In a previous post I wrote some unkind (note: not ‘inaccurate’) words about Jon Corzine, and how he’s not being especially brave this election cycle. Of course, given that this guy (Rep. Alan Grayson, D-FL) is held up as a standard for speaking-truth-to-power among the Left, maybe that’s not so surprising:

That was taken from a larger clip done by O’Reilly and improved with several stills showing politicians from both parties doing precisely what Alan Grayson is whining that nobody expects him to do: answer questions in the hallway, just as if he was a regular human being and everything. You’d think that a guy who’s trying to make a buck off of his supposed tough-guy image would be eager to appear on a show like O’Reilly and take the fight to Fox; then again, that would assume that you believed that said tough-guy image was actually true to begin with.

No wonder that Central Floridan activists have already created a site dedicated to getting rid of him next year (H/T: the Orlando Sentinel). Normally, this sort of thing waits until there’s an actual candidate for opposition to coalesce around; then again, normally sitting Congressmen don’t call female civil servants ‘K Street whores.’

Moe Lane

PS: You know, Grayson: you weren’t the only person in the universe who was always picked last for dodgeball. It’s just that the rest of us mostly got over it in college.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The video tells the whole story …

Talk about timing:

President Obama offered him some warm words at a Miami fundraiser for the Democratic congressional campaign committees last night.

Obama, in introducing the members of Congress in attendance, called Grayson – along with Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Kendrick Meek – as “outstanding members of Congress.”

This would be the same day that it came out that Alan Grayson went on the Alex Jones show last month - the Alex Jones Show - and called a Treasury staffer a “K Street whore.” This is actually angering more than a few Democrats right now - and if you’re wondering why this resonated when other nastiness didn’t, it may be because K Street in DC is also known for being a hangout for actual prostitutes, which certainly puts a somewhat different complexion on the attack*.  Now Grayson’s behavior, I understand: he’s a darling of the progressive antiwar Left, which means that his casual misogyny is a unexceptional rhetorical flourish to that sort**.  He’ll just scream louder and louder until he gets smacked for it.  But what’s the President’s excuse?

Letting the Teleprompter do his thinking for him again, perhaps?

Moe Lane

*Although Rep. Weiner  - who originally declared Grayson to be a ‘one fry short of a Happy Meal’ - has since changed his tune.

**See here (via Instapundit) for how more and more feminists are reacting to such indulgences.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Alan Grayson is the corpulent congressman from Florida who compared Republican health care policy to the holocaust, thinks the Anti-Defamation League is a “crazy racist hate group” and just yesterday called a female advisor to the Federal Reserve a “whore.”

Today comes word of an even more damning story. A gay couple down in Florida was facing foreclosure. ACORN and Alan Grayson rallied to their cause.

Cheyenne Bowers and his partner David Paxton thought they had gained a valuable ally.

They were in a fight to save their home. He thought a pledge from an eager incoming freshman congressman to help them out through numerous programs might do the trick.

“Expansion of existing federal programs like the FHA loans and the VA loans be more readily available at better terms than we’ve seen up to this point,” said Grayson in December 2008.

The non-profit ACORN along with Grayson invited the media into Bowers and Paxton’s home to talk about fighting the foreclosure crisis, particularly fighting Bowers and Paxton’s foreclosure nightmare.

When the cameras went away, so did Alan Grayson. The foreclosure went through. The couple, in seriously bad health, were put out on the street.

Alan Grayson used the camera exposure to catapult himself into Congress. The irony is that the couple should not have gotten a loan to begin with given their high risk. Grayson, failing to help them, then went to Congress and has championed giving more high risk people loans they cannot pay to begin with.

Go here. Contribute to defeating Alan Grayson. Yes, yes, I know. This is an NRCC website. But unlike the NRSC, I’m not willing to abandon the NRCC, especially since this money will only be used against Alan Grayson. Besides, in the face of a crushing defeat to Scozzafava, we can be a bit magnanimous.

Like many Americans, you may not have heard of Congressman Alan Grayson before he claimed that Republicans, because they oppose government-rationed health care, want sick people to “die quickly.” Not only did Grayson refuse to apologize for this nonsense, he has been raising money hand over fist from left-wingers who place a high value on making the health care debate nastier and more partisan. Although Grayson, who employs left-wing hateblogger Matt Stoller (some samples of Stoller’s work here), did finally have to apologize to the Anti-Defamation League when he compared the GOP’s position on health care to the Holocaust, as a general rule, he is following the path of a child who gets rewarded for acting up: more bad behavior with the expectation of more cookies.

Which brings us to him calling Linda Robertson, a senior advisor to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a “whore”:

Longer video, with the quote starting around 1:50, below the fold:

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Meet Armando Gutierrez. He will be challenging Alan Grayson in Florida’s 8th Congressional District.

RedState endorsed Congressman Tom Rooney in his successful bid for FL-16 and now Tom Rooney is joining Congressman Gus Bilirakis in endorsing Armando Gutierrez.

I’m not endorsing him yet, but I’m intrigued and glad we have a credible candidate. I’m certainly going to be looking at Gutierrez. A number of my good friends whose judgment I trust without reservation are lining up behind him quickly.

Just a quick survey:

1. CA-10 (D+11): David Harmer isn’t quitting this particular special election, and he’s having a bit of fun with the… well, I don’t know what John Garamandi was trying to do here:
   
   …but I hope that he does it again. A lot.
2. FL-08 (R+2): Alan Grayson opened his mouth again; apparently he’s under the impression that there are no such things as recording devices. Or that his constituents like being lied to, in a stupid fashion.
   
   The challenger for this seat is still up in the air (a lot of people want the shot), but the NRCC is happy to spotlight it anyway. Nominee donation fund here.
3. VA-05 (R+5): We have a candidate to go up against Tom Perriello! Virginia state senator Robert Hurt. Perriello is - like Grayson, and oh, about sixty other or Democratic legislators - just a bit too liberal for his seat, and the GOP intends to bring that up. A lot.

So, as you can see: the machine is functional.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D, FL-08) has finally found a line beyond which he is personally not prepared to cross.  While the Congressman may be prepared to lie about Republican intentions on health care, he at least knows enough to realize when he’s gone too far, as his respectful letter describing his ‘regrets’ to the Anti-Defamation League indicates.  Via FoxNews:

Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, who has drawn fire for saying Republicans want Americans to “die quickly” if they get sick, expressed regret Friday for comparing the health care crisis to a “holocaust.”

Grayson vowed not to use the term again in a letter he sent Friday to the Andrew Rosenkranz, Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish organization that fights anti-Semitism.

[snip]

“In no way did I mean to minimize the Holocaust,” Grayson wrote in the letter obtained by FOXNews.com. “I regret the choice of words, and I will not repeat it.”

Again: note how respectful Grayson is being towards the ADL, there.  That’s because he has staff to handle being disrespectful to them.

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…from your last campaign, relax: the Online Left is a soft touch for that sort of thing. Happened with Bob Miller (remember him?); and now it’s happening for Rep. Alan Grayson. I heartily agree with my colleague Brian Faughnan on this one:

I heartily endorse the idea of Democratic donors giving generously to Grayson’s Congressional campaign. It might enable Grayson to repay some of the $2.6 million he loaned his campaign last cycle. And as Grayson’s personal net worth is somewhere north of $31 million, it’s not likely to make a dime’s worth of difference in how much Grayson spends next year, nor on whether he wins or loses. It will however, sop up some donations that might have made a difference in other targeted races.

Tells you something when a candidate doesn’t need an opponent* to get an opposition website, complete with donation page. Tells you something more when Cook upgrades your seat from “Leans Dem” to “Toss-up.”

Moe Lane

PS:

*Keep watching the skies on that one, by the way.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) has no Republican challenger to date, though a number of serious Republicans are thinking of getting in and at least a couple are on the verge of doing so.

The district leans Republican and after Grayson’s latest antics Charlie Cook has moved the race to a tossup without there even being a Republican challenger yet.

It is also worth noting that Grayson is trying to use his holocaust comment, etc. to raise money.

Continuing his descent into insanity, Alan Grayson went back to the floor of the House of Representatives today to apologize for saying Republicans want people to die — oblivious to his own support for euthanasia and abortion on demand.

Instead of apologizing, Grayson said he wanted to apologize to Americans for this “holocaust” in health care.

Grayson, who thinks the Anti-Defamation League is “a crazy racist institution”, can neither see the irony or shame in his statement. The holocaust was real with a real meaning. Roping it into the health care debate cheapens what it was all about.

And what is truly ironic is Grayson champions a system that actually would compel people into terminating their elderly relatives’ lives as the elderly suffer at the back of a rationed health care line withering and dying.

The National Republican Campaign Committee iscollecting money, the sole purpose of which will be to defeat Alan Grayson.

I suggest we all give.

Congressman Tom Price will be offering the following resolution at noon in response to Alan Grayson saying, from the floor of the House, that the Republican health care plan is to not get sick and if you do get sick to “die quickly.” The resolved clause is identical to that the Democrats used against Joe Wilson (R-SC).

Whereas on September 29, 2009, during proceedings on the floor of the House of Representatives, Rep. Alan Grayson from Florida described the Republican health care plan as “die quickly”;

Whereas on September 29, 2009, during Rep. Grayson’s speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, he presented a sign for display, which read, “The Republican Health Care Plan: Die Quickly”;

Whereas on September 29, 2009, Rep. Grayson repeatedly stated that “Republicans’ health care plan” was for Americans to “die quickly”;

Whereas on September 29, 2009, Rep. Grayson concluded his speech by saying, “Remember, the Republican plan: Don’t get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly.”

Whereas the conduct of the Representative from Florida was a breach of decorum and degraded the integrity and proceedings of the House; Now, therefore be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives disapproves of the behavior of the Representative from Florida, Mr. Grayson, during proceedings on the floor of the House of Representatives on September 29, 2009.

[UPDATED by Erick:] The best way to defeat Alan Grayson is to contribute to the NRCC.

Alan Grayson is the Democrat representing Florida’s 8th Congressional District — a Republican district. Alan Grayson sees the writing on the wall. He knows he is going to be out of Congress after 2010, so he’s letting it all ahng out.

Alan Grayson believes the Anti-Defamation League is “a crazy racist institution.”

He also believes the U.S. military is a treasonous organization that will “undermine Obama unless he pursues neoconservative policies.”

He also believes Senator John McCain is a “crazy cancer-ridden dishonest madman.”

And today Alan Grayson took to the floor of the United States House of Representatives to tell us what the Republican health care plan is. According to Grayson, the Republican health care plan is “don’t get sick.” If you do get sick, Grayson says the Republican health care plan is “die quickly.”

More precisely, “If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: DIE QUICKLY. That’s right – the Republicans want you to DIE QUICKLY if you get sick.”

In August, Barack Obama told the nation, including the Democrats, “where we do disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that has actually been proposed.”

Guess Grayson didn’t get the memo.

If you have a radio show, you are going t want to play the audio from this video. The rest of you just watch:

Alan Grayson, who has been hiding from his constituents, decided to do a last minute townhall tonight at a union hall. He waited until the last minute to announce it to anyone other than the unions.

You can get the details here.

The meeting will be at 7:45 p.m. Monday at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 606 Union Hall at 820 Virginia Drive, [Orlando, FL].

Beyond questions about healthcare, our RS Insider — one of our Capitol Hill sources we let blog here — has some questions people should ask Alan Grayson tonight:

Congressman Grayson, do you believe, as your senior policy advisor Matthew Stoller does, that the Anti-Defamation League is “a crazy racist institution”?

Congressman Grayson, do you believe, as your senior policy advisor Matthew Stoller does, that Senator John McCain is “a crazy cancer-ridden dishonest madman”?

Congressman Grayson, do you believe, as your senior policy advisor Matthew Stoller does, that the U.S. military is a treasonous institution that will “undermine Obama unless he pursues neoconservative policies”?

Show up tonight at 820 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL. Ask Congressman Grayson about healthcare and ask him about his senior policy advisor.

Literally.

I’ve read the Constitution several times, but I’ve never seen the part that says that elected officials are allowed to physically assault people who’d like to ask questions. Like, say, about his questionable earmark habits:

Congressman Alan Grayson has had a close relationship with the civil rights group for which he tried to get hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. As WDBO first reported, the freshman Representative requested $350,000 for the Florida Civil Rights Association, despite its history of controversy, and being run by a man the state says is not trustworthy enough to be a bail bondsman.
(H/T: the NRCC)

Finding the constraints demanded by the dignity of the office too much to bear, Rep. Grayson? Because that’s easily fixed.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

The moral of this story?

Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney World when it hit him: What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.

So on Thursday, the Florida Democrat will introduce the Paid Vacation Act — legislation that would be the first to make paid vacation time a requirement under federal law.

Don’t let Congressmen go to Disney World. As Allahpundit put it, “One fun ride on the teacups and they’re ready to lay down a mandate for 300 million people.”  Particularly when we’re in the middle of an economic downturn and a rising unemployment rate - and if you don’t get why either’s important in this context, I suggest that you give Rep. Grayson’s office a call; he may be hiring.

Moe Lane

PS: You know how you know when you’ve said something dumb in this business?  When even a reliably Democrat-friendly media entity like Politico can’t help but snark.  From later on:

So far, no group has come out in opposition of the bill. Nor has anyone announced opposition to roller coaster rides, cookouts on the beach or salt-water taffy on the boardwalk.

You can almost see the Politico ruffling Grayson’s hair and telling him what a big Congressman he’s getting to be, there.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.