I'm sorry, it's not counterproductive, it's productive. The Republicans are doomed to be freighted with crazies at this point. I want them as far away from power as possible.

Isn't it the genius of Obama's strategy that he can fight the battle but be above the actual fray?

And who was it that actually provoked this fight? Over there, in the corner, with the "Who, me?" look, and the bloody dagger: it's Rahm Emmanuel.

I may not actually like that guy's policies, but it looks more and more like Obama brought him in to be his enforcer. And damn, it look's like he knows what he's doing, doesn't it?

...in Catholic doctrine...unborn babies do not yet have the "taint" of original sin.

So, according to doctrine, life begins at conception, but original sin, well, that begins at birth.

Do I have that "logic" right?

Wow, just wow.

Clueless, out of touch, hateful, and plain uninformed.

And that Kathy Shaidle...thing? What a nasty bag of racist froth. (Those who doubt: read the second link.) The only good news here is that, apparently, she's Canadian. Yay! Not all conservative ugliness comes from America!

Because if there's anyone you should trust when it comes to interpreting science, it's someone with a pathological hatred of scientists.

They just had their rights "voted on" by referendum, and lost. As a matter of fact, that's a good reason why California is so messed up: it's the supposed paradise of your Rule by Referendum.

only referenda change laws beyond the reach of yoos and double - yoos

Are you serious? If we had had referenda on the rights of muslims in 2002, America would have ended up putting them all in concentration camps.

I'll stick with my representative democracy, thank you very much.

Many articles in Salon get posts from conservative readers, and while there may be a few first-timers in a given thread, most of the righties will have some kind of history of posts, for better or worse. But geez, Camille writes something, and a horde of people show up with a whole one...maybe two posts (the latter means there's also a post mooning over the last Paglia article).

Don't take my word for it, click through a few of them in this thread and find out for yourself.

Does it strike anyone else as just plain creepy? Are they real people?

A1. Because these two were (I'd bet a freezer full of moose steaks, unwillingly) shoved in our collective faces by their hideous stagemom/potential mother-in-law, and her shrieking followers, as the ideal teen shotgun-marriage lovers.

A2. Because it illustrates the eternal, highly personal, messiness of sexual "politics."

Excuse me, but isn't that obvious?

"You guys asked me."

That's what Gibbs should have said.

And where's all the hankie-clutching over Cheney's badmouthing of Obama?

Dear Mr. Former Vice President/Future War-Crimes Defendant: What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Now, if I may quote, well, you: Go fuck yourself.

listen to these Bill O'Reilly samples.

I believe they're called THE PAST and THE HISTORICAL RECORD.

Yes, I know, it's not fair. CNBC and all the other MSM newsources have to try to dazzle everyone with graphics, and pump up the sensationalism as much as possible, so they can get the all important EYEBALLS! EYEBALLS! (And, well, as a subsidized loss, worth it for propaganda and deforming the country's politics.) But not, you know, to inform, or anything like that. Their industry peddles Infotainment, nothing more. It's not like they're a necessary part of a democratic society, specifically sanctioned in the very first amendment to the Constitution, or anything.

And yet, here are those jokers at TDS and the Colbert Report, unfairly using teh Google and teh Youtube, bringing up what people said in the past. What does that have to do with anything?

Here's an easy bet: what is Stewart's response going to be? Something tells me it'll be exactly what he told CNBC for two days in a row:

"FFFUUUUCCCKKKK YOU!"

The democrats passed a massive stimulus bill, without debate (despite obama's prior promises of transparency). Zero Republicans in the house voted in favor of it. Three quasi-Republicans in the senate voted for it.

The consequences of that bill (millions of the wasted billions being paid in bonuses) is the responsibility of the democrats. It's their baby.

Had these snivelling skunks permitted debate, Glenn and others could have made their arguments for and against various provisions.

We're talking about the the bonuses being paid out of the AIG bailout. You are talking about the stimulus bill.

Now, read this very carefully (move your lips if that will help): they are not the same thing.

Do try to keep up.

Bring back Glass-Steagall, or something just like it. There needs to be a firewall again between banking and, well, gambling.

Matt Taibbi has a detailed article in Rolling Stone that lays out the (even) larger-scale financial shennanigans, how we got here, and how much we are on the hook (if that's even knowable). It's pretty shocking. (Link at sig.) Towards the end, he makes exactly the same point about how much the Fed is beyond control or accountability.

He sums the story up thus:

In essence, Paulson and his cronies turned the federal government into one gigantic, half-opaque holding company, one whose balance sheet includes the world's most appallingly large and risky hedge fund, a controlling stake in a dying insurance giant, huge investments in a group of teetering megabanks, and shares here and there in various auto-finance companies, student loans, and other failing businesses. Like AIG, this new federal holding company is a firm that has no mechanism for auditing itself and is run by leaders who have very little grasp of the daily operations of its disparate subsidiary operations.

...on the linear spectrum of capitalism to socialism, where exactly are we now? Is there a dictionary word that even describes what we are now?