In an “analysis” piece by the Times David Sanger, we learn the astonishing fact that Barack Obama is in danger of being perceived as overly hostile to large corporations like BP, because he wants them to pay for the damages they cause.

Hey, Blanche? All the corporate donors who were your best buds for the last few months? You can kiss them goodbye — now that they’ve ensured that a corporatist is going to win in November no matter what, they’re going to throw their weight behind the person they actually want. And that person isn’t just a halfway-Republican like you, but a real one.

I still don’t know if they can pass this monstrosity of a bill. But if progressives stand down and do nothing while corporate America runs roughshod our institutions and our representatives, no member of Congress will ever have the political courage to stand up against corporate power again.

When we have the USDA and FDA, why are we still dying from the salmonella and risking brain damage from the mercury in contaminated food? How were industrial food megacorps and the Peanut Corporation of America able to get foodstuffs they knew were tainted past Federal food safety agencies?

The dirty little secret about America’s food safety agencies is that for decades leaders in both corporatist parties have been sacrificing our