Please get all of your friends together and ask them to dump that POS Steny Hoyer. He's a big part of the problem.

I couldn't agree with you more. However he'll be there for as long as he wants. There is not a scintilla of competition, whenever he runs. Nobody in his district seems unhappy and I have never detected a push to get rid of him. I have searched and made inqueries with that purpose in mind, in order to make some kind of contribution.

I have been sending him emails complaining about what he does or does not do for at least 10 years and have never received a reply.

He was a strong supporter of Bush, IMHO, and supports the status quo to favor the elite establishment, and accepts their campaign contributions. He was outraged at Stephen Colbert's classic speech at the White House correspondents dinner.

I was hoping that some of the web sites that want to run people against sitting democrats would consider running somebody against Hoyer, but gave up a long time ago.

It's been a while since I thought about this and now realize I am having a hard time recalling the events that made me dislike him so.

Then again, there are so many congressmen/women who seem totally incompetent that one more doesn't make any difference.

I agree that expanding the Medicare program to include everyone makes an awful lot of sense. I would like to see it encompass everyone immediately, but even a phased approach would be acceptable in order to prove its feasibility. Now that I've heard this proposal today, for the first time, in these comments, I am amazed that something so simple hasn't been brought to the fore and discussed intensely.

But even if this approach were undertaken I’d be afraid of what Obama would concede to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. I no longer trust him! I don’t use the drug plan under Medicare because my drugs cost 6 times more in the USA than if I go to Canada. I don’t exceed $5,000 (USA costs) with the “donut” so I’m taking a chance.

My sense is that Glenn mostly goes after the hypocrites and exposes them as demonstrated in today’s articles. It is an absolutely necessary task.

But I would really appreciate it he would look at this Medicare all-inclusive proposal and would list the pros and cons. Maybe I'm being ingenuous and missing something obvious.

My question that was submitted is:

Why can't we expand Medicare to include everybody in the USA?

But the right is currently not in power. And they likely won't be for a while. The Democratic party is in power with both chambers of Congress and the White House.

I am so ingenuous! But it seems to me that the Bush administration (above the law and virtually still in power) and the CIA and the M$M and the corporations and the wealthy elite-establishment and the risk-taking bankers are running things just the way they want. Maybe, sometimes, I get the sense they are tweaking their message a little too much but nevertheless very effectively.

It's simply amazing how dumb I can be!

You're your own party of NO!, adnoto. If you weren't so obtuse you'd expect to get ribbed for challenging every suggestion with nothing more than NO!

Don't feel too bad Adnoto for all the abuse you take! Remember that you are still from Texas and can't be scorned!

Oh no, that's incorrect, I think; you only really feel bad when you're called an "ex-marine!" To you that is the most despicable word ever uttered in the english language.

I mean it is really upsetting. Who in god's name would ever go so low as to call someone an ex-marine? God have mercy on them, please!

There was a stark difference in the Iraq War protests vis-a-vis the Vietnam War protests. Early on, during the Iraq War protests I recognized that the crowd control techniques were pervasive, so that there wasn't any freedom of movement. I can only imagine, with all the new cutting-edge techniques you described in your post, that protesting today would be nigh onto impossible.

I also think about the Orwellian ramifications of protesting against the government. Namely things like being identified as a terrorist and included into a data base controlled by a government that interferes in nearly every aspect of personal life.

If one were to protest, would the government monitor the protestors? And then maybe extraordinary renditions? Far-fetched?

I just read an article in the Huffington Post by Scott Horton that describes the Cheney renditions and it isn't pretty at all!

Americans of every stripe are loosing faith in their institutions, this has been incremental and now it is accelerating dramatically.

I don't agree at all. Just the opposite!

People all around me are functioning as they always do. No conversations I am in ever talk about losing faith in institutions but mostly talk about faith in the Savior above.

The only time I hear about dissatisfaction is from GG, Rich, Krugman, Horton, et al. The far left radicals, the DFHs!

People are interested in the girl just recovered after being kidnapped not torture or lack of government tansparency. Most people I know, as supposed colleagues, believe torture is OK in a ticking time bomb situation and won't discuss the topic beyond that point.

The M$M follow the philosophy of Chuck Todd.

I would love to be aware of dissent as I was during the Vietnam War when the frustration was palpapble and pervasive.