A bunch of readers have asked us: What’s up with Rand Paul doing an actual filibuster this afternoon on the Senate floor?  And why aren’t you guys all over it? Well, by the ironies of the modern filibuster, this one has lots of fireworks and looks like what a lot of people think a filibuster should look like.  But it’s precisely because this one actually has no teeth that they’re resorting to the old fashioned system.  … Thus far, he’s enlisted Sens. Lee and Cruz to assist him with short breaks. [TPM]

This should be fun:

memeorandum

Shake that Etch-a-Sketch:

[Gene Sperling] assumed, in other words, that Woodward would not do his job. This was an oversight.

This is no tempest in a teapot but rather the leak in the dike. Drip by drip, the Obama administration has demonstrated its intolerance for dissent and its contempt for any who stray from the White House script. Yes, all administrations are sensitive to criticism, and all push back when such criticism is deemed unfair or inaccurate. But no president since Richard Nixon has demonstrated such overt contempt for the messenger. And, thanks to technological advances in social media, Obama has been able to bypass traditional watchdogs as no other president has.

It’s as if the Bush administration never even happened.

Why the ‘Threat’ on Bob Woodward Matters [WaPo]

“It seems everyone is calling Republican Senator Ted Cruz the new McCarthy. He’s got a list of Commies and he’s not afraid of innuendo. He’s a wanna-be McCarthy, harkening back to the good old days when Republican paranoia took hold of a nation. There’s not one “new McCarthy” in the GOP, but rather a party of new McCarthys. This is an important distinction, and speaks to the inevitable extinction of the party if they don’t do something soon.” [Politicus]

Gub-mint is broken, and this confessed adulterer will fix it!

“CPAC is coming! Prepare your battleships, patriots. On March 14, the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference descends upon innocent Americans in order to spread the goodness of Dick Morris, movies sponsored by Citizens United and the liberty of fracking. Woo hoo! But once again, there’s trouble in paradise, because once again, CPAC gave GOProud the boot. They invited Wayne La Pierre this year (along with Ralph Reed and conspiracy theorist Ben Shapiro) and last year, they had white supremacist John Derbyshire, but gays are too divisive.” [Politicus USA]

“Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) has announced that he would be bringing musician and conservative loudmouth Ted Nugent to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday. ‘I am excited to have a patriot like Ted Nugent joining me in the House Chamber to hear from President Obama,’ Stockman said on his congressional website on Monday.” [Think Progress]