Gwen Graham’s (D-CAND, Florida-02) two-faced position on #Obamacare.

Ain’t that just like a politician?

The question is not whether Gwen Graham lies. She does. The question is, when did she lie?

  • Did Gwen Graham lie when told the voters in Florida’s Second Congressional District that she thinks that Obamacare needed to be ‘changed‘ so that it works?  – Don’t worry. Safe link.
  • Or did Gwen Graham lie when she agreed with campaign workers that Obamacare was a good thing and that it was becoming less of an issue?

– Because those are actually contradictory statements. If Gwen Graham thinks that Obamacare needs to be changed – and by that we all know that people mean ‘fixed’ – then she should be telling that hard truth to her own supporters, because her own supporters deserve to know what is actually going on.  But if Gwen Graham actually thinks that Obamacare is just jim-dandy and doesn’t need more than mild tweaking, then she shouldn’t cut official campaign ads that make it sound like she’s going to do anything in Congress besides, ah, ‘rubber-stamp the President and the Affordable Care Act and be Nancy Pelosi’s puppet.’

To quote one of the guys who Gwen Graham might be lying to: Continue reading Gwen Graham’s (D-CAND, Florida-02) two-faced position on #Obamacare.

#rsrh Hey, Stephanie Cutter goes beet red when she’s lying! Useful tell, that.

I may not be the most disinterested observer out there, but let me say this anyway.  Stephanie Cutter?  It was fairly obvious, during this interview, that you were thinking to yourself Is this what I went to Georgetown for?  Am I really letting myself look like an idiot on television by having to repeat this stupid 5 trillion thing when Piers Morgan – PIERS MORGAN – is calling me on my own contradictory rhetoric? Was it really worth it?

Continue reading #rsrh Hey, Stephanie Cutter goes beet red when she’s lying! Useful tell, that.

Does the White House WANT us to keep talking about Sestak?Does the White House WANT us to keep talking about Sestak?

Is this a cry for help?

Because they keep bringing it to the forefront.  Let me set the scene for this: it turns out that the job offer that Bill Clinton had supposedly offered Joe Sestak was in fact a job offer that Sestak could not take and still keep his House seat.  This is important, because Sestak being able to keep his House seat is kind of critical for somebody in the White House not being possibly on the hook for a federal felony.  But when Robert Gibbs gets asked about this, well, hi-jinks ensue:

“The Intelligence Advisory Board, which most reports said this offer was for, that would be a position a member of the House could not serve on,” a reporter said.

“That’s how I understand the way the PIAB is written,” Gibbs said.

“But the memo, it said that this would be a position to serve in the House and serve on a presidential advisory board.”

“Correct,” Gibbs said.

“Well, how could he sit on the board?”

“He couldn’t,” Gibbs said.

“So that wasn’t the offer, then?”

“I’d refer you to — ”

“What position, what board, was it then?  Do you know?”

“I’d refer you to the memo.”

“But the memo didn’t specify.”

“Right,” Gibbs said.  “Thank you.”

The tightrope that Gibbs is unsteadily walking on right now is that while the PIAB clearly isn’t the job that was offered, as long as he doesn’t actually say which one was actually offered he doesn’t have to explain away more awkward details.  Like, for example, that the only other Presidential board offering (the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, or PERAB) would have also required Sestak to give up his House seat, and that it would have been less relevant to Sestak’s life experiences than the PIAB.  Or that there’s a definite contradiction between Sestak’s answer on how many times that Clinton met with him, and the White House’s answer.  Little things like that.

Congressional Republicans are continuing to push at this issue: you’d think that the White House would be not doing its best to encourage them.  Unless they just don’t like Joe Sestak?  He is a swarmy little sort, after all – and it’s all his fault that they’re dealing with this issue in the first place.  It would certainly explain why Sestak is going to be on the other side of the state for the President’s Philadelphia visit…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Do we need an investigation into the Massa/Hoyer thing?

Full disclosure: I regret Eric Massa’s resignation solely because I was looking forward to seeing his concession speech on Election Night, seeing as he’s an opportunistic progressive sycophant who last year spouted off bizarre nonsense about ‘treason’ to other progressives equally ignorant of the Constitution. Michelle Malkin has two posts nicely summarizing precisely why embracing this guy is a poor life choice for conservatives; my only change is that I prefer the term ‘suckweasel.’  Less likely to get caught by web-blocker software.

All that being said, this sounds like an allegation:

Massa slammed House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer for discussing a House ethics committee inquiry, accusing Hoyer of lying in an effort to eliminate an opponent of health care. Hoyer said last week he heard in early Feb. about allegations against Massa, and that he told Massa’s office to report the allegations to the ethics committee.

“Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once,” Massa said. “Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever.”

Somebody is lying, here.  Either Massa, or Hoyer: and if it’s Hoyer, it doesn’t matter whether Massa was or was not sexually harassing his staff.  The House Majority Leader does not get to abuse the public trust by lying about what he did in a particular investigation.  It’s not so much this specific case as it is what happens in less public ones.  There’s a word for having two standards of behavior, based on how much media coverage one is expecting: it’s called ‘hypocrisy.’

Fortunately, this is easy to check: all Steny Hoyer has to do is release the documentation showing that he followed House procedures with regard to ethics investigations.  Presumably, that includes the kind of notification that he claims and Massa denies, and will stop this potentially disquieting development cold.  In fact, I’m kind of surprised that it’s not available yet; which is something that can be fixed, later…

By the way: did you know that Hoyer has a GOP challenger this year?  Charles LollarWe’ve talked: good guy, solid fiscal conservative, and if I lived just a little bit east of where I live now I’d be voting for him in both the primary and the general election.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Cops = Thugs to Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D, NH).

Oh, Carol.  Why does she keep making us point out her lies?

Portsmouth PD: Shea-Porter was removed from Bush town hall by two police officers

Two officers of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Police Department removed Carol Shea-Porter and Susan Mayer from a February 2005 town hall event hosted by then-President George W. Bush at the request of the owner of the property, a spokesman for the Police Department tells NowHampshire.com.

The revelation contradicts statements made by Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter as recently as this week that she was not removed from the event.

“[T]here were no disruptions and no rudeness and I wasn’t removed. If it happened, don’t you think there would have been photos or video or news stories from that day? There aren’t because it didn’t happen,” Shea-Porter told the Portsmouth Herald this weekend.

Or because they went quietly enough, and weren’t notable enough then, to justify either.  The ‘thugs’ comment mentioned later in the article is more of a problem; it’s just not credible to imagine that Rep. Shea-Porter would not have recognized police officers as being police officers, given that this statement is an official one from the Portsmouth PD.  So: either Shea-Porter was lying (being also unaware that the police keep records of this sort of thing), or she thinks that cops are thugs.  Given her affiliation with the antiwar movement, I’m going to assume the latter.

Now, it’s not just affecting Rep. Shea-Porter, or her crony Mayer (who, as the article notes, is now taking in about 70 grand a year on the taxpayers’ dime*), or even the people who are stuck with trying to explain away every contradiction and evasion that Shea-Porter makes.  It’s affecting the people of New Hampshire’s First District, who honestly don’t deserve this kind of amateurism from their Member of Congress.

So: Frank Guinta for Congress.

Moe Lane

*This antiwar thing worked out great for those two, didn’t it? Personally, that is.

Crossposted to RedState.