In a panel discussion in Washington D.C. that was sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council, Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings, Democrat, said;
"If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention. Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through.” (Emphasis added)
He went on to say;
"Just like Jews, blacks care about affordable health care, energy independence, and the separation of church and state. And just like blacks, Jews care about equal pay for equal work, investment in alternative energy, and a woman's right to choose."
(Click here for detail)
Hastings statement is of course an insinuation that Sarah Palin is racist and bigoted.
This attack on Palin’s character comes from a man who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. The very name of this caucus speaks loudly of the racist nature of its membership. But that is another discussion for another day.
Alcee Hastings attacking Sarah Palin for “totin’ guns and strippin’ moose” is not only bigoted but extremely elitist as well. Sarah Palin isn’t exactly Daisy May from Dogpatch.
But what else can we expect of Hastings? After all, he supports the self anointed messiah, the most elite ass of them all, Barack Hussein Obama.
It’s interesting to me that Hastings has the nerve to question Sarah Palin’s character when his own history is quite a colorful story.
Byron York of National Review Online, NRO, (nationalreview.com) wrote in great detail about Congressman Hastings shady dealings. (click here for the full story)
As a federal judge, Alcee Hastings was accused of conspiring to take bribes.
The House Judiciary subcommittee that investigated the allegations unanimously recommended Hastings’ impeachment. The U.S. House of Representatives voted 413 to 3 to impeach Hastings, and the House impeachment managers successfully argued before the Senate that Hastings should be convicted and removed from office.
In 1979 Alcee Hastings was appointed to a federal judgeship by Jimmy Carter. In 1981, two brothers, Frank and Thomas Romano were accused of stealing one million dollars from a union pension fund. They were tried and convicted of the charges. The judge in the case was Alcee Hastings.
While the Romano brothers were waiting to be sentenced, a convicted criminal named William Dredge was facing drug charges and contacted the F.B.I. and alleged that he knew that Alcee Hastings, then a federal judge, had solicited a bribe in an ongoing criminal case.
To make a long story short, a lawyer friend of Hastings named William Borders acted as a go-between to see if the Romano brothers were willing to pay Alcee Hastings $150,000 in exchange for not sentencing them to jail time and have the stolen money, which had been confiscated, returned to the Romano brothers.
Bottom line is the F.B.I. organized a sting operation that reeled in Borders and Hastings.
In pre-set meeting at the Miami airport, an undercover federal agent posing as one of the Romano brothers gave Hastings friend, William Borders a down payment of twenty five thousand dollars. Hastings was then supposed to throw out the forfeiture judgment against the Romanos. After that, the rest of the money, $125,000, would be paid out to Hastings. And according to Byron York’s story;
“Hastings did indeed throw out the judgment, and showed particular interest in making sure it was done quickly. ‘I want the order today,’ he told his law clerk, according to testimony in the case. ‘Sorry for the rush, but the order has to go out today,’ he told his courtroom clerk. A short time later, a pickup date for the full payoff was set.” (Emphasis added)
Then on October 9, 1981, William Borders was arrested by the feds when he accepted the $125,000 balance of the payoff.
The Byron York / National Review article then goes on to say;
Alan Baron, the lawyer who was hired by the Democratic majority on the House Judiciary Committee to lead the impeachment investigation, later wrote a law review article on the case in which he described Hastings’s actions this way:
Hastings was at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C. when he heard the news of Borders’ arrest. His reaction was to leave Washington immediately and return to Florida, thereby avoiding the FBI. He quickly packed a bag and left the hotel without checking out, leaving behind a suit he had sent to the hotel’s valet service. The suit was retrieved by the FBI several days later.
Instead of going to National Airport in Washington, a short drive from his hotel, Hastings took a long, expensive cab ride to Baltimore-Washington airport. Once there, he called his mother in Florida from a pay phone. And then, according to Baron:
Hastings placed a collect call from a second pay phone at the airport to the home of his girlfriend, Patricia Williams. The call lasted a minute or less. Hastings told Williams to call him back at a third pay phone, which she did. He then told her to go to a pay phone and call him again at the same number. About fifteen minutes later, she called Hastings from a pay phone located in a shopping mall near her home. This call lasted a minute or less. Hastings then called her at the mall pay phone from a fourth pay phone at the BWI Airport. This call lasted about four minutes.
After that, Hastings caught a plane south. The FBI found him late that night at his girlfriend’s house.
In December 1981, Hastings was indicted, charged with conspiring with Borders to solicit a bribe from the Romanos. Borders was also indicted. At trial, Hastings pleaded not guilty and claimed Borders was lying about the whole thing. He also claimed the prosecution was racially motivated. He was acquitted; Borders was convicted.
Interesting story, eh?
And after all of this, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wanted to appoint Hastings as Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence after the Democrats took control of congress in 2006.
When asked about Hastings statements, Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman Maria Comella responded said, "We’re taking a pass."
Hastings did get one thing right when he said; “you damn well had better pay attention” when you vote in November.
