Dan Choi, Bill McKibben and Scarecrow have now spent two nights in jail courtesy of the DC police for an offense that routinely equates to a parking ticket. According to Ted Glick over at Grist, the orders to hold them came from “higher up.”

Remember when the Secessionist called Social Security (and Medicare and Medicaid) a “Ponzi scheme” and wrote a book about how unconstitutional it was. Well, he takes it all back.

The level of Democratic enthusiasm for voting for President Obama again has dropped noticeably in PPP’s recent polling. From Tom Jensen, “Only 48% of Democrats on our most recent national survey said they were ‘very excited’ about voting in 2012. On the survey before that the figure was 49%. Those last two polls are the only times all year the ‘very excited’ number has dipped below 50%.”

I’m not sure if this is information we already knew from the Fed audit, or an additional set of data, or maybe just the specifics that came out of that Bloomberg FOIA request. At any rate, Bloomberg has presented it in a very direct manner with a very provocative title: “Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Secret Fed Loans.” I think some activist snuck into the Bloomberg offices and wrote this report.

I agree with Erik Loomis on this one. The purpose of this whole thing from Verizon’s perspective was to bust the union. They wanted to slash wages and benefits. When the workers went on strike, they threatened to cut off their health insurance. But the workers stuck together, and the replacement workers couldn’t do the same job without tremendous delays. My grandmother had a Verizon phone problem back in Philadelphia, they weren’t going to come out to service her phone line until the middle of next month. This was damaging to Verizon’s brand.

The rebels in Libya have control over much of Tripoli at this hour. Fighting continues in pockets, and Moammar Gadhafi has gone missing. David Ignatius believes he and his family are preparing exit to Angola. Two of his sons are under the control of the rebels, captured last night. There will still be a dangerous fight to mop up the remaining military pieces of the old regime, including Gadhafi himself. But from a 1,000-foot view, this looks like a successful, home-grown revolution.

I don’t know if Gretchen Morgensen’s story on the backroom attempts at arm-twisting to get Eric Schneiderman to play ball with the foreclosure fraud settlement, and drop his efforts to actually investigate the depths of the abuse, should come as a surprise to anyone. I think we can actually be happy that it’s being made explicit and public, however, because the leak is certainly not coming from the Obama Administration, who look pathetic in this telling, completely in the pockets of the likes of “we’ll help you out” Bank of America.

• History made in Libya.
• More on Libya from Juan Cole.
• Axelrod plays the “both sides are to blame” card.
• Damn it feels good to be a bankster.
• Why is Jon Huntsman in the GOP?

The only comfort of America’s illogical use of resources on prejudice and emotion is that were not alone…wait a minute that isn’t comforting at all.

Paul Young – Love Of The Common People and Mumford & Sons – Awake My Soul