I just can’t imagine.

Instead of getting rolled and creating a “bipartisan” bill that the GOP is going to vote against anyway, why not, you know, be proactive and aggressive? The GOP will not support this bill because if it works, it’s Obama’s bill, and if it fails (which is what they are hoping for – who cares what happens to the country, their only path back to power is if we’re in the shitter in 2010 and 2012) they don’t want to have voted for it.

So here’s my proposal:

Obama to GOP: OK, the bill is too expensive? We’ll eliminate all the tax cuts. Now you’re down to a $500B stimulus package.

GOP to Obama: *head explodes*

The Democrats and Obama on this issue have been an embarrassment. Going from record high approvals, a clear mandate, and a tide of victory to getting their asses handed to them in parliamentary games and disappearing from the media during this entire debate is fucking ridiculous. The GOP is entirely controlling the narrative of this bill now – they own the media and are just slaughtering what we here still like to refer to as “reality” and “reason.” It’s like the past 8 years never happened.

The Dems are an absurd party fully of namby pambies with no spine. It’s infuriating. But at least they’re not Republicans.

In sum: tell the GOP to stuff it and do what’s right. It’s the best way forward.

Four forensic pathologists agree that Larry Swearingen, set to be executed Tuesday, could not have committed the 1998 murder that sent him to death row.

The four include the medical examiner whose testimony helped secure Swearingen’s guilty verdict. That medical examiner now says college student Melissa Trotter’s curiously preserved body could not have lain in the East Texas woods for more than 14 days — and probably was there for a much shorter time.

The results mean Swearingen was in jail when the 19-year-old’s body was left behind, the pathologists say.

At the least there is significant objective doubt as to whether or not Swearingen could have committed this murder. All attempts to have the courts review this evidence or reconsider have fallen upon deaf ears. It is now down to appeals to mercy from a hangin’ Republican in order to extinguish all options.

Update: Fed court intervenes, grants appeal, execution is stayed. Fantastic!

When we look back on this, I think Obama will be a turning point for many things. Besides the obvious racial acceptance, generational, and maturity he represents, Obama stands, right now, as the perfect – and first – post-Nixon president of optimism. And that lack of cynicism is a fresh breeze I’m going to relax in and enjoy for a bit.

Then it’s on to the war crimes tribunals for the Busheviks.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama’s commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract.

I’ll bet you the beard restart is in full swing, though.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) easily won a vote to remain chairman of a key committee today and will stay in the Democratic caucus despite his high-profile criticism of President-elect Barack Obama and his support of Sen. John McCain during the presidential campaign.

To recap: Lieberman actively campaigns against the Democratic president, up to and including implications that he may be a terrorist, undermines the last Democratic president at every turn, is defeated in the Democratic primary and runs on an “independent” ticket, and is the #1 supporter of Bush on the “Democratic” side. Lieberman is also the head of one of the most important Senate committees around (Homeland Security), where he has yet to conduct a single investigation or question the administration.

Democrats win both houses of Congress and the Presidency in a landslide and do not need Lieberman’s vote.

Do the Democrats kick him from the Committee chair? Do they refuse to let him caucus with them?

No.

Lieberman retains everything.

Jesus fuck, Dems, can you possibly be any more of a collection of wimps? He actively attempted to destroy your party.

Lesson to be learned: senators hate the Left and outsiders far more than they hate being stabbed in the back.

Oh, what I wouldn’t give for an actual party with some balls and the ability to enact progressive legislation.

Just fucking shameful.

A few things:

a) Luke Russert. Mmmm… nepotism. Look, I’m sorry his dad died, but Luke sucks, brings nothing to the table, and has horrible hair. Fuck this shit.

b) From the reaction, I’m preeeeeeetty sure Luke and the victory hookup had already hit it.

c) Nice job, Brian! That was the best scolding-slash-breakup inducing moment ever. Ev-er.

d) I totally love how the entire crowd runs away from Luke like he’s a oily little droplet in their bucket of water. The frustrated and lonely chagrin on Luke’s face is priceless. This is precisely how he would have been treated if his dad dad daddy-o weren’t Tim Russert. Looooove it.

Oh, and since I’ve been too busy with other things to post during this epochal event – Sarah, your God has done what’s right for America. Now STFU and get back to your low-grade tyrannical corruption.