WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer. 

With George Bush off the front pages for much of the last few months, the political pathology known as Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) took an unexpected summer hiatus.

NEW YORK – Two Barack Obama advisers, Franklin Raines and James Johnson, received preferential home loans as industry favors, apparently in deference to their executive positions heading Fannie Mae.

The most provocative line in the Democratic national platform adopted in Denver is: “We oppose laws that require identification in order to vote or register to vote.” Since it’s routine to show an ID in order to board a plane and do dozens of other very ordinary things, what’s the big deal about showing an ID to exercise the most important privilege of citizenship?

Democrat Congressman Charles Rangel, chairman of the powerful committee that writes the nation’s tax code, failed to pay an unspecified amount in federal taxes during the past five years on rental income from a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, according to several news stories. Representative Charles B. Rangel is head of the House tax-writing committee.

For a brief period in 2008 it appeared that Robert Mugabe’s nearly three decade stranglehold on power in the impoverished nation of Zimbabwe would finally come to an end.

Sen. Barack Obama and his newly-picked running mate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, may have sparred during the primaries. But on one issue they are firmly united: the need to forge closer ties to the government of Iran.

...After World War II and the extent of Hitler’s genocidal madness became known to the world, the mainstream press, academics and progressive intellectuals both in America and Europe who spoke and wrote so admiringly of Hitler began to join the universal chorus to condemn his acts. Around the same time there was a subtle but concerted effort made in the marketplace of ideas that characterized Hitler and Nazism as a “right-wing” or conservative ideology.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.  ~ Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” (1848)

A couple of years ago a bunch of republican voters decided to not vote, their grand idea was to teach the republican party a lesson, I am here to ask, do you think they learned their lesson yet? In the past two years alone we have the democrats you helped elect by not voting try and pass legislation that would grant amnesty to 12 – 20 million illegal immigrants, not once but three times, we have seen our gas prices soar to 4 – 5 dollars per gallon, we have watched as these people have attempted to demoralize our troops, our people and I am just wondering do you think we have learned our lesson yet?

Barack Obama is given to calling the GOP a party captive of hateful special interests.

How hard is it to change the political complexion of a state? Not even a strong legislative record and high popularity may be enough for four Republican governors in predominantly Democratic states and four Democratic governors in heavily Republican states.

The term ‘Flip Flop’ seems pretty much to be a fabrication of political hacks that refuse to adapt to real-time situations.

There’s no shortage of pundits, commentators and scribblers who’ve convinced themselves that the United States is a conservative society.