The saga continues. Read the article below.The community may want Charlie gone, but who is there to replace him?
Again, the community needs to begin to have earnest and productive discussions about who it feels should replace this albatross around the Harlem's neck.
The discussions do not need to focus on just one person, having several choices would lead to competitive and revealing political campaigns among "the best" in the Village.
Let us hope this drama does not continue to go on endlessly and that Harlem will have some good candidates for the position.
December 10, 2008
House Ethics Panel Expands Rangel Inquiry
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
The House ethics committee voted on Tuesday to expand its investigation into Representative Charles B. Rangel to examine his role in preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company whose chief executive pledged $1 million to a City College of New York project that will bear the congressman’s name.
Mr. Rangel, whose personal finances and fund-raising have been the subject of an inquiry for several months, came under renewed scrutiny last month, when The New York Times reported that he was a pivotal figure in stymieing efforts to close a tax shelter for Nabors Industries and three other companies during the same month that the chief executive of Nabors made a $100,000 donation to C.C.N.Y.’s Rangel Center of Public Service.
The chief executive, Eugene M. Isenberg, had acknowledged that he and a company lobbyist met with Mr. Rangel at the Carlyle Hotel in New York on Feb. 12, 2007, the same day that the Ways and Means Committee, of which Mr. Rangel is chairman, was considering a bill that left the loophole intact, but said they did not discuss his pledge to donate $1 million to the school.
Mr. Rangel, a Democrat from Harlem, has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and this week asked that the ethics panel examine his relationship with Nabors.
The ethics committee statement did not set a timetable for the inquiry, but lawyers and congressional aides said that the expansion of the investigation means it is unlikely that the panel will complete its case by Jan. 3, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested last month.
Republicans have called for Mr. Rangel to step down as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which shapes tax policy and will be instrumental in crafting President-elect Barack Obama’s proposed fiscal stimulus program to jump-start the flagging economy.
Original Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/nyregion/10rangel.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=rangel&st=cse
TH
Watching Out For The Village!
