Just another reason I cannot watch MSNBC: Upon watching live as Puxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, declaring six more weeks of winter to this country that can't seem to find its way out of the dark (except you, Seattle), the anchors proceeded to joke that the Republicans were blaming Barack Obama.

Yeah, and George W. Bush moved the sun during his presidency, ensuring that Phil would always see the darkness.

What happened to good journalism? Like my favorite columnist, Steve Rushin.

UPDATE: So I actually wrote a really lengthy post about the SCOTUS ruling this morning that somehow was not posted (probably my fault), but also wasn't auto-saved (not my fault). As a result, it's gone. And I'm not re-writing it.

What I will do is post this video, by LCV's General Counsel, who explained the ramifications pretty well.


Then I'll say this: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $123 million on lobbying last year, a number one would use to gauge how much they may now spend on campaigning. What kind of ads should we expect to see? Well, MoveOn.org gave us a good example yesterday. An actually candidate would never endorse that, ever. Which they wouldn't have to now.

I really am not sure how I feel about this. This is a good definition of the "individualism" of a corporation:

"Despite not being natural persons, corporations are recognized by the law to have rights and responsibilities like actual people. Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state,[2] and they may be responsible for human rights violations.[3] Just as they are "born" into existence through its members obtaining a certificate of incorporation, they can "die" when they lose money into insolvency. Corporations can even be convicted of criminal offences, such as fraud and manslaughter."

Yes, they are allowed to vote. And yes, they earned the money they are using to run these IECs. Whether that money could be used better is irrelevant - so could my paycheck.

The question here really is, is money speech? Well, if it's your money, who's to tell you it isn't? If Benton Strong wanted to run an IEC, he could. So why can't Kraft? Or ExxonMobil? Here's the thing: lobbying already was basically unlimited and that is where the politics happens. Sure, Democrats will probably never win another race where oil and gas is involved. But, maybe you didn't notice, Mary Landrieu was never going to vote for clean energy anyway. If she had ever considered it, there would be 15 lobbyists in her office. They may hold a little more sway, simply because they can protect members better, but let's not forget that labor unions have pretty good lobbyists and lots of money too. I honestly think that the biggest fallout might be the inability to watch television because of these new ads.

That may not be such a bad thing.

One note that is worth mentioning is something I remember reading recently. In David McCullough's biography of John Adams, he makes the statesman's opinion on aristocracy extremely clear - he was strongly against it. I think he'd be against this too, because it gives extremely rich companies, run by extremely rich people, a lot of power. News flash: they had it anyway. When was the last time you sent a personal lobbyist to Washington? Never.

And second, Alan Grayson of Florida called this ruling the, "worst since Dred Scott." That definitely isn't true, at least not in the scope he is using. What it is, however, is judicial activism, a central theme in the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation. That said, it isn't changing. Not right now at least. Corporations are just like people.

Like I said, try turning off the television.