Last Sunday Republican Jim DeMint appeared on Fox News and used the alleged Christmas Bomber issue to attack President Obama and the TSA because the agency's screeners might *gasp* unionize.

As it turns out, DeMint was really trying to deflect attention away from the fact that he voted against TSA funding earlier this year and has put a hold on Obama's nominee to head the department - hampering the agency's ability to put leadership in place:

As Republicans seek to put the blame for the widespread perception of ineptness at the Transportation Security Administration on the Obama administration, Democrats are arguing that Republican legislators bear part of the blame and that they're politically vulnerable on the subject.

Perhaps the largest impediment to change at the agency: South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has a hold on the appointment of a TSA chief, over his concern that the new administration could allow security screeners to unionize.

DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton responds: Democrats have only themselves to blame for not having a confirmed TSA administrator. President Obama waited 243 days in office before making a nomination and Harry Reid has been too busy trading earmarks for votes on health care to schedule debate on the nominee. This is an important debate because many Americans don't want someone running the TSA who stands ready to give union bosses the power to veto or delay future security measures at our airports. Read on...

Senator DeMint is playing political games with funding and an important appointment to an agency tasked with keeping American travelers safe. You can find his contact information here if you would like to ask him to remove his hold on the TSA appointment so the agency can get down to business.

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A Republican senator from South Carolina has used the attempted attack on a airplane bound for Detroit as an excuse to voice opposition to unions. Sen. Jim DeMint told Fox News' Chris Wallace that unionization was a threat to airport security because collective bargaining prevents flexibility.

"We have to outthink the terrorists and when we formed the airport security system, we realized we could not use collective bargaining and unionization because of that need to be flexible. Yet, that appears to be the top priority now of the administration," DeMint said Sunday.

Whoops:

The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday.

Attorney General Henry McMaster said he and his counterparts in Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, North Dakota, Texas and Washington state - all Republicans - are jointly taking a look at the deal they've dubbed the "Nebraska compromise."

"The Nebraska compromise, which permanently exempts Nebraska from paying Medicaid costs that Texas and all other 49 states must pay, may violate the United States Constitution - as well as other provisions of federal law," Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said.

McMaster's move comes at the request of Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

In a letter to McMaster, Graham singled out the deal to win Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson's vote on the massive health care bill the Senate is expected to adopt Thursday. Nelson held out as fellow Democrats worked to get 60 votes to foreclose a GOP filibuster and the bill was amended to shield Nebraska from the expected $45 million annual cost tied to expanding Medicaid programs.

"We have serious concerns about the constitutionality of this Nebraska compromise as it results in special treatment for only one state in the nation at the expense of the other 49," Graham and DeMint wrote.

Nebraska wasn't alone in getting Medicaid breaks. Vermont, Louisiana and Massachusetts also got help with their programs.[..]

Also Tuesday, U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said Republicans need to stop complaining about deals their colleagues made.

"Rather than sitting here and carping about what Nelson got for Nebraska, I would say to my friends on the other side of the aisle: Let's get together and see what we can get for South Carolina," Clyburn said.

Boy, this is a tough one. As much as I don't want to validate the petty obstructionist machinations of Republicans, I kinda wouldn't mind Nelson's sweetheart deal struck down. After all, he thinks we women are second class citizens undeserving of full health coverage.

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It was Bill O'Reilly and Jim DeMint's turn to pretend like no one has ever cut a Senator's time on the floor short tonight on the O'Reilly Factor. Bill-O and 'PrayerCast' member Jim DeMint do a little bit of history revision and pretend like Grandpa McCain hasn't done the exact same thing himself. So nice of them to show such concern for Joe Lie-berman while ignoring that McCain himself has acted a whole lot worse. Little wonder that O'Reilly would lash out at Franken since he's been mocking Bill-O since his days at Air America Radio.

Franken's spot where he panned O'Reilly for pretending like he served in battle on his radio show and his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them had to have gotten under O'Reilly's skin. If anyone out there has the recording of that segment on Air America, let the site know. I'd love to post it if I could find it.

As Think Progress noted, McCain was more than happy to cut off a Democratic Senator's time during the Iraq war debate. Now he's got memory lapse. Apparently it's too much to ask O'Reilly or DeMint to tell the truth about that in this segment. Fox News... unfair and unbalanced.

I'm still trying to figure out why the staff at Hardball could find footage of John McCain from back in 2002 cutting off another member of the Senate when the Rachel Maddow Show said they couldn't find it in the C-SPAN archives. Very strange.

UPDATE: My mistake on the Hardball/Rachel Maddow show segments. Matthews showed a different clip and not the one Rachel's staff could not find. At least both of those shows, unlike O'Reilly, bothered to point out that McCain is a huge hypocrite with his feigned outrage towards Franken "picking on" his buddy Lieberman when all Al was doing is following the directions given to him by Harry Reid.

h/t to David who sent on the O'Reilly in combat segment. I had thought this might have been Mike Stark but it wasn't. The one thing this is missing is the Franken show's mockery of it, not that it needs it to be funny as hell. Enjoy.

David also sent on what looks to be some of Franken's show footage and where to find it. I'll check that out as well and thank you for the tip.

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Rachel Maddow reports on the 'PrayerCast' attended by Senators Jim DeMint and Sam Brownback and Rep. Michele Bachmann where they prayed for the defeat of the health care bill. This has to be one of the creepiest things I've watched in a long time.

Transcript via MSNBC.

MADDOW: A lot of attention being paid today to the fight within the left over whether or not to support health reform now that it‘s been so watered down. I‘m here to tell you that this is the other side of that fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOU ENGLE, PASTOR: Let‘s take hands together and let‘s pray right now for our leaders, the senators who are in this debate now. Would you just lift your voices just for a few moments? And let‘s just altogether pray together.

Lord, right now, we‘re calling on you. Oh, Lord, come and come to our senators. Would you break into their hearts and minds? Would you rule over them?

Lord, we‘re praying, give them wisdom. The wisdom that comes down from up above. For such a time as this we cry out to you!

And we thank you, Living God, that you hear in Jesus name, amen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Those two vaguely looking familiar men you see there at the end of that clip, those are two sitting Republican U.S. senators, Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. They were the headlining politicians at last night‘s effort to stop health reform with prayer.

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Rachel follows up on her reporting on the 'kill the gays' bill being considered in Uganda. Her show attempted to get some responses from the American legislators who have decided to inject themselves so deeply into African politics - with predictable results. Most of them either tried to wash their hands of their part in this absolutely horrid piece of proposed legislation or didn’t bother to respond at all. The scandal ridden John Ensign’s office said he was too busy screwing up the health care bill to give a response.

James Inhofe and Sam Brownback didn’t bother to respond, either. Don’t hold your breath waiting on those two knuckle-draggers, Rachel. I’m sure it will be a cold day in hell before either of them bother to tell the evil “librul” lesbian woman why they could care less if you were killed if you were unfortunate enough to live in Uganda, assuming this law gets passed.

Props to Rachel for keeping after this story. It has to be one of the most disgusting news items I’ve watched in a very long time and these C-Street wingers need to be held to account for their actions. It’s a shame the rest of the media is not giving this story the attention it deserves. They’re too busy chasing around the White House party crashers or Tiger Woods’ mistresses.

Transcript via Nexis Lexis below the fold.

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Rachel Maddow and Jeff Sharlet discuss the ties between C-Street, Pastor Rick Warren and an anti-gay bill in Uganda. Good for Rachel for bringing some attention to this truly horrific story, unlike her cohort at MSNBC David Gregory who forgot to mention Uganda during the softball interview he gave Rick Warren on Meet the Press.

MADDOW: The government of Uganda is considering passing a law to execute gay people. Execute as in by hanging a, quote, “serial offender” or an HIV-positive person who commits same sex act. If enacted, this law would also impose a three-year prison sentence on anyone who knows of a gay person in the country but doesn‘t report that gay person to the government within 24 hours.

Who is supporting and promoting this legislation? Well, one of the proponents is a minister named Pastor Martin Ssempa. He was a familiar face to American conservative Evangelicals, because Mr. Ssempa has been a frequent guest of Pastor Rick Warren at One Saddleback Church in California.

Do you remember Rick Warren? Him being selected to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama‘s inauguration was the little black cloud that crawled inside the silver lining that day for a lot of Americans who support gay rights.

Given with Rick Warren‘s deep involvement with Pastor Ssempa on matters including gay rights and AIDS issues in Uganda, “Newsweek” magazine asked Pastor Rick Warren his opinion of this proposed “kill the gays” law in Uganda.

Mr. Warren responded by distancing himself from Martin Ssempa, but also by refusing to condemn the proposal saying, quote, “It is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”

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Rachel Maddow talks to Steve Benen about the Republican infighting going on in the New York 23rd District's special election. As Steve noted yesterday:

Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in New York's 23rd continues to pick up endorsements from leading right-wing figures. Yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) bucked his party and threw his support to Hoffman. Reps. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Dana Rohrabacher of California did the same thing.

Transcript from MSNBC.

MADDOW: This is Betsy Markey. She‘s the Democratic member of Congress representing Colorado‘s fourth district. Betsy Markey got elected to that seat last November when she defeated a three-term, very far-right Republican incumbent named Marilyn Musgrave.

Even Colorado‘s—even as Colorado was thought of as a pretty safe Republican territory, the incumbent Republican, Ms. Musgrave, just got clobbered by the Democrat in this race. She lost by 12 points, wasn‘t even close.

This race is ringing a bell for you maybe because it‘s the only House race from the last election that we were still covering a week after the election was over, because not only did Marilyn Musgrave make news for being a conservative Republican who got trounced in what was supposed to be a safe seat, on this show at least, Ms. Musgrave also made news because even a week after she lost, she still hadn‘t conceded the race, nor had she called to congratulate Betsy Markey who beat her.

We called Betsy Markey‘s office today and confirm that even now, almost a year after that election, Republican Marilyn Musgrave still hasn‘t conceded the race. It‘s possible she still thinks she‘s in Congress.

Well, today, in “The New York Times,” we learned that one of the things Marilyn Musgrave is up to now is campaigning in a New York congressional race that‘s attracted a whole host of ambitious conservatives to rail against the locally-chosen Republican in the race in favor of a more conservative candidate.

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Do you want to know how Republicans really feels about "teh Jews" in the world?

Here goes:

Two South Carolina County Republican Party chairmen stepped up to rebut criticism of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) in a newspaper editorial Sunday. But their defense of the senator might be overshadowed by their use of an anti-Semitic stereotype to praise him.

After a Democratic state senator wrote in The State that DeMint didn't bring enough money back home, Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulmer responded that he was just looking after the nation's pennies -- like a Jew would.

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," Ulmer and Merwin wrote in a joint letter published by The Times and Democrat.

They later apologized, but those quotes say it all. Anti-Semitic stereotypes like that reveal their true colors, because these clowns probably took hours to come up with their defense of DeMint.

Ulmer said in his apology:

Ulmer, the Orangeburg County chairman, said the remark was "truly in admiration for a method of bettering one's lot in life" and he meant nothing derogatory.

Yeah, using racial sterotypes as a compliment is not derogatory at all. I was going to come up with a few new quotes for these GOPers, but I was too busy over cooking my pasta. And talking to my Don.

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From the Rachel Maddow Show Oct. 5, 2009. Rachel reiterates this report from TPMDC--The GOP's New Foreign Policy: Undermine American Diplomacy:

An interesting pattern has been emerging in the Republican Party's handling of foreign policy: Individual GOP officials are now making a regular point of not only formulating an alternative foreign policy, to be presented to the American people and debated in Congress -- they're acting on it too, and undermining the official White House policies at multiple turns.

• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is visiting Honduras in order to support the recent military coup against a leftist president, which has been opposed by the Obama administration and all the surrounding countries in the region. (Late Update: DeMint's office says he is not taking sides during his visit to the current Honduran leadership, denying the New York Times reports that this was his intention.)

• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be going to the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, bringing a "Truth Squad" to tell foreign officials there that the American government will not take any action: "Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate."

• House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel, where he spoke out against President Obama's opposition to expanded settlements. He also defended Israel on the eviction of two Arab families from a house in east Jerusalem, which had been criticized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials not to trust America's budget numbers. "One of the messages I had -- because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor," said Kirk, "is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed." Since then, he has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate.

Anyone remember this statement by Trent Lott when some Democratic Congressmen dared to visit Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion?

Lott raps U.S. congressman in Iraq:

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, who is one of three House members visiting Iraq to urge Iraqi officials to avert war by allowing U.N. weapons inspectors back in, has acted irresponsibly, Lott said.

"For him to be in Baghdad, the center of one of the most dangerous dictators in the world, with all kinds of weapons of mass destruction, to be questioning the veracity of our own American president, is the height of irresponsible," said Lott, R-Mississippi. "He needs to come home and keep his mouth shut."

Or these attacks on Nancy Pelosi for going to Syria? Pelosi's Syria Trip: Media Advancing Right-Wing Spin.

As always, IOKIYAR.

Update. Transcript below the fold.

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Rachel Maddow talks to the Washington Note's Steve Clemons about Jim DeMint's attempts to travel to Honduras to deliver a political message contrary to the official position of the United States.

MADDOW: So, let‘s say there‘s a military coup somewhere in the world. In some country in the world, the military takes over and ousts the president. And our government, the government of the United States is not cool with it. We don‘t always side against military juntas, even though we like to think of ourselves as a country that does.

But in this case, we‘re really not OK with it. We refuse to recognize the new military government that ousted the president. We revoked the visas of members of this de facto government and its supporters. As one of the 47 nations of the U.N. Human Rights Council, we call for the president that was ousted by the military to be returned to office. Our government makes it really clear that we do not recognize this coup. We do not recognize the legitimacy of this military takeover of another country‘s government.

Now, consider that a United States senator has decided that he‘s on the side of the coup. He‘s on the side of this military that‘s overthrown its own government. And, in fact, as a United States senator, he‘s going to visit that country and his own country be damned. He‘s going to encourage the military government that ousted their government in that other country to resist us. To resist what our government—what his own government—is trying to do there.

What would you call that? Is it maybe a word that starts with T and rhymes with reason? I don‘t want to jump to conclusions here but I‘m just not sure what else to call this. Whatever it should be called, it‘s what Senator Jim DeMint has just tried to do. The South Carolina Republican today bragged—via Twitter of course—that he was headed out to Honduras tomorrow. Members of his staff also talked to “The New York Times” for a story in today‘s paper.

Quoting from “The Times”: “One of the de facto government‘s main supporter in Washington, Senator Jim DeMint has denounced plans to visit the capital of Honduras on Friday. Staff members said he intended to encourage the military leader of the coup and his supporters to resist.”

To resist the policies of the government of the United States of America? That‘s what he‘s advising a foreign country to do?

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Max Blumenthal went on Morning Joe today to debate the nature of the unhinged rhetoric and behavior that's becoming part and parcel of the right-wing response to Obama's presidency.

Joe Scarborough often talks a good game about realizing what a huge mistake it is for Republicans to allow themselves to be dragged over the cliff like this, but like David Brooks, he has yet to come to grips with the dimension of the beast he's up against. Max tried to set him straight, but as you can see, this is a very slow process for recovering movement conservatives.

Both Joe and Mike disputed some of Max's facts, and as promised he's posted the substantiation for those facts at his blog. Yes, it's true that Jim DeMint believes that neither single pregnant women nor gays and lesbians -- moral reprobates all, apparently -- should be allowed to teach in public schools.

Incidentally, you can find these details and many more in Max's new book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Destroyed the Party. On bookshelves everywhere!

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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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Rachel Maddow and Kent Jones do a hokie, but apt parody of what dealing with the Republicans on health care amounts to. Kent Jones really doesn't want to order pizza, and the Republicans really don't want any sort of health care reform.

Maddow: Republicans in the United States' Senate are Kent. And we're trying to order pizza. They do say that they want health care reform.

[....]

Because Republicans have said that they want health care reform, Democrats have been trying to work with them to come up with a bill that both sides can agree on. We can compromise. Democrats took national health care and single payer off the table from the very beginning because they were sure that Republicans wouldn't want those.

Then they started negotiating down from there, trying to find something, anything that the Republican would say yes to. But just as national health care was unacceptable to them, and single payer was unacceptable to them, the public option is also turning out to be unacceptable to them. And now even the further watered down reform option of co-ops are unacceptable to them.

[....]

That's a really important moment. Senator Grassley is the top Republican negotiator in the Senate on health care and he just admitted to Chuck Todd that even if he personally gets to draft a bill for the Senate to vote on, even if he ends up with a policy to vote on that he thinks is great, he himself might not vote for it.

Mean while Jon Kyl, the number two Republican in the whole Senate told reporters on a conference call today that dropping the public option still won't get any Republicans to vote for the bill.

No matter what is in the bill, Republicans are not going to vote for the bill. No matter what is on the pizza, Kent doesn't want it.

Maybe it's time for Democrats to take the hint. Republicans don't want pizza. Order exactly what you want. Put together the best possible reform bill purely on the basis of what you think the best policy for the country is, and then, forget the Republicans. Focus on getting all the Democrats in line to vote for it.

The Republicans are not here to help. And Kent is not here to make a good pizza order. Take the hint.

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Charlie Rangel on Fox News Sunday goes after the Blue Dogs for not being helpful with health care reform negotiations and the Republicans for not having a plan of their own to bring to the table. When Jim DeMint cites Paul Ryan's plan and his own to try to counter him, Rangel points out that they don't even have the support of their own party for those plans. Yet Rangel is still touting the benefits of bipartisanship before the segment is over. Why is beyond me when he's already clearly pointed out that they have no intention of doing anything but obstructing reform.

WALLACE: Congressman Rangel, here's a top House Democrat saying the Republicans are right, that the public option is a stalking horse for a single-payer government takeover like we see in Britain or Canada.

RANGEL: Well, we've got 435 members of Congress, and I'm -- I'm very pleased that Jim DeMint says that he's willing to work with me and other people to get national health insurance.

I don't know what he's got to work with. There is no Republican plan. All they have done is to be critical.

But this is not a -- what a -- single payer. What we are talking about is that if we have 50 million people there, just makes a lot of sense, and they don't have any insurance, we shouldn't just turn them over to the private insurance company that have denied people insurance because they've had pre-existing conditions, that have excised conditions in the contract when they found out that people were sick.

Those people out there made billions of dollars in the private sector, and all we're saying is that the people, Americans, are entitled to an alternative. And that's the public option.

And so I don't think there's anything for the private sector to be afraid of. And what the Blue Dogs have done is just increase the costs in terms of negotiating.

But why in the heck Jim DeMint would be afraid of a public option, where people will have a choice as to which insurance plan they want, knowing that 50 million Americans have no plan at all...

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