Anyone watch Nighline last night? There is so much that the Bush and the current republican administration can be censured and/or prosecuted for. In short, the vote on the Medicare bill was supposed to, like all bills, be over in 15 minutes. The bill was going down to defeat. But Hastert kept the vote open three hours longer, the longest a bill has ever gone overtime, Tommy Thompson came onto the House floor to lobby, and the republicans blatantly coerced and bribed lawmakers to change their votes. After the pressure had the desired effect and votes were changed, then they closed the vote.

One fellow said something along the lines of "it's like holding the election polls open an extra 15 hours at the end of the standard day of voting until you get the desired result." If you don't think Bush and Cheney and Rove were part of this plot, you're wearing blinders.

Now that the bill has passed, we've heard the more recent stories of the federal official who was told he'd be immediately fired if he gave the true actuarial figures of the costs of the proposed plan. The White House gave out numbers that were about 2/3 of the actual cost.

I don't think Wellstone's death was contrived by republicans, but I do think that if there's a way to cheat the system, the republicans will have worked out the details.

SRS