Most Ethical Congress Evah!-Cholly Rangel Ed.

 

Protecting wayward members of the statist club is haaaaarrrrrrrrd. 

The House ethics committee recommended that Rep. Charlie Rangel be reprimanded, which is the least severe punishment, according to a new report. 

The disclosure was made today by Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), who is the panel’s chairman. 

A reprimand falls below expulsion and censure on the list of available punishments. 

Just what did ‘Randy’ Rangel do?  Here’s just one charge.  

After reviewing 28,000 pages of documents, the committee found that Rangel hit up foundations run by Verizon, New York Life, AT&T, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch. All of those companies had important matters before the Ways and Means Committee, which Rangel chaired until he gave up the gavel after getting hit with an admonition from the ethics panel over a Caribbean junket. 

What a lovable old kleptocrat. 

But seriously, did anybody expect it to go down differently?  Gene Green is a Democrat.  He’s probably known Chuck Rangel for a long damn time.  Hell, Green might owe Rangel a few favors.  We might just be seeing Rangel calling in his chits.   

Also, it’s gonna be a tough election year for the Donkey Punchers.  Everybody with a ‘D’ behind their name just wants this to go away.  If they can keep Rangel around and sweep his transgressions under the rug with little media or voter notice, that’s a win-win situation. 

The question here is:  If Charlie Rangel gets away with a slap on the wrist, does that weak punishment placate voters or just piss them off?