First of all, thanks for all the input and email. I really thought most of you would have given up on this mess long ago, but I was wrong.

I'm glad it's not just me getting burned out by politics. They seem to be doing okay without my meddling. I was getting weary of being lumped in with a medium that never seems to be satisfied (look up Dennis Kucinich and Jane Hamsher if you want to see what I mean).

Aaargh, Bonnie and Netto like when we talk about gadgetry, gizmos and my experiments into tech land. I do loves me my gadgets - and ways of hacking them to make 'em "better." My last project was successfully taking a Dell Mini and making it a pure dual-boot of Snow Leopard and Windows 7 (Dell's platform doesn't allow Boot Camp). I'm wondering how I can screw with an iPad, but on someone else's dime.

That's a dandy thought. Some others...

@Cobbnek - No, I don't think writing about the Catholic church is in my line of expertise, nor will it endear me to anyone, but thanks.

@Vermin - Glad you like my cartoon posts. I never tire of that.

@carolt - Really? Cars? My dad was a car dealer, so you'll understand why I have a germ-like aversion to that very topic.

@Nameless Cynic - Keep on keeping on! Check his website, folks...especially the post about Chuck Norris.

Hidflect writes: "This is the standard effect before the rise of the third candidate. Party A(a) and Party A(b) both have slowly twisted themselves into a Gordian knot of mutual action and loathing. Start looking around for the guy/gal whose going to become that shot out of the blue." Interesting thought, but who will that candidate be who we can really believe in and who doesn't turn out to be a closet flaming screwball on crack? (see Ron Paul, Ross Perot)

Keep 'em coming. In the meantime, the Bloggregator alone is definitely worth keeping the domain in operation, so we're not going to pull the plug by any stretch of the imagination.

Any suggestions? I find I just flatline when I start writing anything political these days. It's all clatter and din. Does anyone have any ideas for this little piece of real estate? Hit me.

A mental fallen rock zone. That's the only way to describe this guy. We've talked about him before...here and here.

This now beats them both.

FRANKS: In this country, we had slavery for God knows how long.  And now we look back on it and we say "How brave were they? What was the matter with them?  You know, I can't believe, you know, four million slaves.  This is incredible."  And we're right, we're right. We should look back on that with criticism.  It is a crushing mark on America's soul.  And yet today, half of all black children are aborted.  Half of all black children are aborted.  Far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery.  And I think, What does it take to get us to wake up?

Abortion. BAD. Slavery. Not as bad.

And where did he get this "half of ALL black children are being aborted" crap? Does Meatface here have the proof?

There really is no other way to interpret all this since he's obsessed with abortion and other bullshit that he'll never have to worry about, being a dumb white guy.

Watch it live here.

We've written about it. Now here it is as presented by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show.

Oh, baby. Greg Sargent:

The game of chicken commenceth — right now.

In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.

The assertion, which is likely to spark an angry response from GOP leaders, ups the stakes in advance of the summit by essentially daring Republicans to try to block reform.

“The President expects and believes the American people deserve an up or down vote on health reform,” White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said on the call.

Pfeiffer said no decision had been made how to proceed, pending the outcome of the summit. But he added that Obama’s proposal is designed to have “maximum flexibility to ensure that we can get an up or down vote if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health reform.”

Translation: If the GOP doesn’t cooperate with us in any meaningful sense, we’re moving forward on our own.

Remember when the GOP was tripping all over itself just to smell this guy's after shave? Not any more, I betcha.

Appearing on ABC's This Week, the moderate Republican frequent GOP scourge pointed to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in particular for arguing this past week that the stimulus bill hadn't produced a single "net" job gain.

"I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around, and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying, 'This doesn't create any new job,'" said Schwarzenegger. "And then they go out and do the photo ops, posing with the big check and they say: 'Isn't this great, look at the kind of money I've provided for the state and this is money to create jobs, and this has created 10,000 new jobs, this has created 20,000 news jobs, and all those kinds of things.' It doesn't match up."

It's hypocrisy, said host Terry Moran. "Exactly," Schwarzenegger replied.

"I don't want to beat up on my Republican colleagues but I think it is kind of politics rather than thinking about one thing, and this is: 'How do we support the president? How do we support him and everything we can in order to go and stimulate the economy back and think about the people and not the politics?'

"Anyone that says this hasn't created a job, they should talk to the 150,000 people getting jobs in California," he added, "from the private sector and also from the public sector."

Romney, it should be noted, has already been slapped on the wrist once for the stimulus-related statement he made during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday. The Associated Press fact-checked the speech and found his "assertions lacked context at best and at worst were flat-out wrong."

...annnnd she's now 0 for Everything. Ree-jected by conservatives. Lost to an anti-war libertarian. Ooookay...

In a surprising result, Texas Congressman and 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul (R) won the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference, capturing 31% of the vote. Three-time CPAC straw poll winner Mitt Romney (in '06, '07, and '08) finished second with 22%, followed by Sarah Palin with 7%, and Tim Pawlenty with 6%

"My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes."

That's actress Andrea Fay Friedman responding to failed governor Sarah Palin's teeth-gnashing lashing out at a Down syndrome character Friedman played in Family Guy. Friedman has Down syndrome.

He cites California's downward spiral vis a vis Anthem Blue Cross who will raise their rates as much as 39%. He calls for reconciliation and (gasp!) regulation. Look, kids...no regulation got us in this hellhole. Something has to happen.

What would work? By all means, let’s ban discrimination on the basis of medical history — but we also have to keep healthy people in the risk pool, which means requiring that people purchase insurance. This, in turn, requires substantial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can afford coverage.

And if you put all of that together, you end up with something very much like the health reform bills that have already passed both the House and the Senate.

What about claims that these bills would force Americans into the clutches of greedy insurance companies? Well, the main answer is stronger regulation; but it would also be a very good idea, politically as well as substantively, for the Senate to use reconciliation to put the public option back into its bill.

But the main point is this: California’s death spiral is a reminder that our health care system is unraveling, and that inaction isn’t an option. Congress and the president need to make reform happen — now.

Stephen Baldwin (the Baldwin-INO) at CPAC today:

"I'm gonna be real straight with you," Baldwin told ABC's Jonathan Karl. "I am not happy about the way things are. I pray for President Obama every single day. But tell you what. Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it."

Today, you're not going to get any news from cable networks. Just Tiger's apology. Gotta get your news from the web all day.

Plain and simple. The man is a soulless, retched, vomitous pig. Hell's too good for this douchebag who made a surprise appearance at CPAC.

"I think 2010 will be a phenomenal year for the conservative cause and I think Barack Obama is a one-term president," Cheney said to a standing ovation.

I take back the "pig" comment. Pigs are more respectful than this bastard, who I think is a two-term clusterfuck. Breathtakingly idiotic.

Joe Biden couldn't say it. We did.

John Boehner revealed at CPAC today that his feelings got hurt at a White House meeting when that mean old Barack Obama scolded him.

Poor kid. Being called out by the grownup and taking it like a four year old.

Really, John. You really should get on your knees and be thankful he didn't kick you in what's left of your balls.

They talk tough when they're in their side of the playground, but turn to protoplasmic goo when they're in front of the teacher. Pussies.

I was thinking this was going to be a longshot, and for all intents and purposes it might still be.

But the public option and reconciliation movement in the senate has just landed a big fish.

Senator Chuck Schumer has just signed the letter calling on Harry Reid to hold a reconciliation vote on the public option.

Schumer just fired off an email to supporters in which he announced that he’s added his name to the letter, which was initially spearheaded by Senator Michael Bennet and three other Senators. He wrote:

I just added my name to their effort to pass a public option through the reconciliation process, and I wanted you to be the first to know.

This is far from a done deal, but it’s an opportunity to break through the obstructionism Republicans have pushed for the past year.

That brings the total number of Senators calling for this vote to 17. But Schumer’s signature is arguably far more important than many of the others.

That’s because Schumer has now become the first member of the Dem Senate leadership to join this effort. As the former head of the DSCC he played a major role in engineering the Dem takeover of the Senate.

This has gained traction over the last couple of days, and it just might be in no small part caused by the permission the Dems are getting from both the media and public. Look, poll after poll shows at least 3/4 of the country wants the public option. This is a no-brainer.

As much as no-brainers are beyond Democrats' line of cognizance, they're finally catching on. The rest of you - fall in line. If your rep is on board, let them know they done good. Reward them with an email pat on the back.

Call it what you want. Disgruntled citizen. Angry anti-governmentalist. Stressed out taxpayer.

It's terrorism. Flying a plane into an office building where hundreds of Americans are working with the intention of committing suicide and taking out federal employees is terrorism.

It's not "Islamofascism." It wasn't done by a Muslim. It was a pissed-off white guy furious with the government.

But it's still terrorism.

If he survived, do you think for one nanosecond the right wing would demand he not be read his rights and be tried in a military tribunal as an enemy combatant?

Please.

UPDATE: He had two terror targets. The building and his home where, it turns out, his wife and daughter were in at the time he set it on fire.

It looks like the media's waking up and deciding to start telling...the truth.

I KNOW. It's really bizarre, but look at the proof. Yesterday, USA Today called for the killing of the filibuster in this terse editorial which includes:

The filibuster is a Faustian bargain that undermines the will of voters. The promise of change that swept Barack Obama into the presidency and padded Democratic majorities in the House and Senate last year has been largely derailed by the Senate's Republican minority, which has kept a broad array of legislation from coming to a vote.

More than outrageous, this legislative tyranny holds hostage our democracy to the whims of a political party that was on the losing end of an election cycle. The voters who gave Democrats control of Congress and the White House in the recent elections expect results, not inaction. They expect Congress to bring bills to a vote, not allow a mean-spirited minority to filibuster them to death.

If Democrats won't use the majority voters gave them to end this bad practice, then they deserve to suffer their wrath in November's elections.

"Legislative tyranny holds hostage our democracy..." That's today's GOP. We knew it. Our friends knew it. Now the nation knows it (we hope). Here's a recap of yesterday's filibuster news from Rachel Maddow.

Today, we get an assessment on how successful last year's much-derided stimulus program was. Apparently, it could not have worked any better than it has - and (shocker!) it HAS WORKED.

Imagine if, one year ago, Congress had passed a stimulus bill that really worked.

Let’s say this bill had started spending money within a matter of weeks and had rapidly helped the economy. Let’s also imagine it was large enough to have had a huge impact on jobs — employing something like two million people who would otherwise be unemployed right now.

If that had happened, what would the economy look like today?

Well, it would look almost exactly as it does now. Because those nice descriptions of the stimulus that I just gave aren’t hypothetical. They are descriptions of the actual bill.

Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.

Word is getting out: The GOP has been spoon-feeding its constituents and the media enough bullshit that it's being thrown up back in their faces. See? Journalism is possible in these days of the Fox News business model.