Michele Bachmann is telling people to break the law and calling for civil disobedience:

At a rally at the Minnesota State Capitol on Saturday, Bachmann declared illegitimate the potential route that House Democrats could take to pass the health care bill. She was specifically railing against a parliamentary tactic by which the House could skip voting on the Senate bill by declaring it passed as part of the reconciliation bill. Bachmann pronounced this to be taxation without representation. "They have just started a revolution -- and they did it," said Bachmann.

"But mark my words, the American people aren't gonna take this lying down," Bachmann later said. "We aren't gonna play their game, we're not gonna pay their taxes. They want us to pay for this? Because we don't have to. We don't have to. We don't have to follow a bill that isn't law. That's not the American way, and that's not what we're going to do."

Not the American way? Where were her complaints when the Republicans did the exact same thing?

– The 2001 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 1836, 3/26/01]
– The 2003 Bush Tax Cuts [HR 2, 3/23/03]
– Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 [HR 4297,5/11/06]
– The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 [H. Con Res. 95, 12/21/05]

(By tlw3 via Alan.com)

Bachmann never once called those pieces of legislation illegal or un-American, despite the very same rule being used to pass them. As matter of fact those are the very issues that Republicans, like Bachmann, love campaigning on. They consider it huge victories for their party.

But the fact that Bachmann is out there trying to provoke people to break the laws of this land is a violation of her oath of office. She is supposed to uphold the Constitution of the United States, not define it. Given that, she should be either censured or suspended from the Congress, and that should actually come from the Republican leadership. Instead they stay silent on her crazy ramblings, so from now on when she calls for illegal activities we will say it’s the GOP calling for them. By their silence, it makes it obvious that the GOP is sanctioning what she says, so they must agree with it – right? That’s exactly what we would have heard if this was 2006 and a Democrat was doing this.

If you thought the internet was getting nastier then you were right. A report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Tolerance shows an increase of nastiness online of 20% in 2009:

The report, based on some 11,500 problematic Web sites, social networks , chat forums, twitter posts, other Internet postings, found that hate-filled language is increasingly filling social networks. In compiling it, researchers for the Wiesenthal center found such disturbing online content as video footage showing bomb-making instructions and hate games — including one about bombing Haitian earthquake victims.

The report found a 20% increase to 11,500 in hate-filled social networks, Web sites, forums, blogs, Twitter feeds, and so on (up from 10,000 last year). It notes that beyond its role in our social lives, the Internet often acts as the incubator and validator of dangerous conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 and organ theft.

(h/t Alan Colmes)

They forgot to add birthers to that list of conspiracy theorists.

The great thing about the internet is that it is a global forum based upon free thought. The bad thing about the internet – it is a global forum based upon free thought. That’s one reason a lot of sites have zero tolerance policies against hate speech and violence. Of course it appears that the left wing blogs are far more vigilant on these commenters than the blogs on the right.

This morning on MSNBC Erin Burnett was talking about the FCC releasing their plan this week to increase the nation’s broadband speeds and penetration. During the segment she pointed to a new report stating that we are #18 when it comes to internet speed. Romania even beats us out.

Is it any wonder that we are struggling in the 21st century economy when we are still stuck with 20th century technology? To exemplify this, take a look at the U.K.:

The Tory party has once again pledged super-fast broadband, and has gone a step further by stating that if the party wins the general election it will provide Britain with the fastest broadband in Europe.

Broadband speeds have become a big part of the promises that the various political parties have been making in a bid to win votes in the up and coming general election. The Labour government has already put its own plans in place to improve broadband access and speeds, and recently the Conservative party also promised to ensure that Britain would get faster broadband speeds and better access.

When do we hear our politicians campaign on increasing internet speeds? Even during the 2008 campaign it was never really that big of an issue. True a lot of that had to do with a Republican candidate who didn’t even know how to open an email, but still.

If the U.S. wants to really compete we have to bring the backbone of the 21st century economy up to par in our nation. The U.S. was instrumental in bringing the world into the technological age. Now we seem to be ignoring it.

So here we are, the final week for the health care reform push. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens today. I got a feeling the signals will be mixed all the way up to the final vote this weekend. From one minute to the next we will hear “they have the votes”, “they don’t have the votes”.

A lot of Democrats in the House have a problem with trusting the Senate to do the right thing later on, and I can’t blame them one bit. On the other hand, a lot of the pro-life Democrats who were going to vote against the bill seem to be switching now. That really adds to the complication of the whip count.

So what do you think the final outcome will be? I really have no idea at this point.

Anita Dunn is on the round table on This Week. When asked about the health care bill she decided to use the Medicare-D drug supplemental as an example by saying “well people didn’t like that at first either”.

Guess what Anita? They still don’t like it! The Medicare-D program has left seniors with these new evils like doughnut holes, where they have to pay out hundreds and thousands out of pocket. They are also subject to predatory insurance salesmen now, pushing them to buy their program only to find that later on in the year they change the formulary, removing needed drugs from the list of what they will buy, and now that person is stuck with them until the end of the year.

And let’s not forget the implementation of the program. Thousands of seniors around the country were unable to get their medication. It was a cluster fuck to put it nicely.

No Anita – don’t use Medicare-D as an example to push for healthcare reform. You are going to do far more harm than good.

Or as I like to call him – Pope Been A Dick:

A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.

The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.

And as Pam Spaulding points out, this isn’t the only trouble for the asshole:

The revelations have put the spotlight on Benedict's handling of abuse claims both when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982 and then the prefect of the Vatican office that deals with such crimes - a position he held until his 2005 election as pope.

And they may lead to further questions about what the pontiff knew about the scope of abuse in his native Germany, when he knew it and what he did about it during his tenure in Munich and quarter-century term at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

the Munich archdiocese admitted that it had allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s, while Benedict was archbishop. It stressed that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger didn't know about the transfer and that it had been decided by a lower-ranking official.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement late Friday noting that the Munich vicar-general who approved the priest's transfer had taken "full responsibility" for the decision, seeking to remove any question about the pontiff's potential responsibility as archbishop at the time.

Victims' advocates weren't persuaded.

"We find it extraordinarily hard to believe that Ratzinger didn't reassign the predator, or know about the reassignment," said Barbara Blaine, president and founder of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

I would love to see history be made here – someone go from Pope to prison.

One of the bigger wingnut bloggers, Dan Riehl, is out using the horrible accident that Harry Reid’s family was in to push the lie of “death panels”:

Come on, Harry - do your civic duty. The nation's broke and counting on you guy. Pull the plug and get back to work. And don't bill us for a full day today, either. This is no time to be sloughing off. Air freight her home, you can bury her during recess on your own time and dime. Or are you going to bill us for that, too?

And I sit here thinking of how the wingnuts like Malkin go off on hissy fits everytime some anonymous commenter posts on a progressive blog saying they wish Cheney’s last heart attack would have done him in, or that Rush would have died in the hospital. These people aren’t just hypocrites, they are sick and twisted assholes.

No – it isn’t a bad thing. Quiet the contrary, this is excellent news. Part of the Recovery Act, passed last year, is slated to improve the nation’s broadband infrastructure.

This is something desperately needed in our country so that we can compete in the 21st century economy. It should be considered a crime that we still have portions of our country that have no access to broadband internet, and those that do usually end up paying inflated prices by the monopoly that is the telecom industry. Just this week, one member of the FCC lashed out at the industry:

Federal Communications Commission member Mignon Clyburn on Wednesday indirectly hammered Comcast for recently raising its broadband prices.
As Cyburn and other FCC commissioners discussed broadband affordability at a digital literacy summit on Tuesday, Comcast instituted a $2 rate increase on its lowest-tier customers.

That prompted Clyburn to issue a statement rebuking Internet service providers, in general, for their recent rate hikes -- though the commissioner's comments seemed indirectly targeted at Comcast.

Sadly this is like that song that’s stuck in your head – you hear it over and over again. The telecom companies have become much like the health insurance companies. They get to operate as monopolies and can do whatever they want with the prices, leaving consumers stuck with them.

This might all be coming to an end though, and here’s how you can help. The FCC has set up a website where they are asking citizens to have their computer do a simple test to check your connection speeds. You do have to give your address, but that’s just so they know what areas the tests are coming from. You can do the test here.

But what if you don’t have broadband? Well the FCC isn’t forgetting about you either. If you live in one of these ‘dead zones’ then you can either fill out a report online or call the FCC at 1-888-CALL-FCC.

This is the product of having a 21st century President. We really need to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to broadband penetration, speeds and prices. Hopefully we will have that very soon.

Morning Joe is still stuck on Massa. Really, it appears that Joe has some inner regret for not being one of Massa’s targets, but something they have been saying has really got me going. All morning they have been comparing Eric Massa to Mark Foley.

Massa is accused of making sexual advances towards male staffers – people over the age of 18. Yes it is wrong, but it is something that is very common in any workplace.

Mark Foley, well this guy was sending sexually implicit emails to House Paige’s. These are minors – children under the age of 18. They are sent to Capital Hill to learn from the leaders of our country, and while there they are considered wards of the House. Foley was supposed to be a mentor to these children, not a predator.

It amazes me that a talent on a major network news channel is so blinded by partisanship that he can’t make a distinction between the two. Either Joe is trying to make Massa’s case out to be much worse than it is, or he is trying to diminish the severity of what Foley did. If the reason falls in the later, then Scarborough should be really ashamed. There is no excuse for that and MSNBC should yank Scarborough for something so disgusting. This is, after all, the network that brought us Chris Hanson’s “To Catch A Predator”.

Yesterday Patrick Kennedy gave this fire speech on the House floor talking about the media’s attention deficit disorder, or how they can only focus on one story at a time:

Apparently the truth really hurts and it has put Candy Crowley on the defensive. Yesterday she suggested that Kennedy only did this to get rid of the Massa story:

No Candy – you are the problem. If you actually believe that this was some sort of staged performance, then you are more of a moron than I ever thought. Don’t worry though because you aren’t alone. The media is full of blowhards like you that can’t realize the reason your industry is suffering to bad is because it’s full of morons. You guys have destroyed the 4th estate, which in turn has helped destroy this country. Feel proud of yourself as there will be chapters about your failures written in the history books.

This whole “seniority” thing in the Senate has always been a bunch of garbage and helped contribute to the “good ole’ boys” club mentality that surrounds the chamber. Now it looks like it could be coming to an end:

During a question-and-answer session with progressive media, video blogger Mike Stark asked lawmakers why the Democratic caucus hasn't yanked Sen. Blanche Lincoln's chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee, considering her opposition to Democratic legislative efforts. In Arkansas, her gavel is a top selling point as she battles a progressive primary challenge.

"We're going to elect committee chairs next year," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). "The current chairs that are sitting there now understand that we'll be electing chairs next year," he added, saying the idea had been cleared with Senate leadership.

Under current rules, members of the caucus can weigh in by objecting to an overall Senate organizing resolution, but don't have an up-or-down vote on each chair.

That’s exactly how it should be. Take Lieberman as an example. The only reason he is still a Democrat is so that he can keep his seniority and have his Homeland Security chairmanship. It doesn’t matter if Jack Bauer himself became a senator, Lieberman would still be chair because of his seniority.

It’s practices like this that have made the Senate a laughing stock of the free world. I’m glad to see talk of ending it. If these people really think they should chair committees, then let them fight for it. It’s time for our senators to prove their worth.

This is so cool:

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.

Imagine how much our petroleum usage will decrease if it wasn’t needed for plastic. Think of how much less space will be wasted in landfills by the never-degrading current plastics.

But the best part is who discovered this – IBM. There’s a lot less chance of the oil industry trying to silence them and hide the discovery than if it was some little lab no one ever really heard of. That means we stand a chance to really see this become a reality.

Take a look at this story on CNN:

Barely a month in office, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, is putting some muscle behind his independent image by twice voting against his own party and questioning the use of the filibuster.

Brown took to the Senate floor Tuesday to announce he would vote for cloture, or to end a Republican filibuster, on a bill extending unemployment benefits and tax credits. This, despite the fact he opposes the bill and technically the filibuster helped his cause.

"I have very serious concerns about the overall cost of the bill," Brown told the chamber, "but my vote for cloture signals that I believe we need to keep the process moving." He also said, "there has been a week of debate and allowing this bill to receive an up-and-down vote, would be a step, I feel, in the right direction."

Nothing really bad in there, but then take a look at this part:

It is rare for a senator to vote for cloture, thus advancing a bill, while opposing the bill itself. Votes on filibusters are often defacto decisions on the content of the proposal.

Rare? Yes if we are talking about the past 2 years, but not when you look at the overall history of the Senate. Without saying it, the reporter is talking about a filibuster – a practice that’s use has risen exponentially these past couple of years. Before that it was common for Senators to allow a bill to proceed to a final vote, even if they disagreed with it. It’s called majority rule and something that is very common. Perhaps CNN should send their reporters back to 3rd grade social studies so that they can have a bit of a clue of how our government is supposed to work.

The biggest reason I have been very pessimistic about the possibility of us seeing health care reform this year is because of the problems in the Senate. I know a lot of people have maintained that we already have a bill that passed the Senate, but we do have to remember that our Congress is bi-camel, composed of two houses with equal power. That’s where our problem lies. The House, that actually functions in a democratic nature 99% of the time is really leery of putting trust into the broken Senate. That’s causing things like this:

Dem Rep Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who voted for the House health bill last time, tells his local WLUK-TV that he doesn’t trust the Senate to fix its bill via reconciliation and suggests he’s leaning against:

“I have made the case to the speaker and also to the White House that we should take small pieces, small bites,” Kagen said. “In the practice of medicine, I can’t give a child a big pill. What do we do? We cut it up into pieces. Let’s find things we can agree on.”

Honestly, if I was in Kagen’s shoes I would probably say the same thing. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I really dislike the Senate bill, but if it could be fixed then I would be happy with it. Sadly though, with the current state of the Senate and it’s lack of leadership, how can anyone trust them to fix something so important?

I was just reading this article in Politico talking about how Eric Massa is now a conservative media hero. Yeah – it seems like red meat to them. A Democrat claiming that he is being pushed out of Congress by his own party for not supporting their agenda. But hey – Massa lasted 6 years in the Democratic Party! Remember – he was a Republican until 2004. But that isn’t what has got me going.

Politico did a recap of what Massa said occurred on the night that lead to the sexual harassment charge:

“I danced with the bride, and I danced with the bridesmaid. Absolutely nothing occurred,” Massa recounted. “I said goodnight to the bridesmaid. I sat down at the table where my whole staff was — all of them, by the way, bachelors. One of them looked at me and — as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne — a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid. His points were clear, and his words were far more colorful than that.

“And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me, and I said, ‘What I really ought to be doing is fracking you,’ and then tousled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where I shouldn’t be there.”

First thing that really sticks out at me if 15 gin and tonics, plus an unknown amount of champagne. I used to be a bartender and if someone had 15 gin and tonics they would be beyond that point of being cut off, and that’s without the added little boost of the bubbly.