McCain and Graham are all about giving the Military leeway to do what it required to do, but first they uphold the Defence Secretary nomination, and now they hold up the CIA DIRECTOR (this isn't even a cabinet level nomination). What's next? Their going to uphold whoever is nominated to the directorship of the FBI and Homeland Security over their conspiracy theories?

Celeste Grieg could have handled this matter so much better by merely calling Akin's buffoonery insensitive, and then, if asked, saying she doesn't know the percentage of reported rapes that result in pregnancy.The End. That would have been the conscience of the Republican party that moderate repubs and most people would have preferred.

But Akin exposed what the party needed to believe in order to justify forcing pregnant rape victims to carry a rapist's baby to term, and the no-exception-for-rape position was what they believed, as Paul Ryan made clear (the mode of conception doesn't change the forced birth ideology). THEREFORE, the spokeswoman for conscience of the Republican party inadvertently expressed what was still the conscience of the Republican party. Her statement was a Freudian slip that revealed their true belief.

This supreme court thinks Plessy vs. Ferguson and Dred Scott were just starting points.

Apply sequester cuts as much as possible to the districts of republican leadership.

The Republican "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down" comment isn't true for humans, but perhaps they were thinking of ducks, because the female duck really does have the ability to make it difficult for sperm from unwanted couplings to reach her eggs: http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/22/ballistic-penises-and-corkscrew-vaginas-the-sexual-battles-of-ducks/

gotta be honest....not thrilled with the choice for Budget Chief. Apparently, not paying your employees a living wage or allowing them to form unions is now perfectly acceptable?

Yes ,I remember years back when my cousins 5 year old daughter kidnapped on way to kindergarten wasn't found for several hours later ,she survived but he left her with a life long memory Syphilis .Also my daughter picked up at concert years ago from getting disconnected with people bringing her home.Taken across state line and raped at 11 years old.Was reported to DA of the town it happened in and was told to me ,Go home and think of the ordeal she will go through in court.Later found out the person accused was a prominent family.That DA scared my daughter so much she said mommy I don't want to go to court,and we did do a rape kit at that area's Hospital.My daughter was never the same afterwards.Now little girls get a menses at 8 and 9 years old.Would you want that child to carry through that pregnancy,I can't imagine anyone traumatizing a child more!!

It has been pointed out that the President has wide powers under existing EPA laws to vigorously regulate the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. If a President exercised this kind of muscular exercise of presidential power, this would be less like a typical regulatory regime and more like government direct intervention in industrial policy.

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The nomination of Gina McCarthy is a good indicator that Obama will not utilize these powers in the meaningful ways necessary to conduct such vigorous intervention needed to save the planet from radical imbalances in climate. This does not question McCarthy's bona fides as a good faith defender of the environment. The observation is that the skill set necessary for such a vigorous intervention in the economy would require someone with significant economic management knowledge of not just regulation, but intervention in industrial policy.

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If we think we can nickel and dime regulate our way out of climate change, then McCarthy is a great choice. If not, even if McCarthy is approved, we are doomed to see global CO2 production double in the coming years, not flatten or reduce significantly if we have a chance and averting climate catastrophe.

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Much of that CO2 will come from burning fossil fuels extracted from America. That is what the invisible hand is doing, and will continue to do: return us to a hot climate rich in CO2 not seen since the Devonian epoch. This is not a cynical perspective. This is what the scientists are saying will happen, and this is what economists are saying about third world demand for fossil fuels. These dominos are going to fall this way unless there is an intervention. It is as simple as that.

So if we react to the crisis at the back end, what are the coping strategies? Seriously, TRMS might consider doing a story on the idea of dusting the atmosphere with particles in order to simulate the temperature reduction effect of a major volcanic eruption. I'll bet that is what the CEO of Exxon had in the back of his head when he remarked that if significant damage due to climate change materialized, that engineering could provide a solution.

Really. Like what? Like the dusting idea? (For more info on the hard science, here is a paper that describes the role of atmospheric dust in triggering ice ages.) I seriously doubt you are going to get a scientist to stick his neck out and state this would "solve" climate change, because though it would likely restore temperatures, the issue is restoring climate patterns- and this is by no means guaranteed, because we have no experience at global climate engineering, and for all we know, we will further destabilize the climate creating new deserts where there was once productive farmland, and advancing ice sheets where there was once centers of manufacturing.

But at least people might be aware of the issues involved, and get an impression of how little the experts understand about such schemes for "correcting" climate change if/when it gets completely out of hand.

Which today became a little more likely with the announcement of McCarthy.

RE Pardons

Why in the world would the president pardon a guy that filed the serial numbers off of a gun? What a crock. There is your "common sense" gun control President for you.

• Larry Wayne Thornton – Forsyth, Georgia.

Offense: Possession of an unregistered firearm, 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(d), 5871; possession of a firearm without a serial number, 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(i), 5871.

Sentence: Four years probation