All the news reports yesterday were assuming that with the resignation of Rep Eric Massa, the ethics investigation against him would end. But right now, on CSPAN, the House is doing a full vote on a motion to proceed with an investigation. The Democrats are all voting Aye. Actually – everyone is voting Aye. I haven’t heard a Nay yet. Wonder what precipitated this?
UPDATE: This is confusing. Now they House seems to be voting on a resolution by John Boehner (of course) on whether to initiate a probe into when exactly the Dem leadership knew about Massa. By all means, let’s not focus on the offense itself. Perhaps in the next few hours, it will be clear what exactly is going on.
And this is NOT analagous to Dems going after the Republican house leadership when Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) was revealed to have been inappropriate with male pages. Massa has just arrived in the House. Foley’s violations went on over a period of years during which it was swept under the rug by his own leadership – the GOP.
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
It seems like they have more important things to be doing.
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I would say fear of looking like they do not want to be part of a “cover up” of inside details. The committee has zero jurisdiction over Massa due to his resignation. The Republicans have said that they want to know who knew what about him and when. (Same thing happened with Hastert and the Foley situation) The Democratic Members probably will not want to be accused of obstructing a look into this. An investigation will lay it to rest that everyone involved did the proper moves in regard to Massa. Patrick Kennedy gave a good speech on the floor however that questions why the press is going 24/7 on Massa and not paying attention to the Afghanistan Debate. I agree with Congressman Kennedy.
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Glad to see you back Bob – you can certainly explain what I saw earlier today. Are these one or are there two things happening – an ethics probe into Massa AND a probe into when the Dems knew etc?
The best part of the Kennedy thing is that MSNBC (at least) has been playing the video today and marveling at it and then returning to the Massa story.
Irony is dead.
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Dear God – Chuck Todd just dangled the Patrick Kennedy video ‘coming up’. His intro? “It seems Patrick Kennedy has something to say about the Massa scandal!”
I’m running out of words.
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Even tho I do not agree with Kennedy, I do agree with the basis for his argument. We have more pressing things to concern ourselves with than a “tickle fight” initiated by an idiot who has since resigned. If he caused harm to those people, they can take it up in court. Our money and our time are being wasted on frivolity. Massa’s gone but the jobs problem, health care, Afghanistan, etc. are still here. Jeez, Congress, wake up and do your freakin’ jobs!!!!
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Amen, Katrina – the failure of the media to do THEIR job is something both sides of the political spectrum can agree with.
His anger was real and righteous. They should all be angry instead of jockeying to get in front of the cameras all the time – to say the same things they said yesterday . . . and the day before . . . and the day before . . .
How you feeling girl?
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Doing well. Hope you and Ben (my most verbose critic) are sitting down – I have enrolled in (gulp) College at the ripe old age of 49. Since I cannot work in an office, I decided to get an AAS and work as a medical billing specialist. Something I can do sitting on my butt at home. Side note to Ben – I aced the test I had to take and have NO prerequisite courses. Horse sense and life experience count for something, I guess 🙂
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Good for you. It’s never too late to go to college, and there’s a big demand for medical billing specialists with us baby boomers getting close to retirement age.
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Yay Katrina! When Ben and I start shuffling instead of skipping and we start piling up the doctor bills, you can keep it all straightened out!
Good for you.
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