Private Manning has never been tried for a crime.  He has never been convicted of a crime.  Yet he has spent the past five months in solitary confinement at the Marine brig in Quantico, VA, and the preceding two months in prison in Kuwait.

There are no sheets or a  pillow on his bed.  He is not permitted to exercise in his cell, and closed circuit television monitors him to make sure he doesn’t sneak in a prohibited push-up or sit-up. 

After the 'ballots or bullets' midterm elections, Tea Party activists looked around and discovered that while they had been saving Americans from health care reform,  a global demon (second only to Soros) had infiltrated their local communities.

Looks like the White House won the messaging wars.

Here's the lede to the tax cuts for the rich story as presented by MSNBC:

There are some things Americans know about ourselves without having to hear it from pollsters. We know we love Santa Claus, for example. When offered a choice between having no Santa for Christmas, or having twice as much Santa, we’ll grab the latter.

Many of you have probably heard already about the launch of the new No Labels organization – the new centrist organization that is bending over backwards to label itself as a not-necessarily-centrist organization with “no label”.  Their goal of promoting constructive civil discourse is laudable – that’s something we need more of across the political spectrum.   But the organization’s putative non-platform platform is conventional centrist stuff: smaller deficits, free trade, free markets, and social tolerance.  It just seems like a classic European-style Liberal party to me, for example, th

Most readers of this blog will not require an introduction to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. And most are probably aware that he died today, following surgery for a torn aorta. 

It is reported by the AP that Ambassador Holbrooke's final words were "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan." (h/t HuffPo)

President Obama nominated Peter Orszag to be his Director of Management and Budget in November, 2008, where he served a year and a half and resigned the position in July 2010.  His new position at Citibank may pay $2-3 million according to bankers familiar with similar positions. Orszag joins a former Bush cabinet appointee at Citibank.

Two days before, in the same city, a crowd of rioting students nearly lynched the Prince of Wales and his wife the Duchess of Cornwall. The royal couple's bodyguards were at the point of drawing their guns... imagine the political repercussions if they had smoked a few students... or had even fired warning shots into the air.

                  SARAH PALIN ON THE READY

While I’m definitely not for the GOP ironically using the courts to reverse Obama’s signature accomplishment, I’ve never been a believer in the morality or necessity of the health insurance mandate.

First, I’m skeptical because the industry demanded it.  Obviously anyone in the business of selling a product would love to have the government declare that everyone must buy it.  I’m sure Burger King would say yes to a whopper mandate.