I'd love to do the math on this, but I think that if I had control over and invested my Social Security and Medicare taxes over my working life (yes, even after the latest downturn), that I'd be really well off. But, the Feds took several tens of thousands over the years leaving me to rely on those insurance programs. Hopefully, I'll live long enough to get back what I put in, but I doubt I'll ever get back what my investments might have grown to.

I'm starting to believe the Democrats that Republicans are stupid. We're just finishing up a few weeks on "women's health" and the advantage to women to vote Democratic. Huh? Obama cut $500 billion from Medicare. Women live longer than men and make up more than half of our population. So, that half trillion cut will hurt women much worse than men. Couldn't our presidential candidates pound THAT home over and over again?

Great story and a page-turner book. I couldn't put it down. A reviewer said that reading the book was like watching a movie...I agree.

A standard response to the usefulness of torture, and John McCain's response, is that by using torture you can force someone to admit to something...like being a war criminal. Yes, you can. That's true. But, that's not what interrogations are about. Interrogations are conducted to get operational information. One technique involves asking questions that the interrogators already know the answer to. When the prisoner lies, he suffers. After a while, he concludes that some of his buddies have already talked, the interrogators already know the answers, so why continue to suffer for known lies? So, he talks. I love these idealistic innocents who are perfectly willing to sacrifice someone else's life so that they can remain morally pure...

Good grief...we can blow bodies apart, explosively rip arms and legs off, but it's immoral to pour water on someone's face in order to save lives? What kind of "morality" is that? Japanese waterboarding often resulted in death...a water hose stuffed down a throat or prisoners dunked upside-down and drowned. It seems that KSM endured 183 waterboardings and is still kicking. Give me a break!!

I use that phrase all the time because it makes sense. But, I don't think we are where we need to be. A basic right is dangling by one vote. Thank God this isn't the Warren Court. If one of the conservatives on the court leaves during Obama's reign, our Second Amendment rights can go with him. Maybe not on paper, but definitely in terms of rules and regulations that destroy our rights just as surely. I live in New York, upstate luckily, but I know what restrictions are imposed that greatly reduce our rights in practice. This could come to a state near you.

I know what you mean...Sotomayer is a prime example. Maybe I should have said "some" Liberal justices. But, a more clearly stated amendment would have other impacts...for instance on states and local municipalities. You probably heard about the gun owner whose plane got diverted to Newark, NJ. You can't legally carry in New York City. Massachusetts has draconian laws. It goes on and on. A no wiggle room amendment would have hundreds of positive impacts around the country.

Justice Kennedy isn't going to live forever. A clarifying amendment would be written by pro-gun people and it would not include any cloudy language that anyone could easily misinterpret without exposing oneself to be a liar. I think we can assume that many Liberal justices have integrity enough to rule on clearly stated law.

We need a crystal clear second Second Amendment that leaves no wiggle room for dishonest justices who purposely misinterpret language due to their own agendas and the unnecessary "militia" phrase in the original amendment. We cannot count on 5 to 4 Supreme Court decisions. This is a good time to initiate the amendment process since most state houses are pro-Second Amendment, the House is Republican, the Senate may soon be, and, with the 2012 elections coming up, many Democrats will be reluctant to oppose a clarifying amendment on a basic right that is clearly favored now by the electorate. A second Second Amendment could include nationwide right-to-carry.

If Greenberg's contention is correct, then why is the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" even in the 14th Amendment? Why not simply say "all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens?" The Constitution doesn't include extra, unnecessary verbiage.