SORRY, COMMENTS CLOSED. This is posted for information sharing. Please take any info you want to seed, write an article about, comment on elsewhere, and email. Spread the word. We're off to the massive rally here in Madison, WI today, with events starting at noon.

A group of 400 rabbis from the Reform, Orthodox, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jewish traditions published a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal today telling Rupert Murdoch to put a leash on Glenn Beck, to have him quit his use of inappropriate remarks about the Holoca …

Did Loughner see Palin's own most notorious contribution to the rancorous tone — her March 2010 Web graphic targeting Congressional districts? We have no idea — nor does it matter. But Giffords did.

Just what the headline says. --------------------------------------- For a great piece of writing about MLK, see this wonderful article in the Washington Post: On Martin Luther King Day, remembering the first draft of 'I Have a Dream'

Discourage Hate Speech: There have been a number of articles and posts in the aftermath of Congresswoman Giffords being shot. Many wonder if it may have been the result of hate speech by some of our public figures and media entertainers.

Don't worry about Glenn Beck. Popular history will forget him. He's not a significant political player, and he's not a memorable entertainer. But the people hiding behind Beck and his ilk must be raised to public consciousness.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger's racially charged rant, in which she "articulated the 'n' word all the way out -- more than one time," is only the latest in a year of public displays of racially loaded rhetoric by right-wing media figures.

It's a quite common facet of contemporary politics: make an outrageously racist claim, and as soon as people chastise you for it, turn it around and claim reverse racism as the culprit of the detractions against your comment.