This is a miserable state to live in (unless you live in Austin). For years, the rural areas had the power in the state legislature. Now we have a new speaker and although Republican, he has appointed some city boys and girls to run committees who aren't so darned conservative. Soon this state will be white minority and things should be even better!

Glenn said it very well earlier and I agree. I judge political behavior not on red and blue but on whether it fits my moral/ethical compass. This compass doesn't come from someones pulpit on Sundays, although it may have started in Sunday school when I was a kid but a life time of experience and a career in nursing, at the bedside, as an administrator, a student, a legal advocate, an educator and now a volunteer to protect foster kids.

It's hard work to use critical thinking about other people's political behavior, particularly when they are in our tent and find it to be outside our values and beliefs. Also, NO cover-up when someone in our tribe steps outside the lines. It's kind of like having an older teen who breaks the law. Do you get him off free with no consequences or is it better for him and your family if you know that there must be consequences because he DID break the law!

A concern which will have to be assessed is that she is a Catholic. We already have 5 Catholics on the court and practicing or not, there is a Catholic culture if your were raised within its bosom...so to speak. We need this Justice to be of another spiritual inclination or no spiritual beliefs to bring those values into the mix, not just one Catholic after another.

I also believe that we do need a woman who is possibly a minority for balance, if possible, who fits the criteria. The court should reflect the best of ALL of us!

This is not about the obviously crazy stuff that banks and financial institutions did but what they did in your town and mine. They built a "million" new medium sized branch banks on every corner on lots or in strip centers they could find. We live in a town just north of Dallas of about 120,000 people and we have six or seven of these WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE and at least four or five times as many in the city as well as a bunch of large main bank branches.

What a huge waste of money, salaries and infrastructure, including management. Our financial adviser, who works within a bank structure told us that these banks make no money on deposits and regular banking but do make money on the credit card business they drum up with fines, fees etc and that is their purpose....to increase their credit card business.

I would love to know how many of these little branches they have build throughout the country and how much it cost to get them on the ground and to keep them going. I would also like to know how much money they make from them from regular banking and how much from credit cards.

I have not seen one of these banks close as the banks have gone out of business. They must be costing bankd 100's of millions of dollars to keep open. I wonder now that Obama is introducing some sanity into the credit card fees,if passed, we will begin to see some of these unneeded and unwanted branches closing.

A good marriage is hard work with both people participating in the heavy lifting. You can appear to be really great parents and during adolescence and beyond, kids can veer off the track for a while. Sometimes, their way may end up being better for them. Children do bring their own personalities.

With work and luck, everything will turn out fine. That goes for all of us, not just Presidents and their kids.

She has no standing in the world excepting carrying her father's DNA and you have earned yours. Why did you give her any credibility by debating her? Even if she so profoundly lost??

I had debilitating fibromyalgia symptoms for 20 years. In that time with a full time nursing career, I ran a suicide and crisis center and was on call 24/7, I taught psychiatric nursing at a local university including clinicals which ran 6-8 hours a day, I was a legal nurse consultant, yada, yada. I also couldn't walk long distances, work out, had leg pain, terrible fatigue and on and on. I never took any medication for that, just for the migraines, sleep disorder and whatever else. Never anything addicting. I raised 2 kids and had a happy marriage.

Then I decided to push my doc to try Armour thyroid since I had taken it as a child and young adult and my numbers were just at the borderline. Within 2 weeks all pain was gone as was the fatigue. That was 3 years ago! The symptoms of fibro and Thyroid disease are very similar and some people will get a fibro cure with dessicated Thyroid, not synthetic Synthyroid which didn't work at all for me except make me gain weight. Apparently synthetic T4 doesn't stimulate T3 in my physiology which for some people isn't uncommon, despite what many doctors will tell you.