In short, U.S. taxpayers are paying for U.S. energy companies to buy Arab crude, ship it across the Atlantic to refineries in the U.S., refine it, and then ship it back across the Atlantic so that the Israel Defense Force can use it in its wars.

Sounds like good policy, American-style. Which means stupid policy, ass-backwards, hurtful to our country, but helpful to key players in the game, and so it's left to stand, unquestioned and unchallenged.

Smooth. Like so much of our policy with Israel and in the Middle East at large, it needs to be revisited and revised dramatically. But I doubt that's going to happen so long as oil remains in the region. Once it's gone, however, I imagine we'll change our tune pretty quickly.

The surest way to demonstrate whether waterboarding is torture or not is to have a demonstration of it in public, on the floor of the Congress. Maybe have a volunteer from among the proponents/defenders of the practice, and let them see for themselves, so there's no uncertainty about it. And if they won't do that, if waterboarding isn't fit for that kind of display, then that's a pretty good barometer of its status as a means of torture, I would think. Waterboarding is torture. Pretending otherwise does our country no favors.

What a Dick Cheney is.

I think it's kinda funny that Obama did this. Kinda sly. He took these propagandists and sort of co-opted them by offering them a seat at his table. Let them see the man they're going to slag the next few years, let them sit across the table from him, up close and personal. He gets to see them, study them, and they get undermined in the process because they look like hypocrites. Understanding that Obama's a poker player makes moves like this make sense. He's sizing up some of the opposition.

It'll be even better if he continues to have such experiences further into his administration, and still brings them to the table, and (of course) they won't want to snub him, so they'll show up, which'll continue to undermine them. Sly.

They live in a climate-controlled, state-of-the-art prison with floors clean enough to eat off of.

Would that MAF's people had a sense of humor or irony, the above line is too funny -- it's like saying "Only the freshest, coolest water is used for our waterboarding of prisoners." At Gitmo, inmates might actually know whether the floors are clean enough to eat off of.

Who knew that the US was a socialist nation when it came to our beloved banking class?

Noam Chomsky, for one. He's known (and talked) about that for decades. Most of the off-the-radar, outside-of-the-conventional Beltway wisdom Left get it -- socialism and protection for those on top, free-market capitalism for those at the bottom. It's been that way for a very long time. We're just not permitted to really, honestly talk about it.

What a crock that story/parable was. Not only was that not socialism, but it feels like something you got from a right-wingding site somewhere, one of those pat little fables on the evils of socialism they like to trot out in the usual patronizing "I used to think like you" tone they always use. It would've been more believable if you'd taken your friends and put them in a gulag, then shot them, versus that bogus little tale of woe.

We all know the American right vastly prefers fascism to even democratic socialism. We get it. I don't think you have to worry, though -- the US is far likelier to slip into outright fascism (and really, we're already there, albeit a "friendly" fascism to the more sturm-und-drang type of decades past) than to even flirt with democratic socialism, particularly after the Bush Years. I'm always amazed at how the "Unitary Executive Theory" got trotted out by Bush League without people reflecting on the dictatorial premise grounding that theory. But thank godless communism it wasn't socialism, right?

You said it perfectly. I had the same thoughts on this. Congress finds their balls suddenly when confronted with a to-be president who actually respects Congress? Now they give him trouble, after being supine for the last eight years?? The media will be the same way -- the Bushies bitch-slapped the mainstream media and they curled up at GW's feet. Now that the Bushies are moving out, the media find their teeth again, going after Obama.

Obama should be bold and imaginative -- it's even possible that circumstances will demand this of him, despite his cool caution, despite the finger-in-the-windism of the DLC cronies in his ranks, and despite the fecklessness of Congress.

It's also ironic that GW Bush ran as if he had a mandate, and people let him drag our country into a very dark place. Obama actually HAS a mandate, and people are cautioning him constantly not to overreach and whatever. Surreal. No wonder our country is so fucked right now.

I'm all for Obama treating Congress as a coequal branch of government -- that's what it is, and should be. But Congress needs to understand that they were asleep at the switch for the last eight years, and going after Obama doesn't undo what they DIDN'T do during Bush's Reign of (T)error.