If you were not a bride I would kiss you goodbye.

Kossacks are besides themselves because Harry Reid has apparently promised Joe Lieberman he'll keep his seniority and chairmanship regardless of the results of the election. This is with most political analysts seeing moderate to big pick-ups for dems in the Senate this November. They can't seem to figure out why Reid is doing this or what Lieberman has on the Majority Leader that would keep him from throwing that traitorous little toad over a cliff. The man is actively campaigning for John McCain for God's sakes.

I would say that Reid's action makes perfect sense if you consider what I talked about here. The Democrats will need better than a 61-39 majority to get ANYTHING done in the next congress. Republicans will simply declare they're filibustering every single piece of legislation that comes up. Reid's kissing Lieberman's ass because he's going to need the little pint-sized Napoleon.

Of course Reid could take some of the actions that progressives have been screaming for this last few years, not the least of which is to force Republicans into true filibusters rather than just the declarations of same they're able to get away with now. Drive their obstruction into the open. Of course that would be too confrontational. That would just make the Democrats look mean and go against the comity in the Senate so we just can't have it.

Instead we let ourselves be pushed around by someone who was thrown out of the Democratic party by it's voters and is currently campaigning to ensure that the two Senate Democrats still in the race for the presidency aren't allowed into the White House to secede Bush. Mark my words: Lieberman will be speaking at the Republican convention and thumbing his nose at everything the Democratic party supposedly holds dear.

But at least he'll still have his Chairmanship.

I don't care about what anything was DESIGNED to do, I care about what it CAN do.

It's clear from yesterday's votes that it continues to be business as usual for the weenie Senate Democrats who continue to refuse to fail to use every legislative tool they have at their disposal to fight the Iraq/ Bush/ Republican idiocy.

I won't list out all the solutions progressives are practically SHOUTING at Reid and company (forcing actual fillibusters for a start) because the entire exercise continues to leave me frustrated. The whole D.C. establishment - government and media - are dangerously out of touch with the wishes of the vast majority of this country.

Last week's Petraeus testimony only forced to underline that fact. That does not bode well for the future of this country. It's one thing to have a deaf ear and it's entirely another to pretend that what you're not listening to in the first place doesn't really matter anyway. Especially if this country is governed by any form of a democracy.

Last Saturday we had dinner with a Marine EMT and his wife. He's been over to Iraq on several deployments spending huge chunks of time away from his wife and family. The financial impact has been severe and, at one point, his wife had to involve one of our congressman and the threat of a congressional investigation to work out a payroll issue with the Navy. I suspect that if the Webb amendment had been if effect and he'd been stateside longer, some if not much of this suffering could have been alleviated.

This guy is a super-patriot and a Marine to the core (pardon pun) and he feels after years of this war that the system is broken and we just aren't taking care of those that are serving now and have served. Why are we allowing this to continue and what can we do to change it?

That's the frustrating thing because we really don't have an answer to that last part of the question.

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.

She is alive, or was an hour ago. If she is otherwise when I find her I shall be very put out.

Ah, Senate Democrats. Always the last to get it and even then they come across as namby-pamby with their threats.

“I think there’s a lot of concern,” said a senior Democratic aide who has discussed the subject with colleagues. “I think the first step is if the Lieberman thing turns into a side show and hurts our message and ability to take back the Senate, and the White House and the [National Republican Senatorial Committee] manipulate him, there are going to be a lot of unhappy people in our caucus.”...