Go Wisconsin!

Former Senator Russ Feingold, whom the voters of Wisconsin retired last fall, has launched Progressives United, "aimed at countering the impact of corporate money in politics."

“Washington, sadly, has become a playground for corporations and our lobbyists,” Mr. Feingold said. “It’s time we stood up to the total dominance of corporate power that’s invaded our democracy and hijacked our elections.”

Fight the Kochtopus!

Sidenote: Wisconsin was smoking something really mind-bending last November, because they also turned their entire state government over to the Republicans. Their new Republican governor immediately went to war with public employees, moving to take away their rights to collective bargaining.

The result: an uprising of citizens that makes it look like "Cairo moved to Madison," as someone remarked today. I've been perusing the Wisconsin State Journal for photos and local coverage. And loving it that the 14 Democrats in the state Senate have disappeared, preventing the 19 Senate Republicans from achieving a quorum. Also loving it that there's massive resistance on the part of public school teachers and other workers whose labor is totally essential for the functioning of the state but is dissed by the Republicans.

Russ Feingold: Finally, a Democrat with Some Balls!

As Congressional candidate Billy Kennedy said back in February in a Crooks & Liars live-chat, "I believe corporations should be able to participate in our elections when they can produce their birth certificates."

He was responding to a question about Citizens United v. FEC, decided by the Roberts Court in September 2009, which granted full "human citizenship" to corporations, or more specifically, the right to give unlimited contributions in favor of, or in opposition to, a candidate in a political race. Got that? Unlimited contributions.

Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) has spoken out against Citizens United as essentially "a lawless decision." Corporations are not "the same as us," Feingold said in a speech last week. "They do not have the same rights as all of us. And that decision is wrong on the law, and wrong for America, and an enormous danger for the political process."

Without naming any names, Feingold said that George W. Bush's Supreme Court nominees "came before the Judiciary Committee and promised me, under oath, that they would follow precedent, that they would be neutral umpires calling balls and strikes. Well, of course, they did the opposite."

He was talking obviously about John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Yeah, we got that.

A little history:

Said Feingold: "These people who pledged to follow precedent overturned a law signed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907, proposed and backed by Fighting Bob La Follette. And it's been the law of the land for 100 years that corporations cannot use their treasuries to directly impact elections."

The full text of Feingold's speech can be read at the last link above.

What the Hell's Wrong With Obama?

Let’s see if we can mince our words daintily here: Barack Obama is pissing us off. Majorly.

Oh it’s not his about-face on public financing, though that was where every Republican talking-point started on the Sunday Morning Gasbags. That promise Obama made in 2007 regarding public financing “wasn’t worth the paper it was written on,” sez Sen. Lindsay Graham on “Meet the Press.” (And incidentally, why the Obama campaign would send Gov. Bill Richardson to try to spin the flip-flop positively does not speak well of the campaign’s managerial skills. Richardson was horrible as usual, positively inept, so much so that Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation” laughed out loud at him. “Who are you trying to kid, Governor?” Joe Biden was much better on “Meet the Press,” not trying to deny that Obama’s changed position was a change of position but lecturing the pious Sen. Graham on two realities: if Sen. McCain could raise money from 1,400,000 small donors like Obama has, then Sen. McCain wouldn’t be opting for public financing either, and those 1,400,000 small donors do NOT include special interest PACs and lobbyists.)

Under the circumstances, we would be suspicious of Obama’s grasp of reality if he DIDN’T change his mind about public financing.

No, what’s got us disturbed and distrusting him – yes, DISTRUSTING Obama – is his sudden support for the “compromise deal” to “fix” the federal government's domestic spying powers (the FISA law), with its retroactive telecom immunity and the legislative perfume it sprays all over the pig-patch of the Bush administration’s shredding of the Constitution. Compromise? Sen. Russ Feingold calls the new bill “not a compromise; it is a capitulation.”

Why? Why would Obama do this? (Never mind Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats. We essentially gave up on them months ago, and determined ourselves to be merely pleasantly surprised if and when they ever decide to stand up to El Presidente.) Glenn Greenwald asks the whither Obama question better than I:

It's either that he "chickened out" or ... Obama believes he will be President and wants these extreme powers for himself, no doubt, he believes, because he'll exercise them magnanimously, for our Own Good. Whatever the motives -- and I don't know (or much care) what they are -- Obama has embraced a bill that is not only redolent of many of the excesses of Bush's executive power theories and surveillance state expansions, but worse, has done so by embracing the underlying rationale of "Be-scared-and-give-up-your-rights." Note that the very first line of Obama's statement warns us that we face what he calls "grave threats," and that therefore, we must accept that our Leader needs more unlimited power, and the best we can do is trust that he will use it for our Good.

Whatever. But Republicans who claim to love the Constitution and who profess themselves giddy that they’ve gotten the congressional Democrats to cave on FISA might want to consider these extraordinary spying powers in the hands of a president of the other party. We don’t want them in the hands of a president of EITHER party.