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Harlem Democrat Charles Rangel now says he will step down as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, NBC News has learned. He may make the move as early as tonight and Michigan Democratic Rep Sander Levin will temporarily take over the committee. Some details still need to be ironed out, but sources said Rangel has been pushed to step down before the House voted on a bill to forcefully strip him of the coveted chairmanship. Rangel has been under fire ever since an ethics committee released a report Thursday that found that he violated House rules by...

While the panel report did not include any formal charges, the committee on standards of offiicial conduct will continue to probe Mr. Rangel on potential other violations. The ethics committee did state, however, that his staff was aware of corporate money being paid for Mr. Rangel's Caribbean funded trips. Mr. Rangel is easily passing the buck to his staff, but his spokesman Emil Milne, refused to be clear as to whether or not there has been any staff terminations, reprimands, or changes as a result of the ethics panel probe.

Charlie Rangel: I’ve been 'admonished' by ethics committee By: John Bresnahan and Patrick O'Connor February 25, 2010 07:08 PM EST The House Ethics Committee has found Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel violated ethics rules by accepting corporate-funded trips to the Caribbean, according to House sources. Rangel told POLITICO Thursday night that he was being “admonished” by the committee on the grounds that at least two members of his staff knew about the corporate funding for the trips – and that Rangel himself should have known. “I’m satisfied that when you read the report, that you will see that...

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: In the first year of the Obama administration, few cabinet secretaries, if any, have had to combat more severe problems and widespread outrage than Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. A country battling the worst recession since the Great Depression. A financial system teetering on the brink of collapse. A population furious with Wall Street’s abuses and Washington’s bailouts. A flurry of lawmakers calling for his resignation. Maybe that’s why Geithner felt the need to apologize to his family even before accepting the position at Treasury. “When he first took the job, he said he was so...

Here’s the latest in the question of the New York Fed, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the AIG bailout, as we’ve covered here at Big Government before (here and here). Last year, Iraq war vet Kevin Murray brought a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and Ben Bernanke (Murray vs. Geithner, et al) for its acquisition of AIG– a scheme that made the US taxpayer the world’s largest provider of Shariah-compliant insurance products. Lawyers David Yerushalmi and The Thomas More Law Center’s Robert Muise found, in the course of discovery, that that was just the tip of the iceberg. Yerushalmi and...

Adding insult to injury, the U.S. government has paid private firms nearly $160 million, to distribute funds from its severely mismanaged and fraud-infested program to bail out the nation’s financial institutions. Rife with waste and abuse the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has already proven to be a troubling experiment of U.S. tax dollars with virtually no oversight. In fact, dozens of criminal investigations have been launched into the controversial bailout and the risk is only going to grow, according to a Treasury Department Inspector General report issued last spring. So far investigations have centered on securities fraud,...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (GYT'-nur) says the U.S. government "will never" lose its sterling credit rating despite big budget deficits and a newly increased debt limit that now tops $14 trillion. [Snip] Moody's Investors Service recently issued a warning that the government's credit rating could eventually be in jeopardy if nation's finances don't improve. The cost of borrowing would increase significantly if the ratings service lowered the credit rating, also known as a bond rating, for U.S. Treasuries. Geithner tells ABC's "This Week" that will never happen.

Rangel gift$ to lawyersBy S.A. MILLER Last Updated: 4:07 PM, February 3, 2010 WASHINGTON -- Embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel spent huge amounts of campaign cash in the last quarter of 2009 on lawyers to fend off congressional ethics investigations, campaign-finance reports show. The Harlem Democrat dropped $575,000 on five teams of lawyers since Oct. 1 -- the lion's share of the $687,000 he spent that quarter. It's far more than the $354,694 Rangel's campaign says he raised during that three-month span. For the past year, the House ethics panel has been probing Rangel's use of congressional letterhead to raise money...

...The U.S. Attorney's Office in Dallas announced Wednesday that Hodge pleaded guilty in Dallas to fraud and false statements on an income tax return. She faces up to three years in prison, a $100,000 fine and restitution to the IRS. A sentencing date has not been set. Hodge has agreed never again to hold public office. The Dallas Democrat has been a state representative since 1996 and was running for re-election. According to court documents, Hodge received more than $32,000 in rental subsidies, utilities and carpeting from an apartment developer who built complexes in her district. She never declared the...

A nonprofit "charity" founded by NY state Democrats Rep. Gregory Meeks and state Sen. Malcolm Smith -- functions more like a slush fund than a charity....... New Direction Development Corp, created in 2001, used funds to pay for meals, entertainment, consulting fees and IRS penalties. From 2002-08, the charity's headquarters were at Joan Flowers law offices (campaign treasurer for Meeks, Smith, Gov Paterson). The charity also involved Smith's former business partner, Darryl Greene, whose company is one of those comprising Aqueduct Entertainment Group, which Paterson recently awarded the $300 Million racino contract. In 2005, Meeks' campaign donated $10,000 to the...

What is America's most prominent Muslim advocacy group hiding? The Council on American-Islamic Relations is delinquent in filing its tax returns by nearly two years, the IRS has confirmed, raising new suspicions the embattled nonprofit group is concealing from the American public details about its already shadowy financial activities. Washington-based CAIR, which receives revenue from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, is required by federal law to file its tax returns annually with the IRS to maintain its tax-exempt status. However, it still has not filed its 2007 returns, according to the IRS. Its 2008 tax filing is also late....

“INSIDE OBAMA’S WASHINGTON” A POLITICO Video Series January 25, 2010 (Recorded January 22, 2010) INTERVIEWER: MIKE ALLEN, Chief White House Correspondent GUEST: TIMOTHY GEITHNER, Treasury Secretary CHAPTER 1 MR. ALLEN: Hello. I'm Mike Allen, White House correspondent of POLITICO. Welcome to POLITICO’s video series, "Inside Obama's Washington." We're here at the Treasury Department with Secretary Tim Geithner. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. SECRETARY GEITHNER: Nice to see you, Mike. MR. ALLEN: How confident are you that a clear recovery will be underway by this spring? SECRETARY GEITHNER: Very confident. The economy is healing. It's growing. It's more broad based. You see the...

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and his wife, who already have a lien on their property for failing to pay more than $239,000 in taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, are now facing a second lien for more than $13,000, records show. Dellums, 73, and his wife, Cynthia, 55, who acts as his unpaid adviser, are named in an IRS lien filed with the Alameda County recorder's office Dec. 23 in the amount of $13,638. The lien, which says it is for tax year 2008, comes two months after the couple were slapped with a lien in Alameda County for failing...

Seventy Republican members of Congress want Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to cancel up to $6 million in bonuses and deferred compensation -- approved before Christmas 2009 -- for the chief executive officers of the failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “(T)here’s a letter that’s going to Sec. Geithner from a number of us calling for a rescission of those bonuses,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) told CNSNews.com Wednesday. On Christmas Eve, at the same time the Obama administration announced that it was removing any cap on the amount of taxpayer aid to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed...

You need a Bloomberg terminal to get the story that I have, but the jist of it is the Charles Rangel, Chairman of the House ways and Means suggested that we tax "un-earned" income. These people are a special kind of stupid. This SOB does not pay taxes on the money he earns and wants to tax us a money that we have not earned. Some one tell me when the revelution will start?

A House committee is planning to grill Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about his role in the massive bailout of failed insurer American International Group Inc. The House Oversight Committee is responding to news that key details about AIG's bailout were suppressed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York while Geithner was its president. A growing chorus of lawmakers says Geithner must explain his involvement in deals that diverted billions from AIG's bailout to Goldman Sachs and other big banks. New York Democrat and committee Chairman Edolphus Towns says the hearing will examine the rise and fall of AIG and...

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve Bank of New York pressed American International Group Inc. to withhold details of controversial deals that funneled billions in bailout money to Goldman Sachs and other banks. E-mails show lawyers representing the New York Fed asked AIG to remove the information from a draft financial disclosure. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was president of the New York Fed at the time. The deals were part of a massive rescue effort at the peak of the financial crisis. Lawmakers and others have accused Geithner's Fed of overpaying banks, including Goldman and Deutsche Bank, to cancel deals with...

In 2008 the New York Federal Reserve Bank -- then chaired by current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- urged American International Group (AIG) not to disclose to the public its Credit Default Swaps (CDS) settlement payments to global banks. AIG ultimately received $182.3 billion in bailout funds and credits from the government. The Bloomberg News report about this incident is based on emails between AIG and the New York Fed obtained by Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The New York Fed played an important role in AIG's bailout, providing it with...

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show. AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when...

...I am seized by each, and moved by its potential to change our world. Return of the Automobile as a Sexual Object ...That’s why the Obama administration — while it still holds the keys to the big automakers — ought to put some style fascists into the mix... Intellectual Property Developers ...A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators... and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business... An Equal Right to Pollute (and...