"We do not have a date" for the hearing, said the aide, Tara Andringa.

Committee staff have been working on Afghanistan issues ahead of President Barack Obama's decision on whether to send more troops, and more recently on the aftermath of the shock rampage at the sprawling Fort Hood military base.

The panel's chairman, Democratic Senator Carl Levin, had said in late October that it would hold a hearing in November and that he hoped to "to find a way to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,'" as the policy is widely known.

Obama, who has drawn fire from gay rights' groups for not taking steps to freeze or repeal the rule, has said the US Congress is the best venue for undoing the policy, which was crafted in 1993.

About 13,000 US service members have been discharged under the policy since then, and estimated costs through 2003 run at 95.4 million dollars in recruiting costs and 95.1 million in training replacements, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

An overwhelming number of Americans support allowing openly gay men and lesbians to serve in the US military.

The policy requires gays to keep quiet about their sexual orientation or face expulsion.

Robert Thompson, 34, was pronounced dead late Thursday 15 minutes after he was given a lethal injection in the Texas jail, administered after Perry refused the last minute appeal to change the sentence to life imprisonment.

In a rare move, the state's board of pardons and paroles had recommended to Perry that Thompson should not be put to death for his role in the 1996 burglary in which a staff member in the store was killed.

It was only the second time the board had made such a recommendation -- and the second time that Perry, an ardent supporter of the death penalty, refused such a plea.

Thompson and his accomplice burst into the store in Houston, Texas in December 1996 demanding that the cashier empty out the contents of the till.

According to a statement from the Texas justice ministry, the two men opened fire shooting at the cashier and another staff member who tried to run away.

The two gunmen then sought to flee in a car, and it was a shot fired by Thompson's accomplice from the vehicle that killed the victim.

Thompson was sentenced to death at his trial, while his accomplice is serving a life sentence without parole.

Texas is one of the rare US states which allows people to be sentenced to death even if they do not directly commit murder. Only nine people have been executed under such circumstances since the death penalty was restored in 1976.

Thompson was the 23rd person to be executed this year in Texas, the state which has carried out the most death penalties since 1976 -- 446 executions out of a total of 1,184.

The incident took place in the midst of widespread protests at several University of California campuses, in response to the Board of Regents' decision this week to hike tuition fees by 32 percent starting next academic year.

The protesters held a sit-in in Mrak Hall, an administration building on the UC-Davis campus near Sacramento that the authorities told protesters to vacate by 5 p.m. Thursday evening. Officers from the Yolo County sheriff's office moved in and arrested those who didn't comply with the order.

“They were put in the paddy-wagon between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. last night, and they were taken to jail and held all night long without food,” Kristin Koster, who participated in the protests, told Raw Story. Koster, a PhD graduate of the school and a guest lecturer, wasn’t arrested, but followed to the jail those who were, and stayed there until 11 a.m. Friday morning, when the students were released. The students were reportedly only given food at 6 a.m. Friday.

One female protester, accused of attacking the police, was roughed up and held in solitary confinement all night, said Koster, who claimed that the student was in no way assaulting the police. She appears to be the only one harmed in the incident, and was said to be the last person to be released from the jail Friday morning.

“I saw her when she came out and she was completely freaked out and traumatized,” Koster said. “She’s completely falling apart, and parts of her body are hurt from what she went through last night. She’s a little 19-year-old girl who just got cuffed, whipped around and slammed against a car. She’s talking about her hands but she’s mostly just really traumatized. It wasn’t good treatment.”

Koster tried calling the administrators at UC-Davis Friday morning and said “they had no idea where the students were and took no action to find them."

“If anything, UC-Davis called the cops on their students, and then sent them off to jail in Woodland – in another town – without any legal observers, without any legal help, without notifying parents,” she said.

University of California students have expected this tuition hike for a while, and have grown increasingly unsettled with the structural changes being made to their colleges, such as the cutting of departments and the diminishing reinvestment of their money into education.

“I think it’s clear that we’re not going to have a public university system that’s affordable and accessible anymore,” Koster said, lamenting the cutting of state education funding and the colleges’ increased seeking of private money.

The protests were an inspiring example of students “taking back their education,” she said.

In a segment on The Rachel Maddow Show Thursday night, Maddow aired numerous clips of Republican and conservative figures advocating for racial profiling, or even suggesting infiltration of the US government by "Al Qaeda sympathizers."

Maddow equated the recent political trend to the McCarthyism of the 1950s, when Sen. Joe McCarthy used fear of communist infiltration to gain political power and influence.

But Maddow's most salient point came in pointing out that the anti-Muslim sentiment being aired on the nation's newscasts could frustrate a recent effort by the CIA to recruit more Arab-Americans, in an effort to better prosecute the war on terrorism.

Those potential recruits' "language skills alone are considered a vital tool for America fighting terrorism," Maddow said.

According to the Associated Press, the agency has begun airing new recruitment ads in Michigan, and plans to take them nationwide in the next few months.

The ads are "part of an ambitious outreach effort to communities the CIA deems critical to reducing the threat of terrorism in the US. The agency has a five-year plan to boost fluency in Arabic and other languages," AP reports.

AP's own analysis backs up Maddow's claim that the anti-Muslim atmosphere being whipped up in Washington could harm the CIA's efforts.

"Resistance could come from US Arabs who have felt the sting of suspicion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Many Arabs and Muslims have been dubious of the government's intelligence gathering and believe spying is going on in mosques and other places," the news agency reported.

Maddow's report began with footage of televangelist Pat Robertson declaring that Islam is "not a religion" but rather a "violent political system." She moved on to a clip of ex-Alaska governor Sarah Palin advocating in favor of racial profiling.

And she noted that Attorney General Eric Holder was "momentarily rendered speechless" during Senate hearings this week when Republican senators suggested that the Justice Department had been infiltrated by Al Qaeda sympathizers.

"The decision to bring [Guantanamo] detainees to the United States and afford them civilian trials is highly questionable," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA). "I want to know more about who is advising you on these decisions. There are attorneys at the Justice Department working on this issue who either represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups who advocated for them."

Maddow played a clip of Holder responding to the accusations. "I don't even know where to begin," the attorney general said.

This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Nov. 19, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

The move represents a surprising turnaround for Nelson, who as recently as Thursday threatened to join the Republican filibuster of the bill if restrictions of government funding of abortion aren't tightened.

Nelson was among three Democratic holdouts in the US Senate who have not declared which way they will vote on a motion to bring the health reform bill to debate on the Senate floor. With all 40 Republican senators committed to voting against it, Democrats need the support of all 48 Democratic senators and two independents to overcome a Republican filibuster and bring the bill forward.

The two remaining uncommitted Democrats are Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. But Nelson's announcement Friday will likely put pressure on the holdouts to commit at least to a floor debate, if not to vote in favor of the bill at the end.

In his announcement, Nelson argued that even though there are parts of the bill he doesn't like, he is opposed to legislative obstructionism and therefore wants to see a debate on the bill.

“Throughout my Senate career I have consistently rejected efforts to obstruct," he said in a statement. "That's what the vote on the motion to proceed is all about. It is not for or against the new Senate health care bill released Wednesday. It is only to begin debate and an opportunity to make improvements. If you don't like a bill why block your own opportunity to amend it?"

Nelson didn't state whether his concerns about abortion in the health bill were addressed.

However, even with Nelson's vote, moving the bill forward is by no means certain. Sen. Joe Lieberman, whose support is needed, has come out strongly against the public option included in the Senate bill.

Lieberman has accused Democrats of pulling a "bait and switch" by adding the public option even though, he claims, they didn't mention one during the 2008 electoral campaign. But, as Politico notes, a public health care option of some kind was part of both Barack Obama's and the Democratic Party's platform last year.

Controversy has also erupted around Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's declaration that he would not use the reconciliation process to pass health care reform. If Democrats can't get the 60 Senate votes needed to pass the bill, they have the option of passing a watered-down bill and using the process of reconciling that bill with the already-passed House health bill to reinstate the public option. Reconciliation requires only 50 votes for passage.

One unidentified "progressive activist" told Art Levine of Truthout that "it's important for Democrats to keep reconciliation alive so we can tell conservative Democrats, 'We don't need to use you all.'''

But others argue the reconciliation option is growing less relevant as Democrats come closer to the 60-vote mark.

"We're not hearing a lot of talk about [reconciliation] lately," one source told Truthout. "My senator is confident that his colleagues don't want to be on the wrong side of history over a procedural vote."

Tracy Barker has been awarded almost $3 million by an arbitrator in assault charges against a U.S. contractor and former Halliburton subsidiary, after claiming she was raped in 2005 by a State Department employee in Iraq, the Associated Press reports.

"It took me a long time to get here. I'm happy about the award," she told the AP. But it's not over for her yet.

KBR has appealed the ruling and intends to shrink its payout to $300,000, according to Barker's website. Barker filed the suit in May 2007, but her case was dismissed the following year and relegated to be settled through arbitration rather than courts, as per a prior agreement with her employer.

"They are still dragging it out," the AP recorded her as saying. "They didn't win and now they want to amend the award. You can't with binding arbitration. How is that fair?"

Barker said in her lawsuit that in June 2005 she was raped in her room, after complaining about numerous threats of sexual abuse and sexual comments from co-workers, which she claimed were ignored by the company.

KBR Inc. officially split from Halliburton in April 2007. Like its former parent company, KBR is no stranger to controversy, including sexual assault of its employees, but has typically gotten away with its alleged transgressions in the past, and to this day retains lucrative U.S. military contracts.

In 2005, former employee Jamie Leigh Jones testified before Congress that she had been gang-raped by several co-workers while in Iraq. Mary Beth Kineston, who drove trucks for KBR in Iraq, also claimed to have been sexually assaulted by co-workers and was fired after reporting it, while the accused kept their jobs. Both lawsuits against KBR were ultimately thrown out.

In 2008, the New York Times reported that KBR held the "largest single Pentagon contract in Iraq" and stood "accused of wasteful spending and mismanagement and of exploiting its political ties to Vice President Dick Cheney." KBR has also been slammed in recent years for tax evasion worth hundreds of millions of dollars, poor employee safety, and human trafficking. This year it was charged by the Justice Department for bribing Nigerian officials.

Fox News host Glenn Beck is the media's "fearmonger-in-chief," helping to sow distrust and paranoia about the government through conspiracy theories, says the Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL, one of the world's most prominent groups devoted to fighting racism and anti-Semitism, singled out the controversial TV and radio personality as having gone beyond other similar commentators in his opposition to the Obama administration.

Beck creates "an intersection between the mainstream and the extreme," says an ADL report released this week. Beck's claims "play an important role in drawing people further out of the mainstream, making them more receptive to the more extreme notions and conspiracy theories.

"While other conservative media hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, routinely attack Obama and his administration, typically on partisan grounds, they have usually dismissed or refused to give a platform to the conspiracy theorists and anti-government extremists. This has not been the case with Glenn Beck," the report states.

Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Thursday night that news personalities like Beck are exploiting the current economic crisis to radicalize the population, as has happened before throughout history.

"What makes it possible for Glenn Beck to enable and take advantage of what's happening is the fact that there's a lot of misery out there, there is a lot of legitimate anger, people are losing their jobs, losing their homes or they're afraid of losing their jobs or losing their homes. It is in this climate of often legitimate rage that Glenn Beck comes in and provides scapegoats," Huffington said on MSNBC's Countdown.

"Traditionally, throughout history, these are the dangerous times," Huffington continued. "And that's why our various establishments need to become much more sensitive to what's going on out there, and not leave it up to the Glenn Becks of the world to take advantage of what's happening."

While Huffington did not explicitly mention Germany in the era of the Third Reich, her comments in the context of a report from the ADL strongly suggested a parallel to the Nazis' scapegoating of Jews for Germany's economic woes in the 1920s and 1930s.

But in this case, it is a black president, rather than a Jewish community, that is being scapegoated, the ADL report suggests.

"In the year since we marked the historic election of the nation's first African-American president we have seen a tremendous amount of anger and hostility," said ADL head Abraham Foxman. "There is a toxic atmosphere of rage in America being witnessed at many levels, and it raises fundamental questions for our society."

The ADL report subtly hints that the political trend of mainstreaming militant views could lead to politically motivated violence.

"The fact that these anti-government sentiments are coming from such a broad spectrum makes it more likely that some individuals will become so inflamed with anger that they will move farther toward the fringes," ADL National Chair Robert G. Sugarman said in a press release. "This could result not only in the swelling of the ranks of anti-government extremist groups and movements, but might give rise to more individuals who are willing to act on their anger."

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Nov. 19, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Individuals on Obama's mailing list received an email Thursday from Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart, stating: "Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn. It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term 'Death Panels' -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists."

Stewart's email sets a goal of raising $500,000 over the next week in order to "have the resources to respond with ads, events, and calls to Congress when the attacks come."

The email directs readers to a page on the BarackObama.com Web site, where they can choose to donate an amount ranging from five dollars to $1,000.

Organizing for America is the successor to the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. Launched in January at the time of Obama's inauguration, it works as an arm of the Democratic National Committee.

It's unusual for political fundraisers at the national level to target an individual who is neither in office nor running for office, as is currently the case with Palin. David Corn at Mother Jones suggests that the fundraising campaign may be little more than an attempt to cash in on Palin's prominence in the media over the past few weeks.

"Whether Palin is running for president or not in 2012, the Obama strategists clearly see her as a useful foil," Corn writes. "With book sales indicating there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who are quite keen on her—and willing to shell out money to support her petty get-'em-back crusade—OFA is about to determine if there are similar numbers of Americans who want to pay a few dollars to join an anti-Palin campaign. It might have struck gold."

Carla Marinucci at the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday that many Democratic activists "hope Palin's 15 minutes of fame lasts all the way to 2012."

"I see Democrats at bookstores buying her books by the dozens and trying to keep the book tour going," [Democratic strategist Garry South] said. "She's a magnet for controversy - and that's not what the Republicans need right now."

Even President Obama's adviser David Plouffe told The Chronicle that he hopes Palin will command the airwaves for months to come. "I think she'll be most helpful to the Democratic Party with a high profile," said Plouffe. "I hope her book tour lasts two years."

The full text of the email reads:

Friend --

Right now, Sarah Palin is on a highly publicized, nationwide book tour, attacking President Obama and his plan for health reform at every turn.

It's dangerous. Remember, this is the person who coined the term "Death Panels" -- and opened the flood gates for months of false attacks by special interests and partisan extremists.

Whatever lie comes next will be widely covered by the media, then constantly echoed by right-wing attack groups and others who are trying to defeat reform.

As we approach the final sprint on health reform, we can't afford more deception and delay. We need to be ready for anything -- and have the resources to respond with ads, events, and calls to Congress when the attacks come.

So we're setting a big goal: $500,000 in the next week to help push back against Sarah Palin and her allies. Please chip in $5 to help reach our goal.

Earlier this month, Palin publicly said that she hopes health reform will be "dead on arrival." And since then, she's been working fiercely toward that goal.

On Tuesday, Palin went on Rush Limbaugh's radio show where she outrageously -- and falsely -- suggested that Americans could "face jail time as punishment" if they don't buy insurance.

Palin has many more interviews scheduled on Hannity and other conservative shows in the next few weeks, with more platforms to go after the President. As soon as she does, the rest of our opponents will likely parrot those attacks.

We need to be prepared. And we're counting on you help. Can you chip in $5?

Thanks,

Mitch Stewart
Director, Organizing for America

The two appeared with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday, along with conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart, who distributed their earlier sting tapes at his BigGovernment.com website. All three are targets of an ACORN lawsuit in Maryland alleging "illegal videotaping."

In an entry headed "Andrew Breitbart Trying To Blackmail The Obama Administration," Newshounds notes, "Judging from the very edited video Breitbart presented last night, one suspects that the real reason it was withheld was because it did little to effectively incriminate ACORN. Breitbart, on the other hand, incriminated himself even worse. Near the end of the segment, he told Hannity that he had more videos and 'not just ACORN' that he threatened to release during the 2010 election cycle unless the Department of Justice opened a federal investigation into ACORN."

Breitbart appeared to be particularly furious about an investigation by the office of California Attorney General Jerry Brown, which was opened in response to a request from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger but which Breitbart sees as tied to Brown's own interest in running for governor. He complained that neither Congress nor Attorney General Eric Holder has shown any interest in launching a full investigation of ACORN, accused the Democrats of "hypocrisy," and threatened to use still unreleased tapes as ammunition against Democratic candidates.

"Congress didn't come in to investigate them," Breitbart said somewhat incoherently, "obviously not the Attorney General's office, and they've now realized, 'Let's get back into business,' because they've realized that the dust settled and they were not being investigated. It was Hannah and James and me who were being investigated. That's why we've been forced to offer this latest tape."

Breitbart's charges are likely to find a receptive audience among Republicans, a majority of whom -- according to one poll -- already believe that ACORN stole the 2008 presidential election for Barack Obama.

In a breathtaking attempt to use the O'Keefe-Giles tapes to put pressure on the Obama administration, Breitbart announced, "Not only are there more tapes, it's not just ACORN. And this message is to Attorney General Holder. ... We're going to hold out until the next election cycle -- or else, if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution -- that they fear that this is a dangerous organization."

"So if you will get into an investigation," Breitbart concluded, "we will give you the tapes, and if you don't give us the tapes [sic], we will revisit these tapes come election time."

According to Newshounds, "Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines 'blackmail' as 'extortion or coercion by threats especially of public exposure or criminal prosecution.'" That would appear to cover Breitbart's explicit threat directed to Attorney General Holder.

(via Newshounds)

This video is from Fox News' Hannity, broadcast Nov. 19, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com

Both Colbert and Letterman agreed that aside from JFK most presidents have been decidedly "uncool."

"I'm not used to my president being cooler than I am," Colbert said.

The Globe and Mail reports that Colbert mentioned that he might attend the 2010 Olympic games in Vancouver:

While appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman Thursday night, Mr. Colbert revealed that his show had paid “300,000 bones” to sponsor the U.S. speed skating team – he hastily added “dollars” to allay a disturbed look on Mr. Letterman's face – while raising $250,000 thus far from fans, his so-called Colbert Nation. (Asked how much he personally had given to the team, Mr. Colbert boldly declared: “Not a dime!”) Mr. Letterman asked him, at the end of the interview, whether he'd like to go to Vancouver in February and watch his U.S. team compete.

Story continues below...

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“I hope so,” Mr. Colbert replied matter-of-factly, the end of what could be considered out-of-character interview for the comedy host. After that, Mr. Letterman thanked him and cut to commercial.

The admission comes days after the City of Richmond offered Mr. Colbert a role as the ombudsman of the city-owned oval, ensuring fair access to ice time.

This video is from CBS' Late Night with David Letterman, broadcast Nov. 19, 2009.

Download video via RawReplay.com