Alcee Hastings is a liberal Democrat United States Representative for Florida's 20th congressional district. He was first elected to the House in 1992 to represent the newly created 23rd district.

Hastings was U.S. District Court judge appointed by President Jimmy Carter for the Southern District of Florida from 1979 to 1989, until he was impeached and removed from office for corruption and perjury. He was only the sixth federal judge to be impeached and removed from office in American history.^[1] Hastings is a sponsor of the communist Green New Deal and Medicare for All bills.

Obamacare

In a comment showing disdain for the Constitution and the rule of law, Hastings said, "There ain't no rules here, we're trying to accomplish something.... All this talk about rules.... When the deal goes down ... we make 'em up as we go along."^[2]

References

Alcee Hastings, the Democrat who just can't stay out of trouble

By Monica Showalter

Can Democrat stalwart, Florida's Rep. Alcee Hastings, stay out of trouble? Apparently not. He's in hot water again on a new corruption rap and doesn't seem to be fazed at all. It's just another day in the life of Alcee Hastings. Long failing upward, Hastings got his congressional seat after he was thrown out of the Florida judiciary for corruption.

According to the Washington Free Beacon:

A convicted money launderer employed by Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings (Fla.) in one of his Florida district offices received a pay increase for "part-time" work last year, new salary data filings show.

Additionally, Hastings's longtime girlfriend Patricia Williams appears to have received a promotion, though she did not get a raise since she is already receiving the maximum salary that is allowed to be paid to congressional staffers.

His gamy past as a judge is now being repeated in a new ethics violation around the matter of two staffers, one in what looks like an inflated salary for a no-show job for a crook, and the other a girlfriend in a title scam. It follows a House ethics violations investigation in 2014 on sexual harassment allegations, which the House verified but did nothing about. Apparently, that one cost taxpayers big. He got listed by a government watchdog last December at the fourth most corrupt person in Congress, for the girlfriend stuff. Looks as if there are two over-compensated girlfriends from his taxpayer payroll here, so it's hard to keep track.

Same old Alcee Hastings. He's like one of those bottom-feeding creatures in the depths of the swamp who can be nourished by toxic garbage that would take any other beast out of circulation.

Did he change any after the bad experience of getting thrown out as a judge for malfeasance? Did he present himself as a "new Hastings" to get voters to reconsider him? It's normal for someone who's been in that kind of trouble to become super-vigilant about dotting is and crossing ts and avoiding even the appearance of corruption, but, well, not him. He got elected just fine on the record he had and apparently took that as a signal to just keep doing what he was doing.

It's an odd thing, well outside the political mainstream, in fact. Over here in San Diego, one of our Republican congressmen with the best voting record, Rep. Duncan Hunter, Jr., is under fire for misusing campaign contributions and is now up to his neck in primary challengers. No such misfortune for Hastings, who keeps getting re-elected again and again and experiences no pressure to clean up his act from the Democrats.

I actually spent time with Hastings, on what's called a congressional delegation, or "codel," traveling to Colombia as part of the official press delegation with then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in 2008. The congressmembers were all Democrats. Hastings was on the flight. As a member of the press, I found Hastings one of the most cordial and reasonable and likable of members, just as a person, and apparently pretty reasonable about trade, which most Democrats are not. He was easy to talk to, and yes, he knew I was a hardcore conservative, so he gets points for that, because a lot of Democrats aren't housebroken on that front. My sense is, he keeps getting re-elected because he's a nice person.

But cripes, why can't he get his hand out of the till? Is it always a "love" thing with him? "I steal from the till to show love to people?" Is that it? I don't know. What is it that allows such behavior to keep going on, most significantly, without consequence?

It boils down to him being a Democrat and understanding that in his party, there are few standards. Just the brouhaha over throwing Sen. Al Franken out of office shows how hard it is for any of them to be held accountable. Franken was thrown out only because Democrats wanted to get on the #MeToo movement's good side, not because any Democrat objected to his behavior. Hastings is black and represents a district with a black-majority plurality of 45.7%, which probably gives him an extra coat of protection among the Democrats, but the fact that he represents a voting district with a large black voting bloc means there ought to be other competition out there with the right racial composition, including people who are not corrupt. Yet somehow, Hastings seems to keep going, given the Democrats' habit of taking the black vote for granted. It allows them to shovel anything at them. Hastings proves it.

Republicans should hammer on this in the upcoming midterms since the Democrats won't. The guy gets away with anything because he's golden to Democrats. If this is their idea of gold, well, he's ready to become a campaign issue over his continuous corruption.

August 20, 2018

Prominent Democrat encouraging the assassination of Trump

By Thomas Lifson

Forget about excusing this as "only a joke." Jokes are a well recognized means of expressing hostility while pretending not to. We have already seen a Bernie Bro attempt to assassinate a number of Congressional Republicans on a softball field, so any sane person understands that provocations issued by a person in a position of public trust and authority should not go anywhere near inciting violence.

Yet Alcee Hastings, a senior Democratic whip in the House of Representatives, and a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus, offered a threatening joke to a rally on Sunday. As the poor quality of the video embedded below attests, TV cameras were not there to record the event, and Hastings probably didn't expect the broader public to become aware of his incitement.

Amber Athey of the Daily Caller:

Hastings was speaking at a rally in Sunshine, Fla. when he repeated a joke he heard from Ari Silver, the son of former Florida state legislator Barry Silver.  ("Collusion"? –T.L.)

"I will tell you one joke," Hastings said.  "Do you know the difference between a crisis and a catastrophe?"

"'A crisis is if Donald Trump falls into the Potomac River and can't swim,'" Hastings said, retelling the joke.  "'And a catastrophe is anybody saves his ass.'"

The crowd cheered and whooped in delight at the joke.

While specifically recommending against rescuing a dying Donald Trump, the joke makes the broader point that his death would be desirable. This is in effect incitement.

Hastings, of course, does not belong in any position of prominence or trust, as he was impeached, convicted, and driven off the federal bench for soliciting a $150,000 bribe in return for leniency in the sentences of two mob-related felons.

A criminal inciting violence against a president is embraced by the voters of his racially gerrymandered district (Wikipedia: His "district includes most of the majority-black precincts in and around Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach"), the Congressional Black Caucus, and the Democratic Party.

Imagine any Republican having made the same joke about Barack Obama during his presidency. It would have been the top story in the media until he was driven from office, with incessant pestering of other Republicans to denounce the offender and impeach him.

December 19, 2019

The silliest impeachment in the history of the world

By Richard Jack Rail

The Democrat Congress has impeached the president in an exasperatingly, ridiculously partisan way. Republicans vow vengeance. The Legislative Branch's agenda for the next 100 years is all laid out. Punch, counterpunch, counter-counterpunch, on into the foreseeable future and beyond.

This is without question the silliest impeachment in the history of the word, the world, and probably the universe. Bill Clinton's impeachment was based on the actual proven crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice. Alcee Hastings's impeachment was based on the actual proven crime of taking bribes. Donald Trump's impeachment isn't based on any proven crime, high or otherwise, or any demonstrated misdemeanor. It's based entirely on Democrat pique that Trump had the gall to win the 2016 election.

Hispanic friends from the continent to the south ask perplexedly what the heck is going on. This is not the way serious world actors behave. This is the sort of thing you expected from Robert Mugabe and Manuel Noriega. I shake my head in embarrassment. Time was the United States was the E.F. Hutton of global power players. When we spoke, others listened. Where we led, others followed.

Back in January, secretary of state Pompeo said the era of self-inflicted American shame was over. He spoke too soon. When a president can be impeached on such flimsy stuff, how can anybody take such a country seriously? Congress has given America a black eye before the world. The American Congress is so petty and self-important that it impeaches a president who has brought prosperity to the entire world. What kind of foolishness is this?

We know perfectly well what's going on. Deep State crooks, along with their frontmen in Congress, are desperately trying to escape accountability for their criminality. They don't want to give up their power and perks. They don't want to surrender their ill gotten gains. They don't want to be humiliated in court like so many cheap dopers and thugs. And they really, really don't want to go to jail.

We've no choice but to follow through on this — vote it down in the Senate, but we need to make it really hurt the Democrats at the ballot box in 2020. An important step in the right direction is to clean up the voting rolls, where a 2012 Pew study showed that about one of every eight voter registrations in the United States — 24 million — is "no longer valid or ... significantly inaccurate." Recall HRC's vaunted 3.5-million-vote win in the popular vote last time around.

While waiting for expunged voter rolls to true the count, we can focus on John Durham. Mike Horowitz is a Deep State critter. We didn't expect his report to slice his own guys' throats, and he did pretty much what everybody thought he would: dodge and twist and turn like Neo to avoid saying Comey is a crook, and Strzok is a crook, and McCabe, and so on. Not so Durham. His report is the one we expect to point fingers and name names. And produce indictments.

Mr. Durham: The ball's in your court.