Political Glance
President Obama continued to assail the Supreme Court decision striking down century-old limits on corporate spending in political campaigns, saying Saturday that the ruling "strikes at our democracy itself."Speaking in his weekly address, Obama said the ruling this week "handed a huge victory to the special interests and their lobbyists - and a powerful blow to our efforts to rein in corporate influence."
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TVNL Comment: This is an understatement. The SC decision instantly changed the US into a corporatist state in which big bucks, domestic and international, will determine what laws are passed and who passes them. It's over.
Next month's Super Bowl broadcast, which garners an enormous TV audience, will feature an advert paid for by an anti-abortion evangelical Christian group.
Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush, according to two groups that are settling lawsuits they filed over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.
How Much Longer Will YOU Put Up With This? 
The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts.
Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that "there is a cloud over the vice president." Last week's release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney's answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way.
