It's becoming quite obvious both the administration and Congress (even many Democrats) are scared sh*tless about something, something big that could hurt politicians of both parties.

What else could explain all this: the Senate Majority leader ignoring a hold from a longtime Senator from his OWN party like Chris Dodd (that's stunning), the MSM's muted response to this (c'mon, a big intra-party dust-up, and in the Democratic party to boot! This is red meat for the Village), the cricket sounds from the media when Joe Klein was caught LYING about the Democrats and FISA (for that matter, what drove Klein to lie in the first place?). I could go on but obviously something big is being covered up here and we need to find out what it is, NOW, not 50 years from now (because I'll be 112).

And please tell me why, when the whole country is turning against the Republican party, are the Democrats racing frantically to join them? Leiberman endorsing a Republican, Reid and Rockefeller joining the Bush Administration...bizarre is a mild term for it.

Did you watch the speechifying on the Senate floor yesterday? Did you hear Sen. John Cornwyn liken the telecom's actions to that of a citizen who has been told by a cop that he needs to borrow your car immediately to catch a dangerous criminal? This man could write for Colbert!

This is how desperate they are and how shallow their reasons for amnesty. They know this is the kind of thing that can resonate quickly among the voters if it gains traction: few people have any love for the big telecoms and their enormous profits. Why should we protect them?

I was impressed with the passion of Sen. Ron Wyden who spoke of how flimsy the government's requests to the telecoms were. Wyden is one of the only Senators who has been allowed to read these secret requests and he was obviously aghast at what he read. He pleaded with every other Senator to demand to see these documents before making up their mind about amnesty. I will call Mikulski and Cardin's offices and ask them to demand access to the documents and read them before the next session.

Re: Clinton. What would you do if the entire Republican party is trying to bring you down with investigation after investigation and you have the power to get the telecoms to give you access to your opposition's phone conversations? Pretty tempting, huh?

Your suggestion that the Bushies are deathly afraid of discovery makes a lot of sense, and in fact it's one more reason we need to win this. But it doesn't explain why so many Democrats are anxious to climb on board this bus. Whatever it is (and discovery is obviously part of it) has Democrats scared too. The most obvious possibility is that illegal wiretapping began prior to Bush and might prove highly embarrassing to all.

Imagine if Hillary became the Democratic candidate and sometime before the election it came out that Bill was involved in illegal wiretapping. Watch Hillary very close in the coming weeks, it might give a clue...

So, how is a Bloomberg candidacy bad for our Democratic candidate (Hillbamawards)?

I assume Ron Paul will run as an independent. Throw in Bloomberg and you have three candidates vying for the right and right-center's votes. Yeah, with some Democrats backing him, Bloomberg might siphon off some Democratic voters, but in my opinion, having four serious candidates (five if Nader runs) vying for the Presidency is good for the country and shouldn't reduce the chances of the Democrat winning the Presidency.

We may, in fact, be witnessing the permanent breakup of the Republican Party (which would be ironic given their party's love of divisiveness!). If Huckabee wins the GOP nomination (please! please!), the evangelicals will have their candidate but he will surely scare off the real Republicans - the wealthy corporatists - who will throw their support (and money) to Bloomberg. The Libertarians (as well as white supremicists, survivalists, and tax abolishers) will coalesce behind Ron Paul.

All three candidates will lose, but what will happen to their movements? Also, how many of the losing Republican candidates will support Huckabee if Bloomberg runs? If Bloomberg runs, I suspect Huckabee will find his campaign badly underfunded. If Bloomberg gets significantly more money and more votes than Huckabee - the Republican, what does that say about the future of the Republican Party?

Seriously, I'm loving it. Now if we could only splinter the Democratic Party as well...

Republicans are getting really scary. Unlike the Soviet Union of old, the Muslim countries really aren't a major threat to us, but neither can they defend themselves adequately. We can bomb them until we run out of bombs and all they can do is run...and die - slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands while our sick demented politicians preen and their supporters cheer and rake in the profits from the war machine.

Until, that is, the rest of the world finally recognizes the we, the once proud nation who was a true hero in WWII, is now a hopelessly demented bully. They will label us a pariah nation and dump our dollars and shun our products. Our economy will collapse and we will riot and kill as our children starve, and the rest of the world will smile in relief and say we had it coming.

Yeah, if we don't fight them, if we sit on our our asses and let them control the national agenda of more fear and delicious visions of annihilating hapless enemies of our choosing, we have it coming...