Congress votes to oust William Jefferson

Once again, Nancy Pelosi has pinned herself into a corner she can’t get out of. By making ethics a purely partisan issue over the last couple of years, she’s got a real problem on her hands now. Subsequently, she allowed a horrible bill to fly through Congress yesterday. In essence, they want to kick Jefferson out of Congress.

I got a REAL problem with that. Actually, more than one.

  1. Although caught with his hands in the cookie jar, he’s not been CONVICTED of anything. Nothing. Nada, Zip. In this country, you’re innocent until proven guilty. Although the implications of his actions and the guilt of those around him are enough to suggest voters elect someone else, they are not enough IMO to justify legal actions. Congress should know better than that.
  2. This opens the door to very simply framing a legislator and kicking them out based on the publicity of the situation. I don’t like that at all. In the future, that’s all you’d see in the news media is one inflammatory accusation after another in an effort to get members of the other party kicked out.
  3. By casting judgment, for the second time in one day Congress has usurped the Judicial branch. To me that’s scary folks. A lot of people liked accusing Bush via the Patriot Act of Big Brother tactics. But, Congress passing the laws and enforcing them as well IS Big Brother.
  4. I see this as an effort by the Democrats to appease the criticism that they were going to clean house moreso than a concentrated effort to solve the core problems. Once William Jefferson is gone and forgotten, doing what they have so far, it’s back to the same old business as usual. That’s not fixing anything.
  5. I see this as a quick and easy way for the Democrats to get a thorn out of their side. Congressmen in trouble score all kinds of headlines. Former-Congressmen in trouble barely get a mention. Given the ethics platform Nancy Pelosi ran her slate on, and the way she ran it, I want Jefferson in her face until she actually does something about the ethical problems that she accused only one party of participating in. Too many people apparently bought that argument. So, those same people should hold her feet to the fire and demand reforms that she’s promised but never delivered on.

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  • http://vocalpatriot.blogspot.com/ David Vigliotti

    Rep. W. Jefferson’s Thoughtlessness
    Democrat Representative from Louisiana. Not only the spokesman of his district, but the face of his family, his loved ones. Innocent until proven guilty. As a man so voluntarily imbued with the responsiblity of his position in congress, one might think he’d have an idea about when it’s appropriate to speak and when not to. Then again, if he were guilty of even part of the charges in the indictment, he might fool one.
    He declared his absolute innocence of the charges at the same time admitting keeping the bribe money he was caught with. The 94 page indictment containing the 16 charges included racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice says a lot about that.
    Wait a minute…obstruction of justice? That sounds familiar. Wasn’t that one of the charges scooter libby recieved 2 years in prison for? The justice Mr. Libby was alleged to be obstructing was regarding the reference to an agent made legally by Richard Armitage. So, in review, we have no crime committed, the prosecutor being aware of this fact including who actually “outed Ms. Plame” decides to press ahead with a probe to cause Scooter Libby to be found guilty of perjury.
    What I don’t understand is why the double standard demonstrated here is so tolerated by the conservatives. Scooter Libby says “I’m not sure” and that’s perjury; Jefferson say’s “I’m innocent of taking the bribe money I took” so he thinks he’s good to go? And where is his family in his thinking? Oh, his wife was standing with him, good for her, I guess. Maybe I’m being vindictive but it seems to me to be a bit of a fascade, a cheap usage of the notion of family values.
    I hope there is a bible in his cell.

  • Moonage

    It’s quite simple to me. Libby is a white Bush guy. Jefferson is not a Bush guy, and not white. Jefferson has the Black Caucus screaming racism every time someone suggests he’s guilty, Libby has Nancy Pelosi screaming “Republican Culture of Corruption” every time he tries to say he’s innocent. The media wants to be seen as politically correct, so they’re going easy on the whole thing. I think they in general just hate to accept the fact that blacks can be as corrupt as the stereotype they’ve relied on. They don’t seem to mind picking on Latinos, but for some reason blacks get a special pass. Addititonally, the weight of Nancy Pelosi’s “culture of corruption”, which relied on attacking white Bush guys, which most of the media loved, is now coming back in all of their faces, which I don’t think they like. So, the severity of the crime committed is totally irrelevant when it comes to seeing outrage on tv and talk radio. Jefferson most likely will wind up doing a lot more time than Libby. However, in the big picture, the one you see on tv, Libby is the typical white Republican crook and Jefferson is just an anonomly.

  • http://vocalpatriot.blogspot.com/ David Vigliotti

    sho’ you right! “political correctness” is the chain on the anchor weighing this country down. and the president seems to have taken a new tack towards essentially proclaiming his leftward leaning with regard to the immigration debacle. Perhaps for the purpose of deflecting the heat. ugh..
    It brings to mind the weaklings in the georgia statehouse caving to those demanding appologies and to take the union jack off the flag pole. It seems to me that in order to assure we never forget that this country does have a history of slavery we should embrace those elements including the racial slurs, (dang judge Ito). Say, my ancestors were Italian, should I ask for apologies for the common stereotypes about the mafioso? ok, bad analogy but it’s the best i can do right now.

  • Moonage

    I am Irish. When the NCAA was banning everything that referred to the Native American heritage, I felt belittled since they totally ignored the "fighting" stigma attached to the Irish of Notre Dame. No one listened. I am too white, and therefore don’t count.
    I also cited the Confederate Flag flap as well.  Not the same one tho. I just found it ironic that two Democrat presidential candidates would come out so vocally about something they evidently knew nothing about, and cited the reason they could say it there was because they knew nothing about the subject. Irony was just all over that one.  ( Big clue: South Carolina was a strong Democrat state until the Civil War. The reason they seceded was because they felt they had completely lost all their state rights.  Now, people from other places are telling them which flag they should use.  History ignored….. ) All this does tie in because what I see a lot of today is reverse discrimination by pandering.  The media soft-shoeing around William Jefferson and Nancy Pelosi not feeling compelled to criticize William Jefferson to even an nth degree that she did Tom Delay is just more of it.

  • http://vocalpatriot.blogspot.com/ David Vigliotti

    My little rant about George Soros was no joke, sir. I invite you to read the book titled “Shadow Party” then look up the facts. I think the only reason this country is still as free as it is can be traced directly back to the 2nd amendment. Otherwise we’d be in deep doo-doo. The hypocrasy is numbing. I think it was alabama(?) that actually offered an apology to blacks for slavery. All I can think is “WOW”. who are they to apologize to whom? My ancestors enslaved each other and anyone else that happened along. Need I say more on that? Slavery is a part of human history not just white history. Let’s not forget the democrat party’s position on anything to do with civil rights throughout history. You were dead on about the emancipation proclamation, the whole point was to paralyze the capability of the south to fight. A brilliant move, really but I wonder if he would have done the same if he’d known the result it has had on the country to date. I’ll say it again, I think we need to consider these things more before we make these sweeping changes. Ahh, but I’m just a citizen not a government official. The government knows best what’s good for me, right?

  • Moonage

    You’re preaching to the choir in regards to Soros here. Search for Soros up there, you’ll find a lot. I’m not at all happy with the way he’s using 527′s. For that matter, I’m not happy with 527′s in general.

    I’m a firm believer in facts. Spock was always my favorite on Star Trek for the very simple reason whenever the fearless leader needed the right answer, he turned to Spock. The reason being, Spock retained facts like a computer. Today we have those computers at our fingertips. People just choose not to delve too deeply into topics and instead have it piped to them. This, IMO, is dangerous. 527′s are the tools people use to advance the cause. 527′s for the most part rely purely on rhetoric. That is Soros’ tool of choice. If people would spend 30 minutes a week or so to verify what they are hearing via rhetoric was accurate or not, rhetoric would be a thing of the past. The Confederate Flag never represented slavery, it represented the states that fought for their right to exist as a sovereign state. That point you will not see in the entire debate. Now, people are fightig to have the symbol of that struggle removed, against their will. That’s history repeating itself and to me only proves the historical ignorance of those fighting to remove it.

  • http://vocalpatriot.blogspot.com/ David Vigliotti

    yes sir, those facts didn’t get past me this time. They will be researched fully and posted on my splotch-blog. It’s the littlest details that make a world of difference. I like to use the “faxblast” websites like ‘numbersusa’ and ‘congress.org’ . I don’t know for sure but it’s been said that it helped push the fools errand (ie: Immigration reform bill) off the table. Activism definately works and if the conservatives could ever think more like a team and get more active, things would sure be different.

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