If you think it's too early to think about the next presidential race, take note: This teabaggy-funded ad calling Virginia Governor (and probable 2016 Republican presidential candidate) Bob McDonnell a tax-raising piece of shit is already on the air in Iowa.

This is, of course, bad news for Republicans. If they're going to have to appease both the hyper-conservative wing of the party in 2016 while also trying to court women and minorities, they're gonna have a bad time.

It looks like Jeb Bush's opinions on immigration are starting a battle between Jeb Bush and some guy named Jeb Bush. ThinkProgress says:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday that he would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants “if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn’t an incentive for people to come illegally” — a position that puts him at odds with his new book, out today from Simon & Schuster.

In Immigration Wars, co-authored with immigration lawyer Clint Bolick, Bush agues that denying a path to citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrations is “absolutely vital to the integrity of our immigration system that actions have consequences.” Those who enter the country illegally, Bush contends, should “start the process to earn permanent legal residency” after pleading guilty to breaking the law and paying “applicable fines or perform community service.” But they should not have access to “the cherished fruits of citizenship”

The poor bastard Romneyed too early! Everybody knows you don't Romney until after you've won a bunch of states in the Republican primary. Then, once you're the candidate, you switch your position to something that sounds a little more reasonable. Let's see how Jeb handles this one. Maybe he'll go Full Romney and talk up his severely conservative views in the next couple of weeks.

Everything and nothing:

President Obama on Tuesday painted a dire picture of federal government operations across the United States should automatic budget cuts hit on March 1: F.B.I. agents furloughed, criminals released, flights delayed, teachers and police officers laid off and parents frantic to find a place for children locked out of day care centers.

However! As Reuters and others have pointed out, these scary outcomes won't all fall on Americans' heads at once. (Less like a "meat cleaver," as Reuters puts it, and more like a "rolling" blackout of government services.)

Which definitely means Congressional leaders should keep sitting on their hands and let the sequester go ahead and happen!

Over the weekend, the New Republic published a great long essay about the history of the Republican Party and white people. It also explains why the Republican Party isn't about to get any less white. You should go read the whole thing.

If you haven't already heard, Karl Rove is preparing to drum the Teabaggers out of the Republican Party.

The resulting battle would pit two well-funded factions of the conservative base against one another in a set of expensive primaries that could drain resources, produce weakened nominees and set back the GOP’s chances to retake the Senate and protect its House majority. And it would further complicate already tricky efforts to carefully reposition the GOP on hot-button issues like immigration, gun control and fiscal policy.

The way I see it, Democrats win either way: If Rove wins, moderates might be able to join the Republican Party again, which means Democrats in Congress might be able to coerce some of them to their side on certain votes. If the Tea Party wins, the Republican Party will keep getting more and more unreasonable until nobody in their right mind would vote for them. But who should I bet on?

Last week GOP party strategists met at a former slave plantation in Williamsburg, Virginia, to work on their "outreach to minority communities." While at the slave plantation the new head of the National Republican Congressional Committee pledged to "avoid the rhetorical missteps that have undermined its support among minority groups."

Yesterday the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party watched the Superbowl:

Via Wonkette.

Yesterday, Blogtown readers said they would hugely prefer a President Hillary Clinton to a President Joe Biden.

But then—noting that President Obama got to where he is after only one term in the Senate—another interesting choice emerged: President Clinton or President Warren?

So, another round of early voting:

Clearly it's not too early to be discussing this:

Biden's private swearing-in ceremony on Sunday was attended by recently elected New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, someone who would be a potent ally in the state's first-in-the-nation primary. Attendees at a Sunday afternoon reception at the vice president's residence at the Naval Observatory said they noticed a lot of party activists from early voting states like New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina.

So, let us begin the early voting:

Hat tips to Mattyrab for capturing and Gawker for making a GIF out of the most awesome moment from today's inauguration, Michelle Obama's eyes nearly rolling out of her head after hearing what is most assuredly incredibly stupid words dribbling from House Speaker John Boehner's stupid mouth.

NOW IT'S UP TO YOU TO CAPTION IT! What's being said in the GIF above? Put your best guess in the comments below!

That was the first time a gay bar was name checked during a presidential inaugural speech, right? Can I get a fact check here?

The LA Times has this riveting article today about a case in Alaska, where conservatives formed a right-wing terrorist organization that wanted to kill judges and other government workers. The gruff, hard-talking military surplus store owner in their midst helped the FBI bust the crew before any part of their plan took place.

At the head of the militia was Schaeffer Cox, a young politico who was recently sentenced to 25 years in prison. The only question now is whether the military surplus seller, Bill Fulton, will be played by Robert Duvall, Christoph Waltz, or William H. Macy in the movie version of his life.

From the LA Times:

In another life, William Fulton was "Drop Zone Bill," a bounty hunter who ran a military surplus store in Anchorage. You need a tactical vest? A bayonet that would clip neatly onto an M-4? Bill Fulton was your man.

"We do bad things to bad people," his company jackets said. ...

Fulton and the other FBI informant, former drug runner J.R. Olson, offered the FBI an inside look at a group that seemed to be moving from right-wing, antigovernment rants — perfectly legal under the 1st Amendment — to something more dangerous. Cox had been boasting that his militia planned to set up common-law courts that would try people under principles they saw as more faithful to the U.S. Constitution. Those found guilty of serious offenses could be hanged or sold into slavery.

A coalition of gun rights' groups and right-wing coalitions has declared this January 19th to be Gun Appreciation Day.

As someone who is terrified of guns, I am totally in favor of Gun Appreciation Day. In fact, I think every day should be Gun Appreciation Day.

But appreciating guns is the opposite of telling Obama "Hands Off My Guns!"—as the current Gun Appreciation Day aims to do. Appreciating guns should mean appreciating the way they're designed and the way they can easily blow the head off of someone you love.

This Thanksgiving, I shot a gun for the first time in my life. I spent Thanksgiving at my boyfriend's family's house and as sort of a rite-of-passage-bonding-ritual and an intentional step to overcome my repulsion to firearms, I asked my boyfriend's dad to take me out to the shooting range. Now here is a man who appreciates his guns. Before we went out to the range, my boyfriend's dad sat me down at the kitchen table and brought out the rifle he received for his eighth birthday and now stores unloaded in a gun safe. With breakfast cleared, he launched into a lengthy gun workshop that centered on one thing: safety. By the time we went out to the range, far away from all other humans, I knew how each piece of the gun worked and how they can be so effectively deadly. After shooting his rifle (turns out I'm a pretty good shot, by the way), I had a deeper appreciation for the danger guns present.

If gun-rights advocates are serious about appreciating guns, they should be against a laissez-faire approach to their ownership. They should understand that the only people who should have guns are people who are extremely devoted to storing, caring for, and using their guns in the utmost safest way possible. That means supporting regulations on who can buy guns and how they can be carried. Gun Appreciation Day should be a day for gun owners to rally in favor of background checks, mandatory waiting periods, and gun registration procedures at least as serious as those for owning a car. The "hands off!" approach will only continue our current epidemic of tragedy.