Rep. Rangel Still on the Hot Seat

Rep. Charles Rangel thought that once a Democrat was elected as president, his legal troubles would diminish and he could go right on cheating the tax payers of America. The oily, shady congressman appears to have been wrong:

Rangel endured a lot of bad news last year, beginning with a series of reports that he paid reduced rent for a campaign office and personal office in the Harlem high-rise where he lives. Another series of stories raised questions about his fundraising activity on behalf of the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, including revelations that he used congressional stationery to raise money from prominent potential donors.

The chairman eventually asked the ethics panel to investigate both allegations. The committee then expanded its probe in the wake of revelations that Rangel had failed to pay the correct amount of property taxes on a rental property in the Dominican Republic.

A report by the ethics panel was expected before Congress resumed this year, but now many members and aides expect the committee to extend the inquiry before issuing a final report.

Those people pushing to extend the inquiry must be doing it because America is racist! Uh, no we're not, we overwhelmingly elected an African-America to the highest office in the land so we can toss that aside.

Rangel is a tax cheat who figured he was above the laws that govern us great unwashed. His fellow Democrats are probably shunning him for misusing his office and pissing on the citizenry, right? Uh, wrong:

Since the beginning of the year, Rangel has met regularly with party leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as well as with members of the Obama economic team to hash out an ambitious package of tax cuts that will eventually become part of the massive economic stimulus bill.

A sign of things to come, folks. The next four years will make the previous eight seem like a protestant church meeting ethics-wise.