Can't have this legislation, as an accidental by-product could be that some of those high-living middle class people get a benefit out of it.

Goddamn middle class, they ruin everything for the common folks.

Now if a by-product of the legislation was helping the wealthy class...

I was in line for you. Now I'm all confused.

I like the idea of fighting back by getting out of debt. Since usury is no longer a sin that lands you deep in Dante's Inferno but is instead a lynchpin of The American Way Of Life (TM), getting out debt is actually defunds part of the corrupt system.

Rampant personal debt is a large part of what destabilises the average American family. Not just in the living-hand-to-mouth sense, but in the ever-present psychological shadow it casts over one's quality of life. In the presence of burdensome debt scarcely any personal considerating can be made without an increase in anxiety and depression. This spills over into one's daily existence and melds fluidly into the anxious and depressing pronouncements of the ruling power. Ultimately it leaves one too busy treading water, unable to direct effort towards anything else.

So I concur - whatever other strategy you pursue, make getting out of debt part of it. You will discover a kind of freedom that even a Presidential Signing Order can't take away from you yet.

If I don't learn to proofread better and Salon doesn't give me an "edit" button, I will be forced to run for office of President.

Turn the $35 billion into a no-bid contract and it'll pass without a stirring a ripple.

You don't need to raise taxes for this. You could instead defund the Antimissile Shield, for example, which is never going to work because it's not meant to work. It's meant to be another hiding place for a few dozen billion US$.

The rapacity of this administration and their mil-ind buddies is astounding. It's literally as though they've already staked out EVERY FUCKING DOLLAR of our tax money and can't bear to see it go anywhere other than their pocket.

Cowardly drivel from a drivelling coward. We don't know who you are, and we don't care. You're just another interchangable rightwinger, a useless duplicate that thinks the same, talks the same, and cowers the same as the rest of your superfluous herd. Nameless, faceless, powerless, lifeless, every one of you, and so terribly weak that you can't even stand by your words.

Thanks again Salon for keeping the anonymous post option! Your wisdom is reaffirm so many times a day.

Many of them have responded with the maturity and responsibility to point out that it serves no purpose humouring and deluding her with fake piety, and the best course is to be an example of a good, just and wise father while remaining true to himself. Give her time, she's at the age when that's usually all it takes.

Honestly, Cary, I don't know what prompted your horrible advice. Presumably you're just having an off day, because your football analogy is equally flawed, and perhaps one of the worst pieces of symbolic equivalency you've ever indulged in. After all, if someone wants to prove to me the existence of football, they can take me to a stadium and show me the game. But if they want to prove to me the existence of God, all they can do is take me to a church and show me other people who claim to be seeing God. So in your analogy they really just take me to an empty stadium and insist that a game is going on.

I won't belabour it, but your analogy is flawed on many other levels, as others have already pointed out. More flawed is your advice, which is counterproductive and irresponsible. I only hope the original letter writer hung around long enough to get the good counsel of some of the responders here.

There's a game they use to offer at state fairs where you could play Tic-Tac-Toe against a chicken. You'd make your move and then the chicken would peck a button for its move. Since the rules of Tic-Tac-Toe, like the rules for American politics, are simple enough that there are a few easy strategies that guarantee victory, you only had to teach the chicken a few moves. It pecks the right button and it gets a reward, and within a few weeks you've taken a stupid animal and made it into an unbeatable Tic-Tac-Toe player (or Presidential candidate).

What you're seeing in this response is the chicken at work. He's got his few buttons before him, labelled Terror, 9/11, Taxes, etc, and the one that his little chicken brain tells him to peck is Democrats. So he pecks it, cackles a little, and fixes a beady eye on the food dispenser, waiting for his reward. It doesn't come and he pecks it again. And he'll keep pecking it until the reward drops, because it's the only strategy he knows, and because his moves are so limited, and because in the end he's nothing more than someone's chicken.

I can think of worse people to throw away my third-party vote on. And as I wrote to the DNC yesterday, I will be throwing that vote away unless Congress begins to show anything remotely like a progressive pulse.

Looks like the mantle of Saint Ronnie doesn't sit well on his shoulders after all. And frankly it's a relief that people are already cooling to him. I've had enough actor Presidents to suit me forever.

"The ship of State is the only ship that leaks from the top."

I've been saying for a while now that the Democrats are the battered wife in this relationship, pre-emptively trying to appease "hubby" in the hopes of avoiding a beating which will come regardless of what they do.

Given their recent actions, it sounds like they can't wait until hubby is out of the way so that they can turn around and start beating the kids.