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Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Monday finally got to tell a television audience why he had been banned from MSNBC for the past year.

"Well, it seems your old boss had a little problem with me," Moulitsas told Keith Olbermann on Current's premiere episode of Countdown. "I was under the impression that you were in charge of your own guests, that you could decide who could speak on your show... Turns out Joe Scarborough has veto power over who can speak on everybody else's shows."

"I got in a little Twitter war with him," he explained. "Apparently I made him cry. He went crying to Phil Griffin, your old boss."

The "Twitter war" had begun after Scarborough criticized the media for not covering a story about the White House allegedly offering a job to Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA).

"Like story of a certain dead intern," Moulitsas tweeted, referring to the death of Lori Klausutis, a staffer working for Scarborough when he was a congressman in 2001.

"So, I found it kind of bizarre that the lowest rated morning show host in all of cable news at the only show on cable news that could crack Fox News' stranglehold on the top ten," Moulitsas told Olbermann Monday. "Yours was the most successful show, not just on MSNBC but one of the most successful shows on cable. Yet, Joe Scarborough, such a loser host, was dictating who you could talk to."

"Well, that's kind of sad story you just told us there, Markos," Olbermann admitted.

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Media Matters has this one right. Memo to media: Pamela Geller does not belong on national television:

Numerous mainstream media outlets have recently hosted right-wing "Atlas Shrugs" blogger Pamela Geller to discuss the controversy surrounding a proposed Islamic community center set to be built blocks away from Ground Zero. However, Geller's history of outrageous, inflammatory and false claims, particularly when it comes to issues related to Islam, demonstrate that she cannot be expected to make accurate statements and should not be rewarded with a platform on national television.

Media bring Geller into the mainstream, telling nation she is a credible source

MSNBC hosts Geller, who suggests the Islamic center is a "triumphal mosque" on "conquered lands." MSNBC News hosted Geller on July 14 to discuss plans to construct an Islamic community center containing a mosque two blocks away from the ground zero 9/11 site. She speculated that funding for the Islamic center could be "tied to jihad or terror" and asserted that it is "insensitive," "humiliating" and "offensive" to build a mosque at the site. Geller further stated:

GELLER: We know in Islamic history that they build triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of sacred lands of conquered lands. So how is building a mosque, looking down at the cemetery of ground zero where they're still finding remains outreach?

Much, much more there in the Media Matters report so be sure to read the whole post. This crazy fear mongering woman should not be given a platform to spew her hatred on television.

MSNBC banned Markos Moulitsas from appearing on their network because he wrote something on Twitter that got under Joe Scarborough's skin, but Pam Geller can lash out at Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews and she's allowed to come on. As John noted in his post about Markos, "Conservative pundits can say anything at all and are never held accountable for their actions. That's a sad fact that we see over and over again."

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Arianna Huffington sparred with Liz Cheney during the panel segment on This Week over whether the Bush-Cheney administration deserves part of the blame for the disaster in the Gulf with Cheney of course coming to the defense of her father and Halliburton. Rather than address Huffington's points about deregulation and the mess that the MMS had become under their watch, Cheney accused her of repeating left wing talking points and just wanting to demonize the Bush administration.

After Huffington said Halliburton was responsible for the cementing on the rig and had defrauded the U.S. government out of hundreds of millions of dollars, Cheney cut her off and said her assertions had no relationship to the truth. They both said they looked forward to PolitiFact fact checking the show.

PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter page for This Week is here. I don't think Liz Cheney is going to fare too well there once they update the site for this panel segment.

One other note on Cheney's appearance on This Week, if she's going to be allowed to filibuster the show and talk about half the time and over the other guests, why even bother to have a moderator?

HUFFINGTON: George, the truth is that right now we have precisely the regulatory system that the Bush-Cheney Administration wanted -- full of loopholes, full of cronies and lobbysists filling the very agencies they're supposed to be overseeing --

WILL: So it's Bush's fault.

HUFFINGTON: -- the industry.

WILL: Just clear this up.

HUFFINGTON: It is absolutely 1000 percent Bush-Cheney's fault, plus the fact that the Obama Administration has not really done enough fast enough to change what's happening at the MMS agency, at all sorts of other agencies. Not just when it comes to the energy problems, when it comes to Wall Street, all over, we are seeing the complete success of the kind of regulatory system that Bush-Cheney wanted. And we're seeing this is the inevitable result of what they wanted.

CHENEY: You know, it's truly amazing. I mean I actually heard George Bush was responsible for the breakup of Tipper and Al Gore's marriage too. I mean it's incredible the extent to which people are now trying to shift blame. And frankly --

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Markos Moulitsas joins Keith Olbermann to defend his Daily KOS/Research 2000 poll against the attacks of Bill O'Reilly. As Markos and Keith note apparently Bill-O and his buddies at ClusterFox aren't too happy about having a mirror put up to their face.

Keith and Markos Moulitsas discuss the Republicans absolute refusal to cooperate with the Democrats on anything and the latest numbers from this poll done by Kos' research company -- The 2010 Comprehensive Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Self-Identified Republicans:

MOULITSAS: Well, what we found with this poll—and we‘re releasing it tomorrow at around noon Eastern Time, and this is a nonpartisan independent pollster—is that about 1/3 of Republicans are what to be characterized as sane, about 1/3 think Obama was born in the United States, about 1/3 don‘t think Obama should be impeached. We‘re talking impeachment here, without a hint of scandal.

About 1/3 believe that sex education should be taught in schools and so on. I mean, this is a fairly comprehensive poll.

And the other 2/3 either are completely insane or just aren‘t sure. I mean, 1/3 think that maybe we ought to debate whether Obama was born in the United States; 1/3 think that maybe ACORN stole the 2008 election. I mean, it‘s pretty, pretty crazy stuff. And I think a lot of this is driven by FOX News and Rush Limbaugh and this incredible, reality-bending, ultimate media machine that the right has.

The results are nothing short of startling. Read on...

I agree. The numbers are pretty startling. You can check out the entire results here.

John Amato:

Ezra Klein has more:

About 39 percent of Republicans think Obama should be impeached, and 29 percent aren't sure. This might be because 63 percent think he's a socialist, and only 42 percent think he was born in the United States.

More than 50 percent of Republicans think Sarah Palin is better qualified than Barack Obama to be president. About 24 percent believe Obama wants the terrorists to win, and 21 percent think Acorn stole the 2008 election (55 percent aren't sure). A solid 31 percent think Obama is "a racist who hates white people" and -- the coup de grace -- 23 percent think their state should secede from the United States.

Republicans think Palin is more qualified than Obama. What a hoot. But my favorite is that about a quarter of them want to secede from the US. Do us a favor and move on that one.

Transcript via MSNBC below the fold.

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Markos Moulitsas joined Keith Olbermann to discuss the President's decision to escalate troops in Afghanistan and the political implications if he does not start to withdraw troops before 2011. Keith asked Kos for his reaction on the latest news that the Senate has finally come to a tentative agreement on the health care bill and the AP report that the public option is out, the Medicare buy-in is in and the bill is being scored by the CBO.

Moulitsas: I think I would have to see the details to really have a full understanding of what's going on but I've been under the assumption for a while that the Senate is the non-functioning governmental body. It cannot do its job which is to reform and improve the lives of Americans.

It is broken and it's completely bought and paid for by the insurance companies and I think it's indicative that we just found out today that the insurance companies are claiming victory on this battle --supposedly not over -- they're already claiming victory because they're going to have a mandate forcing people to buy their crappy products with few restrictions on their ability to do the sort of business practices, the unethical business practices that have created this problem in the first place.

Olbermann: Any hope in that Medicare buy-in?

Moulitsas: Well the initial reports are that it's what, 50, 55?

Olbermann: 55.

Moulitsas: Yeah, 55. It doesn't do anybody under 55 any good and in fact what it seems to do is it takes away some of the most expensive potential customers from the insurance companies, the older, and gives them, basically off to the government. So we need something that applies to all Americans, not just the elderly.

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Richard Wolffe talks to Markos Moulitsas about the recent poll from Research 2000 for Daily Kos showing that the Republicans have a real problem with their southern base.

Wolffe: We're going to get to your poll in a minute, but I wanted to ask what you think the political calculation is for Cantor as he distances himself from the birthers, and then bashes those who challenge the birthers.

Moulistas: Well I think most people would recognize, even Republicans, that there's a certain percentage of the Republican base that's a little off, that's a little crazy. I just think they didn't want anybody to know it's half of them. I mean, you know, that's crazy, so it's a problem for them because what they're realizing is that they are a southern regional rump party, that their leadership is heavily based in the south, and the rest of the country is sort of looking at them and wondering "What the heck is going on down there?".

Wolffe: So do you think now we're at a point where Cantor or maybe a certain segment of the GOP want the whole birther thing to go away now? Is that what's happening?

Moulistas: Oh, absolutely. I mean for a while it, you know, as long as nobody knows about it, then they could sort of feed it. They could introduce legislation in the Congress quietly to sort of appease this rabid, radical right. But suddenly now this is a national story because it's getting credence. You have Lou Dobbs on CNN making it his personal crusade. You have Fox News obviously pushing this very heavily, talk radio. And you're starting to realize that you have Republicans are going on campaign swings and they're going on television and they're doing interviews, and they're being asked about Obama's birth certificate. And it's really not the kind of thing they want to be asked about. It's not the kind of thing they want to encourage.

They go on to discuss the racial element behind the birther movement and the lack of moderate Republicans left in the party and how being forced to cater to their crazy base is going to hurt them nationally.