The minute you start they put you on the all-American sucker list. You start out to build a home and wind up in the poorhouse.

Please think about what Duncan is pointing out here and tell me it doesn't piss you off as much as it does me.

In the current mortage crisis there are predatory lenders and there are victims of predatory lenders. The government is riding to the rescue of the former and (so far) giving a finger to the latter.

Then get the same cat to search us.

Josh does a take down of the wankosphere's recent conclusions about Scott Beauchamp. In summary:

Maybe Beauchamp was always a teller of tales. He wouldn't be the first nor even the first to have wormed his way into the pages of The New Republic. But it's hard not to have some suspicion that the Army has put itself in charge of investigating charges which, if true, would be deeply embarrassing to the Army; that it has provided itself a full exoneration through an investigation, the details of which it will not divulge; and it has chosen to use as its exclusive conduit for disseminating information about the case, The Weekly Standard, a publication which can at best be described as a charged partisan in the public controversy about the case.

This hardly inspires much confidence.

Big John, do you think this boy is a hustler?

Of course the Democratic cave-in to Bush on FISA this weekend made my head explode. I'm still looking for my left ear. I suspect the Chihuahua might have gotten it in which case there go my hopes for the really cool Terminator-style shades I was planning on wearing through the rest of the summer. I'll just tell people I had a run in with Mike Tyson.

I don't think I have to say much about what happened with the Democrats, particularly in the Senate, because most of you probably agree that they once again demonstrated their proclivity for spineless political cowardice.

This administration shouldn't be dictating anything to anyone. Congress should have Bush sit in the corner with a "dunce" hat on while they work. Instead they let him run rampant around the classroom screaming and braying like the spoiled brat he is.

Let me just sum it up this way; I'm trying to find a way to get into a high stakes poker game with Harry Reid, Ben Nelson and the rest of the Democratic Senators. I'm quite sure I could clean their clock. I would be a very, very rich man after that game.

These guys are a text-book demonstration of what poker "tells" one should try to avoid in a game. Look at the watch repeatedly? Check. Let your opponent know you're nervous? Check. Fold on every hand? Check. Never mix-up your strategy? Check.

These guys are home for the August recess and presumably facing their constituents. They're going to be standing in front of us naked, except for the fish barrel they'll be holding over themselves, Bush having taken them to the cleaners. They're going to be telling us what great players they are and how we ought to continue staking them. They want us to believe they're sharks.

It's going to pretty damn confusing to them when we laugh in their faces.