Joe Scarborough had Rep. Peter King on the set of Morning Joe to respond to Anthony Weiner's interview the previous morning and took up for King and the Republicans while going into full hissy fit mode. Did we expect anything different out of him? He claimed he's going to have Anthony Weiner back on again because he's "got some questions for him". We'll see about that.

Karoli explained very well what game the Republicans were playing here. In Joe Scarborough's world, this is "changing the rules" and the Democrats playing politics rather than the Republicans hoping to insert a poison pill into the legislation so they can run attack ads against the Democrats. Note to Joe Scarborough, you're not "changing the rules" just by deciding to use a different procedure in the House to prevent the Republicans from playing politics. I'm not sure what the definition of "playing politics" is if it doesn't include inserting provisions into a bill purely to attack your opponents in the next election cycle. Scarborough thinks it's just terrible that the Democrats don't want to allow the Republicans to have something to attack the House Hispanic Caucus with in November.

As Karoli already noted here's the game the Republicans are playing:

So to review, the Democrats bring a bill to the floor to pay the debt this country has to 9/11 responders. It doesn't have any poison pills, but the Republicans want to add something that involves illegal immigration, so that Democrats will look like they voted against illegal immigration when they were voting on a bill to take care of 9/11 responders.

And according to Peter King, it's all the Democrats' fault. Got it. (Note: Peter King voted for the bill...)

I will add though that I'd be just as happy to see the Democrats take some advice from Jon Stewart on how to handle the Republicans "poison pill". More from The Daily Show below the fold.

Here's his take -- I Give Up - 9/11 Responders Bill.

Stewart: How did this not pass again?

Fox Host: Democrats used a procedure which required a 2/3 vote for passage. They got a majority but they didn't get the 2/3 needed.

Stewart: Why the f**k would you use that? Why would you make this harder Democrats?

Borger: The Republicans are trying to amend this money and say okay, you have the $7 billion but none of it can go to illegal immigrants for example, who might have been at Ground Zero.

Stewart: Wait... what... wait... what? What the... oh no... okay... okay you know that makes sense. I guess if you spent days crawling through rubble and ash, inhaling toxic fumes and permanently damaging your internal organs all to save the lives and ease the pain of American people, but you don't have an H1B work visa, you're clearly a freeloading assh**e who deserves nothing.

Why don't the Democrats with their majority just say, I don't know... vote something like that down under the asinine amendments won't fly act?

Borger: They didn't want to have to vote on that amendment.

Lemon: The Democrats used rules requiring a wider majority for approval since Republicans were offering amendments on the floor that they said would embarrass them in an election year.

Stewart: Did I mention that I give up? Well in a media culture that throws s**t fits when something as minor as Erykah Badu disrobing for a publicity stunt...

Kelly: Can you not even walk down the sidewalk now without having to observe random strangers nude?!?

Stewart: No. No you can't. You can't walk down the sidewalk without that happening. Imagine... imagine the seismic pundit ripples of anger when politicians put craven political expedience over the well being of our nations' most deserving heros. [...]

If Congress can't get 2/3 of a vote majority for 9-11 health care what can they get 2/3 for, lets say in the very same week of the first responders debacle?

If you guessed gun rights, you would be correct. His fake political ad at the end killed me. I know our corporate media is stacked against the Democrats and they're a lot happier when Republicans are in power, but that's not an excuse for the party to continue running scared from them. They should hit back at Republicans in exactly the way Stewart did here on the illegal immigrants who might have been at Ground Zero. Call it craven race-baiting, which it is and let the chips fall where they may.

Note to Democrats... figure out a way to use Stewart's line here without the cursing to beat back at the Republicans for the games they're playing and get this thing passed.

Stewart: I guess if you spent days crawling through rubble and ash, inhaling toxic fumes and permanently damaging your internal organs all to save the lives and ease the pain of American people, but you don't have an H1B work visa, you're clearly a freeloading assh**e who deserves nothing.

I would hope the Democrats could respond to this in a similar manner to Karoli's post title on Anthony Weiner or Alan Grayson's description of the Republican's health care plan; If you're an illegal immigrant and you helped rescue people on 9-11 and paid the price with your own health, the Republicans plan instead of thanking you for your service and offering you citizenship for your bravery is for you to die, and die quickly.

If they had any sense they should have been bringing up a bill that specifically said any 9-11 responders who were illegal immigrants and helped save Americans on that day should be granted citizenship immediately as long as they passed some thresholds Republicans would have insisted on. Call them out at their own game.

In the end if there are more than a handful of people this would apply to I'd be shocked and if the Democrats had hit back at the Republicans on this forcefully it would have taken their race-baiting nonsense off of the table and turned it on its head. It would have also shown that there are probably next to no illegal immigrants that would be trying to collect any money from the fund and made heroes out of the ones who were.

Isn't it pitiful that if the rest of our "mainstream media" were as honest as Stewart, the Democrats would not be worrying about "poison pills" and the Republicans would not be trying to use them in the first place since they'd both be called out for it? Sadly the comedian that does the satire of our "news" is a better source for news than our "mainstream media". And he's a mile ahead of the flame throwing partisan Scarborough who as I've said before, belongs on Fox.

If he does actually have Anthony Weiner back on, Weiner had better be prepared for Scarborough to be in full attack mode and not let him yell over him the whole time if he's as animated as he was here.