Congressman Michael Grimm does not believe that pleading guilty to a felony is any reason to lose his job.

"What do you mean what an I doing here today? I work here."

Courtesy of The Washington Times:  

Rep. Michael G. Grimm, New York Republican, said Tuesday he does not plan to resign his seat after pleading guilty to one felony tax charge tied to activities involving a restaurant he co-owned prior to winning election to Congress in 2010. 

Grimm pleaded guilty to helping prepare a false tax return, a charge stemming from a 20-count indictment against the congressman handed up in April. The former FBI agent faces up to three years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced June 8. 

The indictment accused Grimm of understating gross receipts and employee wages at a health restaurant he had co-owned by more than $1 million. 

After his court appearance, Grimm apologized for his actions and said what he did was wrong but said he does not plan to step down. 

“I’m going to get back to work and work as hard as I can,” he said. 

No you're not. You don't get to do that.  Does he?

Well apparently so far nobody is locking him out of his office or dragging him off the floor of Congress in handcuffs, so I guess he can.

I mean sure the Democrats are pitching a fit and calling for Boehner to give this criminal the heave ho, but who listens to them anymore?

And don't forget that this is the same asshole who threatened to break a reporter in half and throw him off a balcony.

If you want to watch a brilliant take on this Rachel Maddow has that very thing for you.

George W. Bush back in the spotlight as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee releases new information that proves that Bush Administration lied in run up to Iraq war, and CIA Director claims that torture techniques were authorized by President Bush personally.

Courtesy of AOL:  

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee released new information on Thursday that he claims is evidence that the Bush administration misled the nation in the run-up to the war in Iraq. 

In a speech on the Senate floor, retiring Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., outlined a 2003 CIA cable that warns George W. Bush administration officials against making references to claims that Mohammad Atta - the man who led the 9/11 hijackers - met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Czech Republic before the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks. Levin claims Bush officials used the unconfirmed meeting to link Iraq to 9/11 to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq. 

"There was a concerted campaign on the part of the Bush administration to connect Iraq in the public mind with the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks. That campaign succeeded," said Levin, who cited opinion polls from that time showing many Americans believed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks. "Of course, connections between Saddam and 9/11 or al-Qaida were fiction." 

He referenced a Dec. 9, 2001, appearance by Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press." Cheney said: "It's been pretty well confirmed that he (Atta) did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack." 

"Far from 'pretty well confirmed,' there was almost no evidence that such a meeting took place," Levin said. "Just a single, unsubstantiated report, from a single source, and a mountain of information indicating there was no such meeting. ... Travel and other records indicated that Atta was almost certainly in the United States at the time of the purported meeting in Prague."

Of course I am relatively certain that all of you already know that the Bush Administration lied us into the Iraq War. (And if you don't know that you need to drop everything and watch Hubris right now.)

However with all of the hubbub over the Senate report on torture right now it is a good time to remind ourselves that virtually everything we think we know about why we went to war in the first place is a lie.

And speaking of the torture report as I am sure many of you have heard, there is a concerted effort to convince the American people that President Bush himself was out of the loop when it came to the harshest interrogation techniques, but the CIA Director wants you to know that is all bullshit.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

The CIA's enhanced interrogation technique program was authorized by President George W. Bush, the bureau's current director John Brennan said on Thursday, and it had his full support. 

Brennan, who worked at the CIA at the time as a deputy to a high-ranking CIA official, told reporters that Bush ordered up the program six days after al Qaeda attacked America, despite the fact that the spy agency did not have adequate space to house detainees nor did it have the correct training to interrogate them. 

'In many respects the program was uncharted territory for the CIA, and we were not prepared,' he said, later stating that officers 'inadequately developed and monitored' the program and 'the agency failed to establish quickly the operational guidelines needed to govern the entire effort.' 

Brennan also said that whether or not these "enhanced interrogation techniques" provided any intelligence that could not have been gathered without them is "an unknowable fact."

So to sum up, the Bush Administration lied us into a war that cost thousands of American lives, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqi lives. Bush ordered the use of  torture techniques even before we had captives on which to use them. And yet to hear the conservatives tell it President Obama is the one who has tried to "fundamentally change this country."

Simply put, George W. Bush is a criminal and a traitor to his country.

MSNBC seems to subtly have promoted Rachel Maddow from cable show host to news anchor. Conservatives not exactly thrilled.

 ANNOUNCER: Meet Rachel. She’s a NEWS ANCHOR with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate. But we’re about to find out what happens when she gets serious: 

RACHEL MADDOW: This is a story of legitimate wrongdoing on a big scale. 

MADDOW: Nope, that’s made up. Not true. 

MADDOW: If we’re not going to ask these questions now then when exactly are we going to ask them? 

ANNOUNCER: From MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknight’s at 9.

Okay so that's the promo, which I like, but I have to admit the change of title did not even catch my attention.

Did it catch yours?

Well it certainly caught the attention of some people: 

You won’t likely see MSNBC host Rachel Maddow filling in for Brian Williams on “NBC Nightly News.” While Maddow is usually described as the “host” of a cable news show, she is rarely called a “news anchor.” Her own NBC bio describes her as a “host”–and never even uses the word “journalist.” 

So it’s worth noting that a new MSNBC promo flips the script, describing Maddow as a “news anchor with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate.” Conservative critics immediately jumped on the promo, noting that previous “Lean Forward” promos for MSNBC included hosts like Maddow talking about their passion for progressive issues. “Given the MSNBC host’s long track record of pushing her agenda it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously considering Rachel Maddow anything more than a liberal commentator with a cable news show,” writes Jeffrey Meyer at NewsBusters.

You know I would agree that Rachel is a liberal, I think that it obvious to everybody.

However if she has an "agenda" it is that facts are important, and that they, not political agendas, should determine if a story is newsworthy or not.

It is not her fault that facts tend to have a liberal bias.

Whenever I am asked by anyone who is the most trusted voice on any topic in the news I do not even hesitate to say "Rachel Maddow." I have a lot of respect for Lawrence O'Donnell, and many others on MSNBC, but my go to host, I'm sorry news anchor, is ALWAYS Rachel.

Some have even compared her to the great Edward R. Murrow, and I think that is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate comparison.

There are those who want to argue that MSNBC's low ratings indicate that none of the hosts are terribly impressive, but I would say that is mostly the fault of marketing and has nothing to do with Rachel's reporting.

In my personal opinion Rachel Maddow is the most trusted voice in news today. And I think it is high time she is recognized for that.

If you did not see Rachel Maddow yesterday trotting out all of the misinformation that has been inflicted upon us by the conservative media, then you really must stop and watch it now.

Click image to play video

Okay seriously how many of these examples had you missed or completely forgotten about?

And Breitbart news...Breitbart News should rename itself the "Conservative Onion" so that people will know that they are NEVER to be taken seriously as a news outlet, ever!

I think that Rachel should to a follow up piece about all the stories that the conservative media reported correctly that was ignored by the regular media.

Of course that will only be about two minutes long, but in the interest of fairness.....

Rachel Maddow is kind of fed up with Democrats. Can't say I blame her.

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has become increasingly frustrated with the way Democratic congressional candidates have run their campaigns ahead of the November midterm elections. When she appeared Thursday on Late Night with Seth Meyers, she admitted that liberals may “deserve” to lose the Senate, as most polling models are forecasting. 

“If your opponent loses the thing that they’ve been using as a crutch for six years and you just let them walk away from it like it never existed, maybe you don’t deserve to win,” Maddow told Seth Meyers. “They just don’t have the killer instinct it takes to make their opponents pay for a big mistake and I don’t understand why the Democrats are doing that.”

While I cannot bring myself to agree that Democrats deserve to lose in this 2014 election, I have to say that I am in almost total agreement with everything else that Rachel said here. 

And you all know I have been saying something similar to this for some time now.

Democrats have won this health care debate, and they absolutely do NOT know what to do with the victory.

If the Republicans had won a similar victory they would be rubbing it in our faces on a daily basis.

Democrats rescued the economy.
Democrats ended the war.
Democrats got rid of Don't Ask Don't tell in the military.
Democrats helped to dramatically increase the number of people covered by health care in this country.

So why are we not yelling all of this from the mountain tops?

Because if we don't do it now, the Republicans might actually take the Senate and spend the next two years attempting to undo all of the good that Democrats have accomplished.