US policy stance on North Korea is that they are willing to play ball with us IF they are willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees. 

It's fascinating to see how Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and the administration staff tackle this. This is indeed a 3am wakeup call situation. North Korea is pursuing nuclear capabilities and don't care about what the rest of the world's community thinks.

According to a CNN poll, Jindal's not even on the 2012 radar. From NOLA: A new CNN poll of Republican voters has three former or current governors clustered at the top of a hypothetical field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates. But none of them are named Bobby Jindal. Instead it's former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee, grouped together.

That would mainly benefit who again? Talk about robbing someone to pay for someone else's wants. A full repeal would cost more than $600 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, although supporters for the estate tax insist the actual cost would be much lower. I'm still waiting for that evidence, yeah right.

That same government report states that the full cost would start to hit the Treasury in 2011...which is around the same time that nation's oldest baby boomers will turn 65 and start a sharp rise in spending on Social Security and Medicare.

Olympia Snowe? She's an old school Yankee Republicans - fiscally conservative, socially moderate - though she no longer fit the mold of the modern GOP.

Welcome to the Velvet Revolution.

What part of protecting the US constitution did they fail to hear?

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Article. VI. Clause 3.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.

To protect their future clients (and the integrity of the legal system) they should be disbarred.

As the folks at the Velvet Revolution say: "The Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, and it states that treaties signed by the U.S. are the "supreme Law of the Land" under Article Six. The Geneva Convention and The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment both prohibit torture and have been signed by the United States. These laws provide no exception for torture under any circumstances. Moreover, the United States Criminal Code prohibits both torture and war crimes, the latter which includes torture."

I mean c'mon, how can you beat around the bush on this?

Baby Boomer Generation is tottering into the senior citizen demographic which will be interesting to see how transformative that demographic will be to the elder care business.

You stay classy, Texas.

The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack. There'd be no need for unions if workers were fairly compensated in the work fields for which union representation is growing: hospitality, cleaning, service industries etc.

Everything hangs on the threads of the legitmacy of these bond ratings agencies. People had no reason to question because profits were good but the whole thing was set up on ethical fallacies that analysts would report truthfully, without bias or interference.

Thomas Friedman gets paid what the market is willing to pay. We live in a capitalistic society so who are we to frown on a man's ability to earn good money honestly? Public disclosures for public figures. Since Friedman is not running for office nor is he a major shareholder of a public company, he's not in that league to have to divulge.

The only professional matter was if it was a conflict of interests between his job duties and speech-making side ventures.

Thats the $1,000,000,000 question isn't it? The Iraqis want us out but their defense forces don't. I hope that the secular interests win out over the Islamacists.

Sean Hannity's raison d'etre is distortion, loaded "gotcha" questions, and hanging up on callers. He was never a journalist, he was an ex-politician. That's his schtick. That's what he does instead of intelligent dialog and debate.Keith Olbermann took up Sean Hannity up on his offer to be waterboarded for charity and offered him $1,000 for every second he can do it. Of course, he will never do it.

Jumping in w/ an AP article:
Gates is proposing cuts in: "The Pentagon should stop buying a futuristic jet fighter that hasn't fought a day in either Iraq or Afghanistan, scrap an expensive new presidential helicopter and spend more money on tools soldiers can use now, Gates said Monday."
I have to agree. If you're fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. They know they can't compete against our military-industrial complex. So they attack our soldiers with $20 rigged explosives.