Oh boy the stimulation is signed, in Denver — no birth certificate necessary there! — and here’s your Barack Obama all pissed off at Washington because, duh, Washington is (for the moment) in large part defined by a handful of advertising filler known as “pundits” and “Richard Cohen” and “The Politico,” all of which are basically Dick Cheney x 1,000,000. Meanwhile, over in that ghost town previously known as “Wall Street,” everybody’s all crying because Obama isn’t doing MORE to save their doomed sectors. Close ‘em down! [TeeVee]

Last time we checked in on notorious idiot wingnut Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, she was almost losing her safe House seat after proposing Witch Trials for every Democratic member of Congress, because of socialism. She squeaked by, though, and thank God, because she’s funny. With the SOCIALISM WITCH TRIAL SCANDAL finally out of the way, she’s speaking freely again. MORE »

Were you unable to afford a gift for your special someone in honor of that other holiday today, Valentine’s Day? With all the new stimulus money suddenly bouncing around, the lack of funds is no longer a viable cover for forgetfulness. Luckily, DC’s street vendors are more than happy to help. You can pick up your last-minute roses, pink bears, and, um, Obama pins outside any metro stop, all day! MORE »

GO TO BED, AMERICA, YOU’RE RICH AGAIN! The Senate passed the Stimulation 60-38, and the House passed it too, the end. [Washington Post]

The House passed the watered-down Stimulus Bill! With no Republican votes, obviously — they don’t want to get in trouble with their drug-addict talk-radio boss, what’s his name, Mr. Vulgarian. And now the Senate is voting, hooray! They’ve got 59 of the filibuster-proof 60 votes needed, so it’s all down to one guy, from Ohio. If and when he shows up for work …. MORE »

Watch out, America, because David Brooks has written another one of his famous “theme” columns, in which he takes on a gimmick — like pretending to be Kierkegaard, or a doctor researching some new Obama disease, or a cartoon Asian Buddhist Negro being attacked by the Internet — and proceeds to embarrass himself for hundreds of words. Today he pretends to be a historian, or maybe just a Wikipedia writer, composing a brief summary of how during the Obama years, the majority party took a so-so economy, ran up the budget and made so many bad decisions that the American people started distrusting the government and other institutions of power completely. Just to repeat, he says this is what the future will look like. MORE »

Here’s your boyfriend Barack Obama with Virginia schlub Tim Kaine, on location for their cameo appearance in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Keep those artsy White House pictures coming, Pete Souza! [White House]

Well hooray for those people, the ones in the Senate and House who agreed on this $790 billion thrifty stimulation bill, because it’s already working! Battered and confused Consumers began retroactively buying shit again in January. Change is here! (The Dow’s already down another 150 points.) [CNN/Bloomberg]

Tim “TurboTax” Geithner revealed his magic plan to save the economy and the banks and the Toxic Assets, and the Senate approved the Stimulated Package, and … the markets collapsed! Again. The Dow plunged 340+ points, which is basically what happens every time the government makes some big move to try to stop the collapse, going back to October 2007, when all this shit began to spill. What, exactly, are these traders expecting? MORE »

Eh, this is not quite as much fun as, say, OBAMA IN A FOOTBALL STADIUM, with Stevie Wonder. But you don’t fight the Depression with the media you want, etc. BUT: How weird to have a president who can discuss things in an intelligent way. Let’s see how that works out, in this goddamned country. We did the pre-game liveblogging, we did the Obama Speech liveblogging, we did the Obama press conference liveblogging. And now? We will do a bit of this post-game analysis, with the Hardball and whatever. MORE »

Well, America, this is what you get when you elect a COLLEGE PROFESSOR for president: a person who actually responds to questions, in occasionally exhaustive detail, with topic sentences and conclusions. Kinda weird, huh? But just wait till he finishes up and tries to leave the room through a locked door, and pulls a crazy goofy face and trots over to an unlocked door. Then you will remember what it’s like to have the other kind of president. MORE »