Here’s a video from Monday’s House Rules Committee hearing on Obamacare, in which former impeached federal judge Alcee Hastings (D-Florida) lambastes the entire state of Texas, calling it a “crazy state” and declaring that he “wouldn’t live there.” Hastings was talking to Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican from Texas, and Burgess took rather pointed exception to Hastings’ statements – though he didn’t ask Hastings to go with him outside to settle the question of make reference to Hastings’ own ethical lapses.

The other committee members in the room were…uncomfortable.

It’s the Senate’s fault we have to tolerate this sort of behavior. From SourceWatch…

Hastings was indicted on charges of conspiring to solicit a bribe from two defendants awaiting sentencing in his court. Hastings was unanimously acquitted of the charges in 1983. The Judicial Council of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, however, soon launched a separate investigation into the matter which lasted nearly four years. Ultimately, the council (which was led by former Watergate prosecutor John Doar and comprised of the active appeals court judges for that circuit and three U.S. District judges) found that Hastings not only had solicited a bribe, but also repeatedly lied during his trial. Following this report, the House Judiciary Committee approved seventeen articles of impeachment against Hastings. Sixteen dealt with the bribery case, while one centered around Hastings’ improper revelation of sensitive government information obtained through a federal wiretap in 1985. In late 1988, the articles passed the House by a vote of 413-3. The Senate, following a trial by a twelve-member committee, chose to convict Hastings on eight of the articles, but opted not to restrict him from seeking federal elected office in the future (which it had the authority to do). In 1992, a federal judge remanded Hastings’ conviction back to the Senate, arguing that Hastings should have received a trial by the full Senate. The Supreme Court, however, had ruled in a similar case that the courts have no jurisdiction over impeachment proceedings, and Hastings’ conviction was therefore upheld. Later in 1992, Hastings was elected to Congress in Florida’s Twenty-Third Congressional District.

Congressional districts like the one Hastings represents, made up principally of poor, uneducated people and members of ethnic minority groups captive of the Democrat Party, don’t hold their elected representatives accountable for their behavior – and Hastings will leave Congress either in handcuffs or in a pine box, because no matter how poorly he behaves he can count on his voters to re-elect him.

And that’s why he can let loose with invective against 25 million people and not have so much as a peep made of it back home.

Here’s hoping the people of Texas come up with some creative revenge against Hastings.