Posted on 03/11/2010 7:41:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
House Republicans are pushing hard for an investigation into Speaker Nancy Pelosi's handling of accusations that ex-Rep. Eric Massa sexually harassed a male staffer, putting Democrats in a politically dangerous position.
The House voted 402-1 to refer to the ethics committee a demand put forward by GOP leaders that the panel ask Democratic leaders about how they responded to sexual harassment allegations against Massa.
The move came a day after the ethics panel quietly dropped its probe into Massa, a freshmen New York Democrat. Massa resigned Monday amid allegations he groped male staffers in his office. In interviews Massa said aides had misinterpreted tickling and other horseplay. The ethics panel closed the case because it has no jurisdiction over former members, but the GOP wants the 10-member, bipartisan committee to start a new investigation into the Democratic leadership's handling of the matter.
Pelosi's staff has acknowledged receiving complaints about Massa's behavior as early as October 2009. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., forced Massa to refer the complaint to the ethics committee when he heard about it in February.
"All we do know is there are a continuing stream of press reports which raise questions [about] what was known and when it was known," said House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va.
The vote does not compel the ethics committee to follow through with the Republican resolution, which would have required the panel to open an official investigation. Instead, it merely directs the panel to consider the resolution.
An investigation could be politically devastating if Pelosi is found to have overlooked warning signs about Massa's behavior. Democratic aides have told reporters that Massa's chief of staff informed the speaker's office in October about concerns that Massa was living with five aides in a group home on Capitol Hill and had gone to dinner alone with a junior aide to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. Pelosi aides were made aware of the groping allegations from Hoyer's office in February. Pelosi, though, told reporters last week she only learned of any accusations against Massa on March 3.
Four years ago, the Republican majority watched its poll numbers plummet after media reports disclosed Rep. Mark Foley, a six-term lawmaker from Florida, was pursuing underage male House pages while the GOP leadership did little or nothing to intervene.
Frank said there is no comparing the two cases.
"I believe they will be shown to have done a very appropriate job, which is very different than Mark Foley," Frank said. "Mark Foley had to be broken by the press."
But Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, a former member of the ethics committee, sees similarities to the Foley case, which resulted in an ethics committee report that accused House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and then-Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, of working to conceal the matter.
"The stories this week seem to indicate that at least those questions have been raised about the speaker and the majority leader," LaTourette said.
Please Please Please let this take off like a Rocket.
November is gonna be a blood bath IMHO
402-1!?!?!?!. Think maybe some Dems are unhappy with Nasty Nan?
I thought she was going to have the most ethical Congress in History. Can I stop laughing now?
Pass the Popcorn.
Betcha Barney Frank was the lone vote opposed
an ethics committee report that accused House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and then-Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, of working to conceal the matter.So why is John Boehner still the House Republican cacus leader?
It looks like Pelosi’s botox has run out.
an ethics committee report that accused House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and then-Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, of working to conceal the matter.So why is John Boehner still the House Republican caucus leader?
Well she sure is a swamp queen isn’t she...She hasn’t drained anything ethically...She’ll blame her aides for not telling her about the problem...What a hag!!!
The dems keep self destructing......Get some Pop Corn..Novemver is going to be great.....
I hope they take her gavel away from her.
She needs to beaten severelly (sp) with it. She has caused much pain and suffering to a lot of people.
I just had to get that detail in there.
Because the whole Foley thing was a sham and Boehner had nothing to do with it.
I so agree.
The least ethical congress in history is the result.
Is that good politics for a party that wants to maximize the number of seats it holds?
This is a very interesting development.
At first I thought it was really a display of how the rank-and-file Rats have reached the point of desperation where they know they’ve got to play the Chicago Way: the President is pushing them off a plank, you hit back twice as hard, undermine him and his leadership anyway you can.
Now I also think it’s a sign that the Rat rank-and-file may in fact be ticked off with Pelosi for putting them in a position where someone like Massa might have to be pushed out at the last minute, and then be “sick” enough to make a debacle of it by going on Glenn Beck, etc. IOW, they are screaming, “What the hell were you thinking, Pelosi, keeping this ticking timebomb of a cretin around as long as you did?”
Then again this vote for an investigation could just be a CYA move and the Rats will figure out a way to make it all go away quietly anyway.
Frog March to the max!
What in the world?
I think “holding seats” was the problem to begin with. (Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.)
It seems it sure was good politics to lie about the whole mess, trash Foley, and separate gullible conservatives from the the GOP leadership so Gay San Francisco could control the Speaker’s gavel for the next 4 years.
I agree.
Barney really hates the idea of a Democrat getting kicked out for being gay. That’s only supposed to happen to REpublicans.
Thank you.
And may I add John Boehner has kicked a lot of Rat butt this year and I think we all ought to give him credit for that.
Fully agree.
There ya go, bringing facts into the analysis. /s
So, who’s going to bring a hearing? The botox company? Are they deemed evil yet? They’re big pharma, I suppose...... Oops, the dems support them, they’re ‘little’ pharma until nancy crokes.
bttt
It is a non confrontal vote that they can all get away with. Simply shows what they truly think of her.
Hmmmm, wonder what she is thinking tonight?
Murtha Calls Pelosi's Ethics Bill "Total Crap."
Related article:
Of course, that’s why Massa is angry, he knows they would have kept him in power if they had his vote. They only pushed him out when he stood in their way.
LOL! What a crazy poofter Massa is.
On orders of the Democrats, and maybe specifically by Nancy Pelosi?
-PJ
Speaker Pelosi's Ethics (2007):
Ethics in politics is not the same as ethics in real life. Ethics in politics is a martial art. The biggest mistake you can make is thinking that the ethics package proposed by new Speaker Nancy Pelosi is mainly about "cleaning up" politics. Maybe. But it's first of all about cleaning the clocks of the Republicans.
Ding, dong the witch is dead!
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding, dong the wicked witch is dead!
Yeah. I’ll go with that.
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Think about it, think about no Free Republic, think, Dan Rather's GW fake report. Think about the lack of conservative media. Think about no alternative media. Think about only ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS....
Think about it.... THEN THINK.....
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We're out here debunking this crap daily. We are the revolution! And normal people are finding us! Keep it up, the government hates us because we're the TRUTH! We are exposing them.
Pass it on.
Conservativism is truth.
.
LOL!
Excellent potlatch
I thought she was going to have the most ethical Congress in History.
To her, it is ethical.
then I’d hate to see unethical.
It means they all know that it will be consigned to the dustbin, only to be looked at again, if at all, after the elections of later in the year.
Who said “no?”
Thanks devolve. Yeah, I like that one.
Heading off for the night.
Nothing will happen. She was dead-to-rights guilty of lying aobut what she knew and finally when she knew about the waterboarding authorizations last spring. Nothing happened, nothing will.
The vote was a sham attempt to redeem the rats.
Good!
then I’d hate to see unethical.
We see only the tip of the iceberg.
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