I hate politicians

posted by The Vidiot @ 10:41 AM Permalink

As you may or may not have heard, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) recently got busted on having a sweetheart deal wherein he got to rent four rent stabilized apartments in a luxury building in NYC which are way below market rates AND very hard to find. Not only that, tenents were being evicted all around him -- a landlord trick to get an apartment empty, renovate and then charge market rates. While the fact that he had four apartments is reprehensible, considering the dearth of afforable apartments in NYC to begin with, and that rent-stabilized apartmensts, by law, must be a primary residence, it is also reprensible that he's using procedural maneuvering to cover his ass.

See, Rangel is asking the House to investigate him for violations of Congressional rules. While what he did may not TECHNICALLY be a violation of the rules, what he's doing is ethically wrong, and there's no way out of that. But, if/when he gets cleared by the rules committee, then he'll say, "See? There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing." And then he may or may not give up a few of the apartments, depending on how badly he feels he's being judged. All of this is just political theater.

They're all like that. Politicians. Why do we even need them? Can't we get rid of them? Just say, "We don't need your type anymore" and move on?

Labels: politics, rangel