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Psst. Hey, Senator! Just wanted to say thanks for all the free publicity! It's getting even better now that your pal – what's her name, the Half-Governor? - is talking about me too. You know what they say: It's not bad press if they spell your name right!

But listen – and I really shouldn't do this – I'm not sure you realize where you're headed. Put it this way: When the lead singer from Megadeth says he'll vote for you, take it as a sign. I mean, c'mon man! They sang “Prince of Darkness”!

You already talk about me like you know me. Have we met? You do look familiar, but I meet so many guys in your line of work - lobbying, that is. Oh, right, you're a politician too. When it comes to politicians, let's just say we've always got a quorum down here! Talk about your “smoke-filled rooms” …

Oh, wait. Maybe you haven't figured out who I am. Please allow me to introduce myself - I'm a man of wealth and taste.

In fact, my taste is so good that when I go to a political fundraiser all the bankers want to know who my tailor is. (As if I'd tell them! But don't worry: I'll be fitting most of them for new suits soon.) I go to a lot of fundraisers these days. Gotta love that Citizens United ruling. I was able to fire a whole host of demons and start a SuperPAC instead.

I especially appreciate it when folks like you and the Half-Governor talk about me, because let's face it: We're working the same demographic. I'm after their souls and you're after their campaign cash, but it's the same crowd I've been running with since the dawn of time:

They're the moneylenders who were chased out of the Temple.

They're the Usurers that were condemned three thousand years ago in Babylon.

They're the hypocrites who shout their faith all over the airwaves after the Bible told them to “pray in secret.”

They're the liars, the backbiters, the slanderers, the rich men who are no more likely to get to heaven than a camel is to pass through the eye of a needle.

All of them flocked to me after the Competition kicked them out.

They've stood by my side ever since - and I've stood by them. I walked with them in ancient Rome. I guided them through the flames of Europe. I carried whips and chains on their slaveships and watched workers die in their sweatshops. They're my people – and now they're yours, too.

Make it stop. Please, just make it stop. That's the short version of my reaction to GOP primary debate #20. Maybe it was too soon. Maybe I need more time to recover from my two days at CPAC. (After the debate, I felt the same odd sensation that I swear I felt after finally fleeing CPAC — that tingling sensation one usually feels when an arm or leg that's "fallen asleep" wakes up. Except it was it was my brain coming back to life, after going numb.)

As a progressive, it really shouldn't bother me. After all, in many ways the biggest winner of the Republican debates is President Obama, while the biggest losers are (a) the candidates and (b) the Republican party. Plus, the debates have supplied an entertaining string of awkward moments. This one had its moments, too. But it's getting painful to watch and listen to these guys. It's like watching someone run headfirst into a brick wall, at full speed, then back up and do it again. And again. And again.

Our politicians are doing and saying increasingly incomprehensible things. The separation from regular people is unbelievable. But in politics you "dance with the one that brung ya," and these things become comprehensible and believable when you look at who is bringing them to the dance.

The Obama administration released a “framework” for corporate tax reform yesterday, proposing to lower corporate tax rates, and pay for that by closing various corporate tax loopholes.

The other day we appeared on Sam Seder's program, The Majority Report, to discuss the radical-right ideology of Edward DeMarco, a Bush appointee who became Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and continues in that role because Congress won't confirm President Obama's nominee.

Anybody who doesn't believe that energy speculators can change election results might want to ask Gray Davis, the former Governor of California who was removed in a recall drive partly prompted by voter frustration over California's ongoing energy crisis. Only afterwards did we learn that the crisis was caused by speculators who backed his opponents' deregulatory agenda - and benefited from it.

Charlie Pierce has the definitive take-down of Ross Douthat and his budding bromance with Rick Santorum. Here's a taste: