Posted on 09/27/2014 1:50:28 PM PDT by murron
James Traficant, the colorful Ohio politician whose conviction for taking bribes and kickbacks made him only the second person to be expelled from Congress since the Civil War, died Saturday. He was 73.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He was younger than I thought he was.
Another thread if anyone is interested in the comments thereon:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3208535/posts
A vintage 1943 tractor flipped over on him ...
RIP Jim.
I thought his toupee was the best fashion statement for politicians; cheap, ugly and I’m sure he didn’t give a damn what anybody thought anyway. He probably thought it made him look like Cary Grant. Sign of the times, but then again, low-life politicians are, well, the norm. RIP you miserable ba$tard.
He was a better conservative than 90% of the GOP.
Just a few months before 9/11 he warned that Bin Laden could walk across our southern border with a suitcase nuke and nothing would stop him.
He often said that most of our intelligence agencies were so stupid they could throw themselves at the ground and miss.
While in Congress, Traficant was a supporter of immigration reduction,[18] and a strong opponent of illegal immigration. In the controversy surrounding the defeat of Congressman Bob Dornan (R-CA) by Democrat Loretta Sanchez, Traficant was the only Democratic member of Congress who advocated a new election, due to Dornan’s allegations of voting in that race by undocumented immigrants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Traficant
Traficant’s major legislative accomplishment in the House was the adoption of some of his proposals to constrain enforcement activities by the Internal Revenue Service against delinquent taxpayers.
Traficant began a grassroots campaign in July 2014, “Project Freedom USA”,[32] to, among other things, put people pressure on Congress to get rid of the IRS and “divorce” the Federal Reserve.[33]
You’ve gotta love a character...and he was a lovable conman.
The Traficant amendment required the IRS to take you to court and actually prove their case before seizing your property.
There are a lot worse still seated. They just didn’t PO anybody badly enough yet.
“The law was passed in 1998, the Traficant language wasn’t in, Clinton threatened to veto it. Ninety-five percent of the American public wanted the Traficant bill. The Republican Chairman, Bill Archer, called me and said he talked to the Speaker and leaders and said, JIM, we are going to put your burden of proof in and we are going to put your language on seizure in the conference, and wrote me a letter giving me the credit.
Now, let me give you the statistics that I am proud of and I want to share, because this may be the last time on the floor, and I expect it. The year before compared to the year after the law, wage attachments dropped from $3.1 million to $540,000. Thank you, Mr. Archer. Thank you, ROB PORTMAN. Property liens dropped from $688,000 to $161,000, but now let us think of our communities. Seizures of individual family-owned homes dropped from 10,067 to 57 in 50 States when they had to prove it, and you guys did it. Congratulations.
I want to fight these people. I want to fight them like a junkyard dog. They tied my hands behind my back and that first vote was 7-5. I am not going to get into some of the personal dynamics, but there were some people that Mr. Grodi told me that were predisposed to vote against me before that case started, and that upset him. By the way, one of the jurors said, it is unfortunate he got caught, but most of those Members of Congress are crooks anyway. I don’t think you are crooks. I never ripped off Mr. Skelton.
I have a lot of Hispanics mad at me, and I think Ms. Sanchez is a great member, but yes, I voted for Mr. Dornan because I thought we set an illegal precedent by allowing possible illegal immigrants to vote in a Federal election, and I voted with Mr. Dornan. And I am sorry, but that’s the way it is. Now, since then I think you have an been an excellent Member. If you have been offended by this, I am sorry.
I also want to say this. I urge you to put our troops on our border. I think anybody who jumps the fence shouldn’t be made a citizen, they should be thrown out. And you are going to be dealing with homeland security, and I am saddened in my heart I can’t vote on it.”
http://www.thefullwiki.org/Traficant%27s_farewell_speech
RIP
. . . the colorful DEMOCRAT . . ..
Oldplayer
There you are, Mr. Gillespie. I fixed it for you.
I never saw a picture of Cary Grant with a ferret on his head.
Traficant also had a very good pro-life voting record.
For all his faults, including the fact that he was a Democrat, I still consider Traficant to be one of the good guys. There are no good Democrats left, just hard line Marxist ideologues.
You’ve summed up my first thought too.
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