Miller-McCune: Academics link violent rhetoric with violent acts

Corrente: What is money?

Cogitamus: Libertarians Aren't

The Pump Handle: Worth Reading: Highways, Ending Poverty, and the Dangers of Sitting

Shakesville:: Today in Jackasses

Angry Bear: Opinions on Arithmetic Differ: Both Sides Have a Number

TBogg: Paranoid Anger Bear Andrew Breitbart's hatred extends to more than just negroes. Update: Maybe they grew a pair

onegoodmove: Links with your coffee...

Its my Right to be Left of the Center: Grayson: May God have mercy on your souls

Circle Jerk at the Square Dance: What new words are we creating in our political tweets?

Class Acts: The Prohibition Blues

HOLY CRAP: Changing the script...Scientology's new enemy...GOP Reps align with Muslim nations...Believer Beware at TBN...10 things Christians and Atheists can and must agree on...Breitbart to repackage "Birth of A Nation" as Obama documentary...Just Crap...Racial tolerance...Cheap Grace...Sectarian Supremacism...Holy Images

Alan Grayson really lets this Young Americans For Freedom twerp have it on a CNN interview hosted by Rick Sanchez:

SANCHEZ: Well this is what a lot of the Democratic congressmen, folks like Alan Grayson, says proves that the Republican Party is not only in line with the tea party movement but has actually created the heated rhetoric that has caused some of those acts of incivility that we have seen. How would you respond to that?

MARKS: Well, I would hate to believe that Chairman Steele, an African-American, would go and be one of the people to incite these, you know, the responses and really the disgusting behavior of a few individuals. I don't think he --

SANCHEZ: Wait a minute. Are you saying that because Chairman Steele is an African-American he's incapable of using heated rhetoric that may cause someone to become or say something racist?

MARKS: Well, I don't think he was calling for people to have racist response.

SANCHEZ: Well, I'm not talking about Chairman Steele. I'm not talking about Chairman Steele.

MARKS: OK.

SANCHEZ: I am talking about the congressmen who were outside. And I don't know, do we have that picture? We don't have that. All right.

MARKS: I mean, are you going to judge the entire Democratic Party by a few people that hold up Nazi symbols at their rallies? I don't think -- I think this is a double standard that we're seeing here.

(CROSSTALK)

GRAYSON: That's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous.

MARKS: And to say it's because of the ideology to point to the ideology, this is the actual prejudice that conservatives face on college campuses --

GRAYSON: Oh, how sad.

MARKS: -- in the nation to say automatically anything that you say is going to be considered racist.

SANCHEZ: No, no, we weren't saying that. I wasn't. But let me just ask you --

MARKS: Well, I think Congressman Grayson was.

SANCHEZ: What Democratic congressman has held up a swastika?

GRAYSON: It's never happened. He's lying. Stop lying.

MARKS: I never said the congressman held up a swastika. But what Republican congressman did you see holding swastikas. And wasn't it a Democrat Senator Byrd that was a member of the KKK? Are you going to hold the entire party accountable because of that?

SANCHEZ: Senator -- I mean, Congressman Grayson?

GRAYSON: Well, that's premature. But listen, we have now reached the point of absurdity. OK. The right has fomented a national nervous breakdown. They keep pushing the panic button on their followers over and over and over again, trying to get them stoked on hatred and on fear. And they've succeeded. They've succeed in driving these people to the point where they're threatening my 5- year-old son.

Now why don't you just say you're sorry? That's what you ought to be saying, I'm sorry. Don't try to push it off on the Democrats. Say you're sorry. Apologize to my 5-year-old.

MARKS: Tea party should not be accepting responsibility for this. The Republican Party should not be accepting responsibility for this.

GRAYSON: Well, look --

MARKS: The Democratic Party should not be accepting responsibility for this. Individuals need to accept responsibility. When you -- when you --

GRAYSON: You're not accepting responsibility.

MARKS: When you said that the health care bill is similar to a holocaust, they didn't hold the Democratic Party responsible.

GRAYSON: You were in that crowd. You were cheering.

MARKS: You went ahead and apologized for your individual remarks. Am I wrong? Did you apologize for saying that this health care bill is going to cause, if it's not passed it's going to cause a holocaust? And you apologized for it, is that right?

(CROSSTALK)

GRAYSON: You know, listen, people like you -- people like you -- and it's very apt that your name is Marks -- people like you, your dreams turn into other people's nightmares. And it's time you owned up to it.

MARKS: We as conservatives believe we have winning principles and we stick by these principles. Small government.

GRAYSON: Your principles are violence.

MARKS: I don't think anyone and my principles are --

GRAYSON: Anger, hatred and violence.

Continue reading »

Toby "I love a good lynching" Keith:

Even though the black society would pull for him I still think that they think in the back of their mind that the only reason [Barack Obama] is in [the general election] is because he talks, acts and carries himself as a Caucasian."

Why is it that only idiots that defile the national dialogue are the ones being given a platform?

More Buffy:

"You see, the werewolf is such an . . . extreme representation of our inborn animalistic traits that it emerges for three consecutive nights -- the full moon and the 2 nights surrounding it."
"Quite the party animal."
"Quite. . . It acts on pure instinct. No conscience. Predatory and aggressive."
"In other words, a typical male."
"On behalf of my gender -- hey!"
"Yes, let's not jump to conclusions."
"I didn't jump. I took a tiny step and there conclusions were." -- Giles, Willow, Buffy and Xander

One last (?) swipe at the ABC debate from MediaBloodhound, with the "untelevised portion" transcript:

GIBSON: But how wasted were you the first time you heard "I Am the Walrus," Senator [Obama], and did your psychotic drug binge -- which may have caused you to black out for days on end while committing unspeakable acts you don't remember -- add or subtract from your listening pleasure?

OBAMA: Again, Charlie, I'm not sure how this helps get Americans health insurance, brings home our troops, or fixes the economy.

GIBSON: I'll take your response as an admission that pot and acid do, in fact, make this song better....

STEPHANOPOULOS: So [Senator Clinton,] you admit there was no gunfire that day you landed in Bosnia?

CLINTON: Well, you know, George, I've already conceded that I misspoke on that issue....

(STEPHANOPOULOS brandishes a revolver and fires a few feet above Sen. Clinton's head.)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you would've remembered that, right?

Open Thread below....

"The Eliot Spitzer Story" goes Bollywood, Act III: the musical finale, dancing with Barbara Boxer at the DNC Superdelegate Floorshow in Denver. Acts One and Two are here. Open Thread Below.

Think Progress:

In its Action Update today, the Family Research Council (FRC) partially cast blame for the tragic shooting at a megachurch in Colorado yesterday on “the secular media.” In the e-mail, which was sent under the name of FRC Action President Tony Perkins, the group says it’s “hard not to draw a line between” the shooting and “hostility” by “some in the secular media toward Christians”:

It is hard not to draw a line between the hostility that is being fomented in our culture from some in the secular media toward Christians and evangelicals in particular and the acts of violence that took place in Colorado yesterday. But I will say no more for now other than that our friends at New Life Church and YWAM are in our thoughts and prayers.

When Perkins can't explain why this sick young man turned against his church and why God spared some people, but allowed others to be slaughtered, he sloughs it off on "evil secularists." Tony, do you think that the fact this kid was kicked out of the missionary school he shot up had anything to do with it? Isn't it possible that this rejection may have driven him to seek revenge? The secular media didn't reject this young man, nor did it give him access to the gun. Mr. Perkins, you might want to look at the real root causes of this tragedy rather than blaming secularists.

Yup, another one. I've run out of words. This guy wasn't some volunteer or donor to the Republican Party, he was the aide to the Republican Chair of Orange County, CA and worked for Republican Rep. Dana Roherbacher. Wonkette has more background on the case.

h/t and more from The Raw Story:

A former GOP congressional aide has pleaded guilty to molesting two male teens, including the 13-year-old son of a family with whom the staffer lived while working on Capitol Hill.

37-year-old Jeffrey Ray Nielsen, who has worked previously for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), as well the Republican chair of California's Orange County, agreed to two felony counts of lewd acts upon a child, reports the Associated Press. A jury had deadlocked at an earlier trial this year -- in which Nielsen was accused of engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old boy he met on the internet -- and prosecutors were prepared to bring additional charges in a retrial.

The plea deal is expected to bring a sentence of three years in state prison, according to the Los Angeles Times. Read on...

It looks like someone might have an anger management problem...

My Left Nutmeg:

According to sources familiar with the event, the outburst began after Officer Randy Cooper informed a staff member that he could not bring a tour through a lower west front door that has restricted access. One source said that after Cooper informed the staffer that the family could not enter through the door, the staffer called Shays and tried to have the officer speak with him. When the officer refused, Shays himself came down to the post and proceeded to "scream obscenities" at Cooper before touching his nametag to read it in the rain and storming away.

Update: Other recent acts that might have caused a neutral observer to question Shays' mental state have included attacking NASA scientist James Hansen in a committee hearing, literally screaming at the widows of Blackwater contractors who had died in Iraq in a committee hearing, and dismissing Abu Ghraib as a "sex ring" and not torture, among others.

How much you want to bet this won't get nearly the airtime as Cynthia McKinney's outburst last year?

UPDATE: It looks like Shays has apologized.  According to the Guardian, Shays was trying to meet with a family of constituents, not give them a tour.