• Nice hair, Robbie Robert Gibbs took to “Fox News Sunday” to deflect the Scott Brown thingy for Obama, but really, all we could focus on was the mini-pompadour in his hair. Is he gunning to be Conan’s replacement or something?
• 
  “Like a thunderbolt”Among other topics that CBS’ “Face The Nation” tackled was the campaign finance ruling in the Supreme Court on Thursday. Their take? The Scott Brown victory (and this decision) came just in time for the GOP to capitalize.
• 
  Where’s the backbone? Rachel Maddow makes a pretty good slam on what she sees as Democratic wimpiness – taking Erroll Southers out of the TSA nomination, going limp after Scott Brown’s win – with a good point: The Dems are still in power.

• The fact of the matter is that Robert Hurt is the establishment candidate, and it appears that the GOP is doing everything it can to make sure he is the nominee. That’s causing a whole lot of bad blood right now between some of the Tea Party people.
• Charlottesville, Va.-based Jefferson Area Tea Party leader Bill Hay • Regarding a House race in his Virginia district which is something of a bellwether to larger problems facing the Republican party. Despite the unpopularity of Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello in his district, tea partiers are pushing for a more conservative candidate than the Republican Party, and it’s leading to difficulty in staying on message. Yo, tea partiers: Your push for conservative candidates is noble, but unrealistic. You’re going to hurt yourselves in November if you push away moderates. For every Scott Brown, there will be a Bill Owens. source

• They thought the platform was going to tie into what we were after, that we would be one big happy family.
• Northern Colorado Tea Party leader Lesley Hollywood • Regarding frustration her group – and other Colorado tea party groups – has felt after Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis was labeled as “the tea-party candidate” on Fox News last month. It led to a firestorm of controversy mainly because the groups had felt slighted by McInnis when dealing with him before. It required him to do a lot of apologizing and laying some groundwork to patch things up. It’s kind of the Catch-22 the Republicans are stuck dealing with – there’s a wave of conservatism, but it’s a very cliquey wave. source

• The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.
• President Barack Obama • In his weekly radio address, where he assailed the recent Supreme Court decision on campaign financing. Obama himself made a stronger pledge for transparency and pointed out that his administration has made strides to run a clean ship. He also pledges that “it will be a priority for us until we repair the damage that has been done.” In other words, the Supreme Court totally failed. source

• There is bipartisan support and there’s bipartisan opposition. But you need 60.
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman, Don Stewart • Regarding whether or not Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will have the 60 votes needed in the Senate to get himself a second term. Finding trouble reaching that mark in his own party, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reached out to McConnell’s people to see if they could find 60 votes between the two of them. Considering how vitriolic things have been between the two parties of late, it’s interesting that they’re working together on anything. Neither McConnell nor Reid will commit to supporting Bernanke themselves. Bad sign. source

• $36.4
  million the amount the Chamber of Commerce (which represents businesses) spent on political campaigns in 2008, mostly Republican Senate campaigns
• $30.7
  million the amount the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (a major union group) spent on mostly Democratic campaigns source

• Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is an important case. This may be one of the most important cases that we see in our lifetimes, because it’ll have a direct effect on who gets elected, what laws get passed, and who can say what during an election. It’s such an important case that the dissenting opinion is as important as the decision itself. So, here goes.

The case at hand:

• It was about a movie that trashed Hillary Clinton. The producers of “Hillary the Movie,” which was designed by a highly-funded conservative nonprofit political organization to smear the then-presidential candidate, wanted to show the film during the 2008 primaries, but couldn’t because of campaign finance laws (most notably, one passed by John McCain and Russ Feingold back in 2002). Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission had a narrow scope, and dealt with a small part of campaign finance law.

Key points in campaign finance reform:

• 1971 The Federal Election Campaign Act passes, requiring campaigns to report hard-money contributors to their campaigns, but leaving the door for “soft money” contributions wide open.
• 1990 Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce was decided by the Supreme Court, a key decision which upheld the longstanding restriction on corporate speech that could influence elections.
• 2002 The McCain-Feingold Act passed, which limited so-called “soft money” contributions and limited the broadcast of corporate and non-profit political messages near elections, passes.

Main points of the majority opinion:

• Chilling political speech Anthony Kennedy’s opinion argues that the “speech that is central to the meaning and purpose of the First Amendment” is getting frozen with current campaign finance laws, despite their good intentions.
• Broad, not narrow Instead of focusing on the narrow view of Citizens United, the court decided to widely interpret the law, rendering nearly 100 years of campaign finance laws and judicial rulings useless.
• Corporate ad crazy The court decided to overturn some of the most important elements of Austin and McCain-Feingold, so now we can be barraged with annoying political ads all the way up to election day!

Why John Paul Stevens is awesome:

• 89the age of John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court’s oldest justice and also its most liberal
• 90 number of pages of pure, unadulterated dissent from Johnny boy; not bad bro source

The main point of his (mostly) dissenting opinion:

• The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.
• John Paul Stevens • In his lengthy, massive dissenting opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, probably the most dramatic decision the court has made in at least a decade, due to the impact it has on the electoral process. He apologizes for the length for the document before leaping in. But he really had to. This thing is huge – it’s nearly twice the size of the opinion it refutes. source

What does all this mean for you, ShortFormBlog fan?

• one Corporate influence is once again going to be a major factor in political campaigns. And they won’t have any limits on their speech.
• two You’re going see more ads on TV in the days leading up to major elections. The ads could be from corporations or nonprofits.
• three If Fred Thompson runs for president again, TNT can air repeats of his episodes of “Law and Order” all the way up until election day. source

• Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation. In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation’s networks can be an attack on all.
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton • In a speech she plans to give this morning on China’s reported hacking of companies like Google. Clinton reportedly also will bring up concerns specifically about the Google attack. China, for its part, says the attack shouldn’t be overstated. source

• I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements in the package that people agree on.
• President Barack Obama • Regarding his signature health care bill, which got screwed up by Scott Brown winning the Senate race yesterday. It’s perhaps the largest failure of his presidency so far, but one with a silver lining. Now Obama has an opportunity to push for that bipartisan congress that never really happened. Or maybe the Republicans can just stonewall some more. It’s worth noting a couple of things: The fact that Obama plans to wait until Brown takes office to tackle health care is smart. And, as Andrew Sullivan notes (amazingly), he could totally use this as an opportunity to turn the tables during his State of the Union address next week. We want to see him do that. source