I'm ready to join the ranks! Fuck Tom Delay and all those corrupt republicans they got what they deserved. Now lets take a long hard look at Harry Reid Senate leader and his shady land deal. And look who Pelosi is backing for second in command Shitbag Murtha! Why we got him on tape bragging to FBI agents about taking money under the table to buy influence. There is just Tons of shit on him see here: http://www.bootmurtha.com/ Why hell he makes Tom Delay look like a boy scout! You know he gave away millions in sweet little defense contract to Pelosi's nephew! So while we are at it lets scrutinize her also ok? I'll dig up the details although surely big and blatant issues like this are going to be all over the front pages. There will be the typical cynical jokes on the Daily show right? I mean that’s what the well intending media that is just out there to get down to the truth of the matter does right?
The incoming House Speaker already made a questionable move backing the losing candidate in the race for Majority Leader. Will she stumble again by choosing a member with a checkered past to lead the House Intelligence Committee? From Time mag's websight Posted Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006 Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, who stumbled badly last week when she publicly backed the failed candidacy of Rep. John Murtha for majority leader, could be headed for another political tumble if she presses ahead with long-standing plans to elevate Rep. Alcee Hastings, a senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, to the panel's chairmanship. A Democratic aide says Pelosi has not decided whom she will name as chairman of the intelligence panel, but that she was leaning against the current top Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman. Her preferred nominee has long been Hastings, but like Murtha he has his own ethically challenged history. And while the broad outlines of that past are well known, the grimy specifics are only now emerging. Hastings was elected to Congress in 1992, but his first big moment on Capitol Hill came three years before that. Appointed as a federal judge in Florida in 1979, Hastings had been acquitted in a 1983 criminal trial on charges of soliciting a $150,000 bribe two years earlier in a deal to provide favorable treatment for defendants in a racketeering case before him. Despite his being legally cleared, Congress determined that the evidence against Hastings was still powerful enough to remove him from the bench, which the Senate voted to do in 1989 — even though Senators Arlen Specter and Jeff Bingaman, the top Republican and Democrat who supervised the proceedings, voted against expelling Hastings from office. The impeachment proceedings were later invalidated by an appeals court judge in 1993, although that ruling was itself later vitiated by the Supreme Court. Reports on those impeachment proceedings were posted Monday evening on the blog of the left-of-center ethics watchdog, Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, fleshing out the details of an episode that Hastings, and surely Pelosi, would much rather forget. How important is a case dating back to the 1980s and Hastings' prior, ill-fated career as a judge? Well, at least Hastings seems to realize that it won't be so easily dismissed as ancient history. He recently sent Pelosi a five-page open letter explaining his side of the story — and appended the statements of Senators Specter and Bingaman. At the time of the impeachment proceedings, Rep. John Conyers, on track to become the House Judiciary Committee chairman, said that he didn't like what that panel's investigation showed about Hastings. "In my mind, the facts that we have educed,(sic) the witnesses that we have heard, the voluminous records that we have read and re-examined, convince me that Judge Hastings has regrettably engaged in conduct constituting high crimes and misdemeanors and that therefore we should vote this resolution of impeachment," Conyers said in the proceeding almost 20 years ago. Befitting the political and legal complexities of the case, Conyers has since tempered his remarks, thanks in part to a subsequent scandal involving the FBI lab which handled some of the Hastings evidence. Still, an aide declined to explain to TIME Conyers' current position. Pelosi has for quite some time put out signals that she will replace Harman as the top Democrat on the panel in order to maintain a traditional rotation in the spot. But Democratic insiders say her motivation is far more personal — as was Pelosi's support of Murtha against her nemesis of several years, incoming Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. Harman defenders say Pelosi's complaints either stem from an unworthy catfight among leading California congresswomen; Harman's close relationship with Hoyer; or Harman's efforts to seem bipartisan on controversial issues such as the Administration's controversial domestic warrantless wiretapping — when Pelosi wanted a Democratic pit bull in the party's top intelligence post. Moreover, as was first reported on TIME.com a month ago, Harman has been under investigation by the Justice Department over her links to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and whether they made a deal, in part, to have AIPAC supporters lobby Pelosi to keep Harman on as the Democrats' top member of the committee. Both Harman and AIPAC have vehemently denied they did anything wrong and U.S. officials have said they do not necessarily expect that charges will be brought. The dusty congressional report on Hastings dates back 18 years and the furtive actions outlined in it are some 25 years old. But details of the seedy tale, as presented in the report, may capture Washington's attention more now than they did the first time around: an intermediary seeking an alleged $150,000 payoff for Hastings, a tipoff to Hastings that an associate had been arrested, followed by a frantic cab ride from Washington to the Baltimore airport — instead of nearby National Airport, allegedly to throw off any possible pursuers. In the wake of the downfall of intelligence committee Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham — who is in prison after being convicted for his role in a very different scandal, involving alleged seven-figure payoffs by defense contractors — the way Congress handles the Hastings saga should shine still more light on problems with how the two parties appoint and reappoint rank-and-file members of such a sensitive committee. If Democrats found Hastings fit to serve as a member of the intelligence committee at all, many would argue, they should be able to consider him for the chairmanship. As a panel member, Hastings has been deeply immersed in classified information for years, traveling to dozens of the CIA's secret overseas stations and bases, all with no allegation of misconduct in that role (though, to be sure, there have occasionally been Republican whispers that they didn't fully trust him). Pelosi may have few good options in the current dilemma. If she decides to replace Harman with someone other than Hastings, she could easily offend the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), which has insisted that Hastings' seniority entitles him to the position. But some aides have also rumored that there might be another solution: installing a former panel member, Georgia Rep. Sanford Bishop, who is also African-American, in place of either Harman or Hastings. Whatever happens, one thing is clear: after her Murtha debacle, Pelosi — and the Democrats, for that matter — cannot afford another misstep so early in her tenure. Nancy Pelosi was quoted as saying something to the extent of "The Democratic party will preside over the most ethical congress in the history of our country" I vaguely remember and although it’s not the exact quote I bet I will trip over it somewhere. Point is that is already proven to be a lie with the appointment of Jack Murtha. Now there are two possible appointments into the Senate intelligence committee. Both rumored possibilities have very obvious checkered pasts. Remember it was someone or more than one on the intelligence committee that leaked several classified bits of information to the press. And don’t try to say they were republicans responsible for those cause that’s a total crock of shit.
Clinton Pardoned Hastings’s Co-Conspirator The convicted felon who went to jail rather than testify against Alcee Hastings. By Byron York William Borders was a prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer when, in 1981, he was charged with conspiring with his good friend, federal judge Alcee Hastings, to solicit bribes from defendants seeking lenient treatment in Hastings’s courtroom. Hastings was charged, too, though the men were tried separately. When it was all over, Borders was convicted, disbarred, and sentenced to five years in jail. Hastings was acquitted, but later impeached and removed from office. In addition to his sentence, Borders went to jail two other times as a result of the Hastings matter, both times when he refused to testify against his friend. In the first instance, after his sentencing in 1982, Borders was ordered to cooperate with the continuing grand jury investigation into Hastings’s conduct. Borders refused to talk, was cited with contempt, and sent to jail. He served about six weeks before being released at the end of the grand jury’s term. Later, in 1989, after the House passed articles of impeachment against Hastings, Borders was called to testify at the Senate trial. He was given immunity for his testimony but again refused to talk. The Senate threatened him with contempt. Borders would not budge. Finally, the Senate referred the matter to a federal judge, who ordered Borders to testify. Borders again refused, and the judge sent him to jail. “Borders has refused to testify in this impeachment proceeding as well as in all other proceedings in which, if Judge Hastings’ version of the facts is true, Borders could have established Judge Hastings’ innocence,” House impeachment manager Rep. John Bryant told the Senate on October 18, 1989. “Borders is in jail today at this moment and will be until this body votes, and he is in jail for refusing to testify before the impeachment trial committee despite a grant of immunity. I ask you, on behalf of the House managers, why would he go to jail, again, if by his testimony he could honestly vindicate his close friend of so many years?” The answer to that question, Bryant concluded, was that Hastings was guilty, and Borders knew it. “The fact is that Borders will not talk, because if he tells the truth he must acknowledge Judge Hastings’ role in the conspiracy, and if he does not tell the truth he risks placing himself in violation of the law again,” Bryant argued. “And that is why he refused to testify, and that is why the judge did not call Borders to testify at his own trial.” Borders never talked. He was behind bars for about eight weeks, and was released when the trial ended, after the Senate had voted to remove Hastings from office. At various times over the years, Borders has tried to have his license to practice law in the District of Columbia restored. But his episodes of contempt, in addition to his original conviction for bribery, led the legal bodies involved to conclude that, even though he had done his time, he did not feel remorse for his actions nor a respect for the law under which he was punished. He remains disbarred today. None of that, however, stopped President Bill Clinton from granting Borders a full and unconditional pardon as part of the flurry of controversial pardons Clinton issued during his last hours in office. The pardon documents listed Borders’s crime this way: “Conspiracy to corruptly solicit and accept money in return for influencing the official acts of a federal district court judge (Alcee L. Hastings), and to defraud the United States in connection with the performance of lawful government functions; corruptly influencing, obstructing, impeding and endeavoring to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice, and aiding and abetting therein; traveling interstate with intent to commit bribery.” The document did not mention Borders’s contempt. (That same day, Clinton also pardoned another contemnor, Whitewater figure Susan McDougal, who went to jail rather than reveal whether the president testified truthfully at her trial.) Borders’s pardon surprised some of those who were most familiar with the Hastings case. “Some [names on the pardon list] will raise eyebrows,” Reid Weingarten, who as a Justice Department attorney prosecuted Hastings and Borders, told the Washington Post. “For example, I was Bill Borders’ prosecutor and, while I have sympathy for the man, I thought his crimes were unpardonable.” The entire Borders/Hastings issue would not be coming up now but for the fact that Hastings, who ran for and won a seat in Congress in 1992, is in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, one of the most sensitive posts on Capitol Hill. Republicans who would like to see Hastings passed over, and nervous Democrats who would like to see the same thing, are poring through old records of the impeachment, trying to reconstruct what happened in the case and how it might reflect on Hastings’s fitness for the chairmanship. The issue is so sensitive that some observers have questioned whether Hastings, given his impeachment and removal from office for conspiring to take bribes, would qualify for the security clearances needed to serve as chairman. The answer, according to sources on the Hill, is yes. According to those sources, if you’re a member of the House of Representatives, you’ve already got the clearance you need. “The best way to understand it is that, by virtue of having been elected by their constituents, members are already granted the privilege of access to classified government information,” says Jamal Ware, a spokesman for the Intelligence Committee. “Members are given access to the classified information they need to carry out their job.” Ware explains that members of Congress sign an oath pledging not to reveal classified information, and that members who join the Intelligence Committee sign a second oath specific to work on the committee. The first, more general, oath is not mandatory — indeed, there are a few members who refuse to sign — but it, along with the second oath, is required for service on the Intelligence Committee. In any event, Hastings, despite his record, would not be barred from becoming chairman.
Alcee Hastings scandal proves H. Paul Rico a gifted gangster But after being removed as a judge, Hastings beat the criminal rap, and won a seat in Congress in 1992. And now Hastings is in line to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, even though one of the articles of impeachment was that he’d leaked wiretap information to another crooked politician in Dade County. Nancy Pelosi got lucky, getting rid of John Murtha. But Alcee Hastings is hanging tough. Just thought you’d like to know the rest of the story. If, somewhere, H. Paul Rico is still keeping up with the Hastings story, I’ll bet he’s getting a good chuckle. I’ll also bet that if he is following events, he has to look up. Uncharitable? Hey, what do you want from me, tears?
And speaking of leaks by Democrats Did you hear New York Times is using the court system to get Federal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to block the government from reviewing the phone records of two reporters in a leak investigation about a terrorism-funding probe? All they need to do is stall for a few short months till the Dems have controll of the committees then the investigation goes nowhere. Most ethical congress ..... s u r e :roll:
