The news coming out of Japan at midnight PT:

Large areas of Japan’s northern Pacific coast have been swamped by a devastating tsunami, engulfing entire towns following a major 8.9 offshore quake.

The meteorological agency issued its top-level evacuation alerts for the entire Japanese coast, warning of a tsunami of up to six metres.

Towns and farms around Sendai city in northern Japan are being engulfed by a tsunami, and a four-metre wave has swamped parts of Kamaishi on the Pacific coast.

We’re not hearing specific casualty reports yet, but the ugly details will surely emerge all too soon.

Tsunami swamps Japan after powerful quake [ABC Australia]

Tsunami hits north-eastern Japan after massive quake [BBC]

Massive 8.9 quake, tsunamis hit Japan [CNN]

Update: Tsunami warning now in effect from Point Concepcion, California, to the Oregon-Washington Border. Estimated arrival begins at 7:15 am PT.

Rand Paul, Master Logician: “I think there should be some self-examination from the Administration on the idea that you favor a woman’s right to an abortion, but you don’t favor a woman or a man’s right to choose what kind of light bulb, what kind of dishwasher, what kind of washing machine.” [TPM]

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the new Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as a female. Enda Kenny is a male.” [NYT, via Weigel]

If anyone’s watching at home, New York Congressman Peter King (R-IRA), Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, has started his witchhunt hearings on Mooslems in Amerikuh.

For those of you with stronger stomachs, you can watch it live on C-SPAN or CNN. For the rest of us, enjoy this picture of Peter King back in the good old days hanging with some of his buddies in Belfast:

Because the now-famous Wisconsin Quorum Rule only applies to budget bills, Cheesehead Republicans have always had the power to bust public unions without the participation of their vacationing Democratic brethren. The only reason they didn’t was the pretense that union-busting was a financial requirement to further enfilth the already filthy-rich Koch Brothers.

So last night’s Stealthcare Bill wasn’t flat-out illegal — the technical dispute is whether under Wisconsin’s open-meeting law, repackaging it required a cooling-off period before taking a vote.

But never mind that. Enjoy instead this delightful example of how America is the Beacon of Democracy to the world.

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.

Read more »

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.