Pressure builds for Pat

If last week and the week before weren't bad enough for 10th District disgrace Pat McHenry, now a national and highly respected blogger Pam Spaulding has turned her internet attention to McHenry's involvement in the bizarrely underreported Florida murder suicide.

She's written the best overview yet and crossposted it at Americablog.

What with this last week's extreme DUI of his Deputy Field Director Brett Keeter. Then the subsequent two-week suspension without pay. But as MissM points out at BlueNC, why not wait until a verdict? Innocent until proven guilty and all that American patriotic stuff.

I wondered if a 31-year-old blows a point one three perhaps he should be fired. It's not like it's the first overindulgence of a young man, new to college or trying to recover from his first big break-up. But Robert P and lcloud at BlueNC make the find points that McHenry should be helping this guy get the therapy he needs. That we as democrats might want to practice what we preach and think in terms of rehabilitation. Good ideas, if we were dealing with people who could consider that others can change and improve. That, of course is the obvious solution. Just not likely.

Then, we have to look at the week before last, which might have led to this overindulgence of mind-altering substances in a staffer.

The week before last you learned that Pat might not live where he votes. That's potentially the fourth case voter fraud he's been tied to. And over the weekend, McHenry spokesman Aaron Latham tried to put that pesky old voter fraud/residency question to rest. Latham told the Gaston Gazette's Amanda Millard that Pat "lives in Cherryville. That's still his primary residence." But, he told her, McHenry splits his time between Cherryville and Hickory when he comes home on weekends. Boy, Pat, that's a lot of splitting. You live in DC, you split your weekend time between Cherryville and Hickory. You own the Hickory condo but your legal residence for voting is a house in Cherryville you don't own and that other people use. I wonder what the North Carolina laws regard as a legal residence. We'll have to find out.

And the one question still unanswered: how'd you get that financing for the Hickory condo. Since you're on the House banking committee, I think your banking deals (especially ones you've been trying to cover up) should be public record. After all, you were all excited about disclosing the people behind earmarks. What about disclosing the financing deal on an asset you haven't told anyone about. Because if the Hickory condo was your legal residence and as Latham told Millard, it's been this way for some time, you had plenty of time to update your bio and your website to say you live in Cherryville AND Hickory, not just Cherryville.

There are a lot of reports from the week before last that still have not been cleared up. Like Pat's involvement with recent murder victim Ralph Gonzalez of Florida and Georgia ethics issues (including ties to Jack Abramoff and vote manipulation. But the North Carolina Conservative told us that not only McHenry was also tied to Jason Drake, who police say was the shooter.

People have commented extensively on this website and elsewhere that Drake's ties to a gay porn murder in Pennsylvania have only one source. That source has a lot of people who hate him OR he's a lying, website-destroyer.

Either way, these questions are not dependent on tying Drake to other murders and the porn industry, are extremely relevant and remain unanswered:

1. What exactly are McHenry ties to high level murdered Republican dirty tricks consultant Ralph Gonzalez and of his alleged shooter Jason Robert Drake. And why has McHenry tried to hide his political past by stating on his website and official bio that he is either a real estate broker, a small businessman or in sales.
   


2. Why have the police given such premature and unprofessional comments to the media in this case?*


3. What is going on with the traditional media’s response to this news item. Google and see for yourself. Can you imagine them ignoring the murder of two prominent young gay Democratic operatives. Of course not.
   


4. Is the disinformation campaign about Drake initiated by a gay porn blogger or by McHenry's staff? The former makes not sense, the latter is sheer stupidity but IS muddying the waters somewhat. And is one more reason for questioning a traditional media's response. Who can ignore a story that includes a gay porn blogger? Come on.
   


5. Why have no media outlets in the 10th Congressional District will covered, much less done any research on this story.
   

*The police said August 23 that the murder/suicide was the result of a lover's triangle. On August 27 they told the Orlando Sentinel:

What prompted him to go in and commit that crime remains undetermined and may never be known," Picanzo said. "We have had so many different and conflicting statements from people.

Since when do the police say the crime motive will never been known this early in an investigation? It makes no sense.