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In what was otherwise a really long, and fairly annoying interview with global warming denier, Sen. James Inhofe, Rachel Maddow did end up making the senator look extremely uncomfortable when she asked him about his ties to The Family and Doug Coe and and the return of the "kill the gays" bill in Uganda and whether he was for or against it.

Inhofe's first reaction was to feign indignation when Maddow brought up one of her shows from 2009 where she mentioned Sen. Inhofe and the fact that he took her out of context in his book, which was supposed to be the topic of the interview.

INHOFE: Are you saying, are you suggesting Rachel, and I want to make sure that everyone understands this, that I am for executing gays? That I somehow knew something about what their philosophy is over there and what they're doing legislatively?

I know Uganda. I know Ethiopia, I know Ghana, I know Benin. I know Africa, better than anyone else, certainly in the United States Senate. I've spent a lot of time over there. I've developed close relations over there. And when 9-11 happened, I was the only member of the Armed Services Committee who knew where Africa was and we were making a decision then to get into Africa to help train them, to resist all these things that are coming into the country and the continent, that's what I did. So I do know Africa well.

As far as Doug Coe is concerned, you know I think, when you hear about persecution for the sake of righteousness, I can't think of a better example. I wish you knew Doug Coe. I've never known anyone in my life that just loves everyone and I see him persecuted and my heart bleeds for him and I do... I am sorry that you did that.

Maddow went on to read from a New York Times article which made this claim about The Family being the inspiration for the bill:

It was in the United States, Mr. Bahati contended, that he first became close with a group of influential social conservatives, including politicians, known as The Fellowship, which would later become a base of inspiration and technical support for the anti-homosexuality bill.

Mr. Bahati said the idea for the bill first sprang from a conversation with members of The Fellowship in 2008, because it was “too late” in America to propose such legislation. Now, he said, he feels abandoned.

Inhofe's response... who's David Bahati? So right after telling Rachel Maddow just how much he knows about Africa and how much time he spends over there, he's going to pretend he doesn't know who this guy is. Riiiigghht.

Maybe Rachel Maddow will bring Jeff Sharlet back in for some fact checking on Inhofe's statement. They could probably spend the better part of a week just trying to debunk all the lies he told in the first half of the interview where they were talking about his book and global warming.

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I just have to ask, now that it looks like there's going to be a criminal investigation against John Ensign after the Senate ethics committee released their findings this week: When is that same panel going to investigate Tom Coburn further and take some action against him and his part in covering up the crimes committed by John Ensign?

Here's the entire segment from Maddow's show where she laid out the entire scandal better than I've seen anyone else in our corporate media do with all of the ugly details explained fully. If you've got almost twenty minutes to spare and want to know what our press has largely been ignoring for the last couple of years that should have had Ensign thrown out of the Senate some time ago IMO, Rachel did a great job of explaining it here.

And here's more from the HuffPo on Coburn's role in the cover-up -- Tom Coburn Helped Cover Up John Ensign Affair: Senate Ethics Report:

Sen. Tom Coburn played a more active role than previously known in the negotiations between ex-Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) and his former aide, Doug Hampton. The extent of the Oklahoma Republican's involvement is made clear in a report released Thursday by the Senate Ethics Committee that accuses the former senator of serious criminal violations. [...]

Coburn, a friend of Ensign’s who confronted him about the adultery, became involved as an intermediary in negotiations between Ensign and Doug Hampton. The former aide sought money from Ensign in spring 2009. Coburn negotiated the payment to Doug Hampton down from $8 million to about $2.8 million, according to the report.

The Oklahoma Republican's involvement in the cover-up of the affair could lead to uncomfortable questions for the senator and his party going forward. While Ensign left the Senate hastily last week, Coburn remains an active figure. [...]

Coburn denied that he served as a negotiator when he testified for the report, but acknowledged he spoke to Hampton’s attorney, Albregts, in May 2009. The Oklahoma Republican told the Ethics Committee that he was simply planning to pass along information to Ensign.

I'm sure he just thought it was the "good Christian thing to do" for his friend. Nothing to see here folks, so just move along now. This hypocrite needs to be investigated just like his buddy Ensign was, but given it took them almost two years to even go after Ensign and the Senate ethics committee's track record, I don't hold out much hope they'll hold Coburn accountable. And don't even get me started on the DOJ that was going to give Ensign a pass before this happened and the ethics panel referred the case back to them. Apparently the rule of law in this country only applies if you're a working-class stiff who's not politically connected.

This story just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it? Apparently not only were the members of the C Street House getting their rent subsidized, they were also using their interns for maid services. Why am I not surprised.

Apparently the members of C Street haven't been too happy with Rachel Maddow and her reporting and the attention it's getting them in some of their home town papers and have accused her of attacking their faith and making personal attacks on them.

Jeff Sharlet joined Rachel again to talk about just how luxurious their living quarters at the C Street house are and why their claims that their rent is not being subsidized are just downright false.

MADDOW: But no one‘s complaining about Jerry Moran‘s Bible studying. The complaint is about Jerry Moran‘s rent. About the evidence that he is an elected official, getting his rent subsidized, and he‘s not reporting that subsidy either as income to the IRS or as a gift, like he‘s supposed to to Congress.

It‘s not religion that is at issue here. It is ethics and money. And the threat that‘s at the root of all the rules about ethics and money, which, of course, is corruption. Bible study away, Congressman. Who‘s paying your rent?

In his own defense, Congressman Moran also tried to downplay his living circumstances, telling the “Capital-Journal,” quote, “I have a small bedroom and a bath I share with other people.” He also says his rent is market based, not subsidized, and he says he brought his own bed with him to C Street.

As to the merit of his claim that he is paying what anyone else living in a 12-bedroom, nine bathroom town house close to Capitol Hill with housekeeping services and meal services would pay—as to the merit of that claim, let‘s turn to someone who has actually been inside the house on C Street, Jeff Sharlet. He‘s author of “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart o American Power.”

Jeff, it‘s nice to see you again. Thanks for joining us.

JEFF SHARLET: Hi, Rachel. Good to talk to you.

MADDOW: I assume that you haven‘t been, and I haven‘t been, neither of us have been in Representative Moran‘s bedroom. But from what you have been—what you‘ve seen and what you‘ve been able to report about the facilities at C Street, do you believe that he and these other members of Congress were really paying market based rent?

SHARLET: Oh, absolutely not. It‘s a beautiful place. And, in fact, you go in, there‘s—as you mentioned, there‘s maid service, there‘s a cook. They‘re hosting diplomatic meetings there. And, you know, they‘re not bringing in ambassadors from around the world to sit on Jerry Moran‘s box spring. It‘s a luxury place.

And the fact is, they know that. If you go back in 2002, Louis Sheldon, a Christian right leader, said, a lot of congressmen don‘t have $1,500 to pay for rent, so, C Street does that for them. For those who are members of the Fellowship, it provides this subsidized housing.

MADDOW: When we talked to Senator Coburn‘s office about this last week, his spokesman defended the C Street rent situation for Senator Coburn by saying, “He hasn‘t received subsidized rent. He pays more than $10,000 a year for a room and bathroom only.”

Now, $10,000 a year works out to like 830 bucks a month, which is still incredibly cheap for a room in a fancy town house with meals and housekeeping. But other people who lived at C Street or who live there now keep saying this, “It‘s just this room. I just have this one room there.” Is it your understanding that they have access to all the common space of this giant mansion, too?

SHARLET: Yes. There‘s a big, beautiful—big screen TV down in the main common space. There‘s a beautiful dining room which is used for hosting formal banquets. There‘s a lovely breakfast nook that is also sort of a conference room. There‘s a beautiful kitchen.

It‘s really a space that almost doubles as a conference center. And also doubles, frankly, as a hangout. For Washington Congressman Zach Wamp, a longtime resident said, this is the place to hang out, to talk policy, to watch sports. It‘s a great place.

I recently spoke to a young woman who—a young evangelical woman thought she was going to do an internship in Washington, found herself recruited into C Street and turning down sheets for John Ensign, and she said, it really sort of galled her that it wasn‘t just those congressmen.

It was also people like Oliver North hanging around, and she was expected to be at their beck and call.

MADDOW: And just to be clear, people who think they‘re getting sort of internships are the people who are providing essentially maid services at no cost to the members of Congress for maintaining these facilities that they live in.

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Rachel Maddow responds to Tom Caller for this (warning, link goes to Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller) Coburn: Our goal is to be less emotional than Rachel Maddow:

Coburn used the example of an MSNBC anchor to make his point: “Look at Rachel Maddow. She comes at me on the basis of emotion. She demonizes me. I don’t want conservatives to win on the basis of emotion. If we lower ourselves to the level they operate on, we hurt ourselves and our arguments.”

As Rachel noted Coburn threatened to block all spending bills in the Senate that aren't paid for:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Tuesday vowed to block all future spending bills in the Senate that aren’t fully “paid for” with cuts to other spending programs.

Coburn and other Republicans are already blocking a $9 billion bill to extend jobless benefits for 30 days that isn’t offset with other spending cuts. That impasse halted benefits to 200,000 unemployed people this week. Read on..

She went on to list all of the things that Sen. Coburn has had no problem allowing to pass through the Senate without being paid for such as the Bush tax cuts, more wars, the bank bailouts and he also voted against pay-go. Rachel also pointed to his on-going problems in the corruption scandal of John Ensign and the questions now being asked about his rent at the C-Street house.

Rachel Maddow thankfully has done some of the best reporting out there on Tom Coburn and his fellow C-Street members. His response was to call her an overly emotional woman. Nice. About what I'd expect from someone who has no problem using womens' uteruses for political gain.

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As Rachel reports Bart Stupak was not the only member of the C-Street Family that was having a bad day. Mark Sanford plead no contest to the 37 ethics charges filed against him. As Rachel noted, he's not quitting of course. And it appears investigators are starting to close in around John Ensign.

Report: Firms Linked To Possible Ensign Quid Pro Quo Subpoenaed:

The Las Vegas news station adds more details about who has been contacted by investigators looking into the John Ensign sex-and-lobbying scandal.

Perhaps most significantly, it reports that "[e]xecutives at card companies eCommLink, Selling Source and Pay Card USA have been served by the grand jury."

That matters because those are some of the companies which, the station reported earlier, asked for Ensign's help in avoiding new regulations, in exchange for a $28,000 donation to the NRSC, which was chaired at the time by Ensign. So the news that the card companies have been subpoenaed adds to the evidence that the Feds are actively exploring that possible quid pro quo -- which could have even more serious implications for the senator than allegations about his help for Doug Hampton. Read on...

Gotta' love these "family values" Republicans. Of course we aren't getting any cries from the media about when John Ensign is going to step down.

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Dana Perino on Greta's show claims that if the Democrats had just caved into Bart Stupak's phony arguments about abortion funding that doesn't exist in the health care bill, they could have had it signed into law by now. So nice to see Dana carrying water for this C-Street extremist.

Perino: Bart Stupak as a Congressman is not unreasonable. He's a very principled person who has stood his ground and you'd think that... for President Obama, I would think he would, hopefully he would respect Bart Stupak for being a member of the loyal opposition. Ah... it's not bad for a president to have loyal opposition... in fact to have a Maverick in your party to push back against you as President Bush well knew with somebody like a Senator McCain.

But we'll have to see what happens on Sunday Greta... they're going to ruin another one of our weekends.

I can think of a lot of things I'd like to call Bart Stupak right now, but reasonable, principled and maverick are not exactly the first ones that come to mind. And I'm so sorry Dana might have her weekend ruined by the Democrats working over the weekend. I tell you what Dana, why don't you just take the weekend off and spare us any of your analysis about what happened? You have nothing meaningful to contribute since you're continuing to push Stupak and the media's lies about abortion funding in the bill.

As Rachel Maddow notes it looks like the Democrats have finally stopped trying to negotiate with Bart Stupak. Why it took them this long is beyond me. Stupak is now claiming that anyone who is against the language he wanted inserted into the health care bill is against babies and the cost they would add to the health care system. He's also not too happy with Rachel Maddow's reporting. Thankfully she doesn't care and continues to ask who was paying his rent at the C Street House. C.R.E.W.'s Melanie Sloan joined Rachel to discuss whether Stupak has violated the House rules by allowing his rent to be subsidized.

Transcript via Lexis Nexis.

MADDOW: As of yesterday, Congressman Bart Stupak`s attempt to hijack health reform in order to expand restrictions on abortion is over. Mr. Stupak`s bluff has been called. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told me in an interview yesterday that his claim about the Senate`s health reform bill includes federal funding for abortion is simply wrong. Several House members who voted with Mr. Stupak before on his anti-abortion language now are also admitting that Mr. Stupak`s claims about the Senate bill funding abortion don`t seem to be borne out by the facts.

The Senate bill, in fact, does not allow public funding for abortions.

If there was any doubt about the collapse of Mr. Stupak`s threat to use his discredited claims about abortion to kill health reform, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer put those doubts to rest this afternoon.

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The Rachel Maddow Show did some digging and it appears that Bart Stupak may not actually have all the votes he's claiming he has to stop the health care bill from being passed in the House. As Rachel also notes, since Stupak's requests for changes to the bill are either impossible to get passed under reconciliation or just based on lies about what's even in the bill, it's pretty obvious that he's just doing his best to get himself on the television for some face time so he can demagogue the abortion issue and it has nothing to do with the health care debate.

Bart Stupak might come to regret that if Rachel doesn't let up on the reporting she has done on the C-Street House and The Family. And as Susie noted, he's now got himself a primary challenger.

Maddow: Congratulations sir. I hope you’re enjoying your fifteen minutes. Now, who’s been paying your rent? Bart Stupak, you want to be famous? You’re getting famous right now. In terms of America getting to know you there is still one big piece of the puzzle you continue to dodge our questions about. Who sir has been paying your rent? Who paid your rent for years? You even got asked about it by your good friends at Fox today.

(Cut to Fox clip)

Maddow: Always paid fair market value. Um… here’s why we’re a little worried about that claim. As we’ve talked about before Bart Stupak lived at C-Street House in Washington for at least seven years. The C-Street House is a $1.8 million, twelve bedroom, maid service townhouse right near the Capital. We have documented it is owned by the secret religious group The Family even though The Family has recently denied that fact. The Family has in the past acknowledged subsidizing the rent for members of The Family who live in the house, reportedly charging about $600 a month. Even though Mr. Stupak denies being a member of The Family it seems clear from news reports at least that he was paying below market rent to live there. And if he wasn’t all he has to do is answer the questions that we have put to him repeatedly.

Who did you pay your rent to Congressman Stupak? How much did you pay? And do you know who was subsidizing the rest? Did you report that subsidy as an in kind donation? Did you report it as income to the IRS? These questions don’t go away because you moved out when the heat got to you. Mr. Stupak you have succeeded in using this abortion stunt to get on TV a lot. If you really want Americans to know who you are tell us who has been paying your rent. We just learned that Bart Stupak now has a Democratic primary challenger back in Michigan. Her name is Connie Saltonstall. She said she decided to challenge him because of this anti-abortion grandstanding on the health care issue. Turns out this is going to be a very exciting year for Bart Stupak after all and it’s not because he’s going to kill health reform.

You can Send The Democrats A Message They Can Understand and make a donation at Blue America to help Bart Stupak's challenger Connie Saltonstall among others.

It's really nice to see at least one person in the media looking into the activities at the C-Street House by The Family as Rachel Maddow has done. She follows up on the previous show's reporting and continues to ask, who's paying Bart Stupak's rent? She talks to Rev. Eric Williams who along with "12 other pastors have filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service challenging C Street‘s tax-exempt status".

MADDOW: In making a name for himself, though, Mr. Stupak has opened himself up to some questions about who he is and where he‘s coming from. Last night on this show, we talked about Bart Stupak‘s long-time Washington, D.C. residence. It‘s an 8,000 square foot, 12-bedroom mansion called C Street. C Street is reportedly run by a secretive religious group called The Fellowship or The Family.

And the members of Congress who live at C Street reportedly pay the paltry sum of $600 a month for rent—which is a sweetheart deal and is pretty clearly way below market value for that area. And that raises the question: who subsidizes the rent that Bart Stupak and those other congressmen pay—or paid?

Today, Mr. Stupak‘s office responded to our questions by informing us that Mr. Stupak moved out of C Street at the end of December. They provided us with a letter that he sent his constituents upon doing so. But they have, so far, declined to answer our questions about how much Mr. Stupak paid in rent, who he paid that rent to, and who subsidized his rent if anyone.

We have looked into it on our own, because we couldn‘t get answers from them. And tonight, we have some big news to report in terms of who Mr. Stupak seems to have been paying.

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This is rich. C-Street Family member Tom Coburn who along with his fellow Family members have been doing their best to inject religion into the health care debate, uses a quote by Thomas Jefferson about separation of church and state, and takes it out of context.

h/t jenyum at Daily KOS who has more -- Dear Senator Coburn: Liberals Can Quote Jefferson, Too:

During today's Senate health care bill debate, Senator Tom Coburn held up a big graphic displaying a quote from Thomas Jefferson:

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical

This quote resided in the background while Coburn went on and an about earmarks, and abortion, and waste and fraud in the federal government. If Senator Coburn had actually read the original source of the quote, however, I don't think he'd be so quick to use it.

Jefferson's actual words originated in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom:

to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical

The Statute goes on to say...

our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right, that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage.

Obviously among other things too long to list, Tom Coburn's irony alert button is broken. He'd better hope he doesn't wind up in trouble for his part in his buddy John Ensign's affair that the press has been giving him a pass on. As jenyum noted:

Jefferson's words when not taken out of context are hardly a rallying cry for a party that opposes health care reform on religious grounds.

Couldn't have said it any better myself.