For the Little People
Saturday 20 November 2010 - Filed under Dumbassery + Government + Taxation
WaPo on Charlie Rangel’s having been found guilty by the House Ethics Committee:
The conviction covers four areas of unethical behavior, the committee ruled. Rangel, 80, was found to have improperly used his congressional staff and official letterhead to solicit donations from corporate charities and chief executives for a college wing named in his honor, contributions that soared into six- and seven-figure range once he became chairman of the tax-writing committee. The committee also found that he violated New York City rules by housing his political committees in rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, did not pay taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic, and did not properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal financial assets.
Man, that sounds like a pretty serious set of crimes. I wonder how Congress will go ahead with punishing him.
Rangel would still be sworn in for his 21st term Jan. 5. But many of his colleagues said Thursday that this once formidable, even revered, lawmaker, who has served nearly four decades in the House and who was one of the co-founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, will never regain his stature.
“Anyone who doesn’t think Charlie Rangel has not sufficiently been damaged doesn’t understand the human spirit,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) said Thursday.
Stripped of his chairmanship and heading into the minority next year, Rangel has lost almost all the power he once wielded. “That’s a bigger punishment than any letter” of censure, said one New York Democrat, who, like other lawmakers, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a colleague.
Hold the fuck on. Dude breaks all manner of local, state and federal laws, crimes that would put most in prison for long terms (Al Capone on income tax evasion, for example), and all he receives is a goddamn bruised ego amongst his colleagues and a fucking letter telling him how he’s been a bad boy.
Fuck.
Rangel never met a tax he didn’t like. I guess little things like paying taxes are only for those NOT in congress. And he can’t even use the excuse, popular amongst the terminally libertarded, that he isn’t rich. The guy has a fucking villa, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in undeclared income; he ain’t hurtin’. But yet he still gets away with what anyone outside of congress would consider less than a slap on the wrist.
This should be proof enough that laws are for the little people, not those who write them. They are above the law, and, as always, it says what they say it says, not what is actually written down. What a fucking sham. He should be kicked the fuck out of congress, made to pay back taxes plus penalties and forced in to a life of goddamn shame for the rest of his miserable fucking days. And that’s just what Congress should have done. Nevermind what law enforcement authorities should still do.
2010-11-20 » madlibertarianguy