It seems these two years of democratic control of Congress have really netted a lot. Housing market in ruin, jobs quickly going away (literally), weak dollar, rising energy prices, recession, etc. and all on their watch.

Nice try, but it's pretty obvious that the damage was done by Republican policies that are difficult to change without a veto-proof majority. For example, the Bush/Republican tax cuts for billionaires are still in effect and still destroying the value of the dollar.

How do we tell the difference between what Americans really like/dislike and what the media says Americans like/dislike?

I suspect we have a case of the media tail wagging the public opinion dog.

John McCain spoke favorably of a plan to provide some measure of "wage insurance" for Americans who lose high paying jobs and replace them with low paying work.

Billionaires send jobs overseas so they can get wealthier even faster, and McCain thinks they should get even bigger tax breaks for doing this. Now he has the brilliant idea to have Uncle Sam foot even more of the bill by trying to prop up falling individual incomes.

My suggestion is to start saving toilet paper now. If McCain gets elected, the sheets of toilet paper will soon be more valuable that U.S. dollars.

However, the GOP's prescription for "managing" the "situation" is a little vague: "technology-driven, market-based solutions" are all the platform has to offer.

The incentive needed for a "market-based solution" has arrived in the form of $4/gallon gasoline, but all the Republicans can think of to do is drill for more oil and let tax incentives to develop alternatives expire.

Noonan is just as much a bubble person as the other people caught here, meaning her judgment is just as clueless as theirs.

I'm not so sure about that. Her candid comments that were inadvertently made on a live mike suggest that she has some kind of clue. The contrast with her WSJ piece makes me think that the WSJ piece is a load of deliberate lies.

I'd just like to point out that Osama is still running around loose and has set up his new shop in a country that has nuclear weapons!

Maybe we should have finished the job in Afghanistan, rather than running off to pursue Bush's neocon fantasies in Iraq.

How funny it is that on the one hand conservatives think Hugo Chavez is some kind of devil for actually wanting his country's natural resources to provide for his country's citizens, but to the wingnuts, Palin is an angel for doing the same for Alaska.

There is nothing unusual about this. AFAICT, the one and only truly consistent "conservative" position is that theirs stinks but ours doesn't. There is no right and wrong; all that matters is who does it.

Whether or not he repeats the "mistake" depends on the overall political alignment of the effected areas. It's a pretty good bet that he'll take care of people who are reliable Republican voters.

With or without Monsanto crops adapt

So who would you all blame when this happens naturally?

Farmers are supposed to know that persistent use of a single pesticide or herbicide will lead to the development of resistant strains, and also that the problem can be reduced by periodically switching to different pest control agents.

Monsanto changed the game by developing crops that were resistant only to Monsanto's Roundup product, and also by using legal attacks to punish farmers who stopped buying their special seed. Switching to Roundup Ready crops was a one-way trip.

You can make a good argument that farmers should have known better than to buy into Monsanto's scam, but I think that's what Mr. Leonard was getting at when he wrote this article.

Does what Faux news reports have ANYTHING to do with reality?

Faux News does not exist to report the news. Their real mission is fantasy maintenance.

If the farmers decide to *not* go with Monsanto, are they going to have troubles?

I think they're pretty much screwed. Any farmer who stops buying Monsanto seed will be right at the front of the line when Monsanto looks for farmers to sue. The farmers will be stuck forver paying Monsanto for a product that no longer adds value.

Besides, even if the farmers somehow get the Monsanto monkey off their backs, they'll have the problem that herbicide applications will kill their crops and leave the weeds standing.

Would it have really hurt Obama that much to win with an unrigged roll call?

Politicians do this kind of stuff, particularly at conventions.

Obama probably would have done the same for Hillary if she had been the nominee. Would you have objected to that?

... Monsanto will cruise around looking for properties that have pigweed growing on them and suing the owners for infringing Monsanto's patent on the Roundup resistance genes.

Perhaps next the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, which sets the rules of the game everywhere but in the U.S. and Mexico, will require all players to speak fluent Scottish Gaelic.

... can be summarized in one sentence: "Your shit stinks, but ours doesn't".

Half a trillion dollars!

That's what it took to maintain an illusion of prosperity while Wall Street was sending jobs overseas. The bummer is they're gonna have to do it again to try to keep this place from collapsing.

Democratic candidate and party will pay the ultimate price because of that slight.

I see far more people saying this in anonymous public forums than I do in real life. I realize that you're trying to keep this alive in the hopes of improving McCain's position, but I don't think you're an adequate prosthesis for the notoriously short American attention span.

Joe Biden could fuck up a train wreck.

Yes. That's why he's the ideal guy to run against McCain.