PHILADELPHIA - A Pennsylvania legislator pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges alleging he used state workers and a nonprofit group for his personal and political benefit, costing taxpayers and others more than $2 million.
State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, one of the most powerful figures in Pennsylvania politics, was released on $100,000 bail after his plea to 139 counts of fraud and obstruction.
Fumo declined to comment when he entered the federal building for processing.
An indictment handed up Tuesday alleged that Fumo, 63, regularly used state workers to perform personal chores, from overseeing construction at his 33-room Philadelphia mansion to spying on his ex-wife to working his 100-acre farm near Harrisburg.
Fumo misused $1 million in state resources plus $1 million from the nonprofit neighborhood group he controlled, according to the indictment.
The Philadelphia Democrat, a state senator since 1978, was charged with obstruction for ordering his staff to destroy years worth of e-mails on government computers.
Yeah, boy, damn those State Senators.
You wanna play the 'see which State Senators are corrupt' game, Baldi? I will warn you in advance that there are many Republicans on this list.
Cycloptichorn
Yeah, boy, damn those State Senators.
You wanna play the 'see which State Senators are corrupt' game, Baldi? I will warn you in advance that there are many Republicans on this list.
Cycloptichorn
Now,the dems all campaigned,on both a state and national level,that they were above reproach and not guilty of the corruption they claimed infected the repub party.
Quote:
Now,the dems all campaigned,on both a state and national level,that they were above reproach and not guilty of the corruption they claimed infected the repub party.
Strawman yourself. Dems campaigned that the Republicans were corrupt and that they would work to clean it up. Can you link to specific campaign promises that people who have turned out to be corrupt, said that they weren't during their campaign?
That's what a strawman is - when you make up an argument that other people didn't make and then attack it. When I brought up Republicans, I was changing the subject, not erecting a strawman. Study up on your Logical Fallacies.
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:Yeah, boy, damn those State Senators.
You wanna play the 'see which State Senators are corrupt' game, Baldi? I will warn you in advance that there are many Republicans on this list.
Cycloptichorn
Didn't realize it was a game. I thought the dems won the last election based on anti-corruption. If that is so then the dems are already falling behind. I never said the Reps were less corrupt then the Dems, I just find it funny about the corruption issue was listed as a major reason for the election and here we have a dem getting busted for corruption.
Why change the subject?
Does it hurt when your dems get caught?
Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
Now,the dems all campaigned,on both a state and national level,that they were above reproach and not guilty of the corruption they claimed infected the repub party.
Strawman yourself. Dems campaigned that the Republicans were corrupt and that they would work to clean it up. Can you link to specific campaign promises that people who have turned out to be corrupt, said that they weren't during their campaign?
That's what a strawman is - when you make up an argument that other people didn't make and then attack it. When I brought up Republicans, I was changing the subject, not erecting a strawman. Study up on your Logical Fallacies.
Cycloptichorn
Why change the subject?
Does it hurt when your dems get caught?
Well it looks like the regular creepoziod right wingers are out in force bellyaching about the corruption of a single state legislator who had government employees cut his grass and shovel snow off the guy's pavement.
Well, in the scheme of things it ain't no big deal. but, betrayal of the public trust is state sacrilege, and I hope the guy goes to jail for 20 years; just like I hope George Bush's treasonous state sacrilege lands him dancing on an exectioneer's noose.
The ancient Greeks were smarter than us and allowed banishment from their democracy to those who posed a threat to it, and likely if we had it George Bush would be voted ON TO an island and sent to Saint Helena's or worse.
But, meanwhile as you piss and moan over a corrupt local politician where is your damned teeth-nashing exclaimations of citizen rape by federal government graft when this week Americans found out from our latest "Medal of Freedom" winner Paul Bremmer that he has no earthly idea of where $12,000,000,000 (that's $ billion for the yahoos on the Right who need to count past eleven barefoot) was pissed away on Iraq " reconstruction."
I don't hear $hit from you mouthbreathers on that. So where is your damned sanctimonious outrage from that much money wasted. At least the incompetent co#ksucker you support could give us the damned medal back.
Hello Macflies?
Are you such complete imbeciles, idiots, and partisan bastards who piss and moan over a single guy using government employees as his own and bypass without comment the Republican money-for-free boondoggle that had to use fork-lifts, forklifts, for Christ's sake to distribute our own tax money with no accounting at all.
Your hypocrisy stinks, as usual.
kuvasz wrote:Well it looks like the regular creepoziod right wingers are out in force bellyaching about the corruption of a single state legislator who had government employees cut his grass and shovel snow off the guy's pavement.
Well, in the scheme of things it ain't no big deal. but, betrayal of the public trust is state sacrilege, and I hope the guy goes to jail for 20 years; just like I hope George Bush's treasonous state sacrilege lands him dancing on an exectioneer's noose.
The ancient Greeks were smarter than us and allowed banishment from their democracy to those who posed a threat to it, and likely if we had it George Bush would be voted ON TO an island and sent to Saint Helena's or worse.
But, meanwhile as you piss and moan over a corrupt local politician where is your damned teeth-nashing exclaimations of citizen rape by federal government graft when this week Americans found out from our latest "Medal of Freedom" winner Paul Bremmer that he has no earthly idea of where $12,000,000,000 (that's $ billion for the yahoos on the Right who need to count past eleven barefoot) was pissed away on Iraq " reconstruction."
I don't hear $hit from you mouthbreathers on that. So where is your damned sanctimonious outrage from that much money wasted. At least the incompetent co#ksucker you support could give us the damned medal back.
Hello Macflies?
Are you such complete imbeciles, idiots, and partisan bastards who piss and moan over a single guy using government employees as his own and bypass without comment the Republican money-for-free boondoggle that had to use fork-lifts, forklifts, for Christ's sake to distribute our own tax money with no accounting at all.
Your hypocrisy stinks, as usual.
I am not concerned about that 12 billion for one simple reason,IT WASNT OURS!!!
That money was given to the Iraqi govt,what they did with it or what happened to it is their problem,not ours.
Should we have given it to them?
I dont know.
But once we did it was no longer our money to worry about.
Do you demand an accounting of every dollar spent by every country we give money to?
As for corruption by a dem,lets not forget the South Dakota dem that slept with a Senate Page.
The dems did nothing to him,even though what he did was obviously wrong.
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=90834&highlight=
I am not concerned about that 12 billion for one simple reason,IT WASNT OURS!!!
That money was given to the Iraqi govt,what they did with it or what happened to it is their problem,not ours.
Should we have given it to them?
I dont know.
But once we did it was no longer our money to worry about.
As for corruption by a dem,lets not forget the South Dakota dem that slept with a Senate Page.
The dems did nothing to him,even though what he did was obviously wrong.
How about the SF mayor who slept with his "friends" wife who also happened to be one if his "trusted" political advisors. I guess we are going to redefine what is, is.
President Clinton did not face impeachment because of his sexual peccadilloes (married to Hillary, who couldn't sympathize), but because he committed perjury, a felony, in a Federal Court.
It's time that we all, regardless of our political stance, pay more attention to the real effectiveness of our representatives and much less on their private lives. President Clinton did not face impeachment because of his sexual peccadilloes (married to Hillary, who couldn't sympathize), but because he committed perjury, a felony, in a Federal Court. This is not to say that when politicians are found to have violated the law, that they should go unpunished. Scandal alone is enough to punish most "shady" behavior.
Let those without fault cast the first stone.
President Nixon is the only President successfully impeached, and there never was much doubt that he would be convicted. In the Nixon case, the President clearly used his office and powers to subvert the Constitutional political system. His actions motivated by personal prejudices, and could not be interpreted as within his Constitutional powers.
[URL=Bill of Impeachment of President Nixon[/UR]]Bill of Impeachment of President Nixon
My Kuvasz, you are touchy-sensitive about President Clinton, aren't you?
The Bill of Impeachment against President Clinton hinged not on his personal sex life, but upon his perjury under oath while sitting as President of the United States. That the perjury was intended to cover up his unseemly behavior was to many of us not relevant. The Congress felt otherwise, and acquitted him of the charges. I don't think many believe that President Clinton didn't lie under oath about his relationships.
It is worth mentioning that Nixon got caught involved with knowing about the wiretapping of political figures, which was nothing new at all. This from the following site:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879504,00.html?internalid=ACA
"The Senate select committee on intelligence activities last week filled out the dismaying record of Hoover's eagerness to curry favor with Presidents by using agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to gather political information. The committee staffs report shows that Hoover willingly complied with improper requests from Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon."
Please note if all of these presidents had been removed from office for such activity, it would be 3 Democrats gone vs 1 Republican, including the hated Richard Nixon along with 3 beloved Democratic icons that are still worshiped and revered by liberal Democrats today.