George Will tells us it’s time for Pawlenty to make his move. But Will doesn’t explain why American should want Tim Pawlenty.

Wyden and Udall are trying to swap out that language to require that the information both be relevant to an investigation and be tied to some suspected terrorist (or Julian Assange).

Physicans for National Health Program (PNHP) and Firedoglake.com are joining forces to urge the Obama administration to grant Vermont the waivers it needs to implement its new health care system.

You can sign the petition here.

It appears that Rand Paul has reached some kind of deal on his insistence to get votes for his amendments to the Patriot Act. There will now be votes on the amendments, with a likely 60-vote threshold. But the expectation is that the amendments will fail, and final passage will be secured Thursday. That will be followed by a quick vote in the House, and then a flight of the bill to Europe so President Obama can sign it before a midnight deadline when the three provisions of the measure would expire. And you said Congress can never be efficient. They can when motivated!

• Senate Republicans walk the plank.
• Ryan: those mean Democrats keep saying what my plan does.
• A day of reckoning for Goldmine Sacks?
• State Dept. pulls out of Yemen.
• Your Republican Party, 2011.

Another victory for the Republicans war on pretty much everything except the rich.

The Rite of Strings — Renaissance, live, 1994.

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Every night, the evening news shows us the destruction and deaths wrought by another example of Mother Nature’s wrath, as though every one is an entirely unrelated event. And the next story moves, without connection, to the debates in Congress, in which the Administration and dodo Congressional leaders haggle over contrived non-problems and positions oblivious to what’s happening in the real world.

It will be interesting to watch what impact Scott’s extreme unpopularity will have on the 2012 presidential election. Florida is by far the biggest swing state, and will likely be a must win for the Republican presidential candidate.