On Monday, the Morning Joe crew had something of a personal discussion on the White House’s new birth control mandate, which holds that most employers would have to include contraceptives in their health insurance coverage, regardless of whether that employer happens to be a religious institution. The Catholic Church in particular has been vocal about its opposition to the mandate.

For many of the younger folk who have not experienced television as diverse as it is today or cannot recall what it was like to not have the option to consume any culture at any time via the internet, comprehending the entire concept behind Don Cornelius‘s success may prove difficult. In fact, fully comprehending how a concept like Soul Train– a show devoted to delivering to the mainstream a culture for so long marginalized– could succeed requires the ability to adopt the anachronistic mentality of the time, to see the world as it was and find the niche market that Cornelius saw and made mainstream. With the news of his death today, we can only look at the world as it when he arrived to change it, and compare it to what he leaves behind. With those markers, it is clear that his influence expanded well beyond the worlds of disco and soul music.

In a fiery tête-à-tête, Senior Adviser to pro-Newt Gingrich Super PAC, Winning our Future, Rick Tyler lit into Rachel Maddow and other MSNBC panelists for suggesting Newt Gingrich was sending a dog whistle in his speech criticizing President Obama for singing. “That’s baloney!” Tyler exclaimed. “MSNBC needs to get off this race-baiting kick, if you want to talk about race, the Republican Party was started by Abraham Lincoln. Six of the nine planks in the 1856 platform were civil rights platform. If you go back to the Democratic platform, it’s a racist platform. We can go down this road!”

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow lambasted Newt Gingrich’s speech in Florida tonight, criticizing him for singling out President Obama’s singing. “Newt Gingrich brought back the food stamps president thing — and then tonight, he went to ‘President Obama ought to stop singing, ought to stop being the Entertainer-in-Chief.’ Sort of caricaturing him in a way that calls out to minstrelsy!”

On Thursday night’s Politics Nation, host Al Sharpton called out Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer‘s disrespectful conduct toward President Obama during their tarmac tussle, connecting it to a pattern of such contemptuous behavior by Republican leaders. Sirius XM radio host Joe Madison gave it a name, saying that there are people “who cannot stand the fact that this is an african-american who is now one of the most powerful individuals on the planet.”

Mitt Romney‘s tax returns provided at least one commentator plenty of fodder to feed his theory that the tax rates are unfair in this country: Al Sharpton
, who invited on his program today Tea Party Congressman Rep. Tim Huelskamp
for a spirited debate on social justice. It was the sort of debate where short questions against repeated at each other and slide through the air, ships passing in the night, unanswered. The two main questions: from Rev. Sharpton: “Is it fair?”

They grow up so fast, don’t they? Online political media giant Politico turns five years old today, and to celebrate, the site posted a video roast by some quotable notables in the political media world. While the site has arguably earned the right to toot its own horn at least once every half-decade, did they really have to overshadow the birthday of Saved By The Bell actress Tiffani-Amber Thiessen?

We still don’t know what Phil Griffin and MSNBC will ultimately do in regards to the Pat Buchanan situation. What we do know is that if Buchanan is taken out permanently, there will be blow-back. And let’s start with what will likely become the focal point for those who take issue with Buchanan getting taken off permanently.

MSNBC’s Al Sharpton takes a rather unique approach to finding his ideal candidate, borrowing a page from none other than Dr. Frankenstein. Here are the bits and pieces he’d take from several of the GOP candidates (Notably absent? Huntsman’s everything.) to form his version of the ideal Republican presidential candidate:

Things got a little bit heated during MSNBC’s Iowa Caucus coverage Tuesday night when The Ed Show host Ed Schultz and The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell sparred over surging candidate Rick Santorum‘s tax repatriation plan, and whether it constitutes a “manufacturing plan.”

The exchange was heated, but brief, as co-anchor Rachel Maddow comically saved the day with the cheery declatarion, “Look! It’s Rick Perry!”

On Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s Politics Nation, Iowa political reporting legend David Yepsen spoke with host Al Sharpton about the fluidity of the Republican presidential race ahead of tomorrow night’s caucus. However, for whatever reason, some leather jacketed hipster dude wound up in the shot, in essence, photobombing Yepsen while he did his election analysis.

As if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney didn’t have enough problems already, a story that connects him to the Ku Klux Klan has now entered the cable news bloodstream. AmericaBlog noticed that a phrase Romney has used, “Keep America American,” was also a rallying cry of the Klan in the 1920s. Now, MSNBC has reported on the story, which may prove hard for the cable news punditocracy to resist.

Al Sharpton doesn’t stay up too late on Saturdays, since he has to go to church the next day. This Saturday, however, he did not miss Saturday Night Live‘s version of his own show– and found it hilarious. On his show tonight, he parodied the parody of himself, played clips of the sketch, and even offered advice for the actor portraying him, Kenan Thompson: “leave the blueberry pie alone.”

SNL’s Keenan Thompson ribbed MSNBC host Al Sharpton with a goofy imitation of the Reverend’s over-the-top persona. “President Obama has been pushing this payroll tax hollaback — excuse me, tax holiday!” joked Thompson. “Which has helping middle class folks up and down America and these republicans now talking about how it’s bad for this and that and the other. Here’s my question — do these people have rocks in their heads?”

Whenever one talks about advocacy versus straight news coverage, MSNBC — and Fox News for that matter — always point out that they are transparent about the fact that their prime time shows are opinion-based programs, not straight news. Their position, in essence, is that they are coming clean with viewers, so they know to expect opinion intertwined with the news. Fair enough. But that distinction now includes the news ticker at the bottom of the screen, which was the case last night during Al Sharpton‘s PoliticsNation.

Thursday night, MSNBC’s Al Sharpton brought on Missouri’s Rep. and Black Caucus chairman Emanuel Cleaver to discuss Newt Gingrich‘s recent remarks in Iowa that “really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works.”

Al Sharpton can see the blueberry pie all over the faces of the Republican leadership– metaphorically speaking, of course. The MSNBC host debuted his installment of the network’s “Lean Forward” campaign yesterday, a series in which hosts stand or sit around various locales pontificating on their politics to no one in particular. In this spot, Sharpton stands on a stoop in Brooklyn, talking about the days his mother caught him filching her blueberry pie. He was as guilty as the Republicans are of ruining the economy, he explains– “they were the ones eating the pie!”

On Thursday, former child abuse and sex crimes prosecutor Wendy Murphy visited Al Sharpton‘s show to weigh in on the case against former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Remarking on the court’s failure to prosecute Sandusky in 1998 after he admitted to having showered with a young boy, Murphy noted that Pennsylvania considers it “child sexual exploitation” to shower naked with a child and that Penn State’s clout interfered with the court’s ability to properly seek justice for the young boys Sandusky victimized over a 15 year period.

As Herman Cain‘s sexual harassment scandal unfolded last week, Bill O’Reilly wondered why, despite Cain arguing that race was a factor in how he was being treated, civil rights leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton had not come to his aid. Today, the Washington Times caught up with Sharpton, who replied that, yes, he had commented on it, just not in the way O’Reilly wanted him to.

As the Herman Cain potential sexual harassment scandal continues to unfold, Bill O’Reilly has begun to question where civil rights leaders are standing on this issue, particularly Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. On his program last night, O’Reilly inquired as to was keeping them quiet, particularly since Cain had himself noted he believed race was a factor in the scrutiny. In a passionate but friendly exchange, O’Reilly challenged Dr. Marc Lamont Hill to give a non-partisan reason for their silence, to which he replied in sum that they had learned their lessons about jumping to defend people without all the facts.

On Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton opened his show by debating himself using trick photography in a critique of Mitt Romney‘s flip-flopping. The MSNBC host’s surreal segment — which must be seen to be believed — featured a deadpan Sharpton corresponding with his virtual body double using a matte special effect. “I need reinforcements to try to help us understand where Willard (referring to Romney) really stands,” Sharpton said, turning to a visual facsimile of the MSNBC host. “I’d like to welcome a very special guest to Politics Nation, welcome, Rev!”

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat who endorsed Republican Bob Turner in New York’s 9th District special election for the Anthony Weiner seat to “send a message to Obama to take a stronger position in support of Israel,” told MSNBC’s Rev. Al Sharpton last night that he is “back on board the bus,” and will campaign for the President’s reelection. Koch recounted, for Sharpton’s PoliticsNation viewers, the conversation he had with the President that changed his mind.

On Friday’s The Last Word, host Lawrence O’Donnell devoted two segments to the fallout from his polarizing interview with GOP rising star Herman Cain. O’Donnell acknowledged getting strong positive and negative reactions from friends and colleagues, and invited a panel consisting of Rev. Al Sharpton, The Grio‘s Goldie Taylor, and The Nation‘s Melissa Harris-Perry to discuss the interview. Albeit in a sweet, collegial fashion, Harris-Perry absolutely nailed some of the reasons for those negative reactions.

Lawrence O’Donnell has taken a fair amount of heat for his interview with Herman Cain this week, where the host questioned both Cain’s involvement (or lack thereof) in the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Last night, O’Donnell faced a panel made of MSNBC staples Al Sharpton and Melissa Harris Perry and The Grio‘s Goldie Taylor who had a word or two to say about his performance, the strongest coming from Harris Perry, who questioned why white politicians alive at the time did not get “litmus test” questions on their positions on race at the time.

Today is MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton‘s birthday, a fact that his producers did not let fall by the wayside on air. Sharpton took a segment of his show to stop and receive a “surprise call” of well-wishing from a fairly unexpected source: former Speaker of the House and 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who lauded Sharpton with effusive praise for his advocacy while wishing him the best.