Free Republic

adies, for the first time ever, Uncle Sam soon may be pointing at you. Days after the Pentagon cleared women to take certain combat roles, advocacy groups for military women say another new hour has arrived for all young female adults to register with Selective Service, the giant pool of names collected by the government should America ever opt to revive the draft. The movement to require women ages 18 to 25 to sign up for Selective Service — mirroring the law for all U.S. men in that demographic — is rooted in both active-duty and veteran circles. The Service...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), speaking on “MSNBC Live” on Jan. 16 said that “some of the southern areas have cultures that we have to overcome” when it comes to gun control. Rangel was asked by anchor Thomas Roberts whether new gun control measures passed in New York State should serve as models for other states: “If you’re proud of what New York has done, obviously there is not going to be any perfect policy or perfect law that everybody is going to agree on from both sides saying that this is key perfection but do you think that New York,...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) joined MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts on Wednesday to applaud strict new gun laws passed by the New York State legislature and signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week. He said that he was glad that the legislature, and the federal government, were doing something in the wake of the murder of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut. He noted, however, that New York is more progressive than some places and some regions, particularly the American South, have “cultures that we have to overcome” in order to enact stricter national gun laws. “This is not Constitutional rights,...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) joined MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts on Wednesday to applaud strict new gun laws passed by the New York State legislature and signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week. He said that he was glad that the legislature, and the federal government, were doing something in the wake of the murder of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut. He noted, however, that New York is more progressive than some places and some regions, particularly the American South, have “cultures that we have to overcome” in order to enact stricter national gun laws. “This is not Constitutional rights,...

Rangel: No daylight between Obama and Pelosi on tax hikesBy Mike Lillis - 11/20/12 05:12 PM ET President Obama and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are on exactly the same page when it comes to supporting an increase in tax rates on the wealthy, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said this week. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the Republican whip, recently suggested that there's daylight between Obama and the House minority leader regarding their approach to those rates. But Rangel dismissed that claim outright, breaking into laughter Tuesday when he was asked about McCarthy's remarks. "I'm laughing because what he is saying, and...

This photo was Tweeted by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) yesterday. Also in the photo is House Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). Along with the photo, Rangel Tweeted this: My ears perking up to hear RepCantor saying taxes will go up under Pres Obama. It's called "paying your fair share"! In 2008 Rangel admitted not paying taxes on rental income from a Dominican Republican beach house after it was exposed by the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC). It was one of the counts in his 2010 Censure by the House. Of course, Rangel used to be Chairman of the House...

Censured tax cheat Charles Rangel to Mitt Romney: "Unlike you, Americans pay their fair share of taxes." Our Hypocrite of the Week winner is Charles Rangel, the congressman who is living proof of a swamp left undrained. Rangel wins for this story that appears on his website: Rangel to Romney: Americans Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxes, Unlike You...

Rangel to Romney: Americans Pay Their Fair Share Of Taxes, Unlike You — Rangel.House.Gov Congressman Charles B. Rangel issued the following statement in response to Gov. Mitt Romney’s remarks saying 47% of the American people do not pay federal income taxes and nearly half of voters are “dependent upon government”:“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...

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 New York Times has a front-page story today on a political giver named James Robert Williams, who has no visible means of support, but is very generous to both parties and to politicians of different stripes. From the article: ...one government watchdog group called the pattern of donations extremely troubling. Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, said, "In more than 15 years of investigating political corruption, I've never seen a more suspicious set of facts." According to the story by reporters Raymond Hernandez, Alison Leigh Cowan and Jo Craven McGinty, Williams lives in a...

A few days ago, I noted the irony in the unfolding controversy involving the results from the New York Democratic primary. At a time when Democrats around the country, including Attorney General Eric Holder, have been vociferously claiming there is no such thing as voter fraud in the United States and that efforts to uphold the integrity of elections are a form of racism, the senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus appears to have engaged in a variety of forms of fraud himself. The latest results from the June 26 election show Rep. Charles Rangel holding a more than...

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,...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) last year railed against voter identification laws, saying such laws were the “Ku Klux Klan without the hoods.” He said such laws are tactics used by Republicans to suppress voters. And now, in a rich instance of irony and hypocrisy, Rangel has been accused of suppressing Hispanic voters to ensure his reelection, according to the New York Post.

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...

In the last year as Democrats have tried to oppose all efforts to ensure the integrity of the vote in the fall election, they have derided voter ID laws as not only racist in motivation but also unnecessary. Though the basic proposition that anyone who shows up at the polls ought to be able to prove they are who they say they are and are registered voters seems like common sense, liberals have claimed such measures are utterly superfluous because voter fraud is not a problem in the United States. And because there is no problem to be fixed, any...

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...

Rep. Charles Rangel's (D-N.Y.) primary rival on Friday filed a legal challenge to the ballot-counting process as the 82-year old lawmaker's margin of victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary narrowed. Rangel seemingly won Tuesday's competitive primary against state Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat. The former House Ways and Means Committee chairman declared victory and Espaillat conceded defeat. But since then, as ballots have continued to be counted, Rangel's reported margin of vicotroy has shrunk from 6 points on Tuesday, when reports gave him a 46 percent to 38 edge with 82 percent of precincts reporting, to 2.6 percent, media reports said.

NEW YORK — It was his 82nd birthday, and Rep. Charles B. Rangel faced a large cake flickering with candles and a roomful of people urging him to blow them out. Rangel drew a deep breath, leaned in close and slowly extinguished every flame, displaying the determination that has seen him through age, injuries and ethics scandals and that supporters hope will carry him through his next battle: against state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who is as bent on ending Rangel's 42-year congressional career as Rangel is on extending it. Rangel's backers speak of the past, saying their man, a founder...

When Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., lost the GOP primary to challenger Richard Mourdock this month, Beltway types saw the voters' verdict as a victory for the tea party and a defeat for the kind of Republican who could work across the aisle. I think Lugar, 80, lost because he is out of touch with Indiana. He started the primary registered to vote at an Indiana home he had sold in 1977. The Lugars have resided in Virginia ever since. Lugar had been working in Washington for so long that he didn't realize he needed to keep up at least the...