It is the same theme over and over: “Gibson lies.” For a “man of honor,” he does a lot of lying in order to toe the Tea Party Line and also try to convince his moderate constituents that he is not such a radical guy.
This time, in trying to tamp down a flurry of dissent on this Facebook page over H.R. 3 re-defining rape, Gibson chided those who disagree with him and insisted there are no restrictions beyond the Hyde Amendment in H.R. 3. This is his post, written by him, not a staff member. When posts are written by his staff member, they are always signed by that staff member according to information on Gobson's page: "Both I and my spokeswoman Stephanie Valle will post on this page. Posts that come from my spokeswoman will be designated at the end as such."
Congressman Chris Gibson
Re H.R. 3, there's misinformation on this page that the bill redefined the word rape. That's incorrect. While a previous version of the bill contained different language, what we voted on contained the same language as the Hyde Amendment. This bill is about making sure taxpayer funds aren't used to pay for abortions but doesn't affect the use of private funds -- we're codifying the Hyde Amendment in the tax code.
One individual, Leo Geoffrion took Gibson to task with this post:
The Republican party has billed H.R.3 as making the Hyde amendment permanent but if you compare the Hyde Amendment to H.R.3, it is clear that they've moved the line considerably further. Where the Hyde Amendment explicitly exempted private insurance plans H.R.3 explicitly bans abortion from any tax-exempt health plan. Since it's crazy to purchase a health insurance plan that is not tax-exempt, this effectively bans abortion from ALL health insurance plans -- even those with no Federal funding. So, why mess up the long-standing compromise between the pro-life and pro-choice advocates? Let's deal with the deficit and not re-fight the social battles of the 90's.So far, Congressman Gibson has not responded to Geoffrion’s statement. Nor do we expect him to. He does not know how to respond when he is caught in a lie.
Which seems to happen with incredible frequency.
Yes, I wrote the above critique to Rep. Gibson, but I would like to make clear that I did not accuse him of lying.
ReplyDeleteTerms like "lying" should be used with great caution and applied only if you have clear evidence that he knew in advance that he was wrong and wrote it anyway. It's quite possible he was just following party leadership without checking the details. I have no evidence one way or the other as to which is correct.
In any case, it's better to focus on the legislative facts and avoid accusations.
Leo Geoffrion
Congressman Gibson has posted a clarification to my question. The answer is quite technical. Can someone who better understands legalese and the PPACA confirm it please.
ReplyDeleteLeo Geoffrion