Despite his declaration of victory following Tuesday night’s primary, it appears that Charlie Rangel’s primary against NY State Senator Adriano Espaillat in the NY 13th Congressional District is headed to court amidst accusations of irregularities in the counting of the vote.

Perhaps this is an application of the maxim, oft attributed to Josef Stalin, that “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.”

Reportedly, the AP discovered that 79 election districts, primarily in the heavily Latino South Bronx and Washington Heights areas that overwhelmingly support Espaillat, recorded ZERO votes cast after the count by the NYC Board of Election. The NY Supreme Court is now stepping in and will have a hearing on the matter on July 2nd.  Espaillat is also accusing the NYC BOE of improperly refusing to permit an observation of the count and is asking for a federal monitor to be appointed.  The NYC BOE is controlled by the Democratic party machine, of which Charlie Rangel’s Harlem Democratic Club is one of the most important and historic cogs.

If true, the allegations reveal that NYC Democratic Party politics has a pecking order in which blacks will be placed over Latinos (in this case Dominican-Americans), when the party machine wants to protect a favored son — even if that protection disenfranchises members of their own minority base.  Of course this sort of thing happens when you have a party that divides everyone into categories instead of treating them as equal citizens.

If this blows up in Rangel’s face, this could provide an excellent opportunity to highlight the practices of this unrepentant corrupt hack and his supporters.  It would also be a caution to Latinos this November that in the Democratic party some animals are more equal than others.

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Greeting from occupied territory!