Charles Rangel

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/nyregion/17rangel.html?src=me

Charles Rangel was found guilty of eleven counts of ethics violations by a congressional subcommittee. This includes "forgetting" to pay taxes on $60,000 on rent income, and not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal assets. During his trial he walked out and went into his office and began working. The next day after the subcommittee announced their decision the congressman said: “How can anyone have confidence in the decision of the ethics subcommittee when I was deprived of due process rights, right to counsel and was not even in the room?” Was he hoping to delay the process two more years by walking out of the hearing? How is it that the very people who create taxes are allowed to not pay them by only punishing them with a "letter of reprimand or a formal censure." The American people should not allow these types of people to govern us, but somehow they still make it into our government and stay there. The even worse part is that conveniently the hearing was put off until after election day. What a difference from Thomas Jefferson who did not know if the Louisiana purchase was constitutional so he let the American people vote on it by proposing it before his election.