Virginia Dhimmis Getting Physical With Visitors

Congressional staffer denies pushing visitor UPDATED!
By: J.P. Freire
Associate Commentary Editor
11/05/09 9:53 PM EST

A heated exchange during a visit to the office of Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., led to a staffer putting his hands on Teri Christoph, executive director of Smart Girl Politics, in order to get her to put her camera down, reported Jillian Bandes of TownHall.
In a phone interview with The Examiner, the staffer, press secretary George Burke, said that claims that he had "pushed" Christoph were untrue. When asked about the report in TownHall, he replied, "Is that a reporter? Some right-wing blog?" Yes to both questions, but was the claim true?

"She came in and whipped out a camera. Staff people told her, 'we don't want you to use a camera in here.' I put a hand on her shoulder same way I put on my daughter's and of course she said that she was going to the media," he said.

The scuffle started when Christoph joined a number of Connolly's constituents in his office. A younger staffer was distributing pens to enable them to leave a message for their congressman. Christoph, Burke said, had started "badgering" the staffer, preventing him from being able to further help other constituents.

"Voices were raised, so I came out of my office and told her politely to put away the camera," he said. "I didn't even ask her to leave. Just to put away the camera."

I asked what the policy was about having cameras in the office. "Only credentialed media. And I'm sure you know about the rules in the House regarding credentialed press," he replied. Were media cameras allowed into the office? "Yes, throughout the day." But what was the impetus about having her remove her own camera? "It was a decision we made. There was no reasoning behind it."

Burke said that Christoph was the only problematic constituent. "Others came in and were certainly very spirited, but it was a good discussion overall."

Asked about Connolly's decision on the health care bill, Burke insisted that the congressman will not "make a final decision until he sees the final product." The congressman's district, the 11th district, is the wealthiest in the nation as measured by median income. Touting Connolly's achievements in increasing surcharges in the bill to prevent higher taxes, Burke said, "We want to protect the interests of small business, and what we've been fighting for is to relieve them of that burden."

Will he actually read the bill before voting on it? "He has read most of it, he's gone to briefings on it, and he's got several of his staffers reading it. He's not going to commit
to it until he sees what new details are in it."

UPDATED: Christoph posts her account and video:
Christoph provides a detailed post on her blog of the encounter in Rep. Gerry Connolly's office this afternoon, as well as a video of the minute or so immediately before Connolly aide George Burke firmly placed his hand on her. The video makes clear that Christoph was polite and calm, at least during the captured portion of the encounter.

House Republicans Walk Out over Dem Grandstanding

Comments by Eric Cantor here

Politicians taking money from trial lawyers? Say it isn't so!

The Democratic leadership refused to take up the FISA reform bill, allowing the Protect America Act to expire. The Senate has passed a version of the act that protects telecom companies that have cooperated with the government in intercepting international terrorist communications. Apparently, Nancy Pelosi feels that telecoms should be sued for helping the government to catch terrorists. John Cornyn wonders aboutthe House Democrats' motivation:

One important part of the Senate legislation was to provide protection for the telecommunications carriers who may have cooperated with the United States government shortly after September 11, 2001, in providing the means to listen in to al Qaeda and other terrorists, foreign terrorists who are plotting and planning attacks against the United States of America and its citizens. It is a terrible message for the House of Representatives to say that they're not going to act in a way that provides protection for those citizens -- whether they be individual citizens or whether they be corporate citizens -- who were asked by their country to come to the aid of the American people and provide the means to protect them from terrorist attacks….What kind of message does that send that we are going to basically leave them out twisting slowly in the wind and being left to the litigation, some 40 different lawsuits that have been filed against the telecommunications industry that may have cooperated with the federal government in protecting the American people.

I would say finally…there are substantial news reports that indicate a group of trial lawyers who stand to make considerable amounts of money in terms of legal fees off this litigation are substantial contributors to members of Congress. I hope the evidence does not develop that there are decisions being made in the House of Representatives on the basis of the interests of special interest groups like trial lawyers who stand to gain financially from continuing to block this litigation.

Lawyers are the largest donors to the Democratic Party purse. This speculation makes sense.

It is too bad that Pelosi and the Democratic leadership spent their time voting to approve contempt citations against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten for failing to cooperate with their absurd "investigation" into whether the Bush administration's appointment of U.S. Attorneys was "politically motivated."

Let's see: the post of U.S. AttorneyIS a political appointment. U.S. Attorneys are always, or virtually always, members of the President's party. That was simple. Investigation over. However, no one has suggested that those lawyers were incompetent or politically influenced.

Why did Democrats refuse to take up the FISA reform bill? Did they deliberately sacrifice American security to satisfiy the demands of their far-left base? Or was there a corrupt bargain with major Democratic Party contributors, who hope to make millions by suing telecoms? Did Nancy Pelosi politicize our national security by subordinating the security interests of all Americans to the financial interests of the Democratic Party's biggest contributors?

Circumstantially, the answer to the last question would appear to be "Yes."