These higher fines the prosecutors will supposedly go after will result in only one thing: the drug companies charging even more for their next wonder drug which'll also end up being poisonous so that they can build up the cash reserves to pay the inevitable fine.

Anybody who thinks these fines will ever actually hurt the companies without meaningful price controls is naïve but the feds would rather make noises about going after the 'bad apple' drug companies (I.e. All of them) than -- God forbid -- interfering in the holiest of holies, the free market.

And, as someone already pointed out, Obama gave away the store to these companies because he was afraid of a fight with them.

Nothing to see here folks: just the new bosses being the same as the old ones...

That phrase along with "I do not recall," etc., are among the biggest cop-outs ever conceived in the English language.

It doesn't exactly mean "I do not remember," though they are very close; it's more like "that may or may not have happened and I do know with absolute certainty one way or another, but I'm just choosing to not bring it up to completely conscious level of awareness right now for whatever reason." You could have talked about the topic three hours ago and choose not to be aware of it now.

"I do not remember" implies that you are actually unsure and you can rightfully be called a liar for claiming not to remember a topic you talked about three hours ago.

And, yes, there is NO WAY anybody can EVER not be 100% sure on whether s/he ever committed sodomy, especially in the broad way the law in Virginia is written.

Cop. Out. Pure and simple.

So what do you think the over-under is on the number of years before the "free, fair and representative" democratic institutions we brought to Iraq are having the government-backed candidates winning 95% or more of the vote?

I say 8 years. We would have just replaced a repressive secular Sunni regime, isolated and allied with no one, with a repressive religious Shiite regime, allied with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

That will also probably be the point when opposition candidates stop even appearing on the ballot and the "elections" will consist of dictators' favorite method of voting: "Should X be the President? Yes or No."

So what do you think the over-under is on the number of years before the "free, fair and representative" democratic institutions we brought to Iraq are having the government-backed candidates winning 95% or more of the vote?

I say 8 years. We would have just replaced a repressive secular Sunni regime, isolated and allied with no one, with a repressive religious Shiite regime, allied with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

That will also probably be the point when opposition candidates stop even appearing on the ballot and the "elections" will consist of dictators' favorite method of voting: "Should X be the President? Yes or No."

The epitome of the Establishment right wing -- Americans for Tax Reform -- is not, NOT, going to claim any sort of propoganda rights over the Beatles. No, I refuse.

If Mr. Norquist ever says anything more about the Beatles, other how they were communist-loving hippies, I will go to DC and lecture him myself on the cultural revolution!

The politicians defer to the military for whatever reason on the belief that the public believes that the military is more competent at making strategic decisions. (One has to wonder why...)

But, if those decisions are in fact faulty and result in disastrous results on the field of battle, then the political leaders are the ones who will be blamed by the public, not the military since the military isn't directly accountable to the public. Nothing the political leaders can do (firing the top generals, reforming the military, etc.) could mitigate in any major way the public's scorn against them.

So, really, the best course is for the political leaders to take direct responsibility for making the strategic decisions instead of hiding behind the theoretically more legitimate military leadership since the political leaders will end up taking the blame (or bask in the glory of success) no matter what happens.

Yes, I know, that means political leaders will actually have to take responsibility for something other then their and their cronies' paychecks.

Re Qom facility:

It has not been dormant because it was never operational. In fact, it is probably 1.5 years away from operational, assuming the Iranians work on it nonstop. It has zero capacity to produce any sort of nuclear materials, weapons-grade or otherwise.

Despite all of the hubbub surrounding it lately, the Western powers publicized the existence of the facility (allegedly after years of intelligence work) AFTER Iran itself reported its existence to the IAEA. Iran was under no legal obligation to report the existence of the Qom facility until 6 months before it was operational and it is generally agreed that the facility cannot be operational for at least 18 months.

The whole "it can only be used to produce nuclear weapons" is a canard. EVERY nuclear facility can be used to produce weapons-grade material; it just takes a lot more time. The fact that Iran has reported its existence to the IAEA, and indicating that it will allow international inspectors into the facility, means that it will NEVER produce weapons-grade material as the production of such material will automatically be noticed by the inspectors.

But did liberals eat themselves like this when they were out in the political wilderness a few years ago?

I remember steadfast liberal people and organizations outside of the Democratic Party -- notably DailyKos -- supporting centrist/establishment candidates because, even though the candidates weren't perfect, they had good to excellent shots of winning and they were better than having Republicans in Congress that did nothing but support whatever Bush wanted. Senator Casey of Pennsylvania comes to mind...