World Airmail Links

…the First Amendment to this Constitution shall not be construed to limit the power of the People to restrict any significant and disproportionate non-party financial influence during the last 60 days before an election, where such influence would reasonably draw into doubt the integrity or independence of any elected official.

— From a proposed constitutional amendment in reaction to Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commisson, from Change Congress’s Call A Convention

Fixing the problem doesn’t mean voting out the feckless Democrats or the obstructionist Republicans. It doesn’t even mean voting out Senator Lieberman. As long as our legislative process is held in thrall to an economy of influence that nearly requires members to play nice with the special interests, the will of the people — on the left and on the right — will continue to be stymied on every issue, in every Congress, under every administration.

— Lawrence Lessig, in an email for Change Congress [via squashed]

This was a systematic and aggressive strategy to replace a culture that was very conservative, an accuracy-and-quality oriented [culture], a getting-the-rating-right kind of culture, with a culture that was supposed to be ‘business-friendly,’ but was consistently less likely to assign a rating that was tougher than our competitors.

— Mark Froeba, former senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service, on what caused the ratings agency to make so many mistakes when rating toxic debt, in How Moody’s sold its ratings — and sold out investors.  One of the things that I think is largely overlooked in reporting on the financial crisis is the role of the ratings agencies. [via Tim Bray]

Oh, to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model [to replace newspapers]. To gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city, as a local politician! It’s got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption.

— David Simon, quoted in Newspapers last bastion against political corruption, says creator of The Wire