The recent Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court has caused a lot of consternation, to say the least. The main concern is that decision is so broad that, if they care to, any cooperation could spend unlimited amounts of its collective money to influence the election of a Senator, a Representative or even state level judges and elected officials. Today the House Judiciary Sub-Committee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties held a hearing on the impact of this decision and where there might be legal curbs placed on the now unlimited money.

Andrea Mitchell just hosted Sen. Susan Collins, who has taken the lead on Republican attacks against the Justice Department for reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights and providing him with a lawyer. And Mitchell was not her usual self – she was actually willing to challenge Collins’ false claims, and provide the context that Abdulmutallab is now cooperating after members of his family were brought in to earn trust.

(SurveyUSA President Jay Leve responds to today’s Ben Smith column in Politico featuring a polling memo by Emory political scientist Alan Abramowitz, which questions the validity of the polls they have done for FDL. He previously addressed these same critiques. SurveyUSA polling results can be found on the Elections page.)

The highway to high office is littered with the road kill of political operatives who find it easier to campaign against a pollster than an opponent. If the DCCC has polls showing congressional Democrats doing better, release them.

It must be wingnut week on NPR, because they followed up yesterday’s teabagger story with a piece on Big Wannabe, who tells them that he hates hates hates NPR.

It’s going to be a tough election year in 2010 so helping good incumbents keep their seats is going to be as important as supporting challengers was in 2006 and 2008.

You get to decide — who should we help? Which member of Congress gets to be an FDL Fire Dog?

Two thousand people who hailed from their districts nominated 180 members of Congress. Voting is now open to the entire community.

Vote Now!

Discussions on the future of journalism are happening so often now that they’re almost trite. But Robert McChesney, John Nichols, Tracy Van Slyke and Kate Giammarise are not only interested in saving journalism; they’re interested in having all of us have a say.

Our corporate overlords tell us what is good and what cannot happen. We hear and obey.

Democratic State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Rep. Mark Kirk will face off for the US Senate seat in Illinois, after both won primary races last might.

That blood-thirst has always felt rather weird to me. Unlike all the others that the torture industry has made an exhaustive effort to sufficiently dehumanize such that we (or rather they) could all cheer torture, I have a tougher time doing that with Abdulmutallab. I know that Abdulmutallab is at this very minute less than twenty miles away from me (and for two days, he was just a few miles from my house). And even with that proximity, he just doesn’t feel like that big a threat to me right now.

• It truly is a sickness.
• Mike Mullen hates Jesus.
• The million dollar question.
• Actually, the answer is: “They paid me $100K.“
• Teabagged.
• Someone went off her meds again.