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We've been saying for awhile that for a guy like Glenn Beck to try to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement for conservatives -- as he is clearly attempting to do with his August "Restoring Honor" rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial -- is nothing short of a travesty -- especially when you consider that he otherwise spends his time promoting the work of a Bircherite Mormon who was otherwise well known for smearing King as a Communist (a practice Beck himself is notably fond of applying to other black liberals like Van Jones) and attacking "progressives" as a "cancer", even though King himself not only was a self-described progressive, but even made speeches proclaiming Beck's great shibboleth, "Social Justice."

Last night, Al Sharpton went on the air with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown and made clear that Civil Rights leaders are indeed deeply offended by Beck's desecration:

OLBERMANN: Read that phrase again: “we will reclaim the civil rights moment. We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place.” To your knowledge, who‘s this we he‘s talking about?

SHARPTON: I have no idea. From my study of history, those that claim to be the Tea Partiers and the followers and supporters of Mr. Beck and Mrs. Palin were the ones that today advocate the things that that march was against.

First of all, that march was to appeal to government to intervene and protect the rights of people. They are against big government. I mean, you don't have to get to race. Their idea of government and the idea that Dr. King and Roy Wilkins of—and others espoused is the exact opposite of what they're calling for. Dr. King met with Caesar Chavez and talked about how we protect people, no matter who they are, that come into the borders, and have a sound policy. They're the ones that are rallying against that. So I think that they are absolutely, unequivocally—I don't even have to get to the race side of this. They are against the concept of what the march was about in '63. And for them to now talk about we're going to reclaim or we're going to take back a movement, that they are the philosophical children of the Barry Goldwaters, who opposed it—I think it would be laughable if it wasn't so arrogant.

OLBERMANN: Yeah. What do you think—is there an attempt in here to desecrate Dr. King's memory and what everybody stood for then? Or is this just a publicity stunt by some sort of a megalomaniac?

SHARPTON: Well, whether it's an attempt to do the desecration or whether it's a publicity stunt, it can desecrate. The fact of the matter is the march was 47 years ago. So people that are middle-aged and younger would not understand what it was about if we did not do our rally that we do every year. And Urban League, Marc Morial and others that have inherited those organizations, as I came out as a kid in the aftermath of Dr. King's death from his movement—that's not what the movement is about.

The movement is about what they talked about them. Martin Luther King talked about America giving blacks and poor people a bad check. These people are the ones that don‘t want to even give you an unemployment check today. He talked about us having a judicial system that was fair. These are the people that defend brutality.

So I think that it will be a classic case of they're trying to hijack something. But there will be some of us in Washington, at another location. We're not going to confront them. We're going to do what we always do, affirm the dream to try to complete it, because we're not there yet.

Sharpton says the way to counter Beck's rally is for thousands to turn out for his "Reclaiming Rally" in New York the same weekend. And he said he's not alone in being offended:

SHARPTON: It's going—certainly it's energized by this distortion. I've talked to Martin Luther King III. He's coming and others. A lot of us are offended by it. But we're not going to play into that. We're going to put a clean glass next to whatever they do, wherever they do it.

OLBERMANN: It's a fascinating point that you can subtract the entire element of race out of this, and they've still gotten it wrong, from what Martin Luther King said in 1963.

SHARPTON: And if we had another hour, I could bring the race part up. If you just use government and what Martin Luther King said—read the whole speech. It is the exact antithesis of what they represent and what they‘re saying in the Tea Party.

Glenn Beck, of course, has no shame. It's about time someone called him out for his bizarre and hypocritical hijacking of Martin Luther King's legacy.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, financial director for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, has been killed in Afghanistan.

MSNBC:

One senior U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity told NBC News that Saeed was killed in an attack by a missile-carrying drone aircraft.

Another official said that "in terms of counterterrorism this would be a big victory," describing Saeed as "the group's chief operating officer, with a hand in everything from finances to operational planning. He was also the organization's prime conduit to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. He was key to al-Qaida's command and control."

In a series of interviews with Al Jazeera last year, al-Yazid swore that Pakistani nuclear weapons would be used against the US and allied countries if they obtained access to them. (See video above)

More information here about Al-Yazid and his involvement in terrorist training and Afghanistan.

This kind of aggressive program is vital if we're going to stop terrorists from detonating nuclear bombs. Good to know it's a high priority with this administration, because it will make the entire world safer:

SANTIAGO, Chile - Deep inside the containment building of a nuclear reactor that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet built for his army, an aging engineer in a white lab coat struggled with a common house key to unlock a closet door.

Opening a dusty wooden box he pulled from a shelf, he revealed an array of thin aluminum-coated plates, and lifted one out with his bare hands.

"This is it," said Hugo Torres, the reactor's operations manager.

"It" is highly enriched uranium 235, HEU for short. It's the material that most worries anti-terrorism experts. Just 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of it in a nuclear bomb could devastate an entire city, in the same way the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

President Barack Obama's major shift in U.S. nuclear strategy puts a new emphasis on securing this kind of weapons-grade nuclear material, recognizing that terrorists and rogue states pose a much more immediate threat than the old fears of a communist nation provoking nuclear Armageddon by attacking the U.S. or its allies.

"For the first time, preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism is now at the top of America's nuclear agenda," Obama said before signing a new START treaty with Russia to sharply reduce the number of warheads each country has ready to fire.

Obama now hopes to enlist leaders of 47 other nations at a White House summit beginning Monday to help him keep an ambitious promise, made a year ago this week, to secure all the world's vulnerable nuclear material within four years.

[...] Chile was among the first to agree to surrender its last HEU, 18 kilograms (40 pounds) it got from Britain and France for its two research reactors. A team of Americans finally shipped it out last month just after the country's massive earthquake, weaving a convoy of trucks around shattered highways in the middle of the night to reach a functioning port.

There have been a number of right wingers who have been accused of plagiarism and lifting other's work in recent years. Most notably, Cindy McCain, Ann Coulter and Ben Domenech and more recently, Sarah Palin was caught lifting passages from Newt Gingrich. Now, an author has accused wingnut Elisabeth Hasselbeck of lifting her content "word for word" in her new book:

BOSTON – The author of a health book has sued Elisabeth Hasselbeck, accusing the co-host of ABC's "The View" of plagiarism.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Massachusetts, alleges that Hasselbeck lifted "word for word" content from a book written by Susan Hassett, a self-published author on Cape Cod.

Hassett said in the lawsuit that she sent Hasselbeck a personal note and copy of her "Living With Celiac Disease" book as a courtesy after the television celebrity disclosed she had the illness last year.

Wasn't that nice of Elisabeth? Hassett was kind enough to send her a copy of her book, only to find out that she lifted parts of it to write her own. Not only does she lift passages, Hassett claims that Hasselbeck's book contains bogus and possibly dangerous information:

Hassett said Hasselbeck's book "slavishly reproduces" lists and passages from her own work and includes inaccuracies about celiac disease that can be "misleading and dangerous" for people with the illness. Read on...

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Why exactly does George W. Bush think he has even a smidgen of credibility when discussing economic issues? Here's what he said yesterday:

"I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in," the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. "You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money."

Repeatedly in his hourlong speech and question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush said he would not directly criticize the new president, who has moved to take over financial institutions and several large corporations. Several times, however, he took direct aim at Obama policies as he defended his own during eight years in office.

"Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States," he said to huge cheers.

Brian Williams briefly mentioned it in his newscast yesterday, pointing out that it was actually Bush who signed the first bailout packages for the banks and auto and insurance industries. But that was really only the half of it.

Ed Shultz, on his MSNBC show yesterday, did an admirable job of tackling the rest of the matter:

What did he do? Attack the president of the United States and basically did what he does pretty well, which is rewrite history. Now Bush is babbling, trying to make sense out of the worst eight years this country has ever had since the Great Depression.

And if he‘s going to go out and do this, and I think we need to remind the American people, and I think we have an obligation to say this—Bush gave us what? Record deficits, record foreign debt, record trade deficits, butchering the middle class, letting the financial sector run wild with absolutely no oversight. Those are a just a few things—I don‘t have a whole hour to do this, but the American people are not stupid. Our new NBC News poll proves this. The American people do not blame Barack Obama for the fiscal condition of this country.

Here are the numbers. Fifty-three percent say that Bush and the congressional Republicans are to blame. Only six percent blame President Obama. Now, weeks ago, the president said he didn‘t want to second-guess the current president. That‘s exactly what he‘s doing. Bush is lying and he is setting the framework for the Republicans to make the case against President Obama at a very tough time. Gosh, how one speech can change people. It‘s almost like the state of the union address, the 16 words.

This is the last person that anybody in the Obama administration should pay attention to. Bush has no credibility. He has no authority. He has no clue what‘s going on. You see, he didn‘t stop with the economy. Brainless Bush went out and goes after, with a generic statement about health care reform. He really cared about that. He goes on to say, “There are a lot of way to remedy the situation without nationalizing health care.” He also said - “You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money.” I tell you what, just a couple of dandies out there on the rubber-chicken circuit.

This is a man who sat there for eight years—eight years—and did absolutely nothing when it comes to the number one issue in this country for families, which is health care. He told you to go out and get a private savings account. This is vintage Bush, appealing to the lowest common denominator when it comes to the problems we face as a country. I guess you could say that things haven‘t changed. They think we‘re stupid. But in the words of the former president, “Fool me once, you can‘t get fooled again, or whatever that was.”

Thanks, Ed. Somebody needed to say it. Too bad you seem to have been one of the few doing so.

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Violent rhetoric and the stalking of abortion clinics and the people who work there has gone way up since Dr. Tiller was murdered and people are getting very, very afraid. And the right wing zealots are actually wishing to buy Dr. Tiller's clinic to use as a rallying cry, I kid you not. These people have no shame.

Maddow: Mr. Troy Newman told “The Associated Press,” quote, “I would love to make an offer on that abortion clinic and some of the discussion that we are having.”

So, the official reaction of the super right-wing fringe to the assassination in its name, of its cause, is to make George Tiller‘s place of business a triumphant symbol for themselves, a symbol of their victory over the murdered doctor.

On Saturday, at the day George Tiller was buried, a man with ties to the radical anti-abortion group, the Army of God, threatened a voluntary escort at an abortion clinic in Allentown, Pennsylvania. This is according to a worker at the clinic.

This is a great segment by Maddow so I'll let her fill you in. I do believe law enforcement will step up to the plate, but please if you are being threatened--make sure the authorities know what's going on. And nothing is too small or too insignificant to report. Don't feel like you're "seeing things," if you feel threatened report it.

Transcript vi The Rachel Maddow Show:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You should all (BLEEP) dies, (BLEEP) bomb that place, (BLEEP) (INAUDIBLE) (BLEEP) kill you.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: That‘s the sound of domestic terrorism, a voicemail left on a Texas abortion clinic‘s voicemail last month. Given the events today in Washington, D.C., and in Wichita, Kansas, at Dr. George Tiller‘s church two Sundays ago, it is, of course, bone chilling. Its aim is to intimidate the doctors and nurses and clinic workers and the people who are legally seeking medical services amid strident, sometimes lethal, sometimes merely ghoulish intimidation.

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President Obama displayed this morning exactly why he won the confidence of voters last year:

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama forcefully defended his plans to close the Guantanamo detention camp Thursday and said some of the terror suspects held there would be brought to top-security prisons in the United States despite fierce opposition in Congress.

Obama spoke one day after the Senate voted resoundingly to deny him money to close the prison, and he decried "fear-mongering" that he said had led to such opposition.

He insisted the transfer would not endanger Americans and promised to work with lawmakers to develop a system for holding detainees who can't be tried and can't be turned loose from the Navy-run prison in Cuba.

"There are no neat or easy answers here," Obama said in a speech in which he pledged anew to clean up what he said was "quite simply a mess, a misguided experiment" at Guantanamo that he had inherited from the Bush administration.

Partial transcript here:

I stand here, today, as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to our shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their truths when I lived as a child in a foreign land. My own American journey was paved by generations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words – "to form a more perfect union." I have studied the Constitution as a student; I have taught it as a teacher; I have been bound by it as a lawyer and legislator. I took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as Commander-in-Chief. And as a citizen, I know that we must never – ever – turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake.

I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset – in war and peace; in times of ease and in eras of upheaval.

Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.

It is the reason why enemy soldiers have surrendered to us in battle, knowing they’d receive better treatment from America’s armed forces than from their own government.

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Republicans have been all over the teevee telling us what a swell place that Guantanamo Bay can be. Club Gitmo! And if we close it down, we'll be getting terrorists in our neighborhoods!

So of course, Senate Democrats quickly caved on funding the prison's closure:

WASHINGTON - In a major rebuke to President Barack Obama, the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States and denied the administration the millions it sought to close the prison.

The 90-6 Senate vote — paired with similar House action last week — was a clear sign to Obama that he faces a tough fight getting the Democratic-controlled Congress to agree with his plans to shut down the detention center and move the 240 detainees.

But listen to the Republican arguments and you just have to scratch your head.

There was John Ensign saying the health care was better than most Americans get. Then Sen. James Ihofe of Oklahoma went on Fox yesterday with Neil Cavuto and declared that "there's no place like it, the treatment is good."

But Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby really took the cake this morning on with Joe Scarborough on MSNBC:

Shelby: The Democrats saw the vote coming, should have, and saw that nobody in America wants a terrorist in their neighborhood. That's the bottom line.

Scarborough: Well, the Democrats were so sure six months ago they were going to shut down Gitmo. What happened?

Shelby: Well, they might shut it down. But I don't know why they would want to shut it down and bring terrorists into the United States of America, even into some of our neighborhoods, if they deem them not to be terrorists anymore. That's a dangerous road to go down, Joe.

Evidently, Shelby doesn't believe that when it turns out that some of these suspects are innocent that we should permit them to go free.

And, as Glenn Greenwald says,: "Is there anything the right wing isn't afraid of these days?" (His column on this is a must-read, as always.)

Moreover, Republicans (including Cavuto) are claiming that no one in the USA wants the prisoners. But that's not true. Already, folks in Hardin, Montana, are lining up:

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