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Anyone who doesn't watch Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC on the weekends is missing out on some of the most intelligent conversation on cable news, and the segment above was no exception. I didn't get a chance to watch the whole show Sunday with the other video monitoring I do for the site, but Digby flagged this segment the other day and I agree with her criticism of Jonathan Alter.

The discussion was over the problems within the judicial nomination and confirmation structure and the fact that the process has been broken ... and it's been broken by the right. Alter seems to think that the left would be behaving "just as badly" as the right if heaven forbid Democrats nominated judges who would be perceived as just as "partisan" as those on the right.

What Alter didn't point out is that the biggest problem with judges like Thomas or Scalia isn't just the fact that they're "partisans." It's the fact that they're corrupt and have huge conflicts of interest and won't recuse themselves from cases where they have no business ruling. And unfortunately as long as we've got members of Congress who are going to defend their actions, we're not going to see them impeached.

Here's more from Digby's post — Partisan (Judicial) Review:

Yep. We can have as many right wing fascists on the court but Democrats should only nominate people who "moderate" and have a "reasonable" judicial temperament.

These Village "liberals" are killing us. He is completely wrong about this. If the people didn't give a shit that a partisan court stole an election, giving them a lecture about the Obamacare mandate isn't going to get the job done.

No, we are living in an ideologically polarized age and this guy wants liberals to stand around tittering politely about how wrong it is that we be so. History shows how well that works out for them when the other side has gone mad.

The left has allowed themselves to be completely outgunned when it comes to whipping up public outrage and getting their base to care about judicial nominations. Guest Nan Aron pointed out what's at risk if the Supreme Court is allowed to move any further to the right than it is already:

ARON: This is going to take a fight. Not just from the White House, but from the Senate, from all of us. This election... the stakes with this election for the future of this Supreme Court are enormous when you think about it. And we now know just how this court and several courts under it make decisions that affect every aspect of our lives and we can't sit back.

I don't know what it will take to get those on the left to pay more attention to this issue but I was glad to see it raised on Hayes' show, regardless of the fact that Alter wants Democrats to bring a knife to a gun fight. The rest of the panel was in complete disagreement with him about the sort of judges the left should be trying to get nominated and what tactics should be used to try to get some better judges through our broken nominating process. The Democrats could take some lessons from Republicans about getting public opinion on their side and with being willing to fight for good nominees.

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It seems the National Review's John Derbyshire has caused quite a stir with a recent column he wrote for Taki’s Magazine, describing "the talk" he has given to his children about race. Chris Hayes and his panel discussed the column in the video above and here's how Hayes opened up the segment:

HAYES: In the wake of Trayvon Martin's death at the hand of George Zimmerman, plenty of black journalists who are also parents have written extensively of the advice they've given to their sons about dealing with the police so as to avoid a misunderstanding that might leave them dead. And what we've learned from Zimmerman is sometimes that talk doesn't even have to be about a police officer.

National Review writer John Derbyshire has written a piece for Taki's Magazine [...] about the talk he's had with his two teenagers, white teenagers, non-black teenagers I should say, to deal with black people. I'm going to read you some of the things he says. He tells them:

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

It is one of the most sort of avowedly racist things I've seen in a long time. Derbyshire has a reputation for being [...] an avowed racist. He is a white supremacist. He thinks white people are superior to black people and he writes about that in the piece and all this I.Q. craziness. What is really interesting is that he is a contributor to The National Review and one of the things that happens when you have conversations about race is that the right feels that it is unfairly called racist all the time, that it is constantly being singled out and that liberals use the race card and accusations of racism way to liberally and it's unfair.

And I think the response that I tend to have is you have people in your coalition, if you look at where are the racists in America, which coalition are they part of? They're part of your coalition.

As Hayes pointed out, it's up to those like the National Review to decide whether they want to align themselves with the likes of Derbyshire or not, and it's up to them to police those boundaries. Hayes followed up with some interesting discussion with his panel of Van Jones, Joan Walsh, Ann Friedman and Josh Barro, who as Hayes pointed out, wrote about the right's problem with race even before this latest screed by Derbyshire was published.

Our own John Amato wrote about Derbyshire way back in 2007 and you can read more about that here and here. And Think Progress has more on his background here:- Derbyshire In 2003: I’m A Proud ‘Racist’ and here: In 2009, Derbyshire Argued Women Shouldn’t Vote: ‘Women Voting Is Bad For Conservatism’.

And from Think Progress as well, here's more on Derbyshire's latest: National Review Writer Pens Racist Screed: ‘Avoid Concentrations Of Blacks,’ ‘Stay Out Of’ Their Neighborhoods:

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Chris Hayes took a shot at Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for where he apparently gets his news and for his hypocrisy with basing his rulings on partisan ideology and whether he likes a particular law or not when it comes to his opinion on interstate commerce.

HAYES: We now know that many of the conservative Justices appear to be getting their information from reading right wing blogs. We know Justice Scalia even referenced the infamous “Cornhusker kickback”, a bete noire of Michelle Malkin and Red State, even though the deal cut with Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson to secure his vote for the ACA, didn't end up in the final legislation.

Most importantly we were reminded that just seven years ago, while voting to uphold a federal law that outlawed marijuana grown for private medicinal consumption, Justice Scalia thought the Constitution's interstate Commerce Clause was so broad that Congress could regulate even non-economic interstate activities, so long as failure to do so could undercut its regulation of interstate commerce.

I just assumed it was from watching Fox, but maybe Chris Hayes is correct as well.

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MSNBC's Ed Schultz took Fox's Bill O'Reilly to task for his claims that the media is somehow inciting racial violence with their coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting during his interview with the lawyer for the Martin family, Benjamin Crump, and for O'Reilly's claim during that interview, that the media would not just let this story die a slow death were it not for the national outrage and attention it has garnered.

As Schultz rightfully pointed out, O'Reilly is already on record trying to dismiss the racial problems we have in the United States, so his claim that he can be trusted to keep a story like this in the national spotlight without other pressures are dubious at best.

O'Reilly unwittingly pointed out during that interview with Martin's lawyer, exactly why the media should not stop covering the case:

CRUMP: What we hope we have is is dialog saying, how can this investigation have happened like this where you get to say an unarmed kid is killed and he's allowed to go home that same night.

O'REILLY: Because of that law in Florida. That law in Florida changes everything.

O'Reilly seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Florida is not the only state where these sorts of laws have been enacted and "changed eveything." O'Reilly told Crump immediately following the quote above that "In another state, that never would have happened."

Schultz responded by noting that's far from the truth, since we now have a ton of other states in America with similar laws on the books. Schultz played a recording that I first saw on Chris Hayes' show last Saturday, and was just horrified by, of a man in Texas who called in to a 911 operator and told that operator he was going to kill two men who were robbing his neighbor's property. We then hear the audio of the man shooting and killing those two men dead after being told repeatedly by the person on the phone not to go out there and not to take matters into his own hands.

What Hayes' show did not air was the footage from Fox News where the above mentioned man from Texas, Joe Horn, was being propped up by the right as some kind of hero for shooting those two men and pretending that his life was in danger, before ignoring the warnings not to get involved in the burglary or take the law into his own hands.

I agree completely with Schultz when he said this in response:

SCHULTZ: Bill O'Reilly can say there's no reason to cover the Trayvon Martin case, but Joe Horn proves him wrong. As long as these "stand your ground" laws are on the books, Americans have the right to kill other Americans without being physically threatened. We've seen it.

Schultz also asked why O'Reilly wasn't bringing on Republicans from Florida like Jeb Bush who signed that awful "stand your ground" law, or Marco Rubio, the Senator from that state to defend it.

Ed Schultz followed up with an interview with the lawyer for Martin's family, Natalie Jackson and MSNBC regular Jonathan Capehart and got their opinion on the "stand your ground" laws and some of the news that's been slowly leaking out on Zimmerman and his temperament.

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From this Sunday's Up With Chris Hayes, his story of the week on the fact that the rise of Rick Santorum as a front runner in the Republican primary race has forced conservatives to do something they've refused to do for the last four years; "acknowledge and wrestle with the legacy of the previous Republican president."

Tragically as Hayes pointed out, when you look at the current crop of Republican presidential candidates beating the drums for war with Iran, they've learned nothing from the debacle that was the invasion of Iraq.

I'm not some big fan of MSNBC regular Jonathan Capehart because frankly the man regularly just glosses over or minimizes just how crazy the Republican Party has become these days and chalks a lot of it up to just politics as usual, when I don't think there's anything normal about how far the GOP has fallen off the cliff to the right, but the treatment he received by both host Joe Scarborough and guest New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on this Thursday's edition of Morning Joe just sickened me.

As most people who visit this site probably already know, Gov. Christie vetoed the gay marriage bill in New Jersey and that ended up being the main topic of discussion during this segment. When Capehart tried to pin Christie down about why he thought it was acceptable to put a civil rights issue up for referendum with the voters, he ended up being bullied and talked over and interrupted by both Christie and Scarborough.

Christie is trying to have it both ways with this debate and deflect how rotten it is that he had a chance to single-handedly give a group of people in New Jersey the right to be married by signing that bill into law, and blamed his decision on the Democrats, because they claimed that a majority of people in his state wanted it, while not wanting it subjected to the will of the voters. So naturally it's all their fault because he had no other choice than to decide to try to prove them wrong instead of doing the right thing. He also tried to claim that both he and President Obama have the same stance on gay marriage.

When Capehart attempted to explain that that's not true since Obama has instructed his Justice Department not to defend DOMA, or the Defense of Marriage Act and that he has never issued any veto threats if the Congress would actually pass a law allowing gay marriage, Christie decided it was best to just talk over him and hammer him about what Obama's stance is on gay marriage. I'll give Capehart credit for this much though and that is he got Christie to admit that civil rights should not have been put up for a vote a half century ago. He didn't have that same luck trying to get him to relate that struggle to those wanting marriage equality for the LGBT community today.

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Chris Hayes and his panel members Reihan Salam, Maria Hinojosa, Nancy Cohen and Kai Wright discussed the potential implications for presidential hopeful Rick Santorum's campaign after the release of this audio from 2008 uncovered by Right Wing Watch.

Santorum: Satan is Systematically Destroying America:

Back in 2008, Rick Santorum traveled to Ave Maria University in Florida to deliver an address to students attending the Catholic university founded by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan which he moved from Michigan as part of his effort to build his own personal theocracy in Naples.

Santorum told the students at Ave Maria how lucky they were to be living in a time when God's Army is more needed than ever because all of the major institutions in society were under attack by Satan.

The audio of Santorum's remarks is still posted on the Ave Maria website and the bulk of his speech was dedicated to explaining how God had used him, his political career, and even the death of his son Gabriel in the fight to outlaw abortion in America.

But Santorum began his remarks by explaining to the students in attendance how every institution in America has been destroyed by Satan; from academia to politics with even the church having fallen under His sway - not the Catholic church, of course, but "mainline Protestantism" which is in such "shambles" that it is not even Christian any longer:

You can read the full transcript in their post. Here's more from Think Progress -- Santorum Excommunicates 45 Million Christians: Mainline Protestants Are ‘Gone From The World Of Christianity’:

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Chris Matthews has been on a tear all week ever since the announcement that the Obama administration was going to require some religious institutions' health insurance plans to cover the cost of birth control. So who better to bring on as one of his guests than the Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger who just wrote an op-ed full of, as NARAL's Blog for Choice noted "misleading claims from anti-contraception groups regarding the Obama administration's decision to ensure millions of Americans have insurance coverage of contraception."

You can read their rebuttal to Henneberger's column here -- Counterpoint to Henneberger's Column in The Washington Post. You can read their entire response to Hennenberger's claims of discrimination and on the contraceptive coverage in their post, but I wanted to share wanted to share part of it here:

Response: Henneberger's claim implies that she knows the myriad of reasons why all women who happen to work at a religiously affiliated hospital or service agency might need contraception, including those whose doctors prescribe contraception for health reasons and not for pregnancy-prevention.

A recent story in The New York Times ("Ruling on Contraception Draws Battle Lines at Catholic Colleges," January 29, 2012) illustrates the dire consequences for women's health when institutions are allowed to block coverage of contraception:

One recent Georgetown law graduate, who asked not to be identified for reasons of medical privacy, said she had polycystic ovary syndrome, a condition for which her doctor prescribed birth control pills. She is gay and had no other reason to take the pills. Georgetown does not cover birth control for students, so she made sure her doctor noted the diagnosis on her prescription. Even so, coverage was denied several times. She finally gave up and paid out of pocket, more than $100 a month. After a few months she could no longer afford the pills. Within months she developed a large ovarian cyst that had to be removed surgically -- along with her ovary.

"If I want children, I'll need a fertility specialist because I have only one working ovary," she said.

Henneberger claims that the criticism of this new rule threatens the Affordable Care Act.

Actually, this woman's story from Georgetown is one of the key reasons the Obama administration's decision is a win for women. Now, women in this situation won't have to fight for insurance coverage of medication that could prevent them from having health-related complications in the future.

Something that was completely lost on both Matthews and Henneberger in the interview above. As Digby noted earlier today "Said it before and I'll say it again --- with friends like Melinda Henneberger women don't need enemies."

Taylor Marsh had a few words for Matthews and his ilk that are worth sharing here as well -- Rachel Maddow Slams ’60-something Male Pundits’:

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From this Saturday's Up With Chris Hayes -- Story of the Week: Democracy for Billionaires:

Chris's Story of the Week asks who is Sheldon Adelson and what does it mean for democracy when a billionaire investor and casino owner like him can give a Newt Gingrich-associated super PAC $10 million?

Chris highlighted The New Yorker's profile of Adelson, "The Brass Ring" which you can read in its entirety here -- The World of Business, The Brass Ring.

You can watch the rest of the show from this Saturday here and here.

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I highly recommend watching the entire show if you have time which you can catch here if you don't have the show recorded at home, but here's one of the better portions of this Saturday's Up With Chris Hayes which followed their panel discussions which took at look back at the invasion of Iraq as the Status of Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraq ends today.

HAYES: Since we're taking a look at the legacy of the Iraq war today we thought we'd approach our now we know segment a little differently. One of the striking features of our tortured relationship with the war and it's aftermath is that as a byproduct of a kind of collective, social PTSD we simply no longer talk about Iraq very much at all. Because of this we've allowed so many of the key figures who engineered the war, sold the war and oversaw the bloody quagmire to escape the kind of public sanctions their failures merited.

So we thought as part of our looking the war squarely in the face it would be interesting to take a look at where some of the major and not so major players in our war effort and anti-war effort are now.

On Chris' list, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Judith Miller, David Addington, Paul Wolfowitz, Cindy Sheehan, General Eric Shinseki, Ari Fleischer, Jessica Lynch, Ken Pollock, Scooter Libby, Doug Feith and Paul Bremer. Sadly as Chris noted here, no bad deed has gone unrewarded when it comes to this group, most of whom are now making a comfortable living at conservative think tanks and are sadly still allowed to come on television and are asked for their opinions.

I'm quite sure we'll never see a segment like this on Meet the Press since David Gregory wouldn't want any of them to fall off of his potential guest list.

Best line of the segment:

HAYES: Doug Feith, the Undersecretary of Defense, who Geneal Tommy Franks once called "the f-ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth," is advising Rick Perry on foreign policy.