[Sherman Logan]

Norman Gelb’s Herod the Great (Rowman & Littlefield, 2013) is a pungent biography of the Stalin-like dictator 2,000 years ago, with a subtitle (Statesman, Visionary, Tyrant) that shows Gelb’s attempt, like some Stalin apologists more recently, to balance out the bad and the good.

That subtitle also applies to Stalin. Just because his accomplishments were at the cost of enormous human suffering does not mean they were not real.

The problem is not that tyranny cannot do things, it's that it does things at much too great a cost, and that usually the same or greater things could have been done under freedom with less cruelty and oppression.

[Jabba the Nutt]

"Republicans also helped the Democratic surge by dithering on healthcare reform when they controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue."

When the GOP controlled the White House, Senate and House, they did not use their power to enact reforms or a freedom agenda. Nope, that wasn't important. However, they went all out with their "K Street Project", which was designed to rope in more lobbyist money for the GOP and deny it to the Dems. That's important!!!

The GOP House continues this tradition of doing nothing, saying nothing and having no agenda other than give Obama what he wants and lick his hand.