Did you not notice how those letters now form an unshakable legal foundation from which to do battle? All cries of partisanship will be brushed off like lint now.

Did you not notice that Bush did not issue any pardons before leaving office?

Can you not see now that these "spineless Dems" you are always whining about know a lot more about how to play the game than you do?

Chill. Conyers subpoenaed Rove less than a month into this administration.

I don't see how this is a story. The whole notion of burrowing is that a political appointee makes a move into civil service. This is a civil servant who was appointed to a political position...and now she should no longer be eligible to be a civil servant? What? How does that even make sense?

B.

OK, worst case scenario, she's the Manchurian Scientist, programmed to destroy Science in the name of God. She's an advisor. Oooooh. What power does she have?

C.

@rozinabq -- It's only "far from settled" in the same sense that evolution is.

"The majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is primarily caused by human activities such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.[20][21][22][23] The conclusion that global warming is mainly caused by human activity and will continue if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced has been endorsed by more than 50 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences,[24] the American Association for the Advancement of Science,[25] the American Meteorological Society,[26] the International Union for Quaternary Research,[27] and the Joint Science Academies of the major industrialized and developing nations[28][29] explicitly use the word "consensus" when referring to this conclusion.

...

A survey published in 2009 by Peter Doran and Maggie Zimmerman of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago of 3146 Earth Scientists found that 97% of active climatologists agree that human activity is causing global warming.[49] A summary from the survey states that:

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."[50]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy#Existence_of_a_scientific_consensus

When I saw this I thought these two centers of GOP power were finally forming a coalition, taking a wide stance on creationism.

The more I think about this, the more I realize how complex my feelings are. I think it's about wanting more awareness--I want my blue state peeps to understand there are still parts of the country where black laborers are referred to as 'boys'. I want the folks in that part of the country to see how the rest of us feel about that.

I don't know. Maybe I just want those kids to see some change.

On a more practical level I'd like anyone even remotely tempted to pull something like this to fear national public humiliation.

What's the minimum donation to get a t-shirt?

I don't think the military system is wrong. I think we should take care of our military. But it is a socialist system. If you love free markets so much, why not just pay folks in the military salaries and let them buy their own non-battlefield health insurance and pay for their own educations and so on? Heck, having such a huge anomaly as military socialism in our free market system is probably why the free markets aren't working. You never hear about the latest project out of the Pentagon and how cost-effective it is, do you? You think Joe the Plumber uses a $400 pipe wrench?

And you and I both know a lot of those enlisted folks really do need that military nanny to take care of them or they'd blow all their pay long before they had health insurance or money in the bank for college. That's not disrespect to those sailor and soldiers, but a reality check that we're all humans.

"I’ve personally experienced this multiple times on campuses. Being called a Nazi (by professors no less who surely have access to history books), spat upon, kicked, shoved, called a fascist - the list goes on. It simply reminds me that the people on the Angry Left can’t stand intellectually toe-to-toe with people on the right and have to resort to these ridiculous (and entirely inaccurate) personal slime games to try and scare the other team off the playing field."

Can you imagine how disheartened she must have been to learn that the police are angry liberals, too?

Now, I can see something like requiring all candidates to pass a physical and psychological evaluation. They are being vetted for the commander in chief role and we do screen military candidates this way (in theory, anyway).

But not this. What an awful precedent. Next it'll be the VP. And then members of Congress. Supreme Court justices. And on down the line.

Anyone with sense and a notion of going into public life will immediately cease and desist all therapy, meds, etc. Feeling like suicide? Better keep it to yourself.

The only politicians we'll have left will be those with the preternatural self-preservation skills of serial killers.

Need a psych profile of John McCain? Observe the man yourself. He's surrounded by cameras constantly. But leave his records alone. We can pretty much guess there's some awful stuff to be seen. I'd be the most creeped out if he came out of Vietnam WITHOUT some sort of mental trauma (as might a sociopath).

For the record, I also don't need to see pictures of him naked or read all of his privileged attorney/client communications in order to make a decision whether or not to vote for him.