It's important to keep the devastating news from Haiti at the top of our consciousness. The news is no longer 24/7, but the nightmare continues.

“There are still thousands of patients with major fractures, major wounds, that have not been treated yet,” said Dr. Eduardo de Marchena, a University of Miami cardiologist who oversaw a tent hospital near the airport where hundreds of severely injured people were being tended. “There are people, many people, who are going to die unless they’re treated.”

....In the squatter camps now scattered across this capital, there are still people writhing in pain, their injuries bound up by relatives but not yet seen by a doctor eight days after the quake struck. On top of that, the many bodies still in the wreckage increase the risk of diseases spreading, especially, experts say, if there is rain.

[More...]

AQAP will really get a chuckle over this one: A teenager praying loudly caused a plane to divert.

A U.S. Airways jet was diverted to Philadelphia International Airport Thursday after a praying Jewish man's religious item was mistaken for a bomb, police said....Officials said another passenger had become alarmed by seeing the teen's phylacteries — boxes containing verses from the Bible which observant Jews strap around their arms and heads as part of morning prayers.

"Someone on the plane construed it as some kind of device," said Christine O'Brien, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Police Department.

Between the TSA and hyper-alert (and ignorant) fliers, is everything out of the ordinary going to considered a potential terrorist threat?

With the Democrats in political trouble, I think the Supreme Court's decision today in the Citizen's United case provides Democrats with a big political opening. The NYTimes is reporting that President Obama is favoring Paul Volcker's idea to limit the size and activities of banks:

The president, for the first time, will throw his weight behind an approach long championed by Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve and an adviser to the Obama administration. The proposal will put limits on bank size and prohibit commercial banks from trading for their own accounts — known as proprietary trading.

Republicans will support the banks. They will also support the Citizens United decision, which provides corporations free rein to spend lavishly on politicians. These developments provide the President and Democrats the chance to show some populist chops. Opportunity knocks politically. And not a moment too soon for the Dems.

Speaking for me only

Update: John Edwards is now in Haiti helping with relief efforts. Not a surprise given his trips to El Salvador to build houses last year. Gotta give him credit for trying to redeem himself.

John Edwards has released this statement admitting paternity of Rielle Hunter's child to NBC News:

“I am Quinn’s father. I will do everything in my power to provide her with the love and support she deserves. I have been able to spend time with her during the past year and trust that future efforts to show her the love and affection she deserves can be done privately and in peace.

It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me. I have been providing financial support for Quinn and have reached an agreement with her mother to continue providing support in the future.

To all those I have disappointed and hurt these words will never be enough, but I am truly sorry.”

Friends of John and Elizabeth say they are separated. Elizabeth has opened a furniture store.

Just got an e-mail that the Citizens United campaign finance case just came down. The e-mail says - "It's bad." No details other than "Reversed in part, affirmed in part and remanded." Kennedy wrote the opinion.

The opinion (PDF).

Upshot - Tom Goldstein of SCOTUS BLOG - "The Court's decision overturns the previously settled distinction between corporate and individual expenditures in American elections."

From Sports Left --

No one can argue with that statement. But in context, Serena Williams saying it is jarring:

Q. Do you feel like it's a double standard that if some man had had the same reaction, they wouldn't have been fined as much?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Well, we live in a world that still, you know, men are, you know, just leading a lot of things, as well. In tennis I think we've been able to do really well with having fought so hard to get equal prize money. I think that's really good. But I think we still sort of, say, live in a man's world. [. . .]

More . . .

Claiming the mantle of "political realist" has been the mantra of people supporting the Stand Alone Senate bill. In fact, political realists should have seen the fundamental political flaw of the Senate bill. John Judis describes it:

Where Obama invited a voter backlash was by letting the burden of reducing health care costs appear to fall on senior citizens and those middle-class workers who had acquired good health insurance through decades of union battles with management, and not on the insurance and drug companies. Obama ceded too much to the policy wonks who were devising intricate schemes to show they could cut the deficit. He took his eye of off the political imperative of keeping middle America in his corner.

(Emphasis supplied.) The Village Dems spent yesterday screaming "it's simple" - pass the Senate bill. This meltdown was revealing, the Village Dems have no connection to political reality. There simply is no doubt that, speaking politically, there is no worse feature in the health bill than the excise tax. It was an unproven policy that was sure to cause a political debacle. Indeed, it is the principal impediment to the House passing the Senate bill stand alone.

Speaking for me only

Back in 2004, plans were made to house up to 50,000 boat people from Haiti who had fled trying to get to the U.S. at Guantanamo. The idea was to hold them at Guantanamo until they could be returned to Haiti.

Now, the U.S. is planning to do it again.

The U.S. has begun preparing tents at Guantanamo Bay for Haitians migrants in case of a mass migration spurred by the earthquake, a senior official at the base said Wednesday.

About 100 tents, each capable of holding 10 people, have been erected and authorities have more than 1,000 more on hand in case waves of Haitians leave their homeland and are captured at sea, said Navy Rear Adm. Thomas Copeman.

Only Haitians who were in the U.S. on January 12, the day of the earthquake, will be granted Temporary Protected Status and allowed into the U.S. to live and work. So what they are saying is we are going to house Haitians in refugee tents until they can be returned to Haiti? How many years will that take? [More...]

Nate Silver:

Back in 2008, the smart liberal spin on "post-partisanship" -- one which I frankly bought into -- is that it was in part an effort to put a popular, centrist sheen on a relatively liberal agenda. Instead, as Leonhardt points out, what Obama has wound up with is an unpopular, liberal sheen on a relatively centrist agenda.

Oh yes. The Theory of Change. One positive result from Massachusetts is the the realization that the Village Dems were wrong about the Post Partisan Unity Schtick. You can't fix a problem until you admit you have it.

Speaking for me only

The hearing to modify the protective order preventing Charlie Sheen and his wife from having contact was set for yesterday. Both requested permission to appear by phone, and the Judge denied it. Then Brooke Mueller's lawyer filed to continue the hearing until Friday because Brooke was undergoing oral surgery. That was granted.

Brooke's oral surgery did not go well. She is in the hospital in intensive care with pneumonia and an infection from the surgery.

Sheen has been at the hospital, but not allowed to speak with her, although she knows he is there. Today, the Judge signed an order allowing them to have contact while she is in the hospital.

Sheen's lawyer has now filed a motion to continue Friday's hearing which will be addressed tomorrow. Our prior coverage is here.

Lawyers for the victim in Roman Polanski's 1977 case released a pleading it will file tomorrow in support of Polanski's request to be sentenced in absentia and to be sentenced to time served.

The victim's lawyer, Lawrence Silver, in joining Polanski's request, includes this new information:

In a new revelation, Silver wrote in his legal filing that he witnessed [Judge]Rittenband say in his chambers that no other incarceration would be imposed, only to then renege on his promise and threaten to send Polanski to an indeterminate prison sentence. Polanski fled the country soon after.

Polanski's lawyers have also filed a brief saying the prosecutors misled the Swiss in seeking his extradition warrant.

The hearing will be held Friday. Background is here.

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct issued these factual findings (pdf) today in the case of Judge Sharon Keller, presiding judge the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, who in 2007 closed the doors of the clerk's office to the Texas Courthouse at 5:00 pm, knowing a last minute death penalty stay was en route to be filed.

The Commission found her actions, while amounting to bad judgment, were "not nefarious." It says she acted within her discretion and that her actions did not amount to willful or purposeful incompetence.

Unbelievably (or maybe not, considering its coming from the Texecution capital of the world) the opinion blames the defense.