"Senator, you previously said you weren't intimidated by the Jewish Lobby. Now you've apologized for that statement. Does that mean that now you ARE intimidated by the Jewish Lobby?" "Senator, take us through the timeline of when, how and why you changed your mind from Iran sanctions being a bad idea to the use of force against Iran as a viable option. This couldn't have all occurred in the last few weeks, could it?" "Senator, now that Charles Schumer has come out in favor of your nomination, do you now hold a more favorable attitude toward Jews or do you still hold them in more contempt than the President?"

What I've never heard is what this means in the event the draft needs to be reinstated. Are all 18 year old women required to register? Will they be selected involuntarily? Sent to the front lines involuntarily? I'd love to see a survey of what the USA thinks of those possibilities.

The "centuries old" conflict betwen the Israelis and "Palestinians" actually began the day the "Palestinians" were invented, exactly 45 years and 7 months ago; the week Israel liberated Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and the Golan, which were known in those days not as "Palestine" but as Jordan, Egypt, and Syria respectively. Prior to that it would have been pretty difficult having a conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, since before 1948, the term Palestinians referred to the Jews of the region.

"I believe President Obama's primary motivation in nominating Hagel is ... not to poke a finger in the eye of the pro-Israel constituency." Au Contraire my friend. Obama deeply resents having been acajoled and coerced, mainly by Schumer, to have to fake some nominal support for Israel during the campaign, and the payback for this, in his petty, imperialist mind, is the Hagel nomination. The entire objective of the nomination was to demonstrate the utter contempt he has for the Jews who voted for him. And now he's going to force Schumer the Jew to eat the nomination and like it. Unfortunately Schumer is so bought in to Obama at this point that he can't turn around and get out even if he wanted to.

This is less about Republicans and more about his Jewish supporters, i.e. 70% of the Jewish vote in the last election, What O is saying is, "I no longer need you, so now let's be perfectly clear. This is what I think of you."

Sorry ... forgot to add .... No more continuing resulotions. The only spending to take place after 4/1 will be under a duly submitted and passed BUDGET.

6. A 4.6% across the board income tax cut, bringing the maxumium rate back to 35% and cutting rates for all Americans. 7. Complete repeal of Obamacare and its taxes. 8. In exchange for increase in debt limit of 100b per month for each of the next six months, topping out at 17T, with reductions for 100b per month starting in 2014. No agreement? Let O be stuck with his debt limit. The leverage is AGAINST him this time. If Republicans are blamed so be it. It's the USA's last shot anyway.

And the last.

Resolution of the fiscal cliff will be as follows: Jan 1 comes and goes. Within a few paychecks’ time, a made-to-order “crisis” ensues. Obama announces, in an address to nation, that his IRS will not “enforce” (cf. DOMA and the Dream Act) the higher rates on people earning under $100,000. Those earning over $100,000 will have to pay the pre-Bush rates from dollar one. He will once again be a hero to his supporters. The “rich”, at whatever level he defines it, will be paying much more in taxes than even his proposals (which would increase marginal rates only) would have required, and, best of all, He has effectively taken control of the entire US tax structure.

Luv ya Ann, but I see a couple of problems with this approach. First of all, Republicans will be blamed for the upcoming disaster whether they do anything now or not. I can write the story for the MSM right now: "Republicans knew all along that the 2013 plan would lead to this mess, yet they sat on their hands and did nothing about it." The other problem is that we're still stuck in the same old paradigms ...."take back the Senate" ..."2016 election" etc. If we let the collapse happen, Obama will have his chance to do the Morsi. Don't expect the opportunity to "vote out" anyone in the future, it's not going to happen. Like it or not, Obama is the president and he's not going anywhere. Nobody over 50 will see another one.

One more: "Mr. President, what is the capital of israel?"