Thoughts going into the weekend...

• The Supreme Court is just making sh-t up with that "Citizens United" decision. I still don't see how money is speech (strange how the Canadian court can declare the exact opposite), or how corporations are persons. Next, the Supreme Court will decide that computers are actually trees. I think corporations should have to serve jury duty.
  
  
• This decision now makes unions more important as far as the left is concerned. I wonder if their input on bills will be accorded more weight. Considering their strong opposition to the middle class tax hike included in the Senate bill, that's another blow to the "pass a crap bill and call it reform" camp.
  
  
• If all this is true, anyone to the left of ExxonMobil's board of directors should be worried that union memberships in the private sector is shrinking -- by 10% this year.
  
  
• The best idea I've seen on health care in the Browned-out Senate is fixing the Senate bill already passed through the 51-vote process of reconciliation. That's smart, and smart is better than desperate.
  
  
• I'm thinking we have a tripartisan system -- Republicans, Senate Democrats, and the rest of the Democrats. This headline is pitch-perfect: "House doesn't trust White House or Senate on health care".
  
  
• I'm not saying it would have changed the result of Coakley-Brown, but I feel that if Chuck Schumer were still head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee rather than nobody Senator Bob Menendez. This doesn't augur well for November.
  
  
• If Republicans are electable in Massachusetts, and Deval has the market cornered on hope...what's left for Cahill? I predict he finishes below 20% on Election Day.
  
  
• With Norfolk County Treasurer Joe Connolly out, Steve Grossman stands unopposed for the Democratic nomination for Massachusetts treasurer. Of anyone on the November ballot, my vote for him and Barney Frank will likely be the most enthusiastic.
  
  
• Just how out of touch is the Obama White House? Their featured comic at the Correspondants' Dinner is...Jay Leno. As much as a bland comic can tick people off, he's done it. Why not just roll out Tiger Woods for some putting humor?
  
  
• An 84-year-old woman is found alive after 10 days in the Haitian earthquake rubble. In the wake of the calamity, when so many need so much and have so little, at least there is hope.
  
  
• After a half-hour of searching, I've found the text of the law named the "Education Reform Act of 2010" in some reports (PDF). I plan to be reviewing the text over the next few days.
  
  
• In other news, 11 Democrats are teaming up with the hate-driven Massachusetts Family Institute in a Texas-style cramming of religion down the throats of Massachusetts public school students. More on that next week.