Constitutional scholar Glenn Beck is no stranger to channeling the ghosts of the Founders, who were avid retail gold speculators and resorted to crying when debating the finer points of establishing post roads. But today on his radio show, Beck explored a nuance of Foundational gamesmanship that had hitherto escaped us:

Do you know who wanted slaves to be counted as a full person?… Slave owners… The reason why they wanted that is because of the balance of power. The South could control the numbers in Congress. Their representation would go through the roof… That’s why, in the Constitution, African-Americans were deemed three-fifths people, because the Founders wanted to end slavery and they knew if the South could count slaves as full individuals you would never get the control to be able to abolish it.

As we know, the Founders wanted to end slavery so much, they diddled the help and waited until everyone was generations dead before addressing it. And by cleverly granting slaves three-fifths of a vote while denying them the right to vote, they were able to place themselves on the right side of history, whenever history was ready to catch up with them.

Beck Defends Founding Fathers’ Decision To Count African-Americans As Three-Fifths Of A Person [Think Progress]

Does Glenn Beck support the slave trade or is he just an “idiot”? [Media Matters, Sept. 23]

Desperately seeking a healthcare-reform scapegoat, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee takes clear aim for insurance companies Republicans Max Baucus Bart Stupak Joe Lieberman Rahm Emanuel?

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As if anyone really needed a reason to despise Joe Lieberman even more… David Herszenhorn’s New York Times blog helps flesh out just how odious Lieberman (I. – Insurance Lobby) really is. By now it has been widely reported that Lieberman’s opposition to a Medicare buy-in plan for Americans aged 55 and older stands in sharp contrast to positions he took just a few months ago, and seems to have emerged just as the possibility of such an arrangement began to take fruition. What Herszenhorn newly reveals, are Lieberman’s stated reason for the flip flop: Read more »

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies in Calif. at age 91 [AP]

The Governator takes on the ex-Governor over global-warming denial:

The California governor has become an environmental standard bearer for the Republican party, which is split on the merits of curbing emissions. Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, has attacked cap and trade and questioned any link between man-made emissions and global warming.

“You have to ask: what was she trying to accomplish?” said Mr Schwarzenegger. “Is she really interested in this subject or is she interested in her career and in winning the nomination? You have to take all these things with a grain of salt.”

We haven’t checked Talibunny’s Facebook page, but we imagine her ghostwriter is working up a “girly man” reference this very moment.

Schwarzenegger urges US to lead fight on climate [Financial Times, via Political Wire]

We have no shortage of anal pears to bestow upon Joe Lieberman, and the past couple of days we’ve been more than happy to give their cranks a few extra twists. But mere satiric vitriol isn’t enough for Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake:

Donations to find a cure for cancer should not be used to pay the salary of former insurance and drug lobbyist Hadassah Lieberman, wife of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who is pledging to kill health care reform while millions go untreated.

Hamsher, a three-time breast cancer survivor, lays out a complicated case against Susan B. Komen Foundation spokesperson Hadassah Lieberman: that she “has worked for the insurance-pharmaceutical-lobbying complex”; that “she has used her association with her husband the Senator” to score cushy consulting gigs; that “the death of health care reform will no doubt please the clients of Hadassah Lieberman’s lobbying firms”; that “the drugs that are developed by the Komen money are being put out of the financial reach of average middle class women by Hadassah Lieberman’s lobbying firms”; that “the Komen Foundation focuses its resources on developing treatments that increase the profitability of pharmaceutical companies like the ones that employ Mrs. Lieberman rather than prevention”.

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We thought we were being clever when we rigged a Guitar Hero axe through GarageBand so Silent Creative Partner could play it live during his stage show. We now realize we have embarrassingly modest technical ambitions.

[via Sully]

Update: If you wanna play the home game…

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