Why isn't Charlie Rangel in prison?

Nancy Pelosi

because he's a dem...

Prisons are strapped for cash and cant afford to feed him.

For some of the same reasons that Dick Cheney, W and Rumsfeld aren't there.

Submit evidence to warrant a criminal complaint and charges that can be filed. That's usually the first step. He's probably not in prison because he hasn't been convicted of anything.

probably for the same reasons Dick Cheney isn't in prison....high powered connections.

Last week, we learned that Rangel filed a grossly misleading financial disclosure report for 2007 -- failing to report at least half a million dollars in assets.

It turns out Rangel had a credit union account worth at least $250,000 and maybe as much as $500,000 -- and didn't report it. He had investment accounts worth about the same, which he also didn't report. Ditto for three pieces of property in New Jersey.

Beyond that, we've learned that Rangel has failed to report assets totaling more than $1 million on legally required financial disclosure forms going back to at least 2001.

The news comes on top of revelations last year that Rangel didn't report -- and didn't pay taxes on -- income from a villa in the Caribbean. In that matter, the Internal Revenue Service gave him sweetheart treatment; Rangel paid about $10,000 in back taxes but was not required to pay any penalty or interest.

Rangel's doings are under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which so far hasn't taken any action. Democrats are standing behind their chairman, and minority Republicans can't do anything about it.

But they're still trying. In February, the GOP introduced a resolution calling for Rangel to be removed as chairman. It failed, 242 to 157.

The Republican leadership also wrote a letter to Pelosi urging that Rangel "step down from his Ways and Means chairmanship pending an investigation of his ethical lapses." That went nowhere, too.

And then there is H.R. 735, also known as the "Rangel Rule Act of 2009."

The brainchild of Rep. John Carter, a Texas Republican who spent two decades as a judge before coming to the House in 2002, H.R. 735 would require the IRS to give everyone the same kid-glove treatment it gave Rangel.

The bill's title is modeled on something known in Texas as the "Hobby Rule." In the 1970s, Bill Hobby, then the state lieutenant governor, was pulled over for drunken driving. Hobby was taken to the police station, but when his attorney showed up in the wee hours of the morning, authorities simply let Hobby go -- no bond, no nothing. That special treatment became a precedent for future drunken-driving cases, as lawyers cited the "Hobby Rule" to demand their clients be freed with no questions asked, just like Bill Hobby.

Thus the "Rangel Rule." Under H.R. 735, if you're caught cheating on your taxes, you would pay what you owe, then write "Rangel Rule" at the top of your return, and you wouldn't be charged any penalty or interest. That way, Carter said when he introduced the bill, ordinary taxpayers would be "treated with the same courtesy that, it seems, the IRS is treating the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee."

Of course Carter's bill doesn't have a chance. Democrats undoubtedly see it as a joke. But the Rangel case is very, very serious.

If you don't think so, just look at this, from the front page of the Oct. 28, 2008 Washington Post: "Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, one of Congress's most powerful Republicans, was convicted yesterday of lying on financial disclosure forms to conceal his receipt of about $250,000 in gifts and expensive renovations to his house. ..."

liberal democrats don't like taxes either

Why isn't Michelle Bachmann in an insane asylum?

Charlie Rangel apparently has taken a clue from the Republicans who ridicule anyone who states that they believe it is patriotic to pay taxes. The right wing nuts probably love Charlie for taking their side of things (don't pay taxes), so they won't proceed against him. The worm turns, doesn't it Righties?

WWRD wrote:

because he's a dem...

Almost right. He's a black dem/Marxist. He's a great tool, a supreme useful idiot, for those who really run the show.

Bingo! We have a winner!