NY Times story here. He was convicted on 11 of 12 charges by a House subcommittee. I’ve seen differing stories of how the process continues. It’s unclear to me whether this same subcommittee will recommend a penalty to the full Ethics committee, or to the House as a whole, or whether it is done and now the full Ethics committee will take up the issue of a suitable penalty.
Personally, I think he deserves expulsion, though the article says that’s very unlikely. He’s shown nothing but contempt for the committee and the rules since the allegations first appeared in the press. He walked out on the subcommittee yesterday, he’s given speeches on the House floor basically admitting to the facts while denying that his actions are unethical at all.
He either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care what ethics really are, and shows no sign that he will make any changes to his behavior as a result of all this mess.
Hey, give the guy a break-so he missed reporting some income? Big deal!
This creep has been in Congress forever-he’s been bought and sold a number of times.
I like how he keep whining about his Korean War service…yeah, Charley-but you want US to pay the taxes that you won’t.
Get rid of the bum.
Wait a minute! Shouldn’t his penalty be exactly the same as for anyone else in the same situation? If that is expulsion, then expulsion. If it’s letter saying you are bad, then letter saying you are bad. I’d say the same if it was a Republican, which in this case it is not. Apparently Mitch McConnell over in the Senate is charged with much of the same sort of thing, but no charges are even brought.
I understand that this is a scary black man who misused letterhead and all that, but firing him should be based on precedent.
One of the problems I have with Congress is that no one seems ever to be expelled for ethics violations. IMO they should be setting new precedents, not following the old ones.
My understanding is that it is misusing letterhead, which is chickenfeed, and misreporting taxes. If the tax problem is charged, then he should be expelled, but if it is the kind the government lets you pay the penalty on without criminal charges, then a suspension is in order.
Remember, when the Senate finally got its balls back at the end of the McCarthy bullshit, which paralyzed and terrorized a whole nation, he was only censured. Punishments should not increase without notice in advance.
Misued letterhead? The man f’ing has 4 rent-stabilized apartments and one of them was used as his office. How the fuck can you justify a man who is supposed to stand for his poor constituents not paying market rent for his shit? He only makes 6 figures a year :rolleyes:.
I’ll tell you exactly why I find Charlie Rangel to be the epitome of human waste: because when you’re talking about ripping off the middle classes, all member of Congress are guilty. When you’re exceptional at bringing pork home, you’re just good at your job. It’s a sick system, but you work it and are clever. Charlie Rangle, on the other hand, disenfranchises the very voters who put him in office. He takes advantage of them regularly. He claims to fight for his poor voters. And he sticks it to them every fucking chance he gets. That’s why I don’t care that John Kerry docked his boat in Rhode Island to avoid taxes. Kerry’s voters aren’t suffering. Rangle’s are. He wants to raise taxes and yet avoid paying them himself. That is sick. I wish he were jailed.
I suspect he started out a decent guy but but he’s been in Congress too long. If you are in the presence of moral transgressions for so long, some of the minor transgressions might start becoming acceptable to you, not a big deal, greater good, all that.
I live in his district and have voted for him several times. By typical measures of intelligence, I am not stupid. I think your opinion on this subject might be a touch on the reflexive side.
Why on earth would you have voted for him after his ethics violations were revealed? control-z has the most measured and correct response overall, though. They get corrupt and spend their whole lives on the government teat, making loads more than is rational.
First of all, I think control-z’s argument for term limits does not follow. Term limits encourage politicians to loot their constituencies faster than they would ordinarily. At least we had 35 or so good years of Charlie Rangel.
Why I voted for him is a fair question. I think that he has been a solid public servant for decades and has been a real asskicker for NYC. Perhaps I am more cynical than most, but I think that his corruption is incredibly low grade. His back tax bill is certainly less than Bill Clinton or Sarah Palin make in a half hour of honorarium. The school board probably loots more from the public trough than Charlie Rangel. I try, but I just can’t get all that worked up over it.
So why didn’t I vote against him? Should I have voted for that drunk driver Adam Clayton Powell IV? Or the Hollywood candidate, Tasini? Or, dear lord, Faulker? Small-time corruption I can understand; religious fundamentalism I cannot. This is the upper west side, for god’s sake.
So I weigh decades of public service and local performance against a little graft and then weigh the results against the alternatives.
How does the amount of money one makes in a speech have anything to do with the price of beans in China? In response to “he strips his constituents of rent-controlled apartments and abuses his powers willy nilly” your answer is…it’s okay because Palin and Clinton can haul more in per speaking engagement?
As I recall, people willingly pay money to see Clinton and Palin, they’re not robbed and lied to about it.
You speak nothing of him railing against the wealthy while then being a tax evader himself. He wants to raise taxes and not pay them himself? Isn’t that the definition of a hypocrite?
Doesn’t the benefit of using a rent controlled apartment for an office apply to the federal government? By that , I mean doesn’t the cost get paid through an expense account ?
The issue is one of proportion. If years of corruption net you a little loose change, I can’t be bothered to get worked up over it. The comparison to honorarium shows how absolutely trivial the magnitude of the corruption here actually is. I save my outrage for unexpectedly material graft, say, by AIG.
Thankfully, Rangel had nothing to do with stripping of any kind. And abuse of power? Get real. Throwing someone into Guantanamo without a trial is an abuse of power. Not declaring vacation home income? Not an abuse of power. Tom Delay’s attempted dismantling of the Ethics Committee? Abuse of power. Using a House parking lot for an old car of his? For god’s sake.
This is obviously not acceptable in a more general moral sense, but you’re really buttfucking fleas here.
I don’t really care what he says any more than I care what other read meat politicians lead with. I care about outcomes. He is one of the rare legislators who consistently supports both free trade and a progressive social agenda. In this respect his preferences sufficiently align with mine that I couldn’t care less that he overpaid for a website.
Perhaps you missed the words “rent-controlled apartments.”
I don’t know if NYC/NYS has a rent control program for office space but rent control here is for living quarters, not offices, in order to keep some amount of housing stock affordable to the general public. Even if Rangel qualified for those living quarters, he doesn’t qualify for four of them. Even if he wanted to endeavor to cut the costs of his/the government’s overhead, that was not the legal way to do it.