Don't forget Olbermann is giving a one hour special comment tonight on health care reform. I hope it's a barn burner!

"* Obama doesn't intend to double-down or withdraw."

He then used scripture to condemn homosexuality before comparing his opponents to Nazis.

I really am getting sick and tired of the Right's constant use of Nazi imagery. This guy thinks his opponents are similar to Nazis for wanting to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly? What a fucking moron, because he sounds exactly like one.

With Derbyshire, the most amusing part of this is that both that he thinks it is self-evident that things would be better in America without women voting, and that he clearly thinks of himself as an intellectual.

* On a related note, SAFRA is clearly an issue in which Obama is winning -- Steve Benen

You must have read only the headline, to get that optimistic :)

The article says that he has a better chance on that than on other things (esp health care and cap-and-trade) but that, even though the whole thing is going the reconciliation route (to minimize the chances of it being scuttled on procedural issues like cloture), there's still no guarantee of 51 votes. Given that a whole bunch of lily-livered and self-important "centrists" (including my own Warner) are huffing and puffing and wanting to blow the bill down...

And there's always a chance that someone will wake up and say that if SAFRA saves money by cutting out the middleman (loan companies), then the same is, likely, true of the health insurance: cut out the middleman (insurance companies), go to single-payer (govt) and save money the same way. Which is, of course, what we absolutely cannot have, no siree, no way. (Humming) "...and it's no, nay, never; no, nay, never, no more..."

"... Derbyshire digs deeper in his opposition to women voting."

This is just one more way in which Derbyshire wishes women were more like minor children, which is the way he likes his females. She can't vote? Can't buy alcohol? Can't drive yet? This is his idea of a perfect date.

More progress in biofuels development: halophytes.

* And finally, Rep. Louie Gohmert, [...] -- Steve Benen

That one is for Koreyel (I think), who, recently, posited that if our politicians were bald or close-shorn, they'd be better than all the "good hairs" :) I suppose this is the exception that "proves" the rule?

How about the neocons falling for this?

http://theworldofhowey.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/the-boys-who-cried-wolf/

Dahlia Lithwick's Supreme Court dispatches continue to be brilliant. In the latest, she reports on yesterday's hearing regarding animal-cruelty videos.

Personally, I am in favor of taking Mr. Stevens, Michael Vick and the rest of them out and doing to them - slowly! - what they did to the animals. I'm also in favor of hunting down and eviscerating the scum who buy that shit. There's no First Amendment protection for this garbage, and the ACLU and the Reporter's Committe and the rest of them have their collective heads up their ass on the subject. And I say that as a professional writer.

It seems like the Republicans are having some sort of competitive contest to see who can say the most convoluted, non-logical, non-factual, hate-mongering, and just plain evil utterances.
Someone with a stronger stomach for such vile words will, no doubt, keep me posted as to the point standing.

The words and phrases used have no basis in reality and so don't convey very much meaning. Kind of like trying to understand two foreigners speaking in some language you don't understand.
These Republicans are speaking English words and phrases that mean very different things to different people. Every word takes on a different meaning when used by a different speaker.
Welcome to Babel. Republican Babel. A deliberately created Republican Babel.

ThinkProgress got ir right on that Pommie Git, Derbyshire and his argument that abolishing women's suffrage would be "good for conservatism":

While it’s possible that women’s suffrage is “bad for conservatism,” maybe it’s conservatism — not women’s suffrage — that is “bad for society.”

Insane people have a right to representation. So long as they vote.

Steve occasionally posts links to new discoveries in archaeology and space. I thought this was pretty cool.

Scientists discover massive ring around Saturn

Scientists at NASA have discovered a nearly invisible ring around Saturn -- one so large that it would take 1 billion Earths to fill it.

I hereby "crown" Sen. Inhofe the Czar of the U.S. Senate. And, as czars are clearly unconstitutional he is clearly banished from government.

*Pontius Pilate washing of hands* Enough of Inhofe!

LOL

While I agree that SAFRA is a very VERY good (its amazing its taken this long to get those loans cleaned up), I went to your link at the New Republic and read the first sentence:

"Among President Obama's attempts to pass far-reaching liberal legislation this year..."

My eyes rolled so far back into my head it prevented me from reading any further. Holy crap-snack-on-a-stick! People have just gotten flat out weird in their Obama observations. Does no one in the media have a reasonable understanding of history, policy and the current administration?

The U.S. Republicans are beginning to make the Afghan Taliban look moderate and reasonable. This cannot possibly be a good development.

"Fox is patting itself on the back over a job well done, according to a new Time magazine article. “The fact that our numbers are up 30 plus in the news arena on basic cable I’d like to think is a sign that we are just putting what we believe to be the facts out on the table,” said Michael Clemente, Fox’s senior vice president for news. He then compared the network to veteran journalist Sam Donaldson, who was doing a good job because he was “enemy number one” to both the Carter and Reagan White Houses:"

Oh yeah? Well, facts be damend, for you have demagogues in the name of Hannity and/or Beck, and the rest of the world looks with horror

Newt seems to think Afghanistan could potentially be Obama's WWII. WTF?

Methinks the discourse these days in all manner of areas is totally, absolutely, positively insane.

Obama=Nazism

Health care with even a pittance of a public option = socialism

DADT = the end of civilization as we know it.

Wow!

I suggest folks get educated and become intellectually skeptical of everything!

Sheesh.

Fox News is nothing but the progaganda arm of the Republican Party, those losers, those nay-sayers, the party of Ensign, Vittner, Sanford, yo--time to resign

Oh--and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are undereducated demogogues trying to lead the insecure masses Fox Channel seeks to attract.

Steve: "National Review columnist John Derbyshire digs deeper in his opposition to women voting."

Ladies, let this be a lesson well learned by you all, the next time date a straight male Republican and are tempted to laugh out loud at his small penis.

Re: Gingrich:
"If things are so dire, then where is America’s Churchill? "I don't know, we'll find out," says Gingrich. "I hope that we can find one.""

Don't be so coy, you self-absorbed old nozzle. You're America's Churchill, aren't ya?

if animal cruelty videos are protected, are child porn videos then also? In both cases one has involuntary subjects, in both cases the involuntary subjects suffer (at minimum psychologically). What is the difference?

The problem with us liberals is we just don't get it. Take this painting, for instance:

http://www.mcnaughtonart.com/artwork/view_zoom/?artpiece_id=353#

The fewer nurselings at your tit, the better nourishment each gets:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/07/beck-gold/

"..Rep. Louie Gohmert, a right-wing Republican from Texas..".

Rep. L. Gohmert (R-TX) would have sufficed, Benen. Unless there is a left wing republican congressman of whom I'm unaware.

Out & About in the Castro, @21:42

Never, in my wildest, bitchiest days, did I ever laugh at anyone's peanut... er... penis. A hazelnut-sized brain, OTOH...

Okay, so I have to take it back. Olbermann was pretty good tonight. I just caught the tail-end but he seemed sincere and he took it to a personal level, which most of us can relate to in one way or another. And I like the "free clinic in blue dog states" idea.

I think we'll get some kind of health care bill. I'm just not sure we'll get the most progressive one proposed.

Now that De Mint and republicans have been traveling to South America to conspire with a government that the US does not recognize, will this be their Waterloo? I feel sure this is a crime in US law.

AFGHANISTAN DECISION

My guess, for what it's worth, is that President Obama will find a middle ground on the troop increase and provide fewer troops than requested. And the strategy will probably be tweaked toward the Joe Biden position and explicitly or implicitly away from nation building.

I'm fine with that. There may well be words of support for the Afghan government, but we and our allies are unlikely to commit to the numbers of troops and the time and the money required to build a viable, honest national government. In my opinion, we need to keep a sufficient force in the region to keep Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from re-establishing a base there and to protect and aid Pakistan. What the troop number and operational strategy should be is way beyond my thought process.

While I'm generally against nation building or intervention in foreign lands, I would support one unlikely scenario. If the principal nations of the world would agree and provide moral and material support, I would have us join in action to prevent undue oppression and human suffering imposed by evil regimes such as Idi Amin's or the Taliban.

homer www.altara.blogspot.com

Is Pelosi moving toward a watered down public option? It wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Politicians and lawyers live to make deals. Getting the deal done becomes the goal and the substance of the deal becomes a minor matter. What's important is getting the deal done.

From the women's voting article:
the fact is that the countries that rank the highest in the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index — meaning they have the most gender equality — tend to also rank the highest on the U.N.’s Human Development Index.

I don't think that would be persuasive to conservatives.