Liberals were not pleased with last month’s Supreme Court ruling in Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections was protected as free speech under the First Amendment and could not be limited by campaign finance laws. The constitutional logic of the case is fairly sound: in a recent New York Times article, Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied “regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process:”

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association,” he said. “If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association.”

Cue doomsayers and pundit panic attacks. The obvious consequence is that corporations will now have an unrestrained ability to funnel cash into candidates who best serve their interests, which also means that anyone deadest on running for office (and remember, money talks more than talking points do) and looking to max out on campaign donations is more likely to pander to corporations than individual contributors (although the later model of asking for $5 donations from millions of people worked superbly for President Obama). The potential urgency of correction this mistake was highlighted by a point which President Obama incorrectly noted in his State of the Union address was that foreign corporations could influence American elections (they are actually barred from doing so by law).

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. The point is that one corporation is trying to make things right, albeit with a hefty dose of good old-fashion tongue-in-cheek irony. Murray Hall Incorporated, a liberal PR firm recently announced that it would run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional district. “Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”

Murry Hill released a faux campaign video dripping with irony last week on its newly created campaign website announcing its run:

“It’s a new day. Until now, corporations influenced politics with high-paid lobbyists and backroom deals. However, as much as corporate interests gave to politicians, we could never be absolutely sure they did our bidding. But today, thanks to the enlightened Supreme Court, corporations have all the rights the Founding Fathers meant for us.”

Murray Hill Inc Is Running for Congress

I’ll start with three broad truths: a) the economic recession sucks; 1) the political climate sucks; and 3) the recovery effort, from what we can tell, sort of sucks. But how bad does it suck? We aren’t sure.

A lot of Americans are angry right now, and the vast majority of that anger is directed at the federal government. I’m not just talking about tea partiers, birthers, and neo-McCarthyists who see the imminent threat of socialism, Marxism, and totalitarianism (all of which, they fail to realize, are different, albeit cloesly related, things) in every one of President Obama’s legislative proposals (a brief interlude: can we say President Obama and not “Barack” or “Obama” or “the Barackster? I spent 8 years referring to President Bush as just that out of respect for the office. This isn’t your hip high school social studies teacher). American are angry because they fear that the United States has totally bungled the recovery effort. We had a $787 billion dollar stimulus package, with another multi-billion dollar jobs package on the way, regular citizens have no idea if their tax dollars are going to work or not. China recovered, Germany recovered, even the British aren’t doing so bad anymore. People are mad because the economy isn’t getting better, and they have no idea whether this spending is even helping at all.

If you’re like Time’s Joe Klein (the inspiration behind this post), the problem is simple: Americans are too dumb to thrive. Unfortunately for Klein, Americans don’t like being called stupid: it smacks of elitism, which NOBODY appreciates, and summons visions of President Obama’s “clinging to guns and religion” gaffe from the 2008 campaign.

However, there’s a point to be taken from Klein’s snootiness. All too often, voters go to the polls without a solid understanding of the economic and social ills facing out country; they prefer to vote based on “who they’d rather have a beer with” (poor Mitt Romney) or who their peers are voting for. Some civic education in high school that teaches students the inner workings of the federal government, the Constitution, and the American economy (and I do NOT mean the basic American history classes we all have to take) would be welcome. I’m not agreeing with Klein that Americans are stupid: I’m agreeing with the idea that regular citizens with everyday concerns do not have the time to become an expert on American politics. It’s tedious, complex, and all-too often EXTREMELY boring (there’s nothing sexy about the Congressional Budget Office and the other thousand federal agencies trying to tackle the clusterfuck that is our economy).

When it comes to economic issues, this is certainly true. Very few people understand what the hell a liquidity trap is or how capital markets work, nor do they want to hear their government tell them “they just don’t understand” and then explain in an impossible manner. Even deficit spending, the single biggest silver bullet to the Great Depression, seems dubious now. Hence, most people get outraged over Obama’s spending freeze, stimulus packages that inherently add to the deficit, and other aspects of the recovery effort without really understanding WHY these measures are going forward I the first place. A lack of understanding produces uncertainty, uncertainty produces fear, and fear is the fuel for batshit-crazy TV pundits and talking heads like Glenn Beck.

To summarize: people are angry because they don’t know what the hell is going on with the economy, and they’re angry at the federal government for doing a horrible job explaining how our tax dollars are supposedly helping. We need things explained to us in a way we can understand. We don’t need Reagan-esq supply and demand charts…

Sexy supply and demand charts Ronald...but wtf is stagflation?

I’ll leave the hard-hittin’ Obama analysis to the real politicos. All I have to say about the speech – who was smart enough to DVR the SOTU while watching, affording them the chance to rewind and watch him say “that’s how budgeting works!” a myriad of times? (This guy!)

With my informed takeaways so blatantly and obviously limited, let me offer you this…Five Obama Pump Up Tracks For 2010!

Broken down by key points from his speech…

On “special earmark disclosure” online:

Paul Wall – I’ve got the internet going nutz

On U.S. to lead the charge on clean energy:

Jay-z – Get That Dirt Off Your Shoulder

On Republicans:

Iron Maiden – Run to the Hills

On Gov’t spending freeze:

Foreigner – Cold As Ice

On Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell being Repealed:

Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out

Mostly posting this to remind everyone that Andy Gray is killin’ it with the SI Vault Twitter. If you’re not following, you’re missing out on an epic stream of classic sports content from the Sports Illustrated photo, er…vault.

Thought the above photo of a 17-year old Sarah Palin (#22) hooping it up for Wasilla High merited a create-a-caption contest – bonus points if you can identify the model/brand of sneakers on her feet (are those the original Nike Dunks?)

I posted it here and on Facebook, leave your captions in the comments and I’ll post the best submissions to round out the week tomorrow.

As if he almost predicted the outburst, Obama went were he needed to go to calm the ND crowd – the playing field. But what angle do you choose when you’re dealing with the fact that the once dominant Notre Dame legacy has been reduced to a middling Basketball team and a middling football team? Well, guys, you’ve still got the largest outdoor 5-on-5 tournament in the World. (Did I mention I had the Tarheels come over my house the other day?)

Had Jeeves heard Hallelujah Holla Back roll off Barack’s tongue? Agreed, he still would shouted obscenities from the Upper Deck.

Obama Cites Basketball At Notre Dame Commencement (Baller In Chief)
Obama’s Commencement Address at Notre Dame (Real Clear Politics)

Enjoy everybody. I believe it was Motley Crue who put it best when they said Little bit better than I used to be, ’cause I’m alive!

…And I believe it was Puffy who said, ‘Before you change the World, you gotta change yo’self.’ (Man, NOTORIOUS was terrible, and awesome, and ridiculous, and tragic all at the same time. See it.)

Now check out the audio and transcript of the inauguration speech courtesy of The Random Forest.

I guess they’re saving the version where Obama Mario goes down the pipe for when he takes office with a imminent economic crisis on his hands.

Well done, Barely Political. Nod to NESW Sports for the tip.

Representing the High Socks: Is the Knee-High Flame Being Extinguished from the NBA? (Legend of Cecilio Guante)
20 Classic Toys That Aren’t Movies (Yet) (via Pop Candy)
The Women of the Military (Gunaxin)
THE 11 HOTTEST SPORTS MOVIE TOMBOYS (The World of Isaac)
Emmanuelle Chriqui returns to Entourage (Epic Carnival)

Turns out Obama was a little out of his element when he hit the lanes during primary season last March in Altoona, PA – putting up a 37 (geez!) over seven frames. Wow, that is quite the egg he laid in a crucial swing state. Risky.

No bother though, the Professional Bowling Association is here to help.

“Once the family is settled in, the PBA Tour will be pleased and anxious to send some of our top male and female professional bowlers in to give lessons to the president elect and first lady on the White House bowling lanes,” said Tom Clark, BPA vice president. (PBA offers to give lessons to Barack Obama)

Some of the PBA’s finest rollers are already offering up their expert services to get Obama’s game up to snuff, including the legend Norm Duke and Billy Oatman, the PBA’s first African American.

“I have one bowling tip for Obama: take a lesson from me,” said Billy Oatman, the first African American on the exempt PBA Tour. “Call Billy Oatman and he’ll get a lesson.”

JB, patch Oatman into the Oval Office for me, will ya? [Keep up the good work Mr. Vice President, top notch]

Oh, maybe it wasn’t for you, but a bowling alley in the White House – news to me. Where was that episode of West Wing, Sorkin?

Link:

PBA offers to give lessons to Barack Obama (Detroit News)

Congratulations to Barack Obama, his family, and his colleagues in his camp – especially, Head Campaign Strategist David Axelrod, who will undoubtedly go down in history as running a brilliant campaign.

Looking back, I hope that Obama’s presidential run and subsequent lambasting of the GOP will be seen as the year that a campaign harnessed the power of bottom-up empowerment through technology the unleashed the real real America. Axelrod would probably say that this campaign is just the beginning of that new sensibility, and will pail in comparison to how candidates use the internet, social media, and one-to-one online voter outreach from here on out.

If you feel that you can afford to pull yourself away from today’s celebratory media coverage, check out the Rolling Stone cover story on Obama from last March – The Machinery of Hope. This is the piece that sealed me on Obama, and it does an excellent job of outlining the campaigning course that their camp committed too. I’m by no means a political science authority; someone like Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight could probably point you to a much more in-depth dissertation on how team Obama did what they did. However, after yesterday’s flogging, this is reads like fun prologue. It’s like watching season four of The Wire again, after you’ve seen how Michael turns out at the end of season five.

Yes We Did! (Deadspin)
Get All That Political Talk Out of Your System (The Big Lead)
Go here to watch clips from “Indecision 2008″ (via Pop Candy)
Obama Wins Election, Covers Spread (Sports By Brooks)
Chris Bosh Congratulates Barack Obama, Video (NESW Sports)

The subtext to these Brits reading a scene from a porno about Sarah Palin – somebody (an American, that you’ve heard of) hates Sarah Palin that much that he made a porno to spite her!

Link:
Sarah Palin Film Re-enacted: Ricky Gervais & Thandie Newton