Then I suppose Mr. Steele will be asking for the NSA extra-legal surveillance mechanism which monitors Americans' private emails, phone calls and communications to be shut down. And I fully expect Mr. Steele and the other very concerned Republicans will explain how they were very wrong to ever accept Mr. Bush's use of the illegal, unconstitutional surveillance system. And I will wait. And wait. And wait.

You would have a point if Obama had been elected our dictator. But he wasn't. He's president, and he has to work with Congress.

You're right. Obama was elected president by a majority of the voters. His party increased its majority in Congress too. And one of the planks of their party's platform was healthcare reform. That was what they ran on and what they promised to do if elected. Following through on that promise does not make him a dictator it makes him a representative of the will of the people.

The point is that health care reform was a major factor in last year's election. And the people's support of it is one major reason why Obama is in the White House and why Dems control the Senate and the House.

Weird. I thought we had a massive nation-wide election just last year where health care was a major issue, and that one candidate won with a sizable majority of the vote. In fact, I thought the Congress was given a mandate to follow that candidate's agenda by the voters who increased one party's control in both chambers.

I guess elections only have consequences if a Republican wins.

Maybe Obama should raise the terror alert level, claim we're under attack by weaponized germs, viruses and cancer and force passage of health care as a national defense, anti-al qaeda initiative.

If Sarah Palin knows more about energy than just about anyone in the US, it's no wonder we're screwed.

It's like being lectured by Bristol Palin on the efficacy of abstinence only education. As Stephen Colbert says, "Hey she only has one kid. Think of how many she'd have without the abstinence program."

The best sci-fi movie of the summer was released in May. It's called "Star Trek". You should check it out; it's really good.

"Most senators aren’t sheep,” Bayh said. “They don’t just go blindly along without thinking about things.”

Oh, Evan, why is it you and your "centrist" Democrats are always wrong about everything? What do you take Bill Kristol seriously or something?

Here's why there's no excuse for a filibuster on health care, climate change or really anything else proposed by your Democratic President and supported by the majority of the electorate: 77-23.

Seventy-seven to twenty-three, you see, is your fellow so-called, non-sheeplike Senators when they were voting for the nonsensical, unnecessary, criminal war with Iraq.

So don't you ever try to tell me that you and your fellow Senators can't be stampeded and that you always think things through.

And yet none of these staffers seem to have thought about what it meant of McCain's judgement to pick someone so unqualified.

My hunch is that this whole hubbub stems from a poorly conceived and executed cover story for visiting Iraq and/or Afghanistan, assuming South Carolinian National Guard are deployed in an active theater.

So we have a Republican chief of the Army. We have a Republican ambassador to China. We have a Republican Secretary of Defense. And now this, with not even a week following the assassination of Dr. Tiller?

I worked for, voted for and support President Obama. But this pattern is really beginning to piss me off. There are many qualified progressive and liberal Democrats and independents who have been shut out of the Executive Branch for the last eight year. They are the ones who should be getting jobs in the new administration.

And can we please stop using the false term "pro-life" to describe a movement that is anti-choice, anti-freedom, anti-sex, anti-science, anti-rationality, anti-empathy, and anti-women's lives. Sure, the term is great framing for their violent, narcissistic and deranged fanatical movement, but that doesn't mean media outlets like Salon ought to buy into it.

I thought Republicans were insistent on having "up or down" votes on judges. Hmm... gee they're not huge freakin' hypocrites are they?

Of course I also thought you needed 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate. How many seats do the Republicans have again?

Jeremiah Wright.

I've seen this show before. The problems facing Republicans are steep and self-made. They have a shrinking regional party of old white men. They have unpopular positions on policy that when enacted have lead our country to the brink of economic collapse.

"Hey, look at this shiny thing over here!" Only seems to work on our corporate news media. The rest of us are just trying to get by, and we know who put us in this jam. It wasn't Nancy Pelosi. It was the Republican Party, and they are in deep, deep trouble.

Lay off Lieberman.

And how'd that work out for everyone?

Luckily Democratic primary voters aren't as easily rolled as Harry Reid and his senate pals.

He's a real shot in the face. How could anyone not like him? He's as much fun as been trapped in a box filled with insects.

Are you sure those words define today's John McCain? Maybe you should refresh your memory and watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2y8dYwq01g

Or just ask him about his position on birth control and watch him be "mentally tough." Of course you can also ask him how many houses he owns, how a maverick supports George Bush 90% of the time, why he couldn't make his own decision about his running mate, how he's going to change Washington when he can't even change the Republican Party, and on and on and on.