1)        End US sponsored torture and illegal rendition.

Why? If this is one of the tools we use to bring those requiring justice to that justice then it seems to me to be policy, whether sponsored by the U.S. or some other government seems to be working.

Remember our stem cell research debate when you said abortion at any age of development was just wrong, the Bible says so, so end of story.  Well, that's how I think decent people think about torturing other people, no matter how bad they are.  End of story.

2)    Extract ourselves from Iraq in the least damaging but quickest way.

I think this is the desire of all those on the Hill, both Democrat and Republican.

Building up troops is not extraction no matter how you spin it.  Apparently not all Republicans have a draw down as any option on the immediate horizon.

3)    Get serious about brokering Mideast peace.

Why should this fall on our shoulders? We need to involve the Arabs and others in the region to work out the details of this with the understanding that Israel will remain in the position of deciding what land they want to “give up” for peace. It has already been proven that regardless how much they give up there will be no peace until Israel is gone. So this is a pipe dream in reality until those claiming to be from Palestine and not merely Arab like the rest of the region concede defeat to Israel.

Because brokering Mideast peace is in our strategic best interests.  To ignore opportunities to create peace in the world is foolhardy.  To create opportunities to wage war, on the other hand, is insane.

4)    Achieve energy independence, expand development and use of renewable non-polluting sources, and recommit to responsible conservation

Responsible conservation? Please tell us what that is and who decides these parameters. We have this right now save the lefts irrational defiance to allow drilling in ANWAR and off the coasts. This energy can all be produced much cleaner than we do it now, not to mention the clean coal technology that we now let sit idle that can produce oil from coal in Utah and other western states thus eliminating most of our dependence on foreign oil while we move forward with other clean and renewable resources.

Do you have a problem with NOT wasting energy AA?  If an LED traffic ight uses 1/5th the wattage as a conventional traffic light and lasts three times as long, that's conservation.  If proper insulation pays for itself in electricity costs over seven years, that's conservation.  What is it that you CONSERVATIVES have against conservation?  On the other hand, if, so-called "clean coal" technology takes the dirtiest energy source on the planet and makes it only half as dirty, it still isn't clean.

  5)    Take global warming seriously.  We cannot afford not to.  What if global warming skeptics are wrong?

What is your wrong? This is a stupid argument for your side to keep repeating. Let’s stop abortion, what if your side is wrong and life starts at conception? You wouldn’t let us use that as a real argument…

Because if you are wrong (and you so often are), then civilization ends as we know it.  You think that is an exaggeration?  Well, if global average temperatures increase 5° F, the ice caps melt, our coastal cities are flooded (the vast majority of humans live within 100 miles of the coast), climate patterns are hugely disrupted, ocean currents keeping northern/southern regions relatively warm and equatorial regions relatively cool shut down, crops fail, millions of people die, and so on.  It is not worth the gamble that YOU are right and all those pinhead scientists are wrong.  The last I checked, you have not authored a peer-reviewed article debunking global warming.  However there are 997 peer reviewed scientific studies finding ample evidence for global warming as a consequence of rising CO2 from manmade sources, and NO peer reviewed studies proving the opposite.  Forgive me Dr. American, but I do not recognize your learned credentials.  You understand so little of what you speak about here that it is not funny.  I have not responded to the utter bulls*** in your global warming article because I simply did not have the time.  I will be writing an article in response soon enough.

6)    Commit to rebuilding New Orleans, and follow through.

Stop the hand wringing over these people. In a year and a half any other city in the nation would have been rebuilt with or without Federal assistance. Time to take care of yourself. The country owes you nothing but a hand up not a hand out. Get off your asses and be the change you want to see.

Well Compassionate Conservatism is officially dead.  When you go to church AA, does your pastor slap you in the face for forgetting the fundamental teachings of Jesus.  What does it say in your book about the manna from heaven episode: 

Jesus, we're hungry.  Please feed us.
No.  Go f*** yourselves.

7)    Restore congressional oversight.

Restore liberty to ourselves and our kids. Stop getting involved with stuff the people can take care of on their own. Stop spending more than we bring in taxes, period, zero increases in spending for anything for one year, forced balancing of the budget.

Sorry AA.  I just had the quaint idea that Congress should fulfill its constitutionally mandated functions.

8)    Create an independent ethics committee.  Don't rely on the ruling party in Congress, Democrat or Republican, to police their own.

OK, hope you mean it.

I mean it.  I hope our elected officials mean it.  That's why it's in the list.

9)    End war profiteering.

Just return the budget money to military that it needs to do the jobs themselves.

No.  You think that 100 billion each year isn't enough to conduct "peace-keeping" military operations.  We outsourced so much of our military operations that 9 out of 10 dollars budgeted for the war effort are never seen by the armed services.  Most of that money went into the hands of third party private contractors, that not surprising made record profits.  When war is good for business, it follows that dragging the war out becomes the policy of choice.  War profiteering is dispicable, unpatriotic, and should be illegal in any way, shape, or form.  It's up to Congress to end it.  Bush sure won't.

10)    Reign in legislative earmarking and executive signing statements.

Statements mean nothing, just make it a 2/3 vote for any add on bills.  

So are you for earmaking, pork-barrel politics, signing statements, or not?

11)    Bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

Get an idea that can sell. Stop using the government to get your own voice heard in the marketplace, you have public access…

Have you ever read the translated versions of Pravda or listened to the English translated broadcasts of Tass during the height of Breshnev's U.S.S.R.?  That's the kind of media you get when only one voice is heard.  I don't care if only one side is govenment sanctioned or only one side can afford access, the result is the same.  Tyranny.

12)    Restore antitrust legislation.

Restore is against whom…WalMart? Exxon? How about we use it against the government to stop them from corning the need market and let charities religious organizations do the work they used to do.

You like Capitalism?  You like fair trade?  You like competition?  Well how is that possible when mergers and consolidation results in only one game in town?  Imagine only one cell phone service, one utility company, one airline.  We've been there before during the robber-baron post-industrialization era of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and I don't have any desire to step back a century to those good old days of our great great grandparents.   Perhaps you don't believe in the trust-busting activites of the Theodore Rooosevelt, but I for one think that there were some good Republican Presidents.

13)    Expand investments in science, national infrastructure, and basic/higher education.

Ya, lets spend even more on tenured teacher who don’t teach and let the unions control where the money goes, great idea, waste more money after good money for more of the same result. We already spend more per student than any other country on Earth. Let’s try stripping school back down to education and not waste time and money on sex ed, basket weaving and feel good bulls*** classes.

Leave it too you to find fault with promoting science and education.  I am convinced that if you were alive in the days of Galileo Galilei, you would have been the first to force Galileo to recant his sacraligious observations of Jupiter's moons at the penalty of death.  Likewise, I'm confident the science-friendly AA, when faced with the accused witch, would have wisely thrown the defendant into the lake to see if she sank or floated.

 14)    Investigate 9-11, Iraq, Katrina, Wiretapping, Plame.  No more stonewalling, foot dragging, or halfway efforts.

Yes let’s. Let’s get it over with so we can move on for Christ sake.

Agreed.  So why haven't Republicans in charge done their job?

15)    Take care of our soldiers in the field.  Take care of our returning veterans.

I can fully agree with this one, as do all Americans.  
Once again, except George W. Bush and company.

16)    Extend health insurance to 40 million uninsured Americans.

Sure, poor the money into the healthcare industry. We can’t do this and balance that budget so be careful what you promise… 

You may just find that when people who currently use the emergency room as their primary care can suddenly have their medical problems treated before they have snowballed into medical calamities, billions of dollars can be saved.

17)    Fix or rescind the Patriot Act.

Yes fix it, make it stronger so those people getting off for crap now get the max.

Repeal it and redo it the right way, using the Constitution as a starting point.

18)    Repeal the unconstitutional Military Commissions Act (restore habeas corpus and due process).

Habeas Corpus is not in recess at the moment. The MCA applies to those it should.

Really?  Ask the occupants of Guantanamo Bay (including the Americans) if they have been charged with any crime?

19)    Redouble our efforts in Afghanistan while we still can.  Maybe even find Osama bin Laden.

Damn War Hawks… Look the Dems want to go to war now…

F**k you.  I have always wanted to bring Osama bin Laden to justice and break al Queda.  I just never imagined the we would have gone to Iraq instead.

20)    Get serious about port and border security.  Inspect 100% of cargo coming into our ports of entry.  Hire more Border Patrol Agents.  Go after the corporate employers of illegal immigrants with the laws we already have.  Don't build idiotic walls that can be easily scaled, tunneled under, or walked around. 

Do what we need to do and let’s stop making up new names for illegals. That’s what they are and they need to be sent home, the others need to be kept out. Walls , fences, electric fences, I don’t care jut keep them out.

Then let's just machine gun them all down AA.  Whatever means necessary, right.  Dead or alive.  Bring it on.  You are an endless stream of slogans and patronizations, and I wasted another hour debating a closed mind.

And BTW, rename the Department of Homeland Security to anything that doesn't use the Naziesque term Homeland in the title. BTW, Homeland is an fine name for a department that is charged with defense of this land we love.

 Seig Heil!!!

Our comments aside, we the people need to get involved again in this country. Stop thinking we vote, were done...

Finally I agree with you.