Tag: Conservative Values
GOP Ohio Governor Avoids Jail Term in Corruption Case
Ohio Republican Gov. Bob Taft, the great-grandson of a U.S. president, on Thursday admitted violating ethics laws for not disclosing golf outings and other gifts and was fined $4,000, but avoided jail time.
“I accept full responsibility for this mistake. I am very sorry,” Taft said in a statement in Franklin County Municipal Court after pleading no contest to four criminal misdemeanor ethics violations. That plea allowed Judge Mark Froehlich to find him guilty.
He could have faced up to six months in jail on each of the four counts, but a plea agreement reached with prosecutors that Taft signed in court limited his punishment to the fine.
Liberals Invoke Faith, Flag & Family, While Cynical Conservatives Destroy Crosses, Trash War Mothers
“Such is the hatred of the far right at the dawn of the 21st Century… Today it is the left invoking faith, flag and family, while the right destroys crosses. Today it is the left that honors the war dead, raises up a Gold Star Mother and publicly prays for our troops, while the right viciously attacks a woman who gave her country everything. Today it is the left that patiently and peacefully respects the Office of the Presidency, while the right diminishes the office by claiming it’s more important for the President to go bike-riding with a sports hero than comfort the mother of a war hero.
“For the last two presidential elections it has been the Democratic Party whose nominee was a Vietnam War veteran, while the Republicans have sputtered out spurious defenses of their candidate’s deceitful draft-dodging.”
— Paul Begala
Santorum: It Takes a Police State
After teenagers at a book signing made a joke about Santorum’s homophobia, his security threatened them with arrest: ‘You’re going to embarrass your family, you won’t get into college with this on your record.”
According to Delaware Online columnist Al Mascitti, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Loopyland) espouses a variety of controversial views on current issues — “that women shouldn’t work outside the home, that legalizing gay marriage would lead to legalizing polygamy and bestiality, that government should discourage birth control.”
But anyone who wants to discuss their opposing views at one of Santorum’s appearances where he is hawking his book, “It Takes a Family,” might want to reconsider. Unless they want to be threatened with jail. That message was heard loud and clear by some teenagers and their parents last week at a Delaware shopping mall.
Santorum appeared at the Barnes & Noble bookstore adjacent to Concord Mall on U.S. 202 Wednesday night for what was billed as a book signing and discussion. College students Stacey Galperin and Miriam Rocek of Newark decided to attend to hear what he had to say.
“I knew about him from his promotion of the federal marriage amendment,” said Rocek, 19. “I thought I would go and just talk to him during the book signing, tell him I disagreed with a lot of his policies, just engage him in dialogue.”
Murder Charges Look Likelier for Abramoff
Tom DeLay’s sugar daddy, Jack Abramoff, should be sweating. After all, Florida still has the death penalty.
An amazing coincidence was previously reported by PR. The guy Abramoff swindled — SunCruz Casinos owner Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis — was riddled with bullets at about the same time he would have been finding out Abramoff never intended to pay him. The matter is suddenly getting close police scrutiny. Lakeland Ledger:
Abramoff, 46, and 41-year-old Adam Kidan are charged in a six-count grand jury indictment with conspiracy and wire fraud in the September 2000 purchase of SunCruz Casinos from Boulis. Prosecutors say the pair concocted a fake $23 million wire transfer to make it appear to lenders they were putting a sizable stake of their own money into the deal…
A few months following the $147.5 million sale of SunCruz, Boulis was shot to death in his car after it was blocked by other vehicles and an assailant pulled alongside in what police say was an apparent hit. The killing occurred after weeks of acrimony stemming from the sale, including a physical altercation between Kidan and Boulis, who also founded the Miami Subs fast-food chain.
Police wanted to question Abramoff from the get-go about the killing but for some reason (um — influence?) they never followed up when he failed to appear.
The lawyer, Neal Sonnett, said after a brief scheduling hearing in federal court that Abramoff had expected to meet with Fort Lauderdale homicide detectives shortly after the February 2001 slaying of Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis.
The interview never happened, Sonnett said, and now Fort Lauderdale detectives are expressing new interest in talking with Abramoff.
Abramoff is free on bail right now on charges he swindled American Indians out of $66 million. Tom DeLay, who partied hearty on Abramoff’s dole, continues to get away with murder in Congress.
Wingnut Mows Down rows of Crosses Commemorating War Dead
I’m sorry to report that a conservative scumbag configured his Texas pickup truck to do maximum damage and leveled most of the memorial crosses that Cindy Sheehan and her companions set up outside the Bush ranch in Crawford.
So much for their hypocritical, support-the-troops credo.
Thankfully, police have arrested the man, Larry Northern, 59, of Waco and charged him with criminal mischief. Sadly, there’s no criminal charge for being an ignorant cracker.
Aristocrat Bush on War Dead: ‘I Have to Go on With My Life’
“It’s important for me to go on with my life.”
– President Bush, explaining why his vacation is more important than a war mother’s grief
Despite his strange, mangled Texas accent, President George W. Bush is, first and foremost, a pampered East Coast blueblood. As such, nothing can change the key operative dynamic in his life: The world revolves around him. It always has, and always will.
Nothing sums this up better than his reaction to the pleas from the mother of a soldier who died in the war Mr. Bush launched for no other reason than his personal, aristocratic whim:
Bush said he is aware of the anti-war sentiments of Cindy Sheehan and others who have joined her protest near the Bush [second home].
“But whether it be here or in Washington or anywhere else, there’s somebody who has got something to say to the president, that’s part of the job,” Bush said on the ranch. “And I think it’s important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But, I think it’s also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life.”
This from a man who has never experienced an honestly “thoughtful” or “sensitive” moment in his life. What an asshole.
Republican Demonstrators to Sheehan: ‘We Don’t Care’ About Dead Son
As Ms. Sheehan and the “Camp Casey” protesters sang America The Beautiful or stood quietly, the right-wing group chanted “we don’t care” at the mother who lost her son, Casey, to Bush’s war in Iraq.
Fix Is in on Abramoff, His Offer to Flip Top GOP Pols Was Rebuffed – By Top GOP Pols
Now that Republican uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been indicted, it would be standard operating procedure for prosecutors to offer him leniency in return for his ratting out his betters. It would be SOP if our government were not controlled by the corrupt conservatives who were once Abramoff’s playmates. Here’s Josh Marshall:
I hear Abramoff has already tried to [flip], and [has] been rebuffed. And this gets us into questions I think we’ll be talking about a lot.
Why would he be rebuffed?
Decisions like that go right to the top. And since Abramoff’s shenanigans are closely tied — to be generous — not just to members of Congress (DeLay, Ney, Burns, et al.) but to key GOP power players (Norquist, Reed, et al.) and quite probably Karl Rove himself, you can see why he (i.e., Abramoff) might have a harder time than your usual perp cutting a deal to implicate those above him.
DeLay’s Sugar Daddy, Abramoff, Has a Seriously Mean Side
Boy, Tom DeLay sure knows how to pick ’em. We already knew Jack Abramoff, DeLay’s sugar daddy, was a Genuinely Bad Man, but even we are shocked by the latest revelations.
Southwest Florida Herald Tribune:
Jack Abramoff, a once-powerful Washington lobbyist and a key figure in ethics investigations involving House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on fraud charges stemming from an ill-fated deal for a fleet of gambling boats.
Abramoff and a partner in the $147 million purchase of SunCruz Casinos, New York businessman Adam Kidan, were named in a six-count indictment by the grand jury in Fort Lauderdale. Prosecutors say they concocted a fake $23 million wire transfer to defraud two lenders out of about $60 million to finance the deal.
“That document was counterfeit. The defendants never transferred these funds and never made a cash equity contribution toward the purchase of SunCruz,” said U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta of Miami.
They never intended to pay the money? The document was counterfeit? And they thought they wouldn’t get caught? Don’t see how that could work, unless they were going to kill the guy when he found out or something.
The partners bought SunCruz from Greek-born entrepreneur Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis for $147 million in September 2000, but the deal soon fell apart. Amid bitter legal fighting over the sale, the 51-year-old Boulis was shot to death five months later in 2001 what police called a gangland-style hit that remains unsolved.
Oh. They DID kill the guy. Yikes.
Now what was it my mother always said about the people you hang out with? Birds of a feather, maybe, or something about apples and trees.
