Corrine Brown indicted
Corrine Brown, the ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee has been indicted and she faces a Federal magistrate this morning in Jacksonville according to The Hill;
Brown was involved in a group called “One Door for Education.”
In March, the president of the organization pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud charges.
In the plea, an individual identified as “Person A” was described as a public official who was used in promotional materials for the group, which may have implicated Brown. The person identified had reportedly benefited personally from funds raised by the group.
The Jacksonville Times Union investigated her connections to the organization;
The $10,000 contributed in April 2013 by a PAC she organized, Florida Delivers Leadership, matched the committee’s largest individual expenses for the year, including its donation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Last year, Florida Delivers provided only $10,000 combined to all the political committees it supported, and half of that went to the congresswoman’s personal committee, Friends of Corrine Brown.
Brown’s ties to One Door go beyond financial backing. The organization’s name was attached to her golf tournament — potential participants and sponsors were told to make checks out to One Door — and multiple receptions held in her honor during Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gatherings, according to copies of invitations for those events found in city emails.
According to The Hill, the House Ethics Committee has voted to investigate Brown, but they’re holding off until the Justice Department finishes their own procedures.
Brown has been a vocal critic of the VA’s Choice program.
Category: Congress sucks
Go Gata!
But it’s Florida. Hell, Alcee Hastings is still in Congress, isn’t he?
Do you mean impeached Federal Judge Alcee Hastings?
Yes, yes he is.
And per Wikipedia, in 2012 ranked 1st out of 435 in terms of paying salaries and fees to family members. It’s unclear whether the $622,574 he paid to his girlfriend between 2007 and 2010 “who worked as his deputy district director” is included in that total or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcee_Hastings
Hastings was also re-elected in 2012. Apparently there are still a quite large number of “yellow-dog Democrats” out there.
I think there is really no question about which faction of the Democrat party we are talking about here. There are any number of historical and sociological reasons why this is so, but both Brown and Hastings both represent “minority majority” districts and the politics that motivate the base in those districts has a lot to do with racial politics.
“Yellow dog” seems to me to have a different context and I’m not sure that those voters are much of the Democrat base these days.
Um, not really. The term may have originated among Southern Democrats during the Segregation Era, but it’s completely apropos to describe the behavior of those who vote a straight Democratic ticket, regardless.
In fact, that was precisely the origin of the term. It was originally expressed as, “They’d (or He’d) vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for any Republican.” And the term is still in use today.
Bottom line: seems perfectly applicable to the situation we’re discussing here – even if the reason for the straight-ticket voting today is far different.
We disagree then-the “Yellow Dog Democrats” would describe themselves explicitly in those terms-“I am a Yellow Dog Democrat”, which I suppose they took as some point of pride.
I don’t think you would hear many supporters of Brown or Hastings use those terms to describe themselves, even though it is almost certainly true of how they vote.
I personally don’t care what term they use to describe themselves. They’re voting exactly like the “white trash crackers” in the “solid South” did for decades – e.g., straight party ticket, regardless of the qualifications or character of the candidates involved. That kind of asinine behavior should be called what it is. Since the term already exists, it should be used.
The term fits perfectly. It’s too bad if the truth hurts.
This may not be of interest to anyone but you and I, but Wikipedia actually does a pretty good job of explaining the politics of “Yellow Dogs” and how that term is related to the term “Blue Dog Democrats”, and I think it matters when seeking to understand the motivations of the different factions within that party.
The Article notes that “Blue Dogs” are “…members (that) had been “choked blue” by Democrats on the Left. It is related to the political term “Yellow Dog Democrat,” a reference to southern Democrats said to be so loyal they would even vote for a yellow dog if it were labeled Democrat.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition
The article further notes that these members were much more conservative on a variety of issues than the Democrat party as a whole and lists the current members of the “Blue Dog” coalition. Of the current members of the “Blue Dog Coalition” only Sanford Bishop and David Scott are members of the Congressional Black Caucus and there does not appear to be much crossover between the more conservative Blue/Yellow Dogs and the voters from the districts of Brown and Hastings.
That is rather surprising since most of the US is fairly well split between D and R. About 40% to each major party and about 20% independent. It shakes out that way regardless of who the candidates are.
Though, this year will definitely be an interesting one to see.
Gary Johnson might actually be in position to garner more of the vote than any independent in recent history.
Are we ever going to be willing to admit the truth and change Yellow-dog to its rightful meaning…..Yellow Stripe?
But will she skate if she’s enough of a pal of Hitlery Rotten Cankles?
Oh, that’s a given. Hell, look at Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, and a whole host of other Democrats who would be under the jail were they regular joes like you and me.
She will not need a pardon…
…her “Intent” was good.
Or lack of intent. Isn’t that the new standard?
Lack of “evil intent”, I believe he said.
She gives prostitutes and whores a bad name… and that all she’s done. Sold her BOFA to the highest bidder/john/pimp.
It would seem that Rep. Brown has been investigated numerous times before due to possible association with ethically questionable activities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrine_Brown
And yet, her district keeps reelecting her.
Given the indictment, I’m guessing she may well decide not to run again (I could easily be wrong).
But the crime for which she’s accused this time doesn’t seem to be on the rather short list of crimes that cause loss of Federal pension 5 USC 8312 – and as of next Jan, she’ll have 26 years of Congressional service.Since she’s under the current Federal retirement system (FERS), she’ll be eligible for a pension of approx 40% of her final pay – and since she already has over 25 years of service, if she resigned today she’d get a pension of over 39% of her high 3 average.The above stricken part appears to have been wrong – see comment below. Learn something new daily.Nice gig. Too bad the voters of her district kept electing someone who appears to be seriously “ethically-challenged”.
“The Man” is out to get her Hondo. Stick it to “The Man” and vote for Corrine Brown (or something, who the hell knows how people can continue to be scammed by crooks and con artists).
Yellow dog Democrats won’t need a slogan to vote for her. See my comment about Hastings above.
It’s the “freebies” they keep “promising” to the masses of idiots.
Hopefully she & her cohorts will do some serious time along with hefty fines. (But here I am again with wishful thinking.)
It’s “DA MAN”… he’s out to keep her DOWN!!!
It was assault weapons that caused her to be extremely careless with money like this.
If only for a total gun ban so she’d not have to worry about this kind of thing.
Learn something new every day. Apparently Congress is held to somewhat higher standards when it comes to Federal pensions. Rep. Brown’s pension may in fact be at risk, depending on precisely what she’s been charged with, if she’s convicted.
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/96-530.pdf
I’ll believe it when I see it. I think the positive thing in what’s going on lately, is that it is finally showing that there is a different standard for DC politicians than there is for us lowly peasants.
Hopefully it doesn’t just fade away and people get engaged in making sure it changes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Corrine Brown doesn’t already have a few special accounts somewhere away from prying eyes to come back to after she’s out of prison though, even if she doesn’t get a pension for being an oxygen thief for over two decades.
Well, you just might get to see it. Based on the charges listed in this update, it appears her pension is most definitely at risk if she’s convicted.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/08/us-rep-corrine-brown-indicted-after-fraud-investigation.html
Do you think there’s a chance this will ever see the light of a courtroom.
After all, the introductory article ends with this comment: “…but they’re holding off until the Justice Department finishes their own procedures.”
Nowadays, anything that the DoJ is involved in doesn’t instill confidence.
Pretty sure that the reference to “holding off . . . ” referred to the House ethics investigation.
The DoJ has indicted her on Federal felony charges. That generally indicates the investigation is fairly complete.
Somewhere, Neil Boortz has to be laughing his head off. Go Gata, indeed.
I just listened to the “Dean” of the Congressional Black Caucus say “ain’t nobody gonna keep us down”.
Though for some reason she appeared to be absent from that press conference, hmm. I wonder why.
I often gradalate gata’s. Especially when their chomping on numbnuts like this.
Odd the press in reporting this story today seemed to miss that she is a dumbocrat.
You’d think that when they embarrass themselves like this, among other things, they’d lose their job and not get re-elected.
I remember watchinh one of those comedic commentary shows about India’s election and political system and they have hundreds of political parties and they were asking people in their 20s about the upcoming elections and got responses like “Of course I’m interested and learning about the political parties and what they do. I should know how they are and what their objectives are, it will effect me!”
In this country, harvard students can’t even tell someone on video who the speaker of the house is, who the vice president is, who their representative is, etc.
They vote as if it is just another annoyance like being on jury duty.
Ebonics matter. Even if you’re a Congresswoman I guess.
Funny.
Corrine had no intention of being crooked…she was just careless & unsophisticated.
She had no intention of being crooked hence, no crime!
She could always get a job at All-Points Logistics.
She appears to have what it takes.