Collins
Snowe
Brown
Murkowski
Toomey

Any other Republican that have given a hint they will vote for repeal?

And then I start to think about it...

Maybe it's a case of the people whose lives really haven't changed all that much - those of us with jobs, who can pay our bills, who may have made a few changes here and there as a result of the downturn in the economy - being lulled into a sense of "let's not rock the boat - I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and everything will be okay," and those whose lives have fallen off a cliff are so beaten down, and so consumed with trying to stay afloat, that they have nothing left over for protest.

When I heard that Obama may use his SOTU speech to call for benefit cuts and the "tough choices" of austerity, the phrase I heard in my head was "storming the gates."

And then I realized that where there have been large protests over the last 10 years or so, they've been little more than news items: the media report on them, give us the aerial view and an estimate of the crowd, a few sound bites and - ho-hum - on to the next story with nary a change in tone.  And the government's response  ...crickets...

We've been beaten down just by being ignored; people don't think civil protest works anymore, so why do it?

Call it a gut feeling, a sixth sense, whatever, when I looked at it pre-2008 election - I didn't see anything there of real substance, nothing solid at the core.  I saw an invention, a creation; I felt, at times, like he was writing a story as opposed to living a genuine life.

I've said on more than one occasion that Obama's beginnings scarred him in ways he has never dealt with; abandoned by his father, more or less abandoned by his mother, raised by grandparents who loved him but didn't look like him.  He's spent his whole life trying to prove that he was worthy of being loved - and we're now players in that psychodrama.

I have no sense that he really believes in anything for longer than it takes him to realize that someone whose approval he thinks he needs believes in something different.

He's doing a lot of damage on multiple fronts, and the Dems in Congress are enabling it.

There's also the usual ick going around that seems to hit right around the holidays - everyone's going full-out, immune system goes on the fritz and - wham! - we're knocked out.

Try some Zicam tablets, tea and honey - whatever works!

Ends up it might help bankrupt our system. Another example I was examining today-- the C-17. Apparently the US, read taxpayers, will be buying another 50... or are in the process of buying 50 aircraft that the USAF doesn't want.