Tag: Congress

Posted on

Gay GOP Congressional Candidate Carl DeMaio Has ANOTHER Scandal On His Hands

Yet another scandal is rocking the campaign of Republican US House candidate Carl DeMaio as accusations of secretly authoring a UT San Diego editorial that slammed his opponent, Democratic Rep. Scott Peters have surfaced today.

From NBC 7 in San Diego:

Former DeMaio staffer Todd Bosnich said he and campaign spokesman Dave McCulloch were the authors of an editorial entitled “Scott Peters and the Mount Soledad Shuffle.”

Bosnich accused DeMaio of improper sexual conduct in an interview with CNN on October 10. The DeMaio campaign says Bosnich was fired for plagiarism.

“I worked with Dave on it,” Bosnich said. “So it was, basically, the two of us who wrote it.”

The December 2013 editorial says that “The newly renewed debate over the Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial — and how Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, actually feels about it — isn’t just a tiff over trivia. Instead, it’s a revealing reminder that Peters has a history of being both slippery and in substantive.”

The emails provided to NBC 7 indicate that after the editorial ran, McCulloch reached out to a consultant, other campaign staff and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) boasting that “UT San Diego scorched Peters over the Soledad Cross today, saying ‘Peters has a history of being both slippery and insubstantive’ and that ‘rewriting his own history and ducking responsibility for his actions have always come easy to Scott Peters.’”

In response, Alleigh Marree of the NRCC said: “This is great. Will be able to use these lines A LOT.”

In the email thread provided to NBC 7 Investigates, DeMaio wrote back, “Well, we did wrote (sic) it ourselves.”

William Osborne, editorial/opinion director of UT San Diego, told NBC 7 Investigates that UT San Diego editorial writer Chris Reed wrote the editorial. According to Osborne, the DeMaio campaign claimed the email thread had been fabricated.

“If that email is authentic, I cannot explain it and won’t speculate,” Osborne said. “I can only tell you that Carl DeMaio personally denied to me that he wrote it and said it (the email) was a ‘fabrication.’”

Bosnich said the email thread was not altered in any way, adding that the editorial appeared almost “exactly word for word” as he and McCulloch wrote it.

It’s worth noting that UT Sand Diego has endorsed Carl DeMaio for Congress.

San Diego City Beat reporter Kelly Davis took her thoughts public when she felt she was being stonewalled by the DeMaio campaign:

(via JMG)

Posted on

San Diego: GOP Candidate Carl DeMaio Struggles On Many Campaign Fronts

Openly gay GOP Congressional candidate Carl DeMaio

Gay Republican candidate Carl DeMaio is having troubles with his campaign on more than one front.

First of all, the LGBT community is not fond of him. There has been no “rallying around the gay candidate” in this case. Apparently, he’s very unlikeable and his policies don’t jive with the community.

Second, there’s the current scandal going on right now as he has been accused of sexual harassment of a former staffer. Not the news you want in the headlines just weeks before an election.

And then there’s the issue of a comment he made at a fundraising event where he said if elected he would owe “everything” to the Tea Party.

Three strikes, you’re out Mr. DeMaio.

See the report by NPR below.

Posted on

Florida Rep. David Jolly is the 8th GOP member of Congress to support marriage equality

Freshman GOP Congressman David Jolly of Florida steps up to become the eighth sitting GOP member of Congress to endorse marriage equality.

From the Washington Post:

When asked by The Washington Post whether he supports gay marriage, in light of a Florida judge’s decision last week to overturn the state’s ban, Jolly said that his personal views on marriage are that it should be limited to one man and one woman.

But, he added, states should not be defining the “sanctity” of marriage.

“As a matter of my Christian faith, I believe in traditional marriage,” said Jolly in a statement to The Post. “But as a matter of Constitutional principle I believe in a form of limited government that protects personal liberty. To me, that means that the sanctity of one’s marriage should be defined by their faith and by their church, not by their state.

“Accordingly, I believe it is fully appropriate for a state to recognize both traditional marriage as well as same-sex marriage, and therefore I support the recent decision by a Monroe County Circuit Judge.”

While his support for marriage equality is clearly welcomed, it’s worth noting that he holds traditionally GOP positions on Obamacare, abortion rights, military support for Israel, and gun control.

Also expressing support for same-sex marriage in Washington are GOP Senators Rob Portman, Lisa Murkowski, Mark Kirk and Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Charlie Dent, and Richard Hanna.

Posted on

North Carolina: Clay Aiken looks to have won Dem primary for Congress

American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken looks to have won his primary tonight in North Carolina.

Although the race is tight, North Carolina state law requires a 40% + one vote finish in order to avoid a runoff.

No media outlet has declared a winner at this point, but if the count holds, Aiken appears to have cleared the bar for this race.

Keith Crisco outspent Aiken through his own wealth by a ratio of 3 to 1.

Posted on

Congressional hopeful Clay Aiken stops by The Colbert Report

American Idol runner-up Clay Aiken is currently running for Congress in North Carolina’s 2nd District.

He stopped by to “chat” with Stephen Colbert last night, although Colbert says he was “unwarmed” by Aiken’s thoughts and platform regarding the campaign.

Unable to get Clay to sing the national anthem, Colbert announces the headline “Clay Aiken refuses to sing national anthem” all in good fun. Colbert closed the segment telling the audience to “vote for Clay, if you must!”

Posted on

Rep. Vance McAllister under pressure from Gov. Jindal to resign amid videotape scandal

First term “Christian Values” congressman Vance McAllister is getting more pressure to step down from his congressional seat after video was made public of his “make-out session” with a now-fired staffer.

From CBS News:

Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., called the congressman’s behavior an embarrassment. “Congressman McAllister says he wants privacy to work on his issues with his family. The best way to get privacy and work on putting his family back together is to resign from Congress,” Jindal said.

Meanwhile, state GOP chairman Roger Villere issued a blistering statement calling on McAllister to resign, but so far, the 40-year-old freshman congressman was rejecting the calls for him to immediately give up his seat.

“Mr. McAllister’s extreme hypocrisy is an example of why ordinary people are fed up with politics. A breach of trust of this magnitude can only be rectified by an immediate resignation,” Villere said.

“He has embarrassed our party, our state and the institution of Congress,” the chairman continued.

McAllister made his “Christian values” a central component of his campaign.

Interesting to note that GOP chairman Villere never asked for Sen. David Vitter to resign when it was discovered he had been patronizing prostitutes in 2007.

Posted on

File Under Politically Tone-Deaf – Congressman Says Members of Congress Are Underpaid

Virginia congressman Jim Moran, recently complained to Roll Call that members of Congress are under paid and can’t lively “decently” in Washington DC:

“I think the American people should know that the members of Congress are underpaid,” Moran said. “I understand that it’s widely felt that they underperform, but the fact is that this is the board of directors for the largest economic entity in the world.”

Although congressional salaries have been frozen for three years, this lament will probably fall on deaf ears as members of Congress have a starting pay of $174,000 a year. 

Couple that figure with the fact that Congress currently has historically low public approval, and you really don’t have a recipe for a raise.

Moran doesn’t have much to fear in terms of public retribution though.  He recently announced he will retire from Congress at the end of the year.

Posted on

GOP Rep. Darrell Issa cuts off fellow congressman’s mic and ends committee meeting.

This is one of the more dramatic things I’ve seen in Congress in a long while.

Vis Think Progress:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) sought to silence the ranking Democrat on the Committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), during a hearing on the Internal Revenue Service’s improper targeting of groups applying for tax-exempt status.

On Wednesday, after former IRS official Lois Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination, Issa quickly moved to adjourn the session, saying he could “see no point in going further.” But as Cummings began to ask a procedural question about the issue, the Chairman tried to cut his mic, leaving Cummings to shout from his seat.

Watch below.