Politics  
THE WITCHHUNT AGAINST CONGRESSMAN CHARLES RANGEL
By Dr. Joe Bragg, posted Jan. 25, 2009

Lately, Congressman Charles B. Rangel has been fighting for his political life.  Since 2007 when he became Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee of the House, the most powerful committee in the U.S. Congress, Mr. Rangel has experienced nothing but forces arrayed against him to force him out of the this powerful position.  While his most vociferous critics are Republicans, there are also some Democrats who would be as happy to see him leave the chairman’s post as others.  The major question is why all these forces trying to boot Rangel out of the Ways and Means Committee?  Is this the same calculated witchhunt that used against Mr. Rangel’s predecessor, the late Congressman Rev. Dr. Adam Clayton Powell, when he was on the verge of becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives?

The Ways and Means Committee is the most powerful of the Committees in the House of Representatives, and Rangel is the first ever Blackman to hold the post of Chairman.  It is the Committeeis the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives.  Members of the Committee are not allowed to serve on any other House Committees.    The U.S. Constitution requires that all bills regarding taxation must originate from the House of Representatives, and the House procedure is that all bills regarding taxation must come through the Ways and Means Committee.  To emphasize its importance, eight eventual presidents, eight future vice presidents, and over twenty Speakers of the House have served on the committee.  Had the witchhunt against him not intensified, who knows, it might have even be possible that he could make it to Speaker, though he would be the first to reject such a position at the age of 80.  

When Congressman Charles B. Rangel was elected to office, his opponent, the late Rev. Dr. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. had been in a relentless Witch Hunt War from the time he went to Washington D.C.  The Witch Hunt War against US Representative Charles B. Rangel began the moment he won. His enemies re-drew the congressional lines covering Central Harlem to go down Broadway and over the 59^th Street Bridge to Roosevelt Island in order to defuse the raw voting power of the people in Harlem. Representative Rangel’s enemies were determined that he would not enjoy the same political power from Harlem without a fight as did Powell. This outstanding US Representative has been denied every political position in the House Leadership but they could not stop him from becoming Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee because he outlived those who were in front of him.            

The Witch Hunt War against important Black leaders began many years before Cadet Henry O. Flipper was acquitted of embezzlement and convicted on the charge of conduct unbecoming an Officer and a gentleman and court sentenced him to be dismissed from the service of the of the United States.   He was the first Black man to graduate from West Point on June 14, 1877. He was 50^th in his class of 76. I mentioned Lieutenant Flipper because Congressman Rangel served his country.

There were five other Black Cadets before Flipper who were drummed out of West Point through evil with destination as did Lieutenant Flipper. Rangel was severely wounded in the Korean War and was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for Valor.  To his enemies this outstanding service to his country and the people in the 15^th Congressional District did not mean anything. He was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus formed in 1970.

For more than thirty years, his entire life as a United States Representative, he has been a victim of the vicious WITCH HUNT WAR.  Mr. Jim Capell his Chief of Staff confirmed what I believed to be true that the Witch Hunt War is real.  “We are still at war,” said Mr. Capell.  “All of us who are leaders and are really making a big strike out here they will try to knock to you down. A lot of people don’t realize that if you get too rich and too popular they will bomb you like they did Greenwood in Oklahoma. Black folks had everything. They had their own town with schools, a hospital, banks and insurance companies. White speculators had to come to Greenwood to borrow money.

Congressman Rangel’s enemies are trying to get the Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee by any means necessary.  But they cannot get it without removing Rangel.   The attacks on him have jumped exponentially in the last 12 months, especially led by the right-wing newspapers, the New York Post and the Washington Times.  The assault on him has been relentless, even from the House.  The House Ethics Committee voted on December 9, 2008 to expand Rangel’s role in a matter concerning Isenberg, who had made contributions to his campaign, according to an article in the New York Times, which Isenberg termed, “full of malarkey.”  Then in January 2009, Republican Representative John R. Carter introduced a frivolous “Rangel Rule Act of 2009 (H.R. 735), that would have allowed all taxpapers to not pay penalties and interest on back taxes, though Rangel had paid penalties and interests on his back taxes.

In August, 2009, Congressman Rangel voluntarily amended his 2007 financial disclosure form to report more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets and income, leading the Washington Post to call on him to resign his chairmanship.

On September 1, 2009, the Chicago Tribune reported on Chairman Rangel's lack of action on pending legislation that would prevent $2.9 billion of U.S. Tax dollars from going to British concern Diageo.  On September 2, 2009, the L.A. Times reported on Chairman Rangel's association with a deal to give $2.8 billion of U.S. Tax dollars to Diageo to make rum in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  On September 20, 2009, the Associated Press reported on Chairman Rangel's ethics problems.  On October 6, 2009, the Washington Times reported on the campaign contributions Chairman Rangel received related to the $2.8 billion rum deal he supports.  On November 12, 2009, The Hill reported on Chairman Rangel's involvement in stopping legislation (H.R. 2122) that prevents $3.9 billion in rum bailouts from being voted on in the Ways and Means Committee.  With all that relentless hounding from the press, you wonder how Congressman Rangel is able to get a breather to accomplish any of his important assignments.  

But despite the hounding, they don’t seem to have intimidated the Congressman from doing the right thing for the people of America.  Mr. Capell says the record will show that he has passed a lot of good legislation that is needed in our community, as well as legislation that impacts on Urban America, and the international community and he has done a great job as chairman.   Of course, Mr. Rangel is not the only black legislator being targeted.  It would seem like an open season for black legislators to be dragged before the House Ethics Committee. John Bresnahan posited in an article in Politico of November 3, 2009, whether these investigations were not racially motivated.  He cited the fact that eight African-American lawmakers were facing full-scale ethics committee probe, while none of their white counterparts were being probed. 

According to Mr. Bresnahan’s article, “A document leaked to The Washington Post last week showed that nearly three dozen lawmakers have come under scrutiny this year by either the House ethics committee or the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog created in 2008 at the insistence of Pelosi. While the list contained a substantial number of white lawmakers, the ethics committee has not yet launched formal investigative subcommittees with respect to any of them — as it has with the seven African-American members.

Of course, Congressman Charlie Rangel has been a fighter all his life, and it is without any doubt that he would come out successful on this Witch Hunt War to remove him as Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.  Congressman Rangel has asked the Ethics Committee of the House of Representative to investigate the financial issues that have been reported in the media. When the Ethics Committee is finished with its work, we and the whole world will know the outcome.