Andrew Breitbart sounds like a whiny ass titty baby when he joined David Shuster and tried to promote the idiotic notion that the publicity O'Keefe is getting from the media is tainting the jury against him....LOL. The idiotic plot that O'Keefe concocted to smear Mary Landrieu is now smearing Breitbart, and for good reason.

Notice how he tries to change the subject of his pal who is a student of Nixon's dirty-trick political ideology.

Rick Perlstein explains this in his awesome book "Nixonland." This is a longstanding tradition in conservative politics: the dark art of political destruction at all costs. Karl Rove was one of these young conservative operatives back in 1970 who lied his way into Al Dixon's campaign and distributed phony invitations.

In the autumn election season of 1970, a cherubic, bespectacled teenager turned up at the Chicago campaign headquarters of Alan Dixon, a Democrat running for state treasurer in Illinois. No one paid the newcomer much attention when he arrived, or when he left soon afterwards. Nor did anyone in the office make the connection between the mystery volunteer and 1,000 invitations on campaign stationery that began circulating in Chicago's red-light district and soup kitchens, promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing" for all-comers at Dixon's headquarters.

O'Keefe and his crew are only following in the footsteps of the worst of the worst. They are funded by a right wing outfit called The Leadership Institute.

Founded in 1979 by veteran Republican activist Morton Blackwell, the Leadership Institute has worked with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove and Grover Norquist. The group raked in $6.6 million in 2008, according to its most recent publicly available IRS filings, which doesn’t list donors.

“What we teach is to use creative and imaginative ways to make your points, to reveal what we think is political correctness run amuck, liberal hypocrisy and double standards” on left-leaning college campuses, said Sutton, who supervised O’Keefe at the institute until O’Keefe was asked to leave because his investigative work could interfere with the Institute’s Internal Revenue Service standing...read on

Poor James is ordered to stay at mommy and daddy's house to keep him out of trouble.

James O'Keefe, the 25-year-old conservative filmmaker who was arrested this week in connection with a plot to tamper with phone lines in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office, is out of jail on $10,000 bond, Talking Points Memo reports. The judge ordered O'Keefe to live with his parents until a preliminary hearing set for Feb. 13.

And notice the high powered lawyer O'Keefe immediately received. He's backed by big conservative money.

Michael Madigan, O'Keefe's lawyer, said Wednesday that his client was not trying to wiretap or interfere with Landrieu's phones, but he would not explain why O'Keefe was there. He also would not say whether O'Keefe was working for someone or was on his own.

"The truth will come out," said Madigan, a Washington lawyer who represented Sen. Howard Baker, the Republican who famously asked during the Watergate investigation, "What did the President know and when did he know it?"

Watergate. Wow, it all fits, doesn't it?

Jonathan Turley explains all the charges here.

A lot of people also don't realize that O'Keefe doctored the tapes to make it look like he was actually dressed up as a pimp at ACORN.

ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said the arrest calls O'Keefe's credibility into question, and used the opportunity to point out that he "edited (ACORN videos) to make things look as bad as possible." He said, for instance, that O'Keefe actually wore a normal dress shirt when he was in the ACORN offices, but spliced in shots of him dressed as a pimp in the final videos.

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Mike Stark did a big report on him.

These ratf*&kers are celebrated by FOX News and Andrew Breitbart, but this behavior is a core principle instilled in conservatives. And as for the Junior Watergaters, I don't believe their story, because as this story explains, they were trying to gain more access to Landrieu's phone system.

After being asked, the staffer gave Basel access to the main phone at the reception desk. The staffer told investigators that Basel manipulated the handset. He also tried to call the main office phone using his cell phone, and said the main line wasn't working. Flanagan did the same.

They then told the staffer they needed to perform repair work on the main phone system and asked where the telephone closet was located. The staffer showed the men to the main General Services Administration office on the 10th floor, and Flanagan and Basel went in. There, a GSA employee asked for the men's credentials. They said they left them in their vehicle.

The U.S. Marshal's Service apprehended all four men shortly thereafter.

If they had that type of access, I think they would have had a field day and committed many more crimes.

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Leave it to Pat Buchanan to be the one MSNBC pundit who would come out in defense of Brit Hume's hackery. As David Shuster and Tamryn Hall attempt to point out to Buchanan, neither he or Hume knows anything about Buddhism and really should not be judging something they know absolutely nothing about, but apparently that's not enough for Buchanan to think he or Hume shouldn't have an opinion on the religion anyway. Can't fix stuck and stubborn here guys. Pat's got his preconceived notions and he's sticking to them dammit!

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January 04, 2010 MSNBC

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December 21, 2009 MSNBC

Our own John Amato takes on conservative blogger Matt Lewis. (Nicole) During David Shuster's news hour, Amato was asked about Sen. Tom Coburn's unconscionable comment praying that someone (presumably 92 year old Senator Robert Byrd, who despite his frail health, chided the GOP for their bad faith in health reform negotiations last week) would not make the vote.

Matt Lewis ridiculously tries to assert that what Coburn meant was a missed "alarm clock." Please. If that was the case, why do we see articles like this?

All I Want Is A Byrd Dropping For Christmas

Whether or not Lewis is willing to be honest, there's no bar too low for Republicans in trying to obstruct what the majority of Americans want, not even wishing for the death of a Senator.

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Sherrod Brown explains to David Shuster why he signed decided to co-sponsor Tom Coburn and David Vitter's amendment which would require members of Congress to enroll in whatever version of the public option ends up being passed in the health care bill.

Brown: Yeah, you often find out about amendments going on on the Senate floor and if my staff and I like one of the amendments we'll call an office and say, Republican or Democrat, I'd like to co-sponsor. We do that as a matter of course it happens across party lines all the time, hundreds of times a day. We did that with Sen. Coburn, nine times we said we wanted to co-sponsor--usually it takes once and they say yes--I've always accepted that. So has everybody I know in the Senate. Nine times we asked to co-sponsor and their office either just said we'll get back to you or ignored our calls and our emails because it was all a sham.

They don't, they clearly don't like the public option. They were making fun of it. Their whole game is to delay and deceive and to play political games. And when they offer an amendment saying sign up for the public option to force--tell members of Congress they have to join the public option--I think I should. I think we all should but they don't evenn like it themselves. And so it's just a little partisan game they're playing, and this is too serious for them to play those kind of games.

From Salon's War Room--Coburn, Vitter plan to ridicule public option backfires:

Now, as the Senate's debate over its version of reform legislation kicks into gear, two Republicans -- Sens. Tom Coburn and David Vitter -- have picked up that theme and are running with it. The two authored an amendment they want attached to the bill; it would require members of Congress to enroll in whatever version of the public option the final legislation creates, if it includes one.

Both Coburn and Vitter are vehement opponents of the public option, and they're hoping to prove themselves right by showing that no senator who's in his or her right mind would want their healthcare covered by it. They've gotten a surprise, though: Genuine support for their amendment from someone on the other side of the aisle -- and a proponent of the public option, at that -- Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Continue reading...

Senators Franken, Dodd, and Mikulski also joined Sen. Brown in co-sponsoring the amendment. Here's Sen. Franken weighing in on the Senate floor.

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David Shuster talked to Howard Dean about where the health care bill stands in the Senate right now and whether we should not be allowing four Senators to hold up that bill.

Shuster: First Sen. Brown’s position on the public option—your thoughts.

Dean: He’s exactly right. Sherrod’s been one of the real champions of getting real health insurance. Look, what Tom Carper’s doing is silly. A trigger and all this business and opt-out and opt-in and all that—this is silly. Harry Reid’s got a decent bill on the floor, decent, it’s not great but it’s decent—it needs to pass. If they can’t pass it without real insurance reform and there isn’t any in the bill right now to speak of, then they just should go home and use reconciliation which is what they should have done in the first place. To let four Senators hold up the works in addition to the Republicans that we know aren’t interested in health insurance is a silly way to run the business.

Shuster: You mentioned Sen. Carper and his proposal being silly. Are you referring to the actual content of the policy or the politics or both?

Dean: No look, Tom is a serious guy. He’s a good guy. I served with him when we were governors together. But his proposal isn’t health insurance reform. Triggers are not health insurance reform. They’re devices put in for the health insurance industry. You know what today came out? Aetna is going to drop 600,000 people from their insurance so they can make more money. Now why is it that these Senators can’t get it in their heads that putting money in the health insurance system that we have now doesn’t work? That’s not health care reform. Knock it off! Listen to Sherrod Brown. Listen to the 56 Senators who want to do the right thing in the Democratic Party. Stop grandstanding and get this done.

Dean added that he doesn't think Sen. Nelson will actually filibuster the bill and what this means for the midterm elections.

Dean: I think an awful lot of people like me are getting awfully impatient. I think this is going to hurt a lot of people’s reelections too. People…you know the Democratic base has been incredibly demoralized by all this and it’s not going to hurt President Obama. People like him. He’s going to get reelected. It’s going to kill us in 2010 if we don’t get this thing done. The 2009 gubernatorial elections were about taxes, jobs and about getting health insurance off the plate, passing it and then start to work on some of these things like jobs. And if we don’t do that we’re going to get ourselves in big trouble as a party. We have got to get our act together here. You can’t allow four Democratic Senators to hold up the works, particularly when they get their chairmanships because they caucus with the Democratic Party. It’s not fair and I don’t think it’s right.

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Kay Bailey Hutchison just can't understand why anyone would care that she's a big flaming hypocrite with her concern for troop levels in Afghanistan now that a Democrat is the President. When David Shuster asks her why she and other Republicans didn't have anything to say back in 2008 when George Bush refused a troop increase in Afghanistan, Hutchison punts and never answers the question and instead says she doesn’t know why “we’re talking about 2008”. Hutchison gets some help from Tamryn Hall at the end of the segment. She jumped in there instead of allowing David Shuster to follow up and remind her why talking out of both sides of your mouth matters if you expect anyone to believe your concerns are legitimate now.

Shuster: Senator the complaint from Democrats though is that you're essentially shopping for the right generals and Democrats are pointing out that in September of 2008 when President Bush was in office the top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan at the time Gen. David McKiernan said this about his request for an additional 22,000 troops. "The danger is that we'll be here longer and we'll expend more resources and experience more human suffering than if we had more resources placed against this campaign sooner. The additional military capabilities that have been asked for are needed as quickly as possible"

That request from Gen. McKiernan was not granted until February of this year--was granted by President Obama. So will you acknowledge that Republicans who were speaking out today should have spoken out back at the end of the Bush administration?

Hutchison: Well I'm not sure exactly what your time frame is. I think certainly President Obama took several months to address the issue that Gen. McChrystal had asked for more troops and I think at this point we need to be talking about winning. We need to be talking about what is success. We need to establish that we are going to stop al Qaeda from exporting terrorism. That should be the mission and we should do whatever it takes to win this war on terrorism...(crosstalk)

Shuster: But Senator Republicans weren't saying that when Gen. McKiernan was making the request in the fall of 2008 when President Bush never mind taking three months--he didn't act on the request at all and the Republicans didn't--we've checked your record--can you refresh our recollection as to whether you were complaining about your colleagues and about the Bush administration ignoring Gen. McKiernan back in the fall of 2008?

Huchison: Well actually I ahhh... Sec. Gates was the Secretary then and I know certainly that he is doing everything that he can with the requests that are made for Afghanistan and we've had a ramp up of troop’s strength. We've been trying to allocate recourses away from Iraq and into Afghanistan. I really don't know why we are talking about what has happened in 2008 so much as we ought to be talking about what's happening for the next two years to win this war on terror.

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Just for fun on this Thanksgiving day, it's been just over a year since we posted this video of Sarah Palin's turkey pardoning fiasco.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody...you betcha'!!

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David Shuster reporting that David Vitter is refusing to comment on the justice who refused to marry an interracial couple in Louisiana. Shuster wonders if the Senator is worried about losing support from his base.

From Think Progress- Vitter dodges question about interracial marriage in Louisiana.:

Although both Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) have publicly condemned Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell for refusing to issue marriage licenses to interracial couples, Sen. David Vitter (R) has stayed noticeably silent. (ThinkProgress contacted his office, but we did not receive a response.) Blogger-activist Mike Stark caught up with Vitter and asked him about his position. “Have you commented? What did you have to say about it?” asked Stark. Vitter simply smiled, stepped into the elevator, and allowed the doors to close.

Update: Greg Sargent finally received a response from Vitter's spokesman, but the senator still refuses to condemn Bardwell's actions: "First, Sen. Vitter thinks that all judges should follow the law as written and not make it up as they go along. Second, it would be amazing for anyone to do a story based on this fringe, left-wing political hack’s blog — he’s been handcuffed and detained in the past over his guerrilla tactics."

Shuster said MSNBC called Vitter's office three times asking if the Senator supported the statements by the justice and that they would still not comment.

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This has to be one of the more infuriating things to come out of one of these Conserva-Dems mouths in a long time. Do you think you could be a little more insulting to the American public Sen. Landrieu? Of course both David Shuster and Tamryn Hall waited until after Landrieu got off the air to question whether what she was saying was complete B.S. or not. That's not included in the above clip but here's my beef with the two of them. While they still had her there, they should have asked her how lining the pockets of insurance industry CEO's and their stock holders is doing anything to help small business or the general public that isn't fortunate enough to have her health care plan paid for by our tax dollars.

And nobody thinks that having a public option is going to be "free". Landrieu apparently pulled that talking point out of the land called her butt, since that's the first time I've heard someone use it. That or some health insurance lobbyist fed it to her and we're going to hear more of the same from Landrieu and the rest of her fellow Corporate-crats as this debate goes on.

Hall: I want to talk about the public option. You just heard Gov. Dean and he said “What’s the point in having a sixty vote majority in the Senate if you can’t get the public option passed?” “That is health care reform, not insurance reform and that is what the American people want.” Where do you stand? I know that you’ve been under a lot of pressure about your opinions on public option, but where do you stand now after we saw new numbers come out and it passed in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, without the public option in that committee?

Landrieu: Well first of all Gov. Dean has been a wonderful leader and he is a great guy and a wonderful American, seriously. I just don’t agree with him on his statement that unless you have a public option you can’t have real reform. And I don’t agree that if you’re not for a public option you’re for insurance companies, you know, scamming tax payers…um…or consumers. I’m not for either. I wish it was as simple, but it’s not.

The bottom line is we want choice and competition and a reformed market place. I don’t believe as a Democrat and I’m proud to say this as a Democrat, I believe in the private sector. I don’t believe in the government running every program and for everybody. I believe in public/private partnerships.

Hall: Do you believe in the polling that says that the American people want a public option? Do you believe in that desire from the folks that you and all of the others represent that say that they want a public option to happen to help offset these costs?

Landrieu: I think when people hear public option they hear free health care. Everybody wants free health care. Everybody wants health care they don’t have to pay for. The problem is that we as governments and business have to pick up the tab and as individuals. So I’m not at all surprised that the public option has been sold as free health care, but there is no free lunch and it’s costing us 16% of the gross national product and it’s driving businesses out of business.

So I wish it was as simple as saying you can have a public option and everything’s going to be great or not. The fact it’s more complicated than that and it’s been a very I think unfortunate debate between public option and not public. We should be thinking about public/private partnerships and cost containment.

Sen. Landrieu, cost containment would mean putting a stop to your campaign donors taking 30% for moving our money around and making the bankers happy while they deny their customers the coverage they thought they paid for.

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David Shuster subbing for Keith Olbermann gives us a lovely dose of the hate mongering and openly racist protests that were Glenn Beck's 9-12 rally in Washington DC, and some clips of Republican politicians who thought fomenting this hatred by participating was a good idea.

Howard Fineman weighed in and said that there are a lot of Republicans who don't like what's going on because it's going to lose them independent voters that they need to win elections, but are afraid to say so in public. So much for any of them standing up for the courage of their convictions.

Shuster: Howard, the Republicans are not merely condoning the behavior of the fringe element of their party but embracing it. A message of intolerance helps the Republican Party how exactly?

Fineman: Well it doesn’t help them. And they’re not all embracing it but I’m sorry to say they’re afraid to say so on the record. I talked to numerous Republicans today. A lot of them are very upset that for example Joe Wilson, the Congressman from South Carolina, a lot of them don’t think someone like Glenn Beck is doing the Republican Party any good. The Republicans need not just their core voters to thrive in the 2010 elections, which they indeed may. They need independent voters in the middle and there’s a tug of war going on David between the desire of independents to support the Republicans over issues like the debt and the deficit and the way some of the Republicans are behaving that repels those very independents.

Shuster: Well speaking of Sen. DeMint told the crowd on Saturday and repeated today that the protesters were informed. Given what some of those signs had to say about the President, wouldn’t that be fomenting hatred, if not violence?

Fineman: Well, at the very least it’s looking the other way and they’re looking at the glass of tolerance half full when in many cases there isn’t even a glass David. But what the Republicans I talked to today said was this. These people are there because of big government. They’re there because of fears about the debt and the deficit. And I think to some extent that’s true. I’ve been to Tea Parties. I’ve been to town hall meetings. I can sense that.

But there’s something deeper and darker that’s also there and we may as well look straight at it. There are racial fears. There are religious fears. There are regional fears. There are ethnic fears. These are coming to the surface. Like depth charges our politics has now brought all this to the surface and that’s also what we saw out there on the Mall. There’s no question about it. And there are not enough Republicans who are willing to say that on the record.

Shuster: Glenn Beck’s stated goal of wanting to move this country back to where it was on 9-12-2001 when the country was united, how did that work out for him?

Fineman: Well, he can pretend to cry all he wants on the stage and call himself a televangelist. He’s not into uniting the country from everything I’ve seen. He’s making a boatload of money dividing the country. When you say with no real evidence whatsoever that the President of the United States hates white people, you aren’t behaving in the spirit of 9-12. You’re behaving in a spirit that we thought we gotten rid of in the end of the Civil War and at the end of the second Civil Rights movement. So, you know, he can cry crocodile tears all he wants. That doesn’t seem to be what he’s actually doing.

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Olympia Snowe says she urged the President to take the public option off the table during his speech tonight "so it could provide, I think, a momentum of a different kind in moving this issue forward overall." Snowe is still insisting that the President wants a "bipartisan" agreement.

A watered down version of health care "reform" which ends up being a give away to the insurance industry isn't going to solve our problem with the health care and it isn't going to get any "broad support" as Snowe claims the President is looking for.

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David Shuster asks Rep. Anthony Weiner what he thinks about this latest talk of a deal being struck on a "trigger" being used if the insurance companies don't behave. As Rep. Weiner points out, the law would not go into effect until 2013 and then there's five year grace period, so there's already a ten year trigger in the existing bill.

He's right. It's already too late to be finally getting some reform passed and there is no reason to believe the insurance companies will do the right thing now because they always say "trust us" and then show they can't be trusted.

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David Shuster shoots down Republican strategist Lenny Alcivar's statement that Nancy Pelosi called the protesters at these town hall meetings un-American.

Media Matters has more debunking both the lies surrounding Nancy Pelosi's statement, and Blanche Lincoln has retracted her statement.