What does Harry Reid's tax return look like? He claims that he is as wealthy as he is by making good investments. Does that imply that he, too, is taking full advantage of a 15% tax rate on capital gains?

Many, many moons ago, when usenet was still pristine, it was a common practice for us to include snippets of trigger words that were referred to as "spy bait." It was a widely held thought/joke that the NSA read every piece of traffic on the Internet at the time.

Today, nobody in their right mind would think of joking around like that unless they really enjoy being visited by government agents.

I miss those days.

Most of the problem here comes from the fact that the English language has changed in the 225 years since the Bill of Rights was written. The First Amendment does not refer to an "establishment of religion" as a building or a church, but rather to Congress establishing an official State religion.

When viewed in that light, and coupled with the "no test of faith" clauses in the Constitution, this debate can be seen in an entirely different (and more correct) context.

Dennis,

I won't argue that having a President that was starting to suffer from Alzheimer's is scary. (IBM produced a "Presidential model" of its typewriter, it had no colon or memory.) My point was that Reagan, and Clinton, had the good sense to have good advisers and do what they suggested.

Mike Smith, who does the political cartoons for the Sun, recently drew one that labeled the White House as "For Sale" because Obama is now accepting super PAC money. What is of interest is that two years ago Smith's cartoon's were decidedly pro-Obama in tone.

Simply put, the American electorate is dissatisfied with BOTH Democrats and Republicans.

Dennis,

I did not say that. What I said was that I agree in principle with Mike with regard to Reagan and Clinton and further stated that both Clinton and Reagan enjoyed reasonable success because they surrounded themselves with good people and listened to them.

On a side note, my take-home pay increased noticeably due to the Reagan tax policies. I was making about mid-five figures at the time. Not only that, but the company I worked for at the time (a company that supplied after-market products and test equipment for laser printers) saw a substantial increase in business.

"...and mining sends much of its money out of here[.]" - Jon Ralston

Jon, why don't you use your "bully" pulpit to help change this? You have gained considerable notoriety lately (CNN's words, not mine.)

We should be doing everything in our power to renegotiate the water rights to Lake Mead and the Colorado river. California has been getting far too much for too long.

Reducing California's share would go a long way to alleviating our water problems and eliminating the need to build pipelines from the north or a third straw. The time has long passed for California to accept responsibility for supplying its own water instead of raping Nevada and Arizona.

After all, Southern California is every bit as much a desert as we are.

Future,

Simply put, religious beliefs *do* come second, or not count at all. The evidence for this lies in the fact that it is explicitly stated not only once, but twice in the Constitution that there shall be no test of faith to hold office.

Your statement that insurance companies must provide certain services for free with the implication that doing so violates a person's faith is a straw man argument. People of faith are free to reject accepting such services.

It is the argument that people of faith must pay for such benefits through premiums that has merit. That is the reason that in theory that abortions are not funded by tax dollars.

By the way, I am not opposed to easy access to contraception. The economic benefits to society as a whole far outweighs the cost of providing it.

If anything, such access should be completely gender neutral by including condoms and vasectomies as well. What's sauce for goose, etc.

It is the fact that the far right has elevated religious concerns above fiscal concerns that alienates so many moderates from the Republican Party as it exists today.