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Libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul ranting, raving and screaming for drug legalization 24 years ago on "The Morton Downey Jr. Show". With special guest appearance by Charles Rangel, as The Voice of Reason. Lunacy on parade (on all sides in this freak show of a debate). Ron Paul on Morton Downey Jr. - 1988

Rep. Charles Rangel, censured by Congress in 2010 for a variety of misdeeds, including non-payment of taxes on his Dominican villa, didn't pay any rent on his district office in Harlem for all of 2013. His "excuse": his office lost the lease. But that's OK, said New York state. Instead of having to pay back rent. the state cut the real estate company a check for $87,000. New York Post: “I finally heard back from Congressman Rangel’s office and it seems we haven’t gotten the signed lease back because they lost it!” OGS real-estate specialist Sydney Allen wrote in a...

Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) recently expressed his puzzlement over the conservative wing of the Republican Party. In between incoherent ramblings and fragmented sentences, the congressman explained that the tea party is a “cult” group that suffers from an apparent “illness”. “Politics is (sic) changing for me at this late age, to have to deal with a cult-type of group of people,” said the man who recently allocated millions of taxpayer dollars to a New York library named in his honor. (Maybe he’s speaking out of jealousy?) “When a handful of people [I assume he is referring to the tea party...

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) predicted he’ll face a “rough’ fight for reelection this cycle, but said he believes ObamaCare will be a boon to his campaign. “It’s going to be a rough one, but, you know, it’s like shooting crap. Either you win or you lose; you just can’t stay even with the first shot,” Rangel said on MSNBC on Tuesday. The long-serving Democrat had been considered a retirement risk, but announced earlier this month he plans to run for reelection. He’s likely to face a contentious primary fight from state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, whom supporters believe is well-poised to...

Rtightened his handcuffs. “I thought I’d be treated better ep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said police who arrested him Tuesday by the Capitol Police than I was,” Rangel said on FOX Business Network Friday. Rangel was one of several Democratic lawmakers arrested by U.S. Capitol Police at an immigration reform rally on the National Mall. “I think they were trying to help me, but the cuffs were so tight that when I said loosen up the cuffs — and I wasn’t cursing then — in an attempt to loosen it up, one of the rookie cops actually tightened it,” he said....

Let’s call him the Left’s Pat Robertson, though the comparison might not be entirely fair to Robertson because he’s probably paid more of his taxes than Rangel. If a Republican uttered anything near this level of nasty, particularly with a religious bent, it’d be news for days, becoming part of the national narrative on heartless, religious rubes of the Right. But Bible thumping’s a-okay, as long as you’re using the Good Book to thump conservatives. And, thus Rep. Charlie Rangel’s assessment that roughly half the country is headed for a smitin’ for its embrace of barbarically low spending levels of...

Rep. Rangel denies Black Caucus was told to be quiet on Syria By Julian Hattem - 09/07/13 12:42 PM ET A top member of the Congressional Black Caucus is denying that lawmakers were told to stay silent on the issue of whether or not the U.S. should intervene in Syria. “Nobody’s ever suggested to me ... that I should not comment,” Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said in an interview on MSNBC on Saturday. He added that he had a “responsibility to speak.” Rangel’s comments were in response to an email from caucus Chairwoman Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), which asked lawmakers to...

Rangel: 'Of course it's embarassing' By Ian Swanson - 09/02/13 10:34 AM ET Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Monday said "of course it's embarrassing" that President Obama warned Syria of a red line for using chemical weapons but then didn't move forward immediately with a military strike. Rangel, who opposes a military strike against Syria, also said Secretary of State John Kerry must be even more embarrassed after making an aggressive speech calling for a military strike on Friday, and then seeing Obama delay it to ask Congress for authorization a day later. Speaking on MSNBC, Rangel said "I love...

On Martin Bashir’s Thursday MSNBC program, New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel said that no students should have to pay for college. Rangel was reacting to President Barack Obama’s higher education proposal rollout that would put in place requirements for students and institutions to receive federal financial aid assistance. Rangel explained to fill-in host Joy Reid that he support Obama’s plan, particularly the accountability components. “I think it’s exciting, and certainly it’s going to bring in accountability,” he said. “You know, we have universities scattered all over the world. Sometimes you think that tuition means nothing to a large group...

I love how the words just casually roll off his tongue, as if he had been saying them all his life. Which he has. But there is no such thing as black racism, don't you know? Using a racial epithet to describe one's political opponents is accepted behavior. Or at least it must be because the only people saying anything about it are those on the right. But even at 83, dressed in a blue bow tie and crisp gray suit, Rangel is relentless toward those who he feels are slowing the forces of progress. House Republicans? Have done more...

In an interview with the Daily Beast published Friday, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) suggested Tea Partiers are the "same group" who fought for segregation during the Civil Rights movement. “It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police. They didn’t care about how they looked," Rangel said. Because of this, Rangel said the Tea Party could be defeated using the same tactics employed against Jim Crow. "It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough. ‘I don’t want to see it and...

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., told a Fox News reporter that the George Zimmerman acquittal in the killing of Trayvon Martin could be an invitation for white people to shoot young black men. Rangel was caught leaving his congressional office by Jesse Waters, who does segments for Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" after host Bill O'Reilly said Rangel had refused multiple invitations to appear on the show. The interview was recorded Tuesday and aired Wednesday on O'Reilly's show. Waters challenged Rangel on comments he made on MSNBC, where he suggested that if police had found a black Zimmerman they might...

<p>Several members of New York City's congressional delegation on Monday condemned the acquittal of the man charged with killing Trayvon Martin and urged the Justice Department to intervene.</p> <p>Reps. Charles Rangel, Hakeem Jeffries, Jerrold Nadler and others bemoaned the Florida jury's failure to convict George Zimmerman in the shooting death of the unarmed Martin, a verdict that has led to widespread protests across the country.</p>

The Talk Shows May 19th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Pfeiffer, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Rep. David Camp, R-Mich.; Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Pfeiffer, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Sen. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah; Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt.THIS WEEK (ABC): Pfeiffer; Sen. Robert Menendez, D- N.J.; Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio; Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga.; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Pfeiffer, Sen. Rand...

So my vacation plans to Cyprus have been canceled. Something about the government there seizing everybody's wallet because the country is bankrupt. Another nanny state bites the dust. When will they ever learn? Never. Here in the good old USA, there are 76 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus -- folks such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Rep. Charles Rangel, California Rep. Maxine Waters and Florida Rep. Alan Grayson. Sanders is the only honest one in the bunch. He comes right out and admits he's a socialist. He'll take all your stuff while telling you tales of Ethan...

Chutzpah, thy name is Charlie Rangel: "Nothing can be further from the truth than Gov. Romney's ridiculous remarks that nearly half of American people do not pay federal income taxes, they pay other federal and state taxes. The 47 percent figure cited by the Republican presidential candidate covers only the federal income tax and ignores the fact that people may pay a higher percentage of their income on a wide variety of taxes. Everyone pays taxes. Lower income persons pay state and local, property, excise and sales taxes. In fact, when all federal, state, and local taxes are taken into...

Here’s something I thought I’d never write: a moment of clarity from Charlie Rangel. You can watch the entire interview with The Perez Notes at the link, but we’ll pick up where Rep. Rangel begins discussing how attack ads destroy credibility, starting with Joe Biden’s “they goin’ to put y’all back in chains” in Danville, Virginia. Not only does Rangel describe the claim as laughable, he also says that the Obama campaign’s defense of it — that Biden meant economic hardship and not slavery — is ridiculous on its face: (VIDEO AT LINK) After Vice President Joe Biden infamously told...

The near-meltdown in the vote count for the New York Democratic primary featuring scandal-tarred congressman Charlie Rangel should serve as a warning siren about what could happen in this November’s national election. It’s not just voter fraud we have to worry about. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where the fraud ends and the incompetence begins. The Rangel fiasco reminds us that the United States has, as Walter Dean Burnham, the nation’s leading political scientist, put it, “the developed world’s sloppiest election systems.” And New York City is no unsophisticated backwater. The troubles in the Rangel race began on Election Night,...

A national Hispanic civil rights group is asking the Department of Justice to investigate alleged voter suppression in the Democratic primary in the 13th congressional district. The group, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, has sent a letter to the DOJ voicing concern that Spanish-speaking voters found it difficult to cast ballots because they were unable to receive Spanish-language assistance and were turned away, or were told to vote by affidavit ballots, according to a statement by the organization. The appeal to the DOJ by LatinoJustice, which recently was among several voter advocacy groups that sued Florida over its decision to target more than...

NEW YORK — It’s been four days since Charlie Rangel’s primary.And it’s still not entirely clear who won.The veteran Democratic congressman might be the winner in New York’s 13th District, but no one really knows.It’s a bizarre situation that just keeps getting weirder, a strange case of missing precincts, questionable ballots and utter confusion over who’s to blame for the mess and when the race might be settled.(PHOTOS: Charlie Rangel's career)What’s known is this: As of Friday evening, 32 precincts – six percent of all votes cast – had yet to be accounted for. And another 2,447 affidavit ballots and...