Republicans against Patrick McHenry

At a Lincolntown town hall, Patrick McHenry recently revealed he’s a “birther“: someone firmly convinced that Barack Obama is not a U.S. Citizen. Many Republicans are embarrassed to be associated with these conspiracy theorists, who have (in many cases in many different ways) tried to prove Barack Obama, largely because he’s black, is not a citizen. In the meeting, according to the Charlotte Observer:

McHenry declined to affirm Obama’s citizenship, instead saying: “I haven’t seen evidence one way or the other.”

Right, because over 8 court cases and a publicly available document isn’t enough? Sure, we here at RAPMcH might not like Obama, but that doesn’t mean we should make ourselves look like fools claiming that all black people are born in Africa (What’s next, “The Jews run the Government”?). Of course, showing textbook hypocrisy, McHenry has kinda-sorta (not) rescinded his statement, except even The Washington Independent is making fun of it.

Let’s face it: If Patrick McHenry cannot even choose a side on a simple debate, he has no place in Congress. He’s clearly more interested in winning favor with insane “birthers”, the embarrassment of the Republican party, than actually being thoughtful and logical. And you wonder why this website exists?

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From the Hickory Daily Record:

THUMBS DOWN to Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-10th District) for opposing spending federal dollars to help North Carolina families, schools and businesses prepare for the potential outbreak of the H1N1 flu. The H1N1 Flu Preparedness Summit held this week was a reminder of McHenry’s just say no approach to preparing for the pandemic. Despite 255 confirmed and probable cases in North Carolina of H1N1 flu already, and with many scientists predicting a second wave of the pandemic in the coming months, McHenry joined fellow Republicans in opposing money to prepare for the worst case. We think it is clear that early planning is the best weapon against an H1N1 flu outbreak. Earlier this year, McHenry opposed the Supplemental Appropriations Bill, which invests $2 billion to help the government fight the current H1N1 outbreak and to allow for further pandemic flu preparedness and response capacity. History tells us there will be another flu pandemic. It is already past due, according to many scientists. This is why we are perplexed by McHenry’s no votes.

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According to the Statesville Record & Landmark, Patrick McHenry is having a hard time keeping afloat financially, and is begging his e-mail list for donations:

According to the most recent report McHenry filed with the Federal Election Commission, his campaign has $71,501 of cash on hand. But its debt is listed as $265,000.

[...] “I need to raise $25,000 over the next 24 hours to send a strong message to the Democrats,” McHenry’s e-mail reads.

McHenry needs money not because he’s “fighting democrats”- in fact, he needs money because he spends excessively, including, but not limited to, $700 concert tickets and $4,000 meals. Despite his debt, he also managed to spend over $70,000 in donations to various party needs, which generally means he “loaned” other campaigns money. Patrick McHenry, in the last time we’ve checked, had spent over $10,000 on the Capitol Hill Club, a ritzy club in DC that has nothing do to with his campaign.

Why does Patrick McHenry need money? Because he spent it all!

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Surprise, surprise: Politics, to Patrick McHenry, is not about running a good government, benefitting the 10th District, or even following good Constitutional law- it’s all about approval ratings. His goal for these next two years?

“Our goal is to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint.”McHenry’s spokesperson, Brock McCleary, tells me his boss is standing by the quote.

- Source

Congrats, 10th District! You just lost a Congressman and gained an attack dog!

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Looks like Patrick McHenry has some explaining to do. In a recent self-promoting flyer he sent out to constituents (costing an insane amount of tax dollars for absolutely no purpose other than to promote an already elected official), McHenry claimed that he obtained $1.5 million dollars in federal funding for a “drug surveillance program based in Lincoln County.”

According to Lincoln County Sheriff Tim Daugherty, no such program exists. You read that correctly: even the sheriff of Lincoln County is coming out against McHenry. In fact, Tim Daughterty never knew about such an amount- instead, it went to some of McHenry’s buddies as a “Defense Contract”.

In fact, the money will never be used in any way to battle illegal drugs in Lincoln County – or the United States for that matter.
The $1.2 million was never even sent to a local agency.
It went to a Catawba County company, IOMAX, USA, in the form of a Department of Defense contract. (See related story, page 1)

Of course, McHenry staffers are pretending it never happened. Because he hasn’t done THAT before.

Baffled by the claim, the sheriff’s office called McHenry’s office in Washington and a staffer named “Alexis” said she “didn’t have a clue” about the $1.2 million claim, according to the sheriff.
Alexis Rudakewych is a legislative assistant to McHenry.
Sometime later Rudakewych called Daugherty’s office back and said the $1.5 million actually was obtained at the request of Sen. Richard Burr, R-NC, but McHenry signed onto the spending bill as a cosponsor.

So after Rudakewych was caught in a deliberate lie, she comes back and says that McHenry had no part in it!

The truth is the money never went anywhere near Lincoln County- rather, it is being spent to monitor cell phone conversations to possibly maybe sorta figure out what people are doing in poppy fields in Afghanistan. The money never intended to protect Lincoln County, nor anywhere else- it was just going to a techie group to listen to Afghani conversations.

Fighting drugs in Afghanistan is one thing, but battling them in Lincoln County is another, says Sheriff Daugherty.
“If they really wanted to make an impact why didn’t they make the money available to Dean (Abernethy, chief of the Lincolnton Police Department) and me?” said Sheriff Daugherty.

Relevant Articles:

Sheriff Daugherty Says Rep. McHenry Lied About $1.5 Million in Funding For Drug Fight

Patrick McHenry’s Deliberate Deception

Little-Known Local Company Gets Millions in Defense Department Contracts

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McHenry, in another perfect example of his sleezy ways, had to carefully dodge some heavy questions- not by fellow politicians, but by Highschool students.

The toughest questions came from junior Ben Napper.

When the 16-year-old asked McHenry how he would deal with what Ben said was the probable outcome of next month’s election — a Democratic sweep of the White House and both chambers of congress, McHenry jokingly tried to step on the boy’s toes.

“How are you going to work with that kind of situation?” Ben asked.

“You have to work with who the American people elected,” McHenry answered when the fake toe-stomping subsided. “And sometimes that’s better than other times.”

Ben then got even tougher, asking McHenry how he felt about non-discrimination and equal pay in the workplace.

When McHenry answered he was for equality, Ben asked “Then how do you defend your vote against it?”

The teen was likely referring to two bills McHenry voted against in 2007. The Sexual Orientation Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the Equal Pay Bill.

Too bad, McHenry. Even though the gutless Republicans of the 10th don’t ask the right questions, even Highschool students see through some of your lies.

By the way, how do you intend to “work with who the American People elect” when you keep essentially claiming Pelosi is the Antichrist? That’s not working together, that’s firing from cover while pretending to want to shake hands. Pelosi does deserve some hate, but at the rate you’re going, every Democrat and Republican on Capitol Hill is going to have a Patrick McHenry dartboard before the end of your reign.

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Has anyone else noticed that Patrick McHenry is paying to put Anti-Johnson ads up during repear episodes of What Not To Wear? Is he trying to advertise for political minds or just attract homosexual men?

For those of you who are interested, the airing in which it was shown was the night of the 17th of October, at approximately 11:30 or so- late night. Evidently, a large percentage of McHenry’s voterbase is insomniac gay men with a taste for fashion.

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More information about McHenry’s involvement in the whole economy crisis- you know, other than taking exorbitant amounts of money from banks and now being mysteriously missing to finance hearings:

After viewing Patrick McHenry’s political ad smearing his opponent, I was shocked. McHenry doesn’t want to tell people about his record. He wants to throw mud at a worthy opponent.

Having served two terms on the Financial Services Committee of the House of Representatives, Patrick McHenry defended subprime lending even after economists cautioned that the risk to the economy was great.

McHenry favored deregulation policies while at the same time accepting $800,000 from financial services companies AIG, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Who do you think McHenry really represents on this committee?

Of course, the irony here is that he has been speaking out against fixes:

“I didn’t go to Washington to frivolously spend your dollars,” McHenry said.

“The challenge here is figuring out what is actually happening with the financial industry.”

He then launched into a short explanation about mortage backed securities and their effect on Wall Street.

The congressman railed against the bailout and advocated a free market solution, citing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as a model.

Ironically, McHenry has not only been wasting political campaign funds (donated by supporters such as his listeners at this speech) on expenditures like $700 rock concert tickets,but he’s also talking ridiculously about what he doesn’t understand- McHenry’s “free market solution”, while generally admirable, is mainly about deregulating abusive banks (that donate to his campaign)- which even Alan Greenspan is beginning to say he was wrong about.

Of course, we here at RAPMcH have nothing against free market economies- but when fat cats up in Washington such as Patrick McHenry use the concept of a free market to protect shady bankers who use golden parachutes to escape the financial crisis before it crashes, we have an issue. That kind of economy is not a free economy, it’s an unfair economy- an economy made unfair by people like Patrick McHenry.

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Patrick McHenry has been screaming his head off about how he doesn’t like the government’s bailout plan. Of course, this is just pretty much expected:

“The fact is we can provide the needed support to the markets, while maintaining our duty to protect the American taxpayer, and ensure that those who made serious mistakes are not rewarded,”

Mistakes? Oh, like subprime lending mistakes and stuff? Somewhat ironic.

Patrick McHenry has taken over $800,000 from the Banking industry, says the Democrats in a new press release. That’s right- the man has taken over $800,000 from subprime lending companies. Don’t believe the Democrats? I don’t blame you- but the numbers are entirely accurate.

Not only has McHenry taken big money from the industry, but before the crisis he was complaining about “too much regulation” on the banking industry. Naturally, because he was getting big bucks from banks outside of his district, he wanted to protect them from nasty Mr. Government preventing them from doing things bad-

In an October 27, 2005 op-ed in the Charlotte Observer, at a time when modest regulation of an out-of-control industry might have prevented the current crisis, McHenry praised the subprime industry and argued against ‘burdensome regulations’ on such lenders. Now we’re all paying the price.”

And look what happens when we don’t have enough restrictions! We’re now in what is close to the biggest banking crisis in the history of the United States!

Thanks, Patrick! Your habit of taking money from banking industries and literally doing nothing regarding the signs of failure on the Financial Services committee has led us to this crisis!

Just so you know, in this crisis, Washington Mutual has failed and is now controlled by the government, various smaller banks have apparently failed, and now Wachovia, one of NC’s biggest banks and employers, might fail. You better make sure your money is safe, lest McHenry jeopardize your savings!

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Just for fun, “Someone” has posted a genuine Patrick T. McHenry signature online for $20. That’s right- the “famous” Congressman who rarely graces his own district with his presence and the man who’s famously caused more trouble than Mark Foley has a signature for you- for the low low price of $20.

Just for reference, you can have an Elizabeth Dole signature for $4, a Jesse Jackson signature for $5, the First Lady’s for $13, Dan Quayle’s signature for .99 (heh), and the signature of the President of France for $10.

Damn, Patrick, talk about being expensive.

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