It's Newt's night, huh? No place to go but up? They've all been front runner - it's his turn. Thrice married and ethically challenged? Keeper!

Open thread now...

...to vote! White lace and promises...

There are a bunch of votes still left to take in the Senate. How many, you ask?

Ezra Klein knows:

Louisville, Ky.: Ezra, can you shed some light on the process involved in moving the Health-Care bill through the Senate? I've heard bits and pieces about number of votes required, but would like some clarification about: voting to block filibuster in the Senate, taking the bill back to a joint Senate-House conference, then back to the floor for final vote. Would you expand on this? Thanks.

Ezra Klein: Sure. Next move is the Finance Committee vote on Tuesday: that requires a bare majority of the committee (I think that means 11 votes, but that's just memory). Then Reid and the Democratic leadership blend the HELP and Finance bills into one bill. That doesn't require any votes. Then the bill comes to the floor. It'll need 60 votes against a filibuster, and 51 votes in favor of the legislation.

Then we have to deal with the House bills. Do you have a headache? People are becoming very irritable in America. Haven't you noticed? The health-care debate and the economic situation is really, really making life miserable for most of America.

A kiss for luck and we're on our way...

Before the rising sun we fly...

So many roads to choose...

We start out walking and learn to run...

Aravosis at AmericaBlog noticed this one...I guess that McCain should thank his lucky stars that most GOP are low info voters, so hopefully not many of them picked up on this:

This, two weeks after he said that Spain was in Latin America. Here's the video from McCain's economic forum that just took place today - Ben Smith has the transcript:

McCain, talking about energy policy, stresses the importance of "ensuring that America is secure, and not dependent on oil from people like Hugo Chavez or other parts of the Middle East which is, as we know, could be destabilized under certain sets of circumstances."

Can we just get this guy a map or a little mini-globe that some staffer can keep handy?

The Seattle Times: (h/t miss kitty)

Eighth Congressional District candidate Darcy Burner's Eastside home went up in flames today.

The fire started between 7 and 7:30 a.m. on the 3600 block of West Ames Lake Drive Northeast near Redmond, fire authorities said.

The cause of the blaze remains unknown.[..]

Her 5-year-old son, Henry, came into her and her husband's bedroom around 7 a.m. screaming there was a fire in his room, Burner said.

"I scooped him up and got him out of the house," she said. Everyone, including the family's golden retriever Bruce Wayne, made it out uninjured, but their cat did not survive.[..]

Burner said she hadn't yet considered whether the fire would impact her campaign.

"I am today focused on my family and just really grateful that my family is OK," she said. "Tomorrow I'll wake up and figure out what comes next."

Goldy has more...

UPDATED: If you'd like to help, www.helpdarcy.com has been launched: (from email)

People can leave comments of support (we'll collect a large sample and put them on a physical message board which we will give to the family) upload photos of the family to replace the recorded memories that burned, use the actblue link to make a contribution, etc. Eventually we'll also post a list of things the family needs when Darcy gets that to us. We'll also add more tools and features as needed.

Living off Dividends:

If you think that gas prices are high at over $3.50 per gallon (I just paid $3.95 for mid-grade for my wife's Acura TSX), wait until summer. There are reports that the refineries are absorbing the cost of high oil prices right now (and some of them have hedging contracts in place to mitigate this high price), but within a few months they'll be passing this burden on to the consumers. Oil prices at the pump could very well hit $5 and if this trend continues, it could hit $8/gallon.

Due of course to the outrageous oil costs, which are more than double what it was going for this time last year.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

Of course, that's what they're paying now in Europe. Fortunately for many Europeans, the choice of easy public transportation is available as well, unlike much of our country.

Ain't life grand? Jamison Foser:

Last week, Politico reported that John McCain has an "unorthodox strategy" to capture the presidency -- he "will rely on free media to an unprecedented degree to get out his message."

Interesting word, "rely" -- the American Heritage Dictionary defines it not only as "to be dependent for support, help, or supply," but also as "to place or have faith or confidence....read on

Yeah, that would be just horrible, wouldn't it? {{shudder}} I mean, who would want to live in a cosmopolitan place full of art, culture, diversity and some of the best restaurants in the country if it means that your neighbors might be, you know, homosexual??? The bald faced bigotry that people feel comfortable expressing in this day and age never fails to horrify me. PageOneQ:

The town of Eureka Springs is turning into the "San Francisco of Arkansas," warns the American Family Association, and it can happen in your town too.

The presentation in the AFA trailer [available at PageOneQ], "They're Coming to Your Town," tells the tale of an uncharacteristically diverse resort town's government infiltrated by "a handful of homosexual activists" and bent to their will through the enactment of the town's domestic partner registry on June 22, 2007.

"Watch, and learn," says the trailer, "how to fight a well-organized gay agenda to take over the cities of America, one city at a time."

Eureka Springs, most recently, has gotten an honorable mention from unlikely celebrity and Oklahoma House Rep. Sally Kern, who propped it up as an example of the "gay agenda" that she has called a "death knell" and a larger threat than international terrorism, in addition to comparing such an "agenda" to cancer.

Do be sure to see the video that AFA created over at PageOneQ.

Cliff Schecter and Other Opinionated Talents: Apparently, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama agree about the polarizing effect of the standard GOP tactic of emphasizing cultural controversy over meat and potatos issues.

Beggars Can Be Choosers: Whatever happened to protest music?

All Hat No Cattle: This looks a good place for gunslingers Hillary & Mitt

The Reality-Based Community: Your tax dollars at work

The Carpetbagger Report: Steve Benen's closely guarded secret exposed

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: O Hell Nawl!, Cannibal Planet, Blazing Indiscretions, Beautiful Horizons

On a personal note, I want to congratulate my wife, Candy, and my brother Sean, on the release of their book!

First Draft: MSM notices what anyone with the curiosity of an end table has known for years.

Big Daddy Malcontent: The 'family values' party lobbied for, and got, extended bar hours for their convention in Minneapolis. Hardly surprising. The leaders of this party commit war crimes daily, so some delegates might well require a lot of booze with their Kool Aid.

The Nation: Who in the Senate swallowed General David Petraeus's Iraq spin and who challenged it? It took a Democrat who is not running for president to speak the full truth

Concurring Opinions: Me, wife, and son have all been stranded for hours (or days) in the past week by canceled flights. Coincidence? Nope. It's BUSHCO! Demonstrating from day one that regulatory vigilance has no place in a Republican administration.

Blue Girl, Red State: The shameless GWB, a waste of skin who went AWOL, views dead soldiers as political capital.

Big Brass Blog: Some people are really out of touch.

A six year old West Virginia jury award now worth $70 million against the country's fourth largest coal company was overturned last week by the West Virginia Supreme Court. Now a look back at what happened in between is raising eyebrows, not to mention Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship's hackles. This one seems eerily similar to John Grisham's latest, only this is for real. ABC's Brian Ross explains.

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After Massey Energy appealed the case, its CEO Don Blankenship, a Richmond Virginia resident, helped bankroll a $3.5 million ad campaign to successfully unseat W.V. Supreme Court Justice Warren McGraw and replace him with Justice Brent Benjamin, or as fellow Justice Larry Starcher put it, "the election was bought, a seat was purchased on our Supreme Court, and I'm highly offended by it." Then pictures surfaced of Blankenship and W.V. Supreme Court Chief Justice Spike Maynard vacationing with their girlfriends on the Riviera. "It was a trip the Chief Justice never disclosed to the court, even when he voted with the majority to overturn the huge Massey verdict, according to Justice Starcher, who is now being interviewed by the FBI."

After the pictures became public, Justice Maynard did recuse himself, but so did fellow Justice Starcher because (gasp), he had dared to have been critical of Blankenship's relationship with the Court. So the three remaining W.V. Justices, including Blankenship's 3.5 million dollar Justice Benjamin, reheard the case last week and again overturned it.

When approached for a comment by ABC News, Blankenship threatened that the reporter was "liable to get shot" and attacked his camera.

W.V. Chief Justice Maynard insists he's been the victim of "the mother of all political smears," even after it came out that Blankenship's chief political consultant is now helping Maynard's re-election bid. Let's hope that goes about as well as Blankenship's $3 million attempt to finance a GOP takeover of the W.V. House in 2006.