Joe Sestak, the Congressman from PA running for the Democratic Senate nomination against Arlen "The Cowardly Lion Of the Senate" Specter, says the Obama administration offered him a job if he would drop his Senate bid.

Now, the ranking Republican member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants to know if any federal laws were violated in the process.

But in a letter to White House general counsel Robert Bauer Wednesday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said that, if Sestak’s allegation is true, administration officials may have violated a federal statute which makes it a crime for a government employee to use his authority “for the purpose of interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate” for certain offices, including Senate seats.

"While the White House may think this is politics as usual, what is spectacularly unusual is when a candidate — a U.S. congressman no less — freely acknowledges such a proposal,” Issa wrote. “Almost always candidates keep quiet about such deals, and for good reason — they are against the law."

Sestak first made the accusation during a television interview in early February, and he repeated it when asked about it during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this week.

Asked about the allegation Tuesday, Gibbs said: “ I don't have the update with me, but let me check and see if I do have anything.”

Major Garret of FNC has been asking this question of Gibbs for weeks and the most transparent administration evah has been stonewalling. It's as pathetic as it is predictable that no one else in the press corps (pronounce 'core' in case the Professor Obama is reading this) is really hammering Gibbs on this.

This seems like a rather straight forward question for Gibbs. He could call Sestak and ask who he spoke to and thenn go to that person for confirmation or denial. But it's 3 weeks into this and he still hasn't gotten around to that. Why? does he forget? Every day for 3 weeks? Maybe instead of writing cheap jokes on his hand, he could jot down a note, "check into bribe allegations, re: Sestak".

In his letter Issa asks a number of questions, including whether or not this matter will be referred, no laughing please, to the Department of Justice. I love the politics of this, even though I'm not sure we really want to be criminalizing an age old political practice.

To me the issue isn't whether or not it's illegal, I honestly doubt it is or should be, but the fact that it's another example of how "Hope and Change" was just an empty slogan a lot of stupid people fell for. Anything that helps expose their savior for the clay footed hack politician he is is a good thing.

Now pass the popcorn!

Posted by: DrewM at 12:38 PM | Comments (125)
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But the whole point of shifty, shady criminal organizations is to drop one name and reconstitute under another.

Posted by: Ace at 12:18 PM | Comments (51)
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Called Blood Falls, as if it weren't cool enough already.

It's red because...

The water is hyper-salinated (very salty), and its unusual coloring is due to its high iron content, which instantly rusts upon being exposed to air outside of its closed-in origin, creating the blood red waterfall.

Via GPollowitz.

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (153)
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Says that Obama would have to sign the Senate bill into law before the Senate could proceed to modify it with reconciliation.

In other words, the House members would have to believe the President's (and Harry Reid's) assurances that the Senate won't just quit when its version of healthcare reform becomes law. Remember, the Senate already rejected the House version when it created its own bill.

Summing Up the Past 24 Hours: The Congressional Hispanic Caucus makes a demand that already derailed healthcare reform once. The Congressional Black Caucus complains that Obama isn't listening to them. The co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus announces that the President's stumping across the country isn't doing a lick of good. The Stupak Twelve announce that there will be no deal. And now the Parliamentarian makes it that much harder to get wavering Congressmen on board.

Stick a fork in it.

Meanwhile, Nancy "Nero" Pelosi keeps protesting "there's just a few minor, technical things" to work out.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:29 AM | Comments (220)
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At Wired:

Late last year, OÂ’Keefe and fellow activist Joe Basel went into the Detroit and Chicago offices of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with a hidden camera. They pretended to be scam artists, asking employees there to participate in a complex kickback scheme involving federal incentives for first-time home buyers. In the excerpted footage shown to me by OÂ’Keefe, the staffers seemed only to happy to comply.

The law says that the tax credit maxes out at $8,000 for an $80,000 home. On the tape, O’Keefe asked a staffer, “What if I bought a place for $50,000, but the seller and I agreed to write down $80,000 as the purchase price?”

“Flip it any way you want,” the staffer replied.

What if the place is worth much less — like only $6,000?

“Yup, you can do that.”

Thanks to WQ.

Leftists are having conniptions in the comments, there, insisting the tapes were edited, O'Keefe broke federal laws, should be in prison, etc.

As Mark Twain said, “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

BLAST! I thought that was a Will Rogers quote -- but when I looked it up to get the quote right, everyone on the internet attributed it to Mark Twain.

For what that's worth.

There's some disagreement on that -- Wiki notes that there's no good source to base attributing it to Twain, and some attribute it to Will Rogers.

I don't know who actually said it. I know I thought it was Will Rogers.

Posted by: Ace at 10:41 AM | Comments (137)
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He's not the clean sort of gay guy either:

Not pictured: Snorkeling gear

"God Almighty all that's missing is a trident." -- mpfs, from the comments.

Oh, man. This is about as bad as the Mark Foley thing. Maybe worse, because... There's a lot going on here. Lots of facts to report. This is a big story, guys. Not just because of the unseemly gossipy details, but because Pelosi sat on this for half a year.

Disgraced ex-Rep. Eric Massa insists he never sexually abused anyone, but he filled his Capitol Hill rowhouse with low-paid male staffers in an arrangement ripe for trouble.

"It's like he had people trapped," said a Hill source.

...

At the house on E St. Southeast yesterday, which Massa had shared with five of his staffers, clothes were piled on the floor and half-a-dozen pairs of shoes mingled with dirty towels next to an open pink suitcase in the living room.

...

In hindsight, Democratic insiders wondered about activities that before had just seemed odd. They said Massa hired a surprisingly large percentage of young gay men, and paid them so little that staffers were forced to live in the house with him.

"It's not the gay part that's a problem, it's the abuse, if it's true," said one Hill source.

"The guy's a freak," a close friend of one embattled Massa aide told the Daily News

He insisted on giving dudes massages, which he called, thuddishly, "Massa Massages."

I like totally believe he resigned to protect his family. I am sure is totally devoted to his wife. Wouldn't know how to get along without her.

Well, I mean, apart from living in a nasty spooge-shack with five young dudes.

Guy's like a low-rent Caligula.

The Next Shoe to Drop: Even though most of these guys were victims, I'll bet that someone along the way voluntarily reciprocated Massa's snorkeling excursions.

Which would make him a prostitute, paid for by taxpayers, as all aides are.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (357)
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Is this a surrender? Is this now officially just playing to the leftist base?

Because with 25+ Democrats saying they'll vote No, plus Stupak's 12 or so... right there I think the bill fails, narrowly.

A top House Democrat says the leadership may be able to pass President Barack Obama's health care overhaul without resolving a dispute over abortion.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said Thursday that the leadership will try to secure the necessary 216 votes to pass the bill without reworking the divisive abortion provision.

Waxman says many of the pro-life Democrats will vote for the bill anyway.

But why would they? Not only is it unpopular, but the left is telling them "We'll appease our base in our safe districts, you slit your own throats in order to compromise your principles." The personal reaction there has to be a two-word dismissal.

Meanwhile, the co-chair of the progressive caucus says Obama isn't changing many -- or any -- minds or votes, and a top Obama 2008 campaign aide says Democrats could get "slaughtered" in November -- courtesy of the Democrats' easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey attitude towards corruption:

"I think that there is a real shot we are going to get slaughtered in elections this fall if we aren't leading the efforts to reform Washington," Steve Hildebrand, Obama's deputy national campaign director in 2008, told CNN. "We campaigned in '06 and '08, and if voters don't see that change, we haven't lived up to that promise."

Posted by: Ace at 09:54 AM | Comments (78)
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One of the big problems with pork spending is its 'everyone does it' 't nature. Why should one politician force his constituents to pay for other people's crap when they don't get anything for their money? It's a vicious cycle that's hard to break.

Well today the House GOP took action to do just that.

House Republicans approved a conference-wide moratorium on earmarks on Thursday, one day after a House committee enacted a ban on for-profit earmarks.

The Republicans' moratorium is more extensive than the House Appropriations Committee's ban in that it applies to all earmarks for all members of the caucus.

...House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) hailed the decision in an interview on Fox News.

"Republicans did something very dramatic today that's going to make it very uncomfortable for business as usual," he said. "So now House Republicans are going to the American people and saying we want a clean break from the runaway spending in the past. And that's going to be quite a contrast from this Congress and the administration."

It's hard to get to excited about the actual dollar amount (earmarks in total are about $16 billion in spending) but this is a very big philosophical and political point.

Given their profligate ways while in power Republicans had lost their claim to fiscal conservatism. This action is a good start towards regaining it.

It's also a big victory for the White Power, Tea Party movement. I'm suspicious of people who claim to want to cut spending, usually the mean spending others want, not theirs. The Republicans have put their, well our, money where their mouths are. Hopefully, they will be rewarded at the polls and be embolden to take on the really big ticket spending items.

For now, well done to the House GOP.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:27 AM | Comments (61)
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He just introduced it. This article is from yesterday, looking ahead to it.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) will introduce a bill Thursday calling for the House ethics committee to restart its probe of ex-Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), as Republicans seek to focus attention on what Democratic leaders knew about Massa's behavior and when they knew it.

The resolution -- which should be voted on immediately -- directs the ethics committee "to fully investigate what House Democratic leaders and members of their respective staffs knew prior to March 3, 2010 regarding the allegations concerning former Rep. Eric Massa, and what actions each leader and staffer took after learning of the allegations. The resolution directs the committee to report its findings and recommendations no later than June 30, 2010."

The House ethics committee decided Wednesday to close its probe of Massa, according to sources familiar with the probe, as Massa has resigned and is now beyond the jurisdiction of the committee. But Republicans say that the ethics panel's job is not done.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) was told in October by Joe Racalto, Massa's chief of staff, that the New York lawmaker lived with several young male aides, that he used sexually explicit language with them and that Massa made a potentially inappropriate lunch date with a young aide to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). It is unclear whether any of the information Racalto provided to Pelosi's staffer suggested that Massa broke House rules or warranted an ethics investigation.

A "privileged resolution" gets voted on immediately -- they're voting on it now soon -- but it's expected Democrats will hold firm and vote against it.

Passed! Okay, so Democrats are really worried and didn't want that no vote on their record.

Of course that means there will be an investigation.

Their hope, I guess, is to make it a very thorough report. Very, very thorough. Like "won't be complete until December" thorough.

402-1. A Pennsylvania Dem cast the sole Nay.

Whoops! I got that last vote tally from Fox, which was wrong. (Or people changed their votes.) It's 404-2, and two Republicans -- Rohrbacher and Johnson (of Illinois) -- voted against it.

Not sure why they'd do that. Could be something like: they voted against such a probe in the Foley matter, and feel the need to remain consistent.

Just a guess. I'm having trouble imagining why you'd vote against this.

Corrected Again! Actually, Fox had it right, and I had it right, the first time -- it was 402-1, with the 1 no coming from a Democrat named Fattah, from Pennsylvania.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin.

Posted by: Ace at 09:13 AM | Comments (78)
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And he "forgot" that during his Senate confirmation hearings. Oh well, that's why God gave pencils erasers!

Don't beat yourself up too much about it, Eric. We all forget high-profile amicus briefs we file in the Supreme Court advocating for terrorists. Happens every day.

During his confirmation more than a year ago, Attorney General Eric Holder failed to notify lawmakers he had contributed to a legal brief dealing with the use of federal courts in fighting terrorism, the Justice Department acknowledged on Wednesday.

“The brief should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement. “In preparing thousands of pages for submission, it was unfortunately and inadvertently missed.”

Still, the “amicus brief,” filed with the Supreme Court in 2004, resonates years later as Holder finds himself defending the handling of some recent terrorism cases, particularly the interrogation of alleged “Christmas Day bomber” Umar F. Abdulmutallab.

The brief – filed by Holder, then a private attorney, former Attorney General Janet Reno and two other Clinton-era officials – argued that the President lacks authority to hold Jose Padilla, a U.S citizen declared an “enemy combatant,” indefinitely without charge.

In making their case, Holder and the others argued that using federal courts to fight terrorism, which includes providing Miranda rights to terror suspects, would not “impair” the government’s ability to obtain intelligence, which they called “the primary tool for preventing terrorist attacks.”

...

But the brief did acknowledge a possible risk in such use of the federal court system – a risk, the brief said, that is outweighed by the advantages.

This is the most incompetent and corrupt AG we've ever had.

Posted by: Ace at 08:33 AM | Comments (126)
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