Alabama’s new Republican governor, Robert Bentley, offers up a message of tolerance and inclusion for Martin Luther King Day.

At a time when we should be reining in the capitalism that failed so badly, we are instead capitulating to it, using the event of the failure of our corporate masters to give them even more. How is that even happening? And to what degree does the blogosphere deserve some of the blame?

Earlier today, the FCC and the Justice Department ruled in favor of the merger between Comcast and NBC Universal, creating one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and setting an unadvisable template for one company to combine the power of media and the Internet.

Sen. Al Franken, who has been a lonely critic of the proposed merger, released a caustic statement on the FCC action today.

This morning Susan Bysiewicz announced to CT reporters that she would be a contender in the 2012 CT Senate race. While matching her up against Joe Lieberman (I-CT) we failed to question why she would be announcing this news now, why so early? She may have had a bit of knowledge not disclosed to the public. Lieberman will be hosting a supporter event at the Marriott hotel in his hometown of Stamford, CT tomorrow at 12:30 pm EST to announce his plans to either run for a 5th term or to call it quits. Kevin Rennie of Daily Ructions, a CT base blog predicts that Lieberman will announce his retirement from the US Senate. Tim Tagaris, the New Media Director for SEIU, and former new media director for likely 2012 Senate candidate Chris Murphy (CT-5), is up in arms, looking forward to the opportunity of ousting the often flip-flopping independent. Tagaris tweets today:

“Make no mistake, if Joe Lieberman decides not to run, it wasn’t his decision – the people of Connecticut decided for him.” and

“I will be running a Draft Lieberman movement if he announces his intent to retire tomorrow.”

Yesterday, in Spokane, Washington, a ‘potentially lethal destructive device’ concealed in a backpack on the route of the Martin Luther King parade was disarmed and destroyed before anyone in or viewing the parade was hurt.

At a press event in North Portland in front of the home of a family struggling to avoid foreclosure, Senator Jeff Merkley unveiled a six-part plan to fix the housing market and rebalance the relationship between borrower and lender. The plan includes what Merkley calls “lifeline bankruptcy,” which is basically the cramdown proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of primary residence loans.

When the definitive history of the dismantling of the system of justice during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in the United States is written, the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman will deserve its own chapter. The next episode in this sad saga will play out on Wednesday in a satellite courtroom for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Jacksonville, Florida. I will try to be in the courtroom for the oral arguments, but unfortunately, the Eleventh Circuit allows no electronic devices of any type in the courtroom, so I will have to take notes and then prepare a report from the notes.

Debate begins today on a health care repeal bill in the House, which retains the civil title “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” In a corollary bill, Republicans will direct to the relevant committees instructions for changing the health care bill and coming up with some other solution to what remains a crisis in America. The GOP never produced a comprehensive alternative in the eight years they held the White House under George W. Bush, or the previous 12 under George H. W. Bush or Ronald Reagan. No Republican in the White House has taken health care seriously since Richard Nixon, and no Republican majority in the Congress has taken it seriously perhaps ever.

Since when has this Tea-GOP ever given two figs about preserving or creating jobs? If you consider their principal proposals, all of them would destroy jobs, reduce growth, and even threaten to tank the credit of the United States. Talk about a job killer.

Kent Conrad, the long-serving North Dakota Senator and chair of the Senate Budget Committee, plans to announce his retirement today, according to Chris Cillizza. This seems like a pickup for Republicans, though potential Democratic candidate Earl Pomeroy would at least have a track record of winning statewide and positive name ID.