Charlie Rangel was found guilty of 11 ethics violations a day after he begged for more time because he did not have a lawyer and needed time to prepare. Rangel had two years to prepare and he had lawyers until a month ago. He claims they stopped representing him because he could no longer afford to pay them and he did not have time to set up a legal defense fund (he could have sold his Dominican villa).

Once again, he had two years. He knew he would have legal bills so he should have taken care of this long ago.

Rangel is a huckster. He likes to skirt the rules and he thinks he can get away with things because he is important and the rules just don’t apply to him.

The people on the ethics panel have had about enough of Rangel and his request was denied so he stormed out of the hearing. He was found guilty and is acting like there was some miscarriage of justice because he was not present (he walked out) and he had no lawyer.

Rangel could be expelled from Congress, and he should be, but he won’t. He will likely get a slap on the wrist, some letter of reprimand and no leadership assignments. So he will be able to continue skirting the laws and doing as he pleases while drawing a huge salary from taxpayer money.

Imagine how Rangel or any other member of Congress would react to a business leader who pulled the same stunts as Rangel. They would be calling for the person’s head on a platter. Congress gets high and mighty when some business person, like say a Wall Street executive, does something wrong and works hard to make sure that person pays for his sins.

If only Congress had the same intensity and moral compass when its own members commit the sins…

Sources:
New York Post
The Hill

Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.

The EPA will consider banning lead ammunition along with lead shot and lead sinkers used for fishing. The EPA is not allowed to regulate ammunition (by statute) and this would seem to be out of its jurisdiction. That does not seem to have hampered the agency from taking up the issue.

The Weekly Standard is asking if the EPA will rule to ban lead ammo and further push voters to remove Democrats from office, particularly in conservative areas where Democrats hold office. This is a valid question given that lead is used by sportsmen and a ban on it will likely double the cost of sports items, particularly ammunition.

The answer here seems to be a simple one. The EPA has no jurisdiction to regulate ammunition so it should not be allowed to regulate the composition of ammunition. The problem is, rules and statutes are seldom followed by government unless those rules or statutes support what it wants to do. Otherwise it ignores them and pushes on with its agenda.

The voters will be sending a very simple message in November and if the EPA does something unlawful and stupid then that message might be sent to a lot more people than Democrats would be comfortable with.

The EPA is typical of a government agency that gets too big and involves itself in things that it ought not to. The problem we face is that these ever expanding agencies are not held accountable for what they do.

We can start that making government accountable by holding the politicians accountable. They make sure things get done the way we want or we bounce them on their rear ends.

November will be a good time to start and we can keep getting rid of the temple monkeys until we are governed by a smaller government that does what we tell it to.

Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.

There is a saying about people who live in glass houses not throwing stones. It took over a decade but Maxine Waters has broken her glass house with the stone she threw at Newt Gingrich. When Newt was charged with violating House Ethics rules Waters had a field day going after him. Oh yes, she was pretty upset and told us all that it took a while but now we would find out who Gingrich is.

NO, WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.
WE THOUGHT YOU HAD.
BUT FINALLY AFTER THE FILING OF MANY COMPLAINTS AGAINST SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH AND 14 MONTHS LATER, THE HOUSE ETHICS COMMITTEE FOUND THE SPEAKER GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY ON ONE, TWO, THREE COUNTS OF VIOLENTING HOUSE RULES BY MISUSE — VIOLATING HOUSE RULES BY MISUSING COMMITTEE RESOURCES AND WE’VE APPOINTED AN OUTSIDE COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE ANOTHER SERIOUS CHARGE ABOUT THE SPEAKER’S POLITICAL GOPAC OPERATION.
WELL, IT’S ABOUT TIME.
BELIEVE ME, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC DOES NOT APPRECIATE DOUBLE STANDARDS.
WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE IS GOOD FOR THE GANDER.
NO ONE SHOULD BE SO BIG, SO IMPORTANT, SO POWERFUL THEY CAN VIOLATE THE RULES OF THIS HOUSE AND THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY WITHOUT SUFFERING THE CONSEQUENCES.
NEWT MAY BE SPEAKER.
HOWEVER, HE, TOO, MUST ACCOUNT FOR ANY AND ALL WRONGDOING.
IT’S ABOUT TIME.
LET’S GET ON WITH THE BUSINESS OF FINDING OUT WHO NEWT GINGRICH REALLY IS. CSPAN

Well, well, well. It seems that now Maxine has ethics problems of her own. She claims she is innocent and did nothing wrong but it is obvious that she had a conflict of interest and was involved in helping a bank in which her husband was invested. She did something wrong and charges have been brought against her.

Let me put this in words she will understand:

BELIEVE ME, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC DOES NOT APPRECIATE DOUBLE STANDARDS.
WHAT’S GOOD FOR THE GOOSE IS GOOD FOR THE GANDER.
NO ONE SHOULD BE SO BIG, SO IMPORTANT, SO POWERFUL THEY CAN VIOLATE THE RULES OF THIS HOUSE AND THE LAWS OF THIS COUNTRY WITHOUT SUFFERING THE CONSEQUENCES.

America also does not appreciate Socialism and this Congresswoman is all about Socialism. So let’s do the country a favor this fall and vote this scumbag out of office. Let us hold her to the standard she expected Gingrich to be held to. She needs to go.

But not until we have a messy trial. I would love to see this babbling moron trying to explain herself.

Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.

The Democrats voted to rebuke Joe Wilson after he shouted “you lie” during Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress. The Democrats did not like what Wilson did and they will not stand for that kind of behavior. People who do wrong must be punished.

Charlie Rangel was found to have violated ethics rules when he accepted travel from a corporation that routinely lobbies Congress. The ethics panel found that the financing of the trip was improper for all members of the Congressional Black Caucus who went on it but Rangel was the only one found in violation because the others did not know the corporation paid for the trip.

So what did the Ethics Panel do about this infraction (one of many involving Rangel)? The Panel decided not to issue formal charges:

The committee decided against issuing formal charges against Rangel that could lead to punishment such as a censure.

The Panel decided against formal charges that could lead to punishment. Charlie Rangel deserves to be punished.

How is it that Wilson gets rebuked for shouting “you lie” but Rangel escapes charges?

This kind of puts Nancy “most ethical Congress” Pelosi in a bad position. What will she do with Rangel during this election year? He is sure to be a lightning rod during the upcoming campaign season.

If we are lucky this jive talking Don will not be in office next year.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I do not care for Al Sharpton because he is a race baiting poverty pimp.I believe that he only takes up causes that will get him in the spotlight and when a black person is the victim. He ignores non blacks in the same situations and to top it off he incites riots where people get killed. However, he wrote a letter to the DNC with regard to the delegates from Florida and Michigan. In the letter, Sharpton stated:

Some have said that not seating delegations from Florida and Michigan disenfranchises Democratic voters — especially African American voters — from those two states. That claim, if true, should have been made many months ago before the decision was made to strip these states of their delegates, and, once the decision was made, it should have been vigorously objected to and contested by those who felt it disenfranchised voters. To raise that claim now smacks of politics in its form most raw and undercuts the moral authority behind such an argument. Drudge

I don’t know how it would particularly disenfranchise blacks in Florida but he is right in the overall assessment. They took a decision many months ago and they have to live by that decision. People who are objecting should have done so back then. Of course, Sharpton is motivated by the fact that his candidate, Barack Star Obama, is in the lead and he does not want that taken away. If Obama were behind but had won those states, Sharpton would want them seated. Hillary, for her part, is now trying to get the delegates seated because she is losing. She did not protest before because she thought she would have won it all by now.

I have no dog in that fight because I am not a Democrat but as an observer I will say that they made rules that stated if a state held its primary before February 5^th then that state would lose its delegates (except the two usual starter states). Florida and Michigan were warned and they did it anyway which means they should have to live by the rules. If candidates did not agree then they should have been talking about it when the decisions were taken (why were some of the others allowed to go early).

Having said that, I would not be surprised to see the DNC reverse course and allow the delegates. This would give Hillary a big lead and she might pull off the nomination. That would fracture the Democratic party and many Obama supporters would stay home or jump ship on election day. The Democrats always have inventive ways to lose elections and it would not surprise me if the party elite decided to do this to help the Queen get to the throne.

Personally, I would like to see just that take place.

I would also ask the media and all the other nitwits who said George Bush was not a legitimate president if that would make Hillary an illegitimate nominee. After all, she would be selected, not elected and that has been the cry of the left for nearly eight years.

Hillary cannot get enough delegates to win outright but she might do well in several large delegate states. If so, neither will win the required number and the convention will be brokered. That is when the bloodbath will begin and it will be quite a bit of fun to watch.

Others with interesting posts:
Outside the Beltway, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Adeline and Hazel, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, A Newt One, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

We need to make Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama run their campaigns by the very same rules they want to impose upon us. I heard Obama say that he is not ashamed to proclaim that he wants to raise the cap on which people pay social security to make the rich will pay more so that the average guy will be able to draw social security benefits. This is nothing more than wealth redistribution, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. I would not have a problem with them raising the cap if rich people could draw social security. Once you have a certain amount of retirement income you are not entitled to SS benefits. Therefore, all the money a person pays in ends up going to someone else. Basically, what they gave us was Socialism Security.

Hillary Clinton has stated that she wants to give health care to every person in this country and she will raise taxes on the rich in order to do it. The money taken in will be used to pay for health care for those who cannot afford it. Rich people will still have to pay for their own. This again, is redistribution of wealth. To top it off, Hillary will garnish wages to gain compliance.

Here is my plan. They both have to run their campaigns on the same terms they want for us. Obama received $32 million in January and that is more than Hillary took in. So, in order to make things fair we need to raise the cap on what she is allowed to take from a donor and we need to cut in half the amount he is allowed to take in. This will level the playing field so that his rich campaign will not have an advantage over her not as rich campaign. And, since they both want equality in life where there is no gap between the rich and the poor, Obama will have to give the Clinton campaign enough money to make their war chests exactly even. This is fair and I am not ashamed to say that we need to cap Obama, the rich campaign, so that Hillary, the average campaign, will have campaign money.

Here is how it goes for Hillary. Hillary leads in the delegate count. It is not fair that Obama works just as hard as she does and does not have as many delegates as she so Hillary will have to give Obama enough delegates so that they will be even. Also, there will be a penalty if Hillary gets more of the popular vote in any state. If she gets more votes then we will garnish her total and give him extra delegates. It is not fair for two people who work just as hard as each other to not get the same exact thing for their efforts so we will penalize Hillary if she gets more votes or more delegates. Also, since it is discrimination for the Super Delegates to take sides in this issue (it must be discrimination because a black guy is on the short end) the Super Delegates will be divided by giving Obama three quarters and Hillary one quarter. This is affirmative action for the primary and it ensures Obama is compensated for the slavery that occurred a long time ago. He will be compensated for that and if it hurts Hillary, well she will have to suck it up.

I am willing to bet that neither of them would agree to such terms but they have no choice in the matter because I have mandated that it be so.

After all, these kinds of plans are what they want to do to us and they will achieve them by force.