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Posts Tagged ‘Inappropriate Comments’

All Out Media Assault on Eric Massa as Beck Interview Approaches

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Former Democratic House Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) Is Under All-Out Assault from the Establishment Media Today

As the hours count down until Glenn Beck uses his 3-4 million viewer platform today to amplify now-resigned Democratic House Rep. Eric Massa’s (D-NY) sensational claims that the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress forced him out of Congress over his opposition to Obamacare, the left-leaning establishment media is engaging in all-out effort to completely destroy Eric Massa in the eyes of the public.   A common beneficiary of Obama White House and Congressional Democratic leaks, the Washington Post, has just gone up with a new story alleging that Massa is under investigation for “groping” several male staffers:

Former Rep. Eric Massa has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the probe.

The allegations surrounding the New York Democrat date back at least a year, and involve “a pattern of behavior and physical harassment,” according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

Massa had said that the allegations were limited to his use of “salty language” with his staff. He apologized for making some inappropriate comments and argued he was being unfairly villified. Days later, Massa accused the White House and Democratic congressional leaders of trying to oust him from office to improve their chances of passing health care reform legislation. Massa could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and no one answered the phone at his home in New York or his campaign office. Staff at his former congressional offices declined to relay messages to him and said they did not know how to reach him.

CNN and MSNBC have been keeping up a steady hourly diet of attacks on Eric Massa all day long, at times asserting he is simply crazy, had “snapped” from the pressure, was “silly” or “ridiculous” or was just lying about the Obama Administration and Congressional Democratic leadership just to save his own skin. Considering Massa was fully embraced by such left-leaning media outlets in the recent past, the latest harsh, anonymously-sourced attacks are all the more jarring. The leaks from Democratic sources on the House Ethics Committee or perhaps the White House, published at 2:49PM today, up the ante somewhat as they attempt to paint Massa as a serial sexual harasser of male staffers based on anonymous sources. All told, the mainstream media appears to be reading directly from White House talking points on Massa, as repeated again by the Washington Post in today’s article:

Also on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed Massa’s charges of a conspiracy to force him from office as “silly and ridiculous” in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America. He urged looking at Massa’s erratic and changing statements about why he was resigning office.

“Last week, he, on Wednesday, was having a recurrence of cancer. On Thursday, he was guilty of using salty language. On Friday, we learned he’s before the Ethics Committee to be investigated on charges of sexual harassment,”Gibbs said. “So, look, I think, clearly, his actions appear to be in the appropriate venue in the Ethics Committees to look at, but we’re focused not on crazy allegations but instead on making this system work for the American people rather than work for insurance companies.”

It is unusual for specific details of Congressional ethics investigations to be leaked so widely, especially in seeming direct, immediate response to the member’s public comments, as the leaks to the Washington Post appear to be in response to Massa’s comments yesterday. Regardless, today’s interview on Glenn Beck’s show is certain to drive the news cycle this evening and perhaps into tomorrow as the Obama Administration and Congressional Democratic leadership struggle to find the votes to push Obamacare through Congress before the Easter recess.

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Massa Disasta: Obama and Pelosi Force Massa’s Resignation Over Obamacare; UPDATE: Says Hoyer is Liar; UPDATE#2: Massa on Beck Tomorrow For Full Hour

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Democratic House Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) is blaming the White House for forcing his ouster from the House of Representatives, creating a new Obamacare scandal: the "Massa Disasta"

In a shocking claim made this morning on a New York radio station, Democratic House Representative Eric Massa (D-NY) pointed to the White House and Democratic House Leadership as engineering his demise, essentially forcing him out because of his opposition to Obamacare.   Politico quotes Massa:

Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) says the House ethics committee is investigating him for inappropriate comments he made to a male staffer on New Year’s Eve — and that he’s the victim of a power play by Democratic leaders who want him out of Congress because he’s a “no” vote on health care reform.

“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill,” Massa, who on Friday announced his intention to resign, said during a long monologue on radio station WKPQ. “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’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots.”

Massa’s claims this morning, as reported by Roll Call that his ouster was “orchestrated by Democratic leaders to get him out of office before the health care vote”, will likely lead news reports on cable during the day today.   One especially newsy soundbite from Massa was his claim that:

“Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn…He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote.”

The “Massa Disasta” is unwelcome news for the Obama Administration, which is already struggling to remedy prior questionable process actions regarding Obamacare, such as the Louisiana Purchase, Obama’s appointment of undecided Dem. Rep. Matheson’s brother to a federal judgeship and Cornhusker Kickback.   Now, the “Massa Disasta” will take its place amongst the process scandals surrounding Obamacare as America begins the final days before the all-important House vote on the Senate health care bill.

UPDATE:  Ed at Hotair links over, thanks for the link Ed.   Ed points to an interesting piece by the Washington Examiner on the Massa Disasta which is a good read.   So far, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS are engaging in a news blackout on this story, we’ll see how things develop during the day.

Some “interesting” quotes from Massa also from the same NY radio station tape, which now is, of course, a dead link, courtesy of the Washington Examiner and Roll Call:

Roll Call reports this morning that on the local radio show he hosts in his district, Massa said he had not been informed of the sexual harassment allegations before they became public. He claimed that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., spoke falsely when he said he had brought the matter to him previously, Massa said. “Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me, at all, ever, not once,” Massa said. “Not a word. This is a lie. It’s a blatant, false statement.”

He also railed against Hoyer for discussing Ethics Committee business with the press. “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.”

Directly calling our your Majority Leader as a liar is a pretty substantial claim by a House member, and these comments are also bringing to the fore the dislike of Rahm Emanuel amongst rank and file House Dem members. Some other choice quotes from Massa this morning regarding Rahm Emanuel, from Realclearpolitics:

Rep. Massa describes a confrontation with Emanuel in a shower: “I am 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.”


UPDATE#2: Ben Smith reports on Glenn Beck’s tweet that Massa will be on for full hour on his 5PM show tomorrow. Expect fireworks:

Tomorrow at five: congressman Massa for the full hour. I just spoke with him off air. All Americans need To hear him. Exclusive 2morrow fox

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Obama’s Islamic Envoy Admits Prior Support For Convicted Terrorism Supporter “Ill-Conceived” or “Not Well-Formulated”; 2004 Transcript Confirms Hussain As Close Friend of Al-Arian Family. UPDATE: Audio of Hussain 2004 Comments on Al-Arian Added

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Obama's new pick for chief envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Countries ("OIC"), Harvard-educated attorney Rashad Hussain, is coming under fire late Friday evening for comments he made in 2004 claiming that the case against convicted terror supporter Professor Sami Al-Arian was part of a pattern of Bush-era terror prosecutions that Hussain claimed were "politically motivated prosecutions"

In a dramatic reversal late on Friday evening, the White House admitted that newly minted Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) US envoy, Rashad Hussain, made inappropriate comments in support of convicted terrorist supporter Sami Al-Arian. Politico notes the reversal:

President Barack Obama’s new Islamic envoy, Rashad Hussain, changed course Friday – admitting he made sharply critical statements about a U.S. terror prosecution against a Muslim professor after initially saying he had no recollection of making such comments.

“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said, referring to a 2004 conference where he discussed the case.

Hussain’s reversal came after POLITICO obtained a recording of his presentation to a Muslim students’ conference in Chicago, where he can be heard portraying the government’s cases towards professor Sami Al-Arian, as well as other Muslim terrorism suspects, as “politically motivated persecutions.” Al-Arian later pled guilty to aiding terrorists.

The comments touched off criticism from conservative commentators, who questioned whether someone who held those views should represent the United States in the Muslim world.

Initially, Hussain, 31, said through a White House spokesman that he didn’t recall making the statements. Hussain also suggested that another speaker on the panel, Al-Arian’s daughter Laila, made the comments about her father.

As noted by Politico, the White House and Rashad Hussein before today claimed that newly appointed OIC envoy Hussain did not make statements in support of convicted terror supporter Al-Arian. Indeed, the White House and compliant journalists, like ABC’s Jake Tapper, went so far as to state as fact that the quotes by Hussain in a 2004 article were “misattributed” to him:

In 2006, Al-Arian, a Florida professor, entered into a plea agreement in which he admitted conspiring to help people associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group designated terrorist by the US government in 1995. Al-Arian admitted that he hid his associations with Palestinian Islamic Jihad by lying to some people, and that had been associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad during “the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s.”

Two years before that, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs reported that Hussain called Al-Arian’s case one from a series of “politically motivated persecutions” and that the case against Al-Arian was being “used politically to squash dissent.”

But that report was apparently erroneous. Hussein denies being the one who made the comments, and the editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Delinda Hanley, later edited the quotes out of the story because, she says, Al-Arian’s daughter, Laila Al-Arian, actually made the comments attributed to Hussain.

ABC’s Jake Tapper, seen by many as the most independent and objective reporter in the White House News Corps, strongly pushed the Obama Administration’s talking points that the attribution of the damaging, terror sympathizer supporting comments to Hussain “was apparently erroneous” as the 2004 Washington Report article reporting them had been “edited” to remove the Hussain quotes. Sadly, Tapper, and the rest of the mainstream media, tonight failed to clearly correct their prior, false reporting but instead just edit out the offending passages, as Tapper’s article linked above no longer includes the phrase “apparently erroneous.” Prior to this evening, the left wing new media, as epitomized by Media Matters, a site that is funded by Democratic partisans, actually smeared other media sources who were questioning Hussain’s prior denials by trumpeting the White House and Tapper’s false claim that the Hussain quotes were “apparently erroneous.”

The only reason it appears Hussain, the mainstream media and the White House reversed course on the “misattribution” talking point is the surfacing of the transcript. It is troubling to this observer that the White House would so overwhelmingly push a clearly false storyline that “controversial remarks defending Al-Arian two years earlier were made by his daughter — not by Hussain” for several days and only cease such fraudulent activity when being presented with a transcript of the remarks as made by Hussain. A highly disturbing revelation from tonight’s Politico report is that Hussain himself made the call to the Washington Report last year to demand his quotes be removed from the 2004 article, despite the fact that Hussain admits making the statements:

Hussain also answered another question surrounding his comments – why they were removed from the website of a magazine on Middle East issues that published a brief account of the panel back in 2004, attributing the statement about “politically motivated persecutions” to Hussain.

It was Hussain himself, he said Friday, who contacted the publication to complain about the story.

“When I saw the article that attributed comments to me without context, leaving a misimpression, I contacted the publication to raise concerns about it. Eventually, of their own accord, they modified the article,” Hussain said of the article in the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs.

Obviously, as Hussain himself was calling the Washington Report last year regarding his quotes in a 2004 article, Hussain, and the White House, were well aware that Hussain made the controversial comments at the Muslim Students Association conference in 2004, and not Al-Arian’s daughter as the White House has been claiming since this story broke early this week until tonight’s reversal.

Many conservatives and moderates are pointing out that the Obama Administration cannot not have key officials, like new OIC envoy Hussain, espousing such radical views of U.S. terror prosecutions. This is especially so in a case like Al-Arain’s, which, despite Hussain’s claims that the case against Al-Arain was one of many “political motivated persecutions” by Bush-era anti-terror prosecutors, resulted in a conviction of Al-Arain via guilty plea for material support of terrorism, specifically support of the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad. The Obama Administration apparently has no plans to jettison Hussain:

The White House declined to say Friday whether the statements or the controversy affected Obama’s confidence in Hussain.

The White House is now in a very difficult position as Rashad Hussain has been a key player since Inauguration Day in developing the Obama Administration’s policy on relations with the Islamic World as deputy associate counsel to President Obama, including the a substantial role in the drafting of the Obama Cairo speech and posting lengthy blog posts on the White House site regarding Islamic matters. Furthermore, Hussain has significant backing on the left, not least of which is George Soros’s support. Jettisoning Hussain now could lead to even more political opposition to Obama’s Islamic strategy and could erode the confidence in Obama of moderate Democrat politicians who are continuing to support the Obama Administration’s Islamic policy at present.

Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in tonight’s reporting on Hussain involves a deeper, personal link that Hussain revealed in the newly unearthed transcript of the 2004 comments made at an Muslim Students Association conference at Yale Law School. As noted above, one of the “politically motivated persecutions” railed against by Hussain in 2004 was the case of Professor Sami Al-Arian. Thereafter, Professor Al-Arian plead guilty to a charge of supporting terrorist activity, admitting that he conspired to help Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group, and was closely associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad during “the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s.”

During that period of time, the Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad was engaged in the murder of civilians in Israel and elsewhere, and Al-Arian’s admitted support of such group is unacceptable and abhorrent, and cannot be tolerated by Americans. Hussain himself appears to be a close family friend of the Al-Arian’s, as the 2004 transcript confirms that Hussain was close with Professor Al-Arian’s son, Abdullah Al-Arian:

In his speech, Hussain revealed another link that may have left him sympathetic for Al-Arian. Hussain indicated he was acquainted with Al-Arian’s son Abdullah, while both were college students in North Carolina.

Hussain told the audience that he was on hand when Abdullah Al-Arian was abruptly removed by the Secret Service from a White House meeting in June 2001, prompting a walkout by Muslim leaders. President George W. Bush later apologized for the incident, which a spokesman called “wrong and inappropriate.”

The extent of the relationship between Hussain and the Al-Arian family is sure to come under close scrutiny in the days to come as Hussain attempts to ride out this embarrassing, forced admission and keep his job as Obama’s top Islamic advisor in the years to come.  Convicted terrorism supporter Professor Al-Arian’s family appears to have fantastic connections with the left wing media and Democrat Party, as son Abdullah Al-Arian interned for Democrat House Member David Bonior in 2001 while daughter Laila Al-Arian works for Al-Jezerra in DC and is warmly embraced by left wing new media.

The fervor over the flip-flop by the Obama Administration on whether Hussain made the 2004 comments, as well as over the extent of Hussain’s relationship with the Al-Arian family (as such family includes one convicted terror supporter, Sami Al-Arian), could continue into next week.  The political heat on this matter may end up costing Hussain his new job as the chief Islamic envoy as many conservatives and moderates could object to the concept of a convicted Islamic terrorism supporter’s family friend being the United States’ chief Islamic envoy and call upon Obama to fire Hussain or at least ask him to resign.

UPDATE:  Powerline links over, thanks for the link guys, welcome to Powerline readers.   By way of substantive update, go here for Politico’s audio tape of Hussain’s 2004 comments in support of Al-Arian

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