Civil Liberties

C-SPAN After Dark: Alcee Hastings' Cher-Like Awards Show Acceptance Speech

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When the lights go down and the squares leave the House floor and head back home to their second and third spouses, anything can happen in the glimmering dusky lights of Congress as the ghosts of Gerry Studds, Wilbur Mills, and Mark Foley roam the floor looking for action.

In this episode of C-SPAN After Dark, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) catalogs just about every perversion ever dreamed of by the U.S. Congress. We're not exactly sure if he's reading staff-written research or simply indulging in spontaneous bop prosody, but we're pretty certain that America will never be the same again. Or that HR 1913, a.k.a. the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, never sounded so sweet.

Kids, don't try this at an awards program!

More details here.

Reason's Jacob Sullum on this bill here.

Back in 1999, Rob Blanchard went to Wyoming in the wake of the brutal killing of Matthew Shepard, the hideous crime that inspired the current law. Blanchard's well-worth-reading story is here.