“Republican congressional candidates owe it to voters to denounce these shadowy Right Wing front groups like Americans for Prosperity and demand they stay out of their districts unless they disclose their donor list,” reads a statement to TPM from DCCC spokesman Ryan Rudominer, “If they refuse to do so, they are sending a message to voters loud and clear – they stand firmly on the side of these shady Washington front groups and their Right Wing agenda of outsourcing American jobs overseas and allowing foreign corporations like British Petroleum or Huge Chavez’s Citgo to influence American elections.”

And the push back isn’t just coming from the DCCC. State parties and affected Dems are also expected to ramp up their activities later this week. The first example comes from Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), in this web video.

In 2007, when Coats’ firm was still lobbying, company officials inked a deal with the Chavez government that gave a controlling stake in its local operations to Venezuela’s state oil company. Harvest retained about a third of the revenues generated in the country, according to a Reuters report from the time.

In addition to its 60 percent share, Chavez’s socialist regime collects more than half of Harvest’s income in taxes, according to news accounts.

Reid Wilson has the rest of Coats’ clients from his lobbying career, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

One prominent example is CITGO Petroleum Company — once the American-born Cities Services Company, but purchased in 1990 by the Venezuelan government-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. The Citizens United ruling could conceivably allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has sharply criticized both of the past two U.S. presidents, to spend government funds to defeat an American political candidate, just by having CITGO buy TV ads bashing his target.

And it’s not just CPI that’s concerned about that possibility.

In his dissent in Citizens United, Justice John Paul Stevens cautioned that the decision “would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.”

And here we were worried that the biggest threats to American democracy, post-decision, were AT&T and Goldman Sachs.

The Guardian has rounded up these reactions, under the headline “Barack Obama’s speech disappoints and fuels frustration at Copenhagen.” Hugo Chavez called the address “ridiculous,” while Friends of the Earth said Obama “deeply disappointed not only those listening to his speech at the UN talks, he has disappointed the whole world.”

Obama himself “looked visibly frustrated as he appeared before world leaders,” the Guardian reports, and there was a “palpable sense of disappointment in the audience.”

A clear sign of Obama’s pessimism: He strayed from his prepared remarks and threw in a couple of glass-half-empty phrases. He planned to say, “I believe that the pieces of that accord are now clear,” but instead ad-libbed, “I believe that the pieces of that accord should now be clear,” notes David Corn. He also improvised a line to the effect that the negotiators’ “ability to take collective action is in doubt right now.”

Obama decided weeks ago that he would come to Copenhagen only if he thought his presence could help seal a deal. He might be second-guessing himself now.

In the event that the Administrator or the National Academy of Sciences has concluded, in the most recent report submitted under section 705 or 706 respectively, that the United States will not achieve the necessary domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions, or that global actions will not maintain safe global average surface temperature and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration thresholds, the President shall, not later than July 1, 2015, and every 4 years thereafter, submit to Congress a plan identifying domestic and international actions that will achieve necessary additional greenhouse gas reductions, including any recommendations for legislative action.

And yet Vitter has the bizarre and fact-challenged version of this story up at his Website:

In a classic, Americana twist, the matriarch of the birthers has not ruled out her own stint in politics. “You know I never ran for office, but I would not exclude this as a possibility.”

The rest of the interview consists of Taitz patriotically bashing America on foreign soil.- Taitz claims, for the umpteenth time, that the Obama administration is setting up detention camps for its political opponents. Hartman leaves this unchallenged.

- She alleges that Hugo Chavez is buying up voting machines “in Obama’s hometown, Illinois.” (Hartman’s malapropism, not Taitz’s.)

- She claims that the president is an enemy of Israel and that “he issued an executive order to give $900 million to Gaza with no preconditions.” (A lie; Congress had to approve the money.)

- She claims that “the vast majority of the population [in Israel] is supportive [of her quest]. There are some leftists, and some people in the media who are pro-Obama, but even they in private will say they’re with me.”

Florida Republican Connie Mack is circulating a congressional resolution that effectively supports the coup. So far, the Congressional Coup Caucus includes Dan Burton (Republican from Indiana), Jeff Fortenberry (Republican from Nebraska) and Dana Rohrabacher (Republican from California).

The resolution is kind of what you’d expect from the Venezuela-obsessed Mack: “Whereas since his removal, Mr. Zelaya has been flown around the hemisphere by Hugo Chavez’s private jets.”

Now, this would be almost humorous, but those of us who have a little age on us, like I do, can think back to the Clinton administration and can remember how many times when anybody ever criticized the Clinton administration you would hear the First Lady then and now Secretary of State say, “Well, it’s all a plot by those right-wing extremists, those right-wing extremist organizations.” President Bill Clinton would say, “Well, they don’t agree with my party and with what we’re saying here, but it’s really the people you’re hearing from who are right-wing extremists.” They label talk show hosts as right-wing extremists. All this fear was generated about right-wing extremists. Now we’re not even six months into the Obama administration, and the people who are supposed to be protecting our homeland are warning us against right-wing extremists.

Later, Carter compared the president to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

If you are first classifying people who disagree with you as terrorists, or dangerous, then the next step is dealing with those people. The next step may be, we’ll read headlines like this, “Venezuelan Government arrests Chavez opponent.” “Equatorial Guinea: Arrest and torture of political opponents.” “Zimbabwe arrests opposition leaders.” “Britain tells Pakistan Government don’t arrest political opponents.” “Obama administration issues warning over right-wing extremists.” What is the next headline going to say?

This stuff doesn’t read that well with the benefit of hindsight.