Free Republic

President Obama considered veteran Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel a political hack and had such little regard for Jesse Jackson that he “effectively banned” the civil rights leader from the White House, a new book claims. The political tome about the 2012 presidential campaign, “Double Down,” says Obama had little patience for “professional left” activists and “vanishingly close to zero” for what a White House aide called “professional blacks.” “Apart from Georgia Congressman John Lewis and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Obama had nearly as much contempt for the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) as he did for the Tea Party Caucus,”...

President Obama considered veteran Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel a political hack and had such little regard for Jesse Jackson that he “effectively banned” the civil rights leader from the White House, a new book claims. The political tome about the 2012 presidential campaign, “Double Down,” says Obama had little patience for “professional left” activists and “vanishingly close to zero” for what a White House aide called “professional blacks.” “Apart from Georgia Congressman John Lewis and Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Obama had nearly as much contempt for the CBC (Congressional Black Caucus) as he did for the Tea Party Caucus,”...

Lawmakers had to pause for a fact check about a 78-year-old law during a hearing that was supposed to be about ObamaCare, after Rep. Charles Rangel made the -- inaccurate -- claim that no Republicans supported the Social Security Act. The New York Democrat made the assertion Tuesday while railing against Republicans for opposing the health care law. It was during a House hearing where Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was testifying. "It should give you some small comfort to know that, historically, the Republican Party always fought vigorously against these types of programs,"...

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) says that there is “no question” that members of Congress who are paid $174,000 a year are entitled to taxpayer-funded subsidies when they purchase health insurance on the Obamacare exchanges. … Under Obamacare, only people whose income is below 400 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for a federal subsidy to buy health insurance on the government exchanges. However, a recent rule made by the Office of Personnel Management allows members of Congress and their staffs to keep the taxpayer-funded “employer contribution” they currently receive under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP)...

Oliver Darcy reporting multiple members of Congress arrested at immigration rally.

As House Republicans attempted to demonize the Affordable Care Act in Washington, DC, local Democratic lawmakers in the Bronx began promoting the healthcare reform package, often referred to as “Obamacare,” as a significant improvement in how Americans pay for and receive health care. Because the House, which is controlled by Republicans, continued to link every budget bill to the de-funding of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government was forced to shut down many of its operations on Tuesday. (Editor’s note: See p. 2 for more details on what the shutdown means. As of press time Tuesday night, Republicans and...

Tax cheat and crook Charlie Rangel is back in the news again for not disclosing funds. In 2010, Rangel lost his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee because of an investigation into 2 corporate-funded trips to the Caribbean. Later that year, the House of Representatives formally censured him after he was found guilty of 11 ethics violations. Violations included failure to disclose over $600,000 in assets on a financial disclosure report as well as short changing the IRS for 17 years on rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic. He also raided his PAC for $393,000 to...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y) on Monday called it “embarrassing” that President Barack Obama has drawn a “red line” on Syria, and the congressman does not see “anything urgent about it.” “I love Obama, and you’ll never find a truer Democrat than me, but this whole idea of any president of the United States drawing lines saying that if any country does something, that he considers wrong, that the nation is going to war, it’s unheard of–drawing a red line. So, of course, it’s embarrassing. I wish it didn’t happen,” Rangel said. An MSNBC host asked Rangel: “Are you concerned in...

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...

Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Sunday renewed his call to reinstate the draft, arguing a vote should be held on mandatory military service before any decision is taken to launch strikes against Syria. “I truly believe we should have a National Draft Act before the Congress acts,” Rangel told MSNBC. Rangel, a decorated veteran of the Korean War, has for several years introduced legislation to bring back the draft and earlier this, for the first time, advocated that women should be included. The New York lawmaker said the burden of war unfairly falls on lower-income Americans. “They are not in...

Memo to Charlie Rangel: You’re in some pretty uncharted waters if former Gov. David Paterson — son of one of your closest friends and allies — is publicly taking you to task for your racially charged remarks. The hoopla began with a Rangel slam against the Tea Party: “It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police,” the Harlem congressman told Politico. “They didn’t care about how they looked.” In other words, the Tea Partiers are the heirs of Bull Connor and the segregationists.

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.

Representative Charles Rangel recently made some inflammatory remarks regarding the Zimmerman trial. After dodging the Factor, Fox New's Jesse Watters tracks him down!

<p>Shulman rallied for Rangel: Jason Furman, Media Matters, Fox News, Jarrett and a job.</p> <p>And the Liberal Dog Whistle Blows.</p> <p>Congressman Charles Rangel of New York.</p> <p>Ex-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman.</p> <p>The new chairman of the president’s Council on Economic Advisors, Jason Furman.</p>

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) on Sunday said that he feared the Internal Revenue Service scandal over political targeting of Tea Party groups would unfairly stigmatize other workers at the agency. “The biggest problem is that tens of thousands of IRS workers that work hard with all of this stigma being tax collectors, are getting a bad shake out of this,” said Rangel during a panel discussion on ABC’s “This Week.” The IRS acknowledgement that agents used higher scrutiny against conservative groups seeking tax exempt status has already claimed the job of acting director Steven Miller and has the White House...

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) is suing Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and six other lawmakers, charging that they mishandled the Ethics investigation that led to his public censure in late 2010. In a complaint filed Monday in federal court in Washington D.C., Rangel claims the Ethics Committee that investigated his alleged wrongdoing are guilty of "numerous flagrant, knowing and intentional violations" of his due process rights. House members who approved his censure were "knowingly deceived" by the committee leaders – including then-Chairman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and ranking member Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) – into thinking that the probe "had been conducted in...

Appearing on MSNBC Thursday, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) claimed that “millions of kids” are killed by so-called "assault weapons," citing numbers that fall far short of the numbers reported by the FBI, The Blaze reported, “We’re talking about millions of kids dying — being shot down by assault weapons, we're talking about handguns easier in the inner cities, to get these guns in the inner cities, than to get computers. This is not just a political issue, it’s a moral issue and so when we condemn the NRA we should not ignore the fact that a lot of people that...

During an appearance on MSNBC this morning, Congressman Charlie Rangel was asked what he thought about the assault weapons ban being dropped from Senate bill. Rangel blamed the defeat on politics and money and then made the extraordinary claim that "millions of kids" are dying because they are "being shot down by assault weapons."