House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) assured a skeptical Rachel Maddow that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) won't actually try and derail health care reform over abortion, in an interview Thursday night.

"Bart Stupak wants health care reform," Pelosi said on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. "I don't think that he himself would be one to say 'I'm taking down health care reform because of [abortion].'"

Stupak has demanded tougher restrictions on abortion coverage in the health care exchanges than the Senate bill contains, warning Democrats that he will rally his pro-life allies to scuttle the whole effort if the language isn't stiffened. But the speaker suggested his threats weren't serious and his concerns were unfounded.

"The facts are these," Pelosi said, "There is no federal funding of abortion." She alleged the congressman was nitpicking certain provisions, and insisted the bill contains "no increase or diminishment" in a woman's right to choose.

Maddow, who has spent considerable time scrutinizing and criticizing Stupak's efforts, alleged on her show Wednesday that Stupak had fewer backers for his cause than the dozen he claimed. She also noted that his demands are procedurally unattainable given the party's current strategy for passing the bill.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that Democratic leaders have ended debate on the matter and decided not to pursue stronger abortion restrictions. Erica Werner wrote that "the leadership appears to be moving to call [Stupak's] bluff."

Pelosi argued the bill "will make a wonderful difference in the lives of our people" and expressed confidence that it will succeed, while declining to establish a timeline for passage of the extensively-debated health care legislation.

Reid: Reconciliation is a go

For the first time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Thursday informed his Republican counterpart in no uncertain terms that Democrats intend to use reconciliation to amend the Senate bill in the final push toward its enactment.

In a sharply worded letter that reflects the party's invigorated commitment to enacting health reform, he accused the GOP of engaging in "extraordinary legislative maneuvers" to "delay and kill" the bill, claiming the opposition was motivated by a "partisan desire to discredit Democrats."

"We will finish the job," Reid wrote to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), "and we plan to use the regular budget reconciliation process." Noting that Republicans have used the procedure "many times," he alleged that "Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class."

But the matter became complicated when anonymous GOP sources told Roll Call the Senate Parliamentarian's office informed them that a reconciliation fix will have to wait until after the bill is signed into law. If this is the case, it means the House will have to trust the Senate to eliminate some of the unpopular special deals after its enactment, which may be complex given the considerable mistrust between the two chambers.

Democrats received two boosts for the legislation on Thursday. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that it will slash the deficit by $118 billion while insuring roughly 31 million Americans over a decade, The Associated Press reported. Also, a Gallup poll found that the public strongly wants a sweeping health care overhaul, revealing that only 4 percent are satisfied with the status quo.

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast March 11, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

A top aide to former US president George W. Bush has defended the use of harsh interrogation techniques, insisting he is "proud" of the methods and they had helped prevent terrorist attacks.

Karl Rove also told the BBC in an interview broadcast Thursday that he did not believe waterboarding -- a simulated drowning method -- amounted to torture.

"I'm proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists and gave us valuable information that allowed us to foil plots," he said.

"I am proud that we kept the world safer than it was by the use of these techniques. They are appropriate, they are in conformity with our international requirements and with US law," he added.

"Flying airplanes into Heathrow and into London... bringing down aircraft over the Pacific, flying an airplane into the tallest building in Los Angeles" were all terror plots that were thwarted by tough interrogation, he insisted.

Asked specifically whether he thought waterboarding was torture, he replied: "No it's not. People need to read the memos that outline what was permissible and not permissible before they make a judgement about these things."

"Every one of the people who were waterboarded had a doctor who had to ascertain that there had been no long-lasting physical or mental damage to the individual," he said.

People being waterboarded were also told they would not drown, said Rove.

Bush-era lawyers authorised waterboarding and other harsh interrogation in a serious of memos.

Critics have fiercely attacked these memos, saying they let the previous US administration subvert the limits of its constitutional powers during its "war on terror."

President Barack Obama released some of the documents by government lawyers last year, which blew the lid on the tough methods which also included sleep deprivation and the use of insects.

Obama has vowed the United States will not use torture under his watch.

This video is from BBC, broadcast March 11, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Utah state House GOP leader Garn says he paid woman to keep silent about hot tub incident

BROCK VERGAKIS and JOSEPH FREEMAN
AP News

Mar 12, 2010 04:02 EST

Utah's House majority leader said late Thursday he paid a woman $150,000 to keep silent about going nude "hot-tubbing" with her when she was minor a quarter century ago.

In a shocking statement on the House floor, Kevin Garn, 55, of Layton said he paid her to keep quiet about the incident during his unsuccessful U.S. congressional bid in 2002, but did not have sexual contact with her.

Garn said the woman, who he didn't identify on the floor, has been calling news outlets and that he wanted to be open about the incident that occurred when he was 28 years old, before any stories appeared.

A woman identifying herself as Cheryl Maher told The Salt Lake Tribune that she and Garn were in a hot tub nude when she was 15 years old.

"This has just been a nightmare for me," Maher said in a telephone interview with the newspaper from New Hampshire. "I just want to tell the truth because it's part of the healing process for me."

Garn told The Associated Press early Friday that Maher was the woman and that they were nude during a "spur of the moment" skinny dip. He said she worked for him in a warehouse.

"We sat there and that was it," Garn said.

Maher, who now lives in New Hampshire, also contacted Garn's hometown newspaper, the Ogden Standard-Examiner.

The Associated Press could not immediately reach Maher.

Garn's legislative future in highly conservative Utah with its strong Mormon influence is uncertain, but GOP Gov. Gary Herbert's spokeswoman, Angie Welling, said Herbert would not be asking for Garn's resignation.

Garn spoke on last night of the legislative session as a tearful House Speaker Dave Clark and their colleagues looked on.

House members gave him thunderous applause for his honesty and embraced him. As majority leader, Garn was the House's point man on a series of legislative ethics bills this year that were designed to restore the public's faith in the Legislature after recent accusations of bribery.

"While this payment felt like extortion, I also felt like I should take her word that the money would help her heal. She agreed to keep this 25-year-old incident confidential. Now that this issue is coming up again, it is apparent to me that this payment was also a mistake," Garn said.

"Although we did not have any sexual contact, it was still clearly inappropriate — and it was my fault," Garn said.

"I apologize to you, my colleagues, for any shame this brings to the Utah State Legislature. I have tried my best to serve my constituents in a way that brings honor to them and makes this great state better than the way I found it. I hope to continue to do that," Garn said.

The Utah Senate's former majority leader, Sheldon Killpack, resigned earlier this year after being arrested for driving under the influence.

"Although Rep. Garn made some bad decisions, first 25 years ago and then again in 2002, they do not diminish the good work he has done for the state of Utah," Welling said in a statement to the AP.

Filing for re-election begins Friday.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued state prison officials and a private company Thursday, claiming violence is so rampant at the Idaho Correctional Center that it's known as "gladiator school" among inmates.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit against Nashville, Tennessee-based Corrections Corp. of America in U.S. District Court in Boise.

The lawsuit says Idaho's only private prison is extraordinarily violent, with guards deliberately exposing inmates to brutal beatings from other prisoners as a management tool.

The group contends the prison then denies injured inmates medical care to save money and hide the extent of injuries.

Steve Owen, the company's director of public affairs, said it had not yet been served with the lawsuit and was reserving comment. Steven Conry, company vice president of facility operations, previously maintained the prison is a safe and well-run facility.

Idaho Department of Correction Director Brent Reinke also said he had not yet seen the lawsuit and could not immediately comment.

Stephen Pevar, senior attorney for the ACLU, said he has sued at least 100 jails and prisons, but none came close to the level of violence at Idaho Correctional Center.

"Our country should be ashamed to send human beings to that facility," he said.

The ACLU is asking for class-action status and $155 million in punitive damages — the entire net profit reported by the company in 2009.

The ACLU says the money should go to lead plaintiff Marlin Riggs, who sustained permanent facial deformities and other medical problems after he was savagely beaten in his cell.

Guards use violence to control prisoner behavior, forcing inmates to "snitch" on other inmates under the threat of moving them to the most violent sections of the prison, ACLU-Idaho executive director Monica Hopkins says.

Hopkins says inmates will be beaten by fellow inmates if they become known as a snitch. If they refuse to give up names, the guards will have them beaten anyway, she says.

"It doesn't do us any good as a society to put people in there where they have to turn to other gangs and become gang members to protect themselves," she said. "The thing is, there's a constitutional duty to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners."

The lawsuit also refers to an investigation by The Associated Press based on public records requests that found the level of violence at the prison was three times higher than other Idaho prisons, and that Idaho Department of Correction officials believed it was also dramatically underreported by Corrections Corp. of America and inmates.

At the time of that report, Conry maintained the prison is safe and well run.

The Idaho Correctional Center houses about 2,000 prisoners. The ACLU contends it is understaffed, with sometimes only two guards on duty to control prison wings with more than 350 inmates.

The ACLU lawsuit details the inmate-on-inmate attacks of about two dozen men, all of whom say they told guards they were in danger of being assaulted, had been assaulted or needed medical care after an assault.

In all the cases, the ACLU contends the men were summarily denied help.

Riggs, the lead plaintiff in the case, claimed members of a violent gang on his cell block told him in May 2008 that he'd be beaten unless he started paying "rent" to the gang.

He said in the lawsuit he told correctional officers about the threat and begged to be transferred to another cellblock, but the guards refused.

Riggs managed to call his family that day and tell them about the threats. But within moments of the phone call, Riggs says he was beaten by inmates, knocked down and kicked repeatedly in the face and torso.

The beating was so bad, the ACLU contends, that blood was spattered on the ceiling of Riggs' cell and pooled on the floor.

Guards eventually intervened and took Riggs to an infirmary where a doctor told him his nose was broken and tried to reset it. However, the doctor refused to take X-rays and ignored several other broken bones in his face, the lawsuit claims.

Riggs was denied medical care for six months before being taken to an ear, nose and throat specialist, who said he needed immediate surgery, according to the lawsuit.

He ended up with a plate in his cheek, pins in his jaw and a permanent dent on the side of his face, and still suffers from blurry vision, headaches, pain, discomfort and mental trauma, the suit states.

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KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Nearly half the public schools in Kansas City, Missouri are slated for closure as the cash-strapped district struggles to address years of declining enrollment and poor performance.

The predominantly African American school district has seen numbers cut in half over the past 10 years as parents moved their children out of the poverty-stricken inner city or into charter schools that operate independently.

It has been plagued by chronic low academic performance with less than a third of elementary school students reading at or above grade level.

The school board voted 5-4 to approve a plan to close 26 of the district's 59 schools at an emotional meeting Wednesday.

Superintendent John Covington defended the plan Thursday as the only way to bridge a projected 50-million-dollar budget for the upcoming academic year and focus resources on improving academic performance.

"Right now we are failing students in large percentages, in large numbers and that doesn't have to be," Covington told reporters.

"The savings we will generate will go into programs that will help them catch up. It will include an extended school day and an extended school year."

Covington insisted that the restructuring plan will allow the district to "rise from the ashes" to become a school system that residents can be proud of.

Some 700 employees are expected to lose their jobs, including about 268 teachers, the district said.

The closures come as districts across the nation struggle to cope with massive funding cuts after a deep recession.

After years of fighting in court, lawyers representing the city, construction companies and more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers have agreed to a settlement that could pay up to $657.5 million to responders sickened by dust from the destroyed World Trade Center.

The settlement was announced Thursday evening by the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special entity established to indemnify the city and its contractors against potential legal action as they moved to clean up the site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The deal, which still must be approved by a judge and the workers themselves, would make the city and other companies represented by the insurer liable for a minimum of $575 million, with more money available to the sick if certain conditions are met.

Most if not all of the money would come out of a $1 billion grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the settlement "a fair and reasonable resolution to a complex set of circumstances."

"The resolution of the World Trade Center litigation will allow the first responders and workers to be compensated for injuries suffered following their work at Ground Zero," he said in a statement.

Marc Bern, a senior partner with the law firm Worby, Groner, Edelman & Napoli, Bern LLP, which negotiated the deal, said it was "a good settlement."

"We are gratified that these heroic men and women who performed their duties without consideration of the health implications will finally receive just compensation for their pain and suffering, lost wages, medical and other expenses, as the U.S. Congress intended when it appropriated this money," he said in a statement.

Workers who wish to participate in the settlement would need to prove they had been at the World Trade Center site or other facilities that handled debris. They also would have to turn over medical records and provide other information aimed at weeding out fraudulent or dubious claims.

For the settlement to be enforced, 95 percent of the workers would need to agree to be bound by its terms.

The agreement comes with just two months to go until the first trials are to begin in the case. Thousands of police officers, firefighters and construction workers who put in time at the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan had filed lawsuits against the city, claiming it sent them to ground zero without proper protective equipment.

Many of those workers now claim to have fallen ill. A majority complained of a respiratory problem similar to asthma, but the suits also sought damages for hundreds of other types of ailments, including cancer.

Lawyers for the city claimed it did its best to get respiratory equipment to everyone who needed it. They also had challenged some of the claims as based on the thinnest of medical evidence, noting that thousands of the people suing suffered from conditions common in the general population or from no illness at all.

Under the settlement, the task of deciding what each worker will be paid will fall to a neutral third party, to be picked by the two sides. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have previously said they favor Kenneth Feinberg, the special master who determined payouts from the federal fund set up to compensate victims of the terror attacks.

Payments will be based on a system that ranks each illness by severity and factors in potential exposure to the dust.

Some workers are likely to receive payments of only a few thousand dollars. Others could be in line to get more than $1 million, depending on their injuries.

A special insurance fund will be set up to cover workers who develop cancer in the future.

Lawyer Andrew Carboy, who represented a group of firefighters in the case, said he would urge them to accept the deal.

"The proposed settlement demonstrates that the justice system can tackle such a factually complicated and emotionally charged situation," he said. "The settlement, most importantly, will treat each worker as an individual. And their settlement will be based on the merits of their case."

Both sides in the case were scheduled to appear Friday afternoon before the federal judge handling the litigation, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who previously had said he favored a settlement but planned to analyze it carefully to make sure it was fair.

The settlement would mean a postponement or cancellation of the trials tentatively scheduled to begin in May. Some of the cases scheduled to be heard first included that of a firefighter who died of throat cancer and another who needed a lung transplant, as well as workers with less serious ailments, including a Consolidated Edison utility company employee with limited exposure to the debris pile and no current serious illness.

The $1 billion fund created by Congress to help insure the city has been depleted somewhat by the long legal battle in the case, with the bill so far running to more than $200 million.

The Worby, Groner, Edelman & Napoli, Bern law partnership, which represents 9,000 of the plaintiffs, is expected to take as much as a third or more of the total settlement in legal fees, based on contingency agreements it signed with each client.

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A song that's been played over speakers at hundreds of campaign rallies, vibrated in the space between drinks at everyone's favorite bar and set millions of heads nodding from radio stations coast to coast -- a piece of music that is literally stitched into the fabric of American blue-collar culture, Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" -- is, according to right-wing pundit Glenn Beck, "anti-American" and "propaganda" that people must "wake up" from.

If you're unfamiliar, need a refresher or simply like good music, give it a listen:

The lyrics are available here.

"Born down in a dead man's town," the Fox News personality said during his Thursday radio broadcast, quoting Springsteen's lyrics. "The first kick I took was when I hit the ground. You end up like a dog that's been beat too much. 'Til you spend half your life just covering up.

"Born, in the USA."

Beck continued like that, dryly reading Springsteen's words, almost as if he were imitating William Shatner.

"Born in the USA" is, of course, about a working class guy with a factory job who ends up in Vietnam, to "kill the yellow man." One of his friends dies in the war, leaving behind a baby in Saigon. When he comes home he works hard for 10 years in the "shadow of the penitentiary," but still has "nowhere to run."

"I'm a cool rocking daddy in the USA," Springsteen wails. "Born in the USA."

Naturally, no summary could equate the emotion this tale conveys. It is the quintessential American script, an experience millions of poor and working-class people can relate to.

"That's what it's all about," Beck said. "That's what America's all about, according to Springsteen. ... It's time for us to wake, wake up, out of our, um, dreamstate. Wake up out of the propaganda. The, you know, this is the thing that, people who come from the Soviet-bloc or Cuba, they're all saying, 'How do you guys not hear this? How do you not see this?' Well, that's 'cause we don't ever expect it."

The likely reason Beck is attacking someone far more talented than himself is because Springsteen has endorsed a number of Democrats, including President Obama. Springsteen even put on a show at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He did the same for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) near the end of the 2004 presidential campaign.

Springsteen explained to Rolling Stone publisher Jann S. Wenner in an exclusive interview that he kept out of partisan politics for a long time because he wanted to remain "credible" and "independent." It was the Iraq war that brought Springsteen back into the political foray, as it did for many other Americans.

"I knew after we invaded Iraq that I was going to be involved in the election," he said. "It made me angry. We started to talk about it onstage. I take my three minutes a night for what I call my public-service announcement. We talked about it almost every night on our summer tour.

"I felt we had been misled. I felt they had been fundamentally dishonest and had frightened and manipulated the American people into war. And as the saying goes, 'The first casualty of war is truth.' I felt that the Bush doctrine of pre-emption was dangerous foreign policy. I don't think it has made America safer." [...] "Sitting on the sidelines would be a betrayal of the ideas I'd written about for a long time."

Springsteen added:

I didn't grow up in a very political household. The only politics I heard was from my mother. I came home from grade school, where someone asked me if I was Republican or Democrat, and I asked my mom, "Well, what are we?" She said, "We're Democrats, 'cause Democrats are for the working people." I was politicized by the Sixties, like most of the other people of that generation at that time. I can remember doing a concert when I was probably in my very late teens, helping to bus people down to Washington for an anti-war demonstration.

But still, basically, I wanted to remain an independent voice for the audience that came to my shows. We've tried to build up a lot of credibility over the years, so that if we took a stand on something, people would receive it with an open mind. Part of not being particularly partisan was just an effort to remain a very thoughtful voice in my fans' lives.

I always liked being involved actively more at a grass-roots level, to act as a partisan for a set of ideals: civil rights, economic justice, a sane foreign policy, democracy. That was the position I felt comfortable coming from.

For his song "Working On A Dream," Springsteen won "Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance" at the 2010 Grammy Awards. He also recently appeared in The History Channel's documentary "The People Speak", which is based on the late author and historian Howard Zinn's book, "A People's History of the United States".

This audio was snipped from The Glenn Beck Program on March 11, 2010, by watchdog group Media Matters.

On the very day he publicly declared consent for the use of reconciliation to pass health reform legislation, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) got the gut-wrenching news that his wife and daughter were in a serious car accident on Interstate 95 in Fairfax, VA.

Mrs. Reid's car was rear-ended by a semi-truck, according to the senator's office. Reports called the accident a "chain-reaction."

Jon Summers, Reid's spokesman, told reporters in a prepared statement that the senator's wife Landra, 69, broke her nose, back and neck, but can feel her limbs. Doctors said her injuries are non-life threatening. Reid's daughter, Lana, sustained cuts to her face and an unspecified neck injury.

"Senator Reid has been to the hospital and appreciates the support he and his family are receiving from Nevadans and his colleagues in the Senate," reads the advisory.

"Reid was meeting in his office with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel—ironically, about health care—when he learned of the accident," according to Newsweek. "He left the meeting to go to the hospital, then returned later to the meeting. He was heading back to the hospital tonight."

Senator Reid, 70, married Landra in 1959, according to Politico.

An 11-year-old boy whose mother died after losing her health insurance has become an advocate for health care reform -- and opponents of reform are gunning for him.

Marcelas Owens of Seattle lost his mother in 2006 after the 27-year-old woman was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension, a condition that can lead to heart failure if left untreated. Due to missed work, Tiffany Owens lost her job, and with it her health insurance. Not long after, she died of her disorder.

Owens appeared at a Capitol Hill press conference flanked by the Democratic leadership on Thursday, the day after he turned 11 years old.

"I don't want any other kids to go through the pain that our family has gone through," Owens said. "My grandma and I want Barack Obama and Congress and everybody to come together and to help get the health care bill passed."

The image of an 11-year-old boy with a sad story championing the health reform effort appeared to be too much for some conservative commentators, with columnist Michelle Malkin accusing the Democrats of "wielding the human kiddie shield as its last-stand defense for Demcare."

Malkin wrote, "Have you noticed something about the audiences that President Obama has cherry-picked to cheer his government health care takeover roadshow? They're getting younger and younger."

She added that if President Obama didn't end his public appearances on health care soon, "he'll be peddling Democratic reconciliation tactics on 'Dora the Explorer' and 'SpongeBob SquarePants'."

Malkin used that expression, "human kiddie shield," before, when President Obama answered an 11-year-old girls' question at a health care town hall in New Hampshire last August. "Look for Dems to play the kiddie human shield card to the hilt," she wrote.

Tim Graham at NewsBusters reported that Owens "has an entire family of liberal activists," and castigated the news media for not focusing more on his family's connections to Seattle activist groups.

Criticizing CBS' and MSNBC's coverage, Graham wrote that "what neither network shared with the viewer is how Marcelas has become a constant talking point for his home-state Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, and how he is a spokesman for a liberal lobby, the Washington Community Action Network."

The Seattle Times reports that Owens' mother "had been active with Washington Community Action Network, a Seattle-based consumer advocacy organization."

Also writing at NewsBusters, Matthew Balan criticized CNN correspondent Jim Acosta for calling Owens a "brave young man."

Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Post notes that the controversy over Owens follows a pattern that has played out before. In 2007, 12-year-old Graeme Smith became the target of muckraking when he urged President George W. Bush not to veto an expansion of children's health benefits.

Marcelas Owens appears to be holding up well under the political pressure, saying he has "no bad comments" about people who oppose health care reform.

"Their opinion is their opinion and they can say what they want about me," Delaney quoted Owens. "And I'll just keep turning around and doing what I'm doing."

A blogger at Gawker who uncovered a 2000 sexual harassment lawsuit against Sen. Scott Brown is wondering why the Democratic Party never brought it up as an issue during the special Senate election in January that saw the Republican Brown win the seat long held by Democratic icon Ted Kennedy.

Brown, whose election in the midst of the health care debate rocked the Democratic establishment, was accused in 2000 of sexually harassing a campaign worker during his 1998 run for city council office in Wrentham, Massachusetts, Gawker's Hamilton Nolan reports.

Nolan's report on the issue minces no words. "Did the Democrats blow an opportunity to keep their 60th Senate seat?" he asks.

Perhaps not: According to sources cited in Nolan's report, the lawsuit was quickly withdrawn and Brown himself alleged to a newspaper that he had been the victim, rather than perpetrator, of harassment.

According to news reports, Jennifer Firth, a mortgage banker who had worked to get Brown elected to the Wrentham Board of Selectmen in 1998, filed a lawsuit against him in July of 2000, alleging that Brown had harassed her and then "tried to smear her reputation around town with forged letters and emails."

But the lawsuit was quickly dropped, and Firth's lawyer withdrew from the case, saying that he believed Firth's "allegations are not supported by 'good grounds'."

Nolan reports:

According to Firth's complaint, Brown engaged in "offensive" conduct that caused her to quit his campaign; he then tried to "defame and humiliate" her by spreading rumors to her colleagues that she "had made sexual advances" towards him during his campaign. She also alleged that Brown told several people that he'd had an "intimate relationship" with her and that he had a stack of sexually explicit letters that Firth had sent him. In her suit, Firth says that she'd never been sexually intimate with Brown, nor did she ever send him the aforementioned letters.

The case then took a strange turn. Two days after the lawsuit was filed, Jennifer Firth's lawyer, Harvey Schwartz, filed a motion to withdraw as her counsel, saying that "to the best of [Schwartz's] knowledge, information and belief, the above allegations [by Firth] are not supported by 'good grounds.'" The next day, Jennifer Firth withdrew her suit. It was dismissed with prejudice, which means it can never be re-filed. Brown told a local newspaper that her lawyer had decided to withdraw after he was presented with letters and e-mail messages that proved she'd been harassing Brown.

"To be sure, it's possible there was no merit to Firth's case," Nolan writes. "But why did Democrats and members of the national press fail to even bring up the fact that Scott Brown had once been accused of sexual harassment and defamation in the myriad stories about him prior to Massachusetts' special election in January? Google it. The entire incident is conspicuously absent."

Nolan asks, "Did the Coakley campaign look into the case and decide Firth's claims were baseless? Did they miss it entirely?"

Brown's victory over Martha Coakley in January cost the Democrats their 60-seat super-majority in the Senate, meaning the Democratic legislative agenda is susceptible to a Republican filibuster. The loss of the seat was interpreted by some as a repudiation of the Democrats' legislative priorities.

Karl Rove has been accused by prominent journalists of distorting and rewriting history in his new memoir Courage and Consequence. Now, he's being rebuked as a fabricator by one of his close former colleagues in the Bush White House.

Former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan on Tuesday sharply rebuked Rove for absolving himself of personal complicity in the Valerie Plame scandal, alleging that the top Bush strategist privately confessed his role in the leak and apologized for it three times.

"I think what you're seeing is that Karl is continuing to live in his own world here," McClellan said in an appearance on MSNBC's Countdown With Keith Olbermann Tuesday.

"He's the only one that thinks that he was not involved in any effort to expose Valerie Plame's CIA employment. He continues this cover story that 'I didn't know her name' and for that reason, he couldn't have leaked her name."

McClellan, whose own 2008 tell-all memoir What Happened revealed a slew of unflattering secrets about the administration, said he "did receive personal assurances from Karl" that he wasn't involved before relaying the message to the press -- which he was later criticized for.

"The interesting thing is that Karl Rove actually did apologize to me on three occasions back in July of 2005 when it became known that he was involved," McClellan said. "I'll leave it to other people to judge what it says about someone who will privately make such an apology but is afraid to make such an apology publicly when the cameras are rolling and the spotlight's on him."

Probed Tuesday morning by The Today Show's Matt Lauer on whether he believes he owes McClellan an apology, Rove shook his head and said "no" five times.

In his book, Rove vigorously defends his former boss's campaign to sell the war in Iraq, insisting he never intended to deceive the American public.

McClellan joined his chorus of critics, claiming Rove's retelling of the situation "creates a false choice based on a false premise." He said Rove "tries to spin this narrative that since Bush didn't deliberately or sinisterly lie the nation into war then somehow he was completely honest."

Bush's ex-spokesman noted that the administration's case for invading Iraq was in large part based on the notion that Saddam Hussein was an immediate danger to the United States, that he was pursuing nuclear weapons and was in league with Al-Qaeda -- none of which were true.

Accusing Rove of "too much intellectual dishonesty," he added that "caveats and contradictory intelligence and doubts were ignored or just downplayed, and innuendo and implication were used in excess to try to sell" the war.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, a White House correspondent during Bush's first term, mocked Rove's "historical rewrite" and said his new book "revives claims discredited long ago."

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast March 9, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Right-wing radio talker Rush Limbaugh must be confused.

During a recent broadcast, he vowed to "go to Costa Rica" if President Obama is successful in passing his health reform legislation. Most assumed he meant the statement in the vein of his promise to leave New York City over its tax rates, which he did. Now Limbaugh is saying he will not leave the U.S., as in, move away. Instead, Limbaugh claims that he will simply "go to Costa Rica" for his medical care.

Interestingly enough, even as the Republican icon has made many a dollar damning proposals for public health care in the United States, his future hospital bed in Costa Rica will be watched over by the same "socialists" he's so known for deriding.

Costa Rica, you see, has socialized health care operated by a government insurance monopoly, which provides a remarkably high quality of service for a fraction of the costs routinely seen in the United States.

"Costa Rica’s public health insurance system, commonly known as the Caja, is available country-wide to all citizens and legal residents," the Costa Rican government's Web site explains. "There are ten major public hospitals – four in San Jose, including the Children’s Hospital – affiliated with the Caja. For non-emergencies and everyday medical care, small clinics, known as EBAIS (pronounced ay-vy-ice), are located in almost every community."

Prior to the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), all health care in Costa Rica was paid for under a single payer system and the country developed a global reputation as a prime destination for medical tourism due to the high quality of care at very low costs. After CAFTA, Costa Rica began accepting international private insurer's policies, though they are made available through a government-operated insurance monopoly.

"Most plans cover dental work, optometry, and cosmetic surgery in the case of an accident, and neither pre-existing conditions nor annual check-ups are included," the Costa Rican government claims. "Prescription drugs, certain medical exams, sick visits and hospitalization are covered at 70% cost, and surgeon and aesthetician costs are covered at full cost. Currently, private medical insurance costs about $50-$100/month per person, depending on age, gender and other factors."

"I did not say I'm going to Costa Rica," Limbaugh claimed, even though the audio of him saying exactly that is readily available. "The stupid people in the media who cannot trouble themselves to read my transcripts or listen to this program, listen to out of context stuff. I was asked yesterday where will I go for health care if Obama's health care passes, and I said if doctors here are not permitted to form private practice little clinics with individuals paying a fee, a retainer, and for services, then I'll go to Costa Rica to get major medical health care. I didn't say I would move there."

This is the second time Limbaugh has unwittingly praised the very type of health care system he claims to despise.

After experiencing chest pains while vacationing in Hawaii, Limbaugh was rushed to a hospital and checked out by doctors, who pronounced him healthy. Once discharged, the right-wing jock praised Hawaii's health care by lumping it in with health services all over America: "the best health care in the world," he said.

However, Hawaii's system is the closest thing the United States has to a socialized health program, where all workers are provided with a "generous" health policy by their employer and nurses are unionized. One reporter further noted that many components of Hawaii's health system are now embedded in President Obama's reforms.

Because of their progressive health system, Hawaii's insurance premiums are the lowest among the 50 states and life expectancy is much higher compared to the continental U.S.

Limbaugh continues to insist that if President Obama's health reforms pass, "people will die."

Currently, over 46 million Americans do not have a health insurance policy. Their emergency health care costs, which are grossly inflated compared to rates offered to insurers and the insured, are ultimately paid for by the public. A Harvard study published by the American Journal of Public Health in 2009 revealed that over 45,000 Americans die each year for lack of health insurance: a greater number than the deaths caused by kidney disease.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – IBM researchers on Tuesday said they have discovered a way to make Earth-friendly plastic from plants that could replace petroleum-based products tough on the environment.

The breakthrough promises biodegradable plastics made in a way that saves on energy, according to Chandrasekhar "Spike" Narayan, a manager of science and technology at IBM's Almaden Research Center in Northern California.

Almaden and Stanford University researchers said the discovery could herald an era of sustainability for a plastics industry rife with seemingly eternal products notorious for cramming landfills and littering the planet.

"This discovery and new approach using organic catalysts could lead to well-defined, biodegradable molecules made from renewable resources in an environmentally responsible way," IBM said in a release.

The "green chemistry" breakthrough using "organic catalysts" results in plastics that could be repeatedly recycled, instead of only once as is the case with petroleum-based plastic made using metal oxide catalysts.

Plant plastics could also be made "biocompatible" to improve the targeting of drugs in bodies, such as cancer medicines aimed at killing cancer cells but sparing healthy ones, according to IBM.

"We're exploring new methods of applying technology and our expertise in materials science to creating a sustainable, environmentally sound future," said Almaden lab research director Josephine Cheng.

IBM is working with scientists at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia to put the discovery to work in the recycling of plastics used in food and beverage containers.

"We are really starting to scratch the surface of what we can do with it," Narayan said of the process that has been demonstrated in the lab.

Plant plastics for things such as car parts could be made at lower costs than petroleum-based plastics while materials of soda bottle quality are "competitive," according to Narayan.

Details of the work are in a paper published this week in the American Chemical Society journal Macromolecules.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Amid heavy security and without many of the trappings of a traditional wedding, three gay couples were married Tuesday in a ceremony in Washington on the first day same-sex marriages were celebrated in the US capital.

Police cars lining the streets outside the headquarters building of gay rights group Human Rights Campaign as Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend became one of the first same-sex couples to be wed in Washington, just days after the US capital began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

Young, in a chiffon and lace peach-colored dress, exchanged vows with Townsend, wearing a white suit, and were pronounced "partners for life" by the Reverend David North.

"You are my friend, my partner, my love. I love you today, I love you tomorrow, I love you forever," Young told her partner of 12 years, bringing tears to Townsend's eyes as the couple were married in front of a group of around 100 well-wishers.

The history-making same-sex wedding in Washington was followed minutes later by another when Reggie Stanley and Rocky Galloway, both 50, were married as their 15-month-old daughters Malena and Zoe looked on.

The Reverend Sylvia Sumter called on "the loving, loving father-mother God" to bless the union of the two African-American men who have been together for six years.

"Today, especially today, the arc of our rainbow universe is long and bends towards justice," Stanley said, paraphrasing slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

The path was cleared for same-sex couples to wed in the US capital last week when the US Supreme Court refused a request to hold a referendum on gay marriage, which would have delayed the same-sex union law's entry in effect.

Hours after the Supreme Court decision, couples flocked to a courthouse in Washington to apply for marriage licenses. They then had to wait at least three business days before they could get married.

When the waiting period expired Tuesday, Washington joined a minority of states that allow gay couples to wed: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont.

A state supreme court decision in California briefly allowed same-sex unions but the ruling was overturned six months later by a referendum that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

"Marriage is a gift that was long denied to everyone in DC, but today we open that gift," said the Reverend Dwayne Johnson as he married the third couple, Darlene Garner, 61, and Lorilyn Candy Holmes, 53.

Legalization of gay marriage in the US capital was "a great step forward for equality," said Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty as a police helicopter whirred loudly overhead.

"The United States has always been a place where people with different views have been welcomed and treated equally. Now, in Washington, everyone has the same opportunity to get married, no matter what their sexual preference," Fenty said.

David Catania, the DC council member who introduced the capital's marriage equality bill, and who is himself gay, said he was hopeful that equal treatment for gays would one day be commonplace around the United States.

"As sure as we stand in DC today with justice shining on us, it will one day shine across this great nation," said Catania.

Police cars were parked four-deep on every street leading into the junction where the HRC building stood, and policewomen stood in pairs on every corner of the intersection, some leaning against unused parking meters as they kept watch over the historic wedding ceremonies.

"We're making sure no protesters try to get too close," one of the policewomen told AFP, adding that there had been no sign of the handful of protesters that had chanted anti-gay slogans and sung songs outside the courthouse when the couples applied for marriage licenses.

Besides a few fluffed lines and with the security presence threatening to dampen the mood at Washington's first gay weddings, the group ceremony went off with few snags and without an irate protester to mar the newlyweds' day.

"Today was like a dream to me," said a beaming Young after she and Townsend had exchanged vows.

"I always felt it would come true and today it's real -- this is my spouse," she said, hugging Townsend close.

Stanley Fish, author of The New York Times' "Opinionator" column, must have a soft spot for George W. Bush. In a recent piece, he employs just about every argument one could make to varnish the Bush legacy, fishing for proof in what one writer called "post-modern illusions" and citing a recent Newsweek cover that was derided as "propaganda."

In reality, few miss George W. Bush, who left office as one of the least popular American presidents in history. Fish knows this too: he took a sampling of comments left on his prior shot at shining up the Bush legacy. Almost all of the readers thought he was nuts. One even asked, "Are you mad?"

He said roughly 10 in 300 viewed the former Republican administration favorably. Yet, paragraphs later Fish claims without a scintilla of evidence, "unscientific Web-based polls indicate that more do miss him than don’t."

His proof: the March 8, 2010 cover of Newsweek, which proclaims "Victory At Last" in Iraq. The image upon which the offending texts rests is that of Bush, striding off-frame, aboard the aircraft carrier that hosted his infamous "Mission Accomplished" event in 2003.

And this, from the magazine that once argued the United States could have won the Vietnam war, if only President Lyndon Johnson had committed more soldiers and more resources sooner.

It was enough to make True/Slant writer Michael Hastings wish for a Taser.

"My first reaction was to grab the nearest taser, jam it down my throat, pull the trigger, and hope that my bodily fluids would conduct the 10,000 volts of electricity to instantly fry my brain so I wouldn’t have to read the accompanying story," he wrote. "Sadly, I couldn’t find a taser."

Instead, he goes on to lash Newsweek for such a "blatant piece of propaganda."

"It’s the word victory that I take issue with," Hastings opined. "What, exactly, did we win again? The editors didn’t even have the decency to use the old news magazine trick of ending any wannabe provocative headline with a question mark. (Which would have looked like this:VICTORY AT LAST?)"

"Bush’s policies came to seem less obviously reprehensible as the Obama administration drifted into embracing watered-down versions of many of them," Fish wrote. "Guantanamo hasn’t been closed. No Child Left Behind is being revised and perhaps improved, but not repealed. The banks are still engaging in their bad practices. Partisanship is worse than ever. Obama seems about to back away from the decision to try 9/11 defendants in civilian courts, a prospect that led the ACLU to run an ad in Sunday’s Times with the subheading 'Change or more of the same?' Above that question is a series of photographs that shows Obama morphing into guess who — yes, that’s right, George W. Bush."

This somehow puts the Bush legacy in a better light, according to Fish. Then again, the same columnist once argued that President Richard Nixon made his way "back from disgrace" by "being smarter than everyone else," and claimed in the same breath that Ronald Reagan's legacy "didn't need rehabilitation."

Nixon resigned in disgrace as Congress warily eyed impeachment proceedings over his numerous scandals, including spying on political opponents. Nixon also bears the dubious honor of dramatically escalating the drug war and using the FBI to do his political dirty work. He, like Bush, is one of the most hated presidents in U.S. history; "a crook," by his own denial.

"However historians will assess Reagan's responsibility, the record is what it is," Slate reported in 2004. Gathering dust in the news archives are thousands of clippings about the gross influence peddling, bribery, fraud, illegal lobbying and sundry abuses that engulfed the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon, to name a few of the most notorious cases."

Not to mention the Iran-Contra affair. A total of 138 Reagan officials were convicted, indicted or investigated during and after the administration's two terms.

At his lowest point, President Bush's approval rating was just 20 percent -- the worst rating of any U.S. president in the history of the Gallup polling organization.

"My three cents," began Andrew Sullivan, blogging for The Atlantic. "[No] president in the twentieth century did as much damage to this country as Bush: in terms of unfathomable debt, unwinnable wars, political cynicism, the dangerous fusion of politics and religion, the integration of torture into the DNA of America, the squandering of American soft and hard power, the lost years on non-carbon energy, the trashing of constitutional balance, and the immiseration of most ordinary Americans, he was a disaster. The only way in which Fish is correct is that the damage was so deep and so intractable that Obama, perforce, cannot undo it overnight and so cannot help but be tarred with its consequences, including a brutal recession.

"But for Fish, there is no actual reality, remember, just post-modern illusions. Which is why the pomo-left and the shameless-right were made for each other."

"It's almost as if there's no right and wrong in being president, no degrees of incompetence or of reckless endangerment of the Republic -- there's only the subjective response of the public," the No More Mister Nice Blog opined. "The Iraq War wasn't wrong, the treasury-bleeding tax cuts for the rich weren't wrong, the neglect of financial regulation that led to mass global unemployment wasn't wrong, the contempt for Katrina victims wasn't wrong. It's all just a matter of how we feel, and those of us who feel angry or outraged at what happened from 2001 to 2009 just have bad "temperaments," indistinguishable from the bad "temperaments" of mass-delusion cases who think Barack Obama is a Kenyan-born Marxist who is destroying the country deliberately."

BRUSSELS — A Belgian daily newspaper offered its readers a new perspective on the world Tuesday with a 3D edition complete with special glasses.

All the photos and adverts in La Derniere Heure's special edition were treated to give them the three-dimensional effect when viewed through the different lenses of the kind well-known to 3D filmgoers.

"The goal was to make the whole paper 3D," said the French-language paper's chief editor Hubert Leclercq, who said it took two months to prepare the special edition, which had a higher than normal print run of 115,000 copies, for the newstands.

"We hear about 3D cinema, television and video games, so we took up the challenge," said Leclercq, adding that he was unaware of any other paper in Europe producing such a paper, though there had been 3D images in the press before.

"This is a trial, there's no further (3D) plans for the time being," he said, admitting that the need for the special specs and the sheer costs involved made it difficult to popularise the technique.

Update at bottom: Former UK spy chief says US 'misled' allies on torture

The waterboarding sessions that terrorist suspects were subjected to during the Bush administration were "administered with meticulous cruelty" and were in part designed so that detainees acted as "guinea pigs" for future interrogation sessions, says an exhaustive new report.

The report also shows that the interrogation methods were so harsh that some detainees "simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown."

Drawing on numerous documents about the CIA's torture program that have been released over the past year, Mark Benjamin at Salon.com reports that interrogators went to extreme lengths to ensure that detainees were pushed to their physical limits, including feeding the detainees a liquid diet to make them more capable of ingesting large quantities of water, and replacing their water with a saline solution that would keep detainees from dying when they ingested too much water.

[T]he CIA forced such massive quantities of water into the mouths and noses of detainees, prisoners inevitably swallowed huge amounts of liquid – enough to conceivably kill them from hyponatremia, a rare but deadly condition in which ingesting enormous quantities of water results in a dangerously low concentration of sodium in the blood.

Benjamin notes that, according to a leaked 2007 report from the Red Cross, doctors were present at the sessions and measured detainees' blood oxygen levels, allowing interrogators to bring detainees "close to death -- but help them from crossing the line."

Benjamin reports that the waterboarding sessions were "so excruciating" that some detainees simply decided not to struggle and let themselves drown.

"In our limited experience, extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new risks," the article quotes the CIA's Office of Medical Services in a 2003 memo. "Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness."

That same memo "seems to say that the detainees subjected to waterboarding were also guinea pigs," Benjamin reports. He cites the last paragraph of that report, which states that "[i]n order to best inform future medical judgments and recommendations, it is important that every application of the waterboard be thoroughly documented...."

Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent reports that the details of waterboarding revealed in recently released documents back up the claims of Abu Zubaydah, the high-profile terror suspect who was waterboarded 183 times in one month.

"It’s one thing for a terrorist to testify to ill treatment," Ackerman writes. "It’s another for CIA documentation to corroborate his account. Clearly Abu Zubaydah was drowned. As Benjamin observes, this is not the “dunking” that Dick Cheney describes. Whatever apologists like Marc Thiessen might say, the people who performed this torture knew full well that they were torturing people like Abu Zubaydah."

Benjamin describes the "meticulous cruelty" with which the waterboarding program was carried out.

The agency used a gurney "specially designed" to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner's nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing...

Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to "dam the runoff" and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee's mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second "applications" of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee's nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

"The so-called science here is a total departure from any ethics or any legitimate purpose," the article quotes Dr. Scott Allen of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights. "They are saying, ‘This is how risky and harmful the procedure is, but we are still going to do it.' It just sounds like lunacy. ... This fine-tuning of torture is unethical, incompetent and a disgrace to medicine."

Many details of the waterboarding program -- from its controversial green-lighting by White House lawyers to its execution -- have been made public through document releases over the past year. Most recently, a report from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility found that the torture memo authors -- lawyers Jay Bybee and John Yoo -- showed "poor conduct" in sanctioning the practice, but should avoid legal responsibility because their behavior didn't rise to a violation of professional obligations.

That report unveiled a number of interesting details about the enhanced interrogation program, including evidence that the psychologists involved in designing the interrogations wanted to use mock burials to intimidate detainees.

UPDATE

The former head of MI5, Britain's spy agency, says the United States misled its closest ally in the post-9/11 era about its torture practices, and kept the agency in the dark about "enhanced interrogation" practices such as waterboarding.

The "Americans were very keen to conceal from us what was happening, as they were from many of their own people," Eliza Manningham-Buller told a question-and-answer session at Britain's Parliament Tuesday, as quoted by the Associated Press.

Manningham-Buller, who served as head of MI5 from 2002 to 2007, during most of the period in which the Bush administration was engaged in torture practices, said her lack of knowledge about the waterboarding program caused her to be confused about the results the US was getting in its interrogations of terrorism suspects. The AP reports:

Manningham-Buller said that in 2002 or 2003 she questioned how the U.S. was able to supply Britain with intelligence gleaned from Sheikh Mohammed.

"I said to my staff, 'Why is he talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners, Irish terrorists, was that they never said anything," she said.

"They said, well, the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been water boarded 160 times," Manningham-Buller said.

The Senate's environment committee has warned Capitol Hill staffers to avoid the Drudge Report and some other sites over suspicions of viruses, a spokesperson for the committee confirmed to Raw Story Tuesday.

The Drudge Report denied the allegations and mocked the committee in a prominently-featured story, but a CNET report on Tuesday notes that readers have complained about suspicious malware on the site today.

According to Drudge, "The Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works issued an urgent email late Monday claiming the DRUDGE REPORT is 'responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate.'" The article said, "The committee ordered hill staff: 'Try to avoid' the DRUDGE REPORT 'for now'."

The EPW spokesperson, who wished to remain anonymous, told Raw Story that Drudge was one of several Web sites flagged by the committee's non-partisan tech experts as containing "virus infections" and "pop-up ads."

"The Senate Help Desk, in discussing a recent increase in the number of virus infections in Senate computers, mentioned that it might be associated with pop-up ads appearing through certain websites, and they cited DrudgeReport.com and WhitePages.com as possible examples," said the spokesperson.

"Our non-partisan systems administrator notified both Majority and Minority staff that this issue had been brought to her attention.  It is still not exactly clear where the increase in viruses is coming from, and staff have been advised to be cautious with outside websites at all times."

CNET on Tuesday substantiated the committee's concerns, noting they had received complaints from the Drudge readers about unseemly activities and viruses on the site. Elinor Mills reports:

For the second time in less than six months, visitors to the Drudge Report say they got malware in addition to the Web site's usual sensational headlines.

"I can personally vouch for disinfecting my mom's desktop yesterday after visiting this Web page, even taking a screenshot after beginning remedial steps to address the attempted infection," a CNET reader wrote in an e-mail early on Tuesday. "I'm an IT professional in South Carolina so I know and understand the technology involved."

The screenshot the reader provided to CNET shows a pop-up warning the viewer that the system is infected with malware and looks like a typical fake antivirus warning that criminals use to scare people into paying for software they don't need.

Last May, Maggie M. Thorton of RightPundits.com reported on a similar incident where government officials were told not to visit the Drudge Report.

The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office is warning of malicious code in a web ad found on the Drudge Report. The warning instructed government-issued computer users to avoid the Drudge Report due to ‘potential’ viruses.

Tracy Schmaler, a Department of Justice spokesperson said the warning is not directed at the Drudge Report out of partisan politics but because the website was “flagged by internet security officials,” who found a malicious code.

The conservative-leaning aggregator's founder Matt Drudge refuted the claim, suggesting the motives of the Democratic-led committee may be political. He pointed out that the warning came "[j]ust as the healthcare drama in the capitol reaches a grand finale." He denied the claims that his site contains viruses:

On Monday DRUDGE served over 29 million pages with NOT ONE email complaint received about 'pop ups', or the site serving 'viruses'.

The site was seen 149,967 times since March 1st from users at senate.gov and 244,347 times at house.gov.

Drudge also took a swipe at the committee led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), saying, "The Systems Administrator may want to continue taking her antibiotic until the prescription runs out."

Just as the healthcare drama in the capitol reaches a grand finale, congressional officials are warning employees to avoid the DRUDGE REPORT!

The Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works issued an urgent email late Monday claiming the DRUDGE REPORT is 'responsible for the many viruses popping up throughout the Senate.'

The committee ordered hill staff: 'Try to avoid' the DRUDGE REPORT 'for now'.

On Monday DRUDGE served over 29 million pages with NOT ONE email complaint received about 'pop ups', or the site serving 'viruses'.

The site was seen 149,967 times since March 1st from users at senate.gov and 244,347 times at house.gov. [10,825 visits from the White House, eop.gov]

The Systems Administrator may want to continue taking her antibiotic until the prescription runs out.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights have never been in greater peril than they are right now and the threat is coming from the US government, according to retired professional wrestler Jesse Ventura. The former Governor of Minnesota appeared on Fox & Friends Tuesday to promote his new book American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us.

"Alright. Strap yourself in," Fox News' Steve Doocy warned the viewers as he began the interview with Ventura.

The Constitution is "under fire because look what happened. They gutted the Fourth Amendment [against] illegal search and seizure," Ventura told Doocy and Gretchen Carlson. He may have been referring to the Bush administration's "terrorist surveillance program." The program allowed the NSA to monitor phone calls, e-mail and internet activity without first obtaining a warrant.

Ventura also noted that habeas corpus was under attack. "They can now charge you with terrorism. They can hold you without letting you see a lawyer," he complained.

"It has me gravely concerned that we continue to see an erosion of our rights in this country and our freedoms," said Ventura.

With his concern about the erosion of freedom, one might think that Ventura has a lot in common with the Tea Parties but he sees a conspiracy behind the movement because they only began protesting after Barack Obama became president.

"Where were those guys protesting when we lost habeas corpus, when they violate the Fourth Amendment of illegal search and seizure? They were nowhere to be found at that point in time," said Ventura.

But Ventura might agree with the protesters who are disgusted with the two-party system. "I just don't like the parties. I don't like -- don't get me wrong. It's not individuals. I despise the two parties. Despise them. They're ruining our country," he said.

The former governor went on to challenge Fox News' popular evening opinion personalities to interview him. Ventura claimed that Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity declined to let him promote his new book on their shows.

"How come the Three Stooges on later at night won't have me on?" he asked. "That's what I call them. Larry, Moe and Curly."

This video is from Fox News' Fox and Friends, broadcast March 9, 2010.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Updates: Limbaugh clarifies threat; Directs racist 'Massa' quip at NY governor

For years, promises to leave the United States in the wake of an undesirable political development have been the domain of liberals. Celebrities such as Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon all at some point suggested they would move to Canada if a Republican won the White House.

(There's even a Facebook group around to motivate them, complete with a helpful link to Canada's department of citizenship and immigration.)

While most of those were empty threats, there are notable exceptions: Film director Robert Altman moved to France after George W. Bush's victory in 2000; Law & Order star Michael Moriarty shipped off to Canada well before that.

But now the decidedly non-liberal Rush Limbaugh has made a similar move, telling his audience he will move to Costa Rica if health care reform becomes law. And now the only question that remains is whether Limbaugh will make good on his word, or join the ranks of the empty-promisers.

"If the health care bill passes, where would you go for health care yourself?" a caller asked Limbaugh on his radio show Tuesday.

"I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go to Costa Rica," Limbaugh replied.

This audio is from Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, broadcast March 8, 2009 and uploaded by Media Matters.

Limbaugh clarifies threat; Directs racist 'Massa' quip at NY governor

Limbaugh clarified his threat.

Right-wing radio talker Rush Limbaugh must be confused.

During a recent broadcast, he vowed to "go to Costa Rica" if President Obama is successful in passing his health reform legislation. Most assumed he meant the statement in the vein of his promise to leave New York City over its tax rates, which he did. Now Limbaugh is saying he will not leave the U.S., as in, move away. Instead, Limbaugh claims that he will simply "go to Costa Rica" for his medical care.

Interestingly enough, even as the Republican icon has made many a dollar damning proposals for public health care in the United States, his future hospital bed in Costa Rica will be watched over by the same "socialists" he's so known for deriding.

Costa Rica, you see, has socialized health care operated by a government insurance monopoly, which provides a remarkably high quality of service for a fraction of the costs routinely seen in the United States.

Limbaugh is getting blasted for saying something that many critics believe might be the most racist thing he has ever said yet.

Huffington Post notes, "Discussing the resignation of Rep. Eric Massa and the possibility that Paterson would appoint his replacement or call a special election, Limbaugh invoked Massa's last name in a reference to slavemasters, also known as "massas."

"I am reasonably sure that Paterson will be appointing the replacement, assuming that he, you know, doesn't resign in the next 60 or 90 days," a caller said to Limbaugh.

"Let's assume you're right," Limbaugh responded. "So, David Paterson will become the massa...who gets to appoint whoever gets to take Massa's place. So, for the first time in his life, Paterson's gonna be a massa. Interesting, interesting."

One blogger complains, "If this level of racism, by a minority radio commentator, was directed at white people there is no way in the world he would still be broadcasting. No way period! I don’t care what people say about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I don’t care what videos of Louis Farrakhan that Fox News drags out and airs every hour on the hour. If America was really post-racial then this fool would not have an audience."

At Firedoglake, blogger Attaturk remarks, "Wow, real subtle. KKKlassy even."

This clip was posted by Media Matters, taken from the March 9 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: