In the interest of allowing unlimited debate, Senate rules require 60 votes to cut off debate and force a vote. But now it requires 60 votes to even *begin* a debate? Something is wrong here.

I am certainly no expert on the subject, but the difference appears to be this:

Attacking the Cole, a military target, results in military tribunals. Killing a member of the US military in Afghanistan results in military tribunals.

Attacking the World Trade Center, a civilian target, results in a civilian court case. (The simultaneous attack on the Pentagon throws a monkey wrench in my theory, though.)

The problem is that when a breaking event like this occurs, people always want more information, and if they can't get what's true, they often will settle for rumors which might be true. So when legitimate news sources don't report rumors, news consumers are driven to less reputable sources (Drudge et al) to get their rumors. And so the once-reputable news sources start reporting rumors in order to draw their audience back.

"The only way any of this health care could be constitutional would be if the government allowed interstate choice so people could choose health care policies from any of the 50 states."

Is it the federal government that is currently barring interstate health insurance sales? I was pretty sure it was individual states that barred it, to enforce their own mandates. Does anyone know for sure?

Isn't there supposed to be some righteous indignation about someone criticizing the United States on foreign soil?

Does anyone know if Obama has ever uttered the words "mandatory volunteerism," or was that completely made up whole cloth?

I don't see the irony. Bush never cared one bit about his polling numbers.

I like the sound of that. I'll vote for anyone who advocates knee-jerk diplomacy rather than knee-jerk bombing.

It's rural vs. urban.

"Why not just provide a copy of the birth certificate? That's entirely within the president's power to do so. Then all of this nonsense goes away"

Could it be that Obama doesn't want this issue to go away, because it makes his opponents look like lunatics?

He'll go away.

Intentionally hiding a program like this from anyone in Congress is clearly illegal in and of itself, of course.

But there is no conceivable reason why the CIA and Cheney would intentionally hide this program as described from Congress, and then cancel it before it did anything, and so there must be a lot more to the story than just the bit about the paramilitary CIA team with the objective to kill al Qaeda leaders.

I believe this small tidbit was leaked with the intent to make the public think "No big deal here" and get any further public pressure off of the CIA

"Victoria Jackson is still a wacko, but this is from the wikipedia page you linked:

This list does not directly reflect the quality of healthcare of the countries listed.

And more importantly, do those countries have the same pitiful life expectancy for black males that the US does? I think that number skews the results a tad lower.

And then finally, the life expectancy is 1 to 2 years higher than the US. I haven't done the math, but I don't think that qualifies as "significantly higher"."

I didn't mean to imply that that statistic alone means their healthcare system is better than ours, but they do show that it is ridiculous to say that countries with government-run health are killing off their old people.

s/significantly/noticably

"Socialized medicine makes people die."

That must explain why Sweden, Canada, Brazil, Italy, and the UK all have significantly higher life expectances than the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

http://www.politico.com/singletitlevideo.html?bcpid=1155201977&bctid=28097636001

Alex - Just because it's on Drudge doesn't mean it's important and you have to follow suit. :-P

Interestingly, the local paper here in South Carolina doesn't mention a word about Sandford being "missing:"

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/

So I live in South Carolina and there are a lot of street preachers. One guy handed me a piece of paper as I walked by. It was made to look like a trillion-dollar bill with Obama's face on it. I presumed it was something political complaining about government debt, but after reading the back, it said "The trillion dollar question - are you going to Heaven?" It had absolutely nothing to do with Obama, and I was very curious as to why they bothered to put his face on it.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but can you give me a link to where there are thousands of Iranian protesters calling for a statement from Obama?

"There have been thousands of Iranians in the streets pleading for Obama to make a statement,take a stand and support the idea of a people's free will not being denied by thugs."

I hadn't read that. If so, then Obama should publicly take the side of the protesters. But I fear that if he does, it will be easy for Iranian hardliners to paint the protesters as sellouts to American imperialism.

How popular is the US government amongst the Iranian people?

The Iranian protests are great, and they're protests of, by, and for the Iranian people. They don't need Obama's say-so, and I doubt they even want him getting involved.

n/t

No, I can't, which is why I also brought up Point 2. Nobody wants to bribe the party with less than 40% of the political power.

The NJGA has 50 Democrats to 30 Republicans. The NJ Senate has 23 Democrats and 17 Republicans. So taking those two together, there's about a 61:39 ratio of Democrats to Republicans in New Jersey. Taking this into account, a 75:23 ratio of prosecutions isn't quite so lopsided.