Okay, so, let me get this straight: Arlen Specter switches from Republican to Democrat in a blatant act of voter-shopping (“I’m not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate”) to prevent his ass from being kicked by Club For Growth wingnut Pat Toomey.

Remember Tim DeChristopher? He’s the University of Utah student who last December gave us all an early Christmas present when he wrapped up 22,000 acres of our Federal land, thus protecting it from Bushie auction to Big Carbon. Tim showed up at Bush’s “last great gift to oil and gas”, the Bureau of Land Management’s giveaway auction in Utah, where he entered the high bid on almost one-sixth of the public land at risk.

A co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act back in 2007, California Senator Dianne Feinstein is, sadly, now the lone holdout among those previous co-sponsors in the state’s Democratic delegation in Washington. Feinstein has issued a statement saying that she likely won’t support the Employee Free Choice Act in its current form.

Well, it’s official: Arlen Specter has no chance. Unmoved by Specter’s reversal on EFCA, his right-wing opponent has unleashed The Most Ultimatest Weapon.

Arlen Specter crawls to Grover Norquist and says he won’t vote for cloture on Employee Free Choice. As bankers gleefully rub their hands at the prospect of their trillion dollar gift from Timothy Geithner with no limits on what they can pay themselves, the one thing that might have made a tiny dent in the huge transfer of wealth taking place in this country is tabled — for now.

Dawn Johnsen is being considered in SJC today. When the Republicans start making incendiary claims about her, call them and remind them that, unlike John Yoo, she has promised to use a non-politicized method to put respect for the law back in OLC memos.