She’s been going at it uninterrupted since 1983, but dramatic changes in the current eruption cycle that took place over the weekend make it a good time to check back in on the Kilauea volcano:

Later today, former Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM) is fixing to announce her candidacy to succeed retiring Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D). Let’s not forget she was knee-deep, actually shoulder deep, in the USA Attorney firing scandal. Probably more deeply and with more sworn and documentary evidence than any other elected official.

Gov. Walker and the Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader are insisting that they were this close to getting the Dems to come back. But that’s prompted even sharper denials from the runaway Dems, insisting that Walker is using good faith discussions of points of compromise to create the impression that the Dems were ready to cave.

Whatever the reality of that though Walker’s stance seems now to have made any compromise even less likely — since he basically put it out there that the two senators most willing to talk were in fact ready to cut a separate deal with him.

National media seems to have a hard time understanding that Gov. Walker (R) is losing this public standoff terribly. Curious when they’ll figure that one out. Does lead to some embarrassing headlines.

This Martin Bashir on MSNBC guy just asked if the 14 Dems need to “face reality” and come back.

Weird. Really weird.

Flailing Gov. Walker (R-WI) accuses out-of-state Dem senators of holding secret phone calls with special interest backers. Alas, theirs don’t seem to be with crank callers. So no tapes.

One approach to politics is to try to prevent people who don’t support you from voting. It’s primarily been a Republican strategy for many years — mainly aimed at minorities and lower income voters. But college students appear to be next. New Hampshire Republicans are now pushing a law to prevent college students from voting.

Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) has scheduled a press conference today on his political future. Roll Call reports that Ensign will announce he’s not running for reelection next year.

Dems to Gov. Walker: Meet us at the state line and we’ll talk.

Army struggling to rein in rampant theft of military fuel supplies in Afghanistan.

That’s what the Times seems to be suggesting today.

I hadn’t heard that take on it. But I’ve heard something else from within the Fox-associated, right-wing-mediasphere. Basically a lot of chatter to the effect that as great as Beck has been in business terms, there’s a pretty total appreciation at Fox corporate at this point that he’s completely crazy — as in more than the normal run of Fox News personalities — and that they know that something either really awful or incredibly embarrassing will inevitably happen … and probably in the pretty near future.

But as long as the dollars and viewers are coming? Well …