Haiti. Sarah Palin and Scott Brown will soon reign supreme. President Obama is a failure. We’re all going to lose our health care; those of us who make it through the death panels. I officially will never be able to run for public office.
And for some reason, Wyclef thinks he’s worth $100,000 a show:
Without Lauryn and, gulp, Pras? Nah, son.
Anyway, people are mad and they don’t know why anymore. The rest of us are depressed.
Maybe this roundup will offer a ray of sunshine into our very bleak lives:
1. Scotusblog lists possible challenges to Citizens United. (Shani-o)
2. Heather Gerken has the smartest take I’ve seen on why Citizens United was such a crazy decision. (Quadmoniker)
3. President Obama is expected to announce a bunch of tax cuts and rebates for the middle class in his State of the Union address on Wednesday. The plan would include “a doubling of the child care tax credit for families earning under $85,000; an increase in federal funding for child care programs of $1.6 billion; capping student loan payments to 10 percent of income above ‘a basic living allowance;’ expanding tax credits to match retirement savings; and increasing aid for families taking care of elderly relatives.” (G.D.)
4. Slate called out the racism in the U.S.’s response to Haiti’s earthquake you couldn’t quite put your finger on, but knew was there. (Quadmoniker)
5. David Plouffe is back, and the White House hopes that he can help them centralize control over strategy in Democratic races this fall. Plouffe’s return was spurred on by Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, and the Obama camp hopes being more proactive can forestall the midterm drubbing that everyone thinks is coming this November. (G.D.)
6. Related: Joe Biden’s son, Beau, who was widely expected to campaign for (and easily win) his father’s Senate seat in Delaware, has decided not to run for it. Dave Weigel says that seat is likely to go Republican this fall. Ugh. This Novembers is gonna be ugly. (G.D.)
7. Jeremy Levine, our blog homie, has a fantastic piece on “The Other Detroit.” If you’re expecting “ruin porn,” don’t bother clicking the link. (Blackink)
8. NPR has a fantastic three-part series about the trouble many inmates are having with bail, keeping our nation’s jails overcrowded because of intense lobbying efforts on behalf of the bail bonding industry. (Blackink)
9. A few weeks back, it was made public just how empty New York Gov. David Paterson’s campaign coffers had become. Late last week, his chief spokesperson quit abruptly. Now Andrew Cuomo is trying to win over powerful black political players in New York so that it doesn’t appear that he’s trying to thwart the ambitions of a black governor. (G.D.)
10. If the Texas Board of Education has problems with reading and comprehension, what hopes do schoolchildren there really have? (Blackink)
11. Speaking of silly educators, a southern California school district has removed Merriam Webster’s 10th edition dictionary after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for “oral sex.” Sigh. We are doomed. (Blackink)
12. A teenage barista in California is suing Starbucks, “alleging (that) a 24-year old supervisor essentially turned her into his sex toy.” An ABC News investigation has found a number of similar cases around the country. (Blackink)
13. Sarah and Bristol Palin on Oprah. (G.D.)
14. With the U.S. car fleet shrinking sharply in the past year, Lester Brown at AlterNet theorizes that our nation’s love affair with the automobile might finally be coming to an end. (Blackink)
15. If you’re like me and need at least a half-hour to mull over the most insignificant of decisions, then you should check out Jonah Lehrer’s recent appearance on “Fresh Air” to talk about his new book, “How We Decide.” (Blackink)
16. Via Andrew Sullivan, sleeping should always be this fun. (Blackink)
17. Forget about more cowbell. What we really need is more blackface. (Shani-o)
18. Alyssa Rosenberg writes about David Mamet’s latest play that we all had the displeasure of seeing. (Shani-o)
19. And Adam Serwer responds to Alyssa’s piece with some context on white conservative guilt. (Shani-o)
20. Did you know that Asher Roth, Robin Thicke and Ice T’s cartoonishly-built wife Coco are kinda sorta black white people? Yeah. Neither did I. (Blackink)
21. A Racialicious contributor discusses what it was like to grow up a nerd of color. “Along with it seems to be the rebellious streak that goes along with being the kid who gets picked on for knowing how to write in Tolkien’s Dwarven – a certain righteousness about being the odd person out, the strange smug martyrdom that comes from knowing that painting miniatures and possessing a dice bag marked you as being a freak and an outsider. But then how do nerds of color like me fit in, and how do we deal with fellow nerds who don’t want to talk about things like race and class in comic books, video games, role playing games, and movies?” (G.D.)
22. Team Coco was treated to a sweet and sincere finale on Friday. And cowbell. (Blackink)
23. If you truly value your privacy, the NYT has flagged three settings that all Facebook users should check right now. (Blackink)
24. Fontporn. (Shani-o)
25. Via Questlove’s Twitter feed, Rakim shows that he knows his way around a turntable. (Blackink)
26. If sleazy sex scandals are your thing, John Edwards and Charles Phillips have brought their A game. Or is it F? (Blackink)
27. The New Orleans Saints are going to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. Good for them. (Blackink)
28. On the other hand, Jeff Pearlman prepares us for two weeks of mindless coverage about the feat. I sincerely hope I never hear “Who Dat” again. But even worse was listening to Prince’s “fight song” for his hometown team, the Minnesota Vikings. So I guess it all evens out in the end. (Blackink)
29. In the other big football game Sunday, Indianapolis Colts receiver Pierre Garcon represented Haiti to the fullest. (Blackink)
30. Speaking of Haiti, check out this fantastic response from Miami Haitian-American Hans Mardy to televangelist Pat Robertson’s “devil pact” remarks:
This week will be better. I promise.
Hard to see how it could be any worse.
