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As expected, as soon as the Obama administration released their list of executive orders to help curb gun violence, the right wing went into full blown hissy fit mode. It seems Michelle Malkin took a page straight out of Limbaugh and Drudge's book on Fox this Thursday afternoon during this interview with Megyn Kelly.

Drudge And Limbaugh Misrepresent What Obama And The Affordable Care Act Say About Doctors And Guns:

As soon as President Obama's new recommendations for gun violence prevention became public, right-wing media immediately claimed the president was issuing an executive action requiring doctors to ask patients about their guns. This is false. The president's released proposals only clarify that nothing in the Affordable Care Act changes longstanding law: doctors are still free (but not required) to discuss with their patients any health hazards, including a lack of gun safety at home or elsewhere.

Among the White House proposals for gun violence reduction, the president announced that the administration will "[c]larify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes." Nowhere in his proposal did he instead require doctors to ask about guns. The Drudge Report, however, immediately splashed across its website this graphic:

Rush Limbaugh picked up on this flatly inaccurate claim that the president required doctors to ask their patients about "gun ownership." Rather than explain the president's executive action only indicated future orders, regulations, or guidance will clarify that no law - including the ACA - prohibits them from discussing gun safety with their patients, Limbaugh reported it as a new directive that "deputizes gun-snitch doctors": [...]

Limbaugh concedes that the executive action doesn't literally say that doctors are required to ask about gun safety, but rather, in his interpretation, "the executive action today is almost essentially requiring it." The president's proposal was likely a direct response to these types of wildly erroneous interpretations of the health care reform law and executive orders that were already floating around the right-wing blogosphere, before Limbaugh added his analysis.

Go read the rest for more on how the right is lying about the language in the law. Malkin did the exact same thing during the interview above with Megyn Kelly and in a post at her blog the previous day. (Warning, link goes to Malkin's site.)

The anti-gun doctors’ lobby has a friend in Obama:

Anyone with kids knows that the invasive, anti-gun doctors’ lobby has been around a long time.

Flashback October 2007: Is your pediatrician using your kid to spy on you?

Flashback July 2008: More nosy doctors who don’t like guns

The liberal leadership of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have long been filled with notorious gun-grabbers — and they’ve promoted years of junk science to pursue their Nanny State agenda.

Now comes President Obama, who has deputized doctors to “help” snoop on law-abiding, gun-owning patients even further. Moreover, the White House has now lent federal support to doctors’ groups trying to fight state efforts to protect gun owners’ privacy: [...]

Political malpractice plus medical malpractice in the name of saving the children is a recipe for authoritarianism. The Hippocratic Oath has been turned on its head.

Malkin seems to have a little trouble understanding the difference between "does not prohibit" and mandates. Who knew we had all of those evil liberal doctors out there who are more worried about taking away everyone's guns than doing their job and providing health care to their patients. Be afraid... be very afraid!

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Jon Stewart took his audience through the entire, disgusting "Senate day of shame" with Mike Lee and the home schooling crowd objecting to the passage of the U.N. disability treaty. After asking how the treaty failed and what the hell is wrong with "these people," Stewart said he guessed it was time for a new segment: "Please Tell Me This is Rock Bottom."

Sadly Jon, I'm fairly sure we haven't hit it yet. He got into the meat of their real objection to the treaty a bit later in the segment, which Dave wrote about here and their fear that the treaty might be used to interfere with American sovereignty, and somehow "threaten the rights of parents." Except, as Stewart noted, there are no enforcement mechanisms. That of course, was one of wingnut Lee's objections to the bill.

The Republicans in the Senate are bound and determined to make themselves look like as big of clowns who want to constantly embarrass this country as their counterparts in the House. It would be a lot easier to laugh at a lot of it, if it weren't also so dangerous.

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If anyone needed further proof that Sean Hannity's show on Fox "news" is a complete clown show, here you go. After complaining about House Speaker John Boehner stripping some of these "tea partiers" from their committee assignments and even the possibility of him negotiating with President Obama over this so-called "fiscal cliff," guest Mark Steyn called Rep. Louie Gohmert "one of the few serious people in Congress."

Louie Gohmert.... terror babies Louie Gohmert.

Here's more of the recent insanity that's come out of that man's mouth in case anyone's forgotten.

Rep. Gohmert: ‘Slavery was a blot’ but U.S. is worse off now

Gohmert: Contraception mandate is like banning communion

Gohmert to 'Numbnuts' McCain: Shut Up About Bachmann’s Anti-Muslim Witch Hunt

Louie Gohmert (R-TX): George W. Bush Did A Better Job in Afghanistan Than Obama

Rep. Louis Gohmert says Obama has more of an allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood than America

'Terror Babies' Gohmert: Libya Goal Is To "Deplete The Military" So Obama Can Call Up Private Army

Rachel Maddow: More Guns Does Not Equal Less Crime

'Terror Babies' Louie Gohmert Predicts Doom for America and the Military From Repeal of DADT

Update: The Huffington Post noted on Wednesday that Gohmert was the only member of Congress to vote against a bill that would have removed the term "lunatic" from all federal laws.

So our Congress is playing pre-pubescent stupid reindeer games now. Here is today's House session. It opens with the prayer and the pledge, and as Steny Hoyer comes to the House floor to introduce a unanimous consent resolution to approve the Senate bill extending unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday for two months until a longer-term bill can be negotiated.

This follows the revelation that the so-called heated caucus meeting with Boehner ahead of yesterday's debacle in the House was really just a man-moment where they shared their favorite Braveheart moments.

Steve Benen:

If you watch the clip, you’ll notice that Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), who was presiding over the House session at the time, got out of the Speaker’s chair and left the chamber altogether. Other Republicans joined him. Hoyer, of course, noticed, and explained, “You’re walking out, you’re walking away, just as so many Republicans have walked away from middle class taxpayers, the unemployed, and … those who will be seeking medical assistance from their doctors.”

When Hoyer finished speaking and turned to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) to continue the debate, GOP leaders demanded that C-SPAN turn off the cameras so the public couldn’t hear the debate any more.

Classy.

I know Republicans think they’re in “Braveheart” but I don’t remember the scene in the movie in which William Wallace decided he’d rather run away than fight.

This made me want to go donate to the Blue America candidates. You?

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I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you didn't have to spend any time arguing with your right-wing relatives about this nonsense.

Right Wing Continues to Push “Socialist Pilgrims” Myth:

Despite a comprehensive repudiation by historians of the belief that the original Pilgrims were socialists who only began to succeed and prosper once they turned to capitalism, on this Thanksgiving conservative leaders and writers continue to spread the urban legend that the settlers were almost doomed by their socialist-ways.

Some background: according to real historians, the Pilgrims held their land in common “in the interest of realizing a profit sooner, and was only intended for the short term; historians say the Pilgrims were more like shareholders in an early corporation than subjects of socialism.” But the settlers, who came from different part of England, “spoke different dialects and had different methods of farming, and looked upon each other with great wariness.” Because of such difficulties, the colony scrapped the land arrangements in 1623, yet the colony held the first Thanksgiving in 1621 and the original “arrangement did not produce famine.”

But that hasn’t stopped the Right from propagating the myth that the failures of “socialism” forced them to embrace capitalism. In order to make the myth seem true, Fox News commentator John Stossel simply moves the date of the first Thanksgiving from 1621 to 1623.

And Rep. Todd Akin continued to embarrass the state of Missouri with some similar nonsense as well.

Rep. Todd Akin: The Pilgrims Came To America To Flee ‘Unbiblical’ Socialism In The 1620′s :

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Well, Anderson Cooper managed to get Rep. Louie Gohmert on his show to talk about his latest "terror babies" conspiracy he was touting in the floor of the House and just one word for what happened here... meltdown. They couldn't get him on earlier in the week and settled for the wingnut Texas Representative who was happy to come on and fear monger in his place.

I feel sorry for whoever tries to transcribe this. It's going to look something like this.

Cooper: Congressman Gohmert do you have any proof that there are "terror babies" being born in the United States?

(crosstalk)

Gohmert: You can Jon Stewart can make fun of me all you want!!!...

(crosstalk)

Jebus... Gohmert screamed over Cooper for the entire interview if you want to call it that. Gohmert kept trying to conflate "birth tourism" to terrorism and never offered an ounce of proof that the two were related. As Cooper attempted to point out, terrorists don't need to attain American citizenship to come to the United States and attack us. Gohmert's fear mongering is just that, and ridiculous.

I guess Gohmert's not too happy about this segment from The Daily Show.

I'd like to see Gohmert go on there and watch Stewart tear him up to his face. I don't think he'd put up with the kind of treatment Anderson Cooper just got, but then I don't think Gohmert would dare to go on there in a million years either. I'm actually surprised he agreed to come on Cooper's show.

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Kentucky Senate Democratic nominee Jack Conway gave one hell of a barnburner of a speech this weekend at their Fancy Farm event in Kentucky and called out Rand Paul for being the extremist that he is. Bronte17 at Daily KOS shared some of the tweets of the day on the event if you'd like to check that out and recommend their post if there's still time and was kind enough to post the transcript of Conway's remarks as well. More like this please from anyone running against the likes of Rand Paul and his fellow teabaggers in the south.

Conway: But the accident that the nation and Kentucky cannot allow to happen would be the election of Rand Paul.

This race presents a clear choice. A clear choice between my proven record and our responsible proposals for the future... and the risky and radical ideas of my opponent. As Kentucky's chief law enforcement officer, we've taken 70,000 child porns images off of the internet, we've gone aggessively after the drug dealers and sex predators and those who prey on our seniors. We helped shut down that prescription pill pipeline from Florida and we cracked down on the oil companies that would gauge and we increased Medicaid fraud collections by 600% by going after the drug companies that lied to us.

That's a record. That's a record of taking a public office and treating it as a public trust. And that's just what I'll do as your next United States Senator.

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Keith hasn't been able to get Sharron Angle to go on his show for an interview, so they just did a mash-up from her previous interviews with him asking the questions they think she would have liked him to ask.

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Well, it looks like Sharron Angle’s favorite refuge Fox News can’t manage to do a report on her without exposing just how extreme this woman really is. The network aired a special Sunday night, Fox News Reporting: The Fight to Control Congress and one of the featured races was the Nevada Senate race with Sharron Angle facing off against Harry Reid.

During the segment, Fox's Carl Cameron lays out for their viewers just what Angle's positions are that she's been criticized for.

Cameron: What precisely she’s advocated; phasing out Social Security and Medicare, withdrawing from the United Nations, abolishing the EPA and much of the tax code and banning all abortions. But it’s not just the positions that Angle has taken, it’s how she’s defended them. She suggested that entitlement programs “spoiled our citizenry”, that it may be part of God’s plan that rape victims get pregnant and to some she even seems to sanction armed insurrection, a “Second Amendment remedy” is what she called it, if Harry Reid isn’t beaten at the ballot box.

In what world is talk of "armed insurrection" brought up as though it's just business as usual and not something to put a few exclamation points behind? Good grief. Never mind, I already know the answer to that, in ClusterFox's world where the rhetoric that was formerly reserved for the gas bags on right wing radio is being mainstreamed as normal.

And then later in the segment we get treated to Sharron Angle defending why she's been running from most of the press in Nevada.

Cameron: There was a tremendous amount of discussion about Sharron Angle’s taking the defensive posture.

Angle: We needed to have the press be our friend.

Cameron: Wait a minute! Hold on a second… to be your friend?

Angle: Well truly…

Cameron: It sounds lame…

Angle: Well, no, no, we wanted them to ask the questions we want to answer so that they report the news the way we want it to be reported and when I get on a show and I say send me money to SharronAngle.com, so that your listeners will know that if they want to support me they need to go to SharronAngle.com.

So she explains why about the only place she'll come on is right wing media outlets like Fox but Cameron pretends to be shocked... and she's begging for money on the air again. Wonderful.

One last note on this. Does anyone else think that the interview she and Cameron did could have just as easily been a parody segment on either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report? Carl Cameron even has some of the same facial expressions when he's talking to her that we see out of Jason Jones and Stephen Colbert.

Fox is making their own parodies and they don't even realize it.

Time for your weekly Driftglass and Bluegal podcast, extended bonus edition this week. Happy Birthday Fran! Have a nice weekend everybody.

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.