Can you hardly contain yourself? TPM is showing, at 9:17 EST, New NotMitt Fave Rick Santorum ahead in Missouri and Minnesota. Could it be his night? Do we love our Cornhole?

The ultimate remedy is Iranian regime change.

ASSISTANT WANTED

Division:  Editorial
Location:  Washington, D.C.
Job Type:  Full Time
Career Level:  Entry Level
Education:  Bachelor’s Degree
Category:  Administrative and Support Services
Position:  Upright with Arched Back

Job Description :  The Washington Post has an immediate opening for an editorial aide to influential columnist and human-sheep hybrid Richard Cohen. This position is perfect for an organized self-starter who derives satisfaction from handling multiple tasks, working independently on long-term projects, and making creepy old pervs think they’ve got a chance. The successful candidate will be a critical thinker, sophisticated reader and will have excellent writing, computer and communication skills, and can run around a desk fast enough to evade a pursuer but not so fast that he’ll give up the chase.

We are looking for an assistant who is college-educated, communicates effectively, brings energy and initiative to their work, and looks good in black. Web-savvy applicants preferred, but the main thing is, you’ve got to be able to give Cohen an erection, because the only other way he can achieve arousal is through irresponsible warmongering, and we’ve got a whole stable of former Bush administration hacks to take care of that.

So stand up, turn around, and apply today!

CORRECTION: Due to a clerical mistake, the exhortation “to spill blood” in yesterday’s Law-Sayer column was incorrectly preceded by “not.” The Post regrets the error.

#Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.”

Read the full decision here.

Now for the Supreme Court. Any question about why who gets to pick the justices matters?

Brian Beutler at TPM wonders if the GOP plans to follow Paul Ryan down the kill-Medicare rabbit hole again in an election year and concludes that yes, they do:

Why on earth would Republicans put the whole party back on the line? Particularly after a year of serial brinkmanship and overreach that has dragged their popularity down to record lows?

The answers speak as much to the hubris of this GOP majority as it does to the fact that the party’s in thrall to a movement that demands unyielding commitment to a platform of reducing taxes on high-income earners and rolling back popular, though expensive, federal support programs.

Ryan & Co. plan to coat the poison pill with saccharine-flavored provisions (inexplicably) contributed by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, which were soundly rejected by Wyden’s fellow Democrats when the “bipartisan” agreement was announced a couple of months ago.

However, the sham “compromise” backed by Wyden puts the GOP in the unenviable position of having to explain subtleties to two different audiences with opposing agendas: It doesn’t accomplish the utter annihilation of Medicare the tea party extremists want since it contains a “public option” (no, really) that purports to preserve the program in its original form rather than leaving seniors entirely to the tender mercies of the private insurance industry.

But it does tie the cost of the “public option” version of Medicare to market permutations, which would almost certainly drive costs up for seniors, many of whom are Republicans. The devil is in the details, but it’s hard to see how this could actually save money without reducing benefits or raising costs.

As Beutler notes, Democrats are happy to have this debate again, especially in an election year. But should they be? Does Wyden’s participation provide a sufficient fig leaf for the “zombie-eyed granny starver”? I’m thinking not, though surely outfits like PolitiHack will do their utmost to muddy the waters.

[X-POSTED at Balloon Juice]

Deadspin has a pretty definitive photo here. However, some wingnut site called the “Daily Rushbo” gives the clip the Zapruder treatment and concludes that no nose-picking occurred. Not content to rely on the analysis of someone daft enough to run a Limbaugh fan site, I used advanced digital still analysis techniques and found that the truth is far worse than the original rumor.

First, here’s the Deadspin still:

And here’s a detailed view of Limbaugh in mid-pick—the enhanced image clearly shows a viscous, green glob of mucus dangling from his index finger:

And a couple of frames later, the horrible truth is revealed: Not only did Limbaugh extract a slimy, revolting booger from his snout, he disposed of it by wiping it on the back of his host, Mr. Kraft.

Jesus, that’s disgusting. But it kind of puts the NFL ownership’s rejection of Limbaugh’s bid to join their little club in a new light, doesn’t it? It’s not that the owners were put off by Limbaugh’s constant race-baiting and misogyny; it’s just that he’s one crass motherfucker.

[X-POSTED at Balloon Juice]

This is Daisy, who always rides INSIDE the vehicle at all times. Open thread.

We may be the world’s sole remaining superpower, but there are still challengers to the throne, and whether it’s Cold War nostalgia or a decade of well-publicized moral compromise on our part, I for one find it comforting that the commies are the bad guys again. Makes it that much more likely that the bloodshed can be ended by a lone catchphrase-spouting musclehead. Okay, that’s definitely Cold War nostalgia.

Hey, so how’re Bill Keller and the rest of the “Hillary for Veep” morons feeling about all this? You guys really want Biden minding the tinderbox? Because I’m not sure if y’all are aware of this—it may have been mentioned in passing once or twice—but the man’s a bit of an oaf. It’s part of his charm, but, y’know, maybe not quite the personality trait you’re looking for in someone whose job is to stave off international conflagration. Hell, if he was Secretary of State we’d still be putting out the fires from his comically botched attempt to lie about our involvement in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. And I mean actual fires, like I can totally see Biden burning down the briefing room by accident while trying to distract the press corps with Zippo tricks.

Anyway, now comes the hard part: deciding what color to use for our Twitter backgrounds.

UPDATE: if you search for “Syrian bombardment” on Google Video, the sixth hit is this:

What was I saying about being a superpower?

If you’re anything like me, you’re a big sissy whose lack of interest in sports has led to enormous gaps in your cultural literacy, so hopefully you’re nothing like me, but if you’re exactly like me, you made the 5th-grade class bully cry. What happened was, he got stuck with you on his touch-football team in gym class, and apparently you were “off sides,” and he got very upset about this. To this day you don’t know what “off sides” means, but you did make a bully cry, so maybe you’re not that big a sissy after all.

Anyway, here’s a real giant. Not so much the other thing!

The occupant of today’s ducking stool is a post by Erick Erickson that is entitled—I shit you not—“The Perversion of the Words of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the Sinner Barack H. Obama.” CottonMather CottonMatherson waxes theological for 1,500 words or so, returning to variations on the word “pervert” with such alarming frequency as to inspire concern for Georgia’s dairy goat population.

The post is such a textbook demonstration of moral obtuseness, ignorance and conceit that to put it through the Ensnarkerator seems superfluous. Instead, I’ll turn the analysis of Preacher SonOfAPreacherman over to Emily J. Brontë, who described a similar (but harder-working) character thusly:

He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.

Speaking of assholes, we’ve got our own low-rent version of Sarah Palin in the Florida legislature: State Senator Ronda Storms. She just introduced a bill to ban welfare recipients from using food stamps to purchase cakes, cookies, Jello and potato chips. Is it because she’s concerned about good nutrition? Hell no. Storms wants to make sure a struggling single mom can’t buy her child an Oreo because Storms is a self-righteous, sanctimonious jackass.

And naturally, Storms is another tiresome god-botherer who would make Jesus, if he existed, puke his holy guts out. Her continued existence, unsmited, is all the evidence I need that Bill Maher has it right in the clip down yonder.

[X-POSTED at Balloon Juice]