Jeff Biggers watched helplessly as the hollers of Eagle Creek, Illinois — a corner of the Shawnee National Forest and his family’s home for roughly 200 years — were blasted away.

“If all we’re doing is exporting Guantanamo to Thomson for purposes of military commissions and indefinite detention,” said one civil liberties advocate, “we’re very strongly opposed to that.”

Moderate Democrats have grown wary of big spending bills, fearing that support for such measures could haunt them on the campaign trail this year.

“This ‘legally obligated’ stuff is a lot of nonsense,” says one expert on the Wall Street bailout.

“This QDR focuses on the wars we are actually fighting, not the wars we sometimes wished we were fighting,” a Defense Department official said.

“I never met a spending freeze I didn’t like,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Republican conference.

“The public is mad, and they’re prepared to take it out on the establishment,” says Tony Coelho.

The potential blowback from the Landrieu sting extends to some Republican lawmakers.

The message from the Senate was clear: More screenings, not fewer, are better for women’s health.

A loss in Massachusetts has damaged the prospects for comprehensive health reform legislation and left Democrats wondering how to galvanize the electorate.