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Neil Cavuto is terribly upset that the Republicans in the Senate have decided not to support Paul Ryan and the House's budget plan and dismantle Medicare by turning it into a voucher system. Cavuto opened his segment with American Pie playing in the background and followed with this:

CAVUTO: Alright, I don't want to be melodramatic (too late for that Neil), but let it be known that this is the day America's financial future died. I want you to write it down, May 10, 2011. The day tea partiers elected to the United States Senate not only caved, they quit. They folded their spending tent and left.

And all because some Medicare recipients stomped their feet and roared. And those Republicans ran into their buzz-saw and just bugged out. I am telling you, they didn't just blink, they bolted. Which is odd because Republican Senators like Pat Toomey and Marco Rubio got to where promising big cuts.

Then they ran into this big old wall. They discovered some folks were fine, cutting spending, but in the case of some Medicare recipients, just not their spending.

It is a familiar story. Cut, just don't cut my stuff. So now my friends, we are all stuck. Republicans in the Senate said, because the reality is Democrats control the Senate today, so they're keeping their powder dry for when they control the Senate some day.

Which is why they are putting off things like Medicare until after 2012, as if the stark reality of things we're facing will be any less after 2012. They won't. I can understand their political math, but I fear out far more unfriendly math, by then likely one and a half trillion dollars more in debt, not even a game plan as how to hack that debt.

They say they'll focus then, but I fear it will be too late. No wonder all this talk of a third party now. The Grand Old Party has botched it. Time was of the essence and now the time has gone.

And now, they're of the essence and now they're the ones risking being gone. History will show it started this day, the tenth of May, 2011, when they gave up the fight and they lost the war. This spring day in 2011, they lost something else, their souls.

How dare all of those selfish seniors expect that their children and grand children be taken care of in their old age? Sorry Neil, but you just lost yours running this fearmongering segment.

We've got the biggest income disparity since the Gilded Age in the United States and you want to throw seniors under the bus. Shame on you.

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Outraged constituents have showed up at town hall events across the country to protest a Republican budget plan that would end Medicare as it exists today but Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) says it's all been a misunderstanding.

"The crowds are really getting bigger and people are getting much more anxious about where the country is headed," Ryan told ABC's Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Sunday.

"This is the sign of the times, I think. I think it's sign of anxiety of the times and sign of misinformation perpetrated out there."

"What do you mean, misinformation?" Amanpour asked.

"There are TV, radio and phone calls running, trying to scare seniors. The Democratic National Committee is running phone calls to seniors in my district, TV ads, saying we're hurting current senior, which in fact that's not the case," Ryan explained.

But Democrats claim that the Republican plan authored by Ryan would force millions of seniors to pay an extra $2.2 billion next year alone.

And they say that for Americans under 55, the plan would effectively eliminate Medicare by replacing it with a voucher system. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that in ten years, the new Medicare system would cost each senior about $6,500 extra per year.

"Put these reforms in now, they don't take effect for ten years to give people time to prepare," Ryan told constituents at one town hall last week.

"If we keep kicking the can down the road and keep going trillions of dollars deeper in the hole, then the reforms will be sudden, urgent, severe and immediate, and then it will catch people by surprise."

Greg Sargent of The Plum Line makes his picks for the top 5 online news stories of the year.

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September 07, 2009 News Corp

COLBY: Health care reform quickly becoming the make-or-break issue for this presidency, and sources are saying the White House is planning to draft its own bill to make sure that reform happens. And just when you thought the debate could not get any more heated -- you've seen those town halls -- enter Reverend Jeremiah Wright!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what do you think about the health care bill?

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT, PRES. OBAMA'S FORMER PASTOR: I think the racists in the right wing are upset because poor people are about to be helped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLBY: So shocking it is, I'm going to play it for you again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what do you think about the health care bill?

WRIGHT: I think the racists in the right wing are upset because poor people are about to be helped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLBY: I'm joined again by Marc Lamont Hill and Amanda Carpenter. Marc, let me start with you. The Reverend Wright -- we haven't heard much about him. Now he's speaking out, to all places, TMZ, on health care reform. What's going on?

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The David Gregory and Andrea Mitchells of the world have decided to declare the public option dead and of course all of those silly liberals who think that the bill would be a giveaway to the insurance industries without it need to just shut up and get in line. Mitchell says "I just don't get the lack of discipline here". Hey Andrea, there are three co-equal branches of government, or have you forgotten that? And it is not going to destroy Obama's Presidency if he actually listens to the majority that elected him and does what they would like.

As my C&L cohort Nicole pointed out, this article does a good job of explaining just what we're watching right now. From Mike Lux at Open Left- The News Big Media Won't Report:

Every morning I still read my old fashioned paper copy of the morning Washington Post on the subway on my way to the office, and then I sit down to review all the information I am getting from field events and town halls around the country, lobbyists' reports from those meeting with Senate and House members and staff, updates from organizations working in the field. I have to say that the two sets of information could not be further apart, and it makes me wonder again what the disconnect is.

[....]

As I've written before, between some combination of their own pre-conceived conventional wisdom talking points and their love of covering a train wreck, traditional media does not want to report the good news about health care reform. I can't remember ever seeing in any traditional media story, for example, the fact that (as Chris Bowers reported) there is now a majority in both the House and the Senate that are on the public record in support of a public option.

The future of health care reform hangs in the balance. We are in the fight of our lives- but if you listen to the traditional media, you would think it is all over.

Lots more there so be sure to check out the whole article, but he's right. The media has decided to tell everyone that the fight is over and so go sit down and shut up if you don't like it. I would hope that is the last thing anyone that wants to see some real reform is doing.

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In a segment complaining about how his remarks were taken out of context by Jon Stewart, Bill O'Reilly managed to take Ann Kornblut's comments about him...out of context. Jon Stewart pointed out how O'Reilly's views on protesters had changed since right wing protesters had begun appearing at health care town halls. O'Reilly is known for referring to liberal protesters as "loons" but now openly defends the right wing protesters causing distractions at town hall events. O'Reilly complained that Stewart had taken his comments out of context.

CNN's Howard Kurtz points out that O'Reilly is also guilty of the same "unfair editing" that he accused Stewart of doing. O'Reilly used a clip of Ann Kornblut explaining Stewart's criticism of O'Reilly to suggest that she agreed with Jon Stewart. Kornblut had actually provided a mild criticism of Stewart. O'Reilly had selectively edited the Kornblut the clip to fit his agenda.

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Isn't it wonderful that Raum Emanuel thought it was a great idea to get a bunch of Republicans to pretend they're Democrats? Who would have ever imagined that could have turned out badly? Bluedog Mike Ross decides to see just how many Republican talking points he can squeeze into a several minute segment on CNN's State of the Union.

King: [A]t one of your recent town halls, there was actually a young man -- not quite ready to vote, I don't believe -- who got up and raised one of the big concerns about this bill, and that is spending.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): Mr. Ross, I want the same opportunity that you had. Please do not -- don't load me up with debt that I can't pay.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, you voted in committee to keep the process moving, to get the House bill moving along, to keep it moving after you got some concessions. If that bill were on the full House floor tomorrow, based on everything you have heard back home, including the concern there about deficit spending, would you vote yes or do you need additional changes?

ROSS: Well, I think -- I think we'd probably need to see a few more changes, too.

Let me say this, that I'm glad to see all people, young and old, starting to talk about the debt. I've been talking about the debt for nine years. Let's not forget here, it took George Washington to Bill Clinton to put this country $5 trillion in debt. It took the last president to double it. And so, I'm one of those that have said, one of my key principles is I will not support a health care reform bill that is not deficit-neutral, period.

KING: Not deficit-neutral, period. As you know, the president is not on the ballot next year, but all of you Blue Dog Democrats in the House are on the ballot, and the Republican National Committee is already after you on the radio, sir. I want you to listen to a snippet from this radio ad attacking you for voting to keep the process moving.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COMIC VOICE: He folded like a lawn chair.

ANNOUNCER: Mike Ross.

COMIC VOICE: He threw in the towel.

ANNOUNCER: Mike Ross did exactly what Nancy Pelosi wanted him to do.

COMIC VOICE: He caved in, he buckled.

ANNOUNCER: Mike Ross was one of just four congressmen who cast the deciding votes to advance Nancy Pelosi's radical big government health care plan. Ross backed a plan that will cost taxpayers billions, just days after talking like he wouldn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Such an important policy question facing the country right now, Congressman, but also a very dicey political environment. Can you vote for anything along the lines of what is right now before the House of Representatives and survive next year?

ROSS: John, first, I've got a response ad that I'm running to that ad, and I hope at some point you all will play just as many seconds of it.

I read the newspaper this morning. $57 million has been spent in the last six months, most of it in the last 45 days, trying to scare folks. I saw an ad the other night on TV. It scared the living daylights out of me. But I went back and watched it again. It used the word "could" six times in 60 seconds.

I've laid out -- I've now done 37 town hall meetings on health care reform since April. I'm doing telephone town hall meetings. I'm doing roundtable discussions at hospitals, where we bring in small- business owners, the self-employed, the uninsured, doctors, hospital administrators, and we're listening to them.

I can tell you, I've laid down my set of principles, so I will not force government-run health care on anyone. If there ever is government-run health care, the first ones to sign up should be the president and every member of Congress, including myself. You should be able to keep the insurance you've got today, if you like it, and always choose your own doctor. No federal funding for illegal immigrants or for abortion, and no rationing of health care. I will never vote for a bill to kill old people, period.

KING: Congressman Ross, we appreciate your time today.

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What would the poor little old insurance companies do without the likes of Sean Hannity and his panel to rush to their defense? After claiming that the protests at these town halls are a grass roots movement, and not one being fueled by groups taking money from the insurance and health care industries, Hannity and Carlson staunchly defend the insurance industry.

HANNITY: And tonight we're launching a new Friday night panel that we call "The Sleep-in Sunday Panel." And we're going to give you all the hard-hitting political news on Friday night so you can enjoy the weekend, get a few more hours sleep Sunday morning.

And joining us tonight, he has been a campaign consultant for over 30 years. Democratic pollster Doug Schoen is back.

He is a FOX News contributor. The one and only Tucker Carlson is here, without a bowtie.

And she's the national security and Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Times. Sarah Carter is with us.

And you gave up the bowtie a couple years ago.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Many years ago. I joined the mainstream.

HANNITY: OK. Is that right?

Well, guys, good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

All right. Let's start with the president's town hall. By the way, if they would have had the confetti and the balloons, it would have been, you know, a convention. I mean, everybody standing. One guy mentions the NRA. Three people clapped in Montana.

But let's watch him, again, attack -- attack FOX News.

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Rachel Maddow addresses the use of the threat of assassination as a political tactic, and those who could care less about ginning up the anger which is driving the angry protesters to these town halls. Rachel stated this better than I ever could so I'll let her take it from here:

Maddow: What is not politics as usual is that opponents of health care reform have chosen to fight at this time with force and with threats of force. Not just fringe talk show hosts, but members of Congress telling their constituents that Barack Obama is like Hitler; members of the United States senate telling their constituents that they are right to be afraid, that health care reform really is a plot to kill the elderly. Corporate funded conservative P.R. operations promoting those lines of attack and then telling their activists to go put the fear of God into members of Congress.

Are we now operating in a political environment which is not just politics as usual, which is not just a rowdy debate? Has enough kerosene been poured on the flames that the possibility of violence-even assassination-is being posited as a real political tactic in the United States?

It's not a rhetorical question. It's not even a question about rhetoric. Because there are people in this country-people in the health care field, in fact-who have faced the actual threat of assassination as a political tactic.

Two and a half months ago, Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was assassinated and the man who's charged in the case purportedly believe that assassinations were justified because of his own beliefs about abortion. That belief in justified political violence was cultivated by the extreme anti-abortion movement that Scott Roeder is known to have extensive contact with before Dr. Tiller's death.

As the anti-health reform protestors flirt with the same exultation of violence, that same excuses and purported justifications of violence, that echo in the extreme anti-abortion movement in this country, it is worth remembering that the possibility of American politics turning to violence and terrorism-at the fringe-is not all theoretical.

Full transcript and her interview with Dr. Warren Hern to follow.

Maddow: On July 27th, two and a half weeks ago, Democratic Congressman Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his congressional office in Maryland. The staged lynching, the really well-tied noose and all was gleefully staged by an anti-health care reform protestor.

Later that week, on August 1st, Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas held a town hall event at a grocery store in Austin to talk about health care reform. An anti-health reform protestor there greeted him with a mock marble tombstone engraved with the congressman's name on it.

Two days after that, on August 3rd, Democratic Congressman Brad Miller of North Carolina reported to the Capitol Hill police that he had received death threats over his support for health care reform. One anti-health care reform protestor called his D.C. office and told a staffer, quote, "Miller could lose his life over this."

The very next day, on August 4th, the idea of a Democratic congressman being killed because he supported health care reform became a punch line for Republican Congressman Todd Akin of Missouri.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TODD AKIN, MISSOURI: Different people from Washington, D.C have come back to their districts and had town hall meetings and they almost got lynched and so.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: That same day, Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, who had just announced days earlier that he has prostate cancer, had this screamed at him by an anti-health care reform protestor outside one of his town hall events.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Barack Obama clearly said, all you should do is take a painkiller. How come we don't just give Chris Dodd painkillers? Like a handful of them at a time? He can wash it down with Ted Kennedy's whiskey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Two days later, on August 6th, the FOX News anchor Glenn Beck, on national television, turns the threat of a political assassination into the acting out of a political assassination, when he and one of his staffers wearing a Nancy Pelosi mask role-played what it would be like for Glenn Beck to poison the speaker of the House of Representatives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: I just wanted to-are you going to drink your wine? Are you blind? Do those eyes not work? There you go.

I want you to drink it now. Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.

I really just wanted to thank you for having me over to wine country. You know, to be invited I thought I had to be a major Democratic donor, long-time friend of yours, which I'm not. By the way, I put poison in your-no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: The day after that, on August 7th, there were more death threats. Congressman Brian Baird of Washington reports that his office received this fax with an image of President Obama with a communist hammer and sickle symbol paint owned his forehead and the message, "Death to all Marxists, foreign and domestic" written underneath.

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Lynn Sweet apparently doesn't know the difference between a community organizer and these corporate funded astroturf organizations trying to distort the conversation on health care reform. I do agree with her that the White House has done a lousy job of explaining just what they want in this health care bill though. The media isn't helping matters either when you have conversations like this going on.

LEMON: CNN political editor Mark Preston, Lynn Sweet from the "Chicago Sun-Times" and PoliticsDaily.com, both join me to help sort it all out. We're glad that Lynn is back. She's been on vacation.

Good to see you, Lynn.

And you know, the president has been spared the public heckling over this health care reform, everything that we've been seeing at the town halls. But, Mark, you know, the more he holds these town hall meetings himself, which he will do another one on Wednesday, the more he opens himself up to the chances that he's going to see this and hear it personally.

PRESTON: Yes, Don. I mean, look, the protests up to this point really have been organized. We've seen these interest groups have really gotten their supporters riled up and convincing them to go to these town halls.

But you're absolutely right. President Obama, when he starts to do these town halls across the country, is going to face the same thing. He's going to face supporters, of course, who are going to be -- you know, backing him in this health care plan. But he's also going to face those angry voices, those angry faces that we've seen so far.

LEMON: And, Lynn, you know, the White House had tried to play it down, but are they changing their tune now? They had called it -- what I believe it was Astroturf or something like that.

SWEET: Oh, please, give me a break. All of a sudden orchestrating, community organizing, organizing people to come out, orchestrating is a dirty word, Don?

The Democrats are divided even among themselves. You know, there's a difference between having an unruly group of people, that's one thing, and saying that you're turning out people. That's just a ridiculous thing. I hope the White House is able just to explain the many policies and concepts within a complicated bill in simpler ways, so if they have a story to tell, it is upon them and the president to tell it, too.

But on the other hand, I don't think the Democrats are that unhappy because this helps them organize. And it helps them -- helps them show the House members, who, they are afraid, will get nervous and shaky and lose their nerve. They're going to try and bring in their troops during this August recess to show that they can bolster them and keep them.

Look, I just got an e-mail even from Eleanor Holmes -- to go to the office of Eleanor Holmes Norton in the district, and she doesn't even have a vote.

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