Congressman Eric Massa, Democrat from NY-29, will be voting against HR 3962, the current iteration of the health care reform bill.  Whether you’re for or against health insurance reform of any kind, you have to hand it to Massa for standing on principle.  At Netroots Nation, Massa said that he thought single-payer healthcare was the best for insuring all people and keeping costs down.  He would vote for a true, vigorous public option, but not anything less than that, regardless of whether or not the White House supported it.

Well, it’s crunch time and Massa is staying true to his word:

“It is exceptionally painful to me to not be able to bring a common sense bill on health care reform to my district, but I will not vote on something that I think will hurt the people who sent me to Washington, regardless of how popular it may be,” Massa said.

He was asked about whether this would make the White House angry,

If I am, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Massa replied. “Everybody loves an independent member of Congress until you’re independent. I have great respect for the chief executive, but I do not work for him. I work for the people of the 29^th Congressional District, and in a larger sense, the United States of America. The president is not my boss under any circumstances. And the Constitution says very clearly that the minute I consider him to be my boss, I should no longer hold this office.”

This guy, I like.

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The other day, Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas was debating Tancredo on MSNBC about health care reform and the recent teabag ruckus on Capitol Hill that attracted literally hundreds of people.  Tancredo did the standard Republican “socialism” nonsense and called the public option – a thoroughly incomplete “reform” – the biggest threat to American freedom they had ever seen; a “threat to the American way of life”.

Talk like that leads to signs like this, seen at the Michele Bachmann Teaparty of Ignorance this past week:

At one point, comparisons were drawn to existing government-run single-payer plans like Medicare and the VA.  Tancredo claimed that veterans begged him to set up some sort of free market insurance system for them because the VA was “too bureaucratic” and didn’t “serve their needs”.

Because everyone who has private for-profit or non-profit healthcare knows just how unbureaucratic it is.  I hate disingenuous, idiotic statements like that.

On the point of the veterans, Moulitsas is a veteran, and Tancredo is not.  Moulistas does what the kids call “pwn” Tancredo:

Sure enough, Tancredo was in favor of the Vietnam War, but went out of his way to avoid serving in it.

After graduating from college in June 1969, he became eligible to serve in Vietnam. Tancredo said he went for his physical, telling doctors he’d been treated for depression, and eventually got a deferment.

Chickenhawk.  Xenophobe.  Detestable human being.  It’s about time guys like him got called out on their incessant fucking bullshit.

Brian Davis has rapidly become the most hilarious elected official in all of western New York. No one else can match his level of personal and professional failures and breaches of ethics.

When the FBI and DA’s office comes to hunt you down at your work because they “just want to talk”, it’s like a replay of something out of Law & Order: Special Politicians’ Unit

Why do we need a state senate, again?

You may have already read Chris Schobert’s article in the latest Spree issue, “WNY’s churning urn of online news and comment: good, bad, or just confusing?”.  Although the Spree says Thursday’s talk will be “a rousing dialogue between some of Western New York’s most notable and important online news figures,” I expect Chris Smith to just hurl insults at people, Dale-Volker-like.

I will be on the panel, as well as:

- Sharon Bailey, political blogger (So Sharon)

- Elena Buscarino,  editor and author of Buffalo Rising Online

- Brian Connolly, web editor for the Buffalo News

- Jim Heaney, blogger and columnist for the Buffalo News

- Geoff Kelly, editor and blogger for Artvoice

- Newell Nussbaumer, co-founder of Buffalo Rising Online

- Ben Siegel, editor for Block Club

- Marc Odien and Chris Smith, co-founders of WNYMedia.net

The issues presented in the article and the panel, reach far beyond Western New York. Should online content be free? Are news blogs “fair and balanced,” and is that even desirable? What do blogs and online news sites mean for both the reader, and the writer? Can local news sites complement each other, or are they invariably opposed?

(Answers:  Yes, no, no, lots, lots, sometimes).

I’m not pointing fingers and blaming one side or another.  I’m just stating a fact.

Who needs dumbass fusion-dependent minor parties when the Democrats themselves can’t keep their shit together?

Let’s hope 2010 brings some sanity and diplomacy to that silly situation.

Last night, legislative and sheriff’s candidates paid fealty to the lord of Erieshire Manor.  But here’s a question: which do you think Chris Collins would prefer?

a) a 15-member Democratic legislature; or

b) Mark Poloncarz in a second term as Comptroller, poised to possibly challenge him for CE in 2011?

I think Kadet’s loss was particularly bitter for Collins – that’s the prize he really wanted.  The rest was just frosting on the cake.

When turnout is 24%, there is a mandate for only one thing: apathy.

P.S.:  If you don’t vote, don’t complain.