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WASHINGTON -- South Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings claimed vindication on Tuesday when a federal judge dismissed allegations that he had sexually harassed a former employee of a human-rights group under his supervision. "I appreciate the court's ruling," said Hastings, D-Miramar. "As I have said repeatedly, this whole thing is ridiculous, bizarre, frivolous, and has wasted – and is still wasting – a whole lot of folks' time and money. In a race with a lie, the truth always wins."

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 25, 2011 - House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings today released a YouTube video unveiling discussion draft legislation to reorganize and reform the Interior Department’s offshore energy oversight. The draft proposal officially abolishes the Minerals Management Service to create three separate agencies and establishes a new Under Secretary of Energy, Lands and Minerals in order to elevate the role of American energy production on public lands within the Interior Department. These reforms will help expand American energy production in order to protect and create American jobs, grow the economy and lower energy costs, while ensuring that...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressman Alcee Hastings asked a court Saturday to throw out claims that he subjected a former employee to sexual harassment and retaliation when he was co-chairman of an independent U.S. agency. The Florida Democrat said the case should be handled according to congressionally-approved administrative and judicial remedies - and not the U.S. District Court in Washington, where the plaintiff, Winsome Packer, lodged her complaint. Packer says Hastings asked several times to stay at her apartment or to get her to visit his hotel room in Vienna, Austria, when she worked as staff representative and he was co-chairman...

Hours after Rep. Anthony Weiner's resignation became official, a sexual harassment case involving Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) resurfaced. Gary Fields and Brody Mullins report for the Wall Street Journal that the independent Office of Congressional Ethics is now investigating a claim that Hastings sexually harassed a woman working on his staff. Fields and Mullins write that the Office investigation was opened after conservative group Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in March as the legal counsel for Republican staffer Winsome Packer. Packer, who served on the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe--a group headed by the congressman--alleges that Hastings...

A congressional ethics panel is investigating allegations that Florida Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings sexually harassed a member of his staff, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation of Mr. Hastings is being conducted by the Office of Congressional Ethics, the House's independent ethics investigative arm, and it is at a preliminary stage. It began at least a month ago after Judicial Watch, a conservative group, filed a lawsuit as the legal counsel for Winsome Packer, a staffer on a commission Mr. Hastings headed. She alleged that she had been sexually harassed by the congressman and that he retaliated...

Netflix vs. "The Keystone Cable Cos." I’ve found it amusing the past week watching all of the headlines about the cable television executives having their meeting of the minds regarding their bleak futures and The Netflix Problem. I have long maintained that Comcast shareholders and CONSUMERS would be better off if Netflix and Reed Hastings could put together a highly leveraged buyout of Comcast. I use a Comcast cable modem and watch movies ON Netflix without any technical difficulty. Yet, I’ve had Comcast “On Demand” for over a year now and every time I have ever tried to watch a...

Maarch 7, 2011-News Release Rep. Alcee Hastings Sued by Employee for Sexual Harassment: 'Unwelcome Sexual Advances' and 'Unwelcome Touching' Hastings Allegedly Retaliated Against Victim for Complaining About Conduct WASHINGTON, March 7, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it filed a lawsuit on March 7, 2011 against Florida Democrat Congressman Alcee Hastings on behalf of a female employee who was repeatedly subjected to "unwelcome sexual advances," "unwelcome touching" and retaliation. The alleged harassment and retaliation began in 2008, when Hastings was Chairman of the United States Commission on Security...

Online movie subscription service Netflix (NFLX) is working on an extensive integration with social networking giant Facebook. Netflix hopes the effort will help shift its business over time from household accounts to personal accounts for its video service. “Our long-term goal is to evolve the Netflix service so that it feels more natural to have a personal account,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Financial Officer David Wells wrote in a letter to shareholders Wednesday. “Our $7.99-per-month plan is for one stream at a time, and later this year we’ll be able to offer consumers some account options to watch...

To the Editor: In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court said that a California law school can require a Christian group to open its leadership positions to all students, including those who disagree with the group’s statement of faith. In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito castigated the majority opinion as political correctness run amok, “The proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate,’” he wrote. “Today’s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court says a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join. The court on Monday turned away an appeal from the Christian Legal Society, which sued to get funding and recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law.

Newsweek Baghdad correspondent Michael Hastings' book proposal sold last Tuesday for $500,000 to Scribner, a publishing source told FishbowlNY Thursday. The book, about Hastings' experiences working as a young journalist in Iraq, focuses on the author's relationship with 28-year-old Andrea "Andi" Parhamovich, a civilian consulting with NGO National Democratic Institute in Baghdad who was killed January 17, 2007 in an ambush there. In his January 29, 2007, editor's letter, Newsweek Jon Meacham billed it as a "death in the family," describing how at the time of Parhamovich's death, Hastings had plans to take her to Paris the following month to...

A leaked partial document produced by the Bureau of Land Management and obtained by Fox News suggests the Obama administration is considering a plan to lock up 13 million acres of land -- and the Department of Interior is refusing to answer questions. First, a little background: The federal government owns about one-third of the land in the United States -- most of it in western states. For example, 84 percent of Nevada is owned by Uncle Sam. But the government leases large parcels of federal land for all sorts of things -- grazing, mining, exploration, recreation. Those commercial activities...

A leaked partial document produced by the Bureau of Land Management and obtained by Fox News suggests the Obama administration is considering a plan to lock up 13 million acres of land -- and the Department of Interior is refusing to answer questions...The plan may actually be more than 13 million acres. Republican members of the House have asked for the rest of the memo, but the Department of the Interior is refusing to hand it over...

No kidding.

A tightly held administration plan to consider designating up to millions of acres of land in the West as national monuments has Western Republicans up in arms.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was asked in a Feb. 26, 2010, letter from Western Caucus Chairman Rep. Rob Bishop, R-UT, and other representatives from western states for the missing pages from a leaked government memo that “contained detailed information about the administration’s plans to designate as many as 14 new national monuments and lock up as much as 13 million acres in states throughout the West.”

For the last month, a 4-by-6-inch photo of President Barack Obama smoking a cigarette has been hanging in the Adams County Courthouse meeting room. The photo hung over the plaque clearly labeled “President of the United States,” next to an 8-by-10 portrait of Gov. Dave Heineman. Only within the last three days has the presidential photo come down at the request of a county official who Supervisor Eldon Orthmann said found it disrespectful. “I have no problem with that,” said Orthmann, who matted and hung the photo. “I’m not upset about it, because it was only going to be there...

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will attempt to resolve an apparent conflict between the issue of “diversity” and the First Amendment right of “freedom of association”. To me, at least, the facts are fascinating.

Supreme Court justices on Monday seemed to split sharply on whether a law school can deny recognition to a Christian student group because it won't let gays join, a case that could determine whether college nondiscrimination policies trump the rights of private organizations to determine who can — and cannot — belong to their ranks. In arguments tinged with questions of religious, racial and sexual discrimination, the court heard from the Christian Legal Society, which wants recognition from the University of California's Hastings College of the Law as an official campus organization with school financing and benefits. Hastings, located in...

“I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” -- William F. Buckley At this point, I would go Buckley one better: I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 254 people we could pull out of a minimum security prison rather than the Democrats who are currently in Congress. In all fairness to the Democrats we have in charge now, that change probably wouldn't make Congress any less corrupt (not much more corrupt either), but at least...

What would you do if you had just pissed off approximately 150 to 180 million people? Some pretty serious damage control, that’s what. Hence, His Majesty, King Hussein Obama the First will deliver a speech in Iowa this Thursday to kick off the Democratic effort to avoid a crushing loss in this November’s Congressional mid-term elections. Who knows what tortured arguments His Majesty and his minions will try to employ in this seemingly impossible task but I think the Congressional debate from Sunday gives us some idea of how they will try to defend this disastrous reform. More specifically, several...

I’d say this video is “unbelievable,” but it’s not unbelievable that members of the most corrupt Congress in the history of the known universe don’t care about laws, rules, procedures, or our Constitution. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), who you might remember as a disgraced former judge who was impeached (by a Democrat Congress) for taking bribes: 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.Video here.

Saturday, March 20, 2010 Rules? This. Is. Congress! [Daniel Foster] Yes, Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings (Fla.) just said this in the most powerful committee of the United States House of Representatives. The people's house: "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."

Two senior House Republicans are accusing the Interior Department of “working in secret” on a plan to “lock up vast expanses of land in Western states.” A letter to President Obama Thursday from Reps. Doc Hastings (Wash.) and Rob Bishop (Utah) highlights an internal Interior list of 14 areas that could be designated as National Monuments under the Antiquities Act.

RICHLAND Sarah Palin didn’t wait to get inside Hastings bookstore this morning to greet the thousands of people who’d stood in line for hours to meet her. On the drive to her scheduled book signing at the 1425 George Washington Way store, Palin made an impromptu stop along Jadwin Avenue and Torbett Street to thank her fans. She walked along the street for at least 15 minutes shaking hands and posing for pictures, while carrying her young son Trig. “We were stoked. It was worth the drive,” said Katie McGuire-Forbes. She and daughter Raechel McGuire left Troy, Idaho, at 5:45...

What's wrong with this picture? The federal government spends billions on homeland security, but apparently can't stop foreigners from illegally crossing the border or overstaying their visas. The Obama administration wants to bring violent terrorists captured overseas to the mainland and close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Yet in the latest bizarre twist, legislation quietly making its way through Congress would give the White House power to categorize political opponents as hate groups and even send Americans to detention centers on abandoned military bases. Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as...

The House of Representatives passed a measure that is a direct attack on the First Amendment on June 25 by a vote of 389-22. Within the $671 billion fiscal 2010 Defense Authorization bill (H.R. 2647) is a proposal to ban the U.S. military from recruiting or retaining “a person associated or affiliated with a group associated with hate-related violence against groups or persons or the United States Government, as determined by the Attorney General.” The measure, offered by Armed Services Committee member and Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings (and a former federal judge impeached on bribery and perjury charges) uses a...

A Guantanamo Bay Version 2.0 may be in the works. A Democratic representative is developing a unique proposal that attempts to strike a middle path in the debate as to whether the U.S. should permanently close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay next year or keep it open indefinitely. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) said Thursday that he is open to keeping a more transparent Guantanamo facility, complete with more aggressive third party monitors, open beyond the White House January 2010 closure deadline to hold the most dangerous inmates. "If we have transparency and accountability, than you can leave Gitmo just...

Writer Jerome Corsi is reporting on WorldNetDaily that former, disgraced federal judge, now Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.), an Obama apparatchik, has introduced a new bill calling for the government to establish six concentration camps for “corralling civilians on military installations.” The bill, HR 645, creates camps that are similar to the concentration camps used to house political dissidents in Nazi Germany. According to the proposed bill, the purpose of the National Emergency Centers is “to provide temporary housing as well as medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster. The broad...

Florida police are investigating an allegation that Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., directed a death threat at his Republican challenger, Marion Thorpe, at a candidates forum on Thursday. Thorpe, a former state chief medical officer, filed a report with the Boca Raton Police Department on Thursday night after the forum, alleging he was threatened by the eight-term congressman during the event at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton. The two are vying for the congressional seat in Florida's 23rd District, which includes Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. Click here to see the police report. "We had a very unfortunate interaction...

You’re not going to believe this one. Newsweek reporter Michael Hastings, while covering the presidential campaign, entertained fantasies about “taking out” Rudy Giuliani. And now he’s talking openly about it, and about his underhanded dealings with the John McCain campaign, as he pretended to be friendly and sympathetic while looking for every negative angle possible. He doesn’t even seem to be self-conscious about revealing what a dishonest, biased scumbag he is. HACK: CONFESSIONS OF A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN REPORTER. The reality is: I quickly realized Rudy was a maniac. I had a recurring fantasy in which I took him out during...

NJDC guest Alcee Hastings denounces all gun owners and hunters as racists and anti-Semites Democratic Congressman Warns Jews, Blacks to Beware of Palin by Stephen Clark Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings on Wednesday warned two minority groups to beware of Sarah Palin because "anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks." Hastings, who is black and a Democrat, made the comment in Florida at a panel discussion hosted by the National Jewish Democratic Council. The group recently criticized Palin's invitation to an anti-Iran rally held during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad's visit...

Per "Florida congressman points to Palin to rally Jews to Obama," Rep. Alcee Hastings denounced hunters and gun owners as racists and anti-Semites, and by implication beer-swilling NASCAR-watching pickup-truck-driving redneck white trash. This is consistent with Obama's own description of Pennsylvanians as "bitter" small down people who "cling to guns and religion," and the common reference to working people as "white trash" on Obama's own Web site. Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about...

"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," said Hastings. "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." Hastings, who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, made his comments in Washington, D.C., while participating in a panel discussion sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council. Asked what the congressman meant, Hastings spokesman David Goldenberg told ABC News that he was trying to...

Hastings, who is in his eighth term, said Obama would discover what the congressman has seen even in his own district, which has a large black population. "We know it as the 'black tax.' There are pockets in the congressional district that, no matter what I do [or] how well I do, it doesn't matter to them. They're not going to vote for me because I'm black," Hastings said. "That's a sad thing, but it is a reality." Hastings said that's apparent with the people that talk about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the controversial former pastor at Obama's former chuch,...

"There are no short-term answers. And I know that there's going to be long-term pain. I predict to you that gas prices will be as much as $5 before the end of this year and they will go to $6 at some point next year," he said during an interview with reporters and editorial writers at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "When they go to $6 it will fluctuate between $5 and $6 and more for some time to come. That's the harsh reality no matter what law we pass," he said. "I get tired of hearing people, politicians, friends of...

WASHINGTON — Florida Democratic Rep. Alcee L. Hastings resigned from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday. Hastings submitted his resignation to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after seven years on the panel. "The work that we do on this Committee is often difficult and usually thankless. But it is absolutely critical to the safety and protection of the American people," Hastings said in a statement. "Today, more than ever in the history of this nation, congressional oversight of America’s intelligence community is needed. We can not continue to allow this president, or any president, to operate unchecked and...

Congress reconvenes next month with a record number of African-American committee chairmen. But the hardest part of governing, now that Democrats control both the House and Senate, may be how well Party leaders handle members of their own Party.Even before she assumes her role as the first female Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is showing signs of inconsistency. I don't know what it is, but when White liberals want to prove that they can be tough, they invariably pick an African-American as the punching bag. Bill Clinton, running for president, appeared before a Jesse Jackson-sponsored event to criticize...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Rep. Alcee Hastings punctuated his remarks after being notified that he was not to be appointed head of the House intelligence committee with, “"Sorry, haters, God is not finished with me yet.". He has the support of the Black Caucus, but not the support of Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker-elect. Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., head of the CBC said Hastings´ statement made these comments indicating that he had the support of the black members of Congress. "The statement issued by Rep. Hastings ... reflects the qualities for which the Congressional Black Caucus so strongly supported him to be the next...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, impeached as a federal judge in 1989 on corruption charges, dropped his bid under pressure on Tuesday to chair a congressional panel designed to help protect America's security, a party aide said. Hastings took the action after being told by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in line to head the U.S. House of Representatives when the new Congress convenes in January, that she would not give him the coveted job, the aide said. As House speaker, Pelosi decides who in her party serves on the committee that helps oversee federal efforts to protect...

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"Should impeachment in and of itself prevent me from being chair of a committee in Congress?” asks Rep. Alcee Hastings, the man who, as a federal judge, was charged with conspiring to solicit bribes and then impeached and removed from office. In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent last week to all Democratic members of the House, Hastings, now in line to run the House Intelligence Committee, answers his own question with a resounding No. “There are several reasons why it should not,” Hastings writes. The first and most important is that Hastings, while convicted in the Senate in 1989, was...

WASHINGTON — House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi will meet Tuesday with Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings, and those with knowledge of Pelosi's thinking told FOX News that Hastings will be told he is not going to be the next chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Though no formal decisions have been announced and Pelosi aides say the situation remains fluid, they suggest that the meeting at Pelosi's Capitol Hill office was requested by Hastings so he could bow out of the race before Pelosi denies him the job. "He knows he's not going to get it," said one senior House...

Reyes Testimony Stirs Concern For EP Dems February 8, 2005 -- El Paso County Democrats say they are in disbelief after watching the testimony of U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes before the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations. "What he was saying doesn't make any sense," said Carmen Duarte, County Chair for the Democratic Party in El Paso. Duarte says they are concerned Congressman Reyes is downplaying the seriousness of border incursions, including the January 23rd incident in Hudspeth County where Hudspeth Sheriff deputies were at a stand-off with Mexican militants during a drug smuggling operation along the Rio Grande. "He wasn't...

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, on the heels of being rejected in her choice of majority leader, is being urged by prominent Democrats to avoid further embarrassment and not name Rep. Alcee Hastings as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Pelosi has made clear that she does not want to pick Rep. Jane Harman, the committee's ranking Democrat but an adversary of Pelosi in California politics. As speaker, Pelosi has complete power to name a chairman. But her advisers tell her that Republicans will have a field day if she selects Hastings, who was impeached by Congress as a...

As We See It: Pelosi faces big challenge We can only hope Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi will live up to her promises to clean house in Congress and to steer a moderate and ethical course. For Democrats, this remains their best hope of capturing the White House in 2008 and retaining control of Congress. Pelosi's actions earlier this month, however, give pause. The San Franciscan first blundered when she attempted to vault Rep. John Murtha into the post of House majority leader, ahead of Rep. Steny Honer, who Pelosi dislikes. Honer was overwhelmingly elected by colleagues. Although Murtha has gained national...

After careful deliberation, the 9/11 commission concluded that continuity in the leadership of the congressional intelligence committees doesn’t matter. It thought bipartisanship should be avoided on the committees if at all possible and recommended that personal pique and racial politics trump substantive considerations. Actually, of course, the commission said none of those things, and on continuity, said the opposite. The sum total of the Democratic consensus on national security, judging by the bare-bones platform the party ran on this fall, is implementing the remaining unimplemented recommendations of the 9/11 commission. But House Majority Leader-elect Nancy Pelosi could flout the spirit...

Despite continuing reports that Speaker of the House-designate Nancy Pelosi intends to name Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings as chairman of the important House Intelligence Committee, I do not think she will do so. Mr. Hastings, before winning his congressional seat, was a federal judge accused of bribery. He was acquitted of these charges in a trial, but the House of Representatives, based on these accusations, then impeached him, and the Senate removed him from office by convicting him. Both the House and Senate at that time were controlled by the Democrats. Mr. Hastings subsequently won a Florida congressional seat, and...

Memo to the national news media: Please, in all future stories about Rep. Alcee Hastings, stop referring to “the FBI agent” who set him up in a bribery sting when Hastings was a federal judge. The guy who brought down Hastings wasn’t just an FBI agent, you know. He was also a gangster. He died in 2004 under guard, in custody, indicted for the murder of his boss two months before he bagged Alcee Hastings. Meet H. Paul Rico, dead almost three years now and still involved, not just in one, but in two unfolding scandals. You’re familiar with the...