Here's one little hint from these sage and wise titans of industry:

Durbin wants the commission to make recommendations to make Social Security solvent for 75 years. The panel would be expected to consider increases in the payroll tax, a higher retirement age and a lower annual cost-of-living adjustment for beneficiaries.

"You would basically say to a commission, within a very limited time frame, to come up with a proposal for 75-year solvency of Social Security and then -- and this is important -- it would be referred to both chambers on an expedited procedure," Durbin told reporters at a Washington breakfast sponsored by The Wall Street Journal...

Durbin's proposed 18-member commission would contain an equal number of Republicans and Democrats but require 14 votes to send a plan to Congress. link

I guess this time the co-chairs will be Pete Peterson and Alan Simpson.

Ok, not really a "shocker", at least at this point, 3 years out from an election, and when none of the people named have even officially announced their candidacies - this is sensational headline writing at its best.

But I do like this little bit:

The Clinton phenomenon reveals larger truths about the American electorate that are not yet understood because of the delusional rightist and Republican press that treats politics as a one-party (Republican) state, the often-lazy national press corps that treats politics as an insider lunch date, and Washington-based Democrats who are so lacking in genitalia that one expects their voices to shift octaves higher.

Isn't it ironic that the Democrats with the biggest balls are women named Hillary, Nancy and Elizabeth while the Republicans act more like Marie Antoinette than Ronald Reagan?

"First, whatever happens in Iraq, we overpaid for it in lives and treasure and focus.  Second, you can overpay for something decent and you can overpay for total junk.   What exactly we overpaid for in Iraq is not yet clear and will be decided by Iraqis.  Third, as much as we'd prefer to forget about Iraq, what happens there matters more than ever for the MIddle East. "

In the photo, the universe is represented as an oval - a flattened oval. With borders. The outside of the oval.

A wide array of scholarship supports the view that women tend to cross party lines to build legislative consensus more frequently than men. In a recent article in the American Journal of Political Science, "When Are Women More Effective Lawmakers Than Men?." the authors found, for example, that the dynamic tends to favor women in the minority party. In particular, the study found "while men may choose to obstruct and delay, women continue to strive to build coalitions and bring about new policies."

The study found that over the course of 30 years in the House, minority party women were better able to keep their sponsored bills alive in later stages than minority party men, largely by keeping the focus on the underlying policy goal over politics.

Women have also focused on legislation that men do not typically consider, like financial security for women, an issue championed by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the Texas Republican who retired in January. The seven women now serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee have begun to push their priorities, including efforts to prevent and adjudicate sexual assault in the military as well as to open combat jobs to women.

A top Dominican law enforcement official said Friday that a local lawyer has reported being paid by someone claiming to work for the conservative Web site the Daily Caller to find prostitutes who would lie and say they had sex for money with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).