Rangel has testy meeting with Pelosi, is told he has to quit perch on top of House Ways and Means

[The Northerner]

Rep. Charles Rangel's turbulent reign as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee looked headed for an inglorious, embarrassing end on Tuesday night.

Rangel was bluntly told he doesn't have the votes to hang onto his powerful perch atop the tax-writing committee, and he will have to quit as chairman as soon as on Wednesday, sources told the Daily News.

The New York Democrat - a Korean war hero and Harlem political legend - has fought bitterly for 18 months to cling to power after the House Ethics Committee launched ever-expanding probes of his ethical lapses.

Rangel's refusal to go down easy was on full display after he emerged from a testy evening huddle with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Asked if he was still chairman, Rangel barked, "You bet your life" to reporters.

Pelosi said, "No comment."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/03/02/2010-03-02_sorry_charlie_but_you_gotta_go_rangel_told_he_has_no_support.html

[katandmoon]

1. Good riddance.

[aquart]

2. Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I am not the least bit happy about this.

[anigbrowl]

4. About what? Being told he should go, or his refusal to do so? nt

[aquart]

5. I do not wish him to budge. Not an inch.

[anigbrowl]

6. So you are OK with the ethics violation? I'm not.

Screw the Republicans. The fact that they already hate him doesn't give him a pass on ignoring congressional rules.

[Cleita]

9. Read about his predecessor, Bill Thomas, if you really want to find out about

the most egregious ethics violations and stomping all over congressional rules. How quickly we all forget. Well I haven't. Bill Thomas was my Congressman for too many years and he was a prick. Charlie Rangel is a saint compared to him.

[anigbrowl]

11. So what? I don't use GOP politicians as a yardstick for what we can get away with.

Yeah, Charles Rangel is a saint by comparison...to a lousy, corrupt republican. 'not as bad as that other guy' isn't my idea of ethical standards.

[Cleita]

13. So we are going to throw away a person who has served his

country both in war and in office because he doesn't meet your ethical standards whatever they are? I don't think he did anything wrong. I think that this is not only, racist but a witch hunt from the corporate sector that he has decided not to play along with anymore. He didn't do anything that every politician hasn't done to this date and that is to accept a bribe. If that wasn't true we would have single payer health care today. So Charlie is not alone in this.

[Craftsman]

18. We demand high ethics from the reps we should also demand it from the dems

[anigbrowl]

3. I wish he would quit. He seems to think he holds the job by right.

Frankly, I find him an embarrassment. If he wants people to forget his ethics violation then he should give up his chairmanship and go back to representing the people of his district. someone with an ethics violation should not be heading the ways and means committee.

[Cleita]

8. Do you?

Read up on his predecessor, the Republican Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Bill Thomas who really abused his position. I guess it's okay if they are a Republican though.

[anigbrowl]

10. I'd like a better standard than 'not as bad as the last Republican was'.

I don't think Rangel's violations were massively serious. But if you're in charge of the congressional purse, you need to be squeaky clean. Pelosi came into office as speaker saying she wanted an ethical and scandal-free Congress, and Rangel is distracting from that. The appearance of impropriety distracts from that.

[Cleita]

12. Pelosi is one to talk about squeaky clean.

:rofl: But she is better than her predecessor too.

[Cleita]

7. I like Charlie and in the dark days of the PNAC takeover he was often

the only Congressman who would speak up for the Democrats through the awful years of the Bush administration. Believe me whatever he did that was considered corrupt pales in comparison to what other Congressmen have taken in bribes. My former Congressman, Bill Thomas, R, who was also the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee was the most corrupt congressman I think that ever was in that committee, yet he retired gracefully to enjoy his ill gotten gains. I think some comparisons need to be made. Nancy is full of shit on this one even though she's trying to protect the Democrats. She's gonna make the Republicans really happy. Someone really needs to expose all the crap in public that Bill Thomas did. As a matter of fact, the HBO series "Big Love" did a story about lobbyists and golf trips to Scotland that were directly part of Bill Thomas's payola. The fictional story moved it to Utah, but the story was too obvious. I doubt very much if Charlie's involvement in a vacation comes anywhere near to his predecessor's corruption. This stinks of witch hunt and Nancy shouldn't give in just because it's inconvenient for her. She should be behind her congressmen.

[upi402]

14. I'll go with -Rangel may be less rotten than most, much less than Bushites

But I think we need clean government. This entire boil needs to be lanced. But yes, I suspect other motives are at play, even palace intrigues of some sort.

[Cleita]

15. So if Charlie Rangel goes down in flames, who will replace him

and exactly how clean will that person be?

What I'm saying is that he is a small boil compared to the big ones that need to be lanced.

[upi402]

17. Nail on the head there!

Spot on.:fistbump:
But after Jon Stewart ran him up the flag pole, he's toast. Forget Pelosi! lol

[Cleita]

16. My opinion.

Since we Democrats still seem to be in the minority, even though numbers say we are in the majority, who are we to accuse our own about ethics violations?
Why aren't we accusing the opposition of the ethics violations that seem to be so blatant with them and that no one wants to talk about? It seems to make no sense to me.

[LiberalPC]

19. Me either. Rangel has not been indicted. This reeks of racism

[malaise]

20. Good

At some point the party and ethics must be bigger than these over-sized egos no matter how well they served in the past.