Alright, so I'm sorry. Honestly, yesterday I was pretty fired up about writing about the campaign finance ruling. I'm pretty certain I'll be able to do it today, but Thursday was hit with a buzz saw of that ruling, Lisa Murkowski attempting to gut the Clean Air Act and watching RFK Jr. embarrass the nation's most prominent coal man.

My efforts yielded 35 tweets and five blog posts. After a while the fingers get tired. So we're moving on and trust me, I'll come back to the fact the the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, proud spenders of $123 million in lobbying last year alone, can now turn that focus toward taking over our elections. Any of you who chat with me on gmail saw my status yesterday: "Today's plan: Start an oil company. Take over American politics. Go."

On to today, which once again begins on a sad note. Actually can't find a story about it yet, but I got a breaking news email about an hour ago saying that Port-au-Prince had been hit by another aftershock early this morning. It was described as "substantial". Obviously I am not a scientist, but this seems strange. To my knowledge, two small earthquakes preceded the major one, now followed by two more strong aftershocks. It sounds an awful lot like volcanic activity to me.

In any event, all prayers are welcomed.

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Links:

Paul Krugman is calling for the House to pass the Senate health care bill, a move that would leave Senator-elect Scott Brown out of the process. If you could, comment on what the sentiment is outside of the Beltway about this. Here, it is very toxic. I wonder if the rest of the country though would see it as a breakthrough to pass something. Also, Krugman said in a recent column that he is close to "giving up" on President Obama as a leader, something not confined to him.

The New York Times is calling the SCOTUS ruling a "blow to Democracy".

George Will's take.

In case people have forgotten, the U.S. Senate is still charged with passing legislation, not just looking stupid on a daily basis. And Democrats, with "59" seats, still have no excuses. I put 59 in quotations because we've seen already how reliable that former Dem named Lieberman can be.

Apparently China didn't like it so much when Hilary Clinton told the truth yesterday about internet freedom.

The Fix does this morning round up thing way better than I do. A couple of interesting nuggets from it though, both on campaign finance: this ruling may show that the High Court will be much more willing to take radical action. "Seismic" rulings like this are not common. Also, if you think there was a lot of money spent on the last presidential election...

Good quote from last night's Jimmy Kimmel live: "If anyone wants to pay be $45 million to go home, I'll go. I'll walk home. To Brooklyn." That in response to reports that Conan O'Brien will receive some $32 million to leave NBC, while his staff will split another $12 million.

Finally, as crushing as this is, I realize it was a buzzer-beater, but since when do the UCLA Bruins, the Mecca of college basketball, 11 national championships, the greatest coach of all time, since when in the hell do they RUSH THE FLOOR. It's been a long fall this year in Westwood.