{"id":411853,"date":"2010-03-10T12:33:01","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T17:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/?p=32370"},"modified":"2010-03-10T12:33:01","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T17:33:01","slug":"shower-room-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/411853","title":{"rendered":"Shower Room Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_32371\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 198px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-32371 \" style=\"margin-right:5px;\" title=\"FormerRep.EricMassa2010-03-10-chronicle\" src=\"http:\/\/papundits.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/formerrep-ericmassa2010-03-10-chronicle.jpg?w=188&#038;h=266\" alt=\"\" width=\"188\" height=\"266\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former Rep. Eric Massa<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong><a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/patriotpost.us\/\" >The Patriot Post<\/a> Chronicle<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The Foundation<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State  than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men  of unexceptionable characters.&#8221; &#8211;Samuel Adams<\/p>\n<h2>The Demo-gogues<\/h2>\n<p>Political bathhouse: &#8220;I was in the congressional gym, and I went into  the showers which, by the way, I for the life of me can&#8217;t figure out  why they took all the shower curtains off the shower stalls in the  congressional shower. The last thing I want to look at is my fellow  colleagues naked, but they don&#8217;t have shower curtains down in the gym,  and I&#8217;m sitting there showering naked as a jaybird and here comes Rahm  Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger  in my chest yelling at me because I wasn&#8217;t going to vote for the  president&#8217;s budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political  argument with a naked man?&#8221; &#8211;former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), who is  accused of sexually harassing male staffers and resigned Monday<\/p>\n<p>More accusations: &#8220;Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil&#8217;s spawn. He is an  individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his  children to the front end of a steam locomotive.&#8221; &#8211;Eric Massa\u00a0\u00a0 &#8230;\u00a0\u00a0 <span id=\"more-32370\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Changing the tune: &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t forced out. I forced myself out.&#8221;  &#8211;Massa on Tuesday night<\/p>\n<p>Non Compos Mentis: &#8220;[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find  out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.&#8221; &#8211;House  Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), confirming that too much Botox can kill  brain cells\u00a0\u00a0 &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Tell a lie often enough: &#8220;Health insurance reform is about jobs. This  legislation alone will create 4 million jobs.&#8221; &#8211;Pelosi, repeating her  lie from the summit<\/p>\n<p>Changing the climate: &#8220;What we have to do is go on the offensive.  [The science on climate change] has been maligned and misinterpreted,  and we need to fight back&#8230; [P]eople [need to] stop being moved by  these talk show [hosts] and start looking for the facts themselves.&#8221;  &#8211;Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s all about jobs: &#8220;What we are talking about is a jobs bill. It is  not a climate bill. It is a jobs bill, and it is a clean air bill. It  is a national security, energy independence bill.&#8221; &#8211;John Kerry on  cap-n-tax<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[E]very decision, every debate, no matter how important it is, with  the same question: &#8216;What does this mean for the next election? What does  it mean for your poll numbers? Is this good for the Democrats or good  for the Republicans? Who won the news cycle?&#8217; That&#8217;s just how Washington  is. They can&#8217;t help it. They&#8217;re obsessed with the sport of politics.&#8221;  &#8211;Barack Obama, who isn&#8217;t a bit different<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs  today, which is really good.&#8221; &#8211;Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (<em>See  the <a href=\"http:\/\/patriotpost.us\/perspective\/2010\/03\/05\/only-36000-lost-their-jobs-today\/\" >video<\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<h2>Editorial Exegesis<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;The strange case of New York Democrat Eric Massa keeps getting  stranger. Rep. Massa resigned last week under a cloud of ethics charges,  but he now claims he was pushed out for opposing health care reform.  Massa claims he&#8217;s being investigated by the House Ethics Committee on  trumped-up charges that he sexually harassed a male aide. If true, it  shows the White House and Congress are indeed being run the &#8216;Chicago  Way&#8217; &#8212; with bluster, threats and even physical intimidation. Wasn&#8217;t  this administration supposed to be different? Let&#8217;s be clear: We don&#8217;t  know for sure the White House did anything illegal. But if any of  Massa&#8217;s claims is true, it speaks volumes about the thuggery of an  administration desperately trying to pass its wildly unpopular health  care bill. For his part, Massa says Obama aide Rahm Emanuel went  ballistic when he dared to vote against ObamaCare last November. With  health care hanging by a string, Emanuel and the House leadership  bullied him into resigning last Wednesday, Massa now claims. &#8216;Mine is  now the deciding vote on the health care bill,&#8217; the one-term congressman  told radio station WKPQ Sunday. &#8216;And this administration and this House  leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass  this health care bill. And now they&#8217;ve gotten rid of me, and it will  pass. You connect the dots.&#8217; &#8230; White House and House Democratic  leaders have all issued denials. So, for now, the political row has a  &#8216;he said-she said&#8217; quality. But if what Massa says is even partly true,  and it certainly seems plausible, this is gangsta politics,  Chicago-style &#8212; a case of political bullies making an example of  someone to get others to fall into line. Al Capone would be proud.&#8221; &#8211;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.investors.com\/NewsAndAnalysis\/Article.aspx?id=525752\" >Investor&#8217;s  Business Daily<\/a><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/papundits.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/2010-03-10-chronicle-cartoon.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-32372\" title=\"2010-03-10-chronicle-cartoon\" src=\"http:\/\/papundits.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/2010-03-10-chronicle-cartoon.jpg?w=475&#038;h=360\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<h2>Upright<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;The more we come to rely on government, the fewer freedoms we will  enjoy. Government will start dictating what we can own, eat and drive,  how much of our money they will let us keep, how we run our businesses,  how many &#8212; if any &#8212; guns we can own, and what we may and may not say.  Oh, wait! They are already doing that. To preserve freedom we must fight  for it.&#8221; &#8211;columnist Cal Thomas<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;True rights, such as those in our Constitution, or those considered  to be natural or human rights, exist simultaneously among people. That  means exercise of a right by one person does not diminish those held by  another.&#8221; &#8211;economist Walter E. Williams<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With their backs to the wall, Democratic leaders are preparing a  complicated plan to pass their national health care bill. Standing in  the way are Democrats who oppose the bill, whether on principle or out  of fear that voting for a wildly unpopular measure will spell defeat for  them in November. If you think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is going to  let them off easy, allowing them to kill the party&#8217;s top policy priority  in more than a generation &#8212; well, that&#8217;s not gonna happen. Democrats  who are considering voting against the bill are about to experience  arm-twisting, threats, and pressure like they&#8217;ve never experienced.&#8221;  &#8211;columnist Byron York<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In my entire career, I have never been as confounded as I am over  President Obama and the Democratic leadership&#8217;s obsession with a piece  of legislation that not one major national poll has shown to be popular.  &#8230; So I have to ask, why are the president and the leaders of Congress  willing to see their entire party and a multitude of other policy  proposals go down in flames over something that the public can&#8217;t stand?  &#8230; Folks, this is nothing more than a power grab. It&#8217;s an effort to  take one of the most essential elements of every person&#8217;s life &#8212; their  health &#8212; and put it under the control of government.&#8221; &#8211;columnist Matt  Towery<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The president cannot show us he is looking out for our interests and  our future by forcing a quick, partisan vote on an issue that will  impact not only this time but generations to come. This is especially  true since he was so adamant in his opposition to using this very  parliamentary measure in governance during his campaign. And he cannot  show us that he is listening when polls show that only 35-40 percent of  Americans support this bill.&#8221; &#8211;radio talk-show host Michael Reagan<\/p>\n<h2>Dezinformatsia<\/h2>\n<p>Delusions from a parallel universe: &#8220;Campaign promises are about  getting elected; once there, they are quickly forgotten. Courage is not a  word you hear very often in discussions about politics. Not Barack  Obama. Whether or not you support or even understand his health care  plan &#8212; and the polls suggest that right now most Americans don&#8217;t &#8212; you  must admit this: Obama is a man who does everything humanly possible to  keep his promises. He promised health care reform, and he is risking  his presidency to deliver it. If that&#8217;s not courage, what is?&#8221;  &#8211;political commentator Susan Estrich (<em>Try blind ideology.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>Oh no! &#8220;Now that we have finally arrived at the do-or-die moment for  Obama&#8217;s signature issue, we face the alarming prospect that his  presidency could be toast if he doesn&#8217;t make good on a year&#8217;s worth of  false starts. And it won&#8217;t even be the opposition&#8217;s fault. If too many  Democrats in the House defect, health care will be dead.&#8221; &#8211;New York  Times columnist Frank Rich<\/p>\n<p>Propaganda FAIL: &#8220;John Patrick Bedell, whom authorities identified as  the gunman in the Pentagon shooting on Thursday, appears to have been a  right-wing extremist with virulent antigovernment feelings.&#8221;  &#8211;Christian Science Monitor staff writer Peter Grier (<em>Oops, Bedell  was a <a href=\"http:\/\/michellemalkin.com\/2010\/03\/05\/about-the-pentagon-shooter\/\" >registered  Democrat<\/a> and an anti-Bush 9\/11 &#8220;truther.&#8221;<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>Rather racist: &#8220;One, part of the undertow in the coming election is  going to be President Obama&#8217;s leadership. And the Republicans will make a  case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. &#8216;Listen he just  hasn&#8217;t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one  priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise  it to death.&#8217; And a version of, &#8216;Listen he&#8217;s a nice person, he&#8217;s very  articulate&#8217; &#8212; this is what&#8217;s been used against him &#8212; &#8216;but he couldn&#8217;t  sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the  traffic.&#8217;&#8221; &#8211;HDNet&#8217;s Dan Rather trying to put words in Republicans&#8217;  mouths<\/p>\n<p><!-- [ADV|PromoNews] --><strong>Newspulper Headlines:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now All We Have Left Is Change: &#8220;Closure of Hope Plant to Cost 50-60  Jobs&#8221; &#8211;Associated Press<\/p>\n<p>We Blame Global Warming: &#8220;Obama Turns Up Heat for Health Care  Overhaul Plan&#8221; &#8211;Associated Press<\/p>\n<p>Wide Ends, Poor Hardest Hit: &#8220;Obesity Hits New York&#8217;s Poor  Neighborhoods Hardest&#8221; &#8211;Reuters<\/p>\n<p>Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control: &#8220;Subprime Mortgage  Crisis Hits Whorehouses&#8221; &#8211;Human Events<\/p>\n<p>Bottom Stories of the Day: &#8220;Gore Still Hot on His Doomsday Rhetoric&#8221;  &#8211;Boston Globe<\/p>\n<p>(Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/best_of_the_web_today.html\" >The Wall  Street Journal&#8217;s James Taranto<\/a>)<\/p>\n<h2>Village Idiots<\/h2>\n<p>You don&#8217;t say: &#8220;I have thus far failed, and our world has thus fair  failed to respond adequately to this crisis.&#8221; &#8211;Algore on his efforts to  educate the world about climate change<\/p>\n<p>Unsolicited advice: &#8220;I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm  Emanuel as your chief of staff. I would like to humbly offer myself,  yours truly, as his replacement. I will come to D.C. and clean up the  mess that&#8217;s been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will  help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them  how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp. And I will help you  get done what the American people sent you there to do.&#8221; &#8211;from an open  letter to BO from crockumentarian Michael Moore<\/p>\n<p>Useful idiot: &#8220;Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator  here, and we just accept it, and accept it. &#8230; [T]ruly, there should be  a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.&#8221; &#8211;actor  Sean Penn on his buddy Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan dictator (<em>No wonder  they get along so well!<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>In need of remedial history: &#8220;Back in World War II, we viewed the  Japanese as &#8216;yellow, slant-eyed dogs&#8217; that believed in different gods.  They were out to kill us because our way of living was different. We, in  turn, wanted to annihilate them because they were different. Does that  sound familiar, by any chance, to what&#8217;s going on today?&#8221; &#8211;actor Tom  Hanks promoting his upcoming HBO miniseries &#8220;The Pacific&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Somehow not comforting: &#8220;Believe me, if we were charting this  administration as a political exercise, the first thing we would have  done would not have been a massive recovery act, stabilizing the banks  and helping to keep the auto companies from collapsing. Those would not  even be the first hundred things he would want to do.&#8221; &#8211;White House  adviser David Axelrod<\/p>\n<p><!-- [ADV|RRRendezvous] --><\/p>\n<h2>Short Cuts<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;Nancy Pelosi, the speaker and leader of the San Francisco Democrats,  says her members &#8216;are very excited about what comes next.&#8217; For many of  them, that&#8217;s &#8216;excited&#8217; as in &#8216;hysterical.&#8217;&#8221; &#8211;Washington Times editor  emeritus Wesley Pruden<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So there was President Obama giving his bazillionth speech on health  care, droning yet again that &#8216;now is the hour when we must seize the  moment,&#8217; the same moment he&#8217;s been seizing every day of the week for the  past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would  look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.&#8221; &#8211;columnist  Mark Steyn<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;President Obama met with ten House Democrats opposed to the health  care bill. He did all he could to get their votes. He promised to  campaign for them in their districts and when that didn&#8217;t work, he  threatened to campaign for them in their districts.&#8221; &#8211;comedian Argus  Hamilton<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These self-anointed intellectuals are people who think that those  who believe in God and Jesus Christ, those who &#8216;cling to their guns and  their religion,&#8217; are a lower form of animal life, while they,  themselves, have no problem whatever accepting Obama as a messiah and,  in the past, deifying the likes of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Let&#8217;s  face it, when you kneel in a church, you&#8217;re accepting that there is  something greater and wiser than yourself in the universe. When, on the  other hand, you kneel to a left-wing politician, you&#8217;re merely emulating  Monica Lewinsky.&#8221; &#8211;columnist Burt Prelutsky<\/p>\n<p>Read more excellent articles at <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/patriotpost.us\/\" >The Patriot Post<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Filed under: <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/111th-congress\/'>111th Congress<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/politics\/democrats\/barry-soetoro-aka-barack-hussein-obama\/'>Barry Soetoro (aka Barack Hussein Obama)<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/environment\/climate-change-environment\/'>Climate Change<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/politics\/democrats\/demo-gogues-democrats-politics\/'>Demo-gogues<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/politics\/democrats\/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi\/'>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/category\/news-and-views\/'>News and Views<\/a> Tagged: <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/sen-john-kerry-d-ma\/'>-Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/annie\/'>Annie<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/congressional-gym\/'>congressional gym<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/jobs-bill\/'>Jobs Bill<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/naked\/'>naked<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/political-bathhouse\/'>Political bathhouse<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/rahm-emanuel\/'>Rahm Emanuel<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/rep-eric-massa-d-ny\/'>Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY)<\/a>, <a href='http:\/\/papundits.wordpress.com\/tag\/the-patriot-post\/'>The Patriot Post<\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gocomments\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/comments\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/godelicious\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/delicious\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gostumble\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/stumble\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/godigg\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/digg\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\" \/><\/a> <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/goreddit\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/reddit\/papundits.wordpress.com\/32370\/\" \/><\/a> <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=papundits.wordpress.com&#038;blog=174708&#038;post=32370&#038;subd=papundits&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Rep. Eric Massa The Patriot Post Chronicle The Foundation &#8220;Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.&#8221; &#8211;Samuel Adams The Demo-gogues Political bathhouse: &#8220;I was in the congressional gym, and I went into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}