Originally Posted By Dabob2 Pleading guilty to a felony will sort of do that for you, although after he first copped the plea, he had said he saw no reason he should have to, and in fact would not. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/29/politics/michael-grimm-to-resign-soon/">http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/29/...gn-soon/</a> He pleaded guilty to only one of the 20 (!) counts against him, but since they were related charges, and copping a plea always means you made a deal with the prosecutor to drop others (and/or the penalty), one can only assume he was also guilty of the others, including mail/wire fraud, perjury, and knowingly hiring undocumented workers so he could pay them squat. This is the same guy who, when asked legitimate questions about campaign finance irregularities (a whole OTHER set of charges), threatened to throw the reporter off the balcony and break him in half "like a boy." Of course, Grimm obviously knew he was guilty when he ran for re-election. He was already indicted on 20 counts, and he had to have known there was a pretty good chance they'd get the goods on him. He obviously didn't care about that (or the million plus dollars it's going to cost NY taxpayers to now run a special election), thinking he could serve anyway if he copped a good enough deal. But apparently Boehner considered him too big an embarrassment even for this Congress and forced his resignation. My Congressman, ladies and gentlemen. A peach of a guy. I take small solace that the Brooklyn part of the district where I live voted mostly for his opponent - a certified dope, to be sure, but not a felon. Unfortunately, the lion's share of the district is, well, Staten Island. Up to 2008 we had been represented by another Republican, who was then revealed to have a mistress and secret second family. THAT scandal meant that for two measly years we actually had a unscandalous Democratic Congressman named Mike McMahon (a decent guy I've met a couple of times), who was then swept out in the GOP tide of 2010 by Grimm. McMahon is said to be thinking of running for his (now empty) old seat. I hope he does. He'd be a much better candidate than the dope who ran this year. But the district is still majority Staten Island and majority Republican, and the leading contender on that side is said to be DA Dan Donovan. The potential double-edged sword for Donovan is that he's the DA who failed to get an indictment in the Eric Garner choke-hold death. Many feel that, like the DA in Ferguson, he didn't really WANT to get an indictment there, or at the very least didn't try very hard to get one. So much so that the NAACP has already filed a complaint against him. This history could potentially help Donovan on Staten Island, where a LOT of police live. But it could also hurt with the district's minority populace, most of whom didn't come out to vote in 2014, but who might come out to vote in large numbers against Donovan if he were on the ballot. The district did go for Obama in 2012, so it's not DEEP red, and gets bluer with bigger turnout. So it's not clear yet how Donovan's history with Garner would play out here.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 By the way, Happy New Year to all my LP pals. Favorite quote of the year: "I have at my fingertips a device that allows me access to all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom the world has yet produced. I use it to look at cats and to argue with people I don't know."
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: Just about everyone in politics is corrupt these days--both Republicans and Democrats. We hear that Al Sharpton hasn't been paying his taxes, either, but he doesn't appear to be held accountable for it, as far as we can tell.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "By the way, Happy New Year to all my LP pals. Favorite quote of the year: "I have at my fingertips a device that allows me access to all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom the world has yet produced. I use it to look at cats and to argue with people I don't know."" lol Happy New Year Dabob!
Originally Posted By Ivan50 Does everything always have to be anti sharpton. Just because he has tax issues and was wrong about the Twana girl many years ago he still is a correct voice for what is fair in the African community. Not years ago, but now he is a good man, and believe it or not, we need him or people like him.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 The thing is, saying "they're all the same" and making no distinction between various transgressions is very fashionably cynical... but also extremely lazy.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "We hear that Al Sharpton hasn't been paying his taxes, either, but he doesn't appear to be held accountable for it, as far as we can tell." And then there's the truth, not that some guy who pretends to be three witches gives a crap. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/sharpton.asp">http://www.snopes.com/politics...pton.asp</a>
Originally Posted By ecdc Happy New Year, Dabob! Following the Grimm story has been...interesting. Good old Staten Island. Fun fact: I posted a link to Snopes to respond to an ultra-conservative friend-of-a-friend. She replied, "I don't believe a thing on Snopes." I suspect the response here will be similar.
Originally Posted By Ivan50 That is not a good compare, road trip. But it was funny and made me laugh. For real! You should not put man in absolutes because pure evil or pure good are hard to find. I like to look at over a.ll contributions . So if somebody has financial crisis but saves lives then he is over all a good man. Human life is more important than money and sharpton is saving lives by bringing these abuses to light and preventing more deaths. I'm not a African man but I once shared chains too by feeling oppression. So I decided never to let the oppressors get me and take action by arming myself.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< I posted a link to Snopes to respond to an ultra-conservative friend-of-a-friend. She replied, "I don't believe a thing on Snopes." >>> That doesn't surprise me. Part of the noise machine's indoctrination is to impeach *any* news source that isn't officially sanctioned. You can see it in how they spotlight any "false reporting" scandal by more or less any news source that isn't one of theirs, continually putting the "don't trust anyone but us" notion into their victims' (er, viewers/listeners/readers)' heads.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< We hear that Al Sharpton hasn't been paying his taxes, either, but he doesn't appear to be held accountable for it, as far as we can tell. >>> I'm no fan of Al Sharpton, but let me help out a bit here. If you can't see the difference between the two situations, you're not looking very hard. In one case we have someone that plead guilty to a felony tax crime. In another case, we have someone that not only hasn't plead guilty or been otherwise convicted of such, he hasn't been indicted or even suspected of such a crime, as far as I can tell. Simply owing money to the IRS is not a crime. If you owe taxes and can't pay them, that's not a crime. We're not living in Victorian England.
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Originally Posted By Dabob2 You should not worry about my Congressman. The now-convicted felon will have some time in prison to be alone
Originally Posted By Dabob2 As much as my schadenfreude loves the idea of the bully getting a taste of his own medicine by someone threatening to break HIM "like a boy," my guess is he doesn't go anywhere scary. Probably 3-6 months in "Club Fed," after which he becomes a high-paid lobbyist. Don't cry for him, Argentina.
