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Credit: Time Magazine, h/t Kateoplis

Dear USA,

Time Magazine thinks you're pea-brained reality deniers.

Open Thread below...

On this day in 1936, in his first studio recording session, Robert Johnson laid this down.

"Free bananas!"

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Ed Schultz spoke to historian and Professor Doug Brinkley about the heated exchange he had this week at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing where Brinkley got into it with "Corrupt Bastards Club" member, Alaska Rep. Don Young after Young insulted him after coming back into the hearing room near the end of Brinkley's testimony. I say good for Brinkley for standing up to him.

Here's more from Yahoo News (h/t Gene214) -- C-SPAN battle: Historian shouts down congressman at hearing:

Televised congressional hearings often serve as a platform for members of Congress to berate, bloviate and showboat for the cameras, but at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, historian Douglas Brinkley wouldn't stand for it.

The topic at hand was drilling in the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The trouble began when Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young misstated Brinkley's name after referring to the hearing as "an exercise in futility." In a certain breach of protocol, Brinkley cut him off.

Young didn't like that one bit.

"You just be quiet," Young demanded.

"You don't own me," Brinkley shot back. "I pay your salary!"

Washington Republican Rep. Doc Hastings, the chairman of the committee, tried to break it up, but then Brinkley interrupted him.

"I work for the private sector," Brinkley said.

When the chairman returned the floor to Young, the rumble began anew.

"We're the ones who ask the questions, and you're the one who answers the questions," Young said. "Boy I'm really pissed right now."

And TPM caught this additional bit as well -- Watch A Historian Mock GOP Rep. Don Young For Going To Community College:

Historian and Professor Doug Brinkley made Alaska Rep. Don Young (R) really really mad during a heated exchange at a House hearing, when Brinkley mocked Young for going to community college. [...]

Things went south when Young called Brinkley “Mr. Rice” and said his testimony is “garbage.” Brinkley then goes on the attack: “It’s Dr. Brinkley. Rice is a university. I know you went to Yuba College and couldn’t graduate.”

I don't agree with the mockery depiction of Brinkley. If anyone was making a mockery of the hearing, it was Young. You can read more on Don Young's "Corrupt Bastards Club" here -- PBS NOW: Alaskan Oil, Politics & the Corrupt Bastards Club and here -- Alaska's Corrupt Bastards Club.

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Lawrence O'Donnell took a shot at the Rick Perry and Mitt Romney campaigns for their recent, lying campaign ads and at the media for allowing them to get away with this sort of dishonest advertising due to their refusal for the most part, to use the word "lie."

Think Progress came up with a response to the Romney ad which Lawrence played at the end of this segment which is, as they noted, "*Accurate, according to the Romney standard of accuracy."

New ThinkProgress ‘Ad’: Romney Says ‘Let Us Just Raise Your Taxes Some More’*:

Yesterday, Mitt Romney released his first campaign ad, which quotes President Obama saying “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” But those weren’t Obama’s words; he was quoting a strategist for Sen. John McCain in 2008.

In response, the Romney campaign has defended this blatantly dishonest campaign tactic as “not out of bounds.” Thus, ThinkProgress has created this completely in-bounds “advertisement” quoting Romney, in his own words:

When I watched this, I wondered if O'Donnell had read Digby's post on the fact that generally, there is no punishment by our media for politicians doing this sort of thing because of exactly what O'Donnell was talking about here, the media allowing the lie to stand. Here's more from Digby -- Knowing their marks:

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Who needs Fox News when we've got PBS out there spewing the same type of nonsense we hear nonstop there, and allowing David Brooks to come on the air opining the failure of the so-called "Super Committee" to reach a deal and praising Mitt Romney for embracing the advice of Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin, who were urging the committee to partially privatize Medicare. But that's exactly what we got this Monday on The Charlie Rose Show.

Think Progress laid out why this is a terrible idea in their post here -- GOP Super Committee Co-Chair: Lawmakers Failed Because Democrats Refused To Privatize Medicare:

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) faults the Democrats’ refusal to accept partial Medicare privatization for the super committee’s inability to come up with a bipartisan plan to lower spending in today’s Wall Street Journal. He writes, “Democrats on the committee made it clear that the new spending called for in the president’s health law was off the table” and pretends that the spending in the Affordable Care Act added to the deficit (it actually reduces it). “Republicans offered to negotiate a plan on the other two health-care entitlements—Medicare and Medicaid—based upon the reforms included in the budget the House passed earlier this year,” he continues and lays out the premium support proposal offered by Alice Rivlin and Pete Domenici: [...]

Hensarling doesn’t mention that the Rivlin-Domenici premium-support proposal doesn’t so much lower national health care spending as it shifts it to the beneficiary. The plan reduces the federal contribution to Medicare by capping costs for each beneficiary and offering premium support credits that won’t keep up with actual health care spending. The federal government spends less, but seniors will pay more out of pocket for health care benefits every year. The proposal also breaks up the market clout of traditional Medicare and rather than ratcheting up some of efficiencies and payment reforms in the Affordable Care Act, it sets the nation on an untested path of private competition — leaving seniors vulnerable to the manipulations of for-profit health insurers.

Rough transcript of Brooks' hackery below the fold.

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Journalist Mona Eltahawy recounts her horrifying ordeal last night at the hands of the Egyptian security forces. Eltahawy ended up with a broken arm and hand, and was sexually molested.

via ABC News:

Acclaimed Egyptian-American columnist Mona Eltahawy, released today in Cairo, said Egyptian security forces sexually assaulted and beat her so severely that an arm and hand were broken during her overnight detention.

"I AM FREE," she wrote on her Twitter page just after noon local time. "12 hours with Interior Ministry bastards and military intelligence combined. Can barely type -- must go xray arms after CSF [Central Security Forces] pigs beat me," she tweeted.

Shortly before dawn today, Eltahawy wrote a cryptic tweet that read: "Beaten arrested in interior ministry."

Eltahawy said that while she was in custody "5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my trousers."

"They are dogs and their bosses are dogs. F*** the Egyptian police," she tweeted.

A defiant Eltahawy tweeted after she was released:

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FDR with his famous black arm band.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving redubbed with excerpts from GOP debates. Best. Mashup. Ever.

[h/t Mediaite]

This is from a Walmart "Video Game Challenge" in Porter Ranch, CA today.

Meanwhile, in a North Carolina Walmart, an off-duty rent-a-cop pepper-sprays the shoppers to bring them under control. A fight breaks out at another Walmart over $2 waffle makers, another at one in upstate NY, bringing the current national Black Friday injury total to 24 - and counting.

I find this entire sale ritual so bewildering. "I'm a great parent because I camped out on a sidewalk all night to get you the newest toy at 40 percent off"? My sister and her daughter were out at 4am today - eww. When you could still be warm in bed, sleeping? I don't get it. Is it just me, or is it crazy? Maybe we should be applauding the woman for grabbing a Wall Street-inspired competitive edge!

Authorities are searching for a woman accused of pepper-spraying other shoppers Thursday night at the Walmart in Porter Ranch so that she could grab more discounted merchandise.

Twenty customers, including children, were hurt in the 10:10 p.m. incident, officials said. Shoppers complained of minor skin and eye irritation and sore throats.

"This was customer-versus-customer 'shopping rage,'" said Los Angeles Police Lt. Abel Parga.

The woman used the spray in more than one area of the Walmart "to gain preferred access to a variety of locations in the store," said Los Angeles Fire Capt. James Carson.

"She was competitive shopping," he said.

Black Friday's sales began at the Walmart at 10 p.m. and featured door-buster sales on toys, including $5 Bratz dolls, $10 Wii video games and $29 tricycles.

Meanwhile, two shoppers shot during hold-up attempts at other Walmarts. Beware of Walmarts today!

UPDATE: One grandpa was arrested at a Phoenix Walmart, and a customer was tasered at one in Connecticut.

UPDATE: Another Walmart, more pepper spray.