According to Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics:

Consider: three Democratic House committee chairs have committed to vote against Pelosi's bill on Saturday: Bart Gordon of Tennessee (Science), Colin Peterson of Minnesota (Agriculture), and Ike Skelton of Missouri (Armed Services).

Will Holy Joe be excused from Saturday sessions and be allowed to vote in absentia? If not, will he claim religious discrimination against Jews? Just how observant is he? Did he get a Swine Flu Vaccination?

Tom Tancredo just walked off the set on The Ed Show being hosted... lol!!!
Markos called him a coward for claiming depression to avoid Vietnam... in the context that Markos himself is a veteran and was responding to Tancredo's claim that veterans hate the VA ie. government run health care.
That's how you call these morons out!!

Fort Wood?

* Media Matters has a good-but-scary video with some of the highlights from yesterday.

I haven't seen so much white trash congregated at one place since taking a wrong turn into a trailer park.

"Whe're gunna beat stuuupid!"

Indeed. LOL.

"I didn't want the legacy of single-payer to be that it jeopardized passage of healthcare reform this year." - Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)

Do you hear what your saying Anthony? When people show low ratings for their congresscritters, there is a good reason.

Do you hear what your saying Anthony? When people show low ratings for their congresscritters, there is a good reason.

Yeah, the whole effing thing feels like a set-up. First Kucinich and Conyers send out word yesterday that they're waving the white flag, and then today Weiner caves in to support the Insurance Industry Welfare Bill.

Real reform has just been kicked down the alley for another 20 yrs.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) mildly criticized Rush Limbaugh's Nazi rhetoric today.

Nothing offends a social conservative so much as suggesting that being an utter asshole is wrong.

By objecting to utter assholism you're objecting to them personally. It's an ad hominem attack. You're discriminating against them.

[...] Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today that senators should expect to work Saturdays in December.

Thus proving that Democrats have no family values at all and are hell bent on destroying families. First through gay marriage and then again, through working Saturdays. Boner is gonna cry copper tears.

And if you saw President Obama talk about the tragedy at Fort Wood yesterday, and it made you long for George W. Bush's presidency, there's something horribly wrong.

At least they're consistent. Bush never made a mistake. Obama never does anything right.

Now, watch me hit this drive.

Another reconstructed (from ice core data) Arctic temperature time series.

"At risk" employees of Goldman Sachs and Citigroup were given doses of the hard to find H1N1 vaccine.

Goldman Sachs has received 200 doses, and Citigroup has received 1,200, health officials said.

Thanks, taxpayers for bailing us out! We'll be using that money to prevent the vaccine supply from getting to you less fortunate plebeians. Did I mention again thanks for bailing our greedy, soulless asses out?

Morgan Stanley received 1,000 doses of the vaccine for its New York and suburban offices, but the company turned over its entire supply to local hospitals...

Thanks for doing the right thing, Morgan Stanley.

Can someone please tell me how Goldman Sachs is getting the vaccine but my pediatrician thinks it'll be January or February before they get any?

This makes me sick.

Markos Moulitsas **TOTALLY BITCHSLAPPED** Tom Tancredo. It was beautiful! I'm seeing Palin-stars!

Linky to the kossacks.

I checked out Kevin Drum's story from one of his readers who said he was at the shooting (and said, didn't hear "Allahu akbar" which BTW means God is greatest, not just great.) But I'm trying to square that correspondent's description with media reports that the lady police officer actually stopped Hasan, not that her attempt was finished off by another, male (well, "he" in the Drum piece) officer. From http://abcnews.go.com/WN/fort-hood-officer-kimberly-munley-hailed-massacre-hero/story?id=9014951:

The Fort Hood massacre ended when Sgt. Kimberly Munley spotted Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as the alleged gunman was chasing a soldier who was already wounded and trying to shoot him again, officials said today.

The UC Berkeley story is local.

I'm ok generally with college sports, but when you know that their budget problems are so bad that they've closed the library on Saturdays, it kind of makes you wonder, just WHEN does this "world class" university expect their doctoral candidate to do their library research?

The whole "keeps the alumni involved" argument is BS when the sports LOSE money.

Eye witness accounts are often a bit confused and I have no special knowledge of the veracity of the letter on Kevin's site, but it is possible that the shooter was fumbling the reload because he was already badly hit (by Munley) and on his way down. The real story will likely come out as more details emerge.

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Maybe I'm alone in this, but the incident between Markos Moulitsas and Tom Tancredo did not strike me as much of a victory, although it is getting a lot of praise tonight.

Tancredo was trying to speak for veterans on health care and Moulitsas wanted to call him out on that. So far, so good. But bringing in his deferment from the Viet Nam war and slamming him as a chicken hawk (1) does not bring one uninsured American a single inch closer to health care and (2) made Moulitsas look a bit ugly. (And Shuster, too, who laughed about his guest walking off set.)

Moulitsas was right **on the policy.** He was winning the debate already, but instead of winning it he ended it, by being meaner than the GOP guy.

I don't like this stuff when the right-wing creeps do it; and I don't like it when liberals do it, either.

Not hailed as a hero, but actually a hero. You heard it here first. In this hot bed of leftism. Great job Sgt Munley. We salute you.

"Maybe I'm alone in this, but the incident between Markos Moulitsas and Tom Tancredo did not strike me as much of a victory, although it is getting a lot of praise tonight."

How was it not a victory? The GOP hate-mongers need to be called out for the liars and hypocrites they are. That is as much part of the issue as the actual substance at hand: the GOP set themselves up as the authority and then deliberately spread false information. Knocking them down from their faux pedestal is just as important as putting out the substantive truth.

And, unlike the smears we see from the GOP, Markos' attack was absolutely true; Tancredo is a chicken-hawk of the worst sort. That alone makes your comparison between the two utterly false.

Tancredo is also, BTW, a total racist, which is probably a big part of the reason for his anger at Markos (a Latino) calling him out.

It is long past time for liberals and progressives to get over this naiveté that we can win the day by being "nice". The past 30 years of constant losing to the GOP slime machine should have cured us of that notion. We have to play hardball, because otherwise the truth gets buried under the mountain of mud the GOP will inevitably throw at us.

The faculty at UC Berkeley are to be commended for pointing out the obvious aboout sports programs and their insignificant contribution to an esteemed university's place in the world. California lawmakers and the governor may not care that the number one public university in the nation has been put on a downward trajectory by their unwillingness to fund it properly, but maybe threatening the vaunted sports programs at Berkeley (and the poster boy for athletics in the UC System, UCLA) will get the public's attention and put pressure where it needs. Of course, that would mean the moral coward President Yudof would actually have to cast his lot with the University faculty and staff rather than continue Chamberlain-like sucking up to the neo fascist governor and his legislative cronies. If not, in the classic words of Rahm Emanual, "Why let a good crisis go to waste?"

Kudos to Markos, I hope we don't see Tancredo's smirking face for a long time to come. Folks in Europe are seeing on TV some of the demonstrators (tea baggers) and can not believe the US is populated by such crazy people. Does anyone know why these people don't have day jobs? They cannot all be independently wealthy.

"Does anyone know why these people don't have day jobs?"

Many are unemployed due to the Bush recession (but are too dumb to realize this or support any efforts to keep us out of a depression).

The Republicans would have voted for the single payer amendment to produce panic in a sufficient number of "moderates" and sink the bill.

* Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) refuses to let the Senate vote on a major veterans' benefits bill. So much for supporting the troops.

Its about time to put a time limit on Senate holds. Coburn has a history of putting holds, usually "secret" on bills with no legitimate reason. With a time limit of two weeks with no renewal should be long enough to resolve any issues.

To allow one Senator to muck up the legislative process like that is wrong.

In answer to your question, Shade Tail, it's not a victory because Moulitsas's substantive point got lost in the personal scrap. It might give a lot of liberals pleasure to see Tancredo hoist on his own petard, but it changes the subject and ends the debate. Moulitsas could have spent his time systematically poking holes in Tancredo's argument but he went for the personal shot instead, won it, and the debate (and the chance to show why Tancredo was wrong on the facts) gone.

In addition, there is now a handy video clip for the right to use to demonstrate how MSNBC is partisan network in need of balance from Fox. Great. Well done.

Again: I'm not seeing how this advances health reform.

P.S. To Shade Tail... It is the GOP and the right who subscribe to the philosophy that "Personal smears are all right as long as I'm the one doing it." I would really grieve to see the left bite into that poison apple. The more we talk like adults, the worse people like Steve King and Michelle Bachman look.

And to think Nidal Malik Hasan could have scored an easy discharge if he had just claimed to have been gay.

"In answer to your question, Shade Tail, it's not a victory because Moulitsas's substantive point got lost in the personal scrap."

Except that it actually didn't. They were still talking about the VA system as an example of government-run health insurance. Markos just refused to let Tancredo put himself out as an authority on the subject, which is exactly what Markos should have done.

"It might give a lot of liberals pleasure to see Tancredo hoist on his own petard, but it changes the subject and ends the debate."

And ending the debate with a fundamentally dishonest hypocrite and liar is a bad thing...why?

"In addition, there is now a handy video clip for the right to use to demonstrate how MSNBC is partisan network in need of balance from Fox."

Oh sure, a pack of dishonest partisan liars couldn't possibly have made hay out of anything without this (in case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic).

"It is the GOP and the right who subscribe to the philosophy that "Personal smears are all right as long as I'm the one doing it.""

You are equivocating between "personal smears" and "accurate attacks". Kindly stop doing that. There is a huge difference between lying about someone, as the GOP does, and exposing someone as dishonest, as Markos did in this clip.

"The more we talk like adults, the worse people like Steve King and Michelle Bachman look."

That's what we've been saying for 30 years, and it has been repeatedly proven false. Stop being so naive and start paying attention. Your attitude about "talking like adults" is why Kerry didn't strike back against the Swiftboat liars and the rest of the partisan attackers back in '04, and it cost him the election. It is why Gore didn't fight back against the media narrative back in '00, and it cost *him* the election also.

When you try to stay above the fray, the only thing you accomplish is allowing the mud slingers to sling their mud unopposed. If you don't understand that by now, after we've spent the last 30 years learning it the hard way, then there is no hope for you.

Okay, Shade Tail. We disagree so starkly it is almost as if we watched different interviews. It looked to me like one party in the debate won by pissing off the other party and ending the conversation. After Tancredo walks off, Markos is left to talk with Shuster. That's not a debate, that's an echo chamber.

He could have rebutted Tancredo, and rebuffed Tancredo's claim for authority on the subject, without doing that.

You don't see a problem with that because of your personal feelings about Tancredo. The problem is, at this point you become the same kind of person as the red-meat, liberal-baiting conservative who hates Obama so much that substance don't matter anymore. Do you really think that serves intelligent policy-based debate?

The philosophy, again, is: "my side is right, so it's okay when we do this."

Your anger is so intense that you now turn on me and start with the name-calling, and I'm on your side on the issue. If you really believe that the only way to win social progress is to act like a bastard, to be personally repugnant and silence your opposition with personal attacks, you have gone to a dark place, indeed. In fact, you have become emotionally like the very people you oppose: they are nasty and self-righteous, and do not care about telling the truth in a debate about policy because all they really want to do is smash their opponent and drive them out of the room. You think you need to be like them to win? I grieve for you.

I would carry this conversation on with you further, as it seems worthwhile, but I'm not going to attempt it if you are going to turn your hostility on me and call me names. The citizens of the United States can, and do, talk about policy like adults. Join us.