The 2010 Year in Review: If My Hand's in the Cookie Jar Know One Thing, I'ma Take a Cookie Not Leave My Ring

Apparently this isn’t a credo that Charlie Rangel lives by. If so, the Harlem Representative would not have been found guilty of 11 charges earlier this week by an ethics committee convened to investigate the multiple charges that Rangel violated House ethics.


What exactly did the 80-year-old Rangel do? If you ask me, he did nothing that dozens of other Congressman and Senators have been doing for years, he just happened to get caught and be the head of the powerful Ways & Means Committee at the time. Specifically, he is said to have dealt in some shady business practices that include soliciting millions of dollars from corporate officials for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City University of New York, failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars on disclosure forms, using a rent stabilized apartment for his campaign and not paying taxes on a vacation villa in the Dominican Republic.

Uhhh, yeah, he’s dirty.

No dirtier than the guy that represents your district or even the panel that passed judgment on him, I’ll bet a dollar to a dime that not a stone would’ve been tossed first in his direction. It’s politics as usual to use your influence for personal gain, but Mr. Rangel forgot he wasn’t playing with the same cards and when the deck was cut, he was stuck with a Joker.

Although he’s spent the last 40 years of his life on Capitol Hill, the previous 40 were spent around Sugar Hill and as much as we’ve liked to think we’ve progressed, that still matters for something. The Good Ol’ Boy network gives honorary memberships, but reserves the right to revoke your card at any given time. Which is what they did when this mess started to kick up dust around Rangel two years ago culminating in recommending censure in a 9-1 vote Thursday.

That vote will be presented after the Thanksgiving holiday, but Rangel has fought like a G the entire time, storming out of the preceedings Monday, still maintaining his innocence and even playing the “I’m too old” card. I’m not sure how he doesn’t consider himself corrupt or that none of what he’s done is for personal gain, but I ain’t mad at cha playa, you were just doing what those around you do.

Maxine Waters is up next and you know they’ve been looking for a reason to bring this sister down since she went in search of the origins of the crack supply for “Freeway” Ricky Ross – not the rapper, the cocaine trafficker and the connections to the Contras, Ollie North, Ronald Regan and the rest of the gang. We got your back, but it looks like Negro Season has opened in D.C.

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