My wife and I live frugally. We both had huge graduate school debt, and we did not earn the salaries we earn now for many years. Like many white collar professionals who live where we live, though we earn much compared to the rest of the country, we do not earn much compared to many of the high earners who populate our region (the D.C. area).

Thanks for the lecture, but you know not of which you write.

We kept these men in prison under false pretenses, and even refused to let them out earlier to save face. Now that they are finally being released from our barbaric grip, the least we can do is make them all rich for life. Give them each one million dollars for every year of freedom we robbed from them.

If we can make the war criminals here at home wealthy, surely we can do the same for their victims.

I appreciate what you wrote, but even in those golden days of the post-WWII middle class and the advent of the housewife, I would guess that the number of middle class women who could afford to live this lifestyle was dwarfed by the number of poor women who could not.

Apparently, Liz Cheney suffers from a pre-911 mentality.

Kbeta makes the excellent point that it's not just blue collar or pink collar women who must work. White collar women like my wife must work, too, since we cannot pay our bills on my salary alone. Statistically, we are upper middle class, but the cost of living around D.C. is very high and we need both of our much higher than average incomes. And we don't even have kids.

Who are these women (or brothers of women) "opting out" of the workforce, and how does one join this high society?

When my grandmother immigrated to this country at the turn of the century, she didn't become a housewife. Instead, like most poor women, she joined my grandfather in working long hours at their small vegetable store. "Opting out," or whatever it might have been called back then, was something that rich women did.

True then, true now, and it's more than time that America got over it's Reagan-inspired love affair with the wealthy (who we are better off disliking, if not outright hating) and concentrated instead on the lives of the least among us.

You've spent far too much time in close vicinity to the corrupted soul that is Liz Cheney. It was a heroic effort, and you slew the Hydra, but really, now that you are engaging the craziest of Salon's letter writers, it seems like you need to step back and cleanse yourself of the toxic vibes you've absorbed after all your debates with the horrors of the Right.

Like Dirty Harry, you need to take a small break so that you can come back even stronger against the scum o' the Earth.

To steal from whoever said this first about Donald Trump: Terry McAuliffe is a gaping anus. Thank goodness he lost.

Good for you, Joan, but if we can all take a giant step back, this reality that we find ourselves in is completely sick and twisted.

Torture: right or wrong for the United States?

Gitmo: should be continue operating this godawful hell of human rights abuses?

Really, has our nation sunk so low as to make either of these topics open to debate? The answer, sadly, is yes, which illuminates how the events of Hitler's Germany could have happened, i.e., how could one of the most advanced, civilized nations on Earth have descended into utter moral depravity? Answer: see Joan's debate with Liz Cheney.

I have a great idea for a new horror movie franchise: move over Texas Chainsaw Massacre Family, and Wrong Turn cannibals, and Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers. Say hello to "The Cheneys: The Family That Tortures Together, Stays Together."

Seriously, it feels like we're all trapped in a horror movie.

Reality has surpassed satire in this situation. Tom Tomorrow played it straight with this strip.

He read Newt Gingrich's statements, and then showed Palin saying the same thing almost word for word. No doubt about it: she was plagiarizing Gingrich, which is wrong on more than one level.

The Obamas appear to genuinely love one another, they are smart, they are progressive, and they're on top of the world. Their kids seem nice and polite, which is a testament to their own relationship.

I join the others here in saying lay off Amy Carter. She, like Chelsea Clinton, turned out just fine.

Funny, though, how our Repugnican First Families seemed to produce an extraordinary number of fuck-ups for children.

As unemployment skyrockets and the economy flounders, I'm reminded of Jimmy Carter's malaise, and I'm kinda liking it.

Happy with other people's misery. (Nevermind that Obama inherited this clusterfuck from Bush).

Alaska's population is almost 700,000, which makes it the size of a mid-sized American city. Sarah Palin is thus a political lightweight in charge of a remote American city, and is in no way ready to govern a major American city, much less the entire country.

I blame John McCain for elevating this ignorant, cold-blooded wolf-killing yahoo to national prominence. He deserved to lose the election for that choice alone.

Sorry to be so harsh, but if you were an immature flake before becoming Mr. Mom, expecting your kids to transform you into Joe Responsibility is only the latest delusion on your part.

You better watch your kids like a hawk for signs of mental or emotional distress. Get them into therapy ASAP. Get yourself into therapy, too, because maturity is not the just-add-kids miracle you believe it to be.

The United States is turning into Western Europe, with its higher standards of living? Count me in!

Alas, we should be so lucky. On the other hand, if the Repugs had their way, we would get socialism, too, only it wouldn't be Democratic Socialism. It would be National Socialism.

You betcha!