Mitch "the Bitch" McConnell stuck to his GOP talking points handouts, sure enough, but this one made me laugh...

This isn't Hollywood. This is real life here in the Senate.

Yeah, Mitch. The Senate is real life, where everybody's a millionaire or better, where everybody has a vote in the governing of the nation, where the guys vastly outnumber the women, and where a vocal, white, male, reactionary Republican minority can call the tune for the rest of the country.

Boy, does he ever need to get voted out in 2008, so he can experience some really real life; but then, he'll probably don some tasseled loafers and become a lobbyist once he's cashiered from the Senate, maybe "Americans for Tax Justice" or some other Orwellian-named anti-estate tax lobbying organization.

So the democrats stayed up all night debating, even though they want debate to end so there's a straight vote... they're going to call for a cloture vote that will fail, but then... will give up? They won't bother to make the Republicans actually debate, even though the Republicans will be voting to extend debate? This just makes my head hurt.

"Instead, Americans got an object lesson on why Democrats have failed to accomplish any of their goals over the last seven months. ... "

Yeah Mitch, we did indeed get an object lesson, and the Republicans didn't come out looking very good. You've shown us that you and the rest the Bushite dead-enders couldn't possibly care less how may people get killed or maimed, as long as Junior gets his was and doesn't have to face reality and the consequences of his actions.

After the Republicans vote to continue debate, i.e. filibuster, Reid should announce that debate will continue for another day with another cloture vote tomorrow at the same time.

Let everyone wonder if the Democrats will actually end their efforts for a vote on the withdrawal legislation instead of just having giving up be a foregone conclusion

ALL the showboating accomplished was ... NOTHING! Now that's PATHETIC.

http://OsiSpeaks.com or http://OsiSpeaks.org

The Republicans threaten a filibuster. The Democrats hold an all nighter as a bit of theater. Now they're going to give up.

What a bunch of assholes. They should make the Republicans filibuster until they quit. There is no time limit on it. If the Democrats dug their heels in and waited the Reps out, they could win. Since they're giving up after a day, I have to assume they WANT to lose. Then they'll have the balls (the only ones shown to date) to complain that the Reps are being mean to them.

We desperately need a real national third party.

"Instead, Americans got an object lesson on why Democrats have failed to accomplish any of their goals over the last seven months ... "

Republican obstructionism?

Nah....

*sigh*

What the blazes does Harry Reid think last fall's vote was about? I'd love to see some people with spines running in the democratic primaries.

Denver real estate mogul, former RNC chair, former Bush appointed ambassador to the Vatican, and Vietnam Veteran of dubious record, unexpectedly announced his resignation yesterday, leaving Republican congresspersons scrambling to create a cover story and dredge the dregs of their party for a comparable yes-man to replace him.

Of course, Republicans are wasting no time in praising Nicholson for, uh, for, mmm, uh, well you know, for doing and "outstanding job"! I smell another Medal of Freedom being made on the White House lawn.

My opinion: He couldn't survive the blast wave that shot out in all directions from the Walter Reed Army Hospital scandal. The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn't oversee Walter Reed, but the bad publicity energized enough members of the Democratic legislature that they began looking in Nicholson's direction for alleged problems in the VA.

They must have found plenty because Nicholson is beating feet out the door at least seven months ahead of the traditional January departures of cabinet-level administration appointees in an election year.

Nicholson is not leaving "to spend more time with my family" as most do. Being at least more honest, he said, "This coming February, I turn 70 years old, and I feel it is time for me to get back into business while I still can,” he said.

You heard it right, folks. He wants to get back in business. Now what business would that be, I wonder? Do you think he's going to K Street? Maybe he's going to take a job with Big Pharma, negotiating drug contracts with the VA?

Nicholson has been on the job since Bush installed him on Feb. 1, 2005. His mission: Cut the VA budget down to size. Screw the returning GWOT veterans and make it more difficult than ever to claim service-connected disabilities.

Two years ago, in an impressive show of Republican penury, he cut his department's budget request by $2 billion, saying it wasn't needed, while discharged disabled GWOT vets were bleeding out on gurneys in VA hospitals all over the country.

What a swell guy! Fortunately, minority Democrats in the Senate shamed him and embarrassed Republican boy-scout Rick Santorum bloviated on the Senate floor calling for an increase of $5 billion for the VA. Only when Republicans get caught are they repentant.

So Nicholson is out. War veterans won't shed any tears. But we are understandably nervous at his departure. Better the devil we knew.

It remains to be seen what kind of heck-of-job replacement they are going to inflict on us next.

Seven months into the "swamp draining" democratic majority, I'm convinced, regretably, that nothing can restore our nation to any semblence of what it used to be, short of a bloody, armed revolution. I hate to come to that conclusion, and personally I won't be involved in it (my family and I are mobile enough to emigrate if such a thing should occur). But to watch the back-and-forth of the Demopublicans and expect anything other than more of the same is completely futile. Reminds me of Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.