From Headzup The Week in Cartoons.

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D.L. Hughley talks to Crazy for God author Frank Schaeffer, whose father was one of the founders of the religious right. Schaeffer discusses his articles at the Huffington Post Why Obama Must Not Work With Republicans and Why Are the Republicans Such Anti-Obama Liars?. From the latter:

Today the Republican Party is rooting for doom. And since the Republicans are now anti-American members of an Obama-must-fail insurgency, lies become a self-fulfilling prophecy: talk doom, and keep the economy in a panic and we may get what we wish for.

Don't conservative Republicans object to the lies? No, because the Republicans don't have any actual and traditional conservative followers left. The Republican base is now made up of religious and neoconservative ideologues, and the uneducated white underclass with a token person of color or two up front on TV to obscure the all-white, all reactionary all backward -- there-is-no-global-warming -- rube reality. Actual conservatives, let alone the educated classes, have long since fled.

The Republican religious nuts are rooting for Jesus to "rapture" them, not for America, and the neoconservatives are rooting for war and the Israeli hard liners, not for America. Truth (and sanity) are out the window.

So, what is the problem with lying to our faces, say, claiming that all American's taxes are going up when 95% of American's taxes are going to go down? Why not claim Obama is a socialist, even if he's not? Why not say anything at all to drive our country into a pit when losing is seen as winning? That, is all the Republicans have to offer America: more lies on a path to destruction from which the Republican "leadership" plans to resurrect themselves and "save" America from Obama.

Updated: Full Transcript to follow.

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Rachel talks to WBAL reporter Jayne Miller about "drill baby drill" Michael Steele's 2006 campaign spending. Miller's report can be found here: I-Team Questions 2006 Campaign Expenditures. From the article:

The FBI is currently investigating possible fraud because a former Steele campaign official claimed no work was performed for the payments made by the campaign to a company controlled by Steele's sister. Steele has denied the charge.

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The firm's Web site said it was in the business of trading commodities, such as minerals, metals, coffee and sugar. But the campaign payments it received, according to the candidates' accounting, were for a wide range of other activities, according to campaign filings.

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The spokesman said the money might have been used to pay for six busloads of poll workers on Election Day in 2006. The buses carried several hundred black men from Philadelphia -- many of whom were homeless -- as part of a strategy to attract black support that was denounced at the time by Democrats as deceptive.

TPMMuckraker covered the bussing in of the homeless men in their article MD GOP Candidate Recruits Homeless to Pass Out Deceptive Flyers. Between this and calls for his resignation already I'm wondering how much longer Steele will last at the post.

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Fox's Chris Wallace and Brit Hume are certainly trying to paint the stock market collapse as "Obama's bear market" and put it squarely on his shoulders.

They are making the case that since President Obama brought hope to the country when he was elected, the markets would magically rally around him even though the fundamentals are not there and the money changers in The Street hate Obama's policies to the bitter core.

When job losses are as staggering as they are coupled with foreclosers going through the roof and earnings statistics coming in from the 4th quarter of last year that do have an incredible impact on the current decline in the market, but to them, it's all Obama's fault.

WALLACE: Well, as we've been discussing, the stock market is officially in bear territory, down exactly 20% since the Obama inauguration. Brit, John McCain didn't want to answer the question, but I'll ask you. Is this the Obama bear market?

HUME: It's kind of a bear market within a bear market. The market was already down tremendously over the previous year, and I think most people entered this period of the new Obama administration thinking that it probably was bottoming out and that he would give by his very presence and by what he would offer real hope and that it would at least change the psychology a bit. It has changed the psychology, it seems, for the worse and I think he does bear responsibility for that, and the impression that he has managed to leave is that he's too busy with massive new spending and a scatter shot stimulus bill which was reckless and breathless new initiatives.

Have you noticed that they never give us a graphic that shows when the "bear market" started? Here's a graph of the DJI:

On May 19th, the market was at 13,028.

On July 15th the market was at 10,962.

On Oct 10th, the market was at 8451.

On Nov 20th, the market was at 7552

The market lost almost half of its value from May until November, but the stock market talking heads would never blame Republicans. All the bad news is still hitting the fan from the Bush administration, but you would never know Bush had anything to do with it if you watch the news media spin this into Obama's market failure.

He's in office now, so he has to do his best to repair the damage, but I wish these Villagers would tell the truth and let his programs start to work through the system. The media need their talking points, but it's fraking ridiculous. I was surprised Wallace didn't ask McCain something like this.

Wallace: "When is Obama gonna cure cancer?" That was a campaign promise, wasn't it, Mr McCain?

McCain: I'll let the experts be the judge of that.

(h/t David E. for helping write this post)

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Sen. Lindsey Graham wants President Obama to veto the current spending bill because he thinks there are too many earmarks. NBC's David Gregory confronted Graham with the fact that he had 37 earmarks in the bill.

GREGORY: Now, Senator McCain pointed out this is a bipartisan disease, 40% of the earmarks are from Republicans. At $7 billion. should the president veto this bill?

GRAHAM: I'll leave that up to the president. We do need earmark reform. I wish he would veto the bill, get back together and come up with the reform process. Senator McCain does not object to members of Congress designating money to be spent in their state as long as it has a federal purpose, is transparent and equal to understand what the money is going to be spent for. We'll have a say about whether or not it's a good idea. That system doesn't exist. I think it would be good for the country if the president and Senator McCain could meet soon -- sooner rather than later, to come up with a package.

GREGORY: And yet Senator McCain has given you a hard time. He's on twitter. Number six on his list of pork barrel spending $950,000 for a convention center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. You want the president to veto the spending bill?

GRAHAM: I voted to take all earmarks out but I will come back in the new process and put that back in. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, we're trying to build an international airport, an international convention center, and open up a new interstate highway to diversify Myrtle Beach's economy. This came through the Small Business Administration.

GREGORY: You have 37 earmarks. Do you think they're more important than other people's projects?

GRAHAM: I think I should have the ability as a United States Senator to direct money back to my state as long as it's transparent and makes sense, yes.

From Whitehouse.gov.

In his March 7th weekly address, the President capped off a busy week in Washington remarking on new lending guidelines aimed at lowering mortgage payments; an initiative to generate funds for small business and college loans; the release of his administration's first budget which includes $2T in deficit reduction, and the start of long overdue health care reform.

This is one of the better New Rules segments I've seen from Maher in a while. He ends it with channeling Michael Moore with his criticism of insurance companies in this diatribe on the Republicans and their anti-government rhetoric and love of the private sector.

Maher:The thing is that endless variety only exists because Americans pay taxes to a government which maintains roads, irrigates fields, over sees the electrical grid and everything else but enables the modern American supermarket to carry forty seven varieties of frozen breakfast pastries.

Of course it's easy to tear government down. Ronald Reagan used to say the nine most terrifying words in the English language were "I'm from the government and I'm here to help". But that was before "I'm Sarah Palin, now show me the launch codes".

You know the stimulus package was attacked as typical tax and spend, you know like repairing bridges is left wing stuff. Ooh there the liberals go again. Always wanting to get across the river.

Folks, the people are the government. The first responders who put out your fires. That's your government. The ranger who shoos pedophiles out of the bathroom. The postman who delivers your porn. I mean how stupid is it when people say "Oh yeah that's all we need. The federal government telling Detroit how to make cars, or Wells Fargo how to run a bank. You want them to look like the Post Office?"

Yeah. Actually. You mean..you mean the place that takes a note in my hand in L.A. on Monday and gives it to my sister in Jersey on Wednesday for forty two cents? Well let me be the first to say I would be thrilled if America's health care system was anywhere near as functional as the Post Office.

The truth is, recent years have made me much more wary of government doing the opposite. Of stepping aside and letting unregulated private enterprise run things it is plainly too greedy to trust with, like Wall Street, like rebuilding Iraq. Like the way Republicans always frame the health care debate by saying health care decisions should be made by doctors and patients, not government bureaucrats. Leaving out the fact that health decisions aren't made by doctors, patients or bureaucrats. They're made by insurance companies.

Insurance companies. Which are a lot like hospital gowns. Chances are your ass isn't covered.

h/t CSPANJunkie

So are we going to see Howard Dean who would have been my first pick for HHS instead as Surgeon General? Now the good Dr. Gupta has decided he doesn't want to spend too much time away from his family and declined the job I would love to see Dean get it.

C&L covered the dust-up between Michael Moore and Dr. Gupta, and I for one and am very happy to see him withdraw his name for consideration. Dean would make a great choice, and hopefully Rahm Emanuel will finally put aside whatever bad blood is there between the two of them and allow the appointment to go through.

March 06, 2009 CNN

March 05, 2009 CNN