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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell invited Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke to respond to Rush Limbaugh's latest attack on her, this time for daring send out a tweet on the fact that interest rates are going to to up on student loans if Congress fails to act shortly. Fluke was gracious as usual and discussed how ridiculous it was to accuse her of some kind of "coordinated" attack with the Obama administration.

As she noted, if she wants to know what the President is doing, she finds out like most of the rest of us and uses Google. Fluke pointed out that the changes were not doing to directly affect her, but they would greatly impact incoming students and fellow students she interacts with daily, who really cannot afford the rate hikes, which might make the cost of going to college prohibitive for those just on the edge of being able to afford it right now.

Here's more from the Huffington Post on Limbaugh's latest attack -- Rush Limbaugh Attacks Sandra Fluke Again (AUDIO) :

Rush Limbaugh went after Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke again on Tuesday for what he called "coordinating" with President Obama to "scare students about the interest rates on their loans."

During his Tuesday radio show, Limbaugh read a tweet Fluke sent, which said, "#DontDoubleMyRate. Many students will see the interest rate on Fed #StudentLoans increase if Congress doesn't act by 7/1."

Limbaugh called Fluke's tweet a coincidence since she allegedly sent it thirty minutes before Obama told students at the University of North Carolina that their federal student loans will double if Congress doesn't act by July 1.

Limbaugh laid into the law student, saying that "contraception isn't enough" and that "some people want their education paid for by other people too." He also seemingly mocked Fluke as the person his listeners all knew for "courageously and bravely fighting for contraception at Georgetown and wherever else it can be provided at no charge."

I guess we can add college students and their parents to the list of those the Republicans and Rush Limbaugh are determined to help alienate before the upcoming election. John Boehner's spin on the House Republicans refusing to keep the loan rates low -- it's all the Democrats' fault of course.

Steve Benen did a great job of breaking that down here -- The problem with Boehner's logic:

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On this Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory did a fairly good job of pointing out that it was somewhat hypocritical of Rick Santorum to be criticizing President Obama for wanting all Americans to have an opportunity to go to college when he's a college graduate himself and has encouraged his own children to go to college.

Unfortunately, Gregory gave him a complete pass on his remarks that President Obama wants to "indoctrinate" students to a liberal agenda by encouraging higher college enrollment. He allowed Santorum to go on and on about how going to college as opposed to a trade school shouldn't be the only way for someone to get ahead in life without every pinning him down on how going to college is supposed to be "indoctrinating" anyone.

Here's more from The Hill on Santorum's appearance this Sunday -- Santorum defends college 'snob' remark:

Republican president candidate Rick Santorum defended his statement Saturday that President Obama was a "snob" because he has said he wants everyone American to have the ability to go college.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Santorum said he does not believe that going to college is the only way for Americans to become successful.

"What I've said is I want everyone to have the opportunity to go to college, or whatever other higher training skills," he said. "But it doesn't mean you have to go to a four-year college degree….I think everyone should have the opportunity. It's about what's best for you." In a speech to the conservative Americans for Prosperity group in Michigan Saturday, Santorum said Obama's views on higher education made him "snob."

"President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob," Santorum said during his AFP speech. "There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard everyday and put their skills to test who aren't taught by some liberal college professor that tried to indoctrinate them.

"I understand why [Obama] wants you to go to college," Santorum continued. "He wants to remake you in his image."

Or maybe he understands that college graduates earn significantly more than non-college graduates. However, Santorum is also selectively ignoring the fact that the Obama administration has made a commitment to invest in vocational schools and community colleges as well.

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This has to be one of the most pitiful things I've seen in a long time with someone coming to the defense of Mitt Romney and his refusal to release his tax returns. Apparently Mike Huckabee thinks Romney should show his when President Obama proves he's a United States citizen and that he didn't get "any loans as a foreign student."

I'd say HuckaJesus should be ashamed of himself for this birther nonsense, but apparently having any sense of shame, having any guilt about lying, spreading propaganda to line your pocket and going against the teachings of Christ who said it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to make it to heaven are not things that register in this "good Christian's" list of those that he needs to be following.

Here's more from Media Matters that flagged this one from Friday's The O'Reilly Factor -- Huckabee Wants To Know If Obama Got College Loans "As A Foreign Student":

During a Fox News appearance this evening, Mike Huckabee suggested that Mitt Romney, who has come under fire for refusing to immediately release his tax returns, respond by challenging President Obama to release his college application materials in order to "show whether he got any loans as a foreign student."

Speaking on The O'Reilly Factor, Huckabee said of Romney, "Let him make this challenge: 'I'll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and the copy of his admission records to show whether he got any loans as a foreign student. When he releases that, talk to me about my tax returns.'"

Go read the rest of the post from Media Matters above and transcript via their site below the fold.

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The aptly named Dick Armey is a real piece of work. As Think Progress noted, the former Speaker of the House turned Freedom Works astroturf teabagger leader came on Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker's new show on CNN and lied about the state of Texas benefiting from federal funding for higher education.

Dick Armey Wants To Completely Eliminate Any Federal Funding For Higher Education:

At one point, Spitzer asked Armey a series of questions about what he thinks the government should and should not be involved in funding to try to “add texture” to what the FreedomWorks chairman believes. During this question period, the CNN host asked Armey if he would “have the federal government pay for higher education?” Armey bluntly responded, “No, I would not.” He then went on to say that the university system of his home state of Texas has “not been made any better by federal money involvement. [...]

Armey’s claim that the “federal government’s involvement in education” hasn’t “benefited the students of America” is wildly false. [...]

Texas students are major benificiaries of this spending. Students in the state actually utilize federal student loans at a level above that of the average U.S. student. During the 2006-2007 school year, 83 percent of Texans utilized federal student loans, compared to 71 percent of Americans.

Spitzer did a good job of getting Dick Armey to lay out just what programs he and his corporate funded "Tea Party" would like to eliminate or drastically cut from federal government funding. Naturally military spending wasn't on the list, but Social Security privatization among a lot of other cuts to social programs were. These people like Dick Armey and his ilk aren't going to be happy until they turn us into a third world country with nothing but rich and poor. It was nice to see him get forced to lay out some specifics instead of just platitudes for once as he was in this interview, not that he was short on his usual platitudes as well as he answered. Big 'gubmit is evil, unless of course you privatize everything so it's used to just funnel money to your corporate funders and we need the "freedom" to pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

That works our pretty well for folks like Dick Armey who aren't living on a shoestring and have a lot of large corporate interests making sure he's never going to be hurting or worrying about how he's going to feed his family or pay his bills. For the rest of us, not so much. I wonder if Dick Armey knows what the minimum wage is? My bet is he either doesn't know, or doesn't care just like the rest of these Republicans who are trying to con the working class into thinking care about anything but the interests of big business. The only "freedoms" a Dick Armey cares about are the "freedoms" for corporations to force Americans to compete with slave wages overseas while funneling our tax dollars to the wealthiest among us who pay his bills to help spread their propaganda.

Transcript below the fold via CNN.

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Well, the Congress might be on vacation but that doesn't mean there's any shortage of wingnuttery from the right. From Countdown's Worst Persons, Keith's winner takes the cake on amping up the crazy from the right.

GOP candidate calls for internment camps for ‘people that snuck into the country.’:

Speaking at a rally sponsored by Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, GOP state house candidate in Florida, Marg Baker, endorsed building concentration camps for undocumented immigrants:

We can follow what happened back in the 40s or 50s. I was just a little girl in Miami, and they built camps for the people that snuck into the country, because they were illegal. They put them in the camps, and they shipped them back. We can do that.

Runners up were Rush Limbaugh -- Limbaugh says "the top colleges are the functional equivalent of leadership schools from totalitarian nations"...

...and Grandpa McGrumpy promising to be as petulant as ever when it comes to working across the aisle. So much for that "Maverick" b.s. he thought we were supposed to be buying into -- McCain Promises He Won’t Work With Democrats On Immigration If He Is Re-Elected.

Note to President Obama... these people are not your friends. Quit kissing their butts when all they do is spit in your face.

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Looks like Rand Paul headed for some friendly territory to respond to the GQ article that John told us about here.

Rand Paul kidnaps female student at Baylor and forces her to worship the 'AQUA BUDDHA' as part of a secret society:

Rand Paul's controversial and insane beliefs have now transmitted into his life experience as a new profile that was published by GQ reveals. Smoking weed in college is no big deal but when that's added to kidnapping and forcing a female student to worship an 'Aqua Buddha," you've now entered the twilight zone, not to mention physically abusing a woman.

Paul denied the kidnapping accusation but when it came to the "prank" of forcing the woman to worship the Aqua Buddha, his memory got a bit fuzzy. Think Progress has more where they were kind enough to transcribe part of the interview.

In his first national interview since the story came out, Paul went on Neil Cavuto’s Fox News show this afternoon, where he was questioned about the incident. Paul repeatedly denied “kidnapping” anyone (even though the GQ article never actually uses that word) and said he was “never involved with forcibly drugging people.” However, when Cavuto asked him about making someone bow down to Aqua Buddha, Paul became visibly uncomfortable and avoided answering the question:

CAVUTO: What do you make of this story? [...]

PAUL: No, I never was involved in kidnapping. No, I was never involved with forcibly drugging people. [...]

CAVUTO: So, they’re characterizing it as a kidnapping type of deal. It might have just been just playful fun? Is that what you’re saying? You might have had incidents like this, but it wasn’t deliberate kidnapping?

PAUL: Well, I — I think I would remember if I kidnapped something — kidnapped someone — and I don’t remember, and I absolutely deny kidnapping anyone ever.

CAVUTO: Apparently she said, they blindfolded me and made me bow down to Aqua Buddha. That might have been just a college prank, but you don’t even remember that, right?

PAUL: Well, I’m not really going to try to go back 27 years and remember everything that happened in college.

I was watching John King's show tonight and they had a Republican "strategist" on there and after they ran part of this clip he was literally horrified. He said Paul's campaign manager needs to put some duct tape on his mouth and shut him up. Paul also seemed to be wanting to distance himself from being labeled a Libertarian.

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Time for your weekly Driftglass and Bluegal podcast. Enjoy!

The Harvard Lampoon Big Book of College Life is available used here.

You can listen to past editions here and at http://dgbgpodcast.blogspot.com/, and the podcast is also available on i-Tunes. If you enjoy these as much as I do, donations are greatly appreciated. Please consider throwing five bucks in the hat.

From Democracy Now: Thousands of Students Taking Part in National Day of Action to Defend Public Education:

JUAN GONZALEZ: Thousands of students across the country are planning to walk out of classes today as part of the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education. According to the website studentactivism.net, more than 100 actions are planned in thirty-two states. The call for nationwide protests originated in California following last November’s student strikes and building takeovers.

In November, the University of California’s Board of Regents voted to raise undergraduate fees 32 percent next fall. Due to budget cuts in California, teachers have been put on furlough, classes have been cut, and entire academic departments have been eliminated.

A number of student protests have already taken place this week in California. On Wednesday, twenty students occupied a building at Cal State University, Fullerton for five hours. On Monday, five students were arrested in Sacramento outside the office of California Assembly Member Jim Nielson.

University of California Student Association President Victor Sanchez spoke in Sacramento on Monday.

VICTOR SANCHEZ: I think the purpose of today’s march, rally, lobby day action, everything, is to make sure that we make a case to the state that education should be a right, not a privilege. We’ve seen our institutions teeter all along the line of privatization, and we can’t take it anymore. I think ultimately we’re here to stand up and have our voices heard, and that’s what we’re here to do.

AMY GOODMAN: Student protests have also been held in recent days across the University of California system to protest a series of recent racist incidents at UC San Diego and UCLA. At UC Berkeley, scores of black students lined up to block the campus’s famous Sather Gate.

Here in New York, walkouts are planned at Hunter College and other schools. A rally is scheduled outside of Governor David Paterson’s Manhattan office.

Some international student protests are also being organized today. Earlier today at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, police fired water cannons on students who were demanding the government provide free education for the poor. The South African Students Congress called on students to boycott classes at nine campuses today.

Well, we’re joined now by two guests at the University of California, Berkeley. Ananya Roy is a professor of urban studies and international development. She’s part of the Solidarity Alliance. And Ricardo Gomez is a third-year undergraduate student who started the group Berkeley Students Against the Cuts. Read on...

Merry Christmas everyone and my wish list for the country is not too far off from Thom Hartmann's. The best to you and your family from Video Cafe at Crooks and Liars.