Charles Rangel was once an honorable man who served his country in Korea and earned a Purple Heart.
Then he ran for Congress, and somewhere along the line he lost his way.
This is a high-falutin’ way of saying he became a lying, cheating, stealing, thieving, varmint weasel.
Rather than retire with dignity, the octogenarian insisted on a trial. Yesterday he threw a temper tantrum worthy of the Oval Office (current occupant anyway) and demanded that his trial be delayed because he did not have counsel.
This was ludicrous. He is entitled to counsel. He is not entitled to highly paid counsel. He can go with a public defender like every other Joe schmo unable to cash in an expensive villa.
(Rangel is pleading poverty. I would love to see a forensic accountant determine how much cash he has stashed in what places.)
He was convicted on 11 counts. Next comes the lack of punishment phase, the reason why I spent virtually no time on this story.
If Congress really gets tough, Rangel will be sent to bed without supper.
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/11/18/rangel-wrist-slap-hearing-convenes/
If they get squeamish, he will get supper, but not dessert.
In the real world, nobodies who commit his acts of financial shenanigans…or as I call them, crimes…go to jail upon being convicted.
Charles Rangel will not go to prison. He will remain a Congressman, be told to say he is sorry and never do it again, and then collect his lifetime pension.
Being old is not a defense. Bernie Madoff was old. Charles Rangel broke the law. He will not be held accountable.
Some will say I should not go where I am about to go, but those people can get their own d@mn blog.
Charles Rangel is liberal and black. He is not going anywhere.
The Congressional Black Caucus would not even initially condemn William “Cash in the Freezer” Jefferson and Mel “Me likey underage girls” Reynolds.
Slavery was an abomination, and the only way to make up for black men being wrongly convicted in courts (horrible injustices) is to let rich black Congressmen commit crimes with impunity.
I am tired of the double standard. I am also tired of the line being seen as “gray” when it is not.
Randy Duke Cunningham took bribes. He went to jail. Yet why is anything less blatant than that just, to quote Rap Group EPMD (I liked their music but never thought a political blog would mention them), “Business as Usual”?
Does anybody in their right mind think that Maxine Waters will go to jail? Does anybody think Barney Frank will face consequences?
(Barney Frank is currently not facing any ethics investigations.)
If liberals want to say that Rangel did nothing wrong, we can have that discussion. The ethics committee said he did. I shied away from the story, but now he has officially been convicted.
Republicans will not dare try to get him to step down lest they be accused of racism.
Impeachment is a non-starter because Republicans will be faced with vile words such as “lynching.”
So Charlie Rangel will keep his seat with zero consequences. His constituents like him, crimes be d@mned.
Congress will continue to be held in low esteem, most likely never to recover.
Our institutions are being corroded, as criminals protect their own.
There is a solution, but Congress will never implement it.
Congress should be like professional sports. Athletes now have morals clauses in their contracts. I say that morals clauses should apply to our leaders. The term “lead by example” should mean exactly that.
Any member of Congress caught with prostitutes, keeping slush funds, caught using or selling drugs, or engaging in any behavior not tolerated in a standard corporate environment should be subjected to dismissal.
I worked on Wall Street, and despite having many secretaries that I wanted to paddle on their luscious backsides, I never did. The law never allowed me to flip them over my shoulder and nibble on their spectacular secretarial hides.
Why should members of Congress be able to send text messages to pages without facing criminal sanctions?
I am tired of the bad behavior. I am tired of political correctness interfering with the law. I am tired of corruptocrats protecting their own and then moralizing to us.
I am tired of tough talk and no action.
Either ethics matter, or they don’t.
Congress may try to send Rangel to bed without supper, but one thing they will not send him is any kind of serious message he will learn from.
The American people will get the message, and it will be an unfortunate one to receive.
When rich and powerful and protected and politically correct, crime absolutely does pay.
eric
The Rangel story is a very sad. I don’t think anyone should be happy about this. He’s a great man who’s done great things for his country and district, and that should not be forgotten. Let’s also put this epissode in proper context…
Many of the charges bnrought by the House were not of crimes, but of ethics violations. There’s a difference. And ethics violation breaks a House rule but is not necessarily a crime. Crimes can be violations of House ethics rules, but surprisingly enough, not always.
Using House letterhead to arrange a fundraising meeting is a violation of House ethics, but it is not a crime.
Using rent-stabilized apartments as official offices can possibly be a crime, if a quid pro quo is determined, but definitely is a violation of House ethics. It was not determined if there was a quid pro quo in this case, but he did receive thousands in campaign donations from the landlord company, which looks bad.
The Domincan villa affair was definitely fishy on both counts. The failure to disclose the income to the House was an ethics violation but not a crime. The failure to pay taxes on that income was a crime, but one in which rarely does anyone go to jail. Most people, as Rangel is doing, would simply pay the back-taxes plus interests and a fine.
Rangels failure to report other real estate and investment income and assets were House ethics violations but not crimes.
The storage of his old car in the House garage is rather petty, potentially a minor legal infraction, but yes, a petty but real violation of ethics rules.
Rangels political involvement is a tax loophole that benefited contributors seems like a sleazy ethics violation, but in all likelyhood, is not a crime.
The campaign money that went to his son’s half-hearted PAC website was not illegal, but very sleazy and probably an ethics violation.
The Diageo rum scandal is a little complicated, but again probably not a crime, but rather an ethics violations.
So, no, if you know anything about this case, you see that jail is not really an appropriate punishment. No one would go to jail for what Rangel did. But the ethics violations are very serious and it seems expulsion, or at least full censureship for the rest of his term(s?), would be the proper avenue.
There’s a great irony in this tragedy as well. Remember, Rangel won his seat to another great Harlem pol, Adam Clayton Powell, after Powell had himself got stuck in the corruption mud. You’d think Rangel would have seen this irony and known better.
It’s a terrrible day. Rangel has done many great things in his career – things even conservatives had once hailed (today, conservatives only have memories that date back as far as their last haircut). These lapses, and let’s face it, sleazy and corrupt activities, should not completely overshadow his great works. But it should be a lesson to us all – Gerrymandered districts that ensure ridiculously long and safe political tenures, will only further encourage abuse of power, power being enough of a corruptive influence itself, let alone without the additional bolstering of power created by gerrymandering.
JMJ
The real crimes, or immorality have been committed by
the Obama administration and his leftist advoors.
Rangel is but a pin prick in the crooked envronment we call government.
1 trillion stimuls..going where I ask? Who has benefitted and who will pay for it?
The banks are sitting on TARP money and refuse to lend, no matter
the incentives.l
The G-19 told Obama where to go, in no uncertain terms, while we buy more and more cheap goods from China to satify our hunger for
material things.
We are fighting 2 wars that should hae ened years ago..we cannot
win wars against Muslims on Muslim territory. We got rid of Saddam
and Al Qaeda (Afghanistan) why continue the fight? Who are we defending
Karzai and Maliki?
Gates says we will not bomb Iran, it will just motivate them..as if they
need more motivation. They recenlty complete two major military tests.
over an 1800 miles radius, to guard their nuke sites (for peaceful purposes0, yeah right.
Wall Street is back to its old tricks and making money again.,
while back on main street millions of homes are underwater.
People are running out of unemployment insurance benefits..then what?
Obama scolds Israel for some minimal construction in its capital, taken
when attacked by Jordan..and blames Israel for the impasse now over
a 3 month freeze. he promises 20 jets, while selling Arabia 84 to defend
against Irans nukes..oh boy.
Regading Rangel…who cares? he will still represent his district.
Rather him than Louis Farrakhan. But lets admit, that Louiis would
get the Congress perking.
“Many of the charges bnrought by the House were not of crimes, but of ethics violations. There’s a difference. And ethics violation breaks a House rule but is not necessarily a crime. Crimes can be violations of House ethics rules, but surprisingly enough, not always. ”
Stealing and lying is unethical where I come from.
Oh, but wait, were talking about “house ethics”
Big diff ?
“Rangels failure to report other real estate and investment income and assets were House ethics violations but not crimes.”
Are you serious ?
In what state is it legal to not report assets and income investments accrued by them ?
Crust o mighty , you morons will have the IRS bangin on my door if I dont buy
Obamacare but Rangel gets to slide after not reporting financial holdings ?
More reason for term limits
The stunningly proud intentional ignorance os conservatives really gets old sometimes…
Dav Lev asks…
“1 trillion stimuls..going where I ask? Who has benefitted and who will pay for it?”
Do you really not know this, Dav? Really? Okay, here we go again… about a third of it went to tax cuts, about a third to states for unemployment and other obligations increased from the failure of the Bush/GOP years, and about a third for a variety of stimulus and otehr things.
Here’s the breakdown: http://www.thesunsfinancialdiary.com/charts/american-recovery-reinvestment-act-2009-breakdown-chart-day/
Really, it only takes a couple of seconds to look it up.
“The banks are sitting on TARP money and refuse to lend, no matter
the incentives.”
First of all, TARP was not Obama’s. You do know that, right? Secondly, the banks and such are paying it back because they do not want to answer to the government for the money. The banks aren’t lending in the middle of the greatest recession in generations because it is the greatest recession in generations! Where the heck have you been?
“The G-19 told Obama where to go…”
No, they didn’t. If anything, they are simply resisting more Americanization of their economies. It most definitely has nothing to do with Obama being a “liberal” or anything of that sort.
Micky,
By “report,” I meant to the House. I did mention his failure to report some taxes and conceded that is a crime. Just the same, people rarely go to jail for ten or so grand in back taxes.
Term limits are moronic. More anti-democracy from the Right. Term limits have nothing to do with this problem. Gerrymandering is the real problem here. That and human nature. But there’s not much we can do about the latter.
JMJ
I was on TV the other night a minute report about Mr. Rangel
s problems with Congress.
He will be censured. He was reelected no matter
the fact that as a Congressman, he is trusted by
his constituents as well as the country.
He claims he didnt earn one cent extra above his
salary.
He should be expelled.
But Congress. like the police and IRS protect themselves.
I ask, why are IRS managers getting huge GS-13 and GS14
salaries..when the tax gap is still 12% of the budget?
(taxes not collected and determined by the IRS to be due-
delinguent taxes not paid with returns, fraud, returns never filed
with taxes shown). With all their computers..lien and levy powers,
why are collections so dismal? Perhaps they, like the SEC,
should be revised and revamped?
This is the real fleecing of we hard working and honest taxpayers.
There is a book out now, written by two authors folks, with
insights into finance. They blame the banks and imprudent lenders
for the debacle,. and of course Wall Street.
I blame people like Rangel who encouraged, with their liberalism,
the above. Its called Tikkun Olam, “reparing the world”. In this
case the US of A.
But we havent seen anything yet, now that Brown was elected
gov. Four years from now…lets go back and see what changes
he has wrought.
I received an email from an old friend. He warned me not to
believe the Republican solicitations for funding. Said they
will increase our taxes instead.
Okay, this is another political promise to watch.