No, I am not getting an early jump on April Fool's Day -- you did read that headline correctly. The United States Supreme Court, by letting Virginia's ruling in Jaynes v. Virginia stand, has carved out a constitutional right to send anonymous emails, as long as the subject matter is politics or religion. To put it another way, no law can be passed to restrict (or even breach the anonymity) of such spam, because the law itself would be deemed unconstitutional.

That's a pretty serious precedent to set, but very few realize the full implications. The Washington Post, reporting on the Supreme Court's decision not to take up the case, didn't even mention any such repercussions at all. Or, for that matter, the subject of the constitutionality of anonymous political spam (which, legally, is the most interesting thing about the case).

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Hoo boy.

In the era of Michael Steele, Sarah Palin, and Bobby Jindal, it's pretty hard to stand out in the world of conservative lunatic ravings. But Andrew Breitbart's recent opinion piece in the Washington Times truly raises (lowers?) the bar for the rest of the field in right-wing Crazytown. His thesis is that liberal blog commenters are ruining things for the conservatives' attempts to have a nice online chat.

That sounds like I'm exaggerating, but sadly, I'm actually toning his comments down. Read his whole piece if you don't believe me. It's worth reading, because YOU -- quite possibly a Huffington Post commenter -- are apparently what is ruining everything on "the Internets" for conservatives.

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Those who do not know history are, as we all know, doomed to repeat it. But there should be some sort of special doom reserved for those who actually do know their history, and choose to ignore it anyway. Amy Domini recently wrote a wonderful article in The Huffington Post about this phenomenon as it relates to our current financial crisis. She went back and dug out a New York Times article from when Congress passed the bill which created this whole mess. While there are some minor factual errors in her writing (as I remember it, George Bush was "elected" in the year 2000, not 1999), reading the reprinted Times article is just absolutely stunning. It covers the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the financial regulatory law that was passed as a result of the Great Depression to keep the banking industry from doing stupid and reckless things.

Anyone who is currently pointing fingers at Republicans for championing "deregulation," and demonizing them for doing so needs to read this, to brush up on their history. This Clinton-era bill passed the House 362 to 57, and it sailed through the Senate with a whopping ninety votes for it, and only eight against.

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In an admirable spirit of egalitarianism, President Obama has opened up the White House Easter party for children (the annual "egg roll") so that anyone who is lucky enough can get a ticket online. The official website to apply for tickets has reportedly been a bit overwhelmed, but because they are randomly accepting reservations on-and-off throughout the day (instead of starting at one set time), there is still a chance for any member of the public to get one of these tickets.

But, although I have no plans to attend, I have to applaud them for making the tickets so available. [Full disclosure: I believe I attended one of these when I was about five, although I don't know whether we made it in to the White House grounds or just attended alternate events in the park across the street. Hey, I was five, I don't remember all the details perfectly....] But opening up the White House egg roll to the general public is the right thing to do, meaning that even if you don't manage to get tickets, everyone still has the same chance. It's basic fairness.

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[Note: Updated below.]

President Obama is taking your questions now, and will answer them tomorrow. In a move to make Obama more accessible and answerable to the public, the White House web site is soliciting questions from the public for Obama to answer on their new "Open For Questions" page. So, given the opportunity, what question would you ask the president? Personally, I would choose: "Will drug policy be included in your new science-based approach to government, or will you let politics continue to trump science in this arena?" Because there have been two specific news items in the past few weeks, and while they are almost completely unrelated, they both come from the "science/politics" debate on drugs. The first is the "morning after" pill, and the second is medical marijuana.

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I waited to write this until after President Obama held his second prime-time press conference, so I could give my reactions. President Obama did his usual job of unflappably answering questions in an intelligent and adult manner. This will come as less and less of a shock to the media and the public as time goes on (as the memory of what preceded him fades).

Obama himself didn't make much news. There were a few memorable lines, such as "I'm not going to lie to you" -- again, the shock of hearing such things will wear off with time, I'm sure. About the only newsworthy thing Obama came up with was a challenge to congressional Republicans to put up or shut up on the budget. He made this point several times, essentially saying: "Where's your budget, guys?" But for the most part, Obama was content to restate his case for his budget plan and for fixing the economy. And, almost as an afterthought, on his final question the president hit a thematic high point on the subject of "persistence" -- making his point (persistently, one has to say) that this is exactly what the American people should expect from him on all sorts of issues -- the persistence to follow through on them and get something done.

But while Obama's performance can be summed up in a paragraph, that would make for a very short column. And we can't have that.

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It may already be too late to even suggest this, but I think we need a better term than "toxic assets" (or "toxic mortgages" or "toxic" anything else) if we're trying to convince people to buy them. I mean, has any marketing campaign in the history of advertising been successful using the word "toxic"? Even actual poison (bug spray, for instance) largely avoids this word, unless in some reassurance that the product is "non-toxic to pets."

To be fair, this term has largely come from the media. Which means it already may be too late to re-frame the issue. Because, like a pit bull on a juicy bone, the media gets attached to some terms and refuses to ever give them up. But for anyone trying to sell the Obama/Geithner plan to clean up our financial system, it really would be a good idea to come up with another snappy term to replace "toxic" with.

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The 19th of March is a date which I will now celebrate every year, because it is the day I became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. I have to admit, I was surprised at my own emotions and feelings during the swearing-in ceremony. I got caught up in the excitement and joy, along with 450 other participants (who represented a total of 67 different countries). When prompted, we stood up -- one by one, and in groups -- when our country of origin was called. When we were all standing together, we swore the Oath of Allegiance to our new country. After this, we were now "from" one country -- we were all fellow American citizens. I was filled with civic pride, as I realized I can now vote and make a difference as an active citizen in my adopted country.

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For all the ink spilled over President Barack Obama's appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight Show, I have to wonder... does anyone remember Richard Nixon's ground-breaking appearance on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In?

I have to admit, I'm too young to have personal memories of it, but during the 1968 presidential race, Dick Nixon appeared on the most popular comedy show of the day (akin to Saturday Night Live with the original cast, in the 1970s) and he memorably uttered the show's catch-phrase: "Sock it to me."

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, you can now view this for yourself, should you so desire. But I refuse to get into a debate over what "Sock it to me" meant, except to note that the Volkswagen Beetle I was being driven around in at this point in time had a bumper sticker on it with the same phrase prominently displayed. You'll have to ask my parents what it meant, in other words.

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There will be no column today.

This is due to having spent all day dealing with the federal government in a way I and my wife never have before.

Because Mrs. Chris Weigant was sworn in today as a citizen of the United States of America.

I am trying to make up for today's lack of column by convincing her to write a guest column about the experience, which I will post here over the weekend. Please join me in congratulating her on her newly-acquired citizenship, and add your voices to mine to convince her that people would like to hear her thoughts on the matter.

Thanks, and my apologies for the interruption of service. Rest assured, this sort of thing doesn't exactly happen every day!

-- Chris Weigant