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Keith and Eugene Robinson had the same reaction I did to watching members of Congress out there calling for something close to the overthrow of our government. I agree completely with Eugene Robinson—it was frankly appalling.

OLBERMANN: Good evening from New York.

An elected Republican official today is leading a protest on the west steps of the Capitol that compared health care reform to Nazi death camps and encouraged mindless harassment of and possibly violence against the government. Not tea baggers anymore, not demagogic commentators, an actual congresswoman inciting a hateful rebellion against the rule of law and order. Her name is Michele Bachmann.

Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN: As if that were not bad enough, Ms. Bachmann today joined by the House minority leader as well as countless other GOP representatives. This orgy of veiled threat and not so veiled racism of white power minority rule now fully the province of the Republican Party. Welcome to the coup!

Congressman Bachmann staging what she tried to claim was a spontaneous meet-up of opponents to health care reform, in 25 buses paid for by the AstroTurf group Americans for Prosperity, could be considered spontaneous. An estimated 4,000 people today answering Ms. Bachmann‘s call, bringing with them on those buses, not just their misunderstanding of health care reform but also their hatred of President Obama, as well as pure hatred, period.

Lee Fang of ThinkProgress.org taking these photographs of a sign that reads “National Socialist Health Care, Dachau, Germany, 1945,” superimposed over the horrific images of the corpses from Dachau. Other signs are slightly less shameful but many in no way related to health care.

Congresswoman Bachmann urging these people to rebel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BACHMANN: It was Thomas Jefferson who said—a revolution every now and then is a good thing. What do you think?

(CHEERING)

BACHMANN: You feel so good right now, and we, the members of Congress that are gathered on these steps for this press conference, are so honored that you are here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN: Press conference? The geniuses at the Republican study committee trying to rebrand today‘s event not as a protest, nor a rally, but as a press conference. Urging House staffers in an e-mail last night to please make sure your boss does not turn this event a rally.

Does any of this sound like press conference to you?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL BROUN, GEORGIA: Who will kill this bill? You will! You will! And we must. The Constitution of the United States starts with three very powerful words: “We, the people.” And we the people are speaking. Nancy Pelosi, listen.

Fellow patriots, go tell your congressman you‘re not going to eat this rotten stinking fish that is Pelosi health care! We are going to put a stop sign in front of her steamroller of socialism. Go to it, Patriots!

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Rachel talks to native South Carolinian Eugene Robinson about the sorry state of South Caronlina's education and health care systems in contrast to the attitudes of their politicians who are all opposed to health care reform.

MADDOW: We‘ve had that lot of reaction to our report last night about the appalling new data out of South Carolina that read like a statewide cry for health care reform.

Last night, we reported that South Carolina has among the country‘s worst women‘s reproductive health care. Rates of teen pregnancy, low birth weight infants, and infant mortality that are among the highest in the country. The rate at which young women in South Carolina received the important and effective HPV vaccine is also among the lowest in the country.

But wait, there‘s more—and it‘s all bad. The state has the fifth highest rate of obesity. It has the highest stroke death rate of all states in the country, and has maintained that distinction for five decades. It has the second highest death rate for oral cancer. The life expectancy in South Carolina is the third worst in the union.

If Governor Mark Sanford, for example, decided to move to Argentina permanently, he would be among people expected to live at least a year and a half longer than South Carolinians are—in Argentina.

Yes, South Carolina needs better health care. And to get it, it may need some civil servants who are slightly more interested in getting that for the state.

Governor Sanford, considered just a year ago a possible presidential contender in 2012, led the fight to turn down stimulus funding from the federal government, shunning federal unemployment benefits when South Carolina had the second highest rate of joblessness in the country. We should‘ve seen that as a symbol.

And that was all before he offered this fine moment in leadership.

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August 24, 2009

MSNBC's Take On Veterans Administration's "Death Book"

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FOX's Take On Veterans Administration's "Death Book"

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Well, at least he didn't advocate drowning her as he did Levi Johnston. This time Matthews and Robinson hit back at some of Pat's ridiculousness and the "militant" comment. Honestly, why is this old coot still on the air?

Buchanan: This is about Obama. The objective is to paint her as she really is, truthfully. It's just what I said, a "Militant-Liberal-Latina who...

Matthews: Militant.

Buchanan: Sure she...

Robinson: What's that, what's that word Militant. What is militant?

Matthews: What does it mean? I didn't see that anywhere in the record.

Apparently Pat wanted to make sure he got in all of his talking points from his recent column at the right wing Human Events: How to Handle Sonia. Comedy gold.

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Pat Buchanan wasn't content to only mention what he thought Todd Palin should do to Levi Johnston on Morning Joe, he just had to go repeat it on Hardball that same afternoon. Of course Matthews and Robinson just think this is hilarious as did most of the MSNBC staff that brought it up throughout the day.

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As President Obama was attempting to ease tensions in the Middle East with his speech in Cairo, Rush Limbaugh was busy saying the President had done a better job of destroying the country than al Qaeda. Eugene Robinson weighs in on whether Limbaugh has crossed a line, again, with what should be considered unacceptable political rhetoric. As Robinson notes, all Limbaugh cares about is enriching his bank account no matter what the consequences.

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Liz Cheney went on Morning Joe today and tried to defend her father's recent media appearances, in which he attacked the Obama administration's policies in the war on terror, and moreover his role in enacting the torture regime that he's now so vigorously defending as having saved "thousands of lives."

To which Eugene Robinson responded in the Washington Post:

The fallacy lies in the fact that it is impossible for Cheney to prove that anti-terrorism methods within the bounds of U.S. law and tradition would have failed to prevent new attacks. Nor, for that matter, can Cheney demonstrate that torture and other abuses were particularly effective.

Liz Cheney, of course, thinks that's all wrong: These "interrogation methods" kept us safe -- and that's all the justification they need. She thinks having the OLC write up an excuse as paper cover is justification enough, and said so to Robinson, after he compared their lawbreaking to a bank robbery:

Robinson: But look, efficacy isn't the only thing we should be talking about here. We should also be talking about legality. We should be talking about whether what was done was legal. If I rob a bank and get away with it, there's a lot of efficacy there, but it's not legal.

Cheney: Yeah, but that's not a fair comparison. That's not fair. Because this program was very responsibly and carefully done. And if you look at the history of it, with the CIA coming to the NSC and saying, 'We need to know what we can do legally.' And the very legal opinions that the administration has released are in fact the documents that set out in great detail, this is what you can do, and this is what you can't do. If you cross this line, it becomes illegal. If you cross this line, it becomes torture. It was very, very clear. So I think it does a real disservice to the people who ran the program to equate it with robbing a bank or with criminal activity. You have to look at the very specific and important legal restrictions that were put in place.

Robinson: I do not think that's the case. Torture is a war crime. It is a war crime.

Cheney: That's right. And this wasn't torture. Those legal memos demonstrated where the line was, and where it would become torture.

Robinson: Waterboarding was torture during the Spanish Inquisition, it was torture when Pol Pot did it, and I believe it was torture when we did it. But that --

It quickly devolves into crosstalk, and Cheney spends a lot of time filibustering with her talking points, but she never is able to effectively respond to Robinson's chief point: Legal paperwork is not adequate cover for committing torture, one of the most heinous of all crimes. As he points out at the end:

No, you don't have to make that choice. You don't have to choose to act in an illegal manner. You don't have to.

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Chris Matthews, Richard Wolffe and Eugene Robinson talk about Michael Steele's problem with trying to pull the GOP in a more moderate direction when the party clearly doesn't want to go there. Steele's having a bit or trouble even keeping his own message consistent.

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Keith talks to Eugene Robinson about CPAC and the hateful over the top rhetoric coming from the GOP these days.