Daniel Okrent was the first public editor of “The New York Times.” In his new book “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition,” he tells the fascinating and often-overlooked story of Prohibition. Despite being one of the most important issues in the country for decades and a dominant force in our nation’s politics, the history of Prohibition is little known to most Americans.

Many of the trumped-up cases in the Bush era hinged on the same “honest services fraud” statute; the Supreme Court vacated the ruling in one of them, sending the 2006 bribery case of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman back to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

There are many great reasons to donate $10 or $15 to Firedoglake to help us reach out goal of $50,000 small-dollar contributions by Wednesday. Click here to chip in.

It’s notable that Randy was completely willing to express skepticism about the 1964 Civil Rights Act on national teevee, but can’t quite manage to state the age of the planet in front of 300 people in Bowling Green, KY.

If Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe were to stay on board, their move should be to flat-out take out everything Scott Brown achieved with his hedge fund loophole in the Volcker rule, welcome Maria Cantwell back to the fold, and screw Brown for his bad faith. Or they could dare Republicans to filibuster a Wall Street reform bill over and over, putting them squarely in opposition to public opinion. The more likely outcome is that they drop the bank tax and just add the implementation costs to the deficit. Path of least resistance, don’t-cha-know.

Yesterday, the President issued a memorandum making available 500 MHz of spectrum over the next ten years, to be offered at auction for wireless broadband services. It’s part of the implementation of the national broadband strategy laid out by the FCC in a policy document earlier this year.

Get used to hearing about Proposition 19, which is where you’ll get to vote to legalize marijuana in California. LA Weekly notes a strange coincidence in the legalization initiative’s number. When pot legalization was on the ballot in 1972, it was also Proposition 19.

The best money spent in the Affordable Care Act was the $11 billion dollars put toward expanding and maintaining community health centers across the country. That money will get poured directly into universal care programs for the poor, and possibly lead to some innovations in how we treat people, not just one illness or injury at a time but a comprehensive approach to wellness. The best model for this in the country is San Francisco’s universal care program, Healthy SF, which provides for care for everyone in the city limits, regardless of health, employment or immigration status. It’s not single-payer health care, it’s socialized medicine, and it’s led to significant reductions in the uninsured and a healthier city.

It’s been a bad week for Pope Benedict. From Italy to Belgium to Washington DC, courts everywhere seem to be taking a hard look at some of the activities of the Catholic church, and they’re not liking what they’re seeing. Worst of all, from Benedict’s point of view, is that the events of the last eight days are but a foretaste of the weeks to come.

The Peter Peterson funded America Speaks propaganda exercise backfired as participants rebelled against the effort to force them into backing cuts to Social Security and Medicare.