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Clair McCaskill appeared on Morning Joe today to talk about the health care bill that just passed the House and what's next for the Senate. When asked to respond to Rachel Maddow’s comments on Meet the Press that the Stupak amendment is a poison pill that will lose a lot of support for Democrats by women if the amendment is not taken out in conference, Clair McCaskill said this.

McCaskill: Well, I am not sure that it is. Obviously, I have been a pro-choice candidate my entire political career, and obviously there is controversy always surrounding this issue. but we are talking about whether or not people that get public money can buy an insurance policy that has any coverage for abortion. And that is not the majority of America. The majority of America is not going to be getting subsidies from the government. The vast majority of America are going to continue to get their insurance at the workplace just like they do now.

And so, I am not sure that this is going to be enough to kill the bill, and frankly, once again, this is an example of having to govern with moderates. We can't just turn our back on the fact that the reason we are in majority, is because states like Indiana, and Arkansas, and Louisiana, and Missouri, and North Carolina, and Virginia sent Democrats to the Senate.

Since when does “moderate” have to mean anti-choice? Here’s McCaskill’s contact information if you’re as unhappy about this as I am.

Apparently some House progressives aren't going to stand for this as well as Sam Stein reports at the Huffington Post:

If, indeed, the Stupak language makes it into the Senate bill, it would be a major blow to pro-choice advocates. It would also seemingly ensure that the restrictions on abortion access would survive conference committee with the House and end up in the final piece of legislation. If that is the case it sets up a major showdown, once again, in the people's chamber. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), for one, has insisted she and 40 additional colleagues will oppose any final bill that includes the Stupak amendment.

"There's going to be a firestorm here," DeGette told The Washington Post. "Women are going to realize that a Democratic-controlled House has passed legislation that would prohibit women paying for abortions with their own funds. . . . We're not going to let this into law."

Update: Well what do you know. Looks like Sen. McCaskill may be having a change of heart from this morning.

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Looks like someone's trying to out teabag "going rogue" Sarah. Tim Pawlenty's obviously planning on running in 2012 and has decided his best course of action is to throw in with the conservative wing of the party. From The Hill--Pawlenty takes on Snowe:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) warned Olympia Snowe today that she's risking her position in the GOP by considering a vote for healthcare reform.

"She's somebody who has gotten into the middle of the healthcare debate in a way that makes Republicans mad," Pawlenty said on Morning Joe. "They make accept that, but they're not going to accept her deviating on many other things."

Asked whether he was glad Snowe was a Republican, Pawlenty hedged.

"There is a process in her state that is broad based that endorses her, and the Republicans in that state say 'we want her to be our candidate,'" Pawlenty said.

Pressed on the issue, Pawlenty made clear he wouldn't offer a definitive answer.

PAWLENTY: "I think Olympia Snowe is somebody who is more liberal than most Republicans would like but she is better than having a Democrat represent me."

SCARBOROUGH: "Is that a yes? I think that's a yes."

PAWLENTY: Well look, the people of Maine have an open process, they selected her. It's different [than Scozzafava]."

Olympia Snowe responded to Pawlenty's criticism...via The Politico:

"I've been a lifelong Republican -- I haven't changed, I don't know what the problem is -- I really don't," said Snowe, speaking to POLITICO at the Capitol. "I know Gov. Pawlenty to be a thoughtful person and i know if he could have rephrased it or re characterized it he would."

But Snowe, who is pro-abortion rights, took serious issue with Pawlenty's underlying argument that some members of the GOP's fast shrinking left flank, including one-time NY-23 candidate Dede Scozzafava, are so far out of the party's anti-abortion, anti-gay rights mainstream they are a "joke."

"All I know is that I've been a life-long Republican, I [spent] 16 years toiling in the minority in the House of Representatives and [was part of] the effort to get us the majority in 1994 -- now were in the minority and I'm still here," she added, with a laugh.

"So, i don't know -- I think they could probably borrow more from me in that sense, in terms of being in touch with your constituents..."

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Morgan Weiland at Media Matters summed up this segment nicely--Memo to the media: This has been a great week for health reform:

Discussing health care reform today on Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough and NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd agreed that "[t]his week has been a mess for the Democrats." Todd added that "it does seem like they decided to take two steps back after they took one step forward because now they got a trillion dollar bill in the House, which is about $150 billion more than they said, than the President said that he wanted, and now they've got to have this back and forth and figure out how to get six to 10 moderate Democrats and Olympia Snowe on board."

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree that the past week was "a mess for the Democrats." Speaker Pelosi reported out a full House bill, the American Affordable Health Choices Act (H.R. 3962), that achieves a number of key fiscal goals that only this summer many in the media were insisting were out of reach. The Congressional Budget Office found that the bill reduces the deficit by $104 billion over the next decade, and continues to chip away at it in the subsequent decade. Plus it comes in under the magic $900 billion number for the net cost of coverage expansion over 10 years -- a cost that is, in CBO's words, "more than offset." And these achievements are doubly important because they satisfy President Obama's must-have requirement that reform "[w]on't add a dime to the deficit."

If anything, all of this adds up to a big step forward -- arguably a bigger one than has ever taken to achieve comprehensive health care reform in this country.

Not in the Villagers on Morning Joe's world though. In their view it's just terrible that the Democrats are breaking with the White House and their obsession with bipartisanship and catering to Olympia Snowe and her love of the trigger. They're more worried about advancing the meme that the Democrats are in disarray and everything is smelling like roses for the Republicans.

Of course we’re not going to get any sort of substantive debate about what’s actually in these bills and what those changes might mean to the American public. No, we get horse race coverage and meaningless talking points churned out as Chuck Todd whines about being criticized for the way they're covering the issue.

They also never talk about what it would mean if Harry Reid forces an actual filibuster--if he would make any of these Senators who are opposed to the bill have to stand up and debate until they dropped. Later in the segment Sheldon Whitehouse was asked if this could still be dragging along as it got close to the holiday break and would Harry Reid consider keeping all of them there instead of going home. He said this could very well go into the holidays or even the beginning of next year.

I wonder how that would play out? Tell them if they want to filibuster the bill, they're welcome to do it all week Christmas week, and let's carry it into New Years week for good measure. If Reid would grow a spine and actually do that I think I'd consider it a holiday gift, not that it's going to happen. It seems Reid and the media are more than content to pretend that Reid's silent filibuster is the norm. What does anyone think would have happened to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 if we'd had a Harry Reid around back then to deal with the likes of Strom Thurmond?

I'll gladly reserve judgement as I would expect everyone will as well on whether we should be clamoring for that or not after we see what makes it to the floor for a final vote. If they go back to either opt-in or Snowe's trigger I don't see how that's a step towards reforming the current system. The other compromises are bad enough already away from single-payer, which is what we should have.

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Morning Joe Oct. 22, 2009- Joe Scarborough and Lawrence O'Donnell get into it over Cheney's remarks that President Obama is "dithering" in Afghanistan and on the WMD argument for invading Iraq.

Joe Scarborough defends Cheney's remarks and is still carrying water for the Bush administration on the WMD lies. Lawrence O'Donnell calls him out for it and Scarborough resorts to personal attacks and calls O'Donnell "crazy" and says that he has "a back pile of appliances" that he's "trying to sell in the five boroughs". It got pretty heated before the segment finally ended with Scarborough getting one last dig in on O'Donnell at the very end telling him to "go sell" his "appliances".

Scarborough was out in California where it was about 4:30 in the morning. Anyone else think he stayed up too late the night before this airing?

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Michael Moore had a few things to say about the Dow rallying past 10,000 today on the set of Morning Joe. First on how well the markets are doing.

Moore: Oh! It’s so incredible. Yes. Fifteen million people out of work.

Scarborough: Isn’t this a perfect example for you? Isn’t this a great example of what you’re trying to say? How there’s a disconnect between what’s going on on Wall Street, 10,000, and Main Street, 10% unemployment?

Moore: Oh, it’s not a disconnect. It’s connected very well. It’s connected just the way our economic system is set up. It’s set up so that the pyramid scheme that we call capitalism—it’s become a pyramid scheme now—the very few at the top get away like bandits making billions and billions of dollars. And everybody else in the lower parts of the pyramid are told to work really hard and maybe some day they can come up and be on top of the pyramid too. Well guess what? There’s only a few people that can sit on top of the pyramid and it’s just so revolting and so immoral when we live in a country—the wealthiest country on earth—fifteen million people unemployed. One in every eight homes right now is in foreclosure or delinquency. And they’re celebrating on Wall Street? And they’re paying each other bonuses?

Surprisingly Moore gets some agreement from Joe and Mike on the disparity of wealth in the United States. Maria Bartiromo however disagrees with Moore’s view of the news on Wall Street. Shocker right? The Wall Street flack tries to come to their defense.

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(h/t Think Progress for the video)

Tuesday morning on Morning Joe, CNBC host Donny Deutsch had a few choice words to describe Rush Limbaugh, including "megalomaniac" and a "scary, distasteful human being." He didn't stop there, though. He had another word in mind and let's just say, it wasn't pretty:

Then, a few minutes later, Scarborough and Deutsch discussed Limbaugh's potential part-ownership an NFL team and the comments that led to his departure from ESPN. During the conversation, the audio cut out while Deutsch was talking and Scarborough said, semi-laughing, "...bleeped that out again. Why did you have to do that? Why?" Donny later explained, "I called Rush Limbaugh a feminine hygiene product that starts with a D and sounds like my last name. It was bleeped you can't say that on TV." At the end of the program Mika Brzezinski claimed, "I learned that you can't do a show with Donny without him saying something perverted." Read on...

John Amato has forbidden me from using the "D word" to describe the likes of Limbaugh and Beck for years -- all for the better, no doubt. Should Deutsch have used the word on air? Probably not. Was he right? We report, you decide...

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Poor, poor old Pat Buchanan thinks that Fox News has "objective" reporters... like Chris Wallace... and that the White House was completely unfair "to say that the Fox News reporters sittin' in there are the Republican opposition". Chris Wallace huh? Have you even watched his show Pat? For that matter have you turned their station on lately as I unfortunately have?

I have watched Wallace's show on Sunday just about every stinking week for the last several years since I've been helping Mr. Amato out with video at this site, and the words "objective" or "reporter" are not what come to mind for me when watching Chris Wallace in action. Hack, partisan, corporate lackey and Republican shill are some of the kinder terms that come to mind for the likes of Wallace and his buddies over at ClusterFox.

Since Pat would probably be more comfortable in a chair at Fox rather than MSNBC which is trying to paint itself as a "liberal" network, his response is not surprising. Of course the rest of the panel chimed in that this smack down by the White House of Fox was just terrible for them. Heaven forbid they might eventually say something about what has happened to all of the rest of our sorry excuse for "news" shows which have been turned into info-tainment instead of something designed to inform their viewers.

If either the Democrats or the Repulicans cared at all what's happened to our media in this country, they'd be doing something to break this up. When six companies control the majority of what most people watch on the television, see at the show, read in the newspaper and listen to on the radio, we are no longer a democracy. Buchanan and his ilk are just a one part of a bigger problem we have, which is something that is allowed to pass itself for "news" is designed keep the American public dumbed down, ill-informed and more worried about the latest celebrity gossip than anything that will affect their daily lives.

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So yesterday, Rush Limbaugh belittled Joe Scarborough's manhood over the differences regarding where the Great Gasbag is taking the Republican Party. He called him a "neutered chickified moderate". Oooooh.

So today, Scarborough fired back, with pal Mika Brzezinski somewhat aghast at the gonadial turn of the conversation:

Scarborough: I would be careful. If I had put my testicles in a blind trust for George W. Bush for eight years I'd be careful ..

Brzezinski: Can you say "testicles" on Morning Joe?

... [Crosstalk]

Scarborough: But there are a lot of people on the right that did in fact put their testicles in a blind trust for the past eight years, and stopped being conservative and started being apologists. And, um, that's about all I'll say.

Other than, other than -- you remember that, that scene with George W. Bush carrying Rush Limbaugh's suitcase into the White House? Now we know what was inside the suitcase.

It's all rather amusing to watch. It's funny, too -- both Scarborough and Limbaugh have been playing the "conservatism could not fail, it was George W. Bush who failed conservatism" card since before the election. Now they're accusing each other of not having the right brand of conservatism.

As we observed already, Scarborough is in pretty deep denial about just how far into the abyss his movement has fallen.

Scarborough went on in this segment to vent that he wrote a book back in 2004 warning that the Bush administration's out-of-control spending would have dire consequences that would make the GOP unpopular. And it's true, he wrote that.

But the Bush budget deficits were only a small part of the picture when it comes to the causes of the massive recession he catastrophically brought down upon the nation's head. The biggest single cause of this recession was the mania for deregulation -- particularly within the financial sector -- and the breakdown of firewalls within that sector that had been erected to protect consumers and the industry itself back during the FDR era.

These policies -- especially the desire to destroy the legacy of the New Deal embodied by the mania for deregulation -- have always been, and continue to be, central themes for conservatism, not just for the Rush Limbaugh wingnut bloc but for the Joe Scarborough "mainstream conservative" bloc too.

In other words, it was conservatism itself that created this mess. And while you boys are off fighting about your penises, we liberals will be busy cleaning it up, as usual.

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It looks like Rush Limbaugh's glee over the United States losing the bid for the Olympics was even too much for Joe Scarborough to take.

Scarborough: I would like Rush Limbaugh to tell me Mike Barnicle...who's he helping there other than Rush Limbaugh? Because I would tell you middle Americans--Rush is smarter than that--middle Americans that swing elections see that and "Oh my god, Republicans have gone off the deep end."

I hate to tell you Joe but a lot of people I know realized the Republicans went off the deep end a long time ago. And Katrina Vanden Heuvel is exactly right. The Republicans would have attacked Obama no matter how this went down. If he hadn't gone, they'd have been saying the other heads of state went and he lost it for America. If he'd gone and the U.S. had gotten the bid, they'd be attacking Chicago for their dirty politics. You cannot win when dealing with these people who as Paul Krugman rightly pointed out that you were so dismissive of later in the segment... have "the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old".

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Wow. Maybe he was inspired by his earlier session with Max Blumenthal. Or maybe it was the way Glenn Beck dissed Mika by telling her to "shut the hell up." Or maybe he's just as sick of Glenn Beck as the rest of us are.

Whatever it was, Joe Scarborough was relentless and on-point this morning in attacking not just Glenn Beck, but the conservatives who condone and empower him.

He took his cue from Peter Wehner's piece in Commentary, "Glenn Beck: Harmful to the Conservative Movement":

I understand that a political movement is a mansion with many rooms; the people who occupy them are involved in intellectual and policy work, in politics, and in polemics. Different people take on different roles. And certainly some of the things Beck has done on his program are fine and appropriate. But the role Glenn Beck is playing is harmful in its totality. My hunch is that he is a comet blazing across the media sky right now—and will soon flame out. Whether he does or not, he isn’t the face or disposition that should represent modern-day conservatism. At a time when we should aim for intellectual depth, for tough-minded and reasoned arguments, for good cheer and calm purpose, rather than erratic behavior, he is not the kind of figure conservatives should embrace or cheer on.

Scarborough was even more damning:

Scarborough: But when you preach this kind of hatred, and say that an African American president hates all white people -- stay with me -- hates all white people, you are playing with fire. And bad things can happen. And if they do happen, not only is Glenn Beck responsible, but conservatives who don't -- call -- him -- out -- are responsible.

Incidentally, Mark Levin was just as harsh in knocking down Beck.

This is certainly a good start for conservatives serious about rescuing their movement from the abyss into which it is descending. But again, as with David Brooks, none of them quite grasp the dimensions of what they're up against.

Sure, the things Glenn Beck says are completely nuts and reflect poorly on the American Right generally. That's probably because Beck is in reality a genuine far-right extremist who is gradually coming out of the closet about that -- and as he does, he's lapping up the ratings.

But Beck is far from the only extremist dragging movement conservatism to the right. The bridges between the far right and mainstream conservatives are so numerous and widely trafficked that it's hard to keep up, but they range from the extreme religious right connections that Blumenthal describes in his new book in detail, to the "Patriot" wingnut right like WorldNetDaily, which has multiple ties to the Republican National Committee. And yes, ordinary conservatives do have reason to be concerned.

This is especially the case when it comes to the Tea Parties, which actually reflect the takeover of movement conservatism by right-wing populists. They have become a fundamentally important nexus for the promotion of extremist beliefs and fringe conspiracy theories.

Because that's what Joe Scarborough is up against. Glenn Beck is just the face. There's a much larger beast lurking there alongside him.

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Max Blumenthal went on Morning Joe today to debate the nature of the unhinged rhetoric and behavior that's becoming part and parcel of the right-wing response to Obama's presidency.

Joe Scarborough often talks a good game about realizing what a huge mistake it is for Republicans to allow themselves to be dragged over the cliff like this, but like David Brooks, he has yet to come to grips with the dimension of the beast he's up against. Max tried to set him straight, but as you can see, this is a very slow process for recovering movement conservatives.

Both Joe and Mike disputed some of Max's facts, and as promised he's posted the substantiation for those facts at his blog. Yes, it's true that Jim DeMint believes that neither single pregnant women nor gays and lesbians -- moral reprobates all, apparently -- should be allowed to teach in public schools.

Incidentally, you can find these details and many more in Max's new book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Destroyed the Party. On bookshelves everywhere!

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Behold the cast of Morning Joe in full tizzy mode because Jimmy Carter dared to state the obvious about the not too thinly veiled racism behind the right wingers protesting President Obama at these Tea Bag protests, and with Joe Wilson's disrespectful outburst on the House floor calling him a liar.

From Media Matters who has more on Joe Scarborough and friends from the same show--Conservatives express outrage about charges that their attacks on Obama are racist.

A bit later Michael Eric Dyson joined the show and unlike Jonathan Capehart, actually tried to beat back some of Scarborough's nonsense. Joe apparently doesn't think that Rush Limbaugh has ever made any racist remarks.

Note to Eric Dyson. If Scar and Mika follow through and have you back on the show some time soon to talk about this some more, go get the mile long list of racist crap that's come out of Limbaugh's mouth that Media Matters has documented and have the list in front of you to read off to them the next time they have you on. Facts and actual quotations from Boss Limbaugh are not their friends.

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During today's episode of Morning Joe live at the Ronnie Ray-Gun Presidential Library, Joe Scarborough wraps things up with his "political round table" and asks his panel whether Joe Wilson should apologize or not. Peggy Noonan looked like she was hitting the sauce first thing in the morning. Lawrence O'Donnell did a great job talking about why Joe Wilson needs to apologize to South Carolina for single handedly managing to put their state's racist history right back in the spotlight again. And surprise, surprise, racist Pat Buchanan didn't think Joe Wilson needs to apologize and then ended up the segment by exalting the sun revolving around St. Ronnie's magical Irish head.

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Tim Pawlenty obviously wants to run for President since he's throwing in with Sarah Palin and the "deather" crowd. How pathetic is it when your lies are so bad that even Joe Scarborough is calling you out? After Scarborough asks Pawlenty if there is anything in the health care bills that will "pull the plug on grandma" Pawlenty follows with some fear mongering on the government "rationing care" and says the fears are not unfounded, and Scarborough lights into him.

Scarborough: But you know there are no death panels here though. Counseling is one thing. Having three people lining up saying "granny dies, grandpa lives", that's quite another. You can't get there from here.

Pawlenty: Well what happens Joe, what you call it or label it, but I think the facts are these. When you have a system like the United Kingdom where there are breast cancer...

Scarborough: But we don't. We don't Governor with all due respect. This does not give us a system like the United Kingdom. I'm talking specifically about this bill. How does this bill get us to "death panels"? You don't believe it does do you?

Pawlenty: Joe what if it becomes to expensive and then the trajectory of it is even close to what's being predicted ten years out that they can no longer afford all that they promised and somebody has to say scale back the care. And the federal government is now empowered to do that. When you look at examples around the world where that takes place there are concerns about care being cut back by a federal government institution and we could have a legitimate debate about whether that's good or not. I don't think it is.

Scarborough: Governor, what in this bill though, let's be specific, what in this bill leads us to that position, gives a bureaucrat that power ten years from now to make that decision. I know we're going to have to make excruciating decisions on health care. You've talked about it before, over the next decade because we've run out of money in this country, but what in this bill specifically, what provision in this bill specifically would lead anybody to rationally believe a death panel might emerge in a decade, based on this legislation?

Pawlenty: Joe, there is nothing in the legislation that directly says that, it's the indirect concerns that I'm trying to articulate that I think are at least worth raising.

And from TPM, it appears Pawlenty has now joined the "tenthers" as well. Pawlenty: It's "A Viable Option" To Invoke State Sovereignty, Keep Minnesota Out of Health Care Reform:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN), a possible presidential candidate in 2012, is now indicating that he could invoke state sovereignty and prevent his home state of Minnesota from participating in a federal health care reform effort if one passes, Minnesota Public Radio reports.

"Depending on what the federal government comes out with here, asserting the 10th Amendment may be a viable option," Pawlenty said, when asked about it by a caller on a Republican Governors Association conference call. "But we don't know the details. As one of the other callers said, we can't get the President to outline what he does or doesn't support in any detail. So we'll have to see, I would have to say that it's a possibility."

Pawlenty made it clear that he and other Republican governors will be more assertive about the 10th Amendment: "I think we can see hopefully see a resurgence in claims and maybe even bring up lawsuits if need be."

The same view -- properly called nullification, a doctrine dating back to the pre-Civil War days in the South -- had previously been expressed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

What's next Tim? You going to be calling for secession for Minnesota along with your buddy Rick Perry down in Texas? Countdown covered the TPM tenther story. Video below the fold.

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When even Joe Scarborough is calling you out for fear mongering, you've got a problem.

From Think Progress:

Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that conservatives are freaking out over President Obama’s upcoming speech to schoolchildren about “persisting and succeeding in school,” claiming that it is actually aimed at political indoctrination. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, host Joe Scarborough ripped into the hyperventilating conservatives. “Seriously, why don’t we want the president of the United States, any president of the United States, delivering the message to kids: work hard, stay in school, succeed,” said Scarborough, adding, “get your ratings if you want, you’re just screwing your political party.”