Via Huffington Post, the latest from Bart Stupak, clearly under the loving spiritual guidance of his C Street family:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is warning fellow Democrats not to mess with his restrictive anti-abortion amendment.

Pro-choice outrage was sparked by the inclusion of a provision in the House health care bill making it harder for private insurers to cover abortion. President Obama himself suggested that the language disrupted the status quo and should be taken out of the final legislation. Abortion rights supporters in Congress requested a meeting with the president next week to discuss the issue.

Now Stupak is saying he won't go easily.

"We won because [the Democrats] need us," Stupak said. "If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don't say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won't vote with them the next time they need us -- and that could be the final version of this bill."

From an email by ChangeCongress:

We've got great news to report about our campaign shaming Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) for taking $700,000 from the defense industry and Chamber of Commerce and then siding with them against rape victims and his constituents. Thousands of people have signed our national expression of outrage and told their friends to sign -- and the national and local media are reporting on our campaign!

We need to keep the momentum up. Can you check out our petition and sign today?

From the National Journal:

Reform group Change Congress launched a campaign yesterday to shame Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., for voting against legislation that would help ensure victims of rape have the right to bring their case to court. The government reform group hit cyberspace with an email asking people to sign a 'national expression of outrage.' Citing $700,000 in campaign contributions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the defense industry, Change Congress accused Burr of putting special interests before rape victims.

The more signatures we get, the more the media will report on his campaign. We need to keep publicly shaming these politicians one by one until Congress realizes it's time to replace special-interest-funded elections with citizen-funded elections.

Until they do, Americans will continue to ask: Did you vote that way because it made good sense, or because it raised special-interest campaign dollars?

And here we have another nut job Republican who claims health care reform will destroy America. Where's the outrage by the Villagers over these statements?
Media Matters:

It's an impressive feat, but there may not be a Republican member of Congress who has been more openly scornful of President Obama's plans for health care reform than Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA).

In July, Broun declared that the public insurance option "is gonna kill people." Later in the month, he argued that "ObamaCare" would "give every single one of those illegal aliens health insurance." At a town hall meeting in September, Broun literally walked away from a constituent who couldn't get health coverage after telling him, "If you have a suggestion, send it to me." And, just a few weeks ago, he introduced "alternative" legislation that would eliminate Medicare altogether.

Yesterday, Broun escalated his attacks on the Democratic reform bill, saying that its passage "destroy America as we know it today."

Right -- if a liberal like Grayson calls out Republicans (who have no health care plan), they get their freak on. But I guess they have already been immunized to conservative insanity.

Oh, and we have Rep. Gohmert saying this: Dems Would Allow Seniors To "Die Off More Quickly"

This is standard conservative behavior that never gets mentioned by the media. It only comes up when a liberal is attacked and then they spend 24-48 hours to defend themselves and are forced to use these outrageous statement made by Republicans. And of course they have no traction, because of the defensive position the media puts liberals in.

Linda R. Monk, J.D.: Let Us Now Praise Uppity Women (h/t Where’s the Outrage?)

The Plum Line: Harry Reid calls GOP's transparency bluff: Is your health care bill a secret, or merely non-existent?

AMERICAblog News: Top McCain campaign advisor running out of insurance. He has a "pre-existing condition."

Apoliticus: Top 5 annoying talents of President Obama

Bill in Exile (not work safe) : New York Twenty Three

Family and Friends blog: Our Achilles Heel

OurFuture: "Anything Goes" capitalism destroys companies and workers' lives

Capital Eye: Aides, lobbyists and contributors among those left in the wake of John Ensign's ethics scandal

Lean Left: Don't know much about history, biology, science books, the French I took...or art. But I do know that I'm a right wing moron.

Where’s the Outrage?: Dr. Errington Thompson says..."Keith, thanks for letting America see the world I work in every day."

TAPPED: Congress' torture coverup

Welcome Back to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week: Nattering nabobs of negativism edition

The Edge of the American West: Conservatives are outraged over an actual outrage? Color me impressed

t r u t h o u t: Why haven't any Wall Street tycoons been sent to the slammer?

St. Louis Pushes Back: Why Jimmy Carter was right: Popular wingnut blogger links to race-baiting video from white supremacist, anti-Semitic group

Where’s the Outrage?: Speaking with real patients about real end-of-life issues is incredibly difficult.

The Roger Ailes we like

43-Ideas-Per-Minute: Far right's favorite prostitute

Dr. Dean overcomes his natural shyness to share his thoughts on the Baucus bill and lobbies for using reconciliation to pass it:

Howard Dean, former Democratic National Committee chairman, minced no words about Sen. Max Baucus's health-care proposal, unveiled to the public this morning. "The Baucus bill is the worst piece of healthcare legislation I've seen in 30 years," Dean said last night at a healthcare town hall and book signing in Washington. "In fact, it's a $60 billion giveaway to the health insurance industry every year," he said. "It was written by healthcare lobbyists, so that's not a surprise. It's an outrage."

The Baucus bill leaves out some of the president's goals for healthcare reform, such as the controversial public option. While more palatable to Senate moderates, the Baucus proposal also drew criticism from Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia, who said yesterday he would not vote for it in its current form.

"I'm glad Senator Rockefeller is not going to vote for it. I wouldn't vote for it at all under any circumstances," Dean added.

Instead, Dean said Senate Democrats should and would end up using the reconciliation process to pass a plan with the public option. "It can be done, and that's how it will be done," Dean said, pointing out that a majority of Senate Democrats still support a more robust bill.

David Gregory paints this phony outrage as a firestorm, but Friedman has to correct him. Even Tom Brokaw was stunned at the ignorance and stupidity of the right wingers going ballistic over President Obama's speech to our school kids.

Meet the Press:

MR. GREGORY: We brought it up with David Axelrod. Well, this has created such a firestorm. Here's the New Canaan Public Schools, writing a parent letter, and in it they say this. "In developing their plans our principals have considered issues such as developmental appropriateness, curricular relevance, the time at which the speech is being broadcast and the importance of teachers assuming responsibility for the selection of instructional materials. In elementary schools the administration and faculty will view the speech, download it and after discussing it, make decisions regarding how it might be used in the future--including deciding its appropriateness for various grade levels. Parents will be notified, if and when, the decision to show the speech is made." Tom Brokaw, talk about tortured language. What's going on here?

MR. FRIEDMAN: Signs of the apocalypse. I mean, really.

MR. BROKAW: It's stunning to me. I come from a time and a place in America where it would be thrilling to have a president of the United States address your school about the importance of studying and staying in school. And this president, whatever else you think about his political philosophy, is a symbol of working hard, coming from difficult circumstances and getting to where he is in part because of education. I think it's so ripe for satire, it's unbelievable. The superintendent of the Gettysburg Public School System said today that they have devised a plan for students to be shielded from a President Abraham Lincoln who will be coming to make an address. Look, that is the most tortured thing I can possibly imagine, what we just read there. It sounds like East Germany trying to form some restrictions on people leaving the eastern sector to go into the western sector. I think it's perfectly appropriate for parents to say, "I don't want my child to hear that. I would rather keep them out or put them in a different school that day." But this is completely out of control, in my judgment. And it's not--it's not partisan. I mean, if--when I was a student or when my children were in school...

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. BROKAW: ...if it had been Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan or George Bush, the idea of hearing a president of the United States saying we should study hard and that's how we advance and we all need to get in on, on this, I think is an appropriate message.

MR. GREGORY: Mayor Giuliani, you ran for president and one of the things that I've noticed in my experience covering a Republican president,George W. Bush, is the lack of respect for the institution of the presidency. Whether it's people saying during Bush's time, "Hey, he's not my president." Well, no, yes, he is. Does that trouble you?

MR. GIULIANI: Yes, it does, and Tom is right. But the difference is we looked at President Eisenhower or President Reagan, even up to about that point, even President Bush 41 differently. There's a lack of respect for the president, there's a lack of respect for politicians. And David Axelrod said, "Well, this isn't politics." Everything the president does nowadays is politics, for better or worse. And I think that's what you're seeing. You're seeing people distrust the president's motives or the administration's motives. It's not just about the speech, it's about the lesson plan. I think it's unfortunate and I think, you know, what's the--it almost seems a shame to say what's the harm in a president speaking to a group of children.

FMR. REP. FORD: I wish when I was in fourth...

MR. GIULIANI: I think, I think the president should be given the opportunity to do it.

MR. FRIEDMAN: But David, you know, you said, it's a firestorm. And we live in the age of firestorms. You know, today, or this week, it's the president speaking in school. What it needs is for people to stand up and say that's flat out stupid, OK? That's flat out stupid what you're talking about. The president of the United States, addressing schoolchildren in this country to study hard, work hard because that's the way you advance in today's global economy. And instead of that, we kind of dance around it, you know. It's flat out stupid.

Wow, Friedman said something I can get behind here. "Signs of the apocalypse." That's how their reaction is to everything done by the president. Why didn't Gregory call it stupid too? Rudy couldn't even defend their actions. That's saying a lot when the only thing he can come up with is that it's all politics now. How does that make it OK? When will the media start acting like the f*&king media? They can't even do it for something as absurd as this.

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Eric Boehlert at Media Matters wonders if Glenn Beck has forgotten that the entire reason he is in hot water with advertisers revolves around the fact that he called the President of the United States a "racist" and someone who has "a deep-seated hatred of white people".

Because, you know, in all of his lashing out this week and last at his critics, he has yet to address this central point. Certainly he has not apologized for it. In fact, he's acting as though he never actually said it. As Boehlert puts it:

I ask because watch this clip below of Beck on Bill O'Reilly's show this week and watch as the two men bemoan the attempts by nasty liberals "loons" to shut Beck up; to snatch away his Freedom of Speech.

What's rather astonishing is that while Beck and O'Reilly clearly make (indirect) references to the ad boycott campaign, they never explain to viewers what sparked the outrage. They never explain why. They never explain the campaign was launched in direct response to the fact that Beck went on national television and called the President of the United State a "racist"; somebody who flashed a "deep-seated hatred of white people."

At Fox News, that smear has been flushed down the memory hole, and all that's left is playing victim.

Ah, but here's the one thing: If you've been watching Beck this week on his program, he's been imploring his audience to record it -- write it all down, even -- because it's the Most Important Stuff They'll Ever Watch on the Teevee.

That's because, if you watch what he's been doing so far, what seems to be emerging is that he is basically building a case justifying his declaration that Obama is a racist who hates white people.

This became crystal-clear midway through his Fox News program Thursday night, during a segment featuring ex-Democrat now complete loser Patrick Caddell and the ever-vivacious Michelle Malkin to heartily agree with whatever craziness came burbling out of his mouth.

They were all gathered to talk about the "army" of "thugs" that President Obama is planning to gather under the combined umbrellas of ACORN, SEIU, Color of Change and whatever other insidious "radicals" Beck believes he's uncovered.

And what does this "army" of "thugs" look like?

Why, they're all black people, of course.

Watch the segment and observe the examples he offers of the kinds of "thugs" he says Obama intends to incorporate into his army: some gun-toting Black Panthers, a shot from a Louis Farrakhan sermon before a Nation of Islam gathering, and a group of young black men doing military-style exercises.

This, as he explained earlier in the show, will be "Obama's SS."

So we now can see the arc of Beck's thesis this week: He was right to call President Obama an anti-white racist because he is this very moment forming an army of militant black thugs to take over your white neighborhoods and threaten your children and impose a liberal fascist state.

Or something like that.

You do have to wonder when the honchos at Fox will realize that Glenn Beck may bring in the ratings, but he is inflicting a deep scar on their brand name that will be a long time fading.

Dusty Trice: Bringin' the wacko daily...Michele Bachman predicting Nazis. "Current administration more in line with the Weimar Republic." And this store-bought stooge can't even lie right!

Stinque: Pennsylvania GOP leadership turns to robbing funeral home burial accounts

No More Mister Nice Blog: No, wait...I know this one. The answer to " who does Joe Klein think is the Crazy Left?" Glenn Greenwald for fifty points

Prometheus 6: They're running out of black conservatives

Where’s the Outrage?: Interview with McJoan of the Daily Kos

HOLY CRAP: Warriors for Christ...God Calling...Texas bible scholars...Ayatollah Kit Bond...The kindness of God...Repent...Diseases caused by sin...Liberal Jesus...Are you there, God?...Idaho says no...Lutherans to allow gay pastors...Holy-War Fever...

Michael Steele and his peeps at the RNC were being deluged with calls from the DNC ad over the angry mobs they are sending to disrupt the health care town halls so they did what every conservative hatchet man would do. They re-routed the calls...

"The DNC released a Web video early in the morning accusing the GOP of inciting mob activity at town hall meetings. At the end of the video, the DNC instructs people to call the Republican National Committee to express outrage. Callers who dial the RNC's main number to voice their concern about the DNC's charges are told to press 1, which sends them to the DNC's main switchboard."

This is a Karl Rove move for sure. I think this is going to ignite a very dirty war between the two groups.

The RNC redirected these calls from its main switchboard over to the DNC’s switchboard — a response, said Steele, to the White House arrogantly blaming regular Americans “like my mother, like my sister” for the health care impasse.

“I thought it was a good idea,” Steele said. “Don’t sit there and think you’re going to direct a bunch of angry liberals to call the RNC when I know full well what that’s all about. I get the joke. My response was, talk to your own party, because they’re the ones ginning this up.”

Most of America is upset by our health care system, but the right is bent on destroying reform, so they are astroturfing the town halls.

HCAN has some tips on how to combat these Zombie Plumbers if you got to an event. And don't forget to send me a video of your experience.
HCAN

We are closer to passing health care reform than we've ever been in the history of this country, and the opposition knows it. The small, lobbyist-funded right-wing is trying to scare Members of Congress and the American public away from supporting health care reform. We can't let fear win - America has been at the mercy of the insurance industry from too long. We need health care reform now, and we can't wait any longer.

You can help fight back against these right-wing disrupters. Follow the steps below to attend events in your area and get trained on how to deal with disruptions, intimidation, and name-calling at the events...read on

Here's the RNC number 202-863-8500. Please call early and often.
DKos diary has more:

H/T to teaharper below for pointing me to this comment from PSax in a related diary:

I did what I normally never do, and called the RNC number. They're pretty tricky at the RNC - there's an option to respond to the DNC ad, which routes you back to the DNC. Very slick. So I got in touch with the DNC, and they said to make sure I press OPTION 2 (this goes for you too, if you plan to call). So, I called the RNC back, pressed option 2, and actually got an operator. Sounded like they were being bombarded over there. I said, "I'm calling in response to the DNC ad. I agree with it 100%, and wish the Republicans in Congress and on the streets would engage in actual debate about health care and not resort to mob tactics." The operator's reply was a very curt, "That would be great if we were responsible for it, but we're not," and then she hung up on me.

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It appears to be dawning on Glenn Beck -- what with yet another of his heavily armed fans now under arrest for casing out an Air National Guard base because she feared it was a FEMA concentration camp -- that some of the outrage he's so busily manufacturing on the air nightly might just boil over into violence again.

Yesterday on his Fox News show, he reviewed the tape coming in from the hooligans taking over the town-hall forums meant to discuss health care, disrupting them with tactics specifically intended to destroy any meaningful discussion, and was obviously pleased at the handiwork of his fellow tea-baggers. Indeed, it's unmistakable to everyone (even Beck, evidently) that there's an increasingly ugly undertone that forebodes violence. And if that happens, well, some of the blame might fall in his direction if it does.

So he took out a little insurance yesterday, imploring his increasingly angry audience not to resort to violence if they don't get their way politically:

Beck: The best thing that you can do right now is to let Congress know that you are watching them like a hawk. You show up. You let them feel your burning gaze on them at all times.

But here's the thing that I -- I'm concerned about: Your interaction with them needs to be respectful, polite, forceful, and peaceful.

I've been warning Congress now for a couple of years, and the time has come and passed for them to be able to learn from this. I've been telling them, you have to listen to the people, or they'll be in real big trouble.

Well now, let me give the warning to you: If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the Republic. I feel it with everything in me. There is a great reason for hope right now. Because, I am telling you, for the first time -- since I started saying this in the last couple of years -- for the first time I know it, I feel it, the American people are starting to wake up.

These people in Washington have no idea what they have done. They have wakened a sleeping giant. But just one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for, because these people in Washington won't pass up the use of an emergency.

Look how the media ran with the abortion-doctor killing. They tried to pin that despicable act on Fox in general and specifically, Bill O'Reilly and me! The only thing either of us have ever said is there's no reason for that, ever.

Sorry, Glenn, but that isn't the only thing either of you have ever said. O'Reilly also happened to refer to Dr. Tiller as a "baby killer" nearly thirty times, and accused him of mass murder as well as running "an abortion mill" where he had "aborted 60,000 fetuses." He even mused aloud about someone taking him out.

Sure, you can add a disclaimer at the end telling people never to commit violence. But coming at the tail end of an endless litany of incendiary demonization, that's pretty weak tea as lame excuses go.

Likewise, there are the many incendiary things you've said just in recent weeks: calling President Obama a racist, a fascist, and a socialist; repeatedly telling your audience for three weeks running that you "couldn't debunk" the FEMA concentration-camp theories (followed by a single episode in which you did in fact debunk them); agreeing with your guest that the only hope for America is another major terrorist attack; and helping promote secession.

Continue reading »

Here's a sample of the "Don't you know who I am" syndrome from a FOX News anchor via CityFile:

Martha MacCallum may look like just another cutesy blonde anchor on Fox News. But it seems she has a darker side, too. A tipster tells us MacCallum threw quite the tantrum yesterday at a parking garage around the corner from the studios of Fox News when she turned up with her daughter in tow and her BMW wasn't waiting for her with the keys in the ignition. The outrage!

Infuriated that someone of her importance wasn't being treated with the the respect normally given to a B-list cable news anchors, our tipster heard her shout at the attendant, "Do you know who I am? Do you have any clue? I'm on Fox News!" MacCallum dressed down the garage employee for a several more minutes as her teenage daughter—who looked a bit nonplussed about the meltdown—stood by.

I'm shocked that she didn't hold her breath and turn blue. Being on FOX News entitles you to treat people the way you would like to be treated. Actually she did just that in her own twisted way because FOX treats liberals as if we're trash.

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OFF THE BEATEN PATH: WTF Is It Now?!?, Culture choc, Mental Detritus, Where's The Outrage?

Balloon Juice: From the sh*t you already knew department.  Who knows, someone in authority may even be moved to uphold the law!

field negro: Another unabashed Republican racist

DownWithTyranny! Confidential to banksters...

PoliGazette: Obama strikes the right tone on Africa

Informed Comment: Afghanistan/Pakistan death and displaced persons update

BAGnewsNotes: Because Chris Hondros, having made twelve trips to Iraq in covering the war, is one of America's most respected and highly praised photojournalists, BNN is pleased to offer this review of "The Hurt Locker."