Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Cuba: For Rangel, “there’s always pain”

Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) took time off from not paying his taxes to insult Cubans suffering under the island-prison’s Communist oppression,

“How would you explain the president’s plan to normalize relations to Americans, like the ones in the audience tonight, that have lost everything, that have lost family members to the Castro regime?” asked MSNBC anchor Ronan Farrow.

“Well there’s always pain when people have suffered under a Communist regime,” said Rangel. The career politician believes that relaxing restrictions on Cuba will eventually help to “ease the pain” that the Cuban people are feeling.

Grok the empathy here, if you can stand it,

[Read more…]

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This just in: Rangel guilty

Fresh from the WaPo,
Committee finds N.Y. Rep. Charles Rangel guilty of ethics violations

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) was found guilty Tuesday of breaking 11 separate congressional rules related to his personal finances and fundraising efforts for a New York college.

A House ethics subcommittee that handled the trial now sends the case to the full committee for the equivalent of sentencing.

Also at the WaPo, Foreclosure mess could upend housing market

House Panel Finds Rangel Broke Ethics Rules

The panel reached its decision after a second day of closed-door discussions about the case. Mr. Rangel walked out of the disciplinary proceeding early Monday, protesting his lack of a lawyer and saying he could no longer afford one and shouldn’t be forced to proceed without one.

Later that day, the panel accepted as fact the entire prosecution case against Mr. Rangel, indicating that he would almost certainly be found to have violated some ethics rules.

On Tuesday, the panel of eight lawmakers announced they had concluded his actions were violations of ethics rules regarding the use of congressional staff and stationery, as well as requirements to accurately report his assets and improperly using a rent-stabilized residential apartment as a campaign office.

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Rangel to be prosecuted for ethics violations

Was high time,
Rep. Charles Rangel broke ethics rules, House panel finds (emphasis added)

A House ethics subcommittee announced Thursday that it found that Rep. Charles B. Rangel violated congressional ethics rules and that it will prepare for a trial, probably beginning in September. The panel is expected to make the details of his alleged violations public next Thursday.

Rangel’s one of the most deeply corrupt Dems in office,

Rangel (D-N.Y.) has been under the House ethics committee’s microscope since early 2008 after it was reported that he may have used his House position to benefit his financial interests. Two of the most serious inquiries have focused on Rangel’s failure to declare $239,000 to $831,000 in assets on his disclosure forms, and on his effort to raise money for a private center named after him at City College of New York using his congressional letterhead.

In March, Rangel reluctantly stepped down as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee — a week after the ethics panel ruled in a separate case that he had broken congressional gift rules by accepting trips to conferences in the Caribbean that were financed by corporate interests. The panel said that, at a minimum, Rangel’s staff knew about the corporate backing for the 2007 and 2008 trips — and that the congressman was therefore responsible.

Meanwhile, young Luke Russert dared question Rangel on this issue and was patronized and told not to ask dumb questions:

You gotta love Russert’s expression: he knows he’s got good stuff right there,

Can you imagine if Rangel had realized that was Tim Russert’s kid? I would have loved to have heard him say, “you’re dad would be ashamed of you”.

The WaPo blog report starts with “Embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel”, embattled, as if Rangel was in the middle of a natural disaster,

Embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) had a few choice words for MSNBC’s Luke Russert Thursday afternoon. Russert asked the 80 year-old House veteran if he might lose his job over the House panel finding that he violated ethics rules.

“Well, you’re young, I guess you do need to make a name for yourself,” Rangel told the reporter. ‘Basically you know it’s a dumb question and I’m not going to respond to it … It doesn’t really sound like NBC — asking these dumb questions. It just shows what happened to a channel that did have some respect.”

“It doesn’t really sound like NBC”?

It doesn’t really sound like the House ethics committee, either.

But they do.

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