Dumping Charlie Rangel

Progressives do not need to carry water for corrupt officials just because they have a D in front of their name. William Jefferson has been disowned for a while now, even though he keeps running for Congress and winning (he has another runoff race today; he's expected to win easily). Now it's time to toss Charlie Rangel overboard. He preserved a tax loophole through his Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee for a corporation whose CEO gave $1 million to a favored charity. This comes after earlier problems with not reporting taxes on real estate income abroad. And now he's paying off his own son with campaign money:

Between 2004 and 2007, Rep. Charles Rangel steered nearly $80,000 in campaign cash to an Internet company run by his son — paying lavishly for a pair of political websites so poorly designed an expert estimated one should have cost no more than $100 to create.

The payments are apparently legal under federal law, but their disclosure raises new questions about the Ways and Means Committee chairman as he faces House ethics committee probes into his failure to pay taxes on rental income and his alleged use of House stationery to solicit contributions for a public policy center that bears his name [...]

“This is probably legal but is definitely wrong,” said Meredith McGehee of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit organization that monitors compliance with electoral law.

“You're in a situation where you were given money for a campaign and it's being used to enrich family members,” she added. “The return argument is they're performing legitimate services. The question that needs to be asked in this case is: Was this a legitimate payment or was this a payoff?”

Rangel is an engaging personality, but I've had it with his obvious corruption. There's too much smoke here. Rangel responded to the New York Times and the Times dispatched with his pathetic alibi within minutes. I can't defend him any longer; actually I never did.