A President Paul would be politically castrated by both parties about 30 seconds after inauguration.

A Congress facing a Ron Paul presidency would be on notice that the business-as-usual days were over and that the public was going to really hold them accountable to support and defend the Constitution, and to start economizing on expenditures (no more pork or "earmarks"). In a democracy, we get the government we deserve. When we don't pay attention and turn the government over to corporate globalists because their shill politicians mouth the right platitudes and vivisect our national political will with pointless wedge issues, we get widespread corruption, never ending war, and an invasion of illegal aliens.

You can go ahead and support the globalist of your choice. You already know what you are going to get, since you've seen it for the last 20+ years. I'm supporting Ron Paul.

is the day Cheney and Rove resign and turn themselves in to a federal court with signed confessions of guilt for treasonously conspiring to expose the identity of a CIA undercover agent.

Freres du sang: "L'etat, c'est moi!"

PopASmurt is right about getting the country energized with candidates who will start to deal with objective reality and who promote agendas that serve the people. A Hillary Clinton candidacy would be political suicide for the Democratic Party, she having alienated so many potential voters with her pretensions of self importance and her inability to commit to a radical departure from Bush's policies.

An interesting sidelight is that if you go to the online edition of the L.A. Times article upon which this extract is based, the "unscientific" poll shows interesting results:

Republican Leaders

Fred Thompson 44.6%

Ron Paul 27.6% (my favorite)

Rudolph Giuliani 9.8%

Mitt Romney 7.2%

Democratic Leaders

Bill Richardson 22.5%

Barack Obama 17.1%

Mike Gravel 12.7%

Dennis Kucinich 12.2% (my favorite)

and...in seventh place...Hillary Clinton 8.1%

Many people are just tired of the idea of a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton "tennis match" presidential succession. I know I am.

Why should the federal government keep securing student loans and private lenders keep coughing up the cash if you don't fulfill your responsibilities specified in the contract you signed? Every default shows an increased risk for lenders and drives up interest rates for those who need the money to finish their educations. By not paying off your loans you are effectively putting the screws on current students.

Well, my advice is to avoid borrowing money altogether. My wife, my daughter, and myself all come from working class backgrounds and have college degrees and never borrowed a penny, working our way through and living frugally. My degree from a major university cost me about 2/3 of what the university published as an estimate at the time. My son is a third-year college student with a full ride scholarship, with several other scholarships for which he took the trouble to apply. He's smart, studied hard in high school and got good grades and test scores. There are many ways to get a degree without incurring debt, but all require sacrifice in the present to avoid sacrifice in the future.

Most Republican politicians now in Congress climbed aboard the Neocon Express Train and bought a ticket to ride from Conductor Bush a few years ago. And what a smooth and heady ride it was those years after 9/11! Democratic opposition was effectively flattened and Engineer Cheney and Fireman Rove were pouring on the coal, provided courtesy of the ruling financial establishment, the infamous transnational corporate globalist elite! They were all enjoying the ride, feting the heroic military, scolding deviant pacifists, environmentalists, political realists, gays and other malcontents, and generally benefiting from incredible largesse thanks to their corporate sponsors.

Their constituents back home were so glad that the Conductor was receiving direct orders from God that it took them a while to notice that the train had taken several wrong switches and the track was roughening. A few saw up ahead a yawning abyss were the track disappeared at the end of a washed out bridge. The Conductor and Engineer ordered full steam ahead! Now many wanted to get off the train and avert disaster, but were so tied to their corporate sponsors that only a few had the courage to listen to their trackside constituents and risk injury by jumping from the train.

Cheney, Rove, and Bush counseled to stay the course and increase speed to jump the gulf. Torn two ways, on the one hand by loyalty and indebtedness to the corporate globalists who slopped their feeding trough, and on the other hand pulled by reason, true patriotism, and the screams and shouts of their constituents, the once monolithic and distainful Republican Party began to fragment.

As things now stand, those who stay aboard the Neocon Express will, if they succeed in defying probability by accomplishing Bush's mission on immigration, have to remain on board indefinitely lest they risk being figuratively torn apart by their constituents. However, they may rest assured of some reward by their masters, the ones Conductor Bush refers to as "my base".

Is to esign from her quest for the presidency so we can get a candidate that 1) appeals to independents and disgusted-with-neocons Republicans and 2) is willing to totally repudiate the policies and actions of the Bush Administration and find a new direction for America. The best candidate for item 2 is Dennis Kucinich, but he probably wouldn't appeal to the voters in category 1.