Good time Charlie Rangel
was honored yesterday with words of adulation and praise for all the wonderful
things he has done over the course of his illustrious career. (Source) (Source) The Rangel Celebration is to be highlighted
by the unveiling of an official portrait of Rangel, a portrait completed at a
cost of $64,000. Delightful.
Should anyone out there
be unsure as to just who the recipient of this prestigious celebration actually
is (and I doubt there are many), allow me to shed some light on the illustrious
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). This is the same Charles Rangel who was brought
up on ethics charges and found guilty of 11 counts of violating House ethics
rules. (Source) These so-called “rules” included violating the solicitation and gift ban,
violating postal service laws and franking commission regulations, violation of
the letter head rule, leasing a “residential use only” rent stabilized apartment
that he used as a campaign office (in order to avoid paying the higher rent
associated with actual office spaces), and, among other rules, failing to
report rental income on his $500,000 Dominican Republic villa.
Wait, wait, wait. Did I
just read that right? Failing to report rental income? Isn’t that what people
go to prison for? Isn’t tax fraud a felony? Well, um, yes, it is. (as an aside,
one of Rangel’s aide recently said he was guilty of the same thing [Source]). Congress takes care of its own,
however, and they did censure ol’ Charlie. You know what a censure is don’t
you. It is an official reading of the charges against you on the house floor.
And after that, it’s, um, back to business as usual. I would say it is the
equivalent of a slap on the wrist, but an actual slap on the wrist does incur a
modicum of brief barely noticeable pain. A censure does not. But I digress. We
were talking about Charlie’s celebration.
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