CHICAGO NEWS BENCH: Charles Rangel

Showing posts with label Charles Rangel. Show all posts

Video: Stunned Pelosi Reads Charlie Rangel's Censure on House Floor

One of the most influential, and most crooked, members of Congress was finally censured on the House floor today. Charlie Rangel was found guilty by colleagues for unethical behavior. Rangel, by the way, is the man whom Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) called her "leader." Yup. Pelosi made "culture of corruption" a household phrase. Words can boomerang. "The U.S. House censured Democratic Representative Charles Rangel of New York for ethics violations," Bloomberg reported today, "including soliciting donations for an academic center bearing his name and failing to fully pay his income taxes. The vote was 333-79. Under the censure, Rangel stood on the House floor as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, read the resolution outlining his violations." Watch Pelosi in the video below, dressed like a vampire, eyes glazed over, tongue thick with confusion, arm pits moist with tension, as she read the good news.

Below: Rep. Jan Schakowsky praises her "leader" Charlie Rangel:

(Video) Rep Jan Schakowsky Praises Charlie Rangel, Calls Him "My Leader"

July 30, 2010 - No surprise, really. Crooks of a feather flock together. Rep. Jan Schakowksy (D-IL) is married to convicted check kiting felon Robert Creamer, so she feels completely comfortable praising tax cheat Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and admitting in the video below that she looks to him as a guide for how she should vote in Congress. She also thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bagels.

Marathon Pundit wrote about this today with an interesting take on the affair: In her speech to the National Black Leadership Commission, Schakowsky praised Rangel as "my leader, Charlie Rangel" and declared, "People may look to see how I vote, but that's 'cause I look first at how Charlie’s voting." Hey Jan, why not listen to your constitutuents instead of sleazeballs like Rangel?In 2005, while the Republicans still controllled Congress, Schakowsky gushed in The American Prospect, "Think about what it would mean for progressives if Nancy Pelosi were House speaker and congressional committees were chaired by people like George Miller, John Conyers, Charlie Rangel, and Henry Waxman." More at Marathon Pundit... Yes, well, we no longer need to imagine. Five years later we're deep into the Hope And Change Nightmare. Rangel is in deep trouble, and Democrats are in a panic about it now that it will embarrass them so close to the mid-term November elections. Many are calling for Rangel to resign, including Comrade Obama Himself. They're not calling for Rangel to resign out of any sense of what is morally correct. They want him as far away in the shadows as possible when his criminal trial begins. Meanwhile, Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) faces charges of misusing her office. What was it that Nancy Pelosi said about cleaning up Congress in 2006? Do you remember that? RELATED: More Calls for Rangel to Resign‎ Wall Street Journal Will the Rangel trial hurt Dems in November? The Hill Anthony Weiner's rant captures Dem impotence The Plum Line WaPo buries Dem fundraiser's fraud, highlights GOP fundraising scandal Washington Examiner

Eric Massa Says Rahm Emanuel "Hates My Guts"

Rep. Eric Massa

March 8, 2010 - The melt down of the Democrat Party continues, as Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY29) tosses verbal grenades at the White House on this, his last day as a U.S. Representative.

Massa announced last Friday that he will resign today, effective at 5:00 p.m. EST. Massa is not the first member of Congress to diss the Obama Administration and Democrat Party leaders, but his words may be the harshest so far from a fellow Democrat. Massa is resigning during his first term in Congress.

The Massa case is weird, however. First he announced that he would not seek re-election because of personal health concerns. Then came word that a male staffer filed an ethics complaint against him, allegedly for sexual harassment. Later, Massa insisted that he was being forced out of Congress because of his opposition to health care legislation.

Before Massa officially goes down at 5:00 p.m. today, however, Massa's final mission seems to have been one of complete destruction of as many fellow Democrats as possible. (We wish him all the best in that endeavor, by the way.)

Massa's resignation comes in the wake of major events in his life. He recently had a CAT scan and was told that "the anomalies in the films may or may not be scar tissue," so he made the decision to prioritize his family and himself ahead of his political career. Massa was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1996.

He bowed out of his bid for re-election and was then informed that "a member of my staff believed I had made statements that made him feel 'uncomfortable.'" That staffer reportedly filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee.

In a phone interview with WKPQ-AM, Massa said that "Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive, and if he doesn't like that he can come after me personally."

It gets weirder. "Let me tell you a story about Rahm Emanuel," Massa said:

"I was a Congressman, and in my first eight weeks, I was in the Congressional gym and I went down and I worked out, and I went into the showers, which by the way, for the life of me I can't figure out why they took all the shower curtains off the shower stalls in the Congressional shower. I mean, the last thing I want to look at is my fellow colleagues naked, but they don't have any shower curtains down in the gym, and I'm sittin' there showering, naked as a jay bird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me because I wasn't going to vote for the president's budget. Do you know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man? By the way, what the heck is he doing in the Congressional gym? He goes there to intimidate members of Congress.... We had words, and he hates my guts. He's hated me since Day One, and now he wins. So, he'll get rid of me, and this [health care] bill will pass, and I don't know what we're going to do with this country."

Arguing politics with naked men is, apparently, something that Rahm Emanuel is comfortable with. The shower encounter was not the first time that Massa and Emanuel have had a tense moment together.

During Massa's 2006 run for Congress, Emanuel visited Eric Massa during a trip to upstate New York. In a video of the visit, Emanuel scolded Massa for seeming too angry. At that time, Emanuel was the National Campaign Director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. One of his duties was to inspect the troops, so to speak. During the video, Massa and his staff say "F--- him" about Emanuel at least twice when they are away from him.

My own theory is that Massa has, indeed, been forced out by Emanuel and the Democrat leadership. Consider this: He gets word that he may or may not have scar tissue from his 1996 bout with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Most people would not immediately quit their job because of that, however. Rather, they would hang in there until further tests could be done to determine absolutely what their medical condition is. Remember that Massa has (had) fine health care as a Congressman. Then there is the sudden and terribly (in)convenient charge of sexual harassment. Coincidence? Or conspiratorial action engineered by Rahm Emanuel, who has never liked Massa and saw him as an obstructionist. After the charges broke, Massa changed his story to include his own charges that the Democrats have forced him out, and that he's quitting because he does not want to put his family through the ordeal of a sexual harassment investigation.

Remember, Emanuel is a Chicago politician, as is his boss Obama. In other words, they're thugs, and to this Chicagoan such dirty tactics would not be at all surprising.

We can only hope that Eric Massa continues to criticize Emanuel and the Chicago Thugocracy after his resignation one hour from now.

Massa is just one of a string of New York Democrats embroiled in controversy and scandal. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) just took a leave of absence as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee "who’s currently under investigation for a slew of ethics violations."

NY Governor David Paterson is under pressure to resign because of "allegations that his office had improper contact with the ex-girlfriend of a close gubernatorial aide to pressure her to drop a domestic violence case against the aide; and the second into allegations that the governor lied about whether he sought free World Series tickets from the New York Yankees in violation of state ethics laws."

Massa's Congressional web site is http://massa.house.gov/. It will probably come down after his resignation becomes official late this afternoon. Also, traffic to the site is very heavy today, so if you don't get it at first, just refresh the page.

Related:

UPDATED: When Democrats Get Mean. Really Mean.

UPDATED March 19, 2009: Activists Lying About Ald. Munoz Assault Incident ------------------------------- Original Post: Michelle Malkin has two amazing videos of Democrats rudely disrespecting the people who pay their salaries. First is Chicago Alderman Ricardo Munoz as he violently assaults a constituent and screams “Get the f**k out of my office!” The second one is Charlie Rangel, US Representative from New York, telling a constituent, “Why don’t you mind your goddamned business?” when confronted with legitimate questions about cheating on his taxes and abusing taxpayer money. (Also see related items below the videos.)

Must Read - Obama's Den of Tax Cheats

Hot stuff by Eric Kohn today at Illinois Review: The pathetic episodes of Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle, Rep. Charles Rangel, Nancy Killefer and their respective tax cheating should have everyone furious. What's remarkable here is not only that all of these instances have occurred recently and are - with the exception of Rangel - all by supposedly vetted nominations made by President Obama, but that the roles each does or would have played in the government represent a full circle on the ethos of taxation, tax policy and use of tax dollars. Full Plate of Scandals... Is a bunch of entrenched tax cheats surrounding Barack Obama part of the "change" we were promised? Or is it just a little something extra tossed our way? Remember when Joe Biden reminded us all that paying taxes is patriotic? Uh huh. CNB RSS Feed

Charlie Rangel's Revolting Tax Revolt

You must get over to see this video, posted on friend Levois' blog, It's My Mind. Dude walks into Harlem and interviews people on busy sidewalk about the tax problems of Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY). Informative, funny, upsetting all at once, and shows that the average person on the street might not be as dumb as the last presidential election suggests they are. CNB RSS Feed

John Murtha Campaign Donor Raided by Feds

One of Congressman John "Pork Master" Murtha's biggest financial contributors was raided by federal agents last week. Murtha is a Democrat from Pennsylvania. The Wall Street Journal reported: Federal agents raided two small Pennsylvania defense contractors that were given millions of dollars in federal funding by Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the defense appropriations committee and one of the most powerful men in Congress. Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems shut down for the day after the raid by officers from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an Internal Revenue Service criminal unit. Culture of corruption? Remember that phrase? Meanwhile, the WSJ continues, a senior Democratic lawmaker is pushing back on the Obama administration's choice for the No. 2 Pentagon official because of potential conflicts of interest and recent lobbying work for defense contractor Raytheon Co. The new resistance comes a day after President Barack Obama unveiled tough lobbying rules to curtail such conflicts. Culture of corruption. Mmmm-hmmm. Have you noticed that Congressthing Nancy Pelosi has not uttered her once-favorite phrase "culture of corruption" much lately? She hasn't, because it would only serve to remind us that the Democrats embody that culture: Dems wrestle with ethics problems, reports Politico yesterday: Even as President Obama has instituted tough new ethics guidelines for administration officials, House Democrats continue to wrestle with the ethics problems of two of their most senior members—Reps. John Murtha (Pa.) and Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.). Pelosi hasn't uttered "culture of corruption" much recently because of all the problems within her party and, indeed, within her own private culture of corruption. Even a hypocrite like Nancy Pelosi is astute enough to know that she shouldn't appear hypocritical. It is, of course, too late for Pelosi and her fellow Corruptocrats to put that inconvenient truth back in the bottle. RELATED: Holding Elected Officials Accountable US Raids Contractors Aided by Murtha The House of Pelosi by John J. Pitney Jr. on National Review Online Culture of Corruption Snares Another Democrat While Pelosi Snoozes! Top Obama aides subject of Blagojevich subpoenas Subscribe to Chicago News Bench

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