Obsidian Wings: Are there really two sides to the torture question? The WaPo declares itself unable to find the truth.

Balloon Juice: Stupid and Proud of It

The Reality-Based Community: There's been a lot of hand-wringing about the financial troubles of newspapers, but now it's quite obvious how reporters are handling the situation: they are just moonlighting for the insurance industry and the RNC. Nice work if you can get it.

Nameless Cynic: We're Communicating ll

Politics in the Zeros: Zero Hedge Whols. They don't want you to find them

HOLY CRAP: Oh ye hypocrites...GWB antichrist...Ugly Christian...No Gimmick Church...How Shall You Die?...Proof we're a 'Christian' nation...Hard-Wired for sin...Catholic Bishops assail health plan...Pious torturers...Followers of the Way... Atheists' Armageddon pet rescue...The last nail...

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Yesterday MSNBC's Contessa Brewer tackled the rantings of Pastor Steven Anderson down at his strip-mall church in Tempe, Arizona, and examined the common-sense connection between this kind of hate-filled rhetoric and the people bringing guns to events featuring President Obama, as well as the various acts of domestic terrorism and right-wing violence that have accompanied the rise in this kind of talk.

The segment featured Evan Kohlmann, an NBC terrorism analyst, who remarked:

Kohlmann: Yeah, it's amazing that this kind of rhetoric is allowed if you're a certain kind of person, if you're a patriotic American you can say whatever you want, no matter how far along the line it comes to inciting people to violence towards other innocent people. It's completely unjustified.

But but but but ... doesn't Kohlmann know there is no connection whatsoever between the people who fill crazy people's heads with crazy, provably false ideas and the violent and insane actions that follow? That's what you always hear from the right-wing pundits at Fox, at least.

Which is why you'll never see this subject discussed at Fox -- except, perhaps, in dismissive tones designed to make excuses whenever the violence does inevitably erupt.

Incertus: How anti-choice really equals forced pregnancy

The NonSequitur: The bold, feudal "moral imagination" of the Wall Street Journal on health care

Zaius Nation: Barack Obama's evil master plot revealed!

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Liberalism's favorite laboratory, and the costs of inaction.

distributorcap,ny: Dear Mr. Sponsor, about your ads in Glenn Beck's show...

Dana Milbank's Mouthpiece Theater was all Lance Mannion's fault

Guest post by Batocchio. Temporarily e-mail tips to batocchio9 AT yahoo DOT com

The Satirical Political Report: Why Sarah Palin's resignation is DEVASTATING to the GOP.  Naturally, on Independence Day, one day after she quit her job, this narcissist insisted that we pay attention to her on the internet.

Newshoggers: Where's my monkey wrench?

Seeing the Forest: It Was About The Oil

Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog: The Enemy Within? 

Raw Dawg Buffalo: united states of entertainment

onegoodmove: Buncha kewel links

Hopping on the summer trend of 2009 Aerosmith will be going on tour playing one of their classic albums from front to back -- 1975's Toys in the Attic. I'd rather see Get Your Wings or Rocks, but I ain't complainin'. ZZ Top opens, but there's no word on whether they'll be doing Tres Hombres or Eliminator.

Dates are here.

Blue Gal: Sex, class, and our debt to society

Clusterstock: Krugman: Yes, California is a crisis of democracy

The Reaction: If there is a divide in the Republican party -- which is to say, if there are two sides competing for control -- it is a soundly lop-sided affair

Obsidian Wings: Robert Samuelson's dishonest jihad against Social Security

D-Day: North Korea continues its Screaming Baby act

Unqualified Offerings: Sadly, No! is on a roll, and so is Roy

Obsidian Wings: Here are a series of excerpts concerning the use of torture. See if you can guess the speakers.

Attytood: Philadelphia Inquirer is defending the the indefensible.  They've hired John Yoo to do a monthly column.

Suicide Girls: This will be the first time we are going to have a justice picked by a non-asshole since the 90’s. Let's Go Gay

Matthew Yglesias: Richard Posner throws in the towel on the conservative movement

naked capitalism: Links!

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Big Bank ltd, thump and whip, Conceptual Guerilla, Night Bird's Fountain