Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren officially received her committee assignments today, and she will sit on the Senate Banking Committee, with key oversight over Wall Street and the financial system. Progressives agitated for weeks for Warren to get this spot, and in the end it wasn’t that difficult a lift. I’m looking forward to future hearings from the committee, especially when Wall Street’s finest makes the trip to testify.

Never do I feel so powerless and deflated in my role as a citizen as I do toward the end of an election season, but 2012 is quickly reaching a new level of awfulness. I just can’t wait for this to be over. From the top of the ticket on down (except for a few bright spots I’ll get to later), the dispiriting sense that “winning” can only be called such because losing is flat-out unthinkable, given that almost half of the electorate is evidently willing and eager to elect into office a party that holds them in utter contempt.

Pam has already touched on David Freedlander’s piece about the decline of independent blogs 10 years down the road. There are many things that are true in his long piece, but he somehow doesn’t manage to ask the rather obvious question — where’s the money?

If President Obama can hold on to Ohio, where he is currently favored to win, he only needs to capture one or two other swing states to get to 270 Electoral College votes.

Tonight, millions of Americans will settle in for a debate between a fresh-faced prodigy from Middle America with a lot of Big Ideas (not to mention cat food hot dish recipes), go head to head with a tired Washington Insider with an admittedly undisciplined mouth. But only one of them is a douchebag.

The collapse for Mitt Romney isn’t the only good news Democrats have gotten recently. The chances of the party retaining control of the Senate have improved at least in part to strong polling coming out of Wisconsin. Multiple polls this week all show Democrat Tammy Baldwin holds a modest lead in the Senate race against former Governor Tommy Thompson.

The Senate race in Wisconsin took an ugly turn last week. A GOP staffer to Tommy Thompson’s Senate campaign dredged up a more-than-two-year-old video of Tammy Baldwin dancing on an outdoor stage at a Pride performance at the University campaign in Madison, and link/tweeted, just before the Congresswoman spoke at the DNC last week.

Al Franken has a video out informing borrowers that they may be contacted if they’re eligible for a cash payment from a wrongful foreclosure or the opportunity to refinance or get a principal reduction on their loans. It’s more of a public service announcement than anything. Meanwhile, Tammy Baldwin joined others in criticizing Wisc. Gov. Scott Walker for proposing to divert settlement funds to the state treasury.

As part of the “It Gets Better” project, the Co-Chairs of the Congressional LGBT Caucus today released a video message of hope and encouragement to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and those questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity. Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Congressmen Barney Frank (D-MA), Jared Polis (D-CO), and David Cicilline (D-RI), produced the video.

The disappearances of human rights activists, lawyers, doctors and sports figures continues in Bahrain. Three members of Congress in the US have spoken out, but still Obama and Clinton are silent.