Maybe now is a good time to take a step back and see this whole Wisconsin thing for what it is.  On this evidence, what happened tonight might just be the final blow for one of the two dominant political parties.

No.  Not the Democrats.  The Republicans.

Seriously.

Full explanation, post-jump.

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And now the whole thing in Wisconsin has gone supernova in the last couple of hours.

The premise of the Flying Fourteen was that they could deny quorum, because you need three-fifths of the chamber present for fiscal bills.  The union-busting stuff that has caused all the ruckus was inserted into a budget bill (on the insistence by every Republican in on the thing that it was necessary to fix the budget mess); thus, the Democratic Senators could get out of the state and block the bill.

This afternoon, the Republicans in Madison decided to create a new bill with only those union-busting things in it.  And then they voted on it. — which apparently sends the thing to conference committee and, reportedly, quick passage as an agreed-upon bill by both chambers tomorrow and signature by the Governor before anybody can do a damn thing about it. [EDIT — it was first passed by a conference committee — which was caught (devastatingly) on tape through the Wisconsin version of C-SPAN — and then immediately sent to the Senate, which voted on it.  Last stop before Walker is a vote by the Assembly tomorrow morning.  That should be must-see teevee.]

The protests, which had to be honest waned a bit this week, started up again almost instantaneously.  The crowd, from what little I’ve gleaned from this, looks to be absolutely livid.  There was also a report that the hold-out Senators decided to come back to Madison to fight this, but then a decision in mid-trip to turn around.  (No confirmation on any of this, naturally.)

All sorts of angles here — the first of which has to do with Scott Walker’s claim that this was related to the fiscal health of the state, but then changing tack in order to ram it through after three weeks of pure legislative chaos.

There will be more to this as the night moves along, but it is safe to say this: WOW.

And here we thought it would be frogs:

An estimated one million fish turned up dead Tuesday in a Southern California marina, creating a floating feast for pelicans, gulls and other sea life and a stinky mess for harbor authorities.

The sardines apparently depleted the water of oxygen and suffocated after getting lost in the marina, officials said.

But here’s our favorite part:

“All indications are it’s a naturally occurring event,” said Andrew Hughan, a California Fish and Game spokesman at the scene.

Yes, because here in California, a million dead fish wash ashore all the time.

Mass Fish Death Fouls California Marina [ABC]

“The FBI has made an arrest in connection with the attempted bombing along the route of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in downtown Spokane. An FBI source in Washington, D.C., said one man was arrested Wednesday outside a home near Colville, Stevens County… The suspect is believed to be affiliated with white supremacists, the source said.” [Seattle Times]

David Broder dies; Pulitzer-winning Washington Post political columnist [WaPo]

If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.

–GOP Rep. Peter King

NY Representative Peter King is holding hearings on the “radicalization” of American Muslims, using fabricated statistics to create the impression that American Muslims are on the whole supportive of terrorist violence against US interests. Yet his own past support for IRA terror campaigns against the British, including the above quote explicitly absolving of the IRA of responsibility for civilians killed in IRA terror bombings campaigns drives home the extent to which Republican posturing on the “war on terror” is little more than a hypocritical exercise in bigotry and demagoguery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVhuGCVIf3g

So we’re reading a backgrounder on Tosh.0, a program we happen to enjoy, only to discover we’re fucking up the demo:

“There are a million videos where someone gets kicked in the groin; this is the type of comedy that resonates well with young men,” said Brent Poer, managing director of ad-buying agency MediaVest.

Honestly, Tosh doesn’t run that many crotch shots — last night’s main segment featured the Screaming Candidate for Ohio county treasurer, whose junk remained blessedly unviolated.

Even during our own High-Testosterone Years, our taste in comedy ran more along the lines of Manhattan, Network, Airplane — but definitely not Animal House. Whacking Material, sure, but no crotch shots in the bunch.

But mainly it’s yet another Dreadfully Slow News Day, and we only need the slightest excuse to run the best kicked-in-the-groin video ever.

‘Tosh.0’ turns Internet videos into laughs, cash for Comedy Central [LAT]