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Oh look! It's John McCain on a Sunday show pushing for the United States to start dropping more bombs on people's heads. What a rare treat it is that our corporate media allows McCain on for more warmongering. That never happens, does it?

Here he is with guest host Martha Raddatz on This Week, where he actually got a little bit of push back about the dangers of the United States escalating our involvement in Syria, but McCain just brushed it off.

So we might get the Russians involved if we go in there... or be arming terrorists. So what? What could possibly go wrong?

I guess you've got to give McCain credit for one thing. He is at least consistent in never being able to find a military conflict somewhere that he doesn't want to help escalate. Consistently wrong... but consistent. No amount of bad behavior ever goes unrewarded by our media if you're a Republican. I was shocked to see this is only his tenth appearance on a Sunday show this year. I guess it just feels like more since he's got his mug on Fox and CNN so often throughout the week as well.

RADDATZ: I -- I want to move on to Syria. It's been more than a week since Israeli jets hit targets in Syria. More than two weeks since the U.S. said that there was evidence of the use of chemical weapons. What should be happening now concerning, especially these chemical weapons, and the red line that the president talked about?

MCCAIN: Well, the president said he wants a U.N. investigation. The only problem with that is the U.N. can't get into -- into Syria.

RADDATZ: And we read this morning that Assad's forces are making incredible gains. You...

MCCAIN: Incredible gains?

RADDATZ: ...you talked about...

MCCAIN: Which...

RADDATZ: ...a no-fly zone, striking targets. What good does that do?

MCCAIN: Well first of all, engage their air assets. In that kind of terrain, and that kind of weather, air is a -- is a decisive factor in this kind of conflict, and...

RADDATZ: A -- a decisive factor in doing what? What's -- what's...

MCCAIN: Well, we take out the air. We establish a no-fly -- no boots on the ground, no American boots on the ground...

RADDATZ: That's still a lot of risk taking out that air. In fact -- in fact the Russians have said they would move in...

MCCAIN: Well, if they move in...

RADDATZ: ...anti-aircraft, very...

MCCAIN: ...if they move in...

RADDATZ: ...sophisticated.

MCCAIN: ...if they move that in, it's going to make it more complicated, and certainly maybe gives us a little bit of skepticism about a conference. But, we can provide them with a safe zone. We can provide them a place to organize inside Syria. We can give them the heavy weapons that they need...

RADDATZ: Who's -- who's them? Who's them?

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Fox is always terrible when it comes to letting little Joe McCarthy Jr. Bachmann run amok with wild accusations against the Obama administration, but this one with Uma Pemmaraju from this Saturday's America's News Headquarters was particularly awful. Bachmann is now calling the Mexican drug cartels "terrorists." She's pretending that Republicans have an ounce of concern for gun control or that the problem with the guns showing up in Mexico is not something they and the NRA have created themselves with terribly weak gun control laws.

She asserts criminal behavior because President Obama used his powers of executive privilege all of one time to ward off a Republican witch hunt, never mind the fact that she made no such assertions when her best buddy George W. Bush invoked it six times.

She also thinks there is some conspiracy theory behind the media giving more attention to the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act instead of the contempt vote against Eric Holder, blaming the media of course and ignoring that John Boehner was the one who decided to intentionally schedule the vote on the same day, knowing full well it would get buried because he wanted it to be.

She also had the audacity to complain about the administration leaking given her track record, or the fact that it's ridiculous to pretend that they all don't leak when it's politically convenient for them. Regardless of Bachmann's assertions here, this is not the first or the worst, or sadly the last administration that's going to leak classified information when it suits them. The fact that this woman was given a spot on the House Intelligence Committee is a tragedy in its own right.

Rough transcript below the fold.

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While discussing whether the "war on terror" is over or not and some of the documents that were newly released that were acquired in the raid on Osama bin Laden's complex, The National Review's Rich Lowry decided to take a cheap shot at Media Matters. Apparently if a spokesman for a terrorist organization says something bad about Fox, that means the watchdog site Media Matters that also does not like Fox are exactly the same.

Here's the offending quote by the al Qaeda spokesman:

Adam Gadahn: In general, and not matter what material we send, I suggest that we should distribute it to more than one channel, so that there will be a healthy competition between the channels in broadcasting the material, so that no other channel takes the lead. It should be sent for example to ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN and maybe PBS and VOA. As for Fox News, let her die in anger.

Fox News Watch, which this segment is from, is supposed to be Fox's sorry excuse for a media watchdog site, that calls out biases in the "mainstream" evil liberal media, as opposed to all that "fair and balanced" reporting we get from Fox.

The show's equivalent we have from CNN is Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources. It's usually a toss up from week to week on which one is worse with failing completely to be any sort of check on whether we're getting any honest reporting from our corporate media, and instead of adding to making their so-called "reporting" worse.

The right absolutely hates Media Matters because they dare to record and often just post without comment, what comes out of their mouths on a daily basis. But that's the equivalent of siding with terrorists in Rich Lowry's world. I'm sure if anyone actually asks him about this later, he'll write it off as another sorry attempt at right wing humor and claim that he was just joking, because everyone knows that it's completely hilarious when you call people you disagree with terrorist sympathizers.

And h/t to Media Matters for flagging this clip.

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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell talked to author Frank Rich about his recent column in New York Magazine which takes a look at the real tragedy in America since the attacks on 9-11 and as he wrote there:

The hallowed burial grounds of 9/11 were supposed to bequeath us a stronger nation, not a busted one... In retrospect, the most consequential event of the past ten years may not have been 9/11 or the Iraq War but the looting of the American economy by those in power in Washington and on Wall Street.

You can read the entire article here -- Day’s End: The 9/11 decade is now over. The terrorists lost. But who won?.

Transcript via Lexis Nexis below the fold:

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The Nation's Chris Hayes filling in for Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC's The Last Word talked to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Jared Bernstein and the Movement Vision Lab's Sally Kohn about where things are headed on these debt ceiling negotiations.

As Bernstein pointed out, even stalling around with this game of chicken as Republicans are doing can start to have real costs and consequences for our fragile economy with the possibility of interest rates going up if the markets start to get spooked that nothing is going to be done as the deadline moves closer.

Sally Kohn I believe, really made some of the best points during the discussion where she noted that the majority of the public does want to see tax increases on the rich and asked why the Democrats are not fighting harder on those issues and what lines in the sand the Democrats should be drawing during these negotiations when the Republicans are acting like "ideological terrorists" who are willing to blow up the economy if they don't get their way on everything.

As Fran and Driftglass pointed out in their podcast this week, Kohn, who regularly appears on Fox but who isn't what you would consider one of your typical "Fox Democrats" actually wrote a very good article this week which appeared in of all places, Fox's opinion page on their web site, which you can read here -- We Don't Need to Cut Corporate Taxes, We Need to Raise Them.

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CNN's Fareed Zakaria is taking Fox News' Glenn Beck to school.

On his Sunday show, Zakaria called Beck's assertion that 10 percent of Muslims are terrorists "total nonsense."

"What is the number of Islamic terrorists, one percent?" Beck asked on his radio show last week. "I think it's closer to 10 percent. Why isn't it receiving coverage?"

Zakaria pulled out his electronic chalkboard to teach Beck a lesson.

"Let's do a bit of math here," Zakaria said. "There are 1.57 billion Muslims worldwide. Take 10 percent of those Muslims and you get 157 million. That's how many Muslim terrorists Glenn Beck is suggesting there are in the world, 157 million."

"Beck wondered why this wasn't receiving any media coverage. We'll let me suggest one reason. It is total nonsense. A figure made up by Glenn Beck with absolutely no basis in fact," he said.

"The United States State Department says there were approximately 11,000 terror attacks committed in 2009," Zakaria explained.

"We asked CNN's National Security Analyst, Peter Bergen," he continued. "He e-mailed us to say the Beck's estimate is off by 1,000 percent."

But Beck's producer tried to get Beck off the hook by explaining that Dictionary.com's definition of terrorist includes people who advocate or support terroris.

Beck went on to ask, "You don't think 1 percent, half a percent here in the United States of radicals, of people who want to violently overthrow the government is a problem? Of course it is. Why isn't it receiving coverage? Why?"

"Well, Glenn, again, maybe because it just isn't true," Zakaria noted. "I can't find any poll or study or shred of data that suggests that 1.5 million Americans, which is what that number would work out to, want to violently overthrow their government."

"Now, there is a Pew poll from March and some similar ones from other groups that find that about 20 percent of America is angry with the federal government. Does supporting such anger against the American government make one a terrorist?" he asked.

"According to Glenn Beck's producer and his dictionary.com definition, maybe, but in that case, how would one describe a man who has been fueling such anger against the American government on television daily for the last two years? How, in other words, would one describe Glenn Beck?" Zakaria wondered.

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A reoccurring theme at Fox News seems to be that alleged terrorists should be killed rather than tried in a court of law or military tribunal.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade became the latest personality to add his voice to the mix Monday.

In a segment designed to highlight the fact that the Obama administration still has not brought any of the 9/11 co-conspirators to justice, Kilmeade explained that the message to US forces is that alleged terrorists should be killed instead of captured.

"I will say this, the message is to our special forces, the message is to our CIA, kill them in the field because we can't find a way to try them at home," Kilmeade told Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr.

Kilmeade added, "And that might have some good points but the bad points is that we can't get intelligence out of them if we don't have them here to interrogate."

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Whether you agree or disagree with this woman, she strikes me as a fairly reasonable, passionate person.

Someone called an alert into the FBI expressing concern that she might be ready to cause destruction or harm to others or others' property. This evidently stemmed from a protest she was involved with against the occupation of Palestine.

She advocates a point of view that is unpopular politically; that is, a one-state solution for the Middle East. Be that as it may, it's still not a crime to speak one's beliefs peacefully.

Watch this video. I'm less bothered by the FBI questioning her than I am by the idea of someone reporting her to the FBI as a danger. As should we all be. If people start reporting others with differing views to the FBI as terrorists, the real terrorists win.

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Jeremy Scahill debated Ed Koch about the Israeli attack on the flotillas headed for Gaza with humanitarian aide. Jeremy Scahill wrote in his post at The Nation:

During the commercial break during my debate with Koch, the former mayor called me a "terrorist supporter." I told him, "Say it on the air." He didn't.

Figures. Scahill would have torn him up more badly during the interview than he did already. Here's more from Scahill's blog at The Nation. My TV Debate with Ed Koch About Israel's Gaza Flotilla Massacre:

On MSNBC today, I debated former New York Mayor Ed Koch about the deadly Israeli attack on the humanitarian Flotilla attempting to deliver much needed goods to the people of Gaza, who are forced to live under a constant state of siege and blockade imposed by Israel. Among the dead is reportedly a 19-year old US citizen, Furkan Dogan, who was shot four times in the head and once in the chest.

Israel and its apologists like Mayor Koch attempt to portray the humanitarian Flotilla as terrorist-affiliated, a "hate boat" in the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu, "capable of smuggling large amounts of weapons" that "was trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza, not bring humanitarian aid." But Koch and the Israeli spokespeople conveniently leave out the fact that there were no weapons being smuggled on the Flotilla and that members of the Flotilla included former US diplomat Ann Wright, who helped reopen the US embassy in Kabul after 9-11 and former US ambassador to Iraq Ed Peck, as well as a member of the Israeli parliament and other international politicians and diplomats.

On the show today, I read from a list of the items Israel has banned from entering Gaza. Among these are such dangerous spices as sage, cardamom, cumin, coriander, as well as children's toys, fruit preserves, ginger, fishing rods, chocolate, fresh meat and well-known terrorist sympathizers such as horses, donkeys, goats, cattle and chicks. See a list of the banned and permitted items for yourself here [PDF].

As Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister, said earlier this year. 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet."

When I asked Koch how a goat or a horse or a children’s toy could be used as rocket to hit Israel, Koch responded by saying only, “that’s nonsense.” When I pointed out that there were respected international diplomats on the Flotilla, contrary to his characterization of it as a terrorist vessel, Koch would only say, "I don't want to argue with you."

h/t Marcy and as she and Jeremy noted, here are some of the items prohibited by the blockade.

* sage
* cardamom
* cumin
* coriander
* ginger
* nutmeg
* chocolate
* seeds and nuts
* fishing rods
* various fishing nets
* fabric (for clothing)
* sewing machines and spare parts
* size A4 paper
* writing implements
* notebooks
* razors
* toys

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Authorities questioned the failed Times Square bomber for three to four hours before notifying him of his rights but Liz Cheney seems to be ignoring that fact. The daughter of the former vice president told Fox News' Chris Wallace that the Obama's administration's "first instinct" was to read Faisal Shahzad his Miranda rights.

"When the administration captures a terrorist and their first instinct is to inform him that he’s got the right to remain silent, that is exactly the wrong way to win this war," Cheney said Sunday.

"If you aren't willing to acknowledge that you're facing a committed network of terrorists as your enemies, and that it's radical jihadist Islam, then your response to that is gonna be, by definition, insufficient time and time again," said Cheney.