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Subscribe to RSSJackson, who has been hospitalized on and off since June for treatment of bipolar disorder, gave up his seat in Congress after 17 years. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
Updated 2:59 p.m. ET — Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., resigned from Congress on Wednesday following a prolonged treatment for mental health issues.
An aide to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told NBC News that the speaker's office received a letter from the Illinois congressman this afternoon.
"During this journey, I have made my share of mistakes," Jackson wrote in his letter. "I am aware of the ongoing federal investigation into my activities, and I am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the investigators, and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they are my mistakes and mine alone. None of us is immune from our share of shortcomings or human frailties and I pray that I will be remembered for what I did right."
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s resignation comes just two weeks after he won a ninth term as a representative of Illinois without campaigning and after being out of the public eye for months due to a personal struggle with mental illness. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
The son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, Jackson, Jr. had sought treatment for bipolar depression at the Mayo Clinic for much of the past summer and fall. His last vote in Congress was on June 10, and his mysterious disappearance from official duties prompted speculation about the reason for the Democrat's prolonged absence.
Jackson was first elected to Congress in 1995 in a Chicago-area district's special election, and had won re-election to eight full terms since then. He won re-election just 15 days ago by a 40-point margin in the heavily Democratic district. Jackson also survived a Democratic primary challenge this summer from former Rep. Debbie Halvorson. President Barack Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) each endorsed Jackson in the primary.
Amid his battles against mental illness, Jackson has also been embroiled in ethics allegations, which prompted the congressman to reportedly hire an attorney in recent weeks.
In particular, Jackson's efforts to convince then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to appoint him as Barack Obama's successor in the Senate have drawn scrutiny. Blagojevich, a Democrat, was subsequently convicted of having sought favors and donations in exchange for the appointment.
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Oh yah that's right, the House Democrats in DC have another criminal about to go to prison, who just happens to be from the most important black Democrat family in the party the last 30 years.
His "mental illness" is called stealing campaign money, and this was the best excuse he could come up with.
Lots of hubbub over Duke Cunningham, remember? So let's make sure we do the same for this scumbag, and we add it to William "Cold Hard Cash" Jefferson's conviction and keep a running tally for both parties.
Dems seek to regain Historical Edge in Congressmen as Convicted Felons, temporarily lost during the 2000's.
@ChestyPuller, I read about Chesty Puller, and he was a fine officer and a brave soldier which brings me to my point, you sir aren't qualified to get him a glass of water. You sir are no Chesty Puller. Just an impostor hiding behind a keyboard. Pitiful.
One more thing, bigotry is not a virtue...
I will allow a secondary nickname of "The Bank Dick" for those who don't like using my official online moniker.
@ chesty, you are such a loser, give it up...
he must have finally been approved for disability.
what a pathetic excuse for a person.
what a loser.
he's your typical over 50% taker.
The people that voted for this guy deserve no representation.
Good riddance
May EVERY SINGLE PERSON HERE here who said something hateful end up with a person in your family with a mental illness . . . that's the only way you will ever understand how very real, and how very tragic such illnesses are.
the lack of compassion is even more sad.
Those who have hearts, please pray.
another sucker born every day. Man, as soon as the FBI started investigating him, he came down with a mental illness.
Now doesn't that just beat all.
KJNC: I have sympathy for Junior as a person who may be suffering from a mental illness. I'm sure that trying to mold himself into the force that his father thought he should be has taken its toll. That said, I have little sympathy for Junior as a politician. If the allegations about trying to buy a Senate seat hold up, there is nothing to exonerate him as someone who couldn't tell right from wrong. And allowing himself to be used for a sham campaign just to preserve the seat for his powerbrokers...I'm thinking that he still had the ability to say "no" when that happened.
Whether you are Republican or Democrat, we elect these representatives to office to honestly protect our interests. To protect us from people who want to do do us harm.
We need to know that they are honest and above reproach. Looks like Representative Jackson has some explaining to do.
It's too bad. Now he will have to pay the price for his inability to abide by the law like the rest of us have to do.
I don't know if he will do prison time, however, if this were "John Q Public" we would probably do prison time.
Our elected officials should not be held to a different standard.
He won't be held to a different standard, at least as relates to his being in jeopardy of going to prison. This is in the hands of the Feds now and they have been shipping off lots of Illinois pols to jail. Mainly the ones dumb enough to get caught. No matter what good he may have done otherwise, if he actually was trying to buy a U.S. Senate seat that is like wiping your butt with the Constitution. And I'm saying this as a Democrat.
Windy Citizen, I hope you're right, he does deserve prison time, however, in the back of my mind any sentence could be commuted by the Governor.
Now I'm not saying that will happen, and I think it would be a travesty of justice if it did. JMHO.
Good riddance.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>JAMES 1 v 21 & 22>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
21. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness "THE ENGRAFTED WORD", which is able to save your souls.
22. But be ye doers of THE WORD, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
....................................................................................................................................................................................
James advice us to get rid of all that is wrong in our lives and humbly glad for the salvation message we have received....."THE ENGRAFTED WORD".....because it ALONE CAN SAVE US.
It is important to know what GOD's WORD says, but it is much more important to OBEY IT......We can measure the effectiveness of our Bible study time by the effect it has on our behavior and attitudes.
We've already got too many engrafted politicians here. I don't know if they got the word, but at least they got the nod or the wink.
Marked "No Value".
This isn't a religious study group. And in case you never took basic civics in high school I'll let you know now that religion has absolutely no place in our government.
What an angry looking black man.
Huh? Where's the picture?
Red,
"Why he didn't drop out of the race still baffles me" You must get baffled easy, but being on the left helps explain it.
I wish Jessie Jackson Jr. all the best. You don't have to be Freud to recognize that JJJ is a tortured soul who clearly never wanted to follow his father in the family business. His father has become irrelevant on the national stage and his child has too much integrity to carry on the father's work - which is essentially bullying adults into making decisions in HIS best interest.
I am certain the son's mental issues will subside and he will go on to have a quietly successful life. At least this is my hope.
Whatever the reason, GOOD RIDDANCE to some more Chicago Trash! Now if we can get Rid of the "Trash Bag-in-Chief" we'll be getting somewhere.
Go home Alan, have no use for your hatred of the Prescient. The election is over the President won, get over it, and try to be civil, nasty name characterizations make you look silly and detract from your message.
now he can be a tv preacher like daddy..
His daddy wasn't a "tv preacher." He was much more.
This man and his extortionist father deserve both prison terms and disgrace. But that politically incorrect. Note that Junior cites "mistakes". It's no mistake if you knew beforehand that it was wrong.
Any chance you can use ever bigger and even more boldfaced type? What you are using is too subtle.
Alright Jesse, now go have a seat next to Blogo and Rezko. Mental illness my a$$. Just another crook who thought they could get away with it. Say hi to your Dad.
It says a lot about voters that they re-elected this guy even after it was clear he was unfit to serve office. You have to wonder who his opponent was. Did he even have an opponent a few weeks ago?
Brian Woodworth, a Kankakee College professor, and Marcus Lewis, a Matteson mail handler, ran against him. You can call them opponents, but that would be overstating the case. The regular Democrats decided to stick with Junior and back no one else as a sure way of keeping the seat.
This sadly is what happens when as a child Jesse Jackson reads you "Green Eggs & Ham" every night.
:D
Should have been re-moved from office as he was unfit and absent. Amazing the fools in IL re-elected him wasn't he absent from campaigning too!!!
Misguided loyalty aided and abetted by a group of cynical political hacks.
JJ, Jr.s resignation is probably a good thing for him and his district. With the accusations and all it is best to get it cleared up without the Congressional title and all that sort of stuff. I only hope that the person the governor appoints will serve the district with integrity (rare in Illinois, I know but, you know....) and begin to change the impression we have about politicians from the Land of Lincoln.
Once again, the Governor cannot appoint someone to fill a vacant House seat. Senate, yes; House, no. A special election must be held and the Illinois Constitution specifies the time frame in which that must be done. Didn't any of you people ever go to school?
Illinois's 2nd congressional district will more than likely get another loser to replace this loser. And the cycle continues for the people who seem to want to elect incompetence.
It is amazing that with all his baggage, ethics investigations and so forth, he managed to somehow get re-elected by huge margins. Further proof that morals do not count anymore in this country. He was a Democrat and would be voted in no matter what he did in a heavily Democratic state. Sad. I guess we can say Obama won for the same reason, it did not matter that he could be involved in 2 major scandals (one in which he deliberately deceived the American people), that he was a divider and he did such a horrible job these past 4 years. Democrats will vote unanimously for Democrats no matter what! I can say the same would apply to the other side. Very sad! This country has lost all sense of morals. Scandals that were not tolerated many years ago mean nothing to anyone now, this behavior has now been accepted as the norm. So sad.....
And over on the Republican side there are examples as obvious and egregious as JJJ
Here in Massachusetts a few decades ago, there was someone elected while in jail. I think his name was Lane, not sure. The onus is on the heads of those who vote for someone like this. We usually get what we deserve.
He resigned AFTER the election so he could name his successor --- his wife. She is now embroiled in an ethics investigation but that won't stop her nomination. This is Chicago, after all.
Remember "Chicago" is code language exposing your racism
NOOOOOOOO! Would you intellectual lightweights please read a book on how the government actually works. JJJ is not appointing anyone to his seat. Neither is the governor of Illinois, nor is anyone else.
And Democrats think conservatives are crazy voters? This is how stupid his district is- he is mentally ill, in rehab and under investigation for ethics violations YET still won by 40% are you @!$%#*&* me? Now just two points 1. How do we blame the white man and the vast right wing conspiracy 2. How is this George W. Bushes fault.
Who's blaming anyone else? This was a self-inflicted wound. As far as politics go, though, the local Democratic "leaders" are the ones who decided to run him. Once the word was out, there wasn't anyone with a chance of winning that wanted to take on the machine or the Jackson name. A white professor from Kankakee with a snowball's chance of winning, and a black mail handler with no political experience. Dumbness is a bipartisan disease.
I concede that point, Chicago just seems to be awash in corruption (no offence to you personally if you live there) my roommate in College was from Cicero so I know a tiny bit about Chicago politics
Cicero is like Chicago in comic book form. In fact, the current mayor of Cicero and a walking pig of a man, printed thousands of glossy comic books for kids starring himself giving safety advice. The prior mayor of Cicero, a former moll of a mob boss, was sent to jail for investing taxpayer money in a Wisconsin luxury resort. In the 1980's, the local state representative from Cicero's district stopped in the middle of a public talk to say, "It's not true how the movies are depicting him now--Al Capone was a good guy..." or something to that effect. One of his mob friends, an old man at the time, was in the audience. One thing about local politics here, they sure aren't boring.
Went there once with my roommate in 1980- I was born and raised in South Carolina, so it was an eye opener to say the least. Wild Wild time!
It says quite a bit that voters would rather vote for a mentally ill likely crook rather than the candidate put forward by the GOP. It's sad alright, sad for the GOP.
Actually it's sad when the mentally challenged Dems keep voting for corrupt government officials just like keeping the ex DC mayor Barry in government positions
I assume the he'll get additional retirement benefits for having been re-elected and then resigning. The voters of Chicago and Illinois SO DESERVE the government that they have! Same for voters in Harlem, who keep re-electing Rangel, who has only delivered for himself!
Everyone deserves the government and representatives they have, for better or worse.
I hope the rest of the 80 (yes, eighty) members of the US Congress who went on full paid-for trips to the ONLY Apartheid Democracy in the Middle East last summer will also be proven to be mentally challenged....
The lobby wasted the money at least on this one....................
Lets not forget Duke Cunningham, the toe tapper in St Paul Airport, Tom Delay, Newt (MoonMan) Gingrich, Spiro Agnew, Governor Sanford, John McCain(Keating Five) and countless other republicans. There are many democrats too. Corruption is rampant in Washington, lets hope someone can clean out the sewer there. As long as corporations are people too, the situation won't change. Step one is ban lobbyists to stop the influence peddling.
Fiesty's neighbor in Bartlett.