Regarding the Senate committee's unanimous vote yesterday to "condition the President's power" on negotiating a nuclear agreement with Iran, I was irate before I had my coffee, on the fence during breakfast, and surprisingly I now have decided not to allow perceived insults to the President ruin my day. I'm not gloriously happy, but I'm o.k with with the unanimous vote.

It would be going too far to call Cotton a traitor, or even a saboteur because both those terms imply a subversive action which has disastrous real world impact---it doesn't take much imagination to conjure up real acts of monstrosity. But Cotton's open letter to Iran, signed by most of the Republican senators, does classify him as an impetuous, ambitious, running-off-at-both-ends backbencher who has just soiled the national nest.

The elephants in the room were quite visible in this week's Supreme Court hearings on the latest Republican attempt to destroy the signature legislation of America's first black President.

Justice Thomas---often incorrectly called a "sphinx" due to the absence of any oral questions from him since 2006---is, not by any stretch of the imagination, not an elephant. But for Thomas, apparently, asking questions is a bitch.