The corporatist parties, Republican and Democrat, that run the country are all too happy with articles like this one that always frame the debate in terms of liberals=Democrats=supporters of illegal immigration vs. conservatives=Republicans=opposed to the same.

What a crock.

The obvious fact to anyone who has two eyes is that both parties have colluded for years to underfund enforcement of immigration laws because the rich and big corporations wanted the cheap labor these immigrants provide.

The small town I grew up in in middle America is almost unrecognizable from what it was even 20 years ago. Namely, there's a huge underclass - the only fair word for them - of poor Latino laborers who do the agricultural and other low-wage work. These people are being cynically used, and I'll never understand how it's "progressive" to bankrupt whatever fragile safety net we have in the U.S., undercut wages for our own citizens, and, after all that, still create yet another underclass of very poor people.

Whatever Tancredo's sins, and I would agree he's a racist, that doesn't mean he's wrong on the principles. But what can any average person do against the alliance of limousine liberals and fatcat corporate types? Both conservatives and liberals are divided on this issue, but the people with the money sure aren't.

I can't recall the details of Gonzales's nomination hearings, but did he clearly refuse to rebuke torture in the way that Mukasey has here?

Isn't confirming Mukasey, with his refusal to acknowledge a clear example of torture, setting a dangerous precedent?

I realize it's fashionable these days to entertain the notion that torture is somehow acceptable and, even worse, efficacious.

If even one of the Democrats weren't so cowardly, they'd bring in a copy of Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago" and read the voluminous and savage accounts the author assembled detailing the techniques of the NKVD, and how they were used to obtain "confessions" from innocent people. This will never happen, of course.

Mukasey's confirmation would be a very public indicator that we in the U.S. have decided to travel down the same path of barbarism, and that we've left behind even the shame of it.

As a resident of a Great Lakes state, I've been watching the situation in the Southeast with interest. However, what's happening there is an anomaly. It's the Southwest I'm worried about.

Unfortunately, I think the day will come when people in Arizona and Southern California will demand water from the Great Lakes. Clearly, others are anticipating this too, which has resulted in the creation of the Great Lakes Compact:

http://www.glc.org/about/glbc.html

In a more rational world, people would live in areas with plentiful water, but in America we long ago decided that we'd rather indulge in the fantasy that desert ecosystems can support the same density of human life that wetter climates can. It would appear we want to avoid rain and snow, but not the water itself. Go figure.

The reason I think all this could get ugly is that places like California, Arizona, and other arid regions already outweigh the humble Midwest in terms of electoral votes - a trend which is accelerating every year. When push comes to shove, I fear that they'll be able to get their paws on Great Lakes water - even if it's for the absurd purposes of making golf courses green in Phoenix.

MoCrash wrote: "...America has had enough damage done by the anti-government crowd, and Paul -- in reality, a libertarian -- is even more extreme than all but the Grover Norquist faction of Bush supporters..."

To the contrary, the Bush regime has shown that all that rhetoric about the fondness for limited government that the Republicans engaged in for decades was just that: hot air. Once they got their hands on all levers of government, they set about to enlarge government faster than any time in recent history, and in ways that are almost universally detrimental to personal liberty, the rule of law, and constitutional principles.

Given the capitulation of the Democrats on virtually every important issue, I think it's time for liberals (myself included) to question whether a larger government at this time in American history can be reformed. To borrow a tasteless phrase from Norquist, I'm beginning to think we might have to make it small enough again to drown in the bathtub in order to save the republic.

The Federal Reserve just lowered interest rates by 75 basis points when it was not clear at all that the risk of recession was greater than the inflation risk. With the dollar at an all-time low against the euro (and still sinking) and at parity with the Canadian dollar, more monetary stimulus from the Fed, and unrestrained growth in government spending over the past few years, it makes me wonder if we're headed for much higher inflation.

Many people seem to have forgotten how high interest rates were in the late '70s and early '80s - double digits. There are few things more economically corrosive than that. While we (hopefully) won't see a repeat of that, long-term interest rates are likely headed higher - perhaps significantly so. These bellyaching exurban Republicans ain't seen nothin' yet.