SHEILA JACKSON LEE HEADS CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS FOUNDATION
TEXAS TRIBUNE. COM ^ | 2/28/17 | ABBY LIVINGSTON / Posted by Liz
EXCERPT .....the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) voted Sheila Jackson Lee as the new chairwoman of the board overseeing the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the leadership development arm of the CBC........America can look forward to more eager Black leaders like icon John Conyers (forced out of Congress for molesting women), Alcee Hastings (used $220,000 tax dollars to settle sex complaint), Jesse Jackson Jr (incarcerated), Corinne Brown (incarcerated), Chakah Fattah (incarcerated), Black Muslim Andre Carson, Black Muslim Keith Ellison, Yvette Clarke (wrote off $120,000 tax dollars and massive amts of “stolen” govt issue tech equipment).
The vicious cycle of racism and thievery in the CBC must be broken. The Congressional Black Caucus had a front seat to #MeToo with the revelation that $220,000 had been paid out to a staffer alleging sexual harassment by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), a former judge impeached for bribery whose girlfriend has been on his payroll to the tune of $2.4 million, and that Rep. Conyers (D-MI) had his own sexual harassment settlement. That scandal forced Rep. Conyers to resign and hand the seat to his son at the behest of his wife, Monica, who had been convicted of bribery.
Corruption, fraud and bribery are ongoing problems at the Congressional Black Caucus.
After two decades of financial scandals, Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) was convicted of running a fake charity and sentenced in December. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA) was sentenced last December for bribery, fraud and money laundering. His son, Chaka Fattah Jr, was already in prison on unrelated bank fraud charges. Around the same time the wife of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Il) had wrapped up her prison sentence after her husband had ended his prison term a year earlier on fraud charges. Hardly a year goes by without a criminal case involving a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Bribery and fraud, fake charities and money laundering to pay for the high life are familiar CBC themes.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. bought a gold Rolex, Michael Jackson and Malcolm X memorabilia, and mink capes. Rep. Brown stole from poor children to pay for an NFL luxury box (won’t you take a knee) and a Beyonce concert. Chaka Fattah Jr. bought Hermes ties and a Ritz-Carlton condo.
These aren’t aberrations. They’re part of the culture of corruption at the Congressional Black Caucus. The year that Barack Obama, a former CBC member whose level of corruption outdid any of his former colleagues by climbing into the high stratospheric billions and using the Justice Department to run a massive slush fund, took office, every single House member investigated on ethics charges was CBC. A former study suggested that a third of CBC legislators had faced an ethics probe. That’s what a culture of political corruption looks like.
But the Congressional Black Caucus has consistently blamed all of its corruption troubles on racism. And CBC members would always play the race card. Rep. Corrine Brown had improbably claimed that Obama’s DOJ had targeted her because “I’m a black woman with a mouth.” It’s the same old racist excuse. And racism is the usual cover story for CBC corruption.
When Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) was accused of stealing a woman’s first class airplane seat, she claimed that it only happened “because I was an African American woman, seemingly an easy target.” The woman she casually accused of racism had no previous idea of who even stole her seat. And as a Democrat and a human rights activist was probably angry about her lost seat, not the politician’s race.
No one can be too surprised at a politician receiving preferential treatment at the expense of ordinary citizens. Especially a politician who had once allegedly howled, “You don’t understand. I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen.” It’s the eagerness with which CBC members shut down any conversations about their corruption with casual accusations of racism that is the real problem. The worst offender in the Conyers sexual harassment case wasn’t actually the congressman in question. It was another Black Caucus member who came to his defense by accusing his victims of racism. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) allegedly claimed that Conyers’ accusers were all white women. And suggested that the accusations were somehow racially motivated. Other CBC members threatened Democrats who criticized Rep. Conyers and there were suggestions that the calls for his resignation were racist. “Do you go and stalk white people’s houses or just come to the black neighborhoods and stalk our houses?” Monica Conyers demanded.
The claim that Rep. Conyers’ accusers were “all white women” proved to be a lie. But it shouldn’t have mattered what race the women accusing a politician of sexual harassment were. Nor should it have mattered what race the passenger whose seat Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee allegedly stole might have been.
The reflexive accusations of racism by Congressional Black Caucus members hurled at their alleged victims and at any attempt to bring them to justice is at the root of the CBC’s culture of racial corruption. The Caucus is a racially exclusive body. And it uses race and racism as weapons to protect its privileges of power. It doesn’t admit white politicians who represent African-American districts. “It is critical that its membership remain exclusively African American,” Rep. William Lacy Clay Sr. (D-MO) had written. Referring to a white Democrat’s membership bid from an African-American district, he declared that, “he does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria unless he can change his skin color.”
It’s the same familiar mantra of slavery and segregation but with a politically correct twist.Rep. Clay has paid out nearly a million dollars in campaign funds to his sister’s law firm.
Liz do you have any idea what a gem you are? You are always there with the facts. Thank you for all you do!
Post 14
Thanks for the recap