I didn't think I'd ever see the day when conservatives would disagree with their hero Antonin Scalia, but that's what's happening in the current gun control debate. It also points out how far outside the norm these gun nuts are when trying to defend the gun manufacturers over all Americans. When Larry Pratt says guns without limits, ---he's really just trying to be the pitchman for every gun /ammo manufacturer and supplier in America. It is really that simple.

FOX News Sunday:

WALLACE: OK. I want to get into one last issue, a bigger issue. Mr. Pratt, you say, one of the -- maybe the basic problem here, is that President Obama's disdain for the constitutional right to bear arms and, in fact, you have compared him to George III, British monarch during the American Revolution.

PRATT: He might be learning from his example.

WALLACE: Yes. But when the Supreme Court ruled on the Second Amendment in the 2008 case, the Heller case here in D.C., I want to put up what Justice Scalia said. Let's put it up on the screen. "There seems to us, no doubt on the basis of text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to bear arms. Of course, the right was not unlimited." In fact, in his decision, Scalia talked about restrictions on what kinds of guns can be --

TANDEN: Absolutely.

WALLACE: -- guns can be sold, who can buy them and, where they can be carried. So, yes, he said, there is a Second Amendment individual right, but he didn't say it's without limits.

PRATT: Well, that was unfortunate because the Amendment does provide its own degree of scrutiny. It says shall not be infringed. And, we know that at least one justice, Mr. Thomas, takes that point of view.This is not something where the government is supposed to be free to tell we, the people, the government's boss, how much -- how far we can go with the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is there to constrain the government. Not the people.

WALLACE: So you think that Scalia was wrong when he said that that right is not unlimited?

PRATT: He was not speaking from a constitutional perspective.

WALLACE: And, finally, Ms. Tanden --

TANDEN: That was the Supreme Court Justice.

WALLACE: Pardon?

TANDEN: That was the Supreme Court justice.

WALLACE: Well, you disagree with Supreme Court justices all the time.

TANDEN: I do. But I'm surprised he is disagreeing with Justice Scalia on this issue.

The NRA puppets like Pratt are trying to get rid of every gun control law in America. It's pathetic and dangerous, but very profitable for all parties involved.

(h/t Mugsy)

Fox News Sunday apparently decided that the top news stories of the day were Newt Gingrich's and Laura Bush's new books (in that order, too). What oil spill? What battles in Iraq and Afghanistan? What economy? What Supreme Court nominee? What immigration reform battle? Nah, none of those are important...what Fox News viewers need to learn about is the literary efforts of "super-relevant" Republicans like the disgraced former Speaker of the House and the former First Lady of the least popular president in US history.

But eagle-eyed C&Ler Mugsy noticed something in the Bush home, where Chris Wallace interviewed Laura Bush, that should make the hairs on Glenn Beck's neck stand up on end:

LAURA BUSH IS A MAOIST SCHOLAR!

Look at the bookshelf behind Chris Wallace. Right behind his shoulder appears to be this book. Interestingly, most of the Amazon reviews describe the book as somewhat "sympathetic" to Mao.

Wait a second...you don't suppose that it's not actually Pickles who read the book, do you? That would mean that it belongs to former President George W. "I read three Shakespeares" Bush.

Does Glenn Beck know?????

Michele Bachmann looked really nervous on FNS with Chris Wallace, but her nerves didn't stop her from coming off as a lunatic. For his part Wallace asked some tough questions, but then didn't press her on her tea party-over the top stupidity.

I may start calling her "Nostradamus," since she's calling herself that and Wallace put up the transcript of what she said. She avoided addressing the issue that she called Obama "anti-American" on an earlier FNS and instead, attacked Obama's policies again. When Wallace told her that Bush is the one who bailed out the Banks and AIG, she just said, "That's right." The next question should have been, "Was George Bush anti-American too?"

Flashback time. Remember when Michele tried to stick her tongue down George Bush's throat during his SOTU address in 2008?

Wallace: Can't you disagree with his policies without saying he's anti-American?

Bachmann: Well I didn't say he was anti-American on when I was on Sean Hannity show..I, I said that his policies were radical and I think they are....

Her defense is to say she didn't call him anti-American on Hannity's show. Teh stoopid, it hurts. She just lies and makes up all her "facts" without a hint of guilt. She just went into her anti-federal government schtick and lied about the size of corporate America and then went into another lie about Obama's position on a Value Added Tax. Of course, the president didn't say anything about VATs, but Paul Volcker did. Wallace actually didn't let that one go by.

Wallace: In fairness, the president hasn't proposed that, one of his top economic advisors, Paul Volcker, this week sugggested we might have to consider it, but the president hasn't proposed it.

Jason Linkins:

Bachmann says "we've gone from 100% of the private economy being private" to now the United States "owns or effectively owns" 51% of the private economy. This is what's called, "complete bullshit."

Wallace points out that the bank bailouts were done by Bush, but he should also point out that WE DO NOT "OWN" ANY OF THOSE BANKS. Those banks were, very explicitly, NOT NATIONALIZED.

Bachmann is also against the Value-Added Tax, because it's European. Europeans love getting taxed! If someone would only tell them that they didn't have to pay so much in taxes, and all they'd have to give up were many "goods and services" their government provides. Wallace points out that the VAT is also something that the president hasn't endorsed. She's also upset by elevated levels of unemployment, but, I guess not willing to do anything that brings down those levels? I hope we get to the whole part where Tim Geithner wants to peg our economy to the dinar soon!

What didn't she lie about? Her name. "Nostradamus"

I've been writing for weeks that the House needs to step up and improve the Senate health care bill in conference. They are co-equal branches and when a bill is to be merged, there are usually compromises made. Sen. Conrad screamed out on FNS and said that if the House tinkers with their precious bill, it won't pass.

CONRAD: It is very clear that the bill, the final bill, to pass in the United States Senate is going to be -- have to be very close to the bill that has been negotiated here. Otherwise you will not get 60 votes in the United States Senate.

My sources on the Hill have told me that Nancy Pelosi doesn't have the votes from progressives to pass the Senate bill as it stands. I know the White House doesn't want to play hardball now, but we do. What will Lieberman say if they do make changes to strengthen the bill? Will he be the man that killed health care reform to Americans?

mcjoan had an article posted yesterday that said the progressives appeared to be caving.

It's beginning to look like the House is going to cave into Lieberman and Nelson, too. TPMDC And co-chair of the Progressive Caucus Raul Grijalva seals it.

In the interview, Grijalva confirmed that House Dems were beginning to discuss the idea of revising the Senate bill in conference to move up the implementation date for insurance coverage and make it more in line with the earlier date in the House bill. I asked Grijalva if he could support the bill if such a change were made, even if it lacked a public option or other similar concessions sought by liberals. "It would sweeten it somewhat," Grijalva said, "if they speed up the coverage mechanism."

He added: "That would be something I’d have to look at very closely."

Asked if he was suggesting that he’s open to supporting such an outcome, Grijalva answered in the affirmative, but insisted that he would have to evaluate the changes in conference before making any decision. He said House liberals would continue to push for a public component and a repeal of the anti-trust exemption for insurance companies. And he demanded that conference negotiations not merely "rubber stamp" the Senate Bill.

Moving up implementation dates would help, and that appears to be a House leadership might use as a "key arguing point" in the upcoming conference.

But today a new Politico piece paints somewhat different picture: House Dems: We won't roll over

House Democrats insisted Tuesday they have no plans to roll over for the Senate in upcoming negotiations on a health reform bill, even as they acknowledged it would be all but impossible to reinsert a public insurance option or force the so-called millionaire's tax on the Senate.

Either move would disrupt Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s no-margin-for-error 60-vote majority. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team seem to have their sights set on lower-profile - but no-less important differences, like boosting affordability credits in the final bill and starting the insurance exchange a year earlier, which they did in the House.

Members will return the next week, and aides said they would still like to pass a bill by the State of the Union at the end of January or the beginning of February. But leadership staff in the House said that that doesn't mean they're prepared to just accept the Senate bill. {..}

"We want to move a bill by the State of the Union, but we want to do it because we're ready, not because we have to," an aide said.

Here are a few key points that can be fixed in conference, but please add your own...read on

Again, I've been writing that the House needs to stand up and be counted and they seem to be listening to our calls not to roll over for the Senate. I've contacted several members of the House for comment and will get back to you soon on that.

There's plenty of info on-line that explains what's wrong with the Senate bill, but here's a few key points. Add to the list in the comments.

* National exchange (rather than state exchanges)

* Public option

* Repeal anti-trust exemption

* Wealthy surtax, rather than middle-class insurance tax

* Better affordability provisions in House bill, including level of subsidies and Medicaid to 150% poverty.

* Repeal Stupak language.

You never hear any Senators and Blue Dogs asking or debating if Viagra should be covered by health care while woman's reproductive rights are always being attacked, especially if it's in the public option. Chris Wallace brought it up on FNS even though it's a right guaranteed by our laws. Why should this even come up in the discussion?

WALLACE: Are you prepared to say that in a government public-funded, taxpayer-funded public health insurance plan that no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions?

ORSZAG: I think that that will wind up being part of the debate. I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It's obviously a controversial issue, and it's one of the questions that is playing out in this debate.

WALLACE: So you're not prepared to rule out...

ORSZAG: I'm not prepared to rule it out.

How about we start demanding that Viagra should no longer be covered. Let's see how the men of Congress react to that news.

Once again women draw the short stick here. Men try to control their bodies, but want freedom to do what they will. Have you noticed how all the Sunday shows take such a negative view of the health care reform debate? Every question is framed at defeating it and it's like they are trying to tank reform so they can cover a defeat for Obama's presidency regardless on how it affects the American people. But when you see the Villagers talk about, oh, I don't know, holding hearing on torture they all freak out and say it'll make DC such a toxic place and that should never happen.

(h/t David)

If you're watching FOXNews, you know you're going to run into Karl "I belong in front of a War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague" Rove. Naturally, a man who is synonymous with the nasty, divisive partisan politics that the voters overwhelmingly rejected in 2008 is the go-to guy for answers on the direction of the Republican Party.

Host Chris Wallace asks Rove, who remains strangely sure of his vision of the Republican Party despite the fact that fewer people identify themselves as Republicans now than ever before, whether the Republican Party has room in it for someone like former Secretary of State Colin Powell who was guilty of being quoted by the National Journal as saying that Americans are looking for something that current GOP appears to not understand.

WALLACE: Finally, Colin Powell is answering his Republican critics today. Powell said -- and we’re going to put it up on the screen -- this earlier this month. “Americans do want to pay taxes for services. Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”

Rove, to his credit (and it kills me to write that), says that the market should decide what works for the Republican Party. Powell should find a candidate he supports and see which candidate resonates with the party. Asked if he, like Dick Cheney, chose the Rush Limbaugh version over the Colin Powell version, good ol' Turdblossom predictably chooses the Fat Bastard of the GOP:

WALLACE: Dick Cheney said if it’s a battle between or a choice between Rush Limbaugh and Colin Powell, he sides with Limbaugh. You?

ROVE: I -- yes, if I had to pick between the two. But you know what? That’s -- neither one of those are candidates. Neither one of those are going to be people who are offering themselves for office.

It seems to me that Rove's ideas have already lost in the marketplace of ideas in the GOP (such as it is). Mr. "Permanent Republican Majority" not only lost big in the election, but is losing membership more and more as they continue to try to keep it business as usual. What's more telling to me is the part of the National Journal article on Powell that Wallace didn't bring up and that shows just that Rove and his brethren just don't get it:

Powell described the 2008 GOP candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, as "a beloved friend" but said he told him last summer that the party had developed a reputation for being mean-spirited and driven more by social conservatism than the economic problems that Americans faced.

Powell also criticized other GOP leaders, for bowing too much to the right.

He blasted radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, saying he does not believe that Limbaugh or conservative icon Ann Coulter serve the party well. He said the party lacks a "positive" spokesperson. "I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without," Powell said.

Hmm....where did that negative mean-spiritedness come from, Karl? At least I'm confident that Powell won't bow down to the altar of Rushbo, begging forgiveness.

Transcripts (courtesy of CQ Politics) below the fold

Continue reading »

(h/t Heather)

Bill Kristol is upset that the release of the CIA torture memos will open up the potential for criminal prosecutions of Bush officials. William "the Bloody" Kristol wants to release all the CIA memos and have Dick Cheney testify about them. Wow, he even admits that torture is a crime, but brings up another right-wing canard: that releasing the CIA memos and more photographs of abuse hurts our national security.

(rough transcript)

Kristol: Torture is a crime, that is agreed upon. If these memos are so crazy, so ridiculous in their legal analysis ... three people being waterboarded, a few instances of waterboarding might not qualify as torture under certain circumstances, which is what the memos argued, then he (Obama) opened the door, and once he opened the door they're going down that road...

It's the Bush administration who authorized these things, they're still running against the Bush administration. Let's stipulate that the Bush administration did a lot for things wrong. How does that legitimize do something now that will damage our national security?

Williams: How does it damage out national security? I think when you have President Obama say somewhere we have lost our moral bearings. I don't think there's any doubt about that...

Kristol: There's a lot of doubt...

Williams: You said a moment ago that torture is illegal. You gotta remember President Reagan was out there signing the UN convention, we will not participate in torture as an American people. So something went wrong there.

Mara Liasson then argues about the Justice Department officials involved, and Brit Hume (as usual) just thinks it's all a farce. Yeah, torturing people is soooo comical, so inconsequential.

Mara: You might think that the lawyers of the Bush justice Department came out with a decision that was wrong, legally wrong and morally repugnant, but it doesn't mean that they committed a crime. That they said, ohhh we know this is torture, we're just going ot cook this up. The question is whether they did this in good faith or not. and if...

Hume: I predict Mara, based on what you're saying that any prosecution which will come out of this will be a total farce.

There will be a series of show trials with "grand inquisitions' and all the kinds of things we've been associated with. It's possible that those lawyers will get hauled before Congress and do to any investigation there Oliver North did to the e9/11 commission, which was to render it the farce that it always was from the beginning, that would be a good outcome, but this whole area ... what should be a closed chapter -- I don't see any national benefit to it...

Kristol:... I think now that the door is open, I say "bring it on." Let's have a big national debate on this. Let's have Steve Bradbury confront his accusers, who are one tenth the lawyers he is, and we're not under the pressure he was under and not a real threat. Let's have George Tenet testify. Let's have Mick Hagen testify. Let's have a serious debate, let's have Dick Cheney take on anyone that the left wants to produce about whether we were responsible, whether it was a dark chapter in our history that we have to be ashamed of or whether the US government behaved in a very fine way and I think a very impressive way...

Bloody Bill thinks Bush and Cheney's torturing of people is a very impressive way to handle prisoners.

I always love when right-wing hacks use the word "serious." It's only they who are the "serious" people, and therefore the world is only properly ruled by their hand. And he's confident that the propaganda that would be spewed by Cheney and his ilk will muddy up the waters enough to fool the American people.

Me, I'd like to see Cheney have to get in front of Henry Waxman.

It didn't take long for Barack Obama's bipartisan buddies to obstruct his first big plan to help our desperate country. On FNS this morning, John McCain said that he would not vote for the stimulus package that would try to breath life into our suffocating economy which is suffering because of the conservatives that just lost the election.

WALLACE: Let's talk about the economy. We'll get to national security in a moment. The president is pushing an economic stimulus package of $825 billion that raises some of the issues that were at the heart of your campaign against Barack Obama. $275 billion in tax breaks, including money for people who don't pay income taxes. $550 billion in spending, including $200 million to resod the national mall, $360 million to fight sexually transmitted disease. As that package now stands, can john McCain vote for it?

McCAIN: No. We need to make tax cuts permanent and need to make a commitment that they'll be no new taxes. We need to cut payroll taxes. We need to cut business taxes. We need to have a commitment that after a couple of quarters of GDP growth that we will embark on a path to reduce spending to get our budget in balance. We're going to lay an additional $2 trillion of debt on future Americans. Is there going to be a point where foreign countries such as the Chinese stop buying our debt? Look, we've got to eliminate the unnecessary spending. There's got to be some kind of litmus as to whether it will really stimulate the economy and whether it will in the short term. Some of the stimulus in this package is excellent. Some of it has nothing to do -- those projects and others you mentioned -- six billion for broadband Internet access. That will take years. There should be an end point to all of this spending as well. Say two years. If we need to stimulate the economy in a short period of time, let's enact those provisions --

WALLACE: You're talking about a major rewrite as it now stands.

McCAIN: The plan was written by a Democratic majority in the house primarily. So, yeah, I think there has to be major rewrites if we want to stimulate the economy.

WALLACE as it stands, you'd vote against it?

McCAIN: Look, I am opposed to most of the provisions in the bill. As it stands now, I would not support it.

The Republican fetish for tax cuts is astounding. Doesn't McCain remember that the American people rejected his "tax cut" mentality when he lost the election? I'm actually glad that Republicans are acting this way. The more they obstruct him the better it is because hopefully it will push him to be less inclusive with the people that have almost destroyed this country. The American people will not stand for it this early in his term. I've written many times that Obama should not appease them to get things done. They may pay lip service to Obama because he won, but they want him to fail.

But they underestimate the power of his bully pulpit. If he goes on air and tells the country he tried to work with the Republicans but they refused to do the things he deems necessary to kick start this economy, it will resonate and they will pay another huge price. So, keep at it boys and girls. Obstruct away.

Bill Kristol surprisingly backed up the UAW and the Democratic Party's plan of trying to offer a bridge loan to the Big 3 and not try to be "union busters." It's not out of any love for unions, but all about politics. As we saw with the AutoGate Memo, the Republican leadership decided to kill the rescue plan/bridge loan to the Big 3 purely for political reasons. Those reasons are to destroy the UAW and try to make them the scapegoats. Kristol -- who as you know is not on my team -- believes that the Southern Strategy of attacking workers is a huge political mistake.

Kristol: I don't think it's very smart for a bunch of Southern Republicans to decide that the future of the Republican party is to beat up working class union members in states like Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. The UAW is in a lot of trouble, they've shrunk by 2/3's in the last years...

An average automobile, 10% of the cost comes from wages and they were going to cut wages by ten or twenty percent, so it's one or two percent of the cost of the automobile. To have a huge fight for that. I think it was a mistake for the Republicans,

He's thinking of this in political terms for Republicans, and actually gets honest when he says that it's not the union workers or their wages at fault here. I was not in favor of a Car Czar because I don't trust Bush to make the choice based on the interests of the working class, but at least they see the problem this could cause our entire economy if the Republicans in Congress bankrupt the auto industry.

On the other hand, if Republicans want to immolate themselves into even further irrelevancy, I'm inclined to let them. The trick is to keep them from taking the whole country down along with them.

(h/t Heather)

Chris Wallace starts FOX News Sunday off by asking Holy Joe why McCain attacking Obama's character so vehemently now. There was a time when McCain was above all that.

Wallace: Gov. Palin did just that yesterday. Let's take a look.(Palin. Obama pals around with terrorists) Sen Lieberman, is all that fair game, an attack on Barack Obama's character?

Lieberman: Well it is fair game. And I want to get back to that in a minute. The McCain campaign hasn't announced that it's going to spend the next four weeks then negative campaigning....

Wallace: Senator, Senator, if I may on the front page of the Washington Post and the NY Times yesterday, a top McCain strategist, his name Greg Strimple was quoted as saying we want to turn the page on the economy and start talking about Obama being and out and out liberal, we want to talk about his character, so the McCain is on the record as saying exactly that.

Lieberman: Well I must say I don't know Greg, but I do know John McCain...

Spin it Joe. The McCain campaign did announce it. McCain is desperate and has resorted to the Sean Hannity school of politics. That's not anything really much different than they've been doing anyway. Let's take a stroll down memory lane when John McCain said he would run a respectful campaign:

"It is critical, as we prepare to face off with whomever the Democrats select as their nominee, that we all follow John's lead and run a respectful campaign focused on the issues and values that are important to the American people," Davis wrote. "Throughout the primary election we saw John McCain reject the type of politics that degrade our civics, and this will not change as he prepares to run head-to-head against the Democratic nominee."

The Nation:

Added Cindy McCain in May: "What you're going to see is a great debate. Which is what the American public deserves. None of this negative stuff, though. You won't see it come out of our side at all.

"