Do you remember Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas?
In a red state where former President Barack Obama was never very popular, Mr. Stockman stood out for being intensely anti-Obama.
In 2014, Mr. Stockman walked out of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address in protest. He invited Missouri rodeo clowns who mocked Mr. Obama in a controversial skit to perform in his district. He also sold Obama “barf bags” as a campaign fund-raiser. And in 2013, he took the conservative rocker Ted Nugent, no fan of Mr. Obama, to the president’s State of the Union address as his guest.
Well, he’s going to jail.
A former United States representative from Texas and one of his aides were indicted on Tuesday on charges that they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for charity, some of which was used to illegally finance his campaigns.
The former representative, Steve Stockman, 60, and the former director of special projects in his congressional office, Jason Posey, 46, were charged in a 28-count indictment related to the alleged yearslong fraud scheme. The charges included mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and money laundering, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Because this isn’t legal:
In 2010, Mr. Stockman redirected a sizable share of $285,000 intended for charity to cover personal expenses for himself and Thomas Dodd, another aide, and to further his “own interests,” the Justice Department said, citing the indictment. He used much of $165,000 in charitable donations raised in 2011 and 2012 to pay for his congressional campaign, the department said.
After taking office in 2013, Mr. Stockman and Mr. Dodd used the name of a nonprofit to raise an additional $350,000, which he spent on personal and campaign expenses, including campaign contributions, opposition research and payments related to his failed Senate campaign, according to the Justice Department.
Mr. Posey used the name of a nonprofit to raise approximately $450,000, which was later spent on mailers attacking an opponent of Mr. Stockman and campaign and personal expenses, the Justice Department said.
I knew Stockman was crazy when he said that President Obama actually wanted to get impeached before the 2014 midterms in order to help the Democrats do better in the elections. I also suspected he was a crook because, whether Democratic or Republican, the guys who love stunts and throwing bombs usually wind up being shady in their personal dealings.
It’s not so much that it takes a crook to know a crook as it is that crooks think everyone else is crooked, too.
Anyway, Steve Stockman is going to jail. Barack Obama is writing his memoirs on a South Pacific island formerly owned by Marlon Brando.
Mic drop.
In these troubled times, when it seems like every two-bit con is winning while the good guys take a beating, news like this makes me want to jump for joy. It’s absolutely fantastic to see a vulgar, mean, and rotten character get his just punishment.
Thanks, Booman! Made my day!
Didn’t I hear about some other politician who did something like that? If only Republicans could read the paper.
The rules are different when moving money from one pocket to a coin purse. If the IRS had caught this, it would only have resulted in fines/penalties and a slap on the wrist.
Stockman was low hanging fruit. Texans apparently don’t even like the guy. Only managed to get into the House twice (not consecutive terms) and rejected in all his other runs for office.
Didn’t Tom Delay do the same thing and managed to eventually never go to jail?
I had the same thought. Delay definitely got a Get Out of Jail Free card from the TX appellate courts, I believe, but I’m too lazy to look up the exact details.
Just the other day, after the Big Fail of the Ryan/Trump HealthDon’tCare bill, Delay was on NPR lecturing us rubes about our “responsibilities” to pay for our own health care and not expect big gubmint to give us lousy lazy worthless disgusting moochers a hand out.
I listened to about 2 sentences of that know crook’s b.s. lies and turned off the radio in order to avoid hurling it against the wall. This is why I almost never listen to NPR “nooz.” ptoui.
These crooks. Expect this one will be resurrected somehow. They generally are if they’re Republicans.
though with eyes wide open to the nonsense of “even-the-liberal-NPR”; their significant corporate capture via corporate sponsorship and vulnerability due to Congressional funding; their cowering, pre-emptive self-strikes in response to incessant rightwingnut attack; leading to things like very contentious interviews of “the good guys” (relatively speaking) asking them to respond to ridiculous, Reality-Denying, counter-factual rightwingnut talking points (at least one by David Green stands out in memory, but it’s not a rare phenomenon); self-censorship on things like calling torture “torture” and lies “lies”.
Let me try to expand on/clarify that: they’re overly contentious with the relatively decent, sensible, Reality-Based, and truthful. And under-contentious with Lying Liars, propagandists, and assorted other hacks ‘n flacks.
But their increasing willingness to give air time to thoroughly discredited, corrupt, dogmatic ideologues like Delay, with limited or no factual refutation of their lies and distortions (e.g., Obamacare’s a “complete failure”, “disaster”, “imploding/exploding”, etc.), has been noticeable. (That said, I’ve seen Cheney interviewed, including treatment as an elder statesman of the party rather than the utterly discredited War Criminal that he is, on cable “news” — ok maybe it was Fox, don’t recall that detail — but never on NPR. So maybe they have SOME standards, even if appallingly low?)
Still, I don’t watch tee-vee (beyond the occasional streamed clip somebody links to), and I do feel some aware, informed citizen’s responsibility to maintain SOME awareness of what the Corporate Media are up to.
I think pledge week started about an hour ago. I don’t anticipate any dollars coaxed from my account to theirs by a week of begging, though.
I pretty much avoid NPR. I have a flash drive with hours worth of my favorite music to keep me sane during a morning or evening commute. The last thing I need is to have that commute made more miserable by being subjected to some idjit who had no credibility to begin with (Tom Delay would fit the bill). I generally get my news online – and enough of that is corporate. But at least I get to read it in my own voice, rather than have it screamed at me. The older I get, the less patience I have for ranting and raving, and being talked at or talked down to. I’ll still switch on the PBS affiliate, but mainly for reruns of old BBC sitcoms or documentaries. I might check Austin City Limits as they sometimes have some pretty decent artists – I loved it a few yours ago when Florence and the Machine were on. Sonic Youth was on there too just about a year before they finally imploded. So I see some value to that. So it goes.
“. . . whether Democratic or Republican, the guys who love stunts and throwing bombs usually wind up being shady in their personal dealings.”
That reminds me of that guy who’s been all over the news lately. Wait a minute it’ll come to me.
you’re awfully quick to assume that everyone charged with crime is guilty.
I don’t really disagree with your assumption that all republicans are guilty of something, but this story is that he’s going to court. He’s been charged not convicted.
Luke.