The Audacity Of Corruption
Democrats partially were able to regain control of Congress over the past 2 election cycles because of corruption on the Republican side. And for good reason: Republicans in their 12 year general control of Congress were changed by Washington instead of changing Washington. They became corrupt to some extent, and deservedly were thrown out.
It has taken the Democrats far less time to achieve this ignoble goal.
Many people, most notably Michelle Malkin, have been pointing to these corrupting influences on the Democratic Party for some time. However, predictably the mainstream media has been generally ignoring the stories. How could the ‘pure as snow’ Democrats be involved in such things? However, the truth of the stories is outpacing the media’s ability to deny those truths.
Of course, there is William Jefferson, who was found to be hiding money in his fridge. There is Eliot Spitzer, meeting a prostitute; and now considering a statewide run for Comptroller of New York? The list goes on and on.
But maybe the biggest fist to fry will be Charlie Rangel.
Rangel, a devout liberal who has a stranglehold on his district in New York, has been found to have been evading taxes, unethically and illegally usually housing subsidies, and yet the Democrats in Congress (even with their huge majorities) have ignored the ethics charges.
And this, from the man who is in charge of writing tax reforms for the House of Representatives.
However, the final straw may have been broken last week. Rangel apparently conveniently forgot to mention a bank account holding a half a million dollars. I guess for him that was a forgettable amount. He had an additional half a million dollars in investments which he failed to disclose as well…again, a tiny amount. Of course, add that up the assets totaling more than $1 million on legally required financial disclosure forms going back to at least 2001 that Rangel failed to report. And all of this news comes on top of revelations last year that Rangel didn’t report — and didn’t pay taxes on — income from a villa in the Caribbean. In that matter, the Internal Revenue Service gave him sweetheart treatment; Rangel paid about $10,000 in back taxes but was not required to pay any penalty or interest.
Byron York has a piece that shows the double standard:
But the Rangel case is very, very serious.
If you don’t think so, just look at this, from the front page of the Oct. 28, 2008 Washington Post: “Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, one of Congress’s most powerful Republicans, was convicted yesterday of lying on financial disclosure forms to conceal his receipt of about $250,000 in gifts and expensive renovations to his house. …”
Stevens’ conviction was later thrown out because of prosecutorial misconduct, but the message was clear: This is the kind of thing you can go to jail for.
Rangel appears to have hidden greater sums of money than Stevens allegedly did. Democratic leaders don’t want to face it now, but it’s just a matter of time before they’re forced to admit they have a serious Rangel problem.
You would think that would be enough…but no.
Democrats still are protecting Rangel for unknown reasons. Remember: they have a 70-plus seat majority in the House. This would not make any difference politically. And Republicans have a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating any Democrat, dead or alive, in Rangel’s seat.
Republicans have made fun of the entire episode. H.R. 735, also known as the “Rangel Rule Act of 2009″, is just such a joke. Under H.R. 735, if you’re caught cheating on your taxes, you would pay what you owe, then write “Rangel Rule” at the top of your return, and you wouldn’t be charged any penalty or interest. That way, Carter said when he introduced the bill, ordinary taxpayers would be “treated with the same courtesy that, it seems, the IRS is treating the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.”
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid promised a new standard of ethics when they took power in 2006. Well, they have delivered…our ethical standards for our politicians have fallen to new, abysmal lows.
UPDATE: It appears Rangel has been giving large campaign donations to over 100 hundred Congressional Democrats in the past year…payoffs, maybe?
I never believed the campaign promises and all the hype of hope and change. However, this cast of characters even fell beneath my low expectations of how bad they would be. The worst part of a failing president is that the entire nation suffers for the failures. As a Senator (multitasking) he was too busy to tend to the economy before the election all the while talking it down for political gain.
This is now his economy. The last 8 years are over. He is tending the helm and the ship is his responsibility. If the democrats want to continue to blame the previous administration for the present problems they might consider that they were part of the problems also. A responsible media would be pointing out the hypocrisy.
When Bush came in 2000 the bubble had burst and the economy was not in a good position either. Bill Clinton presided over several downturns in the financial markets. Do we forget that his administration was behind the devastating equity losses from the antitrust charges against Microsoft? Do we forget the equity destruction to pensions and other pools of capital that were destroyed by that action? No, we should not. We should also seriously consider the governments ability to damage segments of the economy by implementing policy for political gains because of this.
Cap and trade and healthcare reform are potentially two of the most damaging initiatives that this administration could take and, worse yet, have. The legacy of failure is what is most alarming.
James: they’re doing it on purpose! Please don’t allow them the luxury of giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are actually trying to do the right thing but are just incompetent. They’re NOT! Christ, even an economics 101 freshman knows that you can’t “stimulate” an economy by doing what he has done. He’s purposely trying to tank our economy, bring us to the brink of depression, trying to suck dry any part of the economy that isn’t controlled by government, and divert billions to created government agencies. The Socialists and Statists are making their move, have identified their limited opportunity to do so, and are going for it while they can still use “racial prejudice” and other charges to fend off normal and decent thinking people that are starting to see what is going on. They almost did it! They underestimated the rest of America and will have to regroup. Let’s let the “moderates” in the Republican party that have allowed this situation know that they’re part of the problem and not the solution. We won’t “mediate” with them about anything like McCain, Luger, and others wish us to do. The opposition will play on the decency of the American public and politicians that want to appease them to achieve their goal of fundamentally changing America. That’s in their game plan. Fight them every step of the way, laugh in their faces when they claim racism, burst out laughing when they try to explain how spending more money on government will save money, and giggle uncontrollably when they throw out numbers of “uninsured” as a reason to fundamentally change the whole system. Stand firm while they lie to your face about their intentions to make America more “just” and “fair”, both code words for screwing producers and redistributing the hard earned wealth of others. James, for the love of God, these guys are enemies of liberty and freedom and the sooner we accept that the sooner we see them for what they are the sooner we’ll be able to properly apply our own powers to defeat their every scheme. How much proof do we need? I, for one, recognize that “liberals” are nothing of the sort, they won’t tolerate dissension, they certainly don’t work for the underprivelaged, in fact they do everything in their power to keep them under their boot. I, for one, recognize that these people love power, want to control every aspect of our lives, and will fight them every step of the way. Don’t give them a single inch! They are anti-Americans that have managed to gain a political advantage temporarily and are making the most of it. Unfortunately for them, there are too many of us out there that see what is going on and are speaking out and actively revolting against it. By the way, if they thought they could use soldiers and cops to be their thugs… they were SO wrong. It’s not going to happen. We’ll be their worse nightmare!
P.S. Cops and soldiers will be their worst nightmare because we’re not going to compromise our duties, our sense of duty, our sense of honor, our love of country, to take away all the things we have fought and died for to preserve. The Left is almost insane to think we would do such a thing. They may not have the intestinal fortitude to realize that there is something bigger than “self” but do you actually think that soldiers and police officers think the same way? Are you kidding me? We’ll fight because we love our country, we’ll protect our citizens because we know what it is to put our own interests behind what is important… unlike the politicians that will try to control us. Did they actually “calculate” and “scheme” that we would capitulate and compromise our morals for them to take over our country? We’ll do what we were trained to do, what we were indoctrinated to do, what most of us were BORN to do, what we recognized what was our real duty… we’ll protect the good citizens of this wonderful country from tyranny and protect their rights. You were fools to think we would do anything different.