Jesse Jackson, Jr.: Like father, like son

Your Name above, a simple click would disclose that Rod's original piece, on the elder Jackson, was published in 2002. Accordingly, data such as you cite, from "the latest three years" would not show the material revealed in that piece. Perhaps the organization learned its lesson in 2002 and isn't doing shady contributions any more. Or is covering them up better.

The material cited today, dealing not with the elder Jackson but the younger, is as follows:

Representative Jesse Jackson Jr.’s congressional campaign organization has paid his wife at least $247,500 since 2001, including at least $95,000 after Sandra Jackson joined the Chicago City Council two years ago, according to federal election records.

Jackson’s political committee also gave at least $298,927 in cash and in-kind contributions to Sandra Jackson’s campaign fund, which bankrolled her races for a city council seat that pays more than $100,000 per year and an unpaid position on the Cook County Democratic Committee.

Again, it's only a click away.

Pretty strange information you're taking from which to accuse Mr. Dreher of racism. Your position would be that all this contribution and salary stuff is perfectly OK?

And what does the color of skin matter here? Any time any African-American is credibly accused of fraud that proves the accuser is a racist?

What are civil rights, but an expression of true integrity? Integrity applied to recognized and unmistakeable principles.

We, as Americans, can wholeheartedly believe in and respect the idea that "all men are created equal". We can adopt those things without reservation. We can give without second thought, when our neighbor is need. We'll yank the last $100 bill out of our wallets to hand to the guy who just got burned out of his house and needs clothes and bed and place to stay.

But our indignation and anger, and even condemnation, when we find that the person who organized a fundraiser to get coats for kids for Christmas and then took some for themselves is both right and good.

When someone or some ones misuse our support for these principles, for selfish benefit, we should reject them, out of respect for the purity and goodness of those principles. In other words, integrity cannot be divorced from virtue.

Civil rights now exist. There are no leaps to be made. The battles have been won. And to now allow, look elsewhere, or even excuse corruption done in the name of those principles, is to completely betray them.

Everyone, ESPECIALLY those who have a personal interest in equal rights, should condemn Jackson's corruption. To fail to do so, is to equate corruption and civil rights. To call it racism to support integrity is just that. Jackson has shamed the notion of Civil Rights for a long time. And those who worked so hard to establish what he now exploits. He has sullied their names. And those who make character attacks for calling him out on his lack of integrity...shame the principles themselves.

To be fair to Jackson, I don't think the inaccurate 990 is evidence of anything in particular. I had a research job once that involved looking through the 990's of a lot of different organizations, and it is very common for them to be sloppy and incorrect. My understanding was that in practice the IRS never comes after anyone for an inaccurate 990. No taxes are at stake afterall, so they concentrate on the bigger fish elsewhere.

Bailey, Anne, sadly the minor issue of filings is not what really matters. What matters is that JJ hasn't been a model of integrity, and has exploited both his race and his claimed goals for personal gain. He's been caught repeatedly being dishonest, being self serving, and being far less than a beacon for the downtrodden.

That is what is really at stake here. What can Jackson fight for? Right to vote? Right to assemble? Against the old and now gone Jim Crow laws?

Jackson COULD take on the issues of black on black crime, the lack of two parent families in the inner city, the immense injustice many do to themselves, in failing to educate themselves, and end up face down with a bullet in them. But he doesn't.

That's the travesty of Jesse Jackson. And the fact that he blackmails large amounts of money from companies and then uses it to benefit himself or his family, and does nothing of substance for the people he claims to work for is an insult to the principle of civil rights and equality under the law.