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As the families of those who were killed in the Newtown massacre prepare to head to Congress to push for stricter gun control laws, I've got to wonder if any of those members watched this heart-wrenching interview from 60 Minutes this Sunday.

You can watch the entire interview at their site, but I wanted to share the very end of the segment and if this doesn't just break your heart, it's made of stone.

Newtown families voice support for gun control:

Scott Pelley: Do any of you fear that after only four months the impact of this on the Congress is beginning to fade, and the memory of how we felt on that day is beginning to fade?

Francine Wheeler: Well, people do change because the country goes in different places. But we're gonna bring it right back, so that America can see. Four months, to them, it feels like it just happened a moment ago. And yet--

Scott Pelley: To you.

Francine Wheeler: And yet it's been years since I've seen my son. OK? So we're just-- we're not going anywhere. We're here. And we're going to be here.

Jimmy Greene: We don't get to move on. We don't have the benefit of turning the page to another piece of legislation and having another debate and playing politics the same we we've been doing. We don't have that benefit. We're gonna live with this for the rest of our lives. So our legislators need to hear us.

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The hosts of Fox & Friends on Monday lashed out at 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft because he failed to devote a significant part of his Sunday interview with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "follow up" on the suggestion that the secretary may have not told the truth about a concussion that delayed her testimony on Benghazi.

In December, Fox News regulars like former Florida Rep. Allen West and former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton -- along with numerous other network hosts and personalities -- mocked Clinton by suggesting that had conspired to fake a “diplomatic illness” or “Benghazi allergy” to avoid going before lawmakers.

"If you give somebody 30 minutes [for an interview], you could get real news -- especially Steve Kroft, who is usually awesome," co-host Brian Kilmeade opined on Monday. "But I think for some reason, they just didn't dig in to anything at all. For one thing, I would like to know, did she pass out and hit her head? Was she pushed? How did she hit her head and get a concussion?"

"She said -- quote -- 'I still have some lingering effects from falling on my head,'" co-host Steve Doocy noted. "That's all she said! And there was no follow up!"

"Okay, she was injured, she had a concussion," co-host Gretchen Carlson pointed out, attempting to inject some reality into the conversation.

"That's a question I have!" Kilmeade exclaimed.

"How did you follow on your head?" Doocy insisted.

"She passed out, I think was the story," Carlson continued. "For me, this was more of -- the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the two of them together was, Barack Obama is going to endorse Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. That's why they were doing this interview together, I think."

"Then Joe Biden just passed out on his head, he's going to be seeing double soon," Kilmeade quipped as Doocy simulated Biden's imagined accident by placing his head on the studio desk.

"Bonk!" Doocy said.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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In what was one of the more useless, softball interviews I've seen in some time, CBS's Bob Schieffer allowed Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan get away with one lie after another with little to no push back during their first interview together on 60 Minutes this Sunday evening. Here's one portion where Schieffer allowed Ryan to play the Solyndra straw man instead of responding to his question about the rich not paying their share in taxes.

He then allowed Romney to dodge his question about the rates not being fair and use the weasel words that the wealthiest pay the "largest share of taxes" knowing full well the question Schieffer was attempting to ask him. And he allowed him to lie about his plan not raising taxes on the middle class when the experts at the Tax Policy Center say that's not true. Then he let Ryan get away with the whopper that there are enough tax loopholes they can close to be able to lower the rates for the rich, when that same study "concluded that there aren’t enough loopholes in the tax code to balance out the cuts."

SCHIEFFER: You said yesterday, I'm going to quote you Mr. Ryan “America is a place where if you work hard and play by the rules you can get ahead,” but the fact is a lot of people don't think that's true any more. They don't think the rules are fair. They think corporations and rich people are getting all these breaks and they're getting stuck with paying the bills. They see some of the wealthiest paying the lowest tax rates. How are you going to fix that?

RYAN: What I see is a new amount of crony capitalism and corporate welfare, which both parties have been engaged in, but the President has brought this to a whole new level, where President Obama is picking winners and losers based on connections, based on fads like Solyndra and basically giving handouts to businesses, giving preferences to the tax code. We want to get Washington out of the business of picking winners and losers. We want entrepreneurs to have the barriers removed from in front of them, so that people can work hard and succeed. We want to turn the American ideal back on. We want a system of upward mobility and what we think we need to do is bring fairness back to the system by getting government bureaucracy and political clout out of the system. Those are the kinds of reforms we've been talking about.

SCHIEFFER: Well, doesn't fairness dictate that the wealthiest people should not be paying the lowest taxes? Because that's what's happening many times.

ROMNEY: Well, fairness dictates that the highest income people should pay the greatest share of taxes, and they do. And the commitment that I've made is, we will not have the top income earners in this country pay a smaller share of the tax burden. The highest income people will continue to pay the largest share of the tax burden and middle income tax payers, under my plan, get a break. Their taxes come down, so we're not going to reduce taxes for high income people and we are going to reduce taxes for middle income people.

SCHIEFFER: You say that of course the wealthiest people pay the largest share, but don't they also pay the lower rate when you figure in capital gains and all of that?

ROMNEY: Well, it depends on the individual and what their source of income is, but if you look at the top one percent or five percent or quartile, whatever, they pay the largest share of taxes and that's not something which I would propose making smaller.

RYAN: What we're saying is take away the tax shelters that are uniquely enjoyed by people in the top tax brackets so they can't shelter as much money from taxation, so we can lower tax rates for everybody to make America more competitive.

Ryan followed that up by telling Bob Schieffer he was only going to release two years of his tax returns: Paul Ryan: I Gave Romney ‘Several’ Tax Returns, Will Release Two:

Mitt Romney knows more about Paul Ryan’s taxes than America will.

Ryan told 60 Minutes Sunday that he gave Romney’s campaign “several” years of tax returns during the vetting process, but promised only to release two publicly, in keeping with the number Romney has promised to release.

He dismissed calls from both Democrats and Republicans for Romney to release more of his tax returns.

“I think these issues are more or less distractions to try and take us off the fact that the president has given us failed policies that are putting us deeper into debt, that are costing us jobs,” Ryan said.

The 42 year-old congressman said he went through a “very exhaustive vetting process” before being selected as Romney’s running mate. He said the process was “confidential.”

Mission accomplished Bob. I'm sure they'll both be more than willing to come back on your network and on your Sunday show and lie some more.

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The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur takes apart the 60 Minutes interview with former CIA torture architect Jose Rodriguez which we posted on earlier here – Whitewashing Torture, Redux.

I'm quite sure that Rodriguez would never come on the air with someone like Cenk, who unlike Leslie Stahl during her softball interview with this man, who was openly admitting to torture and war crimes on the air, actually articulated the amount of disgust that Rodriguez deserves.

And Cenk's exactly right. This is what happens when you don't prosecute people for their crimes. They end up on television giving interviews trying to sell books instead of landing in a jail cell where they belong. And allowing this to go unpunished means that it will happen again. Sadly, our history in recent decades has proven him right about that already.

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In what was yet another lie-filled, robotic speech following his primary victories in Michigan and Arizona this Tuesday evening, Mitt Romney decided to dust off a right-wing attack on President Obama that Politico reported on in December of last year following his appearance on 60 Minutes -- that uppity black president of ours dared to claim that he is the "4th best president" of the United States.

Except of course that's not exactly what he said during a web exclusive interview with the crew of 60 Minutes that the right decided to go on the attack over. From the Politico article, here's what he actually said:

The issue here is not going be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do.

Touting legislative accomplishments and saying that you're the "4th best president" are not synonymous. While criticism of President Obama and taking issue with his policies are completely fair, and I've got a long list myself of areas where I'm in disagreement with this administration on everything from foreign policy, to not going after Wall Street and the banks for wrecking our economy, to not wanting to "look backward" and go after the Bush administration for their crimes along with a lot of other issues too long to list here, taking his words out of context and twisting them are not.

What you cannot fairly say as Romney did here, is that the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress did not get a record amount of legislation passed despite the unprecedented obstruction from Republicans and having to deal with the likes of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson and their ilk mucking up the works whenever humanly possible. And it's just a shame that we had a record number of bills that passed through the House which would have helped our economy get back on track and helped to dig us out of the recession Bush left us that sat and died a slow death in the Senate.

Sadly Mitt Romney would rather resort to partisan attacks on President Obama and parrot the likes of Andrew Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit during his victory speech this week. The so-called "moderate" Mitt Romney has done nothing but prove himself to be every bit the right-wing flame thrower out there right in line with the likes of the Rush Limbaugh's and his ilk on the right and their rhetoric.

I keep hearing the Republican talking heads on cable pretending that Romney is somehow going to be able to walk all of this back should he win the nomination this year once we get into the general election where he's got to appeal to middle of the road and independent voters. I say good luck with that since they all seem to be ignoring that fact that we've got these things called recording devices these days and this stuff can be played back for the public.

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In what was overall a pretty softball interview with Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, there was one pretty telling moment to illustrate the type of toxic political environment we're living in, due primarily to Congressional leaders like Eric Cantor and that is the unwillingness to even admit facts.

When asked about his image of being someone who is unwilling to compromise and the fact that the man he claims is his hero, Ronald Reagan, was willing to compromise on taxes and work with Democrats, Cantor denied that Reagan ever "compromised his principles." When Leslie Stahl pointed out the obvious, that not raising taxes was one of his principles, Cantor's press secretary interrupted the interview, yelling from off camera that what Stahl was saying wasn't true.

As has been noted here at C&L, the Republican myth about Ronald Reagan being unwilling to raise taxes is just not true. Heaven forbid, Reagan raising taxes 11 times, not just several as the 60 Minutes report stated, might get in the way of their talking points about St. Ronnie.

You can watch the entire interview here.

Transcript below the fold.

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Lara Logan broke her silence on the sexual assault she suffered while reporting on the uprising in Egypt and her horrific story really highlights just what risks women take when attempting to do reporting around the world that their male counterparts do not have to endure and what a long way so many parts of our societies around the world have to go with their treatment of women.

Listening to what she went through in Egypt on a day that should have been one of celebration was just truly horrifying.

Lara Logan breaks silence on Cairo assault:

The night of Feb. 11, the Egyptian dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak was falling. More than 100,000 people filled Cairo's Tahrir Square in wild celebration. Among those in the crowd was our "60 Minutes" colleague, correspondent Lara Logan.

Lara, a native of South Africa, is an experienced war reporter, but Tahrir Square became her most hazardous assignment.

During the revolution, dozens of reporters were assaulted, often by agents of the regime. On the night of the 11th, a mob turned on Lara and her "60 Minutes" team and singled her out in a violent sexual assault. Since then, Lara has been recuperating with her husband and two children.

Now, she is returning to work and she has decided to tell the story of what happened - just once - on "60 Minutes."

She's speaking out, she tells us, to add her voice to those who confront sexual violence; to break what she calls the "code of silence."

Lara arrived in Cairo at a moment of triumph for Egypt. She didn't imagine, in the hours before midnight, she would be fighting for her life.

Full transcript at the link for 60 Minutes above.

UPDATE: If you're having issues with the video embed which it appears some are from the comments section, you can watch the video at CBS's site here.

I'd like to know when some people are going to start going to prison over this kind of thing. FDL's Dave Dayen had a good post up ahead of tonight's airing of this segment -- 60 Minutes Tackles Foreclosure Fraud Tonight, Exposing Unresolved Chain of Title Problems:

I am definitely looking forward to tonight’s 60 Minutes special on foreclosure fraud. In it, the head of the FDIC, Sheila Bair, will call for a cleanup Superfund to cleanse the country of toxic mortgages. [...]

It sounds like 60 Minutes actually got this and reported it correctly. Lynn Szymoniak, one of the leading experts in foreclosure document fraud, is profiled in the piece. You will see forged paperwork, misidentified dates, and fabricated documents.

Now, regardless of what you think of the proposed mortgage settlement, and the banksters’ counteroffer, it’s important to note that what Bair’s talking about would have to exist separate from that. Attorneys General or even federal banking regulators do not have the authority to waive claims in state courts on behalf of homeowners. So this Superfund would be a separate event.

More there so go read the rest and here's more from 60 Minutes -- Mortgage paperwork mess: the next housing shock?:

If there was a question about whether we're headed for a second housing shock, that was settled last week with news that home prices have fallen a sixth consecutive month. Values are nearly back to levels of the Great Recession. One thing weighing on the economy is the huge number of foreclosed houses.

Many are stuck on the market for a reason you wouldn't expect: banks can't find the ownership documents. Read on...

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From the AFL-CIO blog -- NJ’s Christie Used ‘60 Minutes’ Platform to Attack Public Workers:

Last night’s “60 Minutes” report on the budget crises and shortfalls many state and local governments face could have been written by anti-worker, anti-union New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who used his airtime to slam public employees and their unions as the root cause for the huge budget gaps. Yet 60 Minutes did not give one second of airtime to a public employee or union spokesperson.

Throughout the report, writes Media Matters’ Jamison Foser: CBS allows Christie, New Jersey’s Republican governor, to launch attacks on unions and make unsupported claims about budget problems, all without ever challenging his assertions and without including substantive disagreement from Christie critics… If Christie didn’t get a producer credit on the 60 Minutes segment, he should have.

BTW, “60 Minutes” producers never even contacted the AFL-CIO for input or comments. AFSCME President Gerald McEntee says Christie “is more interested in scoring political points than solving state and local budget challenges and getting the economy moving.” The fact is, hundreds of thousands of public employees, just like private-sector employees, have been laid off and taken pay and benefit cuts—even as Wall Street executives lined their pockets with taxpayer money and took home huge bonuses. And as [the report] noted, much of the pension problem stems from the fact that politicians did not contribute to their pension funds.

While politicians like Christie rail against the pensions public employees have secured through collective bargaining—painting them as overly generous golden parachutes, McEntee notes the average annual pension for an AFSCME member is $19,000, and the workers contribute 80 percent during their lifetime on the job.

[Take action: Write a comment on the "60 Minutes" Facebook wall here and if you're on Twitter, retweet: RT @AFLCIO #60minutes Why did you do segment on public wkrs in state w/ Christie/Wall St, but didn't contact the workers? @60minutes #p2 ]

And as Media Matters noted, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO responded as well -- AFSCME Response to One-Sided 60 Minutes Report on State and Local Budgets:

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From 60 Minutes Blowout: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster:

A Survivor Recalls His Harrowing Escape; Plus, A Former BP Insider Warns Of Another Potential Disaster

The gusher unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico continues to spew crude oil. There are no reliable estimates of how much oil is pouring into the gulf. But it comes to many millions of gallons since the catastrophic blowout. Eleven men were killed in the explosions that sank one of the most sophisticated drilling rigs in the world, the "Deepwater Horizon."

This week Congress continues its investigation, but Capitol Hill has not heard from the man "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley met: Mike Williams, one of the last crewmembers to escape the inferno.

[...]

Deepwater Horizon was in 5,000 feet of water and would drill another 13,000 feet, a total of three miles. The oil and gas down there are under enormous pressure. And the key to keeping that pressure under control is this fluid that drillers call "mud."

"Mud" is a manmade drilling fluid that's pumped down the well and back up the sides in continuous circulation. The sheer weight of this fluid keeps the oil and gas down and the well under control.

The tension in every drilling operation is between doing things safely and doing them fast; time is money and this job was costing BP a million dollars a day. But Williams says there was trouble from the start - getting to the oil was taking too long.

Williams said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six weeks.

With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace.

"And he requested to the driller, 'Hey, let's bump it up. Let's bump it up.' And what he was talking about there is he's bumping up the rate of penetration. How fast the drill bit is going down," Williams said.

Williams says going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools and that drilling fluid called "mud."

"We actually got stuck. And we got stuck so bad we had to send tools down into the drill pipe and sever the pipe," Williams explained.

That well was abandoned and Deepwater Horizon had to drill a new route to the oil. It cost BP more than two weeks and millions of dollars.

"We were informed of this during one of the safety meetings, that somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million was lost in bottom hole assembly and 'mud.' And you always kind of knew that in the back of your mind when they start throwing these big numbers around that there was gonna be a push coming, you know? A push to pick up production and pick up the pace," Williams said.

Asked if there was pressure on the crew after this happened, Williams told Pelley, "There's always pressure, but yes, the pressure was increased."

But the trouble was just beginning: when drilling resumed, Williams says there was an accident on the rig that has not been reported before. He says, four weeks before the explosion, the rig's most vital piece of safety equipment was damaged. Read on...

Go read the entire article and there are bonus videos on the site besides the mash up I made here of the first two segments. There really should be people going to prison over this debacle. The whole story is disgusting and if something's not done, it's going to happen again.

Keith Pickering has a good summation of the article over at Daily KOS 60 Minutes: Critical equipment damaged weeks before blowout. And for more "good" news, it looks like oil is not the only thing pouring out of that well.

UPDATE: Gas Leak 3000 Times Worse Than Oil - Updated Math:

This repost of a diary from 2 days ago describes the fact that there is 3000 times more natural gas coming out of the leak than oil. All of the gas is currently staying in the water because the ocean has the capacity to hold large quantities of methane in solution.

When methane breaks down it depletes oxygen in the water.

Then, when it continues to break down it produces hydrogen sulfate

After some discussions with people who are currently working to determine the extent of this undersea damage, I decided we need to revisit this topic: The damage of the massive amounts of Gas being released into the gulf is worse than the oil.

From their summation, we haven't even begun to see the extent of the damage this spill is going to cause.

This deep water oxygen depletion zone has the potential of killing most deep water sea life in the entire Gulf of Mexico.

UPDATE: There has been some dispute over the numbers given in the KOS post and if anyone has some specifics on what those numbers might be if they disagree would be welcomed, but I don't think that takes away from the larger point of how badly the release of this amount of methane into our oceans might be for the environment.