I understand why Glenn Reynolds is suspicious, but I think this primary challenge of Charlie Rangel by former campaign director Vincent Morgan is legitimate.  To begin with, the possibility was first reported about a month and a half ago, and that article notes an important detail about NY-15:

Someday, whether it be 2010 or 2012 or 3012, Charlie Rangel will not be the congressman from Harlem. There may not in fact be another African-American congressman from Manhattan, since a huge influx of white and Hispanic residents have moved into the borough in recent years.

Redistricting is set for the 2012 elections, and if Rangel is still around, political observers say, how his district’s lines move will give a clear message about the seat’s future. If the district moves northward into the Bronx, it will, first of all, no longer be the only district to be entirely in Manhattan, and, secondly, show that Rangel and his allies intend for the seat to remain African-American. If the district moves to the south, it would favor a white candidate and mean that black political power has effectively switched to the outer boroughs. If the district stays the same, then New York will likely send the first Dominican-American to Congress.

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Nobody has much use for an equivocator. From the Politico’s article on Rangel’s ever-so-slowly increased isolation from House Democrats

Also on Wednesday night, Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., who is running for the Senate, chose not to sign a Black Caucus letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in support of Rangel.

Meek told POLITICO that his vote to refer the Rangel matter to the ethics panel was enough of a statement of his position.

“I’m not on every letter that the Black Caucus puts out,” Meek said. “I didn’t feel that it was something I had to break my neck on.”

This could have been Meek’s moment to shine. It was a chance for him to do something that might have caused a splash outside of his district; something that would have given him a couple of days’ worth of press for the novelty… and opportunities to fix his rather anemic poll standings right now. But no: he went for the ’safe’ choice of not signing the letter, then downplaying it with a, well, meek murmur when the situation called for a loud roar.

This is the problem with inheriting your seat from your mother: it doesn’t teach you proper electoral instincts.  Which is precisely what I like to see in candidates from political parties that aren’t mine.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Do tell.

“Many members” of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as Rep. Charles Rangel (D.N.Y.), one of his allies said Wednesday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) downplayed the seriousness of allegations against Rangel that he failed to disclose sources of income and pay taxes on some properties, saying that many lawmakers suffer from innocent lapses in judgment when filing mandatory financial disclosure forms.

“I want to tell you, there are many members who, if you go back over all of their records, over all of the years, you’re going to find that there were disclosures that were not made,” Waters said during an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning.

No, really: do tell. Just give us a second to get a couple of witnesses, some recording equipment, and an officer of the court or two.  We’ll be needing names, dates, time of day, and of course any and all accomplices to these… disclosures that were not made.  It’ll be a thing, and I know just the person to run it, too.

Seriously, why is Rep. Waters left alone to wander through the halls of Congress without supervision?  Have the Democrats lost all semblance of professional pride?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

One month, 12 months and 15 months.

That’s how long it has been since we learned of Congressman Charlie Rangel’s (D-NY) most recent failure to disclose financial assets, since the New York Times first called for him to step down as Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, and since the House Ethics Committee began investigating Rangel’s previous violations, respectively.

Yet through all that — despite all the revelations of not disclosing income and not paying taxes — Mr. Rangel still runs the committee that oversees the IRS and enforces the tax laws for all Americans, except for himself.

To allow Mr. Rangel to continue to serve as Chairman is the same as allowing a confessed bank robber to serve as Chairman of the Banking Committee during the trial.

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After Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) rejected Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ultimatum to offer a mea culpa on the floor of the House for his outburst during President Barack Obama’s address on Wednesday evening or face a formal admonishment, Democratic leaders are now moving to introduce a resolution to censure Wilson.

But Republican responses to the pending censure might explain why some prescient Democrats, perhaps guilty of similar actions under the last administration, were uneasy with assuming the role of disciplinarian: several key Democrats are weathering their own controversies, including Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means committee, Jack Murtha (D-PA), and Pete Visclosky (D-IN).

“Call it the Glass House of Representatives effect,” writes Politico’s Glenn Thrush.

The censure is “another stunning example of hypocrisy,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele in a statement. “Congressional Democrats are wasting taxpayers’ time and resources on a legislative measure to censure Congressman Joe Wilson so they don’t have to talk about their exceedingly unpopular health care plan.”

While the proposed censure has galvanized Republican legislative opposition to the President and Speaker Pelosi, it represented low-hanging fruit for many Capitol Hill communicators – an opportunity to revive fading Democratic controversies.

“If we are going to march Members down to the well of the House to apologize, Joe Wilson is going to have to get in line behind Nancy Pelosi, who attacked the intelligence community who protects us, Charlie Rangel who cheated on his taxes, Jack Murtha – a walking scandal, and we all know how the Democratic leadership tried to protect William Jefferson” said Steele.

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Call your Congressman right now.

Tell him to stand up for Joe Wilson and oppose any punishment for Joe.

If you Congressman refuses to or won’t commit to standing up for Joe Wilson, tell him he needs to be consistent and punish Charlie Rangel.

Get the phone number to call and basic information by clicking here.

It’s time for Democrats to start issuing an apology or two of their own.

They’ve spent the past week clamoring for Congressman Joe Wilson’s apology, even though the President has accepted his apology, twice now.

While Democrats will not let up on Wilson, one person who needs to not just apologize, but step down, is Congressman Charlie Rangel. Revelations continue to show that he has ignored the country’s tax laws, which, as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he is responsible for writing.

The Congressman continues to show his disregard for the law, and he should apologize, in addition to stepping down from his chairman position.

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(Via Texans for Sarah Palin) But it’s tax hikes for the wealthy (540 billion over 10 years), so that’s all right, right? At least, it’s tax hikes for the wealthy today. And what gets redefined as ‘wealthy’…

Key House Democrats decided Friday to raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for health care legislation, capping an up-and-down week for President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

[snip]

Democrats on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee agreed to a new surtax that would start with households making $350,000 a year and begin in 2011, said the committee’s chairman, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

…well, that’s up to Charlie Rangel.

Have a nice morning!

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Remember Charlie Rangel? The Congressman illegally renting multiple apartments in New York City subject to rent control who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee? Back in the 70s, he beat his predecessor, Adam Clayton Powell, in a primary over, among other things, shady dealings in the Bahamas. Now Rangel appears to have his own shady dealings in the US Virgin Islands.

The long and short of it is that Chairman Rangel is defending a provision of the bailout that allows the government of the Virgin Islands to subsidize (paid for with US excise taxes) the building of facilities for Diageo, the makers of Captain Morgan rum. Oh. And Rangel has a lot of donors in the Virgin Islands.

This one is a little complicated. So let me walk you through it.

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As the old saying goes, you can pick your poison. But now matter how you slice it, taking over health care and creating a government-run plan is going to be very expensive. Charlie Rangel and the Democrats might start by taxing Medicare for $344 billion in new taxes, then adding a new tax on soda for $112 billion, a new alcohol tax for $61 billion, and a new tax on employer-provided health care for $200 billion - but that still leaves them more than $3 trillion short.

Nevertheless, they are gamely going at it - studying all the possible ways they can think of to gouge you for the privilege of ruining your health care:

Every one of House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel’s proposed options is controversial, and runs the risk of angering interest groups ranging from the small business lobby to the moribund newspaper industry. Rangel is considering a new $37.5 billion tax raised by denying deductions taken by pharmaceutical companies for prescription drug advertising expenses, for example…

Taxing employer-provided health coverage in excess of federal employee benefits is an option described, although clearly not the preferred one in the House. Unions oppose that plan, which has more momentum in the Senate…

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I guess the Democrats are going to buy America some really great health care; they clearly don’t plan to be frugal with our money:

Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.

Democrats will work on the bill’s details next week as they struggle through “what kind of heartburn” it will cause to agree on how to pay for revamping the health-care system, Rangel, a New York Democrat, said today. He also said the measure’s cost will reach beyond the $634 billion President Barack Obama proposed in his budget request to Congress as a down payment for the policy changes.

Asked whether the cost of a health-care overhaul would be more than $1 trillion, Rangel said, “the answer is yes.”

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We at Red State have pointed out several times that while Chris Dodd agreed to insert an amendment into the stimulus bill to protect AIG bonuses, he was not in position to do so. Chris Dodd was not a Member of the conference committee that drafted the final version of the bill - the only one that had protection for AIG. The Democrats on the conference committee locked the Republicans out of the process and wrote the bill themselves. No Republican supported the conference report; no Republican signed it (look on the final page of the conference report here).

The Democrat conferees were Daniel Inouye, Max Baucus, Harry Reid, Dave Obey, Charlie Rangel, and Henry Waxman. One (or more) of them allowed Dodd to make the change.

So who was it?

Harry Reid needs to talk about his role in this. And so should Daniel Inouye, Max Baucus, Dave Obey, Charlie Rangel, and Henry Waxman. Each was responsible for the contents of the bill that the six of them drafted together.

I don’t mean to be monotonous. If you haven’t figured out by now that Congressional Democrats really have no clue what they’re doing, or whether it will work, you never will. Charlie Rangel seems to think that this is a selling point, rather than a red flag.

I guess you might say there are two types of people in the world: those who think it’s a bad idea to spend $1 trillion without knowing what you’re buying or whether it will work, and Congressional Democrats.

And lest you think that Rangel simply hasn’t read the bill because he’s so busy reviewing his briefs for the Ethics Committee, Congressman Chris Carney admits he’s in the same boat.

What are the chances they’ll abstain when the time to vote arrives?

The Daschle tax dodge cries out for more attention. Far be it from little old me not to give it. A brief flavor of the piece:

. . . While I have David Boaz to thank for a clever title for this article, I am sure that he joins me in wishing that it never had to be written. Alas, the Obama Administration and its allies seem to have a serious problem when it comes to paying taxes. Or, as House Republican Whip Eric Cantor puts it, “It’s easy for the other side to advocate for higher taxes because you know what? They don’t pay `em.”

Read it all (he said, immodestly). And along the same lines, there is this.