- Ryan Watkins

“These materials contain hate messages, glorify violence against abortion doctors who provide constitutionally protected medical services, and instruct on means of violence, including bombing, of abortion clinics,” said Lee Thompson, an attorney for the Tiller family, in a letter sent to eBay on Tuesday and approved by Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller. “We urge you to deny access to the resources of eBay for this reprehensible and vile ‘auction.’”

The decision by eBay followed a week of increasing national criticism. Anti-choice activists organized the auction to help fund Roeder’s defense, and items being donated included “an Army of God manual, a prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons, and several autographed drawings submitted by Roeder.”

– Ryan Watkins

During his Fox News show yesterday, Glenn Beck declared that the members of his radical blackboard — including various Obama administration officials, SEIU, ACORN, and Center for American Progress CEO John Podesta — all support “social justice, environmental justice, REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH!” Watch it:

Beck says he gathers his inspiration from political philosopher Thomas Paine. The title of Beck’s bestselling book is Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine. Think Progress has unearthed startling evidence that Paine also held radical notions about social justice and wealth redistribution.

In his 1796 tract, Agrarian Justice, Paine writes:

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

Paine then goes on to claim that in order for the dispossessed to earn their rightful part of this common inheritance, it is necessary to charge wealthy landowners ground-rent that would be used to…

[C]reate a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

By the iron-clad logic of the blackboard, these associations can only mean one thing about Glenn Beck. Who will tell the people?

“I’ve said many times before, we’re all held to a high standard here,” Goodell said. Then he continued: “I would not want to see those comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL –- absolutely not.” [...]

“The comments Rush made specifically about Donovan, I disagree with very strongly,” Goodell said. “It’s a polarizing comment that we don’t think reflect accurately on the N.F.L. or our players. I obviously do not believe those comments are positive and they are divisive. That’s a negative thing for us, obviously.”

In 2003, ESPN fired Limbaugh for arguing that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated within the sports press because the “media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.” In recent days, NFL players and the head of the union have also spoken out against the bid, and today, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said he would vote against Limbaugh, calling his past comments “inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive.”

- Ryan Watkins

It’s really sad that they really don’t understand how inappropriate that is. I’m in my place. I’m the speaker of the House — the first woman speaker of the House. And I’m in my place because the House of Representatives voted me there.

Pelosi added that she hadn’t heard sexist language like what was in the NRCC press release in “decades.” Watch it:

– Ryan Watkins

I’m interrupting my career. It’s not like I want my new career in politics. But I’m willing to interrupt it the same way that somebody interrupted their career and joined World War II and went off to fight the Nazis.

Schiff added that he doesn’t think he’s “that heroic” and admitted he’s not “risking as much as a soldier.” “But it’s the same principle,” he added.

– Ryan Watkins

He talked about his own failings with alcoholism as the reason he supported his faith-based initiative. “My philosophy is, find somebody who hurts and do something about it,” he said. “Don’t wait for government to tell you what to do.” He bluntly talked about his own situation. “I was beginning to love alcohol over my wife and kids. It got to a point when Billy Graham came into my life. But I was hardheaded and didn’t want to listen for a while. And then I stopped drinking overnight. I am a one-man faith-based initiative. Alcohol was competing for my affections. And it would have ruined me.”

He said things that could ruffle feathers, such as how he’d recently gone to a faith-based program run by “former drunks.” He said he went to see a prison ministry program, noting that ‘everyone was black, of course.” All eyes turned in search of the sole African American in the audience of donors. They wanted to see if he was offended.

Latimer adds that that the African-American man didn’t “appear to be” offended, and he defends Bush by saying that he “didn’t mean it in a derogatory way. He just liked making blunt observations to shock his audience.”

– Ryan Watkins

In today’s Washington Post, Steven Pearlstein argues that Democrats should just give up on the public option. “Enough already with the public option!,” he writes. Steven thinks we should drop one of the most popular and effective aspects of health care reform simply because the fight is too politically difficult in Congress. I think such an approach would ruin health care reform and devastate the Democratic party.

Steven is confusing health insurance reform with health care reform. If we only get reform that requires insurance companies to provide coverage to everyone who applies, charge everyone the same premiums, and end their discriminatory practices, that would be great insurance reform, but it’s not, as Steven writes, health care reform.

Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would give Americans a real choice and not reward for-profit health insurers with 47 milllion new customers. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option would cut out the administrative waste of private insurers and begin changing the way health care is delivered. Real health care reform that includes a new public health insurance option could adopt the kind of payment reforms that would start to “hold down long-term growth in health spending” and encourage providers to deliver care more efficiently. We know that premiums in the public option would be about 10 percent lower and that a real robust plan that piggy backs off of Medicare’s infrastructure could save us somewhere between $75 billion and $150 billion over 10 years.

Just because the public health insurance option is “new,” moreover, does not mean it’s not worth fighting for. Steven points out that I did not propose a robust public option in 2004 election. The measure of good politics and policy is the ability to accept and identify new ideas. My 2004 plan may not have included a new stand-alone program, but it did allow Americans over 55 to enroll in Medicare and everyone under 25 would have been eligible for Medicaid.

I believed that government could help expand coverage and control costs then, and the overwhelming majority of Americans believe it today. If the August recess has taught us one thing, it’s that Republicans have ended all serious conversations about reform and will oppose reform whether it includes a public option or not. They want to make the choice for the American people instead of letting Americans have their own choice of coverage. And if Democrats follow their lead, they will have to face the voters’ choice come November.

“When you look at the fervor of some of these people who are all being whipped up by the right-wing talking heads on Fox, to me, you’re crossing a line,’ Connolly said. ‘They’re inciting people to riot with just total distortions of facts. They think we’re going to euthanize Grandma and the government is going to take over.”

Recent events have given congressman good reason to be “fearful for their safety.” Last week, a protester hung an effigy of freshman Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) outside his district office, and after a June 22 town hall meeting was disrupted by an “unruly mob” of tea party activists, Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) had to be escorted to his car by police. ThinkProgress contacted Connolly’s office regarding the identity of the congressman who was physically assaulted, but we have not yet received a response.

– Ben Bergmann

– Claire Teitelman

“I’m on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values,” said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “There are a lot of us from the South who hold those values, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that’s why we performed so badly in the national elections.”

Vitter is an unusual standard-bearer for the “conservative values” wing of the Republican Party. As Steve Benen writes, “[E]very time Vitter mentions the word ‘values,’ it elicits the same response: ‘Aren’t you that ‘family-values’ guy who got caught with prostitutes?’” After confirming his involvement with the “DC Madam” escort service in 2007, Vitter admitted to a “very serious sin” but refused to resign, despite having previously called upon Bill Clinton to resign for marital infidelity.

– Ben Bergmann

“Governor Perry recklessly turned down the federal unemployment insurance money,” Hutchison said. “He never even looked at cutting the ridiculous federal strings attached to that money like I would have done. He didn’t even attempt to negotiate a way to relieve employers from a tax increase while helping Texans affected by the economic downturn.

“But now, because of a purely political decision to turn down UI funding, Texas has to go into debt and beg the federal government for a $650 million loan,” she said. “And like all loans, this one has to be paid back. And who will pay it back? Texas businesses and hard-working taxpayers already facing enormous hardships.

“It’s not conservative. It’s irresponsible.”

Perry, of course, originally opposed the stimulus, but has was recently forced to ask the federal government for a $170 million loan to cover unemployment insurance.

– Kyle Schmidt

The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.

Although Carter severed ties with the SBC in a 2000 letter mailed to 75,000 Baptists, the former president “continued to serve as a deacon and Sunday school teacher at his local church” in Plains, GA, an SBC affiliate that in 2006 ordained former first lady Rosalynn Carter as a deacon. President Carter, a member of a group of retired statesmen formed by Nelson Mandela called “The Elders,” said last month that the group had concluded that religion has been “a basic cause of the foundational excuse” for “other dominant males to persecute or abuse or deprive women of their justifiable rights.”

- Ben Bergmann

He posted his first tweet in Spanish at 1:08 pm on July 9, noting that he would be on Neil Cavuto’s Fox show at 4:05 to discuss Pelosi’s $16 million “mouse” project. He also asked his readers what he should say about the subject. While some of his tweets on the Spanish-language feed are the same as on the English version, others are original content.

More importantly, why would Gingrich even want a Spanish-language Twitter feed? He has fiercely opposed bilingual education, even going so as far to call Spanish “the language of living in a ghetto“:

The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. … We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.

More recently, Gingrich has gone after Latina Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a “Latina women racist.”

- Claire Teitelman

It is surprising that Rove finds the appointment of czars to be “a giant expansion of presidential power” because he actually served as the “domestic policy czar” in the Bush White House. In fact, President Bush himself appointed numerous czars in order to deal with various public crises and controversies, including a “cybersecurity czar,” “regulatory czar,” “AIDS czar,” “bird-flu czar” and “Katrina czar.” Moreover, Rove’s criticism of Obama is ironic, given his role in an administration that was marked by the expansion of executive power.

– Kyle Schmidt

As Media Matters Action points out, Canada and the United Kingdom actually enjoy both a lower infant mortality rate and longer life expectancy than the United States.

- Ben Bergmann

DeMint seems to have missed the part where Franken was sworn in to office after a lengthy court battle that involved neither the “illegal military intervention” nor forced deportation. Further, despite Zelaya’s faults, his undemocratic removal from office has been roundly denounced by the international community and President Obama has said that the coup threatens to establish a “terrible precedent” for the future of Latin American democracy.

– Ben Bergmann

PALIN: When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, “Man that doesn’t do us any good — women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country.” I don’t think it bodes well for her, a statement like that. Because, again, fair or unfair, it is there, I think that’s reality, and I think it’s a given. I think people can just accept that she is going to be under the sharper microscope. So be it. I mean, work harder, prove yourself to an even greater degree that you’re capable, that you’re going to be the best candidate, and that of course is what she wants us to believe at this point.

Watch it:

– Kyle Schmidt

Iran’s nuclear threat was never in doubt during its presidential campaign, but the post-election resistance raised the possibility of some sort of regime change. That prospect seems lost for the near future or for at least as long as it will take Iran to finalize a deliverable nuclear weapons capability.

Accordingly, with no other timely option, the already compelling logic for an Israeli strike is nearly inexorable. [...]

Those who oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons are left in the near term with only the option of targeted military force against its weapons facilities. Significantly, the uprising in Iran also makes it more likely that an effective public diplomacy campaign could be waged in the country to explain to Iranians that such an attack is directed against the regime, not against the Iranian people.

Despite his suggestion that now is time for an attack, in reality, it’s always a great time to attack Iran if you’re John Bolton, considering he never passes up an opportunity to use turmoil in the Middle East to suggest war with Iran.

- Kyle Schmidt

BROUN: Scientists all over this world say that the idea of human induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community. It is a hoax. There is no scientific consensus. … And who’s going to be hurt most [by ACES] the poor, the people on limited income…the people who can least afford to have their energy taxes raised by MIT says $3100 per family. … This bill must be defeated. We need to be good stewards of our environment, but this is not it, it’s a hoax! … [APPLAUSE.]

Watch it:

Broun’s tired hoax claims aside, Broun’s $3,100 talking point is contradicted by the Congressional Budget Office, which found that that the average cost of the legislation would be only 48-cents a day, the price of a postage stamp, and that “households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020.” A report by the Center for American Progress and the University of Massachusetts also found that the bill would create 1.7 million new jobs, including 59,000 new jobs in Broun’s homestate of Georgia.

- Ben Bergmann