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It should come as a surprise to no one that some wingnuts think it's cool to use the Bible to promote veiled threats against the President. Disgusting.

But using online personalized item sites to spread the word? Apparently this Maddow segment from Thursday had an impact in ending that. Cafepress is now following Zazzle.com and pulling the "Pray for Obama" merchandise that clearly expressed a wish for his demise. The CafePress website announced yesterday:

This morning we made the decision to remove all Psalms 109:8 designs from CafePress.

General consensus has proven that the design does point to a broader interpretation of the Psalm and thus has been deemed inappropriate for sale at CafePress.

We try to create an atmosphere of self-expression. Many of the things we encounter are not black and white, but grey. When the dialogue is civil, we want to let the larger community work things out rather than making an uninformed ruling. The dialogue has played out and common sentiment has reached agreement – this merchandise is not appropriate.

Thank you all for your input.

Transcript of Rachel Maddow's segment below the cut:

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Republicans blaming the Obama administration for this horrendous recession is like an arsonist blaming the fire department - and yet, there's a certain usefulness to their attacks. After all, liberals complaining about the administration's economic policies got us nowhere. Maybe they'll actually listen when Republicans do it!

Growing discontent over the economy and frustration with efforts to speed its recovery boiled over Thursday on Capitol Hill in a wave of criticism and outright anger directed at the Obama administration.

Episodes in both houses of Congress exposed the raw nerves of lawmakers flooded with stories of unemployment and economic hardship back home. They also underscored the stiff headwinds that the administration faces as it pushes to enact sweeping changes to the financial regulatory system while also trying to create jobs for ordinary Americans.

President Obama's allies in the Congressional Black Caucus, exasperated by the administration's handling of the economy, unexpectedly blocked one of his top priorities, using a legislative maneuver to postpone the approval of financial reform legislation by a key House committee.

Two buildings away, at a session of the Joint Economic Committee, Republicans escalated their attacks on Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, including a call for his resignation.

"Conservatives agree that as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus as well," said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.). "For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?"

Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-Tex.) took a different tack. "I don't think that you should be fired," he told Geithner. "I thought you should have never been hired."

The Democrats are also fed up with the president's economic policies. Rep. Pete DeFazio, progressive:

"I have had a number of people say to me, 'I feel the same way you do but I'm not going to say it.' People are worried it will rub off on the president who still enjoys popularity," he said. "I tell them I still support the president. I just think he is being poorly served by his economic team."

"The truth of the matter," DeFazio added, "is that we have not changed the way the money is being used. It is not being used for the purpose it was supposed to be used for. We are not creating jobs and we have not aggressively taken on the culture of Wall Street."

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Now I am probably not telling you anything new in this title, but when I saw this op-ed by William Kristol in his Weekly Standard magazine (hat tip to Matt Y), I just suddenly got this pounding headache and resulting furious reaction.

In areas where policies are still being debated--in foreign policy in particular--conservatives need to keep urging Obama to do the right thing. We are disgusted with Obama's irresoluteness on Afghanistan. But we continue to urge that he side with the experienced military leaders he's been fortunate to inherit against the second-guessing of political hacks (and of failed ex-generals turned political hacks). We conservatives want American soldiers to win wars, American interests to prevail, and American principles to flourish. We want the bad guys to lose. We're happy to work with President Obama to defeat them--and we only wish he shared our clarity and urgency about accomplishing that task.

That is to say, Obama should only listen to active duty generals like Petraus (USCENTCOM), Odierno (Iraq), and McChrystal (Afghanistan), not "failed ex-generals turned political hacks" such as former generals Karl Eikenberry (US Ambassador to Afghanistan) and James Jones (National Security Advisor). The latter have, of course, counseled caution before engaging deeper into Afghanistan. To be more specific, the Republican political line seems to be "yeah, we always do what our generals tell us to do - so long as their statements support indefinitely continuing the wars in the Middle East." What a ridiculous little man he is.

As far as Kristol's other statement - he wants American soldiers to win wars and American interests to prevail - I really want to haul back and punch him hard in the stomach. If you cared one iota about the American soldier, you slime, you base villain, you would have been pestering the CheneyBush administration as to its inability to put adequate numbers of American troops into Iraq and Afghanistan and its refusal to grow the military force to the numbers required for a long post-war occupation. Now we have military families breaking up, military suicide rates going ever upward, promotions for any officer with a pulse, military modernization programs on hold because of mounting operational costs, and a trillion-dollar bill that was never adequately planned for,largely due to the CheneyBush administration's inability to close the deal after eight years of continued combat.

You clearly have no respect for the American soldier or for American interests. In fact, if you were working directly against the American soldier and American interests, you could not be doing a better job.

There literally is no end to the extent by which Republican politicians will lie, distort, and manufacture statements in their efforts to disrupt, deny, and destroy the Obama administration's attempts to govern. At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on 9/11 trial, the Fort Hood shooter, and terrorism, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) decided to flip-flop on the designation of the Gitmo detainees. Are they "unlawful enemy combatants" or are they "prisoners of war"?

SESSIONS: The enemy, who could of been obliterated on the battlefield on one day, but was captured instead does not then become a common American criminal. They are first a prisoner of war, once they're captured. The laws of war say, as did Lincoln and Grant, that the prisoners will not be released when the war - until the war ends. How absurb is it to say that we will release people who plan to attack us again?

Sessions seems to be saying that because these detainees were captured by the military, they have become prisoners of war and should not be released - even if found not guilty or after serving a prison term (assuming less than a life sentence) - until the "war on terror" is over (which, under a Republican point of view, will never be over). But on the other hand, SecDef Don Rumsfeld and the other fun-loving bunch of Bushites were very firm about NOT calling them "prisoners of war" because they were not supposed to get rights under the Geneva Convention (or any other form of legal writs - see waterboarding, justification of).

In fact, as one of the commenters at the TPM post notes, there was public law developed to explicitly designate any non-US citizen who was accused of supporting terrorism or acting against the United States as a terrorist as being eligible for military commissions.

I thought like you until I read this, from the Military Commissions Act: "‘(e) Geneva Conventions Not Establishing Private Right of Action- No alien unprivileged enemy belligerent subject to trial by military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a basis for a private right of action."
See: here.

This discussion becomes quickly complex with legal passages as a debate over whether the military tribunals should take KSM or if the federal court system has adequate jurisdiction. But it's just so interesting how Republican politicians adroitly jump back and forth as to the question of the detainees' status to how it best fits their argument of the day - are we talking about Geneva convention rights, or are we talking about the process of legal courts?

And because I want to give credit to the interesting comments over at TPM, I will close with the following observations by the commenters:

"I guess when the Right/GOP can say, print (Palin's myth filled book), promote anything without any accountability by the Beltway Press, the GOP has no need for intellectually honest consistency in their claims."

"When did Sessions stop playing the banjo?"

UPDATE: Clarified the guilt point.

Everything you need to know about the descent of the conservative movement into a hypocritical caricature is illustrated by two of its proudest constituencies: Republican deficit hawks and so-called "born again virgins." Having already violated the moral strictures they claim to hold dearest, each now asks the American people to join them in pretending their sin never happened. But unlike a generation of Republican leaders who built a mountain of national debt for the United States, the secondary virgins only screwed themselves.

The Republicans' shameless cynicism was perfectly captured by Vice President Dick Cheney, who in 2002 proclaimed, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."

Not, that is, if a Republican is in the White House. But when Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office and the $1.2 trillion deficit George W. Bush left for him there, the GOP quickly changed its tune. While the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan and doubled again under President Bush, House Minority Leader John Boehner in February decried the $787 billion emergency economic recovery spending as "one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment." By June, Boehner warned of the "crushing debt Washington Democrats are running up." And Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), Obama's aborted choice for Commerce Secretary, slapped the President last month, "we're basically on the path to a banana-republic-type of financial situation in this country." And, Gregg added:

"You can't keep throwing debt on top of debt."

Of course, throwing debt on top of debt is precisely what Gregg and his GOP allies have done for over a generation.

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This is such a stellar example of Republican hypocrisy, you'd be hard pressed to think of a better one:

The Republican National Committee will no longer offer employees an insurance plan that covers abortion after POLITICO reported Thursday that the anti-abortion RNC's policy has covered the procedure since 1991.

"Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose," Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement to POLITICO. "I don't know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled."

Steele has told the committee's director of administration to opt out of coverage for elective abortion in the policy it uses from Cigna.

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna, and two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.

Until Thursday, the RNC’s plan had covered elective abortion – a procedure the party’s own platform calls “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.”

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO earlier Thursday that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

“The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue,” Gitcho said.

The RNC moved quickly Wednesday to assuage any concerns its members might have.

In a letter obtained by POLITICO, RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay writes to the 168 committeemen and committeewomen across the country that Steele "takes this issue very seriously."

He writes that the RNC has been evaluating its health insurance policy and will continue to do so.

But they'll still be writing checks to CIGNA for that modified policy, and CIGNA is still offering abortion on its plans - which means their premium dollars are funding abortion, right? At least, according to the Stupak amendment.

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For months, Crooks and Liars has documented an often overlooked but inescapable truth of the contentious health-care reform debate: Health care is generally worst in those red states where the Republican political leadership is most opposed to reform. (For example, see here, here, here and here.) Only now, after the narrow House vote this weekend, did CNN look at the Republican Senators committed to blocking health care for their residents who need it most.

Monday's "Keeping Them Honest" segment hosted by Anderson Cooper came three days after Texas Governor Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich in a Washington Post op-ed proclaimed the Lone Star State a model for health care policy. But as Cooper finally discovered, Texas "lawmakers voting against health care reform" happen to represent "the state with the worst number of people covered by health insurance."

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, here's what we found out today. There are more uninsured in red states than there are in blue states, which is interesting since all Republican senators are expected to vote against the public health care option.

As for Texas, which leads the nation with a staggering 25% of its population uninsured, the human toll of Republican obstructionism is devastating:

COOPER: And what about Texas? The state with the most uninsured, I mean --- with the most uninsured?

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From the department of You Can't Make This Sh*t Up:

Republican Rep. Tom Price, of Georgia, has introduced a House resolution that would, if passed, express the legislative body's "gratitude and appreciation" to Tea Party members who marched on Washington on Sept. 12 to "show their love of liberty and their grievance with recent government actions."

The proposed resolution is co-signed by more than 70 members of the House.

The proposed resolution would single for praise the "hundreds of thousands of American patriots, who refuse to sit idly by as the Federal Government advances skyrocketing deficits, taxpayer-funded bailouts, pork-barrel projects, burdensome taxes, unaccountable policy czars, command-and-control energy policy, and a government takeover of health care, came to Washington, D.C, to show their disapproval ..."

So let me get this straight...Price wants to pass a resolution that would praise anti-government, right wing extremists who want to overthrow their president? Really? If one single Democrat votes for this garbage, you can be sure we will call them out and ridicule them mercilessly.

Just to be clear, there weren't hundreds of thousands of people at that joke of a march on September 12th. And this was not an anti-tax march, this was a well funded hate-fest that was organized by Fox News and Glenn Beck.

You can read Price's entire resolution here. For added entertainment, click through to the original article and check out some of the comments. Didn't they learn anything from our Jon Perr's 10 Lessons for Teabaggers?

Seemingly with each passing day, General Stanley McChrystal grows in the esteem of President Obama's conservative foes. After having savaged General Eric Shinseki for his pre-Iraq war testimony that the occupation would require "several hundreds of thousands" of American troops, Republicans have seized on McChrystal's public demands for more forces in Afghanistan as their latest battering ram to bludgeon Obama on national security. And as it turns out, McChrystal's inadvertent leak earlier this month regarding a classified CIA analysis puts him in the same company as Republicans John Boehner, Pete Hoekstra, Pat Roberts and, of course, Dick Cheney.

McChrystal in his leaked report and unprecedented public speech in London has put tremendous pressure on President Obama to quadruple the Bush-era commitment to the Afghan conflict. General McChrystal didn't merely announce that short of deploying as many as 60,000 more troops, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan "will likely result in failure." He also set out to demolish straw man alternatives to his escalated counterinsurgency plan, including:

"A paper has been written that recommends that we use a plan called 'Chaosistan', and that we let Afghanistan become a Somalia-like haven of chaos that we simply manage from outside."

But as Newsweek reported, that "paper" to which General McChrystal casually referred is almost surely a classified CIA assessment:

Two U.S. intelligence officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, say that the reference almost certainly comes from a recently published, and secret, CIA analysis titled "Chaosistan" (not "Chaostan"). Prepared by a "red team" of CIA analysts, the document, says one official, picks apart conventional analyses of the war and explains how forces inside Afghanistan--from hostile ethnic groups to intrusive neighbors to societal damage caused by past Taliban rule--work against the notions of a central Afghan government. The paper is not quite the policy proposal McChrystal implied it was, say the officials, since intelligence analysts don't generally recommend policy options.

Of course, the same Republican voices which lauded the leak of McChrystal's report and his UK grandstanding will doubtless remain silent now. Because while many in the GOP called for the prosecution of those behind the publication of the NSA domestic surveillance story, they themselves selectively leaked classified national security information for partisan political purposes.

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From blogger Gort42, on the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court race:

The Democratic nominee for the one open seat is Jack Panella from Northampton County who presently serves on the Superior Court and was on the Court of Judicial Discipline that dropped the ball over the allegations about Luzerne County criminals Conahan and Ciavarella . They were busy with the Lokuta witchhunt orchestrated by Conahan.

(One of Gort's commenters notes: Actually, Gort, the Pa. Court of Judicial Discipline referred allegations to the US Att'y for the Middle District of Pa. Had they opened an investigation, they would be impeding his criminal matter, which should take priority. The US Att'y has publicly stated the Pa Court of Judicial Discipline did the right thing. The only person who has been trying to suggest anything different is Joan Orie Melvin.)

His opponent is Joan Orie Melvin from Pittsburgh who also serves on the Superior Court. Her website tells us that she has been a lifelong Republican. Her faith is the cornerstone of her life. She comes from a family of nine children raised with the principles of God and Country. Her sister is State Senator Jane Orie who helped her get the endorsement of the Pennsylvania Teamsters that didn't turn out so well. The Pennsylvania Progressive has the details.

Melvin was in town last month and said of the Juvie Brothers scandal "This is surreal. It is right out of a Charles Dickens novel."
.

In her previous visit to Wilkes-Barre in May she gave a long rambling speech to the local GOP faithful. In that speech she listed as one of her selling points was the upcoming redistricting after the 2010 Census telling the partisan crowd that they needed a Republican on the court to rule in favor of Republicans in any challenges to whatever plan emerges.

So much for Judges being above politics.

Since she essentially offered to fix a case in exchange for her election, this is a clear violation of the PA Code of Judicial Conduct - yes, even for Pennsylvania, hardly a hotbed of judicial honor. Guess I'll be making a phone call today to file a complaint!

Now Capitol Ideas points out that the state GOP is running a banner ad on GrassrootsPA on her behalf.

"Tired of Barack Obama, Ed Rendell, Arlen Specter and big government Democrats ruining our nation?" the advertisement asks in yellow block capitals set against a bright-red background. And in case the message wasn't subtle enough, there's a Soviet-era hammer-and-sickle inside the "O" in Obama's last name. That oughta rally the base, eh?

My friend Danny gave me the heads up and says

She's using a hammer and sickle for the "O" in Obama in her new web ad. Disgusting. And the best part is that it's paid for by the PA GOP.

Comparisons to Communists or Nazis used to be out of bounds in American politics but the Tea Bagger crowd does it all the time and now it is somehow Okay. It's one thing for a bunch of people who are ignorant of history and political philosophy to engage in this kind of nonsense but a State Supreme Court candidate should know better.

The thing that we want in our Judges is to be impartial and not take political sides no matter what party they belong to. She flunks that test.

If you'd like to let the PA Republican Party know what you think of this ad, you can contact them here. I strongly suggest you do so!

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Politico:

A bunch of Broward County, Fla. Republicans convened at a local rifle range to talk politics and squeeze off a few rounds at bullseyes.

One of them was a poster of a scary dude in a traditional Middle Eastern headdress -- another was human likeness with the initials of local Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

Among the members of the Southeast Broward Republican Club shooting their handguns and AK's Robert Lowry, who is waging an uphill campaign to unseat the popular Democratic incumbent in a district where D's outnumber R's two-to-one.

Lowry's target -- a paper silhouette -- had "DWS" written on it, a stunt Lowry first called a "joke" and later a "mistake."

You gotta love that "Culture of Life" the Republicans like to tout. Shooting at a target with your election rival's initials on it? Classy, classy, classy.

At what point will the Republican party repudiate the undercurrent of violence that falls into their reactions, like these political signs in Arizona that were painted over with the words "Kill Obama"? Who will be hurt before that? Howie Klein has more...

UPDATE: Wasserman Schultz has released a statement:

"There is nothing light or funny about pretending to shoot someone. At a time in our country when people are bringing guns to Town Hall Meetings and a preacher is calling for the death of our President, I find this type of action serious and disturbing. Tonight I am going to have to talk to my young children about why someone is pretending to shoot their mother. Trivializing violent behavior is the kind of extreme view that has no place in American politics."

President Obama has been getting a lot heat since the announcement that the 2016 Olympics would not be coming to the United States. The right has rejoiced in our loss, and Fox News and other right wing media have gone berserk with stories about the Chicago Olympic Committee, and false claims of cronyism and corruption.

Lost down the memory hole was the shame and scandal that tainted the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Eventually led by Republican Mitt Romney and his cronies, the 2002 games were plagued by fundraising woes, bribery scandals -- and the committee was also heavily infiltrated by Glenn Beck's Mormon Church:

Romney communicated his intention to take full command of the Olympics on his first day on the job in February of 1999. A century and a half after his ancestors trudged through Emigration Canyon to help pioneer the valley as a land of the righteous, Romney arrived in a cheerless ballroom in a Salt Lake City hotel. Immediately, he raised a rhetorical scythe at the trustees of the scandal-tainted organizing committee.

Much of the damage seemed to stem from decisions made by two previous executives on the Salt Lake City organizing committee, chief executive Thomas K. Welch and vice president David R. Johnson, who embraced the tacit form of influence peddling that greased the international selection process for Olympic sites.

Vowing not to be defeated again, Welch and Johnson funneled through the committee more than $1 million in gifts to numerous IOC delegates for the 2002 Games - a stunning trove of booty that included cash, college tuition, medical-care payments, jobs, lodging, beds and bedding, bathroom fixtures, Indian rugs, draperies, doorknobs, dogs, leather boots and belts, perfume, Nintendo games, Lego toys, shotguns, a violin, and trips to ski resorts, Las Vegas, and a Super Bowl in Miami. Almost no request from an IOC member went unmet.

Shamed by the scandal - in which 10 members of the International Olympic Committee would resign or be expelled for accepting gifts from the Salt Lake committee - Utah's power brokers believed they needed a new CEO wise in the ways of business, the law, and Mormonism.

Enter Mitt Romney, his buddies and the Mormon Church:

Almost as soon as Romney took the job, however, the Mormon Church's role in the Games became a source of contention - a dispute exacerbated by Romney's request for an additional $8 million in loaned property and cash from the church, among other contributions.

Utah's wealthiest businessman, Jon Huntsman Sr., the father of Utah's current governor, assailed Romney for exploiting his ties to the church. Huntsman himself is prominent in the Mormon Church, which is officially known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

''We've got a chairman who is active LDS, now we've got a present CEO who is active LDS,'' Huntsman was quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune as saying of Garff and Romney. ''They claim they're going out [to] really scour the world to find the best person, and Mitt brings in one of his cronies to be the COO. Another broken promise. Because we've got three LDS folks who are all cronies. Cronyism at its peak. ..... These are not the Mormon Games.' Read on...

Romney came in after the initial bribery scandal, but created plenty of controversy of his own.

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That the elderly of all groups of Americans most strongly oppose President Obama on health care reform shows the success of Republican fear-mongering over supposed Medicare cuts and "death panels". And on Monday, the Washington Post did the GOP a great service in a piece titled, "On Medicare Spending, a Role Reversal." While exploring the impact of projected savings in the program that serves 46 million Americans, the Post left unchallenged the Republicans' laughable claim to be the new protectors of Medicare after decades of war against it.

Readers who stopped after the first two paragraphs could be forgiven for wrongly assuming that the party that brought you Medicare would now kill it but for the stalwart defense of the Republican Party. After the subhead declaring, "Republicans, Not Interest Groups, Fight Plans to Cut $400 Billion Over 10 Years," the Post's Lori Montgomery concluded:

After years of trying to cut Medicare spending, Republican lawmakers have emerged as champions of the program, accusing Democrats of trying to steal from the elderly to cover the cost of health reform.

It's a lonely battle. The hospital associations, AARP and other powerful interest groups that usually howl over Medicare cuts have also switched sides.

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Remember during the stimulus debate, when the Republicans told us birth control funds didn't have a damned thing to do with the economy - and the Democrats, as usual, knuckled under to them?

The Guttmacher Institute has just released a report on the impact of the recession on family planning, and the results are predictable - at least, if you're a normal (i.e. non-wingnut) person. Via Salon:

This summer, researchers surveyed 947 women between the ages of 18 and 34 with household incomes of less than $75,000. They found that women are preoccupied by worry about money, medical costs and childcare. Most of the women hope to get pregnant later on or have decided against having kids because of these tough times -- and that's even more common among women who are less well-off than they were a year ago. A total of 64 percent agreed with the statement, "With the economy the way it is, I can’t afford to have a baby right now."

These findings are all rather intuitive, but what this actually means for pregnancy prevention is less straightforward. A total of 29 percent say they are "more careful" than before about using contraception every time they have sex. There is a flip-side to that, though: Eight percent of women are using birth control less regularly as a means of saving money and, among women in financial decline, that number rises to 12 percent. Things are even sketchier among women on the pill: 18% are popping hormones irregularly to save some cash -- either by missing pills, filling their prescription late, taking at least one month off or picking up fewer packs at a time. That number balloons to 25 percent when it comes to the category of worse-off women.

Overall, 23 percent are having a tougher time than a year ago covering the cost of birth control and -- again, say it with me now -- that number is higher among women whose finances have dwindled. The upshot: Those who are least capable of affording the cost of a child are putting themselves at the greatest risk for an unplanned pregnancy. Women also report avoiding appointments with their gynecologists in the last year -- especially those who have recently lost their health insurance.

As he awaits trial on money laundering charges, disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom Delay on Monday launched the latest phase of his extremist makeover on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Two years after publishing his book and 18 months after starting the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, Delay turned to the Cha Cha to complete his resurrection. Which is altogether fitting for the man who repeatedly compared himself to Jesus Christ.

Delay's Christ complex first manifested itself in 2001 as he explained to the Washington Post the opposition to his none-too-subtle campaign to bring his fundamentalism to the United States Congress. "People hate the messenger," Delay announced, adding, "That's why they killed Christ." On the day of his booking five years later, Delay told Time he prayed:

"Let people see Christ through me."

As it turns out, the similarities between Jesus and Tom Delay are striking:

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