Oops He Did It Again
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Thursday October 19, 2006
You know the campaign season is in full swing when you can’t listen to the radio or watch the television without being bombarded by political attack ads from both sides. And with the GOP having to answer some tough questions as of late over the actions of some of their members, it was really only a matter of time before the Republicans pushed back in an attempt to share the love of the corruption spotlight.
Last week I reported on how Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was in a bit of pickle over failing to report the transfer of land he owned to an LLC years before it was sold in his name for some $700,000 in profit. But recognizing a growing storm on the horizon, Reid choose to amend his ethics report to the Senate this past Monday, not only accounting for the transfer of the land but also two additional property transactions that had also occurred, but had never been reported, to the Senate.
But if Reid thought the uncomfortable press scrutiny over his own private White Water land deal was over, then Tuesday’s AP story must have really come as a shock.
The Associated Press, the same news organization that Reid hung up on last week when he was originally questioned about the land deal, broke another unflattering story about how the minority leader has allegedly used campaign funds to award his staff with holiday bonuses. And as you may or may not be aware my dear readers, federal election law prohibits political candidates from utilizing any campaign contributions for their own personal use.
But Mr. Reid seems somewhat nonplused over the revelations, blaming the error on both his own attorney and clerical errors, and has already reimbursed his campaign for the $3,300 out of his own pocket to “prevent this issue from being used in the current campaign season to deflect attention from Republican failures.”
But the fact that tips regarding both the land deal and the holiday bonuses both found there way onto the desk of an AP reporter via a former staffer should be enough to give even the most forthright public servant pause. Because in this current climate of finger-pointing and shadowy accusation, especially with control of the entire congress in the balance, the GOP will be looking for anything that would keep themselves from being portrayed as the only snakes in the grass up on The Hill—even if there is a bit truth to that rumor.
Come on guys, keep your noses clean. You’re better than that.
AP: Reid used campaign funds for Christmas bonuses—CNN.com
Reid Decides to Amend Ethics Reports AP via Breitbart.com
Long Knives
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Tuesday October 3, 2006
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has been finding it increasingly difficult as of late to avoid allegations that he did not do enough in regards to the Mark Foley scandal after he was informed about inappropriate emails between the former US House representative and a 16-year old page. And now, the Washington Times, a leading conservative news daily, just turned up the heat by calling for Hastert to resign from his post in an editorial that it published on Tuesday.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week’s revelations—or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.—Washington Times Editorial October 3, 2006
Indeed, the long knives seemed to have become unsheathed as the Republican Leadership in the House appear to be laying all blame for the scandal at their speaker’s feet, with House Majority Leader David Boehner stating on Tuesday that he had talked to the speaker about the issue earlier in the year when he initially became aware of it and was led to believe by Hastert that it had been dealt with.
“My position is, it’s in his corner, it’s his responsibility. The clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board—all report to the speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with.”—House Majority Leader David Boehner
Representative Tom Reynolds, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee and took the initial brunt of criticism over the scandal, maintains that he informed Hastert immediately upon learning of the email exchanges from Representative Rodney Alexander, a conversation that Hastert claims not to remember but doesn’t dispute the possibility that it may have occurred.
“If he did, he brought it in with a whole stack of things.”—Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
As for now, Speaker Hastert remains defiant, perhaps buoyed by the same sense of confidence that has allowed him to weather other storms like the Tom DeLay ethics scandal and sail on through with nary a scratch. But this time might be a bit different.
The American people have come to expect dishonesty, infidelity, and even some level of impropriety from their elected representatives, but there are some things that go so beyond the pale that no amount of ‘explanation’ can satisfy.
And the fact that this matter has been referred into the House or Representatives’ ethical “black hole”—namely the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct—illustrates quite clearly just how seriously the speaker views this issue. And when Mr. Hastert claims that “There wasn’t much there other than a friendly inquiry,” about the original email in which Foley asked for the page’s picture and complemented him on his body, you really have to wonder whether or not the former high school wresting coach has his priorities straight.
Indeed, it’s time to pull the plug.
Source:
Resign, Mr. Speaker—Washington Times
Majority leader: Foley matter Hastert’s responsibility—CNN.com
Hastert Stands by Handling of Foley Case—AP via Myway.com
Oh Snap!
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Monday October 2, 2006
When word broke on Friday about alleged misconduct between a 16-year old male page and Representative Mark Foley, most the of the fallout appeared to be limited to the Florida Republican’s re-election campaign that he effectively ceded to this opponent upon his resignation from the US House. However, over the ensuing weekend, more information has come to light that could have serious repercussions all the way up into Speaker Dennis Hastert’s office and beyond.
Representative Foley’s world began to fall down when the purported existence of several emails between himself and an underage congressional page surfaced over the past few weeks, forcing his own campaign to acknowledge that the correspondences did exist, but maintained that there was nothing inappropriate about them.
However, after the contents of the exchanges were revealed on the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s web site, Foley, who was in the midst of campaigning for a seventh term in the House, resigned, expressing regret for letting his constituents down in a statement that included the following statement:
“I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent,” he said in a statement issued by his office.
But hopes for the GOP containing the damage to just the Foley campaign were all but lost on Saturday, when word began circulating that there was much more to the story than the Florida Representative was letting on. The other shoe dropped when it was announced that the Republican leadership in the House had been aware of the exchanges between the page and Foley since 2005, when the page’s sponsor, Representative Rodney Alexander, reported them to New York Republican Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Reynolds, in a effort to deflect criticism that he had not done enough regarding the matter, stated that even though the boy’s parents did not want the matter pursued, he did his own due diligence and reported the incident directly to Speaker Hastert.
However, the GOP is nothing if not quick to react to a potentially damaging situation that could cost them their majority status in Congress. For just hours after this new wrinkle emerged, Speaker Dennis Hastert, backtracking on previous claims that he knew nothing of the scandal, acknowledged that he had, in fact, been informed of the situation by Reynolds and had referred it on to the proper authorities.
That action would have effectively put the matter in to the realm of the office of the House clerk and John Shimkus, but according to Michigan Democrat Dale Kildee, a member of the House Page Board, no investigation was ever made into the allegations.
On Sunday, flanked by House Majority Leader Roy Blunt and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Hastert appeared before the cameras and stated that he had asked the Justice Department to look into who knew what and when they knew it, including “what actions such individuals took, if any, to provide them to law enforcement.”
The speaker also announced the creation of a hot-line for former pages and others that may or may not have had inappropriate advances from other members of congress.
This development came after a former page told ABC news that he and several of his friends were told by a Republican supervisor in the House Clerk’s office to avoid Foley and “don’t get too wrapped up in him being too nice to you and all that kind of stuff.”
And, in an indication as to just how serious this issue might just be for the GOP, President Bush on Sunday expressed his own disgust at he actions of Foley and maintained that he knew nothing of the scandal before he heard about it in the press.
But even as every Republican within a stones’ throw of Capitol Hill is actively putting as much distance between themselves and Mark Foley as is humanly possible, this Leftwing Nutjob was beaten to the punch by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid when he began floating allegations early Sunday that the Republican leadership in the House knowingly kept problems with Foley on the down low in order to maintain their tenuous majority going into the fall elections.
And if that conspiracy of silence is eventually given weight by the results of the multiple investigations now getting underway—including a newly announced FBI probe—then the American people need to come to grip with a harsh truth—that the Republican Party will do anything, ANYTHING, to maintain their grip on power in Congress.
Sick.
Source:
READER DISCRETION STRONGLY ADVISED: Foley’s Exchange With Underage Page—ABC News.com
Congressman resigns after e-mails questioned—CNN.com
GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001—ABC News
GOP Leaders Knew of Foley E-Mail in ‘05—AP via Myway.com
Hastert Requests Criminal Probe of Foley—AP via Myway.com
FBI Opens “Preliminary Investigation” of Foley—ABC News
Too Little, Too Late
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Thursday April 6, 2006
Apparently doing what the Democratic House leadership was unwilling the do, the Congressional Black Caucus had a heart to heart with embattled Georgia Representative Cythia McKinney last night over her imbroglio with a Capitol Hill police officer, the results of which culminated into a statement that Ms. McKinney read to colleagues in the House earlier this afternoon:
“I come before this body to personally express again my sincere regret about the encounter with the Capitol Hill police,” McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia, said in an one-minute statement to her House colleagues. “There should not have been any physical contact with police. I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all, and I regret its escalation.”
But Ms. McKinney’s penitence may be too little, too late, as the matter has already been referred to a federal grand jury by Capitol Hill Police Chief Terrance Gainer, with possible charges against the six-term representative a distinct possibility. And it if comes to that, Ms. McKinney will have no one to blame but herself.
Source:
McKinney Apologizes for Scuffle With Police – Washington Post
Idiot
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Wednesday April 5, 2006
Proving quite well that the GOP hasn’t entirely cornered the market on a sense of entitlement and unbridled arrogance, Georgia Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney is refusing to back away from the firestorm of controversy that has erupted over her failure to identify herself when entering the U.S. Capitol Building last week.
Upping the ante in the brouhaha, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer stated today that Ms. McKinney’s failure to stop and identify herself, and well as her subsequent striking of an officer, elevated a simple case of identity confirmation into a full blown criminal matter.
“He reached out and grabbed her and she turned around and hit him,” Gainer said on CNN. “Even the high and the haughty should be able to stop and say, ‘I’m a congressman’ and then everybody moves on.”
The incident turned ugly earlier this week when Representative McKinney charged that racism, not security procedures, were behind her detainment by U.S. Capitol police. But that tune wasn’t playing very well with her Democratic colleagues on The Hill, exemplified by the fact that not one member from her caucus showed up at her press conference to protest the incident.
But the problem that this Leftwing Nutjob has with this whole incident is that no one in the Democratic leadership has stepped forward to take Ms. McKinney aside and advise her that, for the interests of her political party, she had better just apologize, shut up, and move on. Instead, the GOP have petty fodder that they can peddle on the talking heads at a time when the Republicans can’t even buy good PR.
Tom DeLay was many things, but they did call him The Hammer for a reason: he kept the Republican House members in line and on message at all times. The lack of someone with that type of hutzpah within House Democratic leadership is sorely evident by the fact that this buffoon is continuing to lead news cycles around the country.
Paging Nancy Pelsoi. Nancy Pelsoi, would you please pick up the white courtesy phone? Paging Nancy Pelosi…
Source:
Capitol police chief faults McKinney for escalating incident – CNN.com
Race Swirls Around McKinney Confrontation – Washington Post
Podcast #117
By Thomas JeffreyArticle Posted: Tuesday April 15, 2008
Leftwing Nutjob Podcast, Episode 117, for Sunday, April 13, 2008
Penn hits the bricks, Iran in the spotlight again, the Obama money machine, al Qaeda’s rising star and more!