Republican scare tactics filter into the real debate on health care reform, taking their toll on President Obama’s sales pitch.

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Rush Limbaugh characterizes the shooting of three Somali pirates as a police shooting of three black teenagers, and says they just wanted to surrender but weren’t given the chance.

Leave it to a British BBC/Guardian commentator to accurately portray FOX News.

The three other pirates, however, showed signs of growing irritation, as the Bainbridge, 18 miles from shore, towed the lifeboat further out to sea, the senior military official said. “They had no promise of money, clearly no passage. The one ticket they had was the captain,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record.

“In the last discussion, they said, ‘If we don’t get what we want, we will kill the captain,’ ” the official said.

Soon afterward, two pirates moved to one of the hatches of the lifeboat and stuck their heads out. The third pirate advanced toward the captain and pointed his AK-47 straight at Phillips’s back, the rifle touching it or inches away, the official said.

U.S. military observers thought that Phillips was about to be shot. SEAL snipers, who were positioned on a deck at the stern of the Bainbridge, an area known as the fantail, had the three pirates in their sights. The on-scene commander gave the snipers authority to fire.

“As soon as the snipers had a clear shot at the guy who had the rifle, they shot him and the other two in the hatches,” the senior military official said.

A member of the Special Operations team slid down the tow line into the water and climbed aboard the lifeboat. Phillips was then put in a small craft and taken to the Bainbridge.

A bobcat attacked three people in a community in central Arizona, including two men who were bitten when the animal wandered inside a bar.

Officers called to the Chapparal Bar in Cottonwood arrived to find the bobcat in the parking lot, where they shot and killed it, KVRD-FM radio reported.

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