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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.

How many times have we heard Republicans say that health care reform will lead us to “socialized medicine”? How many times have they used Canada as an example of what we don’t want to be? Well check this out:

Sarah Palin's family use to "hustle" across the Canadian border to get healthcare, the former Alaska Governor said
this weekend.

In a speech in Calgary, Palin called it "ironic" that while growing up in a small Alaskan town near the Canadian border, her family used to sneak across to take advantage of the Canadian healthcare system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," she said, according to Medicine Hat News (via Dave Weigel.) "And I think now, isn't that ironic."

Yup – the queen of the GOP used to use that horrible Canadian medical system. She has brought an entirely new meaning to the word hypocrite.

One of the long time corner stones of the Republican Party has been trying to rid ourselves of any government regulation. They believe that people and business should be able to regulate themselves. Here’s an example of what that system produces:

The market concentration for health insurance is so monopolized in some areas that insurance companies are willing to raise prices and lose customers in an effort to improve their bottom line, a leading insurance broker told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

In a conference call organized by Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research, Steve Lewis, a highly regarded broker at the world's third largest insurance broker, Willis, painted a picture of the health insurance market in which employers seem likely to be priced out of coverage.

Because they have no real rules/regulations to follow, the insurance companies can do this and get away with it. It will lead to more uninsured Americans, who now have to use the emergency room as their doctor’s office, which increases wait times and leaves more Americans picking up the expenses. Yet when we talk about health care reform, the Republicans constantly say “let them regulate themselves”. Well – here is what it gets you.

But the examples don’t stop there. Let’s take another real life example – one that has happened in our neck of the world.

This year we have seen two serious earthquakes rock our hemisphere. The Haiti earthquake has claimed nearly 1/4 million lives. Last weeks earthquake in Chile, which was 500 times more powerful than the one in Haiti, has claimed less than 300 lives.

Wait! How can an earthquake that is about 500 times less in power claim almost 1,000 times more lives? Well the answer is simple.

Haiti is a Republican Mecca – a nation with no pesky regulations. That means no rules for people, like construction workers, to follow. Compare that to Chile, a nation accredited with being one of the toughest on building regulations, and you quickly see how the big GOP enemy of regulation lead to a lot of lives being saved.

The examples don’t just stop there. How about mining deaths? Hearing about countless people dying in mines is common news coming out of China, but we rarely hear it here. Why? Because we have regulations. And the adverse effect of that could be seen in 2006 during the Sago mine collapse, when Bush decided to let one of the regulatees (to make up a new work) play regulator:

In 1997, as a top executive of a Utah mining company, David Lauriski proposed a measure that could allow some operators to let coal-dust levels rise substantially in mines. The plan went nowhere in the government.

Last year, it found enthusiastic backing from one government official - Mr. Lauriski himself. Now head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, he revived the proposal despite objections by union officials and health experts that it could put miners at greater risk of black-lung disease....

Safety and environmental regulations often shift with control of the White House, but the Bush administration's approach to coal mining has been a particularly potent example of the blend of politics and policy.

This hatred of government regulation by the GOP lead to 12 lives being lost.

Regulations are a necessary evil – one that keeps us safe and helps our capitalistic system thrive. If you still don’t buy it, then consider this when you are out at the store this weekend. With no government regulation, that store wouldn’t have things like fire protection systems. Say some unregulated electrical work happened and now sparks a big fire. When they built the store they decided to only make the exits at the very front and the loading dock. Why should they pay for more doors when no one makes them? Now you have a death box, complete with people getting trampled, and you are stuck in the middle of it.

Does it sound far fetched? Tell that to the families of the 165 people who died in the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in 1977. That’s a fire that happened very close to me, and being a former firefighter and fire inspector, one I studied a lot. Every contributing factor in that horrible tragedy can be attributed to a lack of regulations.

So the next time we hear some Republican or tea bagger whine and complain about “government regulation”, remind them of these facts. These aren’t hypothetical points, but rather real life situations in which we have seen the deadly outcomes.  If they still don’t buy it, then ask yourself if this is a person you really consider mentally fit to be a decision maker in our nation.

From Crawford’s blog:

For those who might be interested - and you have every reason not to be - I am no longer with MSNBC. Three months short of my current contract I sent the following to the boss, Phil Griffin:  "Phil, Just wanted to give you the heads up that my situation with MSNBC has become so unrewarding for me that I've decided to move on. -- Craig"

Short, sweet and to the point. But it doesn’t stop there. Mediaite, the site ran by former MSNBC host Dan Abrams, got even more info out of Crawford:

But he really expanded on the reasoning in the comments:

i simply could not any longer endure being a cartoon player for lefty games, just gotta move on to higher ground even if there’s no oxygen

i have never and never will forgive Chris for calling me a racist after the West Virginia primary (the last time I will ever go on air with him). Probably should have resigned then and there, but better late than never.

We asked Crawford what he was referring to regarding Chris Matthews, and to expand on why he left the network. He responded by email:

I haven’t felt like a good fit for MSNBC since the presidential campaign, and the hard turn toward point-of-view programming. No particular event brought this on, just my desire to try other outlets and have more fun. As far as Chris is concerned, on Morning Joe after the West Virginia primary he accused me of always defending Clinton and what he claimed to be her racially motivated campaigning. That’s the problem. Trying to be fair became seen as bias in the new thinking over there. But I do wish my many pals at MSNBC nothing but good things.

This appears to be that incident from Morning Joe.

This was the same point in time that I was getting fed up with MSNBC. Everyone who read this blog during 2008 knows I was behind Obama, but I couldn’t handle a news network showing so much support for a candidate like they did Obama. Sorry, but isn’t that one of the things we bitch about when it comes to FOX news? Isn’t that something the big names at MSNBC bitch about when it comes to FOX news? So what gives them the reason to engage in the very activity they so strongly denounce?

This is in large part a reason why I don’t watch MSNBC that much anymore. They no longer have any journalistic ethics or integrity. I know a lot of lefty bloggers like them because their political views lean more towards our side, but to me that causes more harm than good. MSNBC really needs a good shake up, but sadly I doubt Crawford’s leaving will spark that.

Funny how stories like this don’t get too much attention in the U.S.:

The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.

Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.

The explosive claims about Balducci's private life have caused grave embarrassment to the Vatican, which has yet to publicly comment on the affair.

But is anyone really shocked? I mean a bunch of old men spending the day in dresses and jewelry. It’s a gay Mecca.

From Raw Story:

An increasing number of Indiana residents are declaring themselves "sovereign citizens" and personally seceding from the United States, says a report from ABC channel 6 in Indianapolis.

By doing so, residents contend that they no longer have to pay taxes, claiming their homes as embassies and using identification cards that show them as diplomats, 6News' Rafael Sanchez reported.

Indiana authorities call such proclamations both illegitimate and illegal. About 10 people every month ask the state to put a seal on a document so that they can claim freedom from taxes.

When I read this story I had this clip from Family Guy stuck in my head:

It didn’t end very well for Peter Griffin in that episode either, as he found the United States declaring war upon him and his house surrounded by the military. Maybe that’s what should happen to a few of these morons also.

This isn’t from some Democrat or pundit, but rather from the RNC itself:

The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."

The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”

The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.

In neat PowerPoint pages, it lifts the curtain on the often-cynical terms of political marketing, displaying an air of disdain for the party’s donors that is usually confined to the barroom conversations of political operatives.

(emphasis added)

And if you are a small donor, you may also consider yourself warned. The RNC thinks you are some big pussy:

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading “Visceral Giving.” Their motivations are listed as “fear;” “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;” and “Reactionary.”

Isn’t it great to have a party that thinks so highly of you?

The American Family Association has decided to blame the death of the SeaWorld trainer last week on the company not following the Bible:

Chalk another death up to animal rights insanity and to the ongoing failure of the West to take counsel on practical matters from the Scripture. [...] Says the ancient civil code of Israel, “When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable.” (Exodus 21:28) So, your animal kills somebody, your moral responsibility is to put that animal to death. You have no moral culpability in the death, because you didn’t know the animal was going to go postal on somebody. But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn’t kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, “the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:29)

(via ThinkProgress)

Again this is a case of “picking and choosing” what parts of the Bible, or even Exodus 21, should be followed. For example:

• And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. (Exodus 21:15)
• And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. (Exodus 21:17)
• Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,  Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Exodus 21:24-25)

But if we are to follow the words the author laid out above, then the owner is to be put the death – not the trainer. So does that mean we are to line up all the stock owners of SeaWorld and execute them? I don’t know about you, but that sure isn’t the world I want to live in. Apparently though, that’s the kind of world the AFA wants.

And who says we don’t have religious fanatics here in the U.S.?

Charlie Rangel just held a press conference and announced he will temporarily step down as chairman of the Ways and Means committee following his ethics problems.