Running Off the Rails...

I've listened to preachers
I've listened to fools
I've watched all the dropouts
Who make their own rules
One person conditioned to rule and control
The media sells it and you live the role

Photo courtesy of here and the lyrics are from Ozzy Osborne's "Crazy Train".


Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) appeared on Glenn Beck's show this afternoon in what can only be described as a complete train-wreck.

Massa has made news as of late due to his announcement that he is resigning his Congressional Seat due to intense pressure from the White House surrounding his potential vote for the health care legislation. The White House has denied this claim and shortly after Massa made this claim, Glenn Beck jumped at the chance to let Massa tell exactly how the White House had pressured him to resign.

This situation got even more complicated earlier today when it was revealed that Massa was being investigated for inappropriately groping male staffers.

Glenn Beck was quite intrigued by the "White House forcing out a Congressman" angle of the story and desperately tried to get Massa to give him all the juicy details. Massa had nothing to offer aside from the "shocking" revelation that Washington is a town that has fallen victim to partisanship.

Beck set up the segment saying that he didn't know who this guy was or if he was a bad guy, but that the allegations of being forced out of office made this an interesting story. After a five-minute build-up, Beck introduced Massa and the first words out of Massa's mouth were:

"Can I just start off with something? I wasn't forced out, I forced myself out. I failed. I didn't live up to my own codes. I own this."

Wow, glad that was settled so quickly! Not only that, but Massa continued on and admitted that he did grope a male staffer and "tickled him until he couldn't breath". Beck was clearly taken aback from the very beginning and it only got crazier from there. Watch the whole intro and the first segment:



Picture of x-ray's, tickle fights, a reversal of position and that is all within the first segement of this program. It actually looks like Beck is the sane one in these clips. Massa would go on to describe an encounter that he had with a naked Rahm Emanuel in the House of Representative's communal shower. From the Huffington Post:

"I was in my first two months," he said. "I was in a battle about the budget, Rahm was angry with me. He poked his finger in my chest while we were in the shower. I went through it on the radio show. Not only did it happen, I will never forget it. Rahm Emanuel doesn't like me. I get it."

Despite all of this, Beck continued to plead with Massa to tell the public something new about how he was forced out of office by the White House, but Massa continued to give him absolutely nothing:



This all led Beck to apologize to his viewers for "wasting their time" with the interview. Just watch Beck's face during this last segment as he realizes that he has successfully booked someone on his show who is spouting off something crazier than him:



This was truly a crazy interview, one that Beck certainly did not see playing out as it did. Former Rep. Massa showed signs of dealing with some intense pressures that are obviously affecting him and led to his being all over the place during this hour of television. I think it can be surmised that the White House probably didn't force him from his job and that there is more that has yet to have been discovered regarding the investigation into Massa's "groping" of his staffers. Massa even stated that there are "probably text messages" out there that could be wrongly perceived.

Beck expected Massa to come on and spill the beans about how the White House is full of unprecedented corruption and how they threw their weight around, forcing Massa to resign. What became clear to Beck from very early on was that his plan backfired in a big way. Massa is obviously having some problems in his life right now and his behavior in this interview exemplified why it was probably a mistake for Beck to try and embrace him politically.

Sarah Palin Educates the Public on When it is Okay to Call Someone a "Retard"

Rahm Emanuel recently made news when it was publicized that he had called liberals "fucking retarded" during a private conversation.

This sparked outrage from Fox News Contributor Sarah Palin (who has a child with disabilities) who called for Emanuel to resign.

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh jumped on Emanuel's comments and proceeded to call liberals "retarded" as well. Take a listen:



This set the stage for Sarah Palin to be questioned about Limabaugh's use of the slur versus its use by Rahm Emanuel. Palin was asked about this on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace this past Sunday:



So if you are keeping score at home, in Sarah Palin's mind it is wrong for Rahm Emanuel to call liberals "fucking retarded", but it is okay for Rush Limbaugh to call liberals "retards" because of some perceived level of satire. I, for one, would be interested to hear Palin's analysis of how Limbaugh's so-called "satire" was artfully used on his radio show.

In the meantime, we have the witty and on-point Stephen Colbert to analyze the situation for us:

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Lieberman Torpedoes Health Care Legislation, Progressives Split on the Way Forward

Under the threats from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and at the insistence of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the Senate has dropped the Medicare buy-in provision from the health care legislation.

Lieberman's reversal on his support for such a buy-in has been all over the blogosphere and has cast a shadow on whether he has been acting in good faith or if he is simply trying to stick it to liberals.

It so happens that the New York Times put up an interesting piece that included this (emphasis mine):

Mr. Lieberman had supported the Medicare buy-in proposal in the past — both as the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2000 and in more recent discussions about the health care system. In an interview this year, he reiterated his support for the concept.

But in the interview, Mr. Lieberman said that he grew apprehensive when a formal proposal began to take shape. He said he worried that the program would lead to financial trouble and contribute to the instability of the existing Medicare program.

And he said he was particularly troubled by the overly enthusiastic reaction to the proposal by some liberals, including Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, who champions a fully government-run health care system.

“Congressman Weiner made a comment that Medicare-buy in is better than a public option, it’s the beginning of a road to single-payer,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Jacob Hacker, who’s a Yale professor who is actually the man who created the public option, said, ‘This is a dream. This is better than a public option. This is a giant step.’”

So by Lieberman's own admission, he opposed (at least in part) this piece of the health care legislation because liberals were enthusiastic about it. Did Lieberman not think that liberals would be enthusiastic about such a proposal when he supported it just three months ago? It is ludicrous to think that Lieberman is objecting to this on principled grounds. It is much more likely that his love affair with the insurance industry combined with his vehement disgust toward liberals, has led him to take pause.

The White House, which is more concerned with passing any version of health care legislation regardless of the strength of the public option, naturally urged the Senate Dems to capitulate in order to move the process forward. All of these developments have made the prospect of robust health care reform a bad joke and progressives are expressing their rage not only at Lieberman, but at Emanuel as well. Check out this new ad by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee:



With these recent developments, progressives are split on their support for this bill. Howard Dean has come out and voiced his support for killing the Senate version of the bill and going back to the House for reconciliation. Others, like Chris Bowers at OpenLeft, are questioning if progressive support for "killing the bill" will actually backfire and end up helping the Senate legislation pass.

What Lieberman has done with placing himself in a pivotal opposing position on this piece of legislation, is force the hand of the White House to give in to his demands in order to move this process forward. It matters not to the White House how robust the reforms are in this legislation, as long as some kind of reforms get to the President's desk.

There is much talk among progressives over who is going to suffer politically for watering down this legislation in the midterm and 2012 elections. While political consequences have their place in these discussions it should not obscure the fact that the real suffering is going to take place with the ordinary citizen who will continue to get denied health care coverage by their insurance company, who will continue to see premiums rise, and who will continue to incur debt in the absence of affordable coverage. There is something wrong when thousands of people regularly show up for free health care clinics in the so-called "greatest country on Earth" because it is their only affordable option.

Shame on this incessant capitulation to the status quo.



This piece is also posted here.

Does the "Left" Exist in Today's America?

David Sirota doesn't think so:

What are the signs that there isn't the American Left we've think there is? Obviously, the Emanuel White House shunning movement progressives from its team was a good signal - as was its reflexive firing of the few movement progressives it hired in low level positions (see Van Jones and now Yosi Sergant). The Professional Beltway Left's willingness to be corralled into the veal pen, as Jane Hamsher aptly calls it, is also a big sign that often times "progressive" organizations are all too happy to subvert movement goals for access to the perks and privileges of the D.C. cocktail party circuit. As the Wall Street Journal reported this weekend, the Professional Beltway Left is now being given orders every Tuesday by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina - the same Jim Messina who was chief of staff to Max Baucus when Baucus helped President Bush ram through almost every one of the Republican's signature initiatives (with the exception of Social Security privatization).

But we can't just blame President Emanuel for - rather predictably - being President Emanuel. It goes much deeper than that.

What has prevented an American Left from existing is a deeper "trust" ideology among activists. Maybe it's because we are more optimistic, maybe because we want to see the good in everyone, or maybe it's because we're as innately wimpy as the Right says - but it's clear that progressives are far more willing to "trust" celebrity politicians and others perceived to have Establishment power than pressure or even question those icons. You hear this all the time - in the demands by self-proclaimed liberals for progressives to STFU and "trust" the president; in the inevitable claims that when Democrats betray their progressive promises, they are actually implementing a Super Secret Pony Plan to fulfill those promises; and most prominently, in the silences.