Editorial cartoon by Richard Ramirez in Investor's Business Daily at investors.com
Posted on 05/27/2006 9:10:24 PM PDT by FairOpinion
How strong is the case against Louisiana's Rep. William Jefferson?
According to numerous press accounts, after videotaping Mr. Jefferson receiving a $100,000 bribe from an FBI informant, the government executed a search warrant of his home and found $90,000 of that money hidden in his freezer. In another case, a Kentucky businessman pleaded guilty to paying Mr. Jefferson $400,000 in bribes for official favors.
Based upon such compelling evidence and Mr. Jefferson's refusal to comply with a subpoena to surrender key documents for eight months, a federal judge issued the search warrant that was executed in the congressman's Capitol Hill office last weekend. The FBI took exceptional measures to ensure that no privileged documents would be surrendered to investigators, with any close calls being made by a federal judge.
The "Speech or Debate" clause is contained in Article I, Section 6, which provides that members of Congress "shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses... etc."
But as the Supreme Court observed in the 1972 case of U.S. v. Brewster, the clause was never intended to immunize corrupt legislators who violate felony bribery statutes--laws that have expressly applied to members of Congress for more than 150 years. In Brewster, the court noted the clause was not written "to make Members of Congress super-citizens, immune from criminal responsibility," adding: "Taking a bribe is, obviously, no part of the legislative process or function; it is not a legislative act. It is not, by any conceivable interpretation, an act performed as a part of or even incidental to the role of a legislator."
Such behavior is therefore not protected by the Constitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
I wasn't aware I was throwing a tantrum...maybe I'll mellow with age. OTOH, maybe if more people threw tantrums, the politicians would realize that we are not serfs, that they are elected to conduct the people's business, not line their pockets.
I ask you, doesn't it piss you off that this 'Honorable Congressman' defied a court order for 8 months (something you or I would be immediately jailed for) and was cold busted accepting a bribe, yet there are no plans to remove him from office (not yet, anyway)?
So funny, yet so true!!
These "bribes" seem to be centered on an African telecommunications deal.
It seems Niger is in Africa.
Joe Wilson, the favorite Bush Hater to be cited by the MSM, spent alotof time in Niger.
Weird times.
Not only Jefferson but the House General Council refused to turn over the subpoenaed info for several weeks.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1636999/posts
"Mr. Jefferson's refusal to comply with a subpoena to surrender key documents for eight months "
"First I have heard of this."
===
Me too. But we shouldn't be surprised, just remember whose side the MSM is on.
No when you throw tantrums you always end up looking worse that your target. If you want to throw the bums out and replace them with saints you first have to find the saints. Then you have to get a party apparatus in place that can compete and then you have to sway enough voters to vote your saint into office. The problem the pitchforkers have is that they always get stirred up 6 months prior to elections and never even try to channel their actions into ACTUAL candidates and ACTUAL votes. That to me is a dead giveaway that they just like to bitch.
That's not true, I've been bitching for years!
No one's throwing tantrums here. We all support the President and the DoJ on this issue and hope that Jefferson and other Rat Congressmen get their just desserts.
And I have to admit, that's the wisest thing I've heard all day.
For 2 years we have been watching DNC prosecutors knocking off Libbey and Delay, and just when a quid pro quo, tit for tat payback is in the pipe, the Pubbies under Hastert go wiggy-wonky?
This is not the Republican Party I voted for in the last two elections. Take your blue blooded Pubbies and stick socks in their mouths, take the RINOs and unseat them at the ballot box. Disempower the Dems by revealing their scandels to the public, which are criminal in nature, no special prosecutors needed, no hearings or Grand Jurys, just plain old criminal indictments!
Rush Limbaugh was right on his Friday program about the wresting of power away from neo conservatives, the blue blood pubbies such as McCaine and Graham wanted Tom Delay, and Karl Rove gone as bad as the Dems did.
Now the old guard fart pubbies think they have the field to themselves, but they forget. We vote, and we are not manipulatable by spun out puss-press MSM articles.
Jeffersons apprehension has upset their plans to socially re-engineer America! So the RINOS , old guard aristocrat pubbies wnat the Jefferson investigation to stop so they can continue with their plan to expand federal government, establish entitlement programs for illegal aliens, and move the USA towards a European style multicultural society.The RINOS and Dems are aristocrats who 200 years ago would have been slave owners.
Knowing what the RINOS are up to now in cahoots with the Dems, we should sharpen our knives and lay into them !
No wonder Tom Delay decided not to run!
Delay saw all this coming! He decided it just wasn't worth battling the pubbie old guard, who no longer wanted him, because they see immigration as a way to socially engineer our country away from the ideals espoused by neoconservatives, create an underclass of millions of aliens who have no loyalty to the constitution or the history of our nation, and its Liberty.
All the aliens want is money, and are unwilling to assimilate, so they will remain indentured servants who are concerned only about welfare and low wage pay checks. And the aristocratic pubbie plantation owners want them as slaves and indentured servants, to end the neoconservative movement and bring the USA into a state very much like socialist Europe
We CANNOT allow this to stand!
Look I was responding to a poster that believes that Hastert and all of congress has to be hiding something. Hastert is the SPEAKER of the House and he has a duty to safeguard the independence of a co-equal branch of government. He interpreted this, at first glance, as an encroachment and has since backed off. He handled this terribly but he had at least a somewhat rational reason for doing it
Some of them went to DC as saints; then they learned how things really work if you want to acquire power. And money.
Editorial cartoon by Richard Ramirez in Investor's Business Daily at investors.com
So if all is lost where do we go from here?
Man, that was an ass-kicking rant.
Most went to DC knowing what their constituents sent them for, now you're better off shouting at a brick wall. Power corrupts. Simple as that.
Outside of USA it happened several times.
Shame, isn't it?
I hope it means you're ready to go toe-to-toe with Vicente Bush on the immigration bill.
That one went right past me. Help me out here.
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