Posted on 07/17/2008 12:22:52 PM PDT by Graybeard58
When he got caught accepting improper VIP mortgages from Countrywide Financial as part of its CEO's effort to keep his firm's Senate Banking Committee skids well lubricated, Sen. Christopher Dodd declared indignantly, "I don't believe I did anything wrong."
No doubt he sincerely believes that. He believes he is entitled to cut-rate loans because he's Chris Dodd, born into a political culture where the rules of decent society and the law passed for ordinary Americans do not apply. And after 34 years of full immersion in that warped world, right and wrong are entirely foreign concepts, particularly when incumbency and personal enrichment are at stake.
He is hardly alone. For more than a decade, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., has maintained four rent-stabilized apartments in the same luxury building in Harlem. After the National Legal and Policy Center complained to the Federal Election Commission that the arrangement constituted an illegal campaign contribution from his landlord, he responded indignantly: "I didn't see anything unfair about it. I didn't even know it was a deal," a variation of "I don't believe I did anything wrong."
Rep. Rangel also is unafraid "to Dodd" corporations that do business with his Ways and Means Committee. His latest shakedown involves the proposed $30 million Charles B. Rangel Center at the City College of New York — his "Monument to Me." So far, he has finagled a $1.9 million federal earmark and two grants totaling $690,500, and will continue to troll the federal treasury. But he hopes to raise most of the money via "contributions" from businesses. To date, he has extorted $12 million from them through letters, on his congressional stationery, with implicit threats that those who donate will be treated well by Ways and Means, and those who don't, won't.
When The Washington Post asked whether this might be unethical, Rep. Rangel responded indignantly: "In the 38 years that I've been down here, I don't think there has ever been any challenge, real or unreal, to my integrity as it relates to fundraising. If it was an ethical problem, I wouldn't do it," a variation of "I don't believe I did anything wrong."
The Taxpayers for Common Sense disagrees: "People in positions of power have to be very conscious of the coercive effect of their requests." Like when a Banking Committee member who gets $75,000 worth of mortgage discounts he felt he was entitled to but didn't specifically request, then years later fashions a bill to save his lender $20 billion.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Rangel should be brought up on charges
People in the Congress are much too corrupt to recognize corruption.
IIRC, Rangle was thrown off the board of the Apollo Theater for mismanagement of the funds. He has been forbidden to ever be on the board again.
The man is now, and always was, nothing more than a crook.
A big fat crook.
I want to see this letter that was sent out to business. I want to read the threat first hand.
Same here. I want to see the letters.
No doubt he sincerely believes that.
He believes he is entitled to cut-rate loans because he's Chris Dodd, born into a political culture where the rules of decent society and the law passed for ordinary Americans do not apply.
And after 34 years of full immersion in that warped world, right and wrong are entirely foreign concepts, particularly when incumbency and personal enrichment are at stake.
Rangle, Dodd, Biden, Pelosi, etc, etc, are all cut from the same cloth.
Which will come first: The collapse of our Country or Term Limits on Congess: Can anyone convince me that Term Limits are wrong? Cliff Fishback - cliff630@yahoo.com
They sound like the same kind of shakedown letters Jesse Jackson has written so many of. Maybe Jesse gave old Charlie a hand with shakedown techniques.
Still I want to read one of these letters. I am not saying Rangel is inocent by any means. He is a turd of the highest order.
I love it.
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