In the aftermath of the Great Recession I noticed there were six most visible fall guys. When democracy and the market are at their best, I believe that does not leave room for racism. Europeans have numerous schisms. But when those same Europeans gather in America, a white identity gets formed. Perhaps the Chinese identity is a similar melting pot identity formed over a few thousand years. It has always amazed me how a billion people can be a single ethnicity.
When Wall Street wiped out 13 trillion in wealth, there were six fall guys, the most visible ones.
Corruption in a city like New York where there is so much power and money concentrated in one small place is like speeding on the interstate highway. You can police it, you can get people to pay fines, but you can't perhaps eliminate it. You are essentially dealing with human nature. Greed has a tendency to creep in.
One way to look at it is, after about 70 years banks accumulate so much in bad loans, those bad loans need to be wiped out, the slate needs to get clean. So it was not bad behavior. It was just the slate getting cleaned for a fresh start.
But then there are other complaints. America built infrastructure in Europe, and then it stopped. Why stop? Why not go on to build infrastructure in Africa? Asia? Latin America? That was racism. A country choosing to destroy or park trillions while there is such unmet need in terms of infrastructure, credit, and clean energy is racism.
The six fall guys point at that racism that impact billions of people.
Also, there needs to be a less painful way to wipe out bad loans. An economy should be able to wipe out bad loans without bringing itself to the knees. Maybe this should be the last Great Recession.
New York Times: Powell vs. Rangel: Testy Remake After 40 Years: About 30 years ago, Representative Charles B. Rangel invited a 19-year-old summer intern named Adam Clayton Powell IV into his office at the United States Capitol for an emotional conversation: He had run a bruising primary campaign in 1970 to unseat Mr. Powell’s father, he acknowledged, ending the career of a celebrated Harlem politician....... These days, it is the younger Adam Clayton Powell who is trying to take Mr. Rangel out. And he is making no apologies. ..... relentlessly attacking the 80-year-old lawmaker ..... has called Mr. Rangel’s conduct “corrupt,” described his bid for a 21st term as “pointless” ...... After blithely ignoring his six rivals for the last year, or tersely dismissing them as unqualified, Mr. Rangel has started to take unexpected jabs at Mr. Powell ...... The attacks, however, have only raised Mr. Powell’s profile in a contest awash with personal history and deep-rooted family rivalries. Mr. Rangel has held his seat for 40 years, but the streets of Harlem still echo with the name of Mr. Powell’s father ....... his father was something of a god in Harlem ..... “Charles Rangel became part of the system. He embraces the political trade and the political games, and he rejoices in the backslapping and connections.” ...... Mr. Powell cultivated a loyal base of voters that he felt Mr. Rangel, the darling of Central and West Harlem, had overlooked: the Puerto Rican and Hispanic voters in the district’s eastern section. ...... Mr. Powell conceded that the relationship with the intern was “inappropriate” ..... “If the worst I have is a violation because somebody thinks I had one too many, I will take it,” he said of his conviction for driving while impaired. ..... The campaign has about $20,000, compared with $500,000 for Mr. Rangel ....... at 62, Joyce S. Johnson “should be planning her own retirement, not Charlie Rangel’s retirement.” ..... Powell introduced himself to three women on the sidewalk. Each urged him on. ..... “Keep it in the family,” said one of them. “It’s time for a change,” said another. “What goes around comes around”
New York Daily News: "Silk Stocking" Slugfest: Carolyn Maloney Vs. Reshma Saujani: “It’s sort of a Karl Rove thing, where you attack the strengths (of political rivals). I think one of my strengths is that I’ve been independent and honest and right. She’s basically saying I’m a crook,”Maloney said.
Carolyn Maloney is a crook at four different levels.
Level 1: Maloney is a crook for standing by a crook. Charlie Rangel is the biggest crook in Washington DC. Harlem has been having an image problem without any help from Rangel for decades, and Rangel is not helping any, and Maloney is only adding fuel to the fire. (Charlie Rangel: An Unrepentent Motherfucker)
Level 2: Maloney is a crook for not seeing that Rangel's antics will cost the Dems the House in November. She is being disloyal to the party and its leader.
Level 3: Maloney is a crook for not agreeing to weekly TV debates. This woman lacks respect for democracy. That is considered crookish behavior in a democracy.
Level 4: She was holding fundraisers with Wall Street PACs at the same time she was working on Wall Street reform. Six or eight other House members who engaged in similar behavior are under investigation. The ethics committee will come around to Maloney too. It is not like Rangel got into trouble the same year he did not pay taxes. The law seems to take its sweet time.
New York Daily News: "Silk Stocking" Slugfest: Carolyn Maloney Vs. Reshma Saujani: have yet to hold a debate. A radio debate is scheduled for Sept. 7, a week before the Sept. 14 primary election..... Saujani has repeatedly called for Rangel to resign because of the 13 ethics violations he’s been charged with by a bipartisan panel of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Maloney says a system is in place to try Rangel and he’s entitled to his due process......“Giving Charlie Rangel a kiss on the cheek and a $2,500 check at a time right now when people are so frustrated with the process indicates to me that she doesn’t have the same values that I have.” ..... Saujani, a lawyer and former counsel for hedge funds, said “ the power of incumbency is the reason why we’re in this mess in the first place,” and added, “You’ve got a bunch of people in Congress and a bunch of (other officials) who think that there’s a path, (that) being a professional politician is the way of getting into Congress. And I think that that’s why we don’t have really great ideas coming out of Washington. I think that’s what we need right now.” ...... Saujani said, “I think that Maloney ranks at the bottom of our New York delegation, and I’m saying that on the record. And I think Carolyn Maloney represents the problem. We have in Congress, I think, a lot of mediocre representatives.” ...... Saujani said that “Maloney “has been good enough” as a representative, but meant it as a negative, adding, “But 'good enough' isn’t good enough right now. We deserve excellent representation, this district deserves excellent representation.” ..... “It’s sort of a Karl Rove thing, where you attack the strengths (of political rivals). I think one of my strengths is that I’ve been independent and honest and right. She’s basically saying I’m a crook,”Maloney said...... Asked if she really thinks Maloney has questionable ethics, Saujani referred to fundraisers Maloney has held with financial investment firms while serving on the Congressional Committee on Financial Services and added, “I think she’s demonstrated questionable ethics by having those two fundraisers.” Maloney takes money from corporate PACs, while she doesn’t, Saujani noted.
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeThere are many people including several members of the New York congressional delegation (standing ovations to old man Charlie, come on) who seem to suggest Charlie is a good guy because other members of Congress have also been involved in the kind of behavior that Charlie has been involved in.
That is like saying because many banks were involved in the nefarious finance schemes, so the first bank you catch should be let go.
Charlie Rangel in the news is a US Congress that passed Wall Street reform but is itself fundamentally unreformed. Standing by Charlie is exactly the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is to pass Congress reform. And there is enough time before the November election to do that.
The US Congress that made bad Wall Street behavior possible stays unreformed. That is the news here. The blame goes to both parties. And the work for Congress reform has to start NOW!
This is not a one party versus the other party issue. This is about the American people losing further faith in the US Congress, in the political system. This is about fighting impending cynicism.
This is not a one party versus the other party issue but is going to be if foolish Dems keep standing by Rangel. Rangel is indefensible. Instead stand on the side of Congress reform.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I have tried to stay away from the Rangel drama, but it is no longer possible. This motherfucker now stands squarely in my way when he had other, better options. Charlie Rangel has become a political suicide bomber, and he knows exactly what he is doing.
Motherfuckers like Charlie Rangel don't have legacies. They don't have places in history. He is too dumb, too shallow, too superficial, too much of a crook to have a place in history, he is too much of a sideshow. He is a fucking nobody. People like me decide what Charlie Rangel's place in history is going to be. Charlie Rangel is a motherfucker. That is his place in history. There, I just decided.
Capitalism has to have its creative destructions. You have to destroy a few banks to create the clean tech, bio tech and nano tech companies of tomorrow. That is the nature of the beast. Democracy, capitalism's twin brother/sister, also has to have its creative destructions. That is the nature of the beast. You have to necessarily destroy Charlie Rangel to create Barack Obama. We created Barack Obama in 2008, but we did not destroy Charlie Rangel before that. That was a mistake. We started the work on destroying Charlie Rangel in 2008. Now is the time to complete the task. This guy needs to disappear from the stage already.
Putting Malia and Sasha into the White House has been a bigger deal than putting Barack and Michelle Obama into the White House. Putting Malia and Sasha into the White House does for the self esteem of young black children across America, and across the continent of Africa, and perhaps for many children in Latin America and Asia that I would not know how to do with a trillion dollars to spend on the project. Having a great leader helped, but countless people like me put countless hours into Obama 08 to bring that about. And I am not letting this guy take away from that achievement. The heck with Charlie Rangel.
You can not win elections as many times as Charlie Rangel has and not see what your idiotic stand now is doing to Barack's effort to keep the House. Rangel is doing this on purpose. This motherfucker never really made peace with the fact that some time in 2004 Barack Obama became a bigger deal than him. The fuck with this guy.
White politicians in New York City who stand by this crook are being racist. They think playing nice to Charlie is playing nice to black people. Instead of doing the hard work of working through their racial prejudices and racial stereotypes and glass walls and ceilings that keep black people away, these whities have long been accustomed to thinking of Charlie Rangel as some kind of a racial short cut. Be nice to Charlie and you are clean, you are not racist. White politicians in New York City who stand by Charlie are racist people who think blacks as a people are crooks and Charlie Rangel somehow represents them. I have walked around and asked in Harlem. Most people never heard of the Rangel name. Obama, on the other hand, is another story.
For every JFK, there is a Richard Nixon. Charlie Rangel is the black people's Nixon. The guy is a crook. His ways have always been corrupt. How dare this pig equate my president with Dick Cheney? How dare he! My guy's very run for the presidency was about his having opposed the Iraq War from the start.
Cut Him Loose, Completely
Rangel was not able to get in the way when he had all the power and we had none, although he tried. He sure is not getting in our way when now we have all the power and he has none. If the American people had mistaken Barack Obama for a Charlie Rangel, they would never have elected him in the first place. I count on the American people's judgment to not mistake a Barack Obama for a Charlie Rangel. But the president has to keep doing what he has been doing. He has to make it absolutely clear Charlie Rangel is responsible for his own bad behavior, and that he wants him to step down and go away, sooner the better. He has to do it more forcefully as necessary.
Depriving My President Of A House
Charlie Rangel has one and only one goal left. The final mission of his political career is to deprive my president of a House. He failed in his mission to deprive my guy of the White House. What the fuck is the House?
Barack Obama has done wonderful things in his first two years. He has achieved FDR status after he passed health care reform. He is going to continue to do wonderful things. But losing the House now would jeopardize the next two years of his presidency. It would jeopardize his plans to work on comprehensive immigration reform next year. And Rangel knows this. I would know a thing or two about Rangel's stance on immigration.
Send this guy back to Uganda where he came from. He does not belong in the capital city of the world.
DL21C
And while we are on the topic.
I consider DL21C an enemy organization. That organization has two options. It can dismantle itself, or I am going to dismantle it. It is not necessary for me to do it. But I am going to do it for fun. And I am in no hurry to do it. Pre-digital organizations have no place in the Obama era. I am going to take that organization apart like it were an old computer, which is what it is.
What is this? Gangs Of New York? Eliminate the leader and take over his organization? I don't think so. I put blood, sweat and tears into nurturing the Obama crowd in this city. My gums were bleeding when you had me inside.
If any DL21C person ends up with any kind of a leadership role in town for Obama 2012, I am boycotting all Obama 20102 events in Manhattan. You got to know who your people are.
I did not expect Reshma 2010 to join Obama's national effort to keep the House and the Senate before September 15, but now our hand has been forced. I went through some tough times for Barack. Having Charlie Rangel for breakfast is going to be easy to do. Now I am going after Rangel like no Republican before me. That motherfucker is not getting in the way of my president and his House. So help me God.
So far I have refrained from digging into the details of the unfolding Rangel drama. I have not had the interest. I have had better things to do with my time. I noticed there was talk of some kind of a vacation home in the Dominican Republic, but that was in Fall 2008. He finally stepped down from whatever committee he was chairing in the House. Good for him.
Before I look into the details of the more than a dozen allegations against him, to me the political aspect is obvious. If the Rangel drama is going to play out in full view like it looks like is going to, the Dems just made their job of keeping the House that much harder. It was already a tough task to begin with. Why is the New York congressional delegation so intent on depriving my president of a House? This is no uncalled for.
I thought this guy had already announced a year before that he was not going to seek another term in office, he said he was too old. Can't dispute that. But looks like he has changed his mind.
The best thing politically for him and especially the party would have been if he just stepped down from the office. What's the pain in stepping down from an office a few months early?
I don't understand this behavior on the part of pols like Maloney who don't seem much interested in keeping the House for the Dems. Either that or she has a huge political blind spot. Neither look good.
This ethics trial will rob the Dems of much oxygen. They could have been talking about issues instead.
I am in disbelief with the stupidity, the political stupidity.
People like Maloney who feel loyal to Rangel should have been the first to ask him to vacate the premises. Leave office, go into retirement.
Starting from September 15, Reshma 2010 is going to join the national effort to keep the House. But that task just got so much harder. And so now I think I am going to be forced to read up on some of the details. This feels so unnecessary.
If the Rangel drama becomes too much of a distraction, the president should completely cut loose of him. Rangel should not be allowed to take away from Obama's intent to keep the House.
"I think Charlie Rangel served a very long time and served his constituents very well. But these allegations are very troubling. He’s somebody who’s at the end of his career. Eighty years old. I’m sure that what he wants is to be able to end his career with dignity. And my hope is that it happens."
President Barack Obama • Saying that Charlie Rangel should retire and just go away. The House ethics subcommittee has recommended a reprimand for Rangel, which would be light compared to the censure and expulsion he could get. Still, though, Rangel won’t admit his guilt and as a result is making the situation much worse for himself.
