Fox Mogul Rupert Murdoch Echoes Glenn Beck, Calls Obama a Racist
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 10, 2009 at 3:10 PM.

MURDOCH FANS THE FLAMES.... It seemed, for a while, like the political world was prepared to move beyond the animosity between Fox News and the White House. Presidential aides seemed to cut back on noticing the Republican network's partisan efforts, and Fox News returned to more routine, everyday bashing of Democrats.

Indeed, just 13 days ago, we learned that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met personally with Fox News SVP Michael Clemente. There was talk of a "truce." It was time to move on.

Or so we thought. just four days after the reported "truce," Chris Wallace gave Rush Limbaugh a half-hour of airtime on "Fox News Sunday," which the right-wing radio host used to make one ridiculous attack against the president after another. There was no obvious reason for the interview.

And just a few days after Wallace's love-fest with Limbaugh, Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch told Sky News Australia that Glenn Beck's infamous anti-Obama tirade -- Beck called the president a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or white culture" -- was accurate.

SKY NEWS: The Glenn Beck, who you mentioned, has called Barack Obama a racist and he helped organize a protest against him. Others on Fox have likened him to Stalin. Is that defensible?

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Call Joe Lieberman's Bluff: A Real Fort Hood Inquiry Would Likely Shut Him Up
Posted by John Nichols, TheNation.com on November 10, 2009 at 11:00 AM.

Following the horrific shootings at the Fort Hood army base in Texas, Connecticut Senator Lieberman pulled a thread from the right-wing blogosphere and called for a congressional inquiry into whether the incident was an act of "terrorism."

Not domestic terrorism, but full-blown terrorism that is comparable to what is seen in the most unstable of warzones.

"This was an attack on America troops," Lieberman chirped on Fox New Sunday. "You've got to see it as if 12 American troops were killed in Afghanistan."

But, wait, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are fighting a strategically-sophisticated and structurally-coordinated enemy that employs traditional military tactics and terrorist strategies such as suicide bombings in urban areas.

Is Lieberman serious about making a comparison between what happened at Fort Hood and what happens in Kabul?

Not really.

When he's pinned down, Lieberman makes the slightly more precise calim that the Army doctor who killed 13 people and wounded 29 at Fort Hood showed signs of being a "self-radicalized, homegrown terrorist."

Never mind that another way of saying "self-radicalized, homegrown terrorist" might be "completely isolated mental-health case."

Never might that, when he started running the "terrorist" line on Fox New Sunday, host Chris Wallace used a sound line of questioning to make it clear that the senator did not have "any evidence so far (from) what you and your staff have heard in briefings that.. he was exchanging communications either in this country or overseas with other Islamic radicals."

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Korean Warships Exchange Fire on the SK/NK Border
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on November 10, 2009 at 8:29 AM.

From AFP:

A North Korean patrol boat was set ablaze after exchanging fire with South Korea's navy on Tuesday, Seoul officials said, as cross-border tensions rose a week before a scheduled US presidential visit.

The two sides blamed each other for the clash, the first for seven years near the disputed Yellow Sea border.

President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency meeting of security ministers as his Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan accused the North of making a "direct attack" on a South Korean high-speed patrol craft.

"There was no damage on our side while a North Korean patrol boat engulfed in flame sailed back (across the border)," Chung told parliament.

He described the clash, which follows recent peace overtures from the North, as unplanned and urged people to stay calm.

Some analysts, however, said Pyongyang may be sending President Barack Obama a message, eight days before he arrives in South Korea as part of an Asian tour.

Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young told parliament the North's boat sailed more than 1.6 kilometres (one mile) south of the border and "I believe they clearly knew about the intrusion".

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South's boat sent several warning signals after the North's craft crossed the border, but the intruder held its course.

After the South fired warning shots, "the North's side opened fire, directly aiming at our ship. Then our ship responded by firing back, forcing the North Korean boat to return to the north," the statement said.

"There were no casualties on our side. We are on the lookout for any further provocations by the North," it said.

"We fired heavily on the North Korean vessel," an unidentified navy official told Yonhap news agency, adding the initial assessment was that it suffered considerable damage.

"We express our strong protest to North Korea and urge it to prevent a recurrence of such incidents," said Brigadier-General Lee Ki-Sik of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He said the two sides exchanged fire for two minutes from a distance of about three kilometres. The North fired about 50 rounds, 15 of which hit the South Korean boat.

The border known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) has always been a potential flashpoint and was the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

General Lee said the North breached the NLL 22 times this year. But this was the first time the South had to fire warning shots, because the patrol boat kept intruding despite five warning signals.

North Korea's military, however, told its South Korean counterpart to apologise for a "grave armed provocation" and said Seoul's ships had opened fire while its craft was north of the border.

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Conservatives Register Tea Party as Official Third Party In Florida
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on November 9, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

After hard-line conservatives and tea party activists forced moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava to drop out of the race in New York's 23rd congressional district, they announced that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist would likely be their next target in the GOP civil war. Politico's Ben Smith reports that some Florida Republicans recently registered an official "Tea Party" to challenge both Republicans and Democrats:

"The current system has become mired in the sludge of special interest money that seeks to control the leadership of both parties. It's time for real change," says Orlando lawyer Frederic O'Neal, the new party’s chairman, who couldn't be reached immediately by phone, in a press release.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Secretary of State, Jennifer Davis, said the party had registered in August.

O'Neal compared his party's role to that of the Conservative Party in New York's 23rd District. Florida, however, lacks the "fusion" rules that has allowed third parties in New York to amass influence by offering their ballot line to acceptable major-party candidates.

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The Lesson in the Health-Care Vote
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on November 9, 2009 at 9:00 AM.

I've received a couple of comments and emails wondering why I haven't weighed in on the health care vote. I did, it was just done before the vote was taken. Sadly, my predictions were correct.

One of the things that those of us who follow politics from afar tend to see that those who are involved in the minutia often understandably miss, is the over-arching themes that guide the politicians and the villagers. I don't suppose that they are necessarily aware of it, although some of the influential strategists may be, but it's there nonetheless.

I knew that after all the sturm and drang over the past few months over the public option, the number one liberal priority in the health care debate, there would be a price for its success. The ruling elite could never allow an unambiguous liberal victory. It would endanger their narrative that says fealty to business, religion, military and other authoritarian structures is democratically inspired. They have to maintain the fiction that the people prefer to be subjects. If politicians aren't convinced that there will be a price for being liberals, they might get the idea that they can actually govern liberally.

This is why changing the media narratives and forcing Democrats to use liberal rhetoric and reject right wing framing is as important to the process as anything else. By perpetuating this default, conservative ideology, even as they are excoriated for being liberals (see: Obama campaign) they permanently tilt the playing field to the right, even in a liberal era or one in which the only pragmatic answers to difficult problems are liberal.

This problem isn't just a matter of good negotiating or putting pressure on politicians. Yes, these things are important. But in my opinion, unless we begin to change how this country defines itself, and how it projects its values, liberal policies are going to be impossible to implement to the extent that's necessary. Everything in our system is designed to prevent it.

Universal health care is something any decent, wealthy society shouldn't even have to think twice about. It's a global embarrassment that the United States, the chest thumping superpower, is even having this debate at this late date. It's equally embarrassing that we have put together a Frankenstein of a system because our democratic government is in league with wealthy interests which are exploiting its people. It's hard to believe that anyone would call that system liberal, much less socialist, but as you can see every day on Fox News, it's set off a tantrum among a vocal minority that would hardly be less hysterical if aliens from a foreign planet landed in Washington. (And that hysteria is also a tool of the permanent establishment, funded by big money, and used as a way of keeping the debate focused on the right, even if it's taking on an absurdist quality.)

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Neo-Nazis Protest Immigration in Phoenix, Get Out-shouted by Reasonable People Who Came to Protest Them
Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet on November 9, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

Arizona neo-Nazis got quite a surprise when they showed up in Phoenix Saturday to demonstrate against illegal immigration: they were outnumbered by people who came to demonstrate against them. According to the Arizona Free Republic, a sizable (and ethnically diverse) crowd made sure the neo-Nazis knew they weren’t welcome in the capitol.

Among the counter-protesters was Andy Hernandez, who said his intention was to peacefully disrupt a totalitarian ideology.

"We represent America," he said. "We didn't shut them down, but we gave them a counter protest. We just oppose what Nazi represents."

Phoenix police kept the two groups from exchanging anything more than insults, and the neo-Nazis disbanded after about an hour.

Many had disguised their faces and carried American flags. The goal for NSM's protest, according to one of the group's leaders, was to stand "in defense of America."

Apparently, they hadn't expected America to defend itself.

Lieberman Pledges To Filibuster Healthcare Bill, Says Public Option Is "Unnecessary"
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on November 9, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) about the House's historic passage of health care legislation last night. Lieberman said that as a "matter of conscience," he will join a Republican filibuster if a public option -- which has supposedly been put forward "by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance" -- is also included in the bill that goes before the Senate:

LIEBERMAN: A public option plan is unnecessary. It has been put forward, I'm convinced, by people who really want the government to take over all of health insurance. They’ve got a right to do that; I think that would be wrong.

But worse than that, we have a problem even greater than the health insurance problems, and that is a debt -- $12 trillion today, projected to be $21 trillion in 10 years.

WALLACE: So at this point, I take it, you’re a "no" vote in the Senate?

LIEBERMAN: If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote because I believe debt can break America and send us into a recession that's worse than the one we’re fighting our way out of today. I don’t want to do that to our children and grandchildren.

Watch it:

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Going Extreme: Demint Says Recruiting Electable Moderates "Doesn't Make Any Sense"
Posted by Jed Lewison, Daily Kos on November 8, 2009 at 6:26 AM.

More GOP civil war:

[NRSC Chairman John] Cornyn has gambled much on finding and promoting centrists able to win Senate seats in swing states and even some Democratic redoubts. And he’s decided to do so even though those candidates in at least four states — California, Florida, Kentucky and Connecticut — must first compete in and win expensive and potentially divisive primaries, mainly against more socially and fiscally conservative candidates.

...

"He’s trying to find candidates who can win. I’m trying to find people who can help me change the Senate," said Jim DeMint of South Carolina, a leader of the conservative bloc. "To think we can grow the party by picking people who are more liberal and don’t share our core values doesn’t make any sense."

As kos said earlier this week about the urge to purge amongst teabaggers:

Maybe they've stumbled upon a brilliant "addition by subtraction" political formula that allows them to win more races by kicking everyone out of their party.  But I still like our approach better. And in the end, we have the majorities to prove it worked.

Maybe they will. But so far, the only stumbling they've done has been over the first Democratic victory in NY-23 since the Civil War.

House of Representatives Passes Health-Care Reform Bill in Historic Vote
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 7, 2009 at 8:32 PM.

In an historic vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, a health-care reform bill containing a public health-insurance plan passed the chamber by a vote of 220-215. One Republican, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, voted with the Democrats, while 39 Democrats, including Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich, voted against H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act.

Both of the Democrats who won special elections last week, Bill Owens of New York's 23rd district, and John Garamendi of California's 10th voted for the bill.

As the time allotted for voting drew to a close, Democrats, shouting in unison, counted down the final seconds like it was New Year's Eve. Speaker Nancy Pelosi smiled broadly as she pounded the gavel and announced the result.

At a meeting with reporters following the bill's passage, Pelosi called up Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., son of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, the upper chamber's long-time champion of health-care reform. "My dad was a senator," Kennedy said, "but tonight his spirit was in the House."

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., also played an historically symbolic role in the vote, gaveling the start of the proceedings.  Like his father before him, who was also a congressman, Dingell has introduced a health-care reform bill every year of his 54-year career in the House, and gaveled to order the 1964 proceedings for the passage of Medicare.

The bill passed in the House includes a public health-insurance plan that is one of a number of plans -- the rest offered by private and non-profit insurers -- that consumers will be able to purchase on an insurance exchange, which has been described as a sort of shopping mall of insurance policies. Lower-income citizens will be eligible for federally-financed subsidies of premiums. All Americans will be required to carry a minimum level of health insurance or face a tax penalty. Individuals earning more than $500,000 annually, and couples who earn more than $1 million per year, will face an additional tax to help finance the health-care plan.

Included in the legislation are protections against exclusion from coverage for pre-existing conditions and a prohibition on rescissions that have seen people suddenly dropped from coverage because they failed to disclose a minor condition such as acne. Women will be protected from elimination of coverage for gender-specific conditions. Young adults will be able to remain on the parents' policies until their 27th birthdays, and several discriminatory practices against LGBT people will be prohibited.

(For more on what's in the bill and likely battles to arise in a conference committee, see 5 Key Fights We Face Against the Insurance Industry by AlterNet's Joshua Holland.)

It was a week of wrangling, arm-twisting and conservaDem-whispering for House leaders as they sought to put together the 218 votes necessary to pass the bill. Originally scheduled for Friday, the vote was put off for a day as House Whip James Clyburn and Pelosi's whip team worked members of the Democratic caucus to bring more on board. President Barack Obama consequently delayed a planned Friday visit to Capitol Hill for a meeting with Democrats about the bill, instead making the trek today in a bid to sway any stragglers.

Much of the slow-down came at the hands of Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who insisted that the bill was not strong enough in preventing the use of federal funds for abortion procedures, since the bill would permit a woman who bought private health insurance -- with her own money -- through a federally-administered insurance exchange to purchase a policy that covered abortion. With the backing of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Stupak and Joe Pitts, R-Penn., held up the bill, looking for a deal on language that would appease the church. (Both Stupak and Pitts belong to the secretive Capitol Hill religious group known as The Family.)

As of Friday night, Pelosi thought she had worked out a language compromise with the pro- and anti-choice forces, but before daybreak, the deal had fallen apart "because they can't count," Stupak said of Pelosi's negotiators during a press conference after the House vote.

Unable to deliver the compromise she thought she had forged, Pelosi allowed Stupak to bring his concerns to the floor in the form of an amendment, which passed with the votes of 64 Democrats. (More about the amendment from AlterNet here and RH Reality Check here.)

Part of Pelosi's calculus in allowing the Stupak amendment seems to be the unlikelihood that it will survive in the conference committee that will reconcile the House bill with whatever the Senate eventually passes and calls health-care reform. Certainly House Minority Leader John Boehner seemed to think so, as he made a point, during the general debate on the larger health-care bill of asking each of the committee chairmen who together crafted the Affordable Health Care Act whether they would commit to preserving the amendment when the bill is finalized in conference committee.

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Anti-Woman Amendment to Health Care Passes House
Posted by Adele Stan on November 7, 2009 at 7:47 PM.

After a spirited debate on the floor of the House of Representatives, the anti-choice amendment to the Democrats' health-care reform bill offered by Representatives Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and Joe Pitts, R-Penn., passed by a vote of 240-194, with one member, Rep. John Shaddegg, R-Ariz., voting "present." Both Stupak and Pitts are members of the secretive Capitol Hill religious group known as The Family.

The House will vote shortly on the Pelosi health-care reform bill, with the amendment attached. House leaders agreed to let Stupak offer the amendment after conservative Democrats balked at voting for a health-care bill that did not pass muster with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, despite the bill's provision barring public funds from being used to pay for abortions. In order to get to the 218 votes required to pass health-care reform, House leaders felt the need to provide cover for Democrats from conservative districts.

 MORE ABOUT THE STUPAK AMENDMENT HERE

House Takes Up-or-Down Vote on Stupak Amendment, Threatening Women's Rights
Posted by RH Reality Check, RH Reality Check on November 7, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

This post is from Jodi Jacobson's blog at RH Reality Check.

House Democratic leaders will allow an up-or-down vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which seeks to block even private insurance plans from funding abortion care.

In other words, this amendment, if passed and included in a final health reform bill, would block you from getting insurance to cover legal procedures in the United States of America, with premiums paid with your personal funds. Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Women's Law Center and other groups are calling for immediate action against the amendment, and you can click here to find your representative and tell them to vote no on Stupak.

The amendment, named for Representatives Bart Stupak, D-Mich, and Joe Pitts, R-Penn.  Stupak is a so-called "Democrat for Life;" Pitts has been a dogged supporter of failed abstinence-only policies, domestically and internationally, and was among those who succeeded in adding language forbidding the provision of contraceptive supplies for HIV-positive women in US global AIDS funding.

The agreement to vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment came after 1:00 am this morning when an effort to adopt compromise language crafted by Rep. Brad Ellsworth apparently was rejected by Stupak and his supporters.  We reported on the Ellsworth Amendment here.  Rejection of the Ellsworth Amendment makes clear the agenda of Stupak's amendment is to ban abortion care in private insurance plans, because Ellsworth provided numerous protections against the use of federal funds for abortions other than those for rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother, for all of which the law now allows federal funding.

The Hill reports that:

Liberals on the committee threatened to vote against the final healthcare bill if it included Stupak's language, warning that it would be a return to the days of back-alley abortions.

"I forsee a return to the dark ages," Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., told The Hill. "I'm 73, I've seen these dark things, they use these coat hangers and die."

"I used to think that life was black or white, but the older I get the most gray it becomes," liberal Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., told the panelists of the House Rules committee as they debated whether to allow the amendment. "I find this amendment very, very uncomfortable."

Having successfully made birth control "too controversial for health reform," Stupak, working with other "Dems for Life," the now unabashedly ultra-right Republican party and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops threatened to block passage of the health reform bill unless he got his way on the vote. His efforts are backed up by a massive organizing effort undertaken by the Catholic Bishops to mobilize ultra-conservative Catholics throughout the country. More than 85 percent of Catholics in the United States use birth control, and Catholic women have abortions at the same rate as women in the general population.

Women's rights advocates, including the speaker of the House and a majority of the Democratic caucus, support a provision in the health-care bill that would subsidize abortions for poor women who can't afford them, in keeping with current law.

"Rep. Stupak’s proposal to codify the Hyde amendment in health-care reform would force women who want comprehensive reproductive health-care coverage to purchase a separate, single-service rider," said Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In the statement, Richards explains:

Such an "abortion rider," whereby abortion care could only be covered by a single-service plan in the exchange, is discriminatory and illogical. Women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies or medically complicated pregnancies that require ending the pregnancy. In fact, about half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, and abortion is not something that women plan to insure against. As a result, an "abortion rider" policy is unworkable. Women would not choose to purchase it, and would subsequently be unable to obtain the care they need. Proposing a separate ‘abortion rider’ represents exactly the type of government interference in the health care marketplace that conservatives purport to vehemently oppose.

For these and other reasons, "Planned Parenthood strongly opposes the Stupak-Pitts amendment which would result in women losing health benefits they have today," said Richards in a statement released early this morning. The statement continues:

This amendment would violate the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all, by [instead] creating a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and modest incomes. Women won't stand for legislation that takes away their current benefits and leaves them worse off after health care reform than they are today.

While Rep. Stupak claims that his amendment simply applies the Hyde amendment to health reform, nothing could be farther from the truth

In fact, "the Stupak-Pitts amendment would result in a new restriction on women's access to abortion coverage in the private health insurance market," continued Richards, "undermining the ability of women to purchase private health plans that covers abortion, even if they pay for most of the premium with their own money."

On Friday, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said passing Stupak's legislation could jeopardize passage of the bill, because abortion-rights supporters were likely to vote against a bill that includes it.

BACKGROUND on STUPAK-PITTS AMENDMENT:

The Stupak-Pitts amendment would:

• Prohibit individuals who receive the affordability tax credits from purchasing a private insurance plan that covers abortion, despite the fact that a majority of health insurance plans currently cover abortion.
• Result in a de facto ban on private insurance companies providing abortion coverage in the health insurance exchange, since the vast majority of participants would receive affordability tax credits.
• Prohibit the public option from providing abortion care, despite the fact that it would be funded through private premium dollars.

The current compromise in the bill, the Capps Amendment, already strikes the right balance between pro-choice and anti-choice interests.

It stipulates that health plans cannot be mandated to cover abortion, but they can choose to.

• If a plan chooses to cover abortion, the compromise stipulates that no federal funds can go towards abortion, consistent with current federal policy.
• It ensures state laws regarding abortion coverage are not pre-empted, so if states want to pass further restrictions on abortion coverage, they can.  This a significant win for anti-choice organizations.
• Protects conscience rights of health care providers and facilities.

The following is a list of editorials in major newspapers that have opposed Stupak-Pitts and similar proposals:

An editorial in USA Today (11/2/09): “[The Stupak amendment] goes too far. It would mark a broad new expansion in the effort to restrict access to abortion. Nearly 90% of private health insurance policies now offer abortion coverage, and almost half of women with private insurance have it. But women covered under the new system would have to find supplemental insurance or pay out of pocket for an unanticipated procedure that can cost from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on complexity. For anyone unable to afford it, this would amount to a de facto ban.”

An editorial in the New York Times said (10/1/09):
“Conservative critics of pending reform bills want to prohibit the use of tax subsidies to buy any health insurance policy that covers abortion. Some want to require women to buy an extra insurance “rider” if they want abortion coverage, an unworkable approach given that almost no one expects to need an abortion, few women would buy the rider and, therefore, few insurance companies would even offer it.”

An editorial in the LA Times said (11/6/09):
“The real goal of abortion opponents isn't to maintain the status quo. It's to extend federal prohibitions into private pocketbooks. By restricting coverage offered through the exchange, they hope to make abortion coverage so unattractive that insurers eventually stop offering it in the market for individual and small-group policies.”

An editorial in The St. Petersburg Times said (11/5/09):
"Contrary to the claims of Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who has been leading the antiabortion effort, the Capps amendment would not expand federal funding for abortion. Instead it would establish some basic principles to reflect the current health insurance landscape in which nearly 90 percent of private plans offer abortion coverage."

Video: Tancredo Storms Off MSNBC Set, "Insulted" by Markos Moulitsas
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 7, 2009 at 3:24 PM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

In a raucus Friday-night segment on MSNBC's The Ed Show, Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, and former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo had at each other over Thursday's Capitol Hill rally against President Obama and the Democrats' health-care bill.

After a spirited back-and-forth over the offensive signs -- like the one snapped by Think Progress' Lee Fang that labeled as "National Socialist Heath Care" a photograph of a pile of corpses from the Dachau concentration camp, or the one captured by AlterNet that asked "KEN-YA TRUST OBAMA" -- and rhetoric from the Capitol steps, the topic came of the medical system administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. After Tancredo characterized the Democratic health care bill as "socialism", guest host David Shuster asked, "What about the V.A.? That's single payer."

Tancredo replied that veterans complain about problems with their V.A. care all the time, and saying that they'd rather have vouchers to use to pay for private health care. Moulitsas began to laugh, and Tancredo said, "Talk to the veterans; they talked to me, and that's what they said."

"Tom, I'm a veteran," Moutitsas replied. "I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight in the war I supported in Vietnam."

Tancredo was an ardent supporter of the Vietnam War, but when his student deferments ran out, he failed his physical, he said, when he told recruiters he had been treated for depression, according to the Denver Post.

"That's a cheap, rotten, stupid thing to say," Tancredo charged. With that, he demanded an apology from Moulitsas, saying he wasn't going sit there and let " you try to insult me that way." When Moultisas refused to apologize, Tancredo pulled out his earpiece and left the set. Guest host David Shuster, who opened the show with a passionate commentary about the rally and, especially, the Dachau sign, invited Tancredo to return to the show.

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

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The Ugly Politics of Mass Killings
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on November 7, 2009 at 2:13 PM.

FUNNY THING ABOUT RIGHT WINGERS

So far, I haven't heard anyone on the right saying that the authorities shouldn't charge Malik Nidal Hassan with a hate crime because doing so would be a totalitarian, Orwellian criminalization of a thoughtcrime. But surely they'll want to make that point firmly and decisively in the days to come ... right?

****

And I'm confused. Right-wingers (NewsBusters in particular) have told us for years that the "liberal media" doesn't like to acknowledge certain demographic information about certain suspects in horrible crimes ... but right now CNN is prominently highlighting a convenience-store surveillance video showing Hasan in a traditional Middle Eastern robe and skullcap (the story is headlined "Fort Hood Suspect Seemed 'Cool, Calm, Religious'"), while the front pages of Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post prominently feature stories that claim Nidal shouted "Allahu akbar!" before shooting (a claim made by Fort Hood's commanding officer in an interview on the allegedly arch-liberal NBC). How can this be? Where's the liberal cover-up? And if there's no cover-up, gosh, why isn't NewsBusters heaping these news outlets with praise?

(The same right-wingers, of course, went to great pains to make the case that James von Brunn, the man charged with shooting up the Holocaust Museum, was a liberal. But our side, naturally, is the guilty side.)

Palin Getting Paranoid? Alaska Quit-Bull Bans Laptops, Cell-Phones During Speech
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on November 7, 2009 at 11:05 AM.

CNN:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is set to deliver remarks at a Wisconsin Right to Life event Friday evening, one of the few speeches the former Republican presidential nominee will have given since she resigned the governorship last summer.

But Palin appears to be doing her best to keep a low profile on this trip: no press will be allowed into the Milwaukee auditorium where she will speak and those who have paid the $30 admittance fee are unable to carry in cell phones, cameras, laptops, or recording devices of any kind.

Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate told the Wisconsin Radio Network he finds all these restrictions "bizarre."

"You know, for someone who claims to be a rogue and isn't afraid of what other people think it really is sort of hypocritical to not let the media, the press cover your event."

Pat Boone Wants to Rid the White House of "Vermin"
Posted by David Neiwert, Orcinus on November 7, 2009 at 9:32 AM.

Well, we've known for some time that Pat Boone has gone wingnutty, but his latest column for the wingnutty WorldNetDaily is one of the most vile pieces of eliminationist rhetoric to come down the pike in awhile:

In time, it seems to happen to all older houses, no matter how well tended they may be.

All manner of parasites, vermin, roaches, rats, worms and termites find their way into the building. Long before they're detected, they infiltrate the walls, the floors, the roofs – and then chew their way into the structure, the supporting beams and the very foundation of the house itself. Silently, surreptitiously, whole communities of invaders make places for themselves, hidden but thriving, totally unknown by the homeowner.

Then, in time, tell-tale signs are seen. Little droppings, discolored trails, proliferating piles of residue appear in corners, on tabletops, little hanging sacs from ceilings – alarming evidence that the grand old dwelling has been invaded. Decidedly unwelcome creatures have made this place their home, and by their very existence will eventually destroy the house and bring it to ruin.

What can be done, when you learn that your house has already been invaded?

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