Robins says, “House Democrats had better start taking the ethics allegations against Rep. Charlie Rangel seriously. I know it's difficult for those steeped in Capitol Hill's hermetic culture to understand, but a verdict of "mistakes were made" -- which a lot of Democrats would like to reach -- doesn't cut it in the real world. Strange as it seems. Seriously. Republicans, I should note, are being baldly hypocritical in calling for Rangel, who has spent four decades in the House, to step down immediately as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee -- a position that makes him one of the most powerful men in Washington. Those same Republicans were happy to keep "Dancing With the Stars" dropout Tom DeLay as majority leader for years while he was under a monsoon's worth of ethical cloud cover.”
“But just because Republicans are posturing for political gain doesn't mean that Democrats can do the same without paying a price. If you win big majorities in both the House and Senate by railing against a "culture of corruption" in Washington, as the Democratic Party did, voters tend to get the wacky notion that you actually mean what you say,” wrote Robinson. The violations that Rangel is alleged to have committed are, inconveniently for him, easy for anyone to understand. The most serious, perhaps, is the allegation that he failed to pay taxes on about $75,000 in income from renting out a beach house that he owns in the Dominican Republic. For the chairman of the House committee that writes tax legislation not to pay his fair share in taxes would be as bad as, say, for the secretary of the Treasury not to pay his fair share in taxes. (Hold it, maybe that's a bad example.) The most stunning alleged violation is more of a technicality: That on required financial disclosure forms, Rangel failed to list more than $500,000 in assets. The average citizen isn't likely to have half a million bucks somehow slip his mind, since the average citizen doesn't have anything near half a million bucks.
And we're not talking easily overlooked "Antiques Roadshow" assets -- a dusty painting in the attic that turns out to be the work of a second-tier Old Master, or a rickety chair in the basement that experts date as 18th century. What Rangel failed to declare were liquid assets -- a credit union account worth more than $250,000 and an investment account also worth more than $250,000 -- plus some real estate he owns in New Jersey and assorted stock holdings. These omissions came to light after Rangel filed amended disclosure forms, so he blew the whistle on himself. But he was already under fire for other alleged lapses, including having leased several rent-stabilized New York apartments -- one of which he used as a campaign office -- at below-market value, even though such apartments are supposed to be used as a tenant's primary residence. Technically, this could be considered an illegal gift from the landlord to Rangel. This allegation probably fits into the "too convoluted to bother with" category. And another charge goes into the "too trivial to mention" file -- that Rangel used his official stationery to solicit funds for a new educational center to be named after him at the City University of New York.
The House ethics committee is looking into the allegations and seems to be taking its sweet time. If we were just talking about the misused letterhead and the rent-controlled apartments, we'd be well within "mistakes were made" territory. The failure to disclose the huge credit union and investment accounts is harder to dismiss, but at least there's no suggestion that the funds were ill-gotten. The tax issue looks more serious. Not paying taxes is against the law. The real problem, though, is the overall portrait of a wealthy and privileged congressional pasha to whom ordinary rules don't apply. Robinson says, “It's a picture that obscures Rangel's long and tireless work in the House on behalf of the needy and dispossessed. It pains me to see his record tarnished, because I like and admire the guy. But he's the one who did the tarnishing. Speaker Nancy Pelosi may owe her job to Rangel, but she needs to press the ethics committee to do its work without fear or favor. And she needs to contemplate the prospect of explaining to voters, come next fall, why the affluent man who sets their taxes didn't pay his.”
Therefore it is clear that the Rangel issue is just yet another black eye on the culture of corruption and misdeeds that exist within D.C. Both Democrats and Republicans are not immune to the corruption because the culture exists on both sides of the aisle but what amazes me is how Republicans come to the aide of their own party members who are under investigation for corruption, i.e. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and how Democrats come to the aide of their own party members who are under investigation for corruption or wrongdoing, i.e. Rangel currently. Nonetheless the culture of corruption when left up with the House or Senate ethics committee doesn’t end because when is the last time you have seen politicians in D.C. punish each other for ethics violations or quote unquote actions deemed to be corrupt or simply wrong actions unbecoming of a political official.
Now I am not talking about the House punishing someone for breaking House rules such as yelling during a Presidential speech but I am more so talking about both Democrats and Republicans coming together to agree to punish a fellow Senator or Congressional leader by stripping them of their duties are a political official or of their chairmanship for their actions that are deemed corruptible or unacceptable. I’m not calling for Rangel to step aside but what I am calling for is for our politicians in D.C. to stop with the political hypocrisy that allows corruption to fester in the halls of D.C. Think about people, Senators Conrad and Dobb were simply lectured for getting sweetheart housing mortgage deals while the Senate ethics committee said those who came before them had no proof that the Senators knew.
Come on people, are we suppose to believe that two United States Senators who sent on the Banking and Finance Committees of the Senate don’t know when they are getting great deals that ordinary Americans can’t get. Let’s be real. Nonetheless the ethics committee did nothing to Conrad and Dobb so why should we expect for something to happen to Rangel or any other politician in the halls of D.C. People the only way politicians are taking down for corruption or acts of corruption is not from their own colleagues but instead it is from the justice department. Remember Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana and Senator Ted Stevens were not taken down by their colleagues but by the Justice Department and the federal courts who found both individuals guilty in a court law. Thus the guilty verdicts sealed both man’s feat at the polls as we the people voted them out of office. Still to be fair, Stevens’s verdict was overturned because the Justice Department lawyers disclosed evidence from Stevens's defense team.
So Stevens’s guilty verdict in the eyes of many Alaskans and other right wingers seemed more like a political maneuver to make him more vulnerable to lose his re-election bid to the Senate than an actual guilty verdict because he was actually guilty. Nonetheless the fact of the matter is that we the American people cannot have faith in the House and Senate ethics committee to do independent and fair investigations of their own colleagues when previous investigations did nothing to kick any Congressional leader out of office in previous occasions. Even the Tom Delay case didn’t result in him being removed from office by the ethic committee although he did step down as the Speaker and then he decided not to run for re-election after winning the primary of the GOP.
Therefore the political hypocrisy in D.C. will continue to reign supreme until we the people demand more from our congressional leaders who sit on both the House and Senate ethics committee to do what’s right. Come on people, I suggest all of us to go watch the movie Charlie Wilson’s war and listen to what Congressman Wilson had to say at the very beginning of the movie when he had to chair an ethics investigation regarding some of his colleagues. He says, “I will get them off and then they will owe me a favor to get some of my future legislation passed.” Now I am paraphrasing it perhaps but that is initially what he says and later on in the movie you will see that even Congressman Wilson becomes under investigation himself while he is continuing to get funding for the secret war in Afghanistan. I say all of this because this is taking place in D.C. right underneath our noses is and the national media seems to ignore it time and time again.
People wake up and fight political corruption and the hypocrisy that is continuing to fester in our nation’s capital. It doesn’t matter if it is a Democrat or Republican who are corrupt, we the people should fight against and demand our Congressional leaders in D.C. to fight against both their own party members who are corrupt as well as the opposition party members but do it with the same zeal and passion each time. That would be the only fair thing to do but I am afraid it is not and that is why the political hypocrisy, the political posturing, and the culture of corruption in our nation’s capital will continue to reign supreme as long as we the people aren’t demanding answers and fair and equal investigations of all ethics violation cases.
NBC's Today Show Examines Accusations Facing Chairman Rangel
Reference:
CBC members rally around embattled chairman Rangel
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/58267-cbc-members-rally-around-embattled-chairman-rangel
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