Like so many of you, I am still somewhat in awe of what we accomplished as a nation last Tuesday night. After eight long years of George Bush and Dick Cheney, of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, with unprecedented challenges facing us on the economy, energy, the environment, and health care — in one instant, by electing a new generation of leadership, we sent an unmistakable signal to the entire world that America is back.

Welcome to the new Firedoglake. As you can see, we’ve been busy making a few changes.

The biggest change will be in the comment section, where we’re going be implementing registration to keep the load on both our servers and our moderators from getting any heavier. But over the next few days we’re also going to be introducing some surprises each dmorning, so please come back and join us.