Darn it! Jefferson won!

[Bicoastal]

What's wrong with me? Only a month ago, Democrats won the House, Senate, and a majority of governorships. There are plenty of new faces to feel good about, and for crying out loud, this guy is a Democrat! We still haven't lost a single seat. Who cares about a single seat out of 435? Who cares about a guy who was ejected from all important committees since his "frozen assets" scandal, mostly by his own party members? Who cares about a charlatan of a pol. who distracted voters from his improprities with the same old "family values" crap that Republicans dish out every 2 years? Why am I so mad that a DEMOCRAT WON?

And yet, I know that every time we start talking about the Republican's corruption and sleaze, they can (and probably will) say "yeah, but you guys re-elected William Jefferson, a guy who was caught on TAPE accepting a bribe, and then stashed it in his icebox." And honestly, there's no way to deny the fact that we, or rather, the voters in Louisiana's 2nd district, screwed up this time. We HAVE to apply the same standards to our own party that we would the Republicans, and in this case, we failed.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. If he's convicted, won't he have to quit anyway?

The Dems in the House should cut him NO slack.

[pitohui]

2. "if"

we still have innocent until proven guilty in this country

voters in the south are sick of the effa-bee-eye looking at the mote in louisiana's eye and ignoring the lumber in the federal eye

[Teaser]

6. I'm gonna pour myself a nice scotch when he get s thrown in jail

I'm laughing at his sorry ass right now.

[KingFlorez]

10. He had $90,000 in his freezer

That doesn't exactly sound innocent.

[jefferson_dem]

3. Baloney. This is nothing to be concerned about.

What do you mean "you guys"? It's the voters in LA who re-elected him. If convicted, he will obviously have to step down. And, as you mention, he was removed from his committees by the leadership. In this case, "we" applied the ethical standards that the REPUKES ignore routinely.

[blitzen]

4. hey, it was a run-off race between two dems...

no need to feel guilty about rooting against a dem...his opponent was a dem

[TomInTib]

5. This is gonna bite the Dems in the ass.

Pelosi has her work cut out for her.

This is bad juju.

[snowbear]

7. Nah.. It's not Speaker Pelosi's fault.....

.... if New Orleans voters are exceptionally forgiving.

Nothing she can do about it. :shrug: The residents have spoken..

[TomInTib]

9. I am not saying that is Pelosi's fault

But she will catch the splashback.

Just wait and see.

[KingFlorez]

8. You can't make people vote a certain way

People voted for Jefferson, that's their problem. You can't control these things.

[Zynx]

11. You can kick him out, though.

[chimpymustgo]

12. Maybe we wait till he's indicted and convicted. I just posted this:

Warning: this is critical of Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, and what turned out to be part of an effective strategy to take back the House and Senate. Still, it's worth considering whether Jefferson has been treated fairly - especially when compared to Rep. Mollahan - and the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/K-Street crooks. It's worth your time to click the link and read the article...and just consider...

http://www.workers.org/2006/us/jefferson-0629 /
***********
Democrats demote Rep. William Jefferson
A perfect storm of opportunism and racism

By Fred Goldstein
Published Jun 24, 2006 9:09 AM

Crass political opportunism resulted in outright racism June 16 when Democratic Party leaders violated their own rules and precedent to oust Rep. William Jefferson from a key position on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.

-snip-

Jefferson, whose Capitol Hill office had been raided on May 20 in an unprecedented, unconstitutional police-state act by the FBI, has been accused of bribery by that racist, repressive agency but not charged.

Democratic Party rules and precedent require that no representative be forcibly removed from a special committee before being indicted. Jefferson, the first African American from Louisiana to be elected to the House since Black Reconstruction, is also the first Democratic Party representative to be involuntarily removed from a committee position by the party. A vote by the 50-member Democratic Party Steer ing Committee set the stage for a full caucus vote of 99-58 to remove Jefferson, leading to the full House vote that formally removed him.

The FBI claims to have videotapes, marked bills and confessions from Jeffer son’s associates regarding the bribery charges, which have to do with a small technology firm getting business in West Africa. The FBI is notorious for stings and frame-ups of Black political figures. Jefferson has not been charged with any crime yet and therefore has not had a chance to defend himself.

Whatever the charges against Jeffer son, even if all true—and there is no reason to take the FBI’s word for anything—the consequences of his alleged act are insignificant in comparison to the damaging racism displayed by the Democratic Party leadership, its humiliation of the Con gressional Black Caucus—which called Jefferson’s removal a discriminatory act—and its willingness to jump on the FBI bandwagon by echoing the unproven charges made in an affidavit and calculatingly leaked to the press.

Furthermore, sending the FBI to raid Jefferson’s congressional office, allegedly to stop corruption, ignores the pervasive corruption in Washington. Mainly white, male lobbyists are busy bribing politicians with political action funds, campaign donations, trips, dinners and promises of future jobs. The politicians then write legislation to benefit every monopolized, multi-billion-dollar industry in the U.S., from weapons to pharmaceuticals, oil, agribusiness and so on.

-snip-

The drive to oust Jefferson was led by Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader. The presumption of innocence was thrown overboard along with the party rules in order to pursue Pelosi’s politically bankrupt electoral strategy of campaigning against the Republican “culture of corruption.”

As part of the imperialist establishment, the Democratic leaders will never campaign against the police-state tactics of George W. Bush, the brutal colonial war of aggression, the racist treatment of Katrina survivors in New Orleans, the racist campaign against undocumented workers, and the imprisonment of a generation of African American and Latin@ youth.

Pelosi wants to run on the non-political platform of being against corruption—a slogan used ad nauseam by political demagogues to evade attacking the real evils of capitalism—and threw Jefferson overboard in an unprincipled attempt to gain political advantage and big contributors in the 2006 elections.
Pelosi showed her racism and opportunism when confronted by Tim Russert on the May 7 airing of Meet the Press.

Russert pointed out that “The top Democrat on the ethics committee of the House of Representatives, Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, was reported, first by The Wall Street Journal, to have quietly directed at least $178 million in taxpayer funds to a network of home-district friends, business partners, contributors, former employees. Along the way, he curiously became a multimillionaire in real estate, and federal investigators are looking at whether he failed to properly disclose scores of newly acquired assets.

-snip-

But she never responded to Russert’s charges against Mollohan, who is accused of enriching himself to the tune of millions. That is because Pelosi and the Democrats had negotiated a deal to get Mollohan to step down voluntarily from the Ethics Committee while keeping his seat on the powerful House Appropri ations Committee.

-snip-

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3010134

[usregimechange]

13. Impeach him then.