Memo to Justices Scalia, Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Kennedy: Your Citizens United chickens are coming home to roost in 22 major markets, starting tomorrow.

Los Angeles Times:

A conservative advocacy group Monday will kick off a huge ad campaign in 11 states and two dozen of the most competitive congressional races, slamming "wasteful federal spending."

The $4.1-million ad buy from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation does not mention individual candidates in the November election. The script attacks Washington policies, describing the economic stimulus program as a failure and declaring that "wasteful spending must stop."

Well, of course it doesn't mention individual candidates. That would mean they'd have to report independent expenditures to the FEC, but since it's an issues campaign that simply happens to dovetail with the teabaggers' lament, they can hide behind the curtain and never let the public know whose message this really is.

Americans for Prosperity. Such a misleading name. Rich Americans for Prosperity might be more apt. Americans for Prosperity is, of course, the Koch mouthpiece that funded last summer's town hall protests, the Sarah Palin bus tour, partners with every teabag operation out there, and lays astroturf in every town with a sidewalk.

And lest we forget, AFPs Tim Phillips got his start with Century Strategies, Ralph Reed's lobbying firm and close ally of Jack Abramoff. Rachel Maddow peeled that onion last year during health care reform.

So they're going to saturate key markets with claims of pork and waste in the stimulus bill, eh? Here's a suggestion for the DCCC and other groups getting ready to put ads up: Start with this list of Republicans who denounced the stimulus bill with righteous outrage while skulking back with their hands out for a second bite at the apple. Rapid-fire it at the viewer with a few key names. That ought to be an appropriate beginning.

I hope the Billionaire Boys' Club at Americans for Prosperity spends lots of money on their ads and stimulates the economy even more while their agenda goes down in flames.

Aside from a few high-profile issues, most Supreme Court decisions are read into the casebooks without public notice. We've gone almost four full years since Bush restaffed the court with Alito and Roberts, yet there has been little examination of their impact on jurisprudence.

That's changing. As the fight over Obama's first appointment picks up and attention turns to the future of the Court, we can expect examination of the Court's present. Jeff Toobin gets the ball rolling, noting that its Chief Justice is a wingnut:

The kind of humility that Roberts favors reflects a view that the Court should almost always defer to the existing power relationships in society. In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party.

The article is a great foundation for understanding the stakes with this nomination.

I've been watching Arlen Specter for most of my life, and all I can say is, if you think he can be trusted, you're just not paying attention. He needs to prove he can't be controlled, and it's always when you least expect it. Harry Reid must have cut some kind of deal with him on the SCOTUS nominee, and while I hope I'm wrong, I predict he will be more trouble than he's worth:

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--President Barack Obama's first nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court could be an early test for Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter as a newly minted Democrat.

Specter's announcement this week that he was switching parties after 43 years in the GOP rocked Washington and put the Democrats close to a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate.

Specter could prove a key vote in any fight over Obama's Supreme Court pick if the Republicans attempt to amount a filibuster of the president's choice to replace Justice David Souter, who is retiring.

"I would expect him to support Obama's nominee unless it's a real radical," said Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute.

Sheldon Goldman, a political-science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said Specter's vote could be "absolutely crucial" and predicted that the senator would be a strong backer of Obama's pick.

"Obama is in a terrific position," he said.

When it comes to Senate consideration of Supreme Court nominees, the Pennsylvania senator has perhaps the most colorful history of any current lawmaker, having angered colleagues in both parties.

"I supported very conservative nominees like Justice [Antonin] Scalia and very liberal nominees like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg," Specter said in Philadelphia Friday. "I think that's the way it ought to be."

I know that this is a few days old, but still deserves to be seen again. Rachel Maddow reports on Judge Bybee's CIA memo that involves torturing a prisoner with insects. It's 1984 all over again. This is sick and it shows how disturbed Dick Cheney and his henchmen at the OLC were and still are. And this man is one step away from the Supreme Court, where he'd have a nice relationship with Scalia, I'm sure. He needs to be impeached. Pat Leahy says that Bybee should just resign.

If that's the case, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), told reporters Tuesday, then Bybee should resign. "The fact is, the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee did not tell the truth. If the Bush administration and Mr. Bybee had told the truth, he never would have been confirmed," said Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The decent and honorable thing for him to do would be to resign. And if he is a decent and honorable person, he will resign," he said deliberately.

County Fair has a long list of conservative reactions to the release of the torture memos. It's one big laugh-O-thon.

Numerous conservative media figures have downplayed, mocked, and jeered the notion that the use on detainees of harsh interrogation techniques authorized by the recently released Justice Department memos constitutes torture. Listed below are further examples of conservative media personalities making light of the idea that such practices constitute torture:

• During the April 16 edition of CNN's No Bias, No Bull, convicted Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy compared the proposed technique of placing a detainee who "appears to have a fear of insects" in "a cramped confinement box with an insect" to his appearance on a game show, stating, "I went through worse on Fear Factor."

Continue reading »

Oliver Willis: Biden FTW, except with C+ America and the bone-deep stupid

Petrelis Files: Former assitant editor of the conservative Washington Times says it's all over for the Psychogeezer and Caribou Barbie. Maybe so, but get ready for a revival of Reverend Wright.

Calculated Risk: Charley Rose discussion on the economy with Mort Zuckerman and Andrew Ross Sorkin

Blue Heron Blast: Sarah Silverman and The Great Schlep

Open Salon: McCain Wrestles a Bear!

Justice Watch: Reagan appointees criticize Scalia activism

Obama has begun. McCain follows in the second hour....

Wow, McCain mentioned Petraeus, the Military and being a POW in about a minute so far. Oh, and drill, drill, drill.

You may not agree with all his positions. but Obama was thoughtful throughout. He bashed Scalia and Clarence Thomas which I enjoyed, McCain is just stumping. That's what Republicans do.

A Tiny Revolution: It's repentin' time in heaven. "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

AlterNet: Paying through the nose for gas. Oil companies, speculators and OPEC played their part, but ruinous Bush Administration policies have compounded the crisis.

Radamisto: Strict Constructionist Scalia cites "urban legend" in his dissent on Gitmo prisoners ruling. The Bush administration, realizing that federal judges will now be reviewing their "secret" evidence against detainees, have asked if they can cheat rewrite the evidence.

Talk To Action: Crackpot anti-gay sociologist finds friends in Russia

The Opinion Mill's Sunday Bookchat asks: Are we living in Nixonland or Reaganland? What is the difference between liberal books and conservative books? And what can we do about all these private militias?

Mugsy's Rap Sheet is inspired to attempt compiling a master list of McCain flip-flops and gaffes, which may require several full time employees to keep current. Readers are invited to contribute. A valuable resource for such an ambitious project would be the blogosphere's foremost authority on the fumblin', stumblin', bumblin' McCain, Jon Perr, who already has documented plenty of stupid remarks, idiotic assessments, reversals, backpedaling, chickensh*tery, dumbass predictions, the rare double flip-flop, many out-of-touch moments, and much more.

Once again, today's Blog Roundup is brought to you by Steven and the alert uniformed attendants at The Opinion Mill. Keep those digital cards and letters coming to steve[dot]theopinionmill[at]gmail[dot]com. Excelsior, y'all.

Turns out that at Columbia University they just loves them some dictators. Considering who else was being greeted with open arms, it makes you wonder why Lee Bollinger was so eager to harsh out the vibe for Iranian President Unpronounceable.

Children's health? It's all just politics to this "moderate" Rethuglican.

Mark McDonald visits Wikipedia and finds yet another battle line in the endless conservative war against reality.

John Holbo tries to parse Michael Medved's views on slavery and ends up scratching his head. Field Negro cuts to the chase and reaches the conclusion that Medved is a racist winger hack with entirely too much company in the mainstream.

If you don't mind stepping away from political issues for a moment, here's one of the most poignant blog posts you'll ever read -- about a very human moment between a store employee and a customer with a very personal question.

THE BOOK NOOK: Unfortunately for Clarence Thomas, his whiny, petulant, foot-stamping tantrum of a memoir is coming out the same time as Jeff Toobin's Supreme Court book The Nine, in which we learn that even Antonin "Evil Genius" Scalia considers Thomas more than a bit of a flake. How long before the Thomas book turns up as a $1 giveaway from NewsMax?

HOLY CRAP: Rudy and Jesus, not so perfect together. Neocons and Christianist nutters, perfect together. Here's a Garden State winger who has his own ideas about other people's families (gays, needless to say, are not invited). And the Dominionists threw themselves a party in Salt Lake City -- are you wondering why you weren't invited?

It’s surprisingly disappointing just how little progress we’ve made on certain basic questions about torture.

Senior judges from North America and Europe were in the midst of a panel discussion about torture and terrorism law, when a Canadian judge’s passing remark - “Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra ‘What would Jack Bauer do?’ ” - got the legal bulldog in [Justice Antonin Scalia] barking.

The conservative jurist stuck up for Agent Bauer, arguing that fictional or not, federal agents require latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles. … He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia said. Then, recalling Season 2, where the agent’s rough interrogation tactics saved California from a terrorist nuke, the Supreme Court judge etched a line in the sand.

“Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” Judge Scalia challenged his fellow judges. “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don’t think so."

It’s likely that Scalia was using a cultural reference to prove a broader point about torture and the rule of law, but I’m not entirely sure what that point is. It seems to have something to do with Scalia’s apparent belief that those U.S. officials who commit torture deserve legal amnesty, just so long as the ends justify the means.

He couldn't be more wrong.   Update: The CBC has a segment up on it with Avi Lewis...

More on Ashcroft:

Antonin Scalia Is an Enemy of the State!

So says John Ashcroft. Jeffrey Dubner reports

GET YOUR ROBES OUT OF OUR PRISONS! I just watched John Ashcroft's address to the Federalist Society. It's a gripping speech, and quite frightening. He devotes the greatest portion of it to challenging the Supreme Court's decisions in Rasul v. Bush, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and the other "enemy combatant" cases. A taste:

...intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas of treaties can put at risk the very security of our nation at a time of war.

It's very much in the vein of "the ability to set aside the laws is inherent in the president." There's no transcript available just yet, and I expect there'll be analyses and critiques up by more qualified legal folks than I by the time we get back from the weekend. But I wonder how confined this constitutional theory is to Ashcroft, and whether it will in any way leave office with him. I highly doubt it.

UPDATE: Tonight's keynote speaker is, of course, Federalist Society member and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. He's as like as not to agree with Ashcroft on this, although it's hard to be sure.

I do think that this is, in part, fallout from Bush v. Gore. Everybody knows that Scalia and company don't believe the equal protection rationale they set forward for their decision. And if what the Supremes are doing is expressing their political preferences rather than setting forth judicial principles--well, why should their will get to override Bush's and Ashcroft's? Just because Scalia, Rehnquist, and company ruled in favor of Bush in 2000 doesn't mean that Bush and company respect them for it.