Courtesy of my friend Tracey, who enjoys the fine Canadian health system and wonders about all the lies told to Americans:

Democrats: "We need health care reform"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! Give us a majority and we'll do it better"
Democrats: "Done, you have majority of both houses"

12 years later, health care is irrefutably worse in every respect for every single person in the United States

Democrats: "We need health care reform"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! Americans are tired of partisan politics!"
Democrats: "OK, let's compromise"
Republicans: "OK, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done. Time to end debate"
Republicans: "Too liberal, we need more debate, we will filibuster to prevent you from voting"
Democrats: "OK, we'll vote--sorry guys, debate is ended. It's time to vote on the bill"
Republicans: "Too liberal, we vote no"
Democrats: "OK, it passed anyway--sorry guys."

One month later

Continue reading »

Needing to reach back into the classics and fill myself up on some of the finest jazz masters of all time.

Here are John Coltrane and Stan Getz performing Hackensack (Rifftide) with Oscar Peterson on piano,Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums.

When you need to recharge, what do you listen to?

As the horsetrading winds down, it's clear that Elizabeth Warren is the right choice to head the new consumer financial services protection agency. Will she be given the chance?

Ms. Warren’s climactic hour begins now: three years after she hatched the idea for the agency, the White House has backed it, the House of Representatives has approved it and it is a top Democratic priority in the Senate.

Many fans, including Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, hope Ms. Warren will run it. But even if the agency is approved, it might be far weaker than what she envisioned, thanks to fierce opposition from the financial industry.

Critics argue that such an agency, which would regulate mortgages, credit cards and nearly all other loans to consumers, would tighten credit in an already tight market, stifle innovation and hurt small businesses.

They have another objection as well: to Ms. Warren herself. As one administration official acknowledged, the prospect of her running the new agency may be an impediment to its creation because of her crusading style, her seemingly visceral loathing of financial services companies and her expansive way of interpreting assignments.

“ ‘Loose cannon’ would be an appropriate term to apply in her case,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and a Warren supporter.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 111

PLAYS: 33

("will pick fruit, trim trees, clean toilets - all the jobs you wouldn't be caught dead doing")

(Note: This is a repost from February - the Newstalgia House computer is still dead and we're trying as quickly as possible to get back up and running, but in the meantime . . . since the Health Care Bill has passed a major hurdle and become a historic landmark, there are other issues going on in our country right now. And as was evidenced by the 100,000+ rally yesterday in Washington, Immigration and its reform is the next big issue to tackle. It's no recent problem. It's been with us longer than the issue of Universal Health Care, and battle lines are clearly being drawn as we speak. As soon as is humanly possible, I will be posting speeches and documentary material pertaining to the Immigration question going back to the 1930s in an effort to try and provide you with historic perspective on a very thorny and passionate issue for a lot of people. And as soon as we get back up and running, I will bring those to you. Bear with me. - Gordon)

Ever since we actually became a country we've been tackling the issue of what to do about the unannounced, the undocumented, the illegal. That group of people which, in lieu of the Red Scare (now that it's gone) has given whole other groups of people something new to attach fear and hysteria (and a goodly amount of hate) to - illegal aliens and the immigration issue.

In retrospect the issue flairs up every few years, usually in the context of bad economic times. The desire to lay blame usually goes to the easiest targets; people you know nothing about and yet (we're led to believe) are seemingly everywhere. Just like Communists in the 1950s.

It was the same in 1988, when this documentary first aired (January 10, 1988). CBS Radio ran an installment of their Newsmark series on the then-burning issue of illegal aliens in the U.S.

John Blackstone (CBS News): “Whether we see them or not, these undocumented workers are part of this society, but for most of us their lives remain a mystery. According to Government figures, undocumented workers contribute $23 billion a year to the U.S. economy. And while some blame illegal aliens for American unemployment, the General Accounting Office report released in 1984 says undocumented workers do not take jobs from American citizens. To most Americans, the illegal immigrant is more a statistic than a real face.”

Twenty-two years later, the fingers of blame are pretty much pointing in the same direction with hate and fear achieving the same results.

A very cool true/false quiz from the New York Times' education section:

Based on your understanding of health care reform, circle “T” for true or “F” for false for each statement.

1. Starting in 2014, most Americans will have to have a minimum amount of health insurance or else pay a penalty of $95 or .5% of household income, whichever is greater. T F
2. In the health insurance marketplace created by the reform bill, individuals and employees will be assigned insurance plans based on their needs, rather than choosing the plans for themselves. T F
3. In 2014, the government will launch a new health insurance company which will compete against private companies. T F
4. 4. Under the new health care law, employers will be required to offer health insurance to all workers. T F
5. Starting later this year, the government will give tax credits to small business owners who want to offer their employees health insurance. T F
6. Despite the reform, insurance companies will still be able to deny an individual coverage based on his or her age and/or medical condition. T F
7. Under the new plan, federal money cannot be used to pay for abortions, except in cases currently allowed by law, such as rape, incest or when the pregnant woman’s life is in danger. T F
8. To pay for the new insurance plans, individuals and employers will pay premiums; the rest will be covered by new taxes on high-cost employer-sponsored group health plans and tanning bed use; additional payroll taxes for people who earn more than $200,000 per year, and fees to be collected from health care companies, drug makers, manufacturers of medical devices and insurance companies. T F
9. Starting in 2014, all illegal immigrants will be able to purchase health insurance through the government. T F
10. The health insurance reform will result in an estimated 16 million new Medicaid recipients. T F

I'll update with the answers later on. How many did you get right?

C&L's David Neiwert discussed Palin's screech in length at the National Teabagger convention here, but look how far they've come in such a short time.

Oh, this is grand. How do we know crooks and liars inhabit the Tea Party movement? Because they might be cheating each other.

The
NY Mag has the details:

The Tea Party Convention is over. But the war it started is apparently just getting under way. Yesterday, Bill Hemrick, a conservative fund-raiser and the founder of the Upper Deck baseball trading-card company, sued the for-profit convention’s organizer, Judson Phillips, in Williamson County Circuit Court in Tennessee, in a dispute over Sarah Palin’s speaking fee. When Palin agreed to deliver the keynote address at the convention, it put the event in the news. And it was Hemrick, all agree, who provided the $50,000 down payment for Palin’s $100,000 speaking fee. In the suit, Hemrick claims that Phillips had agreed that, in return for helping to close the deal with Palin, Phillips would assist Hemrick with his National Fiscal Conservative Political Action Committee. But after taking the money, Phillips didn’t live up to his part of the deal, and even barred Hemrick from attending the event at all. Hemrick is seeking a minimum of $500,000 in damages and asserts that Phillips defamed him by badmouthing him after their falling-out over Palin.

In the run-up to the convention, as its for-profit status and Palin’s fee (she’s since said she’s donating it to charity) attracted unwelcome attention, Phillips claimed that Hemrick was the mercenary; he said he barred Hemrick from the convention because Hemrick had planned to pitch Palin on a business opportunity he needed help with. But others tell a different story. According to Anthony Shreeve, a tea-party activist who had been involved in the early planning of the Nashville convention, and who also fell out with Phillips, Hemrick was instrumental in getting Palin to agree to be the keynote speaker. Phillips and his wife, who conceived of the convention, didn’t have the funds to cover Palin’s speaking agreement, so they turned to Hemrick, who donates frequently to Republican causes...read on

I'll never look at an Upper Deck baseball card the same way, ever. And my father left me with sets from the 1990 and 1991 seasons. Judson Phillips must have learned the tricks of the trade from Grover Norquist. It's so K-Street.

After a marathon session in the Senate where amendment after amendment was offered by the Republicans and vote after vote shot them down, it appears that the reconciliation package will head back to the House after a small tweak to the student loan provisions.

In inimitable fashion, the New York Times is playing this as a big win for the GOP, MSNBC has sent two news alerts to my iPhone about it, and Twitter has lit up with the concern of many who are anxiously watching the final chapter of the health care reform saga.

Then there are those hopefuls who figure striking 16 lines of language relating to Pell grants will be a swinging open door for re-introduction of the public option.

Here's my prediction. They'll amend the bill to remove the 16 lines of Byrd rule violations. They'll vote the rest of the GOP amendments down. They'll have a vote sometime today on the reconciliation package and send it back to the House. The House will then vote on Monday for the revised package, which contains non-controversial provisions.

Why wouldn't the Senate add a public option provision since they have to send it to the House anyway? Because it's doubtful they'd get the requisite number of House votes, given an escalation in rhetoric to threat level red. Let's face it: would YOU invite more controversy in the toxic wasteland that is Washington, DC today?

Republicans will still play the Sunday shows like they won something huge, and the threat level will rise because the wingers are too stupid to actually figure out the reconciliation package has nothing in it relating to abortion, death panels, or socialism. It will be noisy, and get noisier, but in the end...it's a blip. Health care reform is the law of the land. This is just a tweaker package, not a big deal at all. A one-day delay in sending to the President, but still, a blip.

It was entertaining to watch the parade of stupid on CSPAN, though. As the night wore on, the Republicans got a little more shrill and a lot more stupid. Gotta love marathon voting sessions, especially ones where the Democrats actually show some backbone for a change.

Blue America tends not to endorse in primary races between Democrats unless one is really excellent and one is clearly abysmal. This year we've taken stands against Blue Dogs Jane Harman, John Barrow and Lori Edwards and against anti-Choice fanatic Bart Stupak by endorsing, respectively, Marcy Winograd, Regina Thomas, Doug Tudor and Connie Saltonstall. But when it came to the North Carolina Senate race we were in a quandary. We really like the current Secretary of State, Elaine Marshall, but one of her primary opponents, Kenneth Lewis, is also an excellent choice. The conservative in the race, Cal Cunningham, currently trying to appeal to Democrats with a laughable and inauthentic feint to the left, is being pushed by Inside-the-Beltway powerbrokers, particularly Robert Menendez and the DSCC. We'd rather not interfere and just leave it up to North Carolina voters. But because of unfair DSCC campaign practices against Elaine we invited her over for a Blue America blogging session today at 6:30pm, EST/3:30, PT.

It's important to keep in mind that there's no incumbent in the country more in peril than Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. Burr prides himself on being part of the lunatic right fringe-promising voters earlier this year:

“…it is impossible for any candidate to get to the right of me.”

Yesterday, with Burr pouting and playing games that jeopardize the well being-- and the security-- of every American, including conservative ones, Elaine Marshall suggested he grow up and do his job, when he walked out on an Armed Services Committee meeting just out of spite, using a foolish procedural measure to delay testimony from Adm. Robert Willard, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command; Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command; and Gen. Walter Sharpe, Army Commander of U.S. forces in Korea. These men have more on their minds than partisan petulance from half-wits like Richard Burr.

“Senator Burr and his Republican colleagues need to grow up,” said Marshall. “The health care vote is over, they lost and it’s time to move on to other business. This is one more example of how Washington needs people who will get things done, not people who will stand in the way.”

Burr is the alarmist idiot Senator who has taken millions from Wall Street banks only to proudly tell his wife to take all their money out when the stock market plummeted last year. Hence the nickname, “Bank Run” Burr. He’s up for re-election in November and finds himself with an approval rating of 35% in an anti-incumbent year and leading Elaine by a mere 41-36%, a number that can easily be evened out once the May 4th primary is settled.

I've spent some time following the race and talking with Elaine on the phone. She's feisty, progressive, and refreshing rather like the standard boxed Southern Conservadems we’re used too. Elaine is a populist and not only does she talk a good game, she’s spent a career taking on Wall Street fraud and risky business in the state legislature and as Secretary of State. In fact, her office released figures that she helped return over $130 million from Wall Street scams to the people of North Carolina just last year. "I don't have to promise you what I think can do. I can show you black and white, book and page, my accomplishments. I think that is going to be crucial in this election…”

America voted for change in 2008, and… a lot of people are unhappy because they aren’t seeing it. They look at Washington and they see a lot of politicians and business interests standing in the way of the change they voted for." Richard Burr is clearly one of those politicians.

North Carolina is a prime pick-up for both Democrats and progressives in 2010 and an opportunity we cannot pass up. The state has been trending blue, going for Obama and ousting their Republican Senator Liddy Dole last year; this is a winnable race. The Senate has been where good legislation goes to die this session and we need to elect more bold progressives to the chamber. Elaine is the candidate and she’ll be taking your questions in the comments section below.

Please consider contributing directly to her campaign here.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (297)

PLAYS: (3759)

Things aren't looking too good for the Republican Party's messaging machine when a Republican law maker is having to run away from Dana Bash of all people and even former Rudy Giuliani staffer and Wingnut false equivalency king John Avalon is admitting Sarah Palin is inciting violence given the real threats to members of Congress this week.

Dana Bash tries to get Rep. Steve King to respond to why he thought it was alright to do this:

Iowa Congressman Steve King is showing his displeasure with passage of the health care reform bill.

During a protest at the capitol, on Sunday, the western Iowa Republican held up a poster of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

He first gave a "thumbs down" sign. Then, King wiped his hand across her face. That was followed by a slapping motion in front of Pelosi's picture.

Here was King's response to Bash before the coward ran away from her.

King: Well that would be an exaggeration, but this is a melodrama.

(crosstalk)

Bash: Tell me what your goal was with this.

King: My goal is to inspire people to stand up for the Constitution, to stand up to fiscal responsibility and to stand up for the rule of law.

Bash added that he said he condemns any acts of violence. What a guy. I can't imagine how anyone might take him slapping Pelosi's picture as condoning an act of violence toward her, can you?

The Democrats problem with their messaging on this is that the Republicans "owned this" way before the events of this week. The fact that they didn't speak out more forcefully before now have aided in allowing this crap to go on for the last year. I want to see Bachmann and King at minimum along with a list of others censured by the House for their actions.

Rumproast has a post up that demonstrates why no one should ever take Sarah Palin seriously as a Presidential candidate ever again. Sadly it's so close to the truth it's almost hard to tell it's satire, but she's every bit as dangerous as the likes of Steve King or Glenn Beck or most of the GOP these days for that matter.

We've already had a church shot up, police officers in a shoot out with some nut who thought the government was going to take his guns away, a guard killed, an abortion doctor killed and an IRS building with a plane flown into it. Now it's members of Congress being threatened. How many more people have to die before the right wing talkers, Fox News, right wing blogs, the astroturf Tea baggers movement and the Republican Party will ever say that this needs to stop and quit ratcheting up the hate?

These people are leading our country down a very dangerous path. It's time for every person on any side of the aisle to say that this is not the country we want to live in where anyone has to be afraid to walk the streets or what might happen to their children or their family because of how they voted on a health care bill. It's time to tell the Republican Party to grow up and show some common decency. I know that's asking a lot, but maybe if enough people let them know how they're acting is unacceptable in a civil society, they'll get the message. Steve King and the rest of the Republican Party should not be allowed to run away from this.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (289)

PLAYS: (1902)

Just in case there was any doubt about what he was implying the day before, Glenn Beck yesterday cleared things up and removed all doubt about the meaning of his garbled rant about administration radicals who advocated violence:

Beck: You see, what they've done is they've radicalized The Man. These people are in the center, but who's down here? They know that these people always lose -- because they experienced it. The crazy teabaggers in the streets.

Why would a government continue to poke you, and poke you, and poke you, and poke you? Why would they say these things? Why have these people said these things about good Americans? Because they need to separate these people from these people.

They know exactly how you feel when the president of the United States says that. ... These guys remember. When these guys said, 'These crazy dope-smoking hippies,' they knew how it felt. They knew and it drove them nuts, and it drove some of them -- it drove this guy and this guy -- to start throwing bombs!

They're counting on it. The Man made them do it. And they learned that once they threw a bomb, they were done. Martin Luther King changed the world without a single act of violence. Gandhi was right in many ways.

This might be the most dangerous monologue I've ever done, because I am telling you now: They need you to be violent. They are begging for it! You are being set up! Do not give them what they want.

The rest of the rant is an ass-covering plea for non-violence -- a lame attempt to cover the fact that he's spent the past year using violent rhetoric to whip people into a state of hysterical paranoia.

And best of all, what Beck's doing here is providing right-wingers with a ready-made excuse for the violence when it does break out: Why, this was what the liberals were planning all along! It's their fault! Even if they are the victims of it.

Wottapiecawork.

You don't suppose they're doing this for political reasons, do you?

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has a message for all the attorneys general and Republican lawmakers who are threatening lawsuits and claiming that an individual mandate for insurance coverage is unconstitutional: You don't have to abide by it -- just set up your own plan.

The Oregon Democrat isn't inviting opponents to defy the newly-enacted health care law. Instead, he's pointing out a provision in the bill that makes moot the argument over the legality of the individual mandate.

Speaking to the Huffington Post on Tuesday, Wyden discussed -- for one of the first times in public -- legislative language he authored which "allows a state to go out and do its own bill, including having no individual mandate."

It's called the "Empowering States to be Innovative" amendment. And it would, quite literally, give states the right to set up their own health care system -- with or without an individual mandate or, for that matter, with or without a public option -- provided that, as Wyden puts it, "they can meet the coverage requirements of the bill."

"Why don't you use the waiver provision to let you go set up your own plan?" the senator asked those who threaten health-care-related lawsuits. "Why would you just say you are going to sue everybody, when this bill gives you the authority and the legal counsel is on record as saying you can do it without an individual mandate?"

Jon Walker at FDL accuses Wyden of being disingenuous:

This is not accurate. You see, the problem is that the individual mandate starts in 2014, but states can’t get a waiver to try a different system, potentially one without an individual mandate, until 2017. So, there is nothing states can do to stop the individual mandate from being in effect for at least three years.

Whether you agree with an individual mandate or not, it is just wrong to say people shouldn’t complain because, at some point in the future, they might possibly have a way for states to opt out of it. If the state waiver started in 2014, Wyden’s argument would be perfectly valid, but as the law currently stands, his statement is pure baloney.

Wyden also seems to be glossing over the serious problem of system entrenchment. While it would be easy for a state to experiment with a new health care system in 2014 if they could get a waiver right away, trying to start a new system in 2017 would be much more difficult. The law requires them to put all the effort into setting up this exchange system. Expecting a state to start all over by uprooting this new system and putting up a whole different system after only three years is a huge hurdle.

Obviously, Wyden's provision wasn't meant to make it easy for states to opt out. But it does make it possible, and that's probably all it needs to do to meet any legal challenges.

As to motive? My guess is, they probably did it this way to hit their CBO targets.

If the Republicans were operating in good faith, it would be a lot simpler to consider reconciliation amendments like the one Jon suggests. Instead, they're doing what they do best: obstructing the process. No no no!

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (347)

PLAYS: (2076)

Rachel reminds our politicians that words matter, actions have consequences and when politicians use over-heated rhetoric like they have been over the past year, the results can be tragic from the environment they help to create. Sadly I'm sure this is falling on deaf ears. Michele Bachmann and Steve King are not going to quit terrorizing Americans any more than Glenn Beck is.

Maddow: Back in 1995 on the morning of the Oklahoma City bombing, just after the explosion a member of Congress named Steve Stockman (R-TX) was sent a fax touting the bombing. He was sent that fax by somebody in the militia movement. Mr. Stockman later turned that fax over to the FBI. He was never implicated in any way in the bombing itself. But there is a reason that the militia movement trusted a member of Congress enough to go to him with that.

Mr. Stockman had for example written an article in Guns and Ammo Magazine proclaiming that what happened at Waco was a government conspiracy to “prove the need for a ban on so called assault weapons”. Mr. Stockman peddled conspiracies that he got from the militia movement about the government planning a takeover, the government planning attacks, paramilitary attacks on American citizens. This sound at all familiar?

Helen Chenoweth was a Republican member of Congress from Idaho at the time. Helen Chenoweth was famous for convening hearings about her fantasies of Communism in the government and government over-reach. A gentleman named Sam Sherwood of the United States Militia Association bragged of providing the volunteers that got Helen Chenoweth elected to Congress. Mr. Sherwood was invited to testify at Chenoweth’s hearing, despite the fact that Mr. Sherwood had been quoted saying “Go up and look legislators in the face because some day you may be forced to blow it off.”

Helen Chenoweth and Steve Stockman, both members of Congress, neither of them obviously bombed that Federal building in Oklahoma City. They did not do what Timothy McVeigh did. But what they did in politics back in the early and mid-nineties helped create and nurture the environment that led to what happened on April 19th, 1995 on Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh emerged from a movement that was promoted and nurtured and encouraged by a lot of things, but among those things were some radical members of Congress.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (222)

PLAYS: (623)

In one of those stories which sounds just crazy enough to be true, a Chicago teen has picked every game of March Madness correctly so far. How unusual is that? With many upsets this year no one else has. Via NBC Chicago.

An autistic teenager from the Chicago area has done something almost impossible.

Nearly 48 games into an upset-filled NCAA tournament, 17-year-old Alex Hermann is perfect.

"It's amazing," he says. Truly.

The teenager predicted that Northern Iowa would beat the Kansas Jayhawks. He picked Ohio to knock off Georgetown. And Cornell to knock off Wisconsin.

In fact, he picked every game through the first two rounds correctly. The odds of anybody doing that? One in 13,460,000, according to BookofOdds.com. It's easier to win the lottery. Twice.

"I'm good at math," Alex, a Glenbrook South High School student, said. "I'm kind of good at math and at stats I see on TV during the game."

Alex entered the bracket on CBSsports.com's bracket challenge. His 24-year-old brother Andrew, who helped him enter his picks into CBS' bracket manager, also entered the contest -- and ranks behind 500,000 other people.

“My bracket is totally shot,” hist 24-year-old brother Andrew said. “So is everyone else I know.”

ESPN estimates around 4.78 million played in their bracket challenge, but no one picked all the games correctly. The leader at ESPN’s bracket has already missed four games.

Click here to see Alex's entire bracket.

The teen has Purdue to win it all, a team only ranked #4 in their bracket. And if that unlikely event comes to pass he should probably go to work in Vegas as a professional handicapper.

(h/t nr for the graphic)

OK, let's have some fun. There's a new Harris poll that was just released and the results are pretty hysterical. It's not scientific, but based on who decided to take it online during the height of the health care debate, so take it for what it is:

On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he's a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."

To anyone who thinks the end of the health-care vote means a return to civility, wake up.

Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here's new data to prove it:

67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist. The belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” is widely held—a sign of trouble yet to come.

57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president" 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did" Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist." These numbers all come from a brand-new Harris poll, inspired in part by my new book Wingnuts. It demonstrates the cost of the campaign of fear and hate that has been pumped up in the service of hyper-partisanship over the past 15 months. We are playing with dynamite by demonizing our president and dividing the United States in the process. What might be good for ratings is bad for the country.

• Michelle Goldberg: What the Polls Really Show The poll, which surveyed 2,230 people right at the height of the health-care reform debate, also clearly shows that education is a barrier to extremism. Respondents without a college education are vastly more likely to believe such claims, while Americans with college degrees or better are less easily duped. It's a reminder of what the 19th-century educator Horace Mann once too-loftily said: "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."

The poll was based on John Avlon's new book: Wingnuts. If nothing else it speaks to the people that are clicking through and then taking the poll. Clearly there is a derangement syndrome going on in America today. We know this by the behavior we see everyday and the actions...oh...like...cutting someone's gas line. Things like that.

These stories just get worse and worse. Clearly, the Church was more worried about how things looked to the outside world -- rather than correcting the hundreds of sexual abuse cases. Since the Pope just accepted the resignation of an Irish bishop for covering up the same kind of crimes, I wonder if we're going to see him resign:

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.

“I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood,” Father Murphy wrote near the end of his life to Cardinal Ratzinger. “I ask your kind assistance in this matter.” The files contain no response from Cardinal Ratzinger.