Duceppe has the best ideas and leadership of any of them. Too bad the Bloc won't run outside of Quebec. "Quebec out of Canada now" would not be not an unpopular platform in the rest of Canada.

"The limit your coverage and if you are above a certain age, you are allowed to die. That is how it will have to be here, that is how they contain costs."

I assume you've never had to deal with insurance in the US then? Same exact story, except we pay more than twice as much.

I know, through my family, four families that have done "jingle mail". Mailed the keys to the bank and walked away, or just walked away from their pre-build commitment (leaving their 2% downpayment).

White Republicans, all of them, and not poor, either. Smart enough to know they were upside down, in a non-recourse state, and already had a good fixed rate on their first homes.

Print this NYTimes oldie out to remind your kids what a LOT of the housing mess was really all about.

John McCain should feel right at home, then.

His last duty station in the Navy was in the Senate Liaison office.

His accomplishment there was, behind the scenes, to get Senate support for an aircraft carrier that Carter and his Secretary of the Navy were opposed to on cost.

Ike warned us.

Watching the video, the guy owning the lot appears to have an agreement for state employees to park there. If he gets a dime from the state, that could seriously spell trouble.

Carter and Volcker did what had to be done with their shock therapy in '79 and '80. Lost an election, but it worked wonders.

Unfortunately, we can't do that again.

See, in 1979, the national debt to GDP ratio was the lowest it had been since the thirties. Plus, tax rates were quite a bit higher.

But, in 2008, we have the highest national debt to GDP ratio since Truman (WWII bonds). And, instead of Truman's 91% top tax rate paying off those debts, we have the lowest tax rates in the last 75 years.

So, we can't let interest rates rise, because if they quadruple, the money we pay to service the national debt quadruples.

This Franken ad is great, too.

can i marry a friend on April 14 ,file a joint tax return,save 1,600 dollars then get a divorce and split the savings with said friend?

Yes. But only if you're straight. Actually, the day you have to worry about is December 31st of the previous year. Get married New Year's Eve and divorced New Year's Day, and you can file jointly.

The only way you'll be saving $1600, though, is if you're in different tax brackets, so the higher earner shelters more by filling up the lower earner's brackets. If the two of you make exactly the same wages, there is zero tax savings in getting married.

Dear whiny trogs:

I am not scared of gay people.

Nor, I am not scared of polyamory between consenting adults. Legal structures will eventually have to accommodate such realities.

Children are not consenting adults.

Animals are not consenting adults.

Any questions?

Oh, yeah. We had a GOP president, a GOP friendly Supreme Court, a GOP-run FDIC, a GOP-run Treasury, a GOP-run Department of Justice, and a GOP Congress, all running scared to kowtow to the demands of ACORN and their clientle of poor minorities who weren't going to vote for Republicans anyway.

Bull. Farking. Crap.

How bout we spread a little of the blame around? How bout this golden oldie from 2005?

Barring the unexpected, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts aren't going anywhere Scalia will do his best to hold on for 4, 8, or 12 years, as needed.

Obama will be replacing Stevens and Ginsberg pretty much immediately, and probably Breyer for younger blood before the end of his first term (and he won't be a putz like Clinton and appoint someone who's already 60). Kennedy and Souter? Damned if I know.

This really doesn't change the balance of the court one iota. I rather prefer the 5-to-4 knife-edge narrow judgements we get now, and so, voting Obama seems like a good idea for maintaining balance.

They really haven't gone down the tubes nearly like the private companies. Compared the the rest of the bailout package, that was nothing. 98% of Freddie and Fannie loans are paying on time, today. The biggest problems at Freddie and Fannie have been the fact that the market is scared of mortgage-backed loans altogether, now, and house prices are still crumbling from the boom and inflation due to garbage deregulated "mortgages".

I'm not sure what you're on about, Sniper. Freddie and Fannie required 20% down and .36 debt/income ratio. Just like they always have.

All the ARMs, interest-onlys, and balloons? The mortgage-backed securities? Had nothing to do with Fannie and Freddie. They were Phil Gramm's babies.

Fer frank's sake... She was the Governor of Alaska and the wife of an Alaska fisherman when Exxon v Baker (Valdez oil spill compensation) was decided this year.

Heller v DC?

Kelo v New London?

Not a whit of sympathy for Levi. There *are* Palin supporters out there. Pentecostals, if no one else. Make no bones, she will run for President some day. Dan Quayle did it, Ollie North did it, John Edwards did it. Palin will. And, as sure as that, some conservative thinktank will be giving Levi a low-six-figure salary for making coffee, staying out of the police blotter, and playing the part of "any 17-year-old parents can make it just fine in supply-side America!"

Compared to his other prospects in life, I'd hitch myself to that crazy ride any day.

Gee. Persian sympathetic Shia control much of the south, Sunnis control the middle, and Kurds have much of the north, with a smattering of all kinds of minorites scattered around. They hate each other.

Just like it was 100 years ago, before some know-it-all in an office in London drew some arbitrary lines on a map as a "nation".

We've just spent another trillion dollars to enforce his lines for another decade.

The worst part of the debate was when neither candidate would level with us and tell us how the $700B Wall Street bailout would affect their programs.

Very sad and true. Obama's position was a little harder, if he's making the case that we need to do X, Y, and Z. (FWIW, if every other country on the planet is any example, more socialized healthcare would be cheaper than what we're doing, on net).

But, McCain could have very, very easily answered that question. "We may have to delay further tax cuts". How simple, honest, and profound would that have been?

How "2000 McCain"?

McCain's last Senate vote was in March of this year. Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, had surgery, radiation, chemo, and has voted on the floor of the Senate, all since then.

I understand that McCain might be a little behind on his Senate duties. Tell you what. We'll cut you some slack. Let your trusted presidential surrogate fill in for you. Obama v Palin. Foreign policy. This Friday.

Shirtsbyeric -

What ever did the people during the Depression do, then? The smallest denomination then was the Lincoln Cent. Which bought you what 15.5 cents does today. Even if people had "mills", they were more worthless than today's penny.

Penny and nickel need to die along with rag dollars. Ramp up $1 and $2 coins. This should have happened years ago.

Thanks John McCain and Phil Gramm.

You've got that right. Enron, housing, and credit crisis... all tied to these two. Chairman of Senate Commerce, chairman of Senate Banking.

Change? These two have wielded massive power, and it hasn't been for the positive.

I will say that, given some luck, Schweitzer and Tester (along with folks like Jim Webb) are going to be the face of the Democrats going forward. Gun-friendly, populist, and economically sane.

"Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle with glasses and a wig."

Bullfeathers.

James Danforth Quayle earned a law degree from a decent school while serving in the guard. He worked for four years in Indiana government, was a US Rep for four years, and a US Senator for eight. His JTPA bill was as substantive as anything John McCain has ever passed.

Sarah Palin has a sportscasting journalism degree. She was mayor of a 4-digit town (a part-time job, the town had a full-time city manager), and has been governor of a small state for less than two years.

I know Dan Quayle. And Sarah Palin is no Dan Quayle.

No, Obama should not have picked Clinton. The ads were already written.

Obama probably should have picked someone like Sebelius, though. I had a real strong hunch that if Obama went for male, pale, and stale, McCain would pick someone audacious.