Speaker Hastert Is a Blithering Idiot:<br>a/k/a Use of Office for Felonies is Okay by Speaker
By Blanton Posted in Republicans — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
“People did not understand much about why Democrats were bad in 1994, but they got the fact that Congressmen could bounce checks and get away with it and the public retaliated.”
The Speaker has been AWOL through much of the past year. He has failed to properly restrain Jerry Lewis (the cardinal, not the comedian). He has failed to be a prominent leader on the Republican agenda. The Speaker has been absent from the public stage until the FBI, acting under a lawfully obtained subpoena from a federal district judge, searched Congressman William Jefferson's office for evidence in a criminal probe. Out of an abundance of caution, the FBI had "filter" agents making sure no legislative work was taken.
The Speaker, proving his former career was as a meat head and not a lawyer, is raising separation of powers complaints that a federal court dared let an agent of the executive branch search a public building. His complaint hinges on the "speech and debate" clause in the constitution. The text of which is this:
They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.
Read on . . .
Now friends, that argument is crap. The constitutional clause clearly applies to their person, not their office and it clearly applies to their personal detainment, arrest, or suit for saying something, not the exercise of a search warrant on their office. But I'm not even going to discuss the Speaker's idiotic legal point. Let's look at the politics of this instead. Regardless of the merits of the Speaker's crap constitutional argument, in an election year where the Republicans are already struggling, this is probably the stupidest political mistake of the season.
At a time when the American people have seen Cynthia McKinney and Patrick Kennedy get preferential treatment in their dealings with criminal matters, and when the member of Congress in question was caught on tape taking a bribe, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives must be a total and complete idiot to try to defend an institution people already see as above the law. People did not understand much about why Democrats were bad in 1994, but they got the fact that Congressmen could bounce checks and get away with it and the public retaliated.
People will, rightly or wrongly, understand that Denny Hastert's stated position is that even if a Congressman sets up a Grand Cayman style banking scheme in his office, law enforcement is powerless -- even with a court issued subpoena -- to do anything with only variable nuanced exceptions to the rule that otherwise prove this point.
Note to Denny Hastert: When Nancy Pelosi stakes out a position, you run the other way quickly. You do not issue a joint statement agreeing with her.
Had this been a raid on Tom DeLay's office, Pelosi would be dancing in the aisles of Congress.
If Speaker Hastert's stated position remains the position of the Republican majority, the Republican majority will be one step closer to disaster in November. Yes, it IS that big a deal.
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Speaker Hastert Is a Blithering Idiot:<br>a/k/a Use of Office for Felonies is Okay by Speaker 12 Comments (0 topical, 12 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
and fast. It's kind of sad to have to call for it, but this is about twice as bad as Delay's "no more pork to cut" statement. It gets even worse if Leon's Redhot is correct. Maybe the bright side will be if Shadegg replaces him, if there is a brightside to this.
that after Congresswoman Barbara Boxer bounced more than $41,000 worth of checks, she was not returned to her house seat by the people of California.
No, they sent her to the Senate instead. Some retaliation.
Within the context of how Hastert allowed what Duke Cunningham and Abramoff were doing before they were exposed, the Congressman may have a personal motive for the position he has taken. The House Office Buildings may serve as the equivalents of offshore financial service companies for laundering dirty money for members of Congress.
Someone remind me again why we are not supposed to sit out this election?
Just when I started to conjure up the image of Speaker Pelosi to motivate me to get out and vote, Hastert goes on a jihad against the FBI enforcing bribery laws against a corrupt democrat congressman. Oh, but that's not all. He has a whole carfull of clowns to back him up in this.
To paraphrase a famous saying:
Never vote for an idiot, people may not be able to tell the difference.
or Senator who has the guts to take on the Speaker and the leadership and put down this idiocy before it destroys whatever chances were left in November? In the Senate, Jeff Sessions comes to mind; in the House, Bill Jenkins of Tennessee. Let's see if there's a clear thinker out there willing to put the people's interests ahead of those of our congressmen.
Hastert is all but saying: " If the Constitution don't fit, you must acquit". Why, instead of playing Criminal Defense Counsel, did he not rely upon the House's own attorneys to express their professional opinion of what has taken place ? If Hastert was not taking the search personally, he would have put the House lawyers in touch with the judge who signed the search warrant. He, instead, is ignoring the court's jurisdiction and demanding instant, non-judicial return of the confiscated material.
Hastert is probably squeaky when it comes to the bribery stuff. It's the "hi I'm Congressman ..." stuff that's driving him.
Instead of his immediate and unauthorized practice of law defending of Louisiana Democrat Jefferson, Hastert dunmped Texas Republican Tom DeLay within seconds. This is just one more inconsistency that arouses the mere curiosity of even Hastert's most loyal supporters. Why he does not explain these glaring discrepancies about himself provokes even more curiosity.
The story is correct that this is an issue for the public to understand, just like the house bank scandal.
The FBI held off for nine months before getting a warrant, after the issuance of a subpoena. If anything that the real scandal here. One suspects John Q. Citizen could not expect that sort of deference.
I'm still flabbergasted that this, of all things, is what the Great Missing-in-Action Speaker Hastert has chosen to still his neck out on. Not earmarks and runaway spending to name a few. And then there's the dysfunctional ethics committee.