You know, perhaps I am entirely too cynical but it does not surprise me one bit that this is not being reported.

I mean, what exactly would people find out that they didn't know about their government or media? That the media is corrupt? We all know that. That the Defense Department does things for nefarious reasons and is also corrupt? We know that. That the government compulsively uses a network of conflict-of-interest ridden "independent" experts to back up anything it wants to do? We know that.

These are among the reasons, after all, the American people are angry -- bitter even -- at the things that are going on in this country and, the more we find out, the less it seems we can do about it. The tentacles of corruption are everywhere, it seems.

None of the establishment figures in our country today will I trust with $5; nonetheless, they have near total control over what this country does because, to be completely honest, people WANT to believe them. We elected them, we gave them good TV ratings, we want to trust them, we NEED people to trust who have control over us but, deep down, we know we can't. The American people are in denial. A corruption story that goes to the heart of that hollow trust will never get the light of day, as a result.

I must take a small issue with your characterization that this oil crisis is open-ended, as opposed to the previous oil crises of 1973 and 1979...

(Admittedly, I was not even alive then so you can take everything I say with a grain of salt.)

But did people feel during those crises that the issues were open-ended? The Iranian Revolution must have been a complete shock, despite the warning signs emanating from the shah's corrupt rule for at least four or five years; war was a distinct possibility then, America's foreign policy was in complete shambles, and our government apparently had no idea how to get our citizen-hostages from the clutches of another government, let alone stabilize finicky energy markets. I cannot imagine living then and thinking: "OK, this will all be better in a few months once X is taken care of." At least looking back to it, I don't think anybody knew what X was until it passed and happened.

I'm just saying, perhaps we will think about the 2008 energy crisis in the same way... in a few years after much analysis, we will be able to point to some number of discreet issues that were resolved and stabilized the energy markets. Right now, living in the crisis, we can only guesstimate at the solutions... hopefully, we'll get it right sooner rather than later.

You know, when we were all in high school and college and we were totally infatuated and/or in love with a girl/guy, the girl/guy knew about your infatuation and, of course, you ended up getting used by that girl/guy. That's exactly what's happening here. (Admittedly, it's also fun to compare networks' executives and anchors to teenage girls.)

We all learned our lessons eventually but we went through stages in reacting to the betrayal of our trust: 1) disbelief; 2) denial; and 3) anger.

The networks seem to be in various stages of disbelief and denial. Hopefully, they will be angry at some point...

He also got the location of the CA Supreme Court wrong. It is located in San Francisco, not Sacramento. Again, something a 2 second Google search would have uncovered.

Also, the 41% "fact" could have been negated by looking at NY Times' own Election Guide, easily accessible online.

appointing a pregnant woman as Defense Minister just seems like a, well, dumb thing to do.

I am overjoyed that this ruling came down... it is the Supreme Court finally bringing to a close the constitutional crisis that has been our norm for nearly the past 7 years.

However, I am distressed that the vote was 5-4 with all of the "conservatives" on the Court in dissent -- Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. What happened to Scalia's "originalism"? The majority used originalist arguments in its opinion -- looking to the Federalist Papers and even ancient English law -- while Scalia resorted to fear-mongering, explicitly saying Americans will die because the Court decided the way it did.

Generally, a disgraceful performance by the conservative 4; I hope history gives them the worst marks possible.

Despite the more-sarcastic-than-usual tone, Glenn makes a good point. Progressives have been largely fooled into being reflexively loyal to the Democratic Party -- to a similar or greater extent than conservatives have been fooled into being reflexively loyal to the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party does have some progressive tendencies but it is an Establishment institution, heavily entrenched in DC and the state capitals. The Party and its leaders care little for the progressives that makes its base; yes, they'll throw us bones from time to time like an investigation or two into some particularly heinous abuse of the Bush Administration.

But when push comes to shove and the Democratic Party has to choose between allowing the government to retain/seize more power or upholding progressive values, the Democratic Party will invariably choose power. Even if that means forming an unholy alliance with the Republicans because the Democratic Party knows that someday that power will be theirs, as well.

Furthermore, the highly partisan nature of today's electorate makes it even easier for the Democratic Party to choose power. Since every proposition will automatically come down on one side of the Blue/Red divide, at least 40% of the electorate will always view every idea as "bad for its side" meaning that it is nearly impossible for there to be a critical mass of people to force even the most reasonable reforms.

For the judiciary to push back against abuses of power by the political branches... I'm just thankful they are fulfilling their function once again.