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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jmhollen who wrote (38340)	11/9/2009 2:37:04 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

I listened to Meet the dePRESSed on Sunday. The guests were as usual stacked three hard left loons to one moderate. (The ones I remembered were LNN's MadCow and former Err America ghost Ed Gillespy.) It was very encouraging. They didn't get the message of NY-23. They thought it was lost by Hoffman and conservatives being not liberal enough. The libs insisted there was no national message by the thrubbing in Virginia and the surprise loss in in New Jersey.

To: jmhollen who wrote (38340)	3/1/2010 5:58:29 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Charlie the coward Last Updated: 3:38 PM, March 1, 2010 Posted: February 28, 2010 Yet what other term is appropriate when a 79-year-old political veteran, the dean of the New York delegation and chairman of one of the most powerful panels on Capitol Hill, ducks responsibility for a pretty obvious personal ethical lapse by throwing his staff under the bus? That’s Rangel’s story in the face of the House Ethics Committee’s report Friday declaring that he violated House rules by taking corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean in 2007 and 2008. The committee didn’t admonish four other Democratic House members on the trips because neither they nor their offices were aware of how the trip was funded (despite the omnipresent corporate signage in plain view for the attendees). Rangel’s office knew — and, the committee concluded, “Rangel was responsible for the knowledge and actions of his staff and the performance of their official duties.” That is, the buck stops with the boss. Rangel disagreed, saying, “Members of Congress should not be held responsible for what could be the wrongdoing or mistakes or errors of staff unless there’s reason to believe that member knew or should have known, and there is nothing in the record to indicate the latter.” He elaborated Friday, claiming that the ethics committee actually exonerated him, because it didn’t prove that he knew how the trips were funded. This report is only one part of a series of official inquiries of Rangel, sparked primarily by reporting in The Post. There’s also Rangel’s failure to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets and rental income from a New York building, on his financial-disclosure forms — plus neglecting to pay taxes on rent from a Dominican villa. Who’ll get blamed for those omissions and errors, Charlie? Accountants? Lawyers? Real-estate agents? Good help is so hard to find . . . Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who promised the “most ethical Congress in history” four years ago — backed up her Ways and Means chairman, refusing to ask him to step down pending the remaining ethics probes. These are people with the fate of a profoundly troubled nation in their hands. It is to weep. Read more: nypost.com

To: jmhollen who wrote (38340)	3/8/2010 4:43:03 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Oh, what a Rangel web we weave... By Dale McFeatters Sunday, March 7, 2010 - Added 2d 1h ago When her party took control of the House, future Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged, “The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.” That happy day may yet arrive but the majority Democrats are taking their time getting there, a case in point being the nearly week-long machinations needed to get Rep. Charles Rangel to step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of the most powerful and desirable posts in Washington. On Wednesday, following a closed-door meeting with Pelosi the night before, Rangel, 79, finally did - temporarily, he said. The previous week the House Ethics Committee had admonished him for violating House rules by accepting corporate-funded travel to the Caribbean. The panel is also investigating charges he failed to pay taxes on rental income from a cottage in the Dominican Republic, used congressional letterhead to raise money for a college department named after him, failed to report $500,000 in personal wealth on his financial disclosure forms and allegedly misused rent-controlled apartments in New York. Rangel’s abdication was hardly an act of conscience. In a sense, he got out the door one step ahead of the sheriff. The Republicans were preparing a resolution calling for his removal and had begun picking up enough Democrats that they were within reach of passing it. Ways and Means has jurisdiction over taxes, the spending bills that make up the federal budget, job creation and a big piece of health care. It could not go long without a chairman. The problem was that the next in line for chairman was California Rep. Pete Stark, 78, in the words of Politico, “a controversial member who has a long history of rude, brusque and otherwise offensive behavior toward fellow lawmakers, constituents and even ethics investigators . . .” Stark lasted one day as acting chairman. On Thursday, Pelosi told House Democrats that the new chairman would be the number three member of the committee, Rep. Sander Levin, 78, of Michigan. Rangel is planning to return to the chairmanship when the other ethics investigations are resolved. The speaker will surely have something to say about that. Dale McFeatters writes for Scripps Howard News Service bostonherald.com