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President George W. Bush’s former chief strategist Matthew Dowd on Sunday lashed out at Congress for moving so quickly to fund air traffic controllers because lawmakers were personally "about to get delayed at the airports," while they couldn't pass background checks to protect children from mass shootings.

During a panel discussion on ABC's This Week, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile noted that Congress had rushed through a bill to avert air traffic controller furloughs caused by automatic budget cuts in the so-called sequester, but ignored the pain the cuts were causing less-wealthy Americans.

"This sequester will have real impact on real people in real time, not just members of Congress, but people that work for the park service, medical research as the NIH begin to make those cuts, it's impacting Meals on Wheels, kids who are in kindergarten," Brazile explained. "So I really do think that Congress needs to take a second look at this."

Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, however, called the air traffic controller bill "a real victory for fiscal conservatism" because Congress moved funds around, instead of undoing any budget cuts.

"Doesn't that mean the politically weakest are going to bear the biggest burden?" ABC host George Stephanopolous wondered.

"Not necessarily," Gingrich insisted. "It may mean the most corrupt are going to bear the biggest burden. It may mean the dumbest are going to bear the biggest burden. When you look at a $4 trillion government, you can find lots of really stupid things to quit paying for."

But Dowd found it "amazing" that the bitterly partisan Congress could only find a way to work together when they personally faced the possibility of spending some additional time on the tarmac.

"The only way they're bipartisan is to do something for themselves," he quipped. "It's amazing the speed at which they did that. We have this horrible shooting where all these children die in Connecticut, we can't pass gun control legislation. But oh by the way, you're about to get delayed at the airport through some small budget cuts -- which I still don't understand why we make policy the way we make policy. Everybody knows there's a fiscal crisis in this country, everybody knows we don't have the revenue to meet the expenses in this country, somebody has to bear pain, but we act in Washington like nobody has to bear any pain. So as soon as anybody bears any pain, we're going to take it back from them."

"I think many members of Congress have bought into a myth that doesn't exist anymore," he added. "I think most of what's gong on in gun control is there's not this huge vehement group of people saying I'm going to defeat you if you vote for background checks, I'm going to defeat you if you vote for high-capacity magazines... What there is, though, is a group of folks in Washington that are scared of their shadow on this issue, both some Democrats and a lot of Republicans."

"The myth doesn't exist anymore, but they're afraid to go launch themselves through it and do something about it."

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On this Sunday's Meet the Press, Sen. John McCain continued to prove the point Chris Hayes made on his show this Friday about just who Congress is responsive to, and it's not your average citizen out there. McCain thinks we have "our priorities a little bit skewed" on these sequestration cuts, but of course there's only one area he's concerned about, and that's defense spending.

MCCAIN: Well I say with all due respect to my friends, it's a little bit hypocritical, the same day when all the focus was on the delays that we have in getting through airports, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army was saying that we're... if we don't reverse this, we're going to have a hollow army. We'll be unable to defend the nation and it would take us ten or fifteen years to recover.

I think we have our priorities a little bit skewed here. Look, I'm for giving the FAA flexibility, but I also want to give the military flexibility and I don't want these sequestration cuts to be as deep as they are on the issue of defense. We've got a lot of savings we can make in national security, but right now we are, in the words of the Secretary of Defense and our uniformed service chiefs, we're putting the security of this nation at risk.

McCain was basically repeating what he said in a press release from this Friday.

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While thousands of low-income Americans are suffering under sequestration, our Congress somehow managed to rush through a fix for the FAA cuts that were delaying their their flights. Imagine that! As Chris Hayes discussed in the opening of his show this Friday, it's so nice to see that those members of Congress have got their priorities in order.

HAYES: But we begin tonight with the big flashing headline breaking news of the day, from the least popular branch of government, the branch of government widely seen as the most dysfunctional branch of government, the one that contains the right-wing Republican House caucus committed to obstruction above all else. In that branch of government today, today we saw a remarkable display of urgency and pragmatic bipartisan problem solving come together in a matter of hours to fix the most pressing trouble facing America today.

And that very pressing problem is extended travel delays for frequent flyers and members of Congress. Yes, it was a long and tortured path to triumph on this issue. but today in a 361 to 41 vote, a resounding margin, House of Representatives overwhelmingly agreed to tackle the scourge of flight delays being caused by the furlough of federal aviation workers.

Sadly the first piece of legislation that members of Congress saw fit to pass will make those lines at the airports shorter, and as Hayes reminded his audience, here's who will not be getting relief from the bill passed this Friday.

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It was nice to see some push back from the constant drone we're treated to by the talking heads in the media, who apparently will not be happy until Democrats agree to inflict some more pain on their constituents and raise Medicare retirement age along with benefit cuts. As Krugman rightfully noted, all the happy talk about politicians sitting down and having dinner together isn't going to resolve the fundamental policy differences between the two parties -- or the fact that one of them wants to completely take down our social safety nets and privatize them.

He called out George Will as well who was demanding that Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz explain whether Democrats would agree to raise the Medicare age:

KRUGMAN: Is it a condition of any Republican support that you have to go for really terrible policies? Because raising the Medicare age is a terrible policy. It raises medical costs, it does very little to improve the budget. It introduces a lot of hardship. Means testing in Medicare is a better policy. I don't particularly like it, but it's a better policy.

That's the whole idea. They know it's terrible policy and they want Democrats to do their bidding for them so they can immediately turn around and run ads against them in the mid-term elections. They were cynical enough to do it before and they'll do it again. So it's not just bad policy, it's bad and stupid politics as well.

The conventional wisdom talk from the Bloomberg White House corespondent here wasn't much better. There's nothing "optimistic" about these politicians potentially sticking it to the poor and the elderly when we've got record income disparity in the United States right now.

Full transcript below the fold.

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I'm not sure how much of this is just political theater. Has Bill O'Reilly decided it's good television to act like a raving maniac in the hope of increasing his viewership over at Fox? Or is Bill-O just not unable to keep his temper in check because he's mad that he might have to fork out some more money in taxes? O'Reilly lost it with Alan Colmes, one of his regulars, last night. It was bad enough that even the generally mild-mannered Colmes, who put up with years of abuse as Hannity's sidekick on the same network, expressed his disgust at O'Reilly's over-the-top attack.

My fellow contributor here at C&L, Ellen has more here: O’Reilly Loses It Big Time With Alan Colmes:

Bill O’Reilly had a major meltdown tonight with Alan Colmes. It has to be seen to be believed but let’s just say that O’Reilly was screaming at Colmes that he’s a liar and Colmes respectfully but firmly shot back, “Don’t you call me a liar.” Later, O’Reilly seethed, “It’s jack what you’re saying. There’s another word for it but it’s an obscenity.” In a subsequent segment, John Stossel told O’Reilly he had been out of line and “obnoxious.”

O’Reilly started out with a vicious chip on his shoulder in his Talking Points commentary immediately preceding the discussion. Then he said:

It’s almost like Mr. Obama is sabotaging the country so he can reshape it. There comes a point where every nation in history gets what it deserves. Rome, Japan, Germany and Russia all were destroyed by venal leaders exploiting an apathetic population. I pray that doesn’t happen to us but we the people need to wise up fast.

Colmes came on and, as usual, did an excellent job holding up his end. And O’Reilly apologized to Colmes at the end. But not before he came off looking one big bloviating, bullying blowhard. It was a worse outburst than O’Reilly’s famous “Just shut up!” temper tantrum made famous in Outfoxed. And he kept simmering with rage afterward. Read on...

And as she noted, Media Matters took on Bill-O on as well: Confronted With Facts, O'Reilly Screams "Bullshit":

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A depressed Florida man shot his wife and two children before killing himself after closing his hot air balloon business and facing losing his job as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector because of automatic budget cuts known as "sequestration."

A source told CBS News that 45-year-old Carlos Zuniga was depressed in the weeks before he shot his wife 43-year-old wife, Michelle, his 14-year-old daughter, Lauren, and his 11-year-old son, Stefan. Carlos Zuniga then killed himself.

Stefan Zuniga died at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center on Thursday morning. Both the wife and the daughter were in critical condition.

According to The Miami Herald, Carlos Zuniga was in the process of shutting down Winds Aloft Aviation Inc., a hot air balloon business that he had started with this wife in 2005. He had recently taken a job as a safety inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration. But the FAA is expected to be forced to furlough a "vast majority" of it's employees because of automatic budget cuts in the so-called "sequester" if Congress does not act quickly.

"FAA is going to face a cut of roughly $600 million under sequester," Office of Management and Budget controller Danny Werfel told a Senate committee last week. "A vast majority of their 47,000 employees will be furloughed for one day per pay period for the rest of the year, and, as importantly, this is going to reduce air traffic levels across the country, causing delays and disruptions for all travelers."

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has also notified senators that allowing the automatic cuts "would force the FAA to undergo an immediate retrenchment of core functions."

Earlier this week, President Barack Obama warned that there would be stark consequences if Congress allowed the automatic cuts to take place.

"These cuts are not smart," Obama said on Tuesday. "They are not fair. They will hurt our economy. They will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction -- people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again."

Former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour on Tuesday told Fox Business that "I hope and believe that Republicans will allow the sequestration to go into effect, so that we can start down a path of trying to get control of spending and reduce the deficit."

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Better get used to the idea of the coming anarchy people. According to Sen. Lindsey Graham, all of us need to arm ourselves to the hilt, because if he has his way with the upcoming budget cuts, we won't be able to count on the police for help: Graham: We Need Guns Because Of Budget Cuts, Fewer Cops:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) argued on Wednesday that Congress should think twice about passing new gun control regulations because future budget cuts in cities will constrain the size and quality of police forces across the country, thwarting effective response to violence.

Lindsey Graham: GOP-Forced Budget Cuts Will Mean Fewer Cops, So People Need To Arm Themselves:

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who has been among the Senate’s most vocal backers of draconian budget cuts and has opposed increasing funds to put more police officers on the streets, said Wednesday that he will oppose gun violence prevention legislation because budget cuts will mean inadequate police forces to protect the public.

Graham told Baltimore Chief of Police James Johnson and former naval Captain Mark Kelly (husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords) that he planned to oppose the gun violence measures because people will need high-capacity magazines to compensate for the police response times these austerity measures will force:

GRAHAM: The point is, we have different perspectives on this. The reason I will oppose the legislation, Chief Johnston, is because i respect what your do as a lot — what you do as a law-enforcement officer. Has your budget been cut?

JOHNSON: Yes.

GRAHAM: Do you think it be cut in the future?

JOHNSON: I am optimistic that it is not.

GRAHAM: Well I hope your right, but I can tell people throughout this land, because of the fiscal state of affairs we have, there will be less [SIC] police officers, not more, over the next decade. Response time are gonna be less, not more. So, Captain Kelly, I really do want to get guns out of the hands of the wrong people. I honest to god believe that if we arbitrarily “say nobody in this country can own a 10-round magazine in the future, the people who own them are the kind of people we’re trying to combat to begin with.” There can be a situation where a mother runs out of bullets because of something we do here.

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Lately, CNN's Ali Velshi has done a good job of pushing back at some of these Republican politicians when they come on his show and lie. This wasn't one of those times. While Velshi did do a good job of making clear that raising the debt ceiling is paying for spending which has already been approved by the Congress, and that it's not the same thing as a household running up the credit cards, he let Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson get away with a whole bunch of whoppers during this segment without much pushback.

He allowed Johnson to lay the blame for our deficits on the Obama administration, even though (as we've pointed out here time after time), most of that deficit is due to Bush policies and the recession and not because of Obama, as this article and its charts clearly point out. And even after Velshi pointed out that we can't just partially default on the deficit as a lot of Republicans have claimed, and that it would likely cause a great deal of economic havoc, he allowed Johnson to just flat-out disagree with him and didn't challenge him after that.

As long as we're allowing these politicians to pretend that Social Security contributes to the deficit when it doesn't, or pretending that raising the age for Medicare and throwing more seniors into the private health insurance market is a rational way to get our health care costs under control, they get to advocate for balancing the budget and paying for tax cuts and defense spending on the backs of the poor, elderly and middle class.

As Chris Hayes and Karoli pointed out here, the conversation we ought to be having is whether the Affordable Care Act is going to do enough to get our health care costs under control -- and if not, what steps we need to take to improve that? (None of our leaders want to talk about single-player, of course) We also need to talk about getting the United States back to full employment and quit allowing Republicans to just mindlessly repeat "job creators" and "tax cuts" in every conversation without rebuttal.

And of course, none of these guys are ever pushed on why we can't cut our bloated defense spending and get rid of the waste. They never seem to be too concerned about how starting another unnecessary war might destroy the future for their grandchildren. No, granny has to take a cut in her Social Security and Medicare benefits. The one word that never gets used here is privatization, because that's what they're advocating. These costs aren't going to go away. They just want to make sure the insurance companies and Wall Street gets their cut.

It would have been nice if Velshi asked Johnson if he really doesn't "want to play brinksmanship", why does he continue to do it? Why does he thinks it's acceptable to threaten our interest rates if that's something he's actually concerned about? Velshi also waited until the following segment when the Senator was off the air to point out the fact that President Obama's budget was never actually voted on, but sadly, even that wasn't done without some false equivalencies and "both sides do it" nonsense:

VELSHI: Why don't we have a budget? Gridlock, basically. In fact, Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, says it was not worth trying to go through the process of passing the president's budget. That's why you hear that old Republican saw that Harry Reid won't even present a budge to the Senate. You may have also heard the of repeated claim that President Obama's budget was struck down in the House and the Senate, getting zero votes. Goose eggs from either party.

But those bills were not the budget. They were shell versions of the president's budget put forward by Republicans designed to fail. They were not budgets. They were just politics.

Republicans did put out their own budget plan in the form of Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity," but bipartisan bickering resulted in no progress there, either.

Sorry Ali, but it was more than just "bipartisan bickering" which prevented Ryan's budget from being passed. Most Americans hated it, Republicans were backing away from it and even Paul Ryan himself was doing some backtracking on that debacle he put forward. You can read more about Ryan's so-called "Path to Prosperity" here in Jon Perr's post, where Fox was pretending that it doesn't add trillions to the deficit.

Maybe someone can tell Velshi to give it a look before he starts blaming the Democrats for its failure.

Full transcript below the fold.

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The video above is not safe for work.

At least three AIDS activists were arrested on Tuesday after they and other naked demonstrators briefly took over House Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) to protest budget cuts to health care services.

Activists from ACT UP, New York ACT UP, Philadelphia ACT UP, Housing Works and the Student Global AIDS Campaign stripped down in the lobby of the Speakers office and began chanting to send Congress a message ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1.

"Budget cuts are really rude, that's why we have to be so nude!" the protesters shouted. "Boehner, Boehner, don't be a dick! Budget cuts will make us sick!"

After several warnings from Capital Police the protesters agreed to get dressed and leave the building. But after media left, activists said at least three of the women who had been nude were arrested on charges of lewd conduct and indecent exposure. No male protesters were reportedly arrested.

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As Karoli explained this week, Republicans going after the funding for things like PBS, and "Planned Parenthood, NOAA, EPA, NPR, medical research, the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change, the OAS, and of course, Obamacare" is nothing new, but that didn't stop Romney adviser Ed Gillespie from pretending that Romney wasn't putting a target on Big Bird and PBS during the first presidential debate.

Gillespie admits that the amount of money is a pittance when it comes to what's actually adding to our deficit, but hey, we've got to start somewhere. Everyone knows they hate PBS for ideological reasons and that they aren't serious about deficit reduction unless it's an excuse to destroy every social safety that exists, or as in this case, to destroy an institution they hate because they disagree with their philosophy.

I'm not sure what else you'd call gutting the funding to PBS other than "targeting" when there's no other logical reason for going after them and when you can simultaneously repeat over and over again that raising taxes on the rich is a waste of time because you won't collect enough revenue to put a meaningful dent the deficit. If this was supposed to be some kind of a "joke" then maybe Romney needs to tell that to his friends in the House, because they're taking actual votes to cut the funding and not just talking about it.

And Gillespie's remarks about Big Bird being "commercially successful" are pretty callous when the people who rely on that type of programming are the ones who can't afford to be making donations to PBS, and may very well not be able to afford cable.

Transcript below the fold.

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