Racist Republican Party Official Forced To Resign Although Charlie Dent Still Refuses To Denounce His Racist Ravings

Everyone's been writing to ask whatever happened to the Republican character we introduced a couple weeks ago, young Adam LaDuca, the Charlie Dent staffer, McCain coordinator who served as executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans and as the president of the Kutztown University College Republicans. Well, I asked Dent's campaign manager for a statement from Dent disavowing LaDuca's vicious racist and sexist epithets but all the Pennsylvania congressman would say is that "Adam LaDuca is an idiot."

I guess Dent has been so busy trying to explain why he's taken such immense "contributions" from Big Oil while voting for their special interests, that he never got around to denouncing his staffer's racism. He may have to. First the Allentown Morning Call and then the A.P. broke the sordid story yesterday after LaDuca was ousted from all his positions in the Republican Party apparatus.

Still claiming he isn't a racist, Dent's staffer vilified Dr. Martin Luther King, calling him "a pariah," and wrote that Obama has "a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)" John Morgan at the Pennsylvania Progressive uncovered this story and stayed with it, doggedly, even while LaDuca was threatening him. Charlie Dent claims LaDuca hasn't worked for him or hasn't worked for him since 2006. He still refuses to distance himself from LaDuca's bizarre and thoroughly un-American ravings. Dent should pull his head out of Big Oil's ass long enough to take stock of what role he played in the development of this 21 year old Republican who idolizes him and has tried to emulate him. Jim Gerlach, another Republican congressman for whom LaDuca campaigned-- even if he wasn't as close with him as he was with Dent-- should also denounce the vicious racism and make it clear that he doesn't countenance that kind of behavior from his supporters inside a Republican Party that has become riven with this kind of outlook.

Nick Liebham Takes On FISA Traitors While Charlie Dent... Punts

Barely a day goes by when I'm not on the phone with either a congressional candidate or one of their staffers. Yesterday my first call, at around 6AM, was from Sean Millan, the somewhat over-wrought campaign manager of rubber stamp Republican Charlie Dent (R-PA). He wanted to let me know that Charlie thinks Adam LaDuca is "an idiot." The Pennsylvania College Republicans executive director, LaDuca, has been exposed as a virulent racist and now Dent's campaign, in an hysterical "he said/she said" dispute is claiming he's not on their staff. I suggested to Millan that Charlie, already in trouble with Lehigh Valley voters for his complicity in energy policies that have led to $4/gallon gasoline (while he scarfed up $75,831 in "donations" from Big Oil), should denounce LaDuca's racism, sexism and homophobia and sound a little like a statesman instead of a 5th grader in a spat with a playmate. He said he'd e-mail me; still waiting.

But it wasn't just the Dent menagere on the phone spinning its shady relationships with seedy characters. I had some long conversations of a more substantive nature with Democratic candidates who didn't shun speaking about tough issues facing Americans. One was with a southern California candidate we haven't talked much about, Nick Liebham, who's opposing revolving door lobbyist/congressman Brian Bilbray in the northern San Diego suburbs. Across a broad array of issues Nick is a thoughtful and committed Democrat with an excellent chance to send Bilbray back to K Street. But the part of cour conversation that really got me going was his lawerly take on Bush's FISA legislation. I didn't have my recorder on but he told me he had said basically the same thing to Lucas O'Connor at Calitics a couple months ago and he sent me the link:

As somebody who has been a prosecutor and dealt with the 4th Amendment, I can tell you that this happened to have been the one amendment in the Bill of Rights that all the Founding Fathers could agree upon; that in order for the government intrusion there had to be probable cause signed off on by an independent magistrate that says you may have committed a crime. I find the entire FISA process to be constitutionally dubious. That doesn't mean that it couldn't be made constitutionally valid but I think that anytime you have wiretaps involved... that deals with an American citizen, you've gotta have a court sign off on it. The only question in my mind is whether or not that has to be done prior to there warrant being executed or whether or not there is some grace period. There is no doubt in my mind that the executive branch itself cannot act as both overseer and executioner (of warrants or wiretaps). That, I think, is constitutionally impermissible; I think it's a violation of the judiciary's proper role of interpreting laws.

As a former prosecutor [and] law clerk in the US Attorney's office in the Major Frauds and Economic Crimes section... I've never heard of anybody being given immunity when you don't know what they've done. It's not how the immunity process works. You don't say to somebody 'Whatever you've done, don't worry about it.'... It's unthinkable to me as a lawyer and as somebody who will have... sworn to uphold the Constitution that I could ever support that.

What a tragedy that Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer, both Democratic leaders who have received huge pay-offs from the telecom industry-- this year Emanuel was the #1 recipient of their bribes in the entire House ($49,950), even more than GOP telecom shill Eric Cantor ($34,200)-- led 105 Democrats across the aisle, most of them well-bribed by the telecoms, to join the Republican rubber stamps in passing this horrendous legislation.