...why is this movie just now opening here? It opened in most of Europe a year ago.

Even with the Dems having 60 seats, the Republicans will go to Harry Reid, and say, "We don't like this bill."

And Harry will say, "Sorry. Never mind."

That's just how Harry rolls.

...why don't they try this:

Attempt to be fiscally responsible

Strive to keep Big Government out of our personal lives

Build a strong defense

Read the Constitution and abide by the part that says that anything not mentioned in the document is to be left to the states.

If I were in charge of a party that thought of itself as "conservative", I'd start there.

... I highly recommend Paul Slansky's funny, irreverent, and completely true (and sadly, long-out-of print) 1989 book The Clothes Have No Emperor.

Fortunately, it's a trade paperback, and tends to be affordable when copies turn up. I reread it about once a year for both laughs and a renewed resolve not to let such things happen again.

Had more people read it, we might have been spared 8 years of Dubya.

It just might be the best book ever written. Someone should send a copy to Grover Norquist.

The Republicans will threaten to filibuster. Harry Reid, gentleman that he is, won't make them actually do it. He'll declare that the bill needs 60 votes. It will get 58 or so.

And the Republicans will win again, because they have Harry Reid on their side.

Keith Olbermann hasn't done anything that Glenn Greenwald doesn't do every single day at Salon. Just as Greenwald can't say something in 500 words that he could just as easily say in 1500 words, Olbermann can't say something in two minutes if he can take ten instead.

So what? Short or long, each of them usually hits the nail on the head.

Sooner or later Democrats will have an important bill that needs to pass and that ONLY has 58 or 59 Senators supporting it. Will the GOP minority rule the day again in that case?

Of course they will. Harry Reid will fold like a cheap suit. As long as Harry is running the Senate, the Republicans are running Congress.

Why don't we just cut the federal tax rate to zero?

Since the Republicans are always telling us how cutting taxes raises revenue, a cut to zero should raise revenues infinitely. That will solve all of our problems.

Then we can move on to other things.

...the cynic in me can't help but be aware of how much attention a Broadsheet story containing "Salma Hayek" and "breasts" will draw.

It certainly got my attention.

So, the President and all the Democratic members of Congress have as much bargaining power as one Republican senator? Doesn't seem very, um, democratic.

That's how it works. If any single Republican senator even threatens to give Harry Reid so much as a nasty glance, Harry folds like a house of cards and offers to let them rewrite the entire bill.

It's what the Democrats in the Senate call "leadership." The rest of us call it "being born without a spine."

It's a rehash of the 1968 British show called Joe 90, where the brain patterns, knowledge and memories of anyone could be uploaded into the brain of a 9 year old boy.

Joe worked as a spy, and was able to fly planes, do brain surgery, or whatever the plot required from one week to the next.

The show was done with marionettes, by the way, courtesy of Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds fame.

So the kid's a hot chick now. Aside from that, it's the same concept.

...compared to the way it's been for the past eight years. During the Bush years, the Democrats were often given as little as a half an hour to review bills that were created without their input.

Sadly, twenty four hours actually represents progress.

Let's prosecute them, and if guilty, let's imprison them whether they tell the truth or not.

Failure to prosecute now sets a precedent and declares forevermore that the Executive Branch is not subject to the laws of the United States.

That's unacceptable. Period.

Cut EVERY tax to zero, all of them

That's right, end all taxes and shut down 100% of every last government function and service at every level.

I think you've missed the memo- cutting taxes increases revenue, therefore cutting taxes 100% increases revenue by an infinite amount.

That, in theory, would leave the government in a position to offer us an infinite amount of "function and service."

At least in the universe in which the likes of Rush Limbaugh reside.

...is irrelevant, and always was.

We never had any business in Iraq.

Bring 'em home.

The payback is those who aren't paying, for whatever reason (and they are mostly not paying because they bought something they knew they shouldn't have and with sub-standard credit) and those like me and most I know is we continue to pay, and now we pay for their homes too.

Not everyone who is in trouble is irresponsible, lazy, or stupid. Some people get transferred in their job and have houses they can't sell because they're worth half of what they owe on them.

Others didn't have an attorney look over the mortgage before they signed it (like 99% of the home-buying public) and failed to note the clause that said the interest rate would triple in three years.

Funny; the lenders often fail to mention those sorts of things.

Others have simply lost jobs in addition to having homes that are worth less than the loans that bought them.

We can do something about it, or we can let millions of people walk away from their mortgages. Then we'll have new problems - millions of people who don't have homes or jobs and millions of homes that have no buyers. That will be great for the economy.

Sometimes, it's just necessary to suck it up.